Hardcore Twenty-Four (Stephanie Plum 24)

“It all looks so normal,” I said to Diesel. “Hard to believe there are zombies roaming around.”

Diesel pulled into the cemetery lot and parked. “Let’s look around,” he said. “I didn’t get a chance to see much last time I was here.”

We walked through the gate and followed the main path. “Do you think the guys you saw could have been zombies?” I asked Diesel.

“They weren’t zombies when I saw them. They were just hanging out, smoking weed. The south side of the cemetery, by the church and Morley Street, is well maintained. The north side backs up to the projects. It’s littered with trash and discarded drug paraphernalia.”

We stopped at Slick’s campsite and looked around. It was clear that the grave had been exhumed. Nothing else seemed out of the ordinary. All traces of police activity had been removed. There weren’t any signs warning people of a zombie portal.

“What do you think?” I asked Diesel. “Are you getting any ideas?”

“Yeah, but none that relate to zombies.”

I raised an eyebrow. “What then?”

“Bacon cheeseburger.”

“Anything else?”

“Onion rings, fries, beer.”

“Does that mean we’re done here?” I asked him.

“No. It means we need to keep walking. There’s a burger place just before you get to the projects.”

“Mickey’s,” I said. “I’ve been there. They have excellent cheese fries.”

We wandered off the path, covering as much of the cemetery as possible, but we found no new dig sites. We exited through the gate just before the projects and crossed the street to Mickey’s. I’d been there a bunch of times before with Lula. Lula could sniff out cheese fries a mile away.

Mickey’s consisted of a small, windowless room with four booths on one side and a bar on the other. It was so dark the booths could have been occupied by zombies, tree fairies, or gorillas and no one would know. It smelled like burgers and beer and deep fried everything. We slid into a booth and ordered.

“What’s the deal with you and Morelli?” Diesel asked. “You’ve been seeing him off and on for how long? Thirty years?”

“Not thirty.”

“Does it seem like thirty?”

“Is this going somewhere?” I asked him.

“Just curious.”

“What’s the longest relationship you’ve ever had?”

“Forty-eight hours,” Diesel said. “I thought it would never end.”

“Seriously.”

A pitcher of beer was delivered, and we both chugged some down.

“Define ‘relationship,’” Diesel said. “Does it involve cohabitation? Is it sexual? Is love involved? Do you have to share a bathroom?”

“Pick any two out of those four things.”

“Then you’re probably one of my longer relationships . . . off and on.”

“Is your mother upset about this?”

“My mother is a strange woman.”