Three to Get Deadly (Stephanie Plum 3)

Dickie recoiled from Lula. “This is a joke, right?” He turned to me. “You hire her from Rent-a-thug?”

“Rent-a-thug?” Lula said, eyes big and round. “Excuse me, you little dog turd. I'm a bounty hunter in training. I'm not no rent-a-thug. And I'm not no joke either. You're the joke. You know the saying . . . go fuck yourself? I could make that a possibility for you.”

I was back on my feet, and I was smiling because Dickie had gone pale under his tanning-salon tan. “I guess we should go now,” I said. “This probably isn't a good place to discuss business. Maybe we can get together another time and share information,” I said to Dickie.

Dickie's expression was tight. Not one I'd seen him practice. “Are you threatening me?”

“Hell no,” Lula said. “Do we look like the kind of women who'd threaten a man? I don't think so. I don't think I'm the sort of woman looks like she'd threaten some pimple-ass motherfucker like you.”

I'm not sure what I'd expected to accomplish by meeting with Dickie, but I felt like I'd gotten my money's worth.

When we were alone in the elevator I turned to Lula. “I think that went well.”

“Felt good to me,” she said. “We got any more parties to go to?”

“Nope.”

“Good deal. I got plans for the rest of the afternoon.”

I scooped my car keys out of my pocket. “Have fun. And thanks for riding shotgun.”

“See you later,” she said.

I drove one block and stopped for a light. The Nissan went into the backfire and stall routine. Stay calm, I told myself. Elevated blood pressure can lead to stroke. My aunt Eleanor'd had a stroke, and it wasn't fun. She called everybody Tootsie and colored her hair with her lipstick.

I restarted the pickup and raced the engine. When the light changed I leaped forward on another backfire. KAPOW! I pulled Morelli's card from my pocket and read the address. Mr. Fix It was on Eighteenth Street, just past the button factory.

“I'm giving you one last chance,” I said to the pickup. “Either you shape up, or I'm taking you to Bucky Seidler.”

A half a block later it stalled out again. I took it as a sign and made a U-turn. Morelli regularly lied to me, but never about a mechanic. Morelli took his mechanics seriously. I'd give Bucky one shot. If that didn't work, I was going to drive the car off a bridge.

Fifteen minutes later I was chugging down Eighteenth Street, in a part of industrial Trenton that had left prosperity behind. Bucky's garage was a two-bay cinder block structure that sat like an island in a sea of cars. New cars, old cars, smashed cars, rusted cars, cars that had signed on for the vital organ donor program. The bay doors were open. A man in jeans and thermal undershirt stood under a car on the lift in the first bay. He looked out at me as I gasped to a stop on the macadam apron. He wiped his hands on a rag and walked over. He had a butch haircut and a keg of beer hanging over his belt. I hadn't seen him in a while, but I was pretty sure it was Bucky. He looked like the sort of person who'd set rats loose on a bunch of women.

He peered in the window at me. “Stephanie Plum,” he said, smiling. “Haven't seen you since high school.”

“I'm surprised you recognized me.”

“The orange hair threw me for a minute, but then I remembered you from the picture in the paper from when you burned down the funeral home.”

“I didn't burn down the funeral home. It was a misprint.”

“Too bad,” Bucky said. “I thought it was cool. Sounds like you got a car problem.”

“It keeps stalling. Joe Morelli suggested I come here. He said you're a good mechanic.”

“He gave you a pretty good recommendation, too. Read it on the bathroom wall of Mario's Sub Shop over ten years ago, and I can still remember every word of it.”

“I have Mace in my shoulder bag.”

“Mostly what I care about is MasterCard.”

I sighed. “I've got that too.”

“Well,” Bucky said, “then let's do business.”

I gave him the Nissan's medical history.

Bucky had me run the engine while he looked under the hood.