Hard Eight (Stephanie Plum 8)

I rapped on the coffeehouse window and caught Gazarra's attention. I pointed to Laura sitting next to me and smiled. Here she is, I mouthed to Gazarra.

IT WAS CLOSE to noon, and I was parked in front of Vinnie's office, trying to muster the courage to go inside. I'd followed Gazarra and Laura Minello back to the station, and I'd gotten a body receipt for Minello. The body receipt would get me fifteen percent of Minello's bond. And the fifteen percent would make an essential contribution toward this month's rent. Ordinarily the delivery of a body receipt is a happy occasion. Today it would be marred by the fact that in the pursuit of Andrew Bender I'd lost four pairs of cuffs. Not to mention that on all occasions I'd looked like a complete idiot. And Vinnie was in residence, lurking in his lair, anxious to remind me of all this.

I set my teeth, grabbed my bag, and headed for the door.

Lula stopped filing when I walked in. “Hey, jellybean,” Lula said. “What's new?”

Connie looked up from her computer. “Vinnie's in his office. Break out the garlic and crosses.”

“What kind of mood is he in?”

“Are you here to tell me you captured Bender?” Vinnie yelled from the other side of his closed door.

“No.”

“Then I'm in a bad mood.”

“How can he hear with the door closed?” I asked Connie.

She raised her hand, middle finger extended.

“I saw that,” Vinnie yelled.

“He had video and sound installed so he doesn't miss something,” Connie said.

“Yeah, it's secondhand,” Lula said. “It came out of the adult video store that closed. I wouldn't touch it without rubber gloves.”

Vinnie's door opened, and Vinnie stuck his head out. “Andy Bender is a drunk, for crissake. He wakes up in the morning, falls into a can of beer, and never climbs out. He should have been a gift. Instead, he's making you look like a moron.”

“He's one of them crafty drunks,” Lula said. “He can even run when he's drunk. And he shot at us last time. You're gonna have to pay me more if I'm gonna get shot at.”

“You two are pathetic,” Vinnie said. “I could catch this guy with one hand tied behind my back. I could catch this guy blindfolded.”

“Hunh,” Lula said.

Vinnie leaned forward. “You don't believe me? You think I couldn't bring this guy in?”

“Miracles happen,” Lula said.

“Oh yeah? You think it would take a miracle? Well, I'll show you a miracle. You two losers be here at nine tonight, and we'll take this guy down.”

Vinnie pulled his head back inside his office and slammed the door shut.

“Hope he's got cuffs,” Lula said.

I gave Connie the body receipt for Laura Minello and waited while she wrote my check. We all turned and looked when the front door opened.

“Hey, I know you,” Lula said to the woman who walked into the office. “You tried to kill me.”

It was Maggie Mason. We'd met her on a previous case. Our relationship with Maggie had started out bad, but had ended up good.

“You still mud wrestling at The Snake Pit?” Lula asked.

“The Snake Pit closed down.” Maggie did a shit happens shrug. “It was time for me to get out anyway. Wrestling was fun for a while, but my dream was always to open a bookstore. When the Pit folded I persuaded one of the owners to go into business with me. That's why I stopped in. We're going to be neighbors. I just signed a lease on the building next door.”

I WAS SITTING in front of Vinnie's office, in my wrecked car, wondering what to do next, and my cell phone rang.

“You gotta do something,” Grandma Mazur said. “Mabel was just over, for the fortieth time. She's driving us nuts. First off, she bakes all day, and now she's giving the stuff to us because she hasn't got any more room in her house. She's wall-to-wall bread. And this last time, she started crying. Crying. You know how we don't do good with crying here.”