Eleven on Top (Stephanie Plum 11)

I did raised eyebrows at Lula. “Ten dollars? I used to pay you fifty and up.”

“I figure it goes by the pound and a little bitty thing like you isn't worth as much as a full-figured woman like me.” Lula took a couple beats. “Well okay, I guess that don't fly. It was worth a try though, right?”

“Maybe you should just sit here and wait for him to come out and then you can run over him with your Firebird.”

“That's sarcasm, isn't it? I know sarcasm when I hear it. And it's not attractive on you. You don't usually do sarcasm. You got some Jersey attitude going, don't you?”

I slumped lower in my seat. “I'm depressed.”

“You know what would get you out of that depression? An apprehension. You need to kick some butt. You need to get yourself empowered. I bet you'd feel real good if you snagged yourself an Emanuel Lowe.”

“Fine. Okay. I'll get Lowe for you. The day's already in the toilet. Might as well finish it off right.” I unbuckled my seat belt. “Give me your gun and your cuffs.”

“You haven't got your own gun?”

“I didn't think I needed to carry a gun because I didn't think I was going to be doing this anymore. When I left the house this morning I thought I was going to be working at the dry cleaners.”

Lula handed me her gun and a pair of cuffs. “You always gotta have a gun. It's like wearing undies. You wouldn't go out of the house without undies, would you? Same thing with a gun. Boy, for being a bounty hunter all that time you sure don't know much.”

I grabbed the gun from Lula and marched up to Lowe's front door. I knocked twice, Lowe opened the door, and I pointed the gun at him. “On the ground,”

I said. “Now.”

Lowe gave a bark of laughter. "You not gonna shoot me.

I'm an unarmed man. You get twenty years for shooting me."

I aimed high, squeezed a round off, and took out a ceiling fixture.

“Crazy bitch,” he said. “This here's public housing. You costing the taxpayer money. I got a mind to report you.”

“I'm not in a good mood,” I said to Lowe.

“I can see that. How you like me to improve your mood? Maybe you need a man to make you feel special.”

Emanuel Lowe was five foot nine and rail thin. He had no ass, no teeth, and I was guessing no deodorant, no shower, no mouthwash. He was wearing a wife-beater T-shirt that had yellowed with age, and baggy homeboy-style brown pants precariously perched on his bony hips. And he was offering himself up to me. This was the state of my life. Maybe I should just shoot myself. I leveled the barrel at his head. “On the floor, on your stomach, hands behind your back.”

“Tell you what. I'll get on the floor if you show me some pussy. It gotta be good pussy, too. The full show. You aren't bald down there, are you? I don't know what white bitches thinking of, waxing all the bush off. Gives me the willies. It's like bonin' supermarket chicken.”

So I shot him. I did it for women worldwide. It was a public service.

“Yow!” he said. “What the fuck you do that for? We just talking, having some fun.”

“I wasn't having any fun,” I said.

I'd shot him in the foot, and now he was hopping around, howling, dripping blood. From what I could see, I'd nicked him somewhere in the vicinity of the little toe.

“If you aren't down on the floor, hands behind your back, in three seconds I'm going to shoot you again,” I said.

Lowe dropped to the floor. “I'm dying. I'm gonna bleed to death.”

I cuffed him and stood back. “I just tagged your toe. You'll be fine.”

Lula poked her head in. “What's going on? Was that gunshot?” She walked over to Lowe and stood hands on hips, staring down at Lowe's foot. “Damn,” Lula said. “I hate when I have to take bleeders in my Firebird. I just got new floor mats, too.”

“How bad is it?” Lowe wanted to know. “It feels real bad.”

“She just ripped a chunk out of the side of your foot,” Lula said. “Looks to me like you got all your toes and everything.”