Plum Lovin' (Stephanie Plum 12.50)

I pasted what I hoped was a dazed expression on my face and started up the driveway toward the house. I was halfway there when the door opened, and Delvina's driver looked out at me.

“What the hell was that?” he asked.

I did my best lower-lip tremble, and thought about sad things like roadkill and orphaned birthday cakes left at the bakery, and managed to sort of get a tear going down my cheek. Truth is, the tear was a challenge, but the trembling was easy. It was starting from my knees and working its way up all by itself. For the better part of my life I'd heard stories about Lou Delvina, and they all involved a lot of blood.

“I don't know what happened,” I said. “All of a sudden the car went into a skid, and I h-h-hit the hedge.”

Delvina appeared behind his driver, and my heart jumped into my throat.

“What the fuck happened to my hedge?” Delvina yelled.

“She skidded into it,” his driver said.

“Sonovabitch. You know how hard it is to grow a hedge that size?”

“I'm really sorry,” I said. “I must have hit some ice on the road.”

Delvina was power-walking down his driveway, swinging his arms, head stuck forward. He was a sixty-year-old bandylegged fireplug with a lot of black hair and black caterpillar eyebrows. Hard to tell the normal color of his complexion as it was all red hives and white salve and looked to be purple under the salve.

“I don't fucking believe this,” Delvina said. “Is there anything else that could friggin' go wrong? This whole week is caca.”

Delvina marched past me and went straight to his hedge. “Oh jeez, just look at this,” he said. “One of the plants is all broken. There's gonna be a big hole here until this grows.”

I'd sort of gotten over the weak-knee thing, since I'd had a chance to check both guys out and knew they weren't packing. Maybe an ankle holster, but that didn't worry me so much. I'd seen cops try to get their gun out of an ankle holster and knew it involved a lot of swearing and hopping around on one foot. I figured by the time Delvina could get his gun off his ankle I'd be long gone, running down the road. In fact, I was having a hard time not going narrow-eyed and pissy because I'd gone to all the trouble to manufacture a tear and no one was noticing. I mean, it's not every day I can pull that off.

The driver had joined Delvina. “Maybe you could do a transplant or something,” the driver said. “You know, one of them grafts.”

“Christ, my wife's gonna go apeshit on this. This is gonna ruin her whole garden club standing if we can't get this fixed.” Delvina had his hand under his shirt and down the front of his pants. “Oh man, I got hives inside and out. I swear to God, you should just shoot me.”

“It's them people,” the driver said, scratching his ass. “They're putting the juju on us. I say we dump them in the Delaware.”

Delvina looked back at the house. "You could be right.

I'm getting tired of them anyway. And I'm starting to think the heartsy-fartsy lady doesn't have what we want."

Delvina and the driver started to walk back to the house, and so far, I hadn't gotten any kind of a sign from Diesel, mystical or otherwise, that the coast was clear.

“Hey,” I yelled to Delvina. “What about my car?”

“What about it?” Delvina asked. “Don't it drive? It don't look so bad to me.”

“You got a cell phone, right?” the driver said. “Call your club. You got a new 'vette. You probably belong to a club. Like AAA or something.”

The right side of the 'vette was scraped, and the front right light was smushed in. Pieces of hedge were stuck in the headlight and slightly crumpled hood. I got behind the wheel and

raced the motor.

Delvina and his driver were hands on hips, looking at me like I was another hive on their backside. It was cold, and they were standing there in shirtsleeves. They weren't excited about doing the backyard mechanic thing. Fortunately, they were full-on chauvinists who couldn't see me for anything more than a dumb bimbo. If Flash had run into the hedge, neither of them would have left the house without a nine rammed into the small of his back. Still, I was trying their patience, and it was only a matter of time before they figured it out and they went for the ankle holster.

I had one eye on Delvina and one eye looking beyond him to the patch of woods. Finally Diesel emerged and gave me a thumbs-up. I did a small head nod to Diesel and blew out a sigh of relief.

“You're right,” I said to Delvina. “I guess the car's okay. Sorry about your hedge.” And I carefully backed up, changed gears, and rolled down the driveway and out onto the road. I had my teeth clamped into my lower lip, and I was holding my breath. Sprigs of hedge were flying off the grille, and the right front tire was making a grinding sound, but I kept going until I was around a bend in the road.

Stephanie Plum 12.5 - Plum Lovin

Chapter 12

I pulled to the shoulder and sat and waited, and after a couple minutes, the blue Honda Civic came into view. Diesel got out and jogged over to me.