Plum Lucky (Stephanie Plum 13.50)

“I think it might be finders keepers, losers weepers,” I told Snuggy. “And besides, Grandma’s spent a lot of it.”

Snuggy went bug-?eyed and a red scald started to creep from his neck to the top of his head. “What? No way! I need that money. It’s a matter of life or death. They’ll kill Doug!”

Oh boy. “Who’s Doug?”

“He’s a horse. Douglas Iron Man III. We’ve known each other for years. He was a four-?year-?old when I retired. He was really something back then. He won the Preakness. Anyway, times have been hard for him lately. I ran into him last week when I went to visit a friend in Rumson. They had Doug in a st

all, waiting to get put down. He had a sore on his leg, and they’d decided it’d be too costly to treat.”

“That’s so sad.”

“It’s more than sad. It’s criminal. Poor Doug. He was really depressed. He could hardly pick his head up. He looked at me with those big brown eyes, and I knew I had to do something. So I returned that night, and I sneaked him out and drove him to Trenton. My cousin has a house on Mulberry Street, and he let me put Doug in his garage until I could make arrangements for his leg operation. There’s a real good equine veterinary hospital in Pennsylvania. Problem was, I had to get the money to pay for Doug’s care. When I heard about Delvina, I thought it was perfect. It’s not like he earned the money and deserved it. I figured it was better spent on Doug.”

I nodded. “Makes perfect sense.”

“It didn’t make perfect sense to the guy who owned the horse,” Diesel said. “He woke up missing a horse. And he wasn’t happy.”

“I left a note,” Snuggy said. “I even offered to buy Doug.”

“We have people working to smooth things over,” Diesel said. “Until that happens, you and Doug need to keep a low profile. Doug can’t stay in a garage in Trenton.”

“It’s worse than you think,” Snuggy said. “Delvina followed me to the garage last night and took Doug. Now he’s holding him for ransom. Delvina wants his money. All of it. Or else he’ll do something terrible to Doug.”

“Great,” Diesel said. “It wasn’t bad enough that I had to find a guy who thinks he’s a leprechaun, now I have to rescue a horse.”

“He’s not just any old horse,” Snuggy said. “He’s very intelligent. And he’s sensitive. It hurt his feelings when he found out they weren’t going to fix his leg. He worked hard all those years to stay in shape so he could win races. And then he was put out to stud, and he worked night and day impregnating mares. And it’s not like they were all love matches. Doug said sometimes they were downright cranky.”

“Maybe Doug should have paid closer attention,” I said. “No is no.”

“It was his job,” Snuggy said. “He was caught between a rock and a hard place.”

Diesel gave a snort of laughter.

“You’re supposed to help me,” Snuggy said to Diesel.

“No,” Diesel said. “I’m supposed to remove you from action so you don’t do something stupid and end up on Letterman telling everyone you talk to animals.”

“Jeez,” I said. “I feel really bad about this. I can’t just walk away and let Delvina kill Doug.”

Diesel looked like he had another cramp in his ass. “You’re not going all girly and gushy on me over this horse, are you?”

“I am absolutely not relegating some poor horse to the glue factory just because he has a sore on his leg. It’s a horse! Horses are amazing.”

“Have you ever seen one up close?” Diesel asked.

“Not lately. But they look wonderful on television. And I read all the Walter Farley books about the Black Stallion.”

Diesel choked back a smile. He thought I was amusing. “Do you know where Delvina is keeping Doug?” he asked Snuggy.

“No.”

“How do you get in touch with Delvina?”

“He calls me. He gave me until three o’clock tomorrow to return the money. He said if he didn’t get it by three, he’d shoot Doug.” «

“That’s plenty of time,” I said. “We just get the money from Grandma and give it to Delvina. Probably he won’t notice if there’s a little missing. These things happen, right?”

I called Lula. “Don’t spend any more of that money,” I told her. “We need it.”