Plum Lucky (Stephanie Plum 13.50)
The Doberman stood, concentrated for a moment, and sat back down. Guess the sock wasn’t ready to leave.
“We’re doing surveillance,” Snuggy said to the dog. “I’m a leprechaun and the guy who owns the car wash has my lucky money locked up in his safe.”
The dog’s eyes widened ever so slightly. Either he was impressed with the leprechaun thing or else the sock was moving south.
“Swear to God,” Snuggy said. “I’d just pop over there and take it, but I’m having trouble with my leprechaun invisibility.”
The Doberman looked Snuggy up and down.
“Really? Are you sure?” Snuggy said.
“Tell me,” I said. “What? What?”
Snuggy thunked the heel of his hand against his forehead. “Of course. Why didn’t I think of that? It’s so obvious.”
“What’s obvious? What didn’t you think of?”
“No time to explain, but I know what went wrong. Tell Diesel not to worry. I’ll take care of everything. You guys get in the car and pick me up when I come out of the office.”
“Wait! We should discuss this. What did the dog say to you?”
“He said it was my clothes! You see, it all makes sense. I was invisible, but my clothes weren’t. It was probably the new laundry detergent I used. All I have to do is take my clothes off, and then I can go in and open the safe and take the money, and no one will see me.”
“No, no, no, no. Bad idea.”
Snuggy shrugged out of his jacket and shirt and kicked his shoes off. I frantically waved at Diesel, but he was making his way around the building and didn’t see me. I made a grab for Snuggy and missed.
“Trust me. This will work,” Snuggy said, dancing away, unzipping his green pants.
Snuggy had tighty whities under the green pants, and in an instant, they were on the ground and Snuggy was running across the street.
“Eeek!” I said. And I clapped my hands over my eyes. When I took my hands away, I saw Snuggy’s lily-?white leprechaun ass hop the curb and sprint for the car wash office door.
The office door opened and a big Sasquatch-?type uniformed car wash guy looked out at Snuggy. “What the fuck?”
Diesel was on the sidewalk, rooted to the spot. He looked at Snuggy in amazement and then he looked across the street at me.
I shrugged and made an I don’t know, but it’s not my fault gesture.
Snuggy danced around in front of the car wash guy. Tis invisible I be, and lucky fer you or t’wud be the wrath o’ me shillelagh ye’d be feelin’.”
“Your shillelagh don’t look like anything to worry about,” the guy said.
A couple more uniformed guys stopped work and looked over at Snuggy.
“What’s with him?” one of them said.
“He thinks he’s a leprechaun,” Sasquatch told him.
“No way,” the guy said. “Leprechauns got red hair down there.”
Everyone stared at Snuggy’s thatch and exposed plumbing, including Snuggy.
“Cripes, I’ve smoked fatter joints than that,” one of the guys said. “I didn’t know they came that small.”
“I’m supposed to be invisible,” Snuggy said.
Several cars were lined up to take advantage of senior discount day. The drivers honked their horns at Snuggy and yelled at him out of their windows.