“Pink,” Lula said. “Everything could be pink, like the roses. It could be my theme. I read in one of the magazines the best weddings have themes.”
“They're more memorable that way,” Grandma said.
Lula's eyes got wide. “I just got the best idea. We could put Tank in a pink tuxedo.”
“I've never seen a groom in a pink tuxedo,” Grandma said. “It might make the news. You could be on television.”
“It would look real good with his skin tone,” Lula said. “We might have to get it made special, though. I should get started right away.”
I wasn't a Tank expert, but I was pretty sure he'd drive his car off a bridge before he'd be seen in a pink tuxedo.
“I'm going back online, and I'm gonna get my chameleon going,” Grandma said.
“I might even raise my sneak level and go invisible. I got a feeling about the griefer. There's something familiar about him.”
Connie called on my cell. “Good news,” she said. “Dom just bailed Loretta out. He got their mother to use her house as collateral.”
“I thought her mother was in rehab.”
“She is. I didn't look too hard at the signature. Here's the problem. I can't leave the office, and I need someone to spring Loretta and drive her home. Dom won't go anywhere near the jail.”
Stephanie Plum 14 - Fearless Forteen
CHAPTER EIGHT
“I JUST want to go home and take a shower and get into clean clothes,” Loretta said. “And for the rest of my life, I don't want to ever see a Tom Collins.”
I turned down her street, and a block away we could see the disaster. There was a mound of furniture and assorted junk at the curb in front of her house.
“Shit,” Loretta said. “It's that bastard slum lord who owns my house. He's evicted me.”
I parked and looked at Loretta's front door. It had a board nailed across it and an eviction notice tacked to the board.
“You had to know this was coming,” I said to Loretta.
“I was behind on my rent, but I was hoping he'd give me another month. We're coming into wedding season, and the firehouse is booked solid with showers and receptions. I could have caught up this month.”
She wrenched the passenger-side door open and got out and stood staring at all her worldly possessions.
“Is this everything?” I asked her.
“Yeah,” she said. “Pathetic, isn't it? Most of the big furniture pieces, like the beds and the couch, came with the rental.”
“You need to get this trucked out of here. There's not that much. You could haul it in a pickup and store it in your mom's garage.”
“I don't have a phone,” she said. “My phone went dead in jail.”
I gave her my phone, and she called Dom.
Forty minutes later, Dom rolled in driving a rattletrap truck. He pulled to the curb, and I took off. I didn't want another confrontation with crazy Dom, and I was due at the hotel at eleven. I was wearing black slacks and black boots, a stretchy white T-shirt, and a fitted black leather jacket. I was ready to represent Rangeman.
Tank was on guard in front of Brenda's suite when I stepped out of the elevator. I tried to imagine him in a pink tuxedo, but the picture wouldn't come together.
“How's it going?” I asked him.
“Good,” he said.
“No trouble with Brenda?”