“My man,” Lula said to him.

“I need a gun,” he said to Lula. “Are these legal?”

“Do you want them to be?” Lula asked.

“No. Shit, what would I want with a legal gun?”

“Don’t know,” Lula said, “but these suckers are whatever the hell you want them to be. Cash only.”

I snaked my way through the crowd to Connie. “What’s going on?” I asked her.

Connie stepped back, away from a woman checking out a waffle iron. “Sunflower won’t deal. He wants all the money, so Lula and I came up with the idea for the sidewalk sale. This stuff was all taken in exchange for bond and never reclaimed. It was just taking up space in the back room, so we figured we’d sell it.”

“Lula’s selling weapons out there!”

“That’s great,” Connie said. “They’re a high-ticket item.”

“I think it’s illegal to sell guns like this.”

Connie craned her neck and looked through the front window at Lula. “It’s okay,” Connie said. “That guy’s a cop.”

“How much are these dishes with the roses on them?” a woman wanted to know.

“Twenty dollars,” Connie said.

A second woman elbowed in. “Wait a minute. Those are my dishes. I gave them to you so my nephew could get out of jail.”

Connie looked at the sticker on the bottom of a plate. “We’ve had these dishes for a year and a half.”

“It don’t matter. They’re mine.”

“Where’s your nephew?” Connie asked.

“Tennessee.”

The first woman handed Connie a twenty and started stacking up her dishes.

“Police!” the second woman yelled. “There’s a robbery going on here.”

Lula ran in with her gun. “Did someone say robbery?”

“It was a misunderstanding,” I told Lula. “Don’t shoot anyone.”

“It was no misunderstanding,” the second woman said. “Those are my dishes. This old lady here was gonna walk out with them.”

“Old? Excuse me,” the first woman said. “You’re not exactly a spring chicken. And these are my dishes. I saw them first.”

They both had hold of a plate, and they were nose to nose, eyes narrowed.

Mooner strolled over with a plate of brownies. “Ladies, have a bite of a Moon Man brownie. We’re selling them out front, but these are free samples. I made these brownies in my very own test kitchen in the Love Bus.”

We all took a time-out so the ladies and Lula could have a brownie.

“These are real good brownies,” Lula said. “These are doughnut-quality brownies.”

“I changed my mind,” woman number one said. “I don’t want the dishes. I’m buying brownies.”

“I don’t want the dishes, either,” woman number two said. “I never liked them anyway.”

Tags: Janet Evanovich Stephanie Plum Mystery
Source: readsnovelonline.net