Smokin' Seventeen (Stephanie Plum 17)

“I’d had a couple drinks. Maybe I was drunk.”

“Promise me you’ll show up for court.”

“All right. I promise, but if I go to jail you have to take care of Bruce.”

“I can’t take care of Bruce. They don’t allow bears in my apartment building.”

“I can’t just abandon him,” Belmen said.

“I’ll figure something out. And just out of morbid curiosity, would he have killed me?”

“No. Bruce is a pussycat. He was just playing with you.”

Yeah, right. I’ve never bought off a judge before but in this case I’d do whatever it took.

SEVENTEEN

I WAS RELIEVED to see Mooner’s bus was no longer in front of the coffee shop. I didn’t want to face Vinnie and explain to him that the bear was staying with Boris. Vinnie would have a differing opinion. Vinnie would go on a rant and send me back to get the bear. This would be a disaster because not only didn’t I have a clue how to wrestle the bear away from his owner, I also wasn’t sure Vinnie and Mooner were good bear parents. I was worried they’d feed Mooner’s homemade brownies to Bruce, and he’d hallucinate he was a hummingbird or something.

Aside from the missing bus nothing much had changed since I left. Lula and Connie were still camped out in the window.

“Hey girlfriend,” Lula said. “How’d it go with the bear?”

“It went okay. I talked to Boris, and he promised to show up for his court date.”

“Yeah, but what about the bear? Where’s the bear?”

“The bear’s with Boris. I made an executive decision to leave him there.”

The door to the coffee shop opened and Bella marched in. “You!” she said, pointing her finger at me, eyes narrowed. “I know what you do with my grandson. You take advantage. He don’t stay at birthday party like good boy. He come to you for nicky nacky. You slut. I fix you so he see. I give you vordo.” She waved her hand at me, she slapped her ass, and she wheeled around and left the coffee shop.

“She scares the crap out of me,” Lula said. “And you’re in big trouble. You did nicky nacky and now you got the vordo.”

I looked to Connie. “What’s vordo?”

“Beats me,” Connie said. “I never heard of vordo.”

“It has to be some Italian voodoo thing,” Lula said. “Like if you were a guy it would make your dick fall off.”

I hiked my bag up onto my shoulder. “I don’t want to think about it. I’m going to see if I can find Ziggy.”

Lula set a grocery bag on the table. “I’ll go with you. I went to Giovichinni’s while you were gone, and I got stuff for us.”

“Stuff?”

She pulled a couple ropes of garlic out of the bag and gave one to me. “All we gotta do is wear this and we won’t get no love bites from vampires.”

“I appreciate the thought, but I don’t think Ziggy is a vampire.”

“Yeah, but you don’t know for sure, right?”

“I’m pretty sure.”

“Pretty sure don’t cut it,” Lula said, wrapping the garlic around her neck. “I already got one foot in the land of the living dead, and I’m not taking no chances.”

I drove the short distance from the coffee shop to Ziggy’s house and parked. We got out, rang the doorbell, and waited. No answer. I left Lula at the front door, and I walked to the rear. I knocked. Nothing. I felt for the key. No key. I snooped around, trying to see in the windows but no luck there. I returned to Lula in the front of the house, and Ziggy’s neighbor stepped out with her dog.

“Are you looking for Ziggy?” she asked. “Because he isn’t home. I saw him leave in the middle of the night. I was up with heartburn that would kill a cow, and I saw Ziggy go out with a suitcase. And his car is still gone. I can’t ever remember Ziggy going anywhere before. He was a real homebody.” She squinted at Lula. “Is that garlic?”