Smokin' Seventeen (Stephanie Plum 17)

“Well yeah, but I’m into watching cooking.”

We sat for forty minutes, and at high noon the door to the building opened, and Merlin limped out.

“I got an idea,” Lula said. “We could run him over with the car.”

“No.”

“Boy, you’re a real party pooper. You got a better idea?”

“He’s going out for lunch. I say we follow him and wait for a good place to take him down.”

“We aren’t gonna run at him and tackle h

im again, are we?”

“That wouldn’t be my first choice.”

Merlin drove down Stark, turned toward the government buildings, and after a block pulled into a 7-Eleven parking lot. He cut his engine, left his car, and carefully walked inside, keeping his weight off his bandaged foot. I parked one space away, got out, and arranged my equipment. Cuffs tucked into the back of my jeans. Pepper spray in my sweatshirt pocket. Right to apprehend papers in my jeans pocket. Stun gun in hand.

“Cover the door,” I told Lula. “And for heaven’s sake don’t shoot him again.”

It was lunchtime, and the store was filled with government workers loading up on nachos, hot dogs, candy, junky drinks, and cigarettes. Merlin was in line for nachos. I sidled up to him and the man standing behind Merlin elbowed me aside.

“Back of the line, lady,” he said.

Merlin looked over his shoulder at me, and recognition registered. I reached out to stun gun him, he batted my arm away, and the stun gun flew off into space. I had pepper spray, but I couldn’t use it in a store filled with bureaucrats. By the time I retrieved my stun gun Merlin had already knocked Lula on her ass and was in his car, spinning his tires, leaving the lot. I was holding a lot of anger, and it was directed at the idiot who elbowed me aside. I casually sidled up to him and accidentally stun gunned him. He went down to the floor, wet his pants, and I felt much better.

“This is getting real old,” Lula said, back on her feet. “On the bright side we’re at 7-Eleven, and I can get nachos for lunch.”

Lula and I ate our nachos in my car and washed them down with Slurpees.

“This isn’t such a bad job,” Lula said. “We get a lot of personal freedom. We could eat lunch wherever and whenever we want. And we meet a lot of interesting people. Vampires and such. I don’t especially want them suckin’ on me, but aside from that it’s pretty good. And I already got some mileage out of seeing Merlin Brown naked.”

I scooped up the last of my nacho cheese and a small sigh inadvertently escaped.

“You on the other hand, don’t look so happy,” Lula said.

“I feel like my life isn’t going anywhere.”

“And?”

I did another sigh.

Lula drained her Slurpee. “Why do you gotta be going somewhere? Seems like it should be enough that we had nachos. And we got meaningful jobs. We catch bad guys. If it wasn’t for us there’d be vampires and all kinds of shit running around loose.”

“Actually the vampire is still at large.”

“Yeah, but we’re thinking about catching him.”

“And what about my relationships?”

“Here we are back to the relationships,” Lula said. “I knew it was gonna come to this. Your whole problem is you turned yourself into a glass-is-half-empty person. You got two hot men on the line, and you look at it like a bad thing, but I see it like hitting the jackpot. You probably could even have three hot men if you put an effort into Dave Whatshisname.”

I looked down at my jeans. I still couldn’t button them. “And on top of everything else, I’m getting fat,” I said.

“That’s not your fault. You had the hex put on you. Bella gave you the boils and all. And now you got the vordo.”

I put my phone to my ear and called Connie. “Have you had a chance to find out about vordo?”