Smokin' Seventeen (Stephanie Plum 17)
“Sure. I can do it now if it works for you.”
“I have a client meeting in a half hour, but you can go over the plans on your own. They can’t leave the building, so you’ll have to use my office or the apartment.”
There wasn’t much traffic in the middle of the day, and we sailed through all of the lights. Ranger parked in the underground garage, got out, and gestured to the fleet cars. “Pick one.”
“That’s nice of you, but it’s not necessary to loan me a car.”
“I loan you cars all the time.”
“And I almost always destroy them or lose them. I have terrible luck with cars.”
&n
bsp; “Working at Rangeman is a high-stress job, and you’re one of our few sources of comic relief. I give you a car and my men start a pool on how long it will take you to trash it. You’re a line item in my budget under entertainment.”
“Jeez.”
“Besides, you need to get home somehow, and I can’t take you. I have an afternoon filled with meetings, and I have a dinner meeting with my lawyer.”
“I’ll take the Jeep Cherokee.”
“I’ll tell Hank. The keys are in the car.”
We rode the elevator in silence. He let us into his apartment, and I followed him to his study. The plans were on his desk.
“Take as long as you want,” he said. “Let the control desk know when you leave.” He pulled me tight against him. “Or you can stay and spend the night.”
“When is your next meeting?” I asked him.
He glanced at his watch. “Ten minutes.”
I unzipped his cargo pants. “Plenty of time.”
Nine minutes later Ranger rolled off me. I saw him to the door, I grabbed a chicken salad sandwich from his fridge, and I settled in at the dining room table to review his security blueprint. Lula called me just as I finished the sandwich.
“You gotta get back to the bus,” she said. “There’s a big new development here, and business is booming. Vinnie’s downtown bonding out three idiots. And Connie got a lead on Ziggy.”
I cleaned up and left a note for Ranger, detailing the few suggestions I had for the plan, apologizing for not being able to finish. I called the control desk and told them I was heading out.
• • •
Traffic was unusually slow on Hamilton. I got closer to the bonds office lot and realized cars were creeping past it and gawking. I cringed at the thought of another dead body. And then I saw it.
They were gawking at the bus. It had been totally shrink-wrapped. The background was poison green. The lettering was black. And Lula and I were plastered on the side. It was the exact same message and photo they’d used on the flyers … except I was now seven feet tall, and my breasts were as big as basketballs.
I parked and ran across the street to the bus. A guy in a truck honked his horn at me, and a guy in a Subaru told me he was bad and asked me if I’d spank him. I kept my head down and scrambled inside Mooner’s monstrosity.
Connie was at her computer. Lula was on the couch texting. Mooner was standing on his head in the back bedroom.
“What’s he doing?” I asked Connie.
“I’m not sure. I think he might be trying to get the drugs to leak out of his head through his hair.”
“Traffic is backed up for almost a mile down Hamilton because people are stopping to stare at the bus.”
“The television people were here just a little while ago,” Lula said. “We’re gonna be on the evening news. We’re famous. We’re like rock stars.”
“Was this the big new development?” I asked.