Explosive Eighteen (Stephanie Plum 18)

“I’m thinking about keeping it. I like it a lot.”

“You can’t just go around keeping cars,” Lula said to him.

“Yu-huh, I can,” he said, glancing at her but turning back to me.

“Tell him why he can’t do that,” I s

aid to Lula.

“Because,” she said.

“That’s it?” I said to her. “That’s all you got?”

“Because it’s not right,” she said to Buggy. “You gotta buy a car. You can’t take other people’s.”

Buggy wasn’t paying attention to Lula. Buggy was looking at me, his brow drawn together, his mouth tight. “I want it,” he said.

“He’s not paying attention to you,” I said to Lula.

“Don’t I know it,” she said. “What’s this boy’s problem?” She leaned forward and yelled at him. “Hey! You!”

“Yuh,” Buggy said.

Lula popped one of her giant boobs out of her black leather bustier. “What do you think of this?”

“It’s big,” Buggy said.

“You bet your ass,” Lula told him.

I whipped the stun gun out, pressed it against Buggy’s arm, and hit the go button.

“Ow,” Buggy said.

His eyes didn’t roll back into his head. He didn’t crash to the ground. He didn’t go down to his knees.

I blasted him again.

“That stings,” Buggy said. “Stop it.”

“Must be about body weight,” Lula said. “You need the shit they make for elephants.”

Buggy grabbed the stun gun out of my hand and threw it into the bushes bordering the house. “Go away,” Buggy said. “And you better not take my car, or that would make me mad.”

No point getting goofy over this, I told myself. Just very calmly take the RAV, go home, and make a reassessment. Surely there’s a way to capture this man. A big net, maybe. A rhinoceros tranquilizer dart. Get him to follow a trail of cheeseburgers leading to the police station.

I scrounged through the bushes, found my stun gun, handed Lula the key to the Buick, and smiled pleasantly at Buggy. I turned, walked to the RAV, plugged my key in, and opened the driver’s side door. Buggy grabbed me from behind, and tossed me into the street.

“Hey, idiot,” Lula said to Buggy. “You can’t do that to her. That’s friggin’ rude.”

“I’ll do whatever I want,” Buggy said. “It’s my car now.”

Lula hauled her Glock out of her purse and aimed it at Buggy. “At the risk of gettin’ too personal, I got a delicate intestinal condition today, and you’re not making it any better. And I already explained to you about how car ownership works. Now, you need to get your lard butt outta here, or I’ll put another hole in it.”

“You don’t scare me,” Buggy said. “You can’t shoot an unarmed man.”

“Says who?” Lula said. “I shoot unarmed men all the time.”

I scrambled to my feet, came up behind Buggy, pressed the stun gun prongs to his neck, and held the button down. Buggy went dead still, sank to his knees, and wet his pants.