Takedown Twenty (Stephanie Plum 20)

“The store’s closed,” Mary said. “I haven’t got any damn merchandise. The damn police took it all. Get off my damn property.”

“Sounds like Mary’s not in a good mood,” Lula whispered to me.

I pulled flexi-cuffs out of my bag and stuffed them into my back pocket. Mary’s wrists were too large for ordinary handcuffs. “Mary’s never in a good mood.”

“It’s no wonder. I’m a big woman but I’m big in a beautiful way. This woman here is just plain too fat. She look like she got no muscle tone. She’s all lumpy.”

Mary squinted at me. “Do I know you?”

“It’s Stephanie Plum,” I yelled. “You need to get rebonded.”

“I don’t got time for that. It’s supposed to rain later today. I gotta get my plants in before it rains.”

“You aren’t putting in more cannabis, are you?”

“What do I look, stupid?” Mary said. “You can’t start a new crop outside at this time of the year. I got them little guys under grow lights in my doublewide. I’m setting out some cabbage.”

“This will only take an hour or two, and you’ll be released on bond again,” I told her. “And we can stop and get a bag of breakfast sandwiches on the way.”

“I could use a breakfast sandwich,” Mary said.

“Me too,” Lula said. “I wouldn’t mind a breakfast sandwich myself. And if we go to Cluck-in-a-Bucket we could add some fried chicken for a extra boost of protein. And maybe some biscuits with the chicken.”

“They got good gravy there,” Mary said. “I’m partial to gravy.”

I cuffed Mary’s hands in front of her so she could eat, and we loaded her into my backseat.

“I don’t mean to be rude or nothing,” Lula said to Mary, “but you stink.”

“I don’t smell nothing,” Mary said.

Lula powered her window down. “You smell like dead fish.”

“That’s because I’m one of them green people. I don’t participate in fertilizing my plants with that phony nitrogen stuff. I wait until there’s a fish kill in the river and then I go collect all the dead fish that wash up. I let them rot out, and I use them for plant food. It’s why I grow such quality product. You get weed from Mary Treetrunk and you know it’s good organic shit.”

“Is there lots of fish kills?” Lula asked.

“Yep. There’s dead fish laying around all the time. Some of them only got one eye, and a couple times I found fish with two heads.”

I returned to Broad Street, drove to Cluck-in-a-Bucket, and loaded up at the drive-through. Mary was happy in the backseat with a bag filled with breakfast sandwiches, a bucket of chicken, and a side of biscuits and gravy. Lula had a super-sized diet cola, a single breakfast sandwich, and a medium box of chicken nuggets. No biscuits. No gravy. No apple pie for dessert. I assumed this relatively small portion for her was the result of listening to the car groan under Mary’s weight and not wanting to go there. The other possibility was nausea from the fish stench.

I pulled out of the lot, onto the street, and a black Cadillac Escalade with a satellite dish on the roof passed me going in the opposite direction.

“That’s the car!” Lula said. “That’s the dart gun car.”

I checked my rearview mirror and saw the Escalade make a U-turn. It zoomed up to my bumper and gave me a tap.

“What the heck?” Lula said. “I almost spilled my soda. I think they hit us on purpose.”

“Can you see who’s driving?”

Lula turned in her seat. “I can see him, but I don’t know him.”

There were cars stopped for a traffic light in front of me. I slowed for the light, and the Escalade tapped me again. The passenger side door on the Escalade opened, a guy got out, pulled a gun, and ran for my car. It was the cinderblock guy who had tried to throw me into the river.

I pulled out of the line of stopped traffic, jumped the curb, and drove across three front lawns. I hit the cross street hard, with the rear of the car scraping the cement curb. The muffler fell off with a loud klunk, and I roared away, fishtailing and leaving behind what meager tread had been left on my tires.

Lula had her foot braced on the dash, and Mary had her food clutched to her chest.