Top Secret Twenty-One (Stephanie Plum 21)

“Speeding,” Lula said.

I looked over at her. “Were you speeding?”

“Hell, yeah. I was doing forty-three miles an hour in a thirty-mile-an-hour zone and Officer Picky pulled me over. There should be a law against thirty-mile-an-hour zones. My car don’t want to go that slow. It’s painful to drive thirty miles an hour.”

“I’ve got donuts,” Connie said, gesturing to the white bakery box on her desk. “Help yourself.”

Lula’s face brightened. “That helps perk up my mood. I’m taking one with sprinkles. And maybe one with chocolate icing. And look at this one with the pink gooey stuff oozing out of it.”

Lula bit into the one with the sprinkles. “What happened last night with you and Mr. Tall, Dark, Handsome as Hell, and Hot?”

“He captured Gardi. No shots fired.”

“And?”

“There’s no ‘and.’ ”

“Say what? There’s no ‘and he got naked and waved his magic wand’?”

“Nope,” Connie said. “No magic wand. She didn’t get to see the wand.”

“Well, you know he got one,” Lula said. “How come he didn’t wave it and make her a happy princess?”

Connie and Lula looked at me, eyebrows raised, waiting for an explanation.

“It was a job,” I said. “It didn’t involve his … wand.”

Lula shook her head. “That is so sad. Opportunities wasted. What did you wear? Did you wear some dumpy business suit?”

“I wore the little red dress.”

“I know that dress,” Lula said. “It’s definitely wand-worthy.”

Vinnie stuck his head out of his office. “What’s with all the yammering? I can’t hear myself think in here. And why aren’t you out catching some scumbag? I’m out big money for Jimmy Poletti. Go drag his butt back to jail.”

Vinnie slammed his door shut, and Lula stuck her tongue out at him.

“I saw that,” Vinnie yelled from inside his office. “Have some respect.”

“How’d he see that?” Lula asked.

Connie pointed to a camera newly installed over Vinnie’s office door. “He’s got security cameras all over the place.”

Lula gave the camera the finger.

“I saw that too,” Vinnie yelled.

I shoved Poletti’s file into my messenger bag and hiked the bag up onto my shoulder. “I’m heading out. It shouldn’t be hard to find Poletti. It’s not like he’s a gangbanger.”

“He’s sort of a TV star,” Lula said. “I wouldn’t mind going with you to see what he looks like up close.”

We went out the back door and stood looking at our two cars. Lula was driving a red Firebird, and I was driving a rusted-out Ford Explorer.

“Probably,” Lula said, “we should take your car in case we have to shoot him. It won’t matter if he bleeds out in your car.”

“We’re not going to shoot him.”

“You don’t know that for sure,” Lula said.