Turbo Twenty-Three (Stephanie Plum 23)

“I’m waiting here,” Lula said. “He’s got a nest of snakes under that rust bucket mobile home, and he got the big boa inside with him. No way am I going near that moldy old thing.”

I didn’t especially want to go near it either. I walked a little closer and yelled for Diggery. “Simon! Are you in there?”

Nothing. I took a couple more steps and saw that the snakes had come out to sun themselves. They were draped over the steps and sprawled on the patchy grass and dirt that constituted Diggery’s front yard. I stamped my feet and threw some stones at them and they slithered back under the double-wide.

“It’s okay now,” I said to Lula.

“No way,” Lula said. “You just pissed them off. They’re lurkin’. They’re waiting to jump out at you and fang you.”

“Hey!” I yelled at the trailer. “Anybody home?”

“Guess he’s not home,” Lula said. “Might as well leave.”

“He’s always home during the day,” I said. “He only goes out at night to rob graves and steal food.”

“I’m not leaving until you open the door,” I shouted at Diggery. “I know you’re in there.”

The door to the double-wide opened, and Diggery looked out. “What do you want? You’re disturbing the peace.”

Diggery was a rangy guy with shaggy gray hair and weathered skin. He was wearing a stained wifebeater T-shirt and baggy work pants, and he had a cigarette dangling from his bottom lip.

“You need to come with me to reschedule your court date,” I said.

“This here isn’t a good time,” Diggery said. “I’m in the middle of something.”

“You can finish it when I bring you back. This won’t take long. Court’s in session.”

“That’s a big whopper fib,” Diggery said. “They’re gonna lock me up and take their sweet-ass time to let me out.”

“Yeah, but if you stay over lunchtime they give you a burger from McDonald’s,” Lula said. “Fries and everything.”

“Last time they forgot the fries,” Diggery said. “I think they might be getting cheap and left them off on purpose.”

Diggery was standing in his open door. I caught movement at his feet and realized his boa was making its way out of the double-wide and down the makeshift steps. The snake was about ten feet long and probably weighed in at about fifty pounds.

“Holy crap, holy cow, holy get me out of here,” Lula said. “That snake is coming to get us.”

I figured the snake’s top speed was one mile an hour. I didn’t think we were at risk of being run down by it. Still, I didn’t want to get too close.

Diggery looked down and saw the snake clear the steps. “Ethel!” Diggery said. “What the Harry Hill are you doing? You know you’re not allowed out of the house.”

Ethel wasn’t paying attention to Diggery. Ethel was heading for the patch of woods behind the double-wide.

“You gotta help me get Ethel,” Diggery said, hustling after the boa. “Once she gets into the woods it’s impossible to get her back. She’ll go up a tree and sit there until she gets hungry, and it’s not good to let Ethel get too hungry. She’s a sweet girl ordinarily, but she mostly don’t care what or who she eats if you let her get too hungry.”

“Is she hungry now?” I asked him.

“Naw. She ate a big old groundhog yesterday.”

“That’s horrible.”

“Well, it wasn’t as good as a Virginia baked ham, but Ethel seemed to like it. I found it on the side of the road all swelled up.”

Diggery had Ethel by the tail end and was trying to pull her toward the trailer, but he couldn’t get a good grip.

“Get in front of her and shoo her back to me,” Diggery said.

Yeah, right. I don’t think so. “How about if you get in front of her and maybe she’ll curl up on you,” I said.