Look Alive Twenty-Five (Stephanie Plum 25)

“Darren is sick,” I said. “I’m helping out.”

“Hey!” someone yelled. “It’s Victor Waggle!”

In an instant, the truck was surrounded by a crush of fans. Ranger’s men and Morelli’s men were on the perimeter, trying to work their way through, and the fans weren’t liking it. There was a lot of pushing and shoving. Someone threw a punch, and a fight broke out. The customers were smashed up against the truck, and the truck was rocking on its wheels.

“Get away from my truck,” Lula shouted at them. “What’s the matter with you people? Where are your manners?”

Someone tried to climb into the truck through the service window, and Lula threw an egg at him. It broke on his forehead and slimed down his face. A roar went up from the crowd, and I felt the truck begin to tip.

“Abandon ship!” Lula yelled.

Too late. The truck flopped over on its side, dumping eggs, beans, fry pans, and hot sauce everywhere. I went to my hands and knees, and instinctively crawled to the door.

Event security was mixed in with the police and Rangeman guys, pulling people off the truck and pitching them into the crowd.

I made it to the door and got to my feet. Victor followed. I saw the flash of a knife blade, and someone screamed. Victor grabbed me from behind, and put the knife to my neck. The blade sliced into me, and I saw a drop of blood soak into my shirt.

“No one move,” Victor said. “Back off or I’ll cut her head off.”

Everyone froze.

“Drop your guns,” Victor said.

About a hundred guns clattered to the ground.

“I’m walking out with her,” Victor said. “No one even twitch because I’m not in a good mood. All I wanted was a goddamn burrito.”

He pushed me forward, I heard a loud BONK, the knife fell out of his hand, and he crashed to the ground.

Lula stood over him, holding a fry pan. “Burrito that,” she said. “And you shouldn’t use the Lord’s name in vain. It’s not nice.”

Waggle was facedown on the road. He had a big gash in the back of his head, and he wasn’t moving. An event security person flipped him over, and he opened his eyes.

“What the fuck?” Waggle said.

There were a lot of men, wearing a variety of uniforms, doing crowd control, pushing people back from the truck. Morelli cuffed Waggle and called for medical. Ranger was at my side. Someone handed him a towel, and he pressed it to my neck.

“It’s not a dangerous cut,” he said. “It’s bleeding, but it’s not deep.”

I nodded. “I’m okay.”

I said I was okay, but my teeth were chattering and my eyes were tearing up. A medic pushed his way through to me and examined the cut. I declined a trip to the hospital, but I got the wound cleaned and bandaged. Waggle was strapped to a stretcher and trundled into an EMS truck with a police escort.

“What’s the plan?” Ranger said to Morelli. “One of us is going to have to get her cleaned up.”

I looked down at myself. I was head-to-toe raw egg and refried beans.

“Your turn,” Morelli said. “I have to stay with Waggle.”

Ranger grinned at Morelli. “You trust me in the shower with her?”

“No. I trust her. Plus, it’s going to take you an hour just to get the egg out of her hair, she’s got eight Steri-Strips holding that cut together in place of stitches, and if I find out anything inappropriate happened in the shower I’ll kill you.”

“That sounds reasonable,” Ranger said.

Lula was nearby, giving an interview to a local cable station.

“I don’t usually have beans in my hair,” she said to the woman with the microphone. “This isn’t my best look.”