Look Alive Twenty-Five (Stephanie Plum 25)

The reporter went directly to Lula. “How does it feel to be an Internet sensation?” he asked her.

Lula leaned forward. “Say what?”

“Yesterday you had twenty thousand likes on your YouTube video.”

“I didn’t post no video,” Lula said.

“I saw it,” Dalia said. “It was posted by a customer. It was titled ‘S&M Sandwich Bitch,’ and it was you in your black leathers, making sandwiches and cussing out Stretch.”

“He was ruining my sandwiches,” Lula said. “He was putting ketchup on everything. I take my sandwiches seriously.”

“Who are you today?” the reporter asked Lula. “Are you Doris Day?”

“I could see you don’t know much about Doris Day,” Lula said. “If I was Doris Day I’d have on a pillbox hat and I’d be wearing a fluffy pink sweater. And anyways I’m always Lula. I don’t do that other people shit.” Lula looked at the camera guy. “Can I say ‘shit’ on television?”

“No,” he said. “We’ll have to bleep that out.”

“That’s too bad,” Lula said. “I emoted it with real conviction. It could have been a good sound bite.”

The reporter looked at the sandwich Lula was making. “What is this?” he asked.

“It’s a chicken parm,” Lula said.

“It doesn’t look like a chicken parm.”

“That’s because without any extra charge I’m giving this person a chicken parm supreme à la Lula. I added bacon and brown gravy on account of everything is better with bacon and gravy.”

The cameraman zoomed in on the supreme à la Lula.

“Order up,” Stretch yelled. “Where’s my chicken parm? Where are my fries?”

“There aren’t any fries,” I said. “Raymond is in the little boys’ room. It might have something to do with the oregano.”

“I need a number twenty-three and a number four,” Dalia said.

/> The cameraman swung around to get a shot of Dalia and clipped Stretch’s arm with his camera. The chef’s knife got knocked out of Stretch’s hand, fell to the floor, and impaled the producer’s foot.

Time stood still for a full minute while everyone stared in shocked horror.

“Holy bleep,” Lula said.

Stretch pulled the knife out of the guy’s foot and blood spurted everywhere. The cameraman went in for a close-up, and Hal fainted. Crash!

“I need that chicken parm,” Dalia said, “and table three wants apple pie.”

“Chicken parm’s up,” Stretch said. “It’s the plate that looks like diarrhea on bacon.”

I wrapped a towel around the producer’s foot, and Lula bound it up with plastic wrap.

“What’s happening?” one of the customers asked. “What’s going on?”

“We got a issue here,” Lula told him. “Any of you people a podiatrist?”

No one was a podiatrist, so we scooped the producer up and helped him hobble out to the news van.

“Sorry about this,” I said to the reporter. “I hope it won’t reflect badly on the deli.”

“Lady, with the reputation this deli is getting, a stabbing can only enhance it,” the reporter said.