Janet Evanovich - Fearless Fourteen

Janet Evanovich - SP14 - Fearless Fourteen

CHAPTER ONE

In my mind, my kitchen is filled with crackers and cheese, roastchicken leftovers, farm fresh eggs, and coffee beans ready togrind. The reality is that I keep my Smith & Wesson in thecookie jar, my Oreos in the microwave, a jar of peanut butter andhamster food in the over-the-counter cupboard, and I have beer andolives in the refrigerator. I used to have a birthday cake in thefreezer for emergencies, but I ate it.

Truth is, I would dearly love to be a domestic goddess, but thebirthday cake keeps getting eaten. I mean, you buy it, and you eatit, right? And then where are you? No birthday cake. Ditto cheeseand crackers and eggs and the roast chicken leftovers (which werefrom my mother). The coffee beans are light-years away. I don't owna grinder. I guess I could buy two birthday cakes, but I'm afraidI'd eat both.

My name is Stephanie Plum, and in my defense I'd like to saythat I have bread and milk on my shopping list, and I don't haveany communicable diseases. I'm five feet, seven inches. My hair isbrown and shoulder length and naturally curly. My eyes are blue. Myteeth are mostly straight. My manicure was pretty good three daysago, and my shape is okay. I work as a bond enforcement agent formy cousin Vinnie, and today I was standing in Loretta Rizzi'skitchen, thinking not only was Loretta ahead of me in thekitchen-needs-a-makeover race, but she made me look like a piker inthe Loose Cannon Club.

It was eight in the morning, and Loretta was wearing a long,pink flannel nightgown and holding a gun to herhead.

"I'm gonna shoot myself," Loretta said. "Not that it wouldmatter to you, because you get your money dead or alive,right?"

"Technically, that's true," I told her. "But dead is a pain inthe tuchus. There's paperwork."

A lot of the people Vinnie bonds out are from my Chambersburgneighborhood in Trenton, New Jersey. Loretta Rizzi was one of thosepeople. I went to school with Loretta. She's a year older than me,and she left high school early to have a baby. Now she was wantedfor armed robbery, and she was about to blow her brainsout.

Vinnie had posted Loretta's bond, and Loretta had failed to showfor her court appearance, so I was dispatched to drag her back tojail. And as luck would have it, I walked in at a bad moment andinterrupted her suicide.

"I just wanted a drink," Loretta said.

"Yeah, but you held up a liquor store. Most people would havegone to a bar."

"I didn't have any money, and it was hot, and I needed a TomCollins." A tear rolled down Loretta's cheek. "I've been thirstylately," she said.

Loretta is a half a head shorter than me. She has curly blackhair and a body kept toned by hefting serving trays for cateredaffairs at the nrehouse. She hasn't changed much since high school.A few crinkle lines around her eyes. A little harder set to hermouth. She's Italian-American and related to half the Burg,including my off-and-on boyfriend, Joe Morelli.

"This was your first offense. And you didn't shoot anyone.Probably you'll get off with a hand-slap," I toldLoretta.

"I had my period," she said. "I wasn't thinkingright."

Loretta lives in a rented row house on the edge of the Burg. Shehas two bedrooms, one bath, a scrubbed-clean, crackerbox kitchen,and a living room filled with secondhand furniture. Hard to makeends meet when you're a single mother without a high schooldiploma.

The back door swung open and my sidekick, Lula, stuck her headin. "What's going on in here? I'm tired of waiting in the car. Ithought this was gonna be a quick pickup, and then we were goingfor breakfast."

Lula is a former 'ho, turned bonds office file clerk andwheelman. She's a plus-size black woman who likes to squash herselfinto too small clothes featuring animal print and spandex. Lula'scup runneth over from head to toe.

"Loretta is having a bad morning," I said.

Lula checked Loretta out. "I can see that. She's still in hernightie."

"Notice anything else?" I asked Lula.

"You mean like she's tryin' to style her hair with a Smith &Wesson?"

"I don't want to go to jail," Loretta said.

"It's not so bad," Lula told her. "If you can get them to sendyou to the workhouse, you'll get dental."

"I'm a disgrace," Loretta said.

Lula shifted her weight on her spike-heeled Manolo knock-offs."You be more of a disgrace if you pull that trigger. You'll have abig hole in your head, and your mother won't be able to have anopen-casket viewing. And who's going to clean up the mess it'llmake in your kitchen?"

"I have an insurance policy," Loretta said. "If I kill myself,my son, Mario, will be able to manage until he can get a job. If Igo to jail, he'll be on his own without any money."

"Insurance policies don't pay out on suicides," Lulasaid.

"Oh crap! Is that true?" Loretta asked me.

"Yeah. Anyway, I don't know why you're worried about that. Youhave a big family. Someone will take care of Mario."

"It's not that easy. My mother is in rehab from when she had thestroke. She can't take him. And my brother, Dom, can't take him. Hejust got out of jail three days ago. He's onprobation."

"What about your sister?"

"My sister's got her hands full with her own kids. Her rat turdhusband left her for some pre-puberty lap dancer."

"There must be someone who can baby-sit for you," Lula said toLoretta.

"Everyone's got their own thing going. And I don't want to leaveMario with just anybody. He's very sensitive... andartistic."

I counted back and placed her kid in his early teens. Lorettahad never married, and so far as I know, she'd never fingered afather for him.

"Maybe you could take him," Loretta said to me.

"What? No. No, no, no, no."

"Just until I can make bail. And then I'll try to find someonemore permanent."

"If I take you in now, Vinnie can bond you out rightaway."

"Yeah, but if something goes wrong, I need someone to pick Marioup after school."

"What can go wrong?"

"I don't know. A mother worries about these things. Promiseyou'll pick him up if I'm still in jail. He gets out attwo-thirty."

"She'll do it," Lula said to Loretta. "Just put the gun down andgo get dressed so we can get this over and done. I need coffee. Ineed one of those extra-greasy breakfast sandwiches. I gotta clogmy arteries on account of otherwise the blood rushes around toofast and I might get a dizzy spell."

Lula was sprawled on the brown Naugahyde couch hugging the wallin the bonds office, and Vinnie's office manager, Connie Rosolli,was at her desk. Connie and the desk had been strategically placedin front of Vinnie's inner-office door with the hope it woulddiscourage pissed-off pimps, bookies, and other assorted lowlifesfrom rushing in and strangling Vinnie.

"What do you mean she isn't bonded out?" I asked Connie, myvoice rising to an octave normally only heard from MinnieMouse.

"She has no money to secure the bond. And noassets."

"That's impossible. Everyone has assets. What about her mother?Her brother? She must have a hundred cousins living in a ten-mileradius."

"She's working on it, but right now she has nothing. Bupkus.Nada. So Vinnie's waiting on her."

"Yeah, and it's almost two-thirty," Lula said. "You better goget her kid like you promised."

Connie swiveled her head toward me and her eyebrows went up toher hairline.

"You promised to take care of Mario?"

"I said I'd pick him up if Loretta wasn't bonded out in time. Ididn't know there'd be an issue with her bond."

"Oh boy," Connie said. "Good luck with that one."

"Loretta said he was sensitive and artistic."

"I don't know about the sensitive part, but his art is limitedto spray paint. He's probably defaced half of Trenton. Loretta hasto pick him up from school because they won't let him on a schoolbus."