Janet Evanovich - Three To Get Deadly: A Stephanie Plum Novel

It was January in Trenton. The sky was gun-metal gray, and the air sat dead cold on cars and sidewalks. Inside the offices of Vincent Plum, bail bond agent, the atmosphere was no less grim, and I was sweating not from heat but from panic.

I cant do this, I said to my cousin, Vinnie. Ive never refused a case before, but I cant pick this guy up. Give the paperwork to Ranger. Give it to Barnes.

Im not giving this two-bit Failure to Appear to Ranger, Vinnie said. Its the kind of penny-ante stuff you do. For chrissake, be a professional. Youre a bounty hunter. Youve been a bounty hunter for five fucking months. Whats the big deal?

This is Uncle Mo! I said. I cant apprehend Uncle Mo. Everyone will hate me. My mother will hate me. My best friend will hate me.

Vinnie slumped his slim, boneless body into the chair behind his desk and rested his head on the padded leather back. Mo jumped bail. That makes him a slimeball. Thats all that counts.

I rolled my eyes so far into the top of my head I almost fell over backward.

Moses Bedemier, better known as Uncle Mo, started selling ice cream and penny candy on June 5, 1958, and has been at it ever since. His store is set on the edge of the burg, a comfy residential chunk of Trenton where houses and minds are proud to be narrow and hearts are generously wide open. I was born and raised in the burg and while my current apartment is approximately a mile outside the burg boundary Im still tethered by an invisible umbilical. Ive been hacking away at the damn thing for years but have never been able to completely sever it.

Moses Bedemier is a solid burg citizen. Over time, Mo and his linoleum have aged, so that both have some pieces chipped at the corners now, and the original colors have blurred from thirty-odd years under fluorescent lights. The yellow brick facade and overhead sheet metal sign advertising the store are dated and weatherbeaten. The chrome and Formica on the stools and countertop have lost their luster. And none of this matters, because in the burg Uncle Mos is as close as we come to a historic treasure.

And I, Stephanie Plum, 125 pounds, five feet, seven inches, brown-haired, blue-eyed bounty hunter at large, have just been assigned the task of hauling Uncle Mos revered ass off to jail.

So what did he do? I asked Vinnie. Why was he arrested in the first place?

Got caught doing thirty-five in a twenty-five-mile-per-hour zone by Officer Pickybetter known as Officer Benny Gaspick, fresh out of police academy and so wet behind the ears he doesnt know enough to take Mos get-out-of-jail-free PBA card and forget the whole thing.

Bond isnt required on a traffic ticket.

Vinnie planted a pointy-toed patent leather shoe on the corner of his desk. Vinnie was a sexual lunatic, especially enamored with dark-skinned young men wearing nipple rings and pointy-breasted women who owned fourteenth-century torture tools. He was a bail bondsman, which meant he loaned people money to post the bond set by the court. The bonds purpose was to make it economically unpleasant for the suspect to skip town. Once the bond was posted the incarcerated suspect was set free, enabling him to sleep in his own bed while awaiting trial. The price for using Vinnies service was fifteen percent of the bond and was nonrefundable no matter what the outcome of the charges. If the bailee failed to appear for his court appearance, the court kept Vinnies money. Not just the fifteen percent profit. The court kept the whole ball of wax, the entire bail bond amount. This never made Vinnie happy.

And thats where I came in. I found the bailee, who was at that point officially a felon, and brought him back into the system. If I found the Failure to Appear, better known as an FTA, in a timely fashion, the court gave Vinnie his cash back. For this fugitive apprehension I received ten percent of the bond amount, and Vinnie was left with a five percent profit.

Id originally taken the job out of desperation when Id been laid off (through no fault of my own) as lingerie buyer for E. E. Martin. The alternative to unemployment had been overseeing the boxing machine at the tampon factory. A worthy task, but not something that got me orgasmic.

I wasnt sure why I was still working for Vinnie. I suspected it had something to do with the title. Bounty hunter. It held a certain cachet. Even better, the job didnt require panty hose.

Vinnie smiled his oily smile, enjoying the story he was telling me. In his misplaced zeal to be Most Hated Cop of the Year, Gaspick delivers a little lecture to Mo on road safety, and while Gaspick is lecturing, Mo squirms in his seat, and Gaspick catches a glimpse of a forty-five stuck in Mos jacket pocket.

And Mo got busted for carrying concealed, I said.

Bingo.

Carrying concealed was frowned upon in Trenton. Permits were issued sparingly to a few jewelers, and judges and couriers. Getting caught carrying concealed illegally was considered unlawful possession of a firearm and was an indictable offense. The weapon was confiscated, bail was set and the bearer of the weapon was shit out of luck.

Of course, this didnt stop a sizable percentage of the population of Jersey from carrying concealed. Guns were bought at Bubbas Gun Shop, inherited from relatives, passed off among neighbors and friends and purchased second-, third-and fourth-hand from and by citizens who were fuzzy on the details of gun control. Logic dictated that if the government issued a license to own a gun then it must be okay to put it in your purse. I mean, why else would a person want a gun if not to carry it in her purse. And if it wasnt okay to carry a gun in your purse, then the law was stupid. And no one in Jersey was going to put up with a stupid law.

I was even known, on occasion, to carry concealed. At this very moment I could see Vinnies ankle holster causing a bulge at the cuff line of his polyester slacks. Not only was he carrying concealed but Id lay odds his gun wasnt registered.

This is not a big-time offense, I said to Vinnie. Not something worth going Failure to Appear.

Probably Mo forgot he had a court date, Vinnie said. Probably all you have to do is go remind him.

Hold that thought, I told myself. This might not be such a disaster after all. It was ten oclock. I could mosey on over to the candy store and talk to Mo. In fact, the more I thought about it, the more I realized my panic had been ungrounded. Mo had no reason to go FTA.

I closed the door on my way out of Vinnies office, and sidestepped around Connie Rosolli. Connie was the office manager and Vinnies guard dog. She held Vinnie in the same high esteem one would reserve for slug slime, but shed worked for Vinnie for a lot of years, and had come to accept that even slug slime was part of Gods great scheme.

Connie was wearing fuchsia lipstick, matching nail enamel and a white blouse with big black polka dots. The nail enamel was very cool, but the blouse wasnt a good choice for someone who carried sixty percent of her body weight on her chest. Good thing the fashion police didnt do too many tours of Trenton.

You arent going to do it, are you? she asked. The tone implying that only a dog turd would cause Uncle Mo a moment of grief.

No offense taken. I knew where she lived. We had the same mental zip code. You mean am I going to talk to Mo? Yeah, Im going to talk to Mo.

Connies black eyebrows fused into a straight line of righteous indignation. That cop had no business arresting Uncle Mo. Everyone knows Uncle Mo would never do anything wrong.