'You're gonna pay for that,' Lally said.
Lula was standing with her hands in her jacket pockets. 'How about you make me? Why don't you come get me, Mr. Tough Guy?'
Lally charged Lula. Lula stuck out her hand, made contact with Lally's chest, and Lally went down like a sack of sand.
'Fastest stun gun in the East,' Lula said. 'Oops, look at that . . . damn, I accidentally kicked the wife beater.'
I cuffed Lally and checked to make sure he was breathing.
'Shoot,' Lula said. 'I'm so careless, I accidentally kicked him again.' She bent over Lally with the stun gun still in her hand. 'Want me to make him jump?'
'No!' I said. 'No jumping!'
14
AFTER FIFTEEN MINUTES, Lally's eyes were open and his fingers were twitching, but I could see that it might take awhile longer before he was up to walking any kind of distance.
'You should join a gym,' Lula told Lally. 'And you should lay off the beer. You're out of shape. I only buzzed you once, and look at you. I never saw anybody so pathetic from one measly jolt.'
I gave Lula the car keys. 'Bring the car over so he doesn't have to walk so far.'
'You might never see me again,' Lula said.
'Ranger would find you.'
'Yeah,' Lula said, 'that'd be the best part.'
Five minutes later, Lula was back.
'It's gone,' she said.
'What's gone?'
'The car. The car's gone.'
'What do you mean, it's gone?'
'What part of 'gone' don't you understand?' Lula asked.
'You don't mean it's been stolen?'
'Yep. That's just what I mean. The car's been stolen.'
My heart did a nosedive. I didn't want to believe what I was hearing. 'How could someone steal the car? We didn't hear the alarm go off.'
'Must have gone off when we were inside here. It's a distance, and the wind's blowing away from us. Anyway, the brothers know how to take care of that kind of stuff. I'm real surprised, though. I figured you see a nice car in this kind of neighborhood and you think dealer. And messing with a dealer's car don't do a whole lot for your quality of life. Guess these guys were low on their daily quota. I got there just as the flatbed was turning the corner two blocks away. They must have been in the area.'
'What am I going to tell Ranger?'
'Tell him the good news is they left him his plates.' Lula handed me two license plates. 'And guess they didn't want the registration number. They left that, too. Looks like they took it off with an acetylene torch.' She dropped a small piece of scorched dashboard with the metal tag still attached into the palm of my hand.
'That's it?'
'Yep. That's what they left at the side of the road for you.'
Lally was flopping around on the floor, trying to get to his feet, but his coordination was off and his hands were cuffed behind his back. He was drooling and cussing and slurring his words.
'Fruckin' bish,' he said to me. 'Fruckin' peesh a shit.'
I searched in my bag for the cell phone, found it, and called Vinnie. I explained I had Kenyon Lally in custody, but there was a small problem with my car, and would he please come collect Lally and Lula and me.
'What's the problem?' Vinnie wanted to know.
'It's nothing. It's trivial. Don't worry about it.'
'I'm not coming until you tell me. I bet this is something good.'
I blew out a sigh. 'The car's been stolen.'
'That's it?'
'Yeah.'
'Jeez, I expected something better . . . like it got hit by a train or sat on by an elephant.'
'Are you going to come get us, or what?'
'I'm on my way. Hold your bladder.'
We sat down to wait for Vinnie, and my cell phone rang. Lula and I exchanged glances.
