Three minutes later, Lula reported she was in place. I parked the Escape two houses down, walked to Punky's front door, and rang the bell. No one responded so I rang a second time. I gave the door a solid rap with my fist and shouted, 'Bond enforcement! Open the door!'
I heard shouting carrying over from the backyard, a door crashing open and slamming shut, and then more muffled shouting. I called Lula on the talkie, but got no response. A moment later the front door opened to the house next to me and Lula stomped out.
'Hey, so excuse me,' she yelled at the woman behind her. 'So I got the wrong door. It could happen, you know. We're under a lot of pressure when we're making these dangerous apprehensions.'
The woman glared at Lula and slammed and locked her door shut.
'Must have miscounted houses,' Lula said to me. 'I sort of let myself in through the wrong door.'
'You weren't supposed to open any door.'
'Yeah, but I heard someone moving around inside. Guess that's 'cause it was the neighbor lady's house, huh? So what's going on? How come you're not in yet?'
'He hasn't opened the door.'
Lula took a step back and looked up. 'That's because he's still mooning you.'
I followed Lula's line of sight. She was right. Punky had his ass to the window again.
'Hey,' Lula yelled up. 'Get your fat ass off the window and get down here! We're trying to do some bond enforcement!'
An old man and an old woman came out of the house across the street and settled themselves on their front stoop to watch.
'Are you going to shoot him?' the old man wanted to know.
'I don't hardly ever get allowed to shoot anybody,' Lula told him.
'That's darn disappointing,' the man said. 'How about kicking the door down?'
Lula gave the man one of her hand-on-hip get real looks. 'Kick the door down? Do I look like I could kick a door down in these shoes? These are Via Spigas. You don't go around kicking down doors in Via Spigas. These are classy shoes. I paid a shit-load of money for these shoes and I'm not sticking them through some cheap-ass door.'
Everyone looked at me. I was wearing jeans, a T-shirt topped by a black jeans jacket, and CAT boots. CAT boots could definitely kick down a door, but they'd have to be on someone else's foot because door kicking was a skill I lacked.
'You girls need to watch more television,' the old man said. 'You need to be more like those Charlie's Angels. Nothing stopped them girls. They could kick doors down in all kinds of shoes.'
'Anyways, you don't need to kick the door in,' the old woman said. 'Punky never locks it.'
I tried the door and, sure enough, it was unlocked.
'Sort of takes the fun out of it,' Lula said, looking past the door into Punky's house.
This is the part where if we were Charlie's Angels we'd get into crouched positions, holding our guns in two hands in front of us, and we'd hunt down Punky. This didn't work for us because I left my gun home, in the cookie jar on my kitchen counter, and Lula'd fall over if she tried to do the crouch thing in her Via Spigas.
'Hey Punky,' I yelled up the stairs, 'put some clothes on and come down here. I need to talk to you.'
'No way.'
'If you don't get down here, I'm going to send Lula up to get you.'
Lula's eyes got wide and she mouthed, Me? Why me?
'Come up here and get me,' Punky said. 'I have a surprise for you.'
Lula pulled a Glock out of her handbag and gave it over to me. 'You should take this on account of you're gonna be the one going up the stairs first and you might need it. You know how I hate surprises.'
'I don't want the gun. I don't like guns.'
'Take the gun.'
'I don't want the gun,' I told her.
'Take the gun!'
Yeesh. 'Okay, okay. Give me the stupid gun.'
I got to the top of the stairs and I peeked around the corner, down the hall.
'Here I come, ready or not,' Punky sang out. And then he jumped from behind a bedroom door and stood spread eagle in full view. 'Ta-dahhhh.'
He was buck naked and slick as a greased pig. Lula and I swallowed hard and we both took a step backward.
'What have you got all over you?' I asked.
'Vaseline. Head to toe and extra heavy in the cracks and crevices.' He was smiling ear to ear. 'You want to take me in, you have to wrestle with me.'
'How about we just shoot you,' Lula said.
'You can't shoot me. I'm not armed.'
