'Then we got to go in through the front,' Lula said. 'And I don't mind doing it because I'm justified. This here's a righteous cause. It's not every day I can find a sweater like that.' She turned to me. 'You go ahead and pick the lock.'
'I don't know how to pick a lock.'
'Hell, you were the big bounty hunter. How could you be the big bounty hunter without knowing how to pick a lock? How'd you ever get in anywhere?'
She stood back and looked at the store. 'Ordinarily I'd just break a window, but they got one big-ass window here. It's just about the whole front of the place. It might look suspicious if I broke the window.'
Lula ran across the street to the Firebird and came back with a tire iron.
'Maybe we can pry the door open.' She put the tire iron to the doorjamb and another car drove by. The car slowed as it passed us and then took off.
'Maybe we should try the back door,' Lula said.
SIX
We went around to the back and Lula tried to wedge the tire iron under the bolt. 'Don't fit,' she said. 'This door's sealed up tight.' Lula gave the door a whack with the tire iron and the door swung open. 'Will you look at this,' Lula said. 'Have we got some luck, or what?' 'I don't like it. They always lock up and set the alarm.' 'They must have just forgot. It was a traumatic day.' 'I think we should leave. This doesn't feel right.' 'I'm not leaving without my sweater. I'm close now. I can hear my sweater calling to me. Soon's we get inside I'll switch on my Maglite, and you can work that gizmo that makes the clothes go around, and before you know it we'll be outta here.'
We both took two steps forward, the door closed behind us, and Lula hit the button on the Maglite. We cautiously walked past the commercial washers and dryers and the large canvas bins that held the clothes. We stopped and listened for sirens, for someone else breathing, for the beeping of an alarm system ready to activate.
'Feels okay to me,' Lula said.
It didn't feel okay to me. All the little hairs on my arm were standing at attention, and my heart was thumping in my chest.
'We got the counter right in front of us,' Lula said. 'You switch on the whirly clothes thing.'
I reached for the switch and every light in the store suddenly went on. It was as bright as day. And there was Mama Macaroni, perched on her chair, a hideous crone dressed in a black shroud, sighting us down the barrel of a gun, her mole hairs glinting under the fluorescent light.
'Holy crap,' Lula said. 'Holy Jesus. Holy cow.'
Mama Macaroni held the gun in one hand and Lula's dry cleaning in the other.
'I knew you'd be back,' she said. 'Your kind has no honor. All you know is stealing and whoring.'
'I quit whoring,' Lula said. 'Okay, maybe I do a little recreational whoring once in a while ...'
'Trash,' Mama Macaroni said. 'Cheap trash. Both of you.' She turned to me.
'I never want to hire you. I tell them anything that come from your family is bad. Hungarians!' And she spat on the floor. 'That's what I think of Hungarians.'
'I'm not Hungarian,' Lula said. 'How about giving me my dry cleaning?'
'When hell freezes. And that's where you should be,' Mama Macaroni said. 'I put a curse on you. I send you to hell.'
Lula looked at me. 'She can't do that, can she?'
'You never get this sweater,' Mama Macaroni said. 'Never. I take this sweater to the grave with me.'
Lula looked at me like she wouldn't mind arranging that to happen.
'It'd be expensive,' I said to Lula. 'Be cheaper just to buy a new sweater.'
'And you,' Mama Macaroni said to me. 'You never gonna see that car again. That my car now. You leave it in my lot and that make it mine.' She squinted down the barrel at me, leveling it at forehead level. 'Give me the key.'
'You don't suppose she'd actually shoot you, do you?' Lula asked.
There was no doubt in my mind. Mama Macaroni would shoot me, and I'd be dead, dead, dead. I pulled the car key out of my pocket and gingerly handed it over to Mama.
'I'm gonna leave now,' Mama said. 'I got a TV show I like to watch. And you gonna stay here.' She backed away from us, past the washers and dryers to the rear door. She set the alarm and scuttled through the fire door. The door closed after her, and I could hear her throw the bolt.
I immediately went to the front of the store and stood behind the counter so I could look out the window. 'We'll wait until we see her drive away, and then we'll leave,' I said to Lula. 'We'll trip the alarm when we open the door, but we'll be long gone before the police get here.'
I heard the Saturn engine catch, and then there was an explosion that rocked the building. The explosion blew the fire door off its hinges, shattered the big front window, and knocked Lula and me to our knees.
'Fudge!' Lula said.
My instinct was to leave the building. I didn't know what caused the explosion, but I wanted to get out before it happened again. And I didn't know if the building was structurally sound. I grabbed Lula and got her to her feet and pulled her to the front door. We were walking carefully, crunching over glass shards.
Lucky we'd been behind the counter when the explosion occurred. The door had been blown open, and Lula and
