was attached to Lula.
“Vampire rooster!” Lula yelled.
She was batting at the bird, and the bird was squawking and flapping his wings and pecking at Lula. She managed to knock the bird off her head, and the bird turned and attacked the men coming out the door.
There was a lot of cussing and yelling and more squawking, and Lula and I took off at a dead run. We ran down the alley and hooked a left at the side street. We stopped and bent to catch our breath. I didn’t hear footsteps. No one seemed to be running after us. There was a lot of angry shouting back by the warehouse, and someone flicked a flashlight beam across the alley.
Lula straightened up and looked around. “Didn’t we park the car here?”
The junker SUV was gone. This car stealing stuff was getting old.
“It’s a wonder anyone is ever able to get home in this neighborhood,” Lula said. “You leave your car for two minutes and the car fairy comes and takes it.”
Lula’s giant spider hairdo had been rearranged by the rooster and was now more rat’s nest. She was wearing a black leather bustier, a denim skirt that barely covered her ass, and over-the-knee black leather boots with four-inch spike heels. I imagined the outfit came from her S&M ho collection.
We were standing pretty much on the corner of Stark and Sidney. A red tricked-out Grand Cherokee pulled up to us, the passenger window slid down, and a guy leaned out at us.
“Hey bitch,” he said. “What’s up?”
“Go away,” Lula said. “We’re busy here.”
“You don’t look busy. You look like you’re waitin’ to do me.”
“My cousin Ernie isn’t gonna like this,” Lula said to me. “How’s he gonna get to work tomorrow?”
The Cherokee doors opened and two scrawny guys in too big clothes got out and strutted over to Lula.
“You look like a workin’ bitch,” the one guy said. “How come you don’t wanna work me?”
“I’m retired,” Lula said. “Take a hike.”
“I’ll hike right up your fat lady ass,” the guy said.
Lula turned on him, eyes narrowed. “Did you call me fat? ’Cause you don’t want to do that. You don’t want to mess with me. I just lost Ernie’s car. And I just had root canal, and my meds are wearin’ off, and I’m feelin’ mean as a snake. I’m a woman on the edge right now, you punk ass, little pencil dick.”
“I ain’t no pencil dick. You want to see my dick?”
He unzipped his big baggy pants, and Lula tagged both of them with her stun gun.
“Hunh,” Lula said. She looked down at the two guys sprawled on the sidewalk, and then she looked over at their SUV. “I think we just got a car.”
“No way! That’s grand theft auto.”
“You want to stay here and wait for a bus?”
Good point.
We scrambled into the Cherokee with Lula behind the wheel, and we took off. Two police cars passed us going in the opposite direction. Lights flashing. No siren. Most likely en route to the cockfight.
“What happened in the warehouse?” I asked Lula.
“There wasn’t anybody in the back room, so I went in to look at the chickens, and right off one of them was acting real friendly. He was looking at me with his head sort of tilted, and he was making clucking sounds like the Little Red Hen would make. And I figured he wanted me to pet him, so I opened the door to his cage just a little to get my hand in, and next thing he busted out and attacked me. It was Ziggy all over again. And then when I was trying to get him off my head, I knocked into a stack of cages, and they fell over and broke apart, and the chickens all came rushing out. There was demon chickens all over the place, squawkin’ and clawin’ at each other. It was a chicken nightmare. I won’t be able to sleep tonight thinkin’ about them chickens. And now they’re runnin’ around loose, peckin’ the eyes out of people. ’Course it’s Stark Street so those chickens are gonna have to duke it out with the drugged-up nutcases and hungry people lookin’ for chicken parts.”
We rode in silence after that, thinking our own thoughts about the Stark Street chickens. Lula drove through the center of the city, turned onto Hamilton, and parked behind my Shelby.
“What are you going to do with this SUV?” I asked her.
“I’m gonna give it to Ernie. Seems only fair he gets this car since someone stole his.”
“But
“And?”
There comes a point in conversation with Lula where it’s best to drop back and punt.
“Okay then,” I said. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Hope your tooth feels better.”
“Yep. Happy trails,” Lula said.
I drove home on autopilot, talking to myself, my mind alternating between numb mush and episodes of panic.
“I hate when people want to kill me,” I said out loud to myself. “It makes my stomach feel weird. And I worry about Rex. Who would take care of him if I got murdered? I don’t even have a will. And do you know why I haven’t got a will? It’s because I don’t have anything to leave anyone. How pathetic is that?”
I pulled into the lot to my apartment building and parked next to Mr. Molnar’s blue Accord. I was halfway to the
