Lula handed him her food and ran back to Giovichinni’s to get more. I got behind the wheel, locked the doors, and ate my sandwich. I unlocked the doors when Lula returned and relocked them as soon as she was settled. I was afraid the apple dumpling would yank me out of my truck and drive away.
“Now what?” Lula clicked her seat belt in place.
“I think our luck has changed. We captured Buggy. We got Joyce out of my apartment. I say we go get Lahonka.”
“Wham,” Lula said. “And double wham!” She turned and looked out the back window at Buggy. “We should take him with us.”
“What?”
“If you take him back to that empty house, there’s no telling what could go on. He’s such a bad boy.”
I checked the bad boy out in the mirror. He had a glob of rice pudding on his shirt. “I thought he was an apple dumpling.”
“You could be a apple dumpling and a bad boy all at the same time,” Lula said. “They could go together. That’s what makes him so appealing. He looks like a acorn squash, but he’s real complex. I like that in a man. And besides, I don’t have any more Snickers bars. I don’t know how we’re gonna get him out of the truck.”
Good point. I put the truck in gear and drove to Lahonka’s apartment. Lula and I got out, and Lula told the acorn squash to wait in the truck.
“Nuh-ah,” Buggy said, throwing a leg over the side.
“He’s your responsibility,” I said to Lula. “I don’t want him taking my keys, my messenger bag, or my truck.”
I marched up to Lahonka’s door and banged on it. Lula and Buggy were right behind me.
“That door has a Band-Aid on it,” Buggy said.
“It’s covering the hole I made when I shot it,” Lula said.
“Go away,” Lahonka yelled from inside. “I hate you.”
“She’s not nice,” Buggy said.
“She’s a felon,” Lula told him. “We need to arrest her.”
Buggy pushed us aside, gave the door a head butt, and the door came off its hinges.
“What the hell?” Lahonka said.
She had her foot wrapped in a big bandage, and she was standing on crutches.
“What’s wrong with her foot?” Buggy wanted to know.
“I shot it,” Lula said.
“Har!” Buggy said. “Good one.” He looked at Lula. “Do you want her in the truck?”
“Yeah,” Lula said. “We have to take her to the police station.”
“The police station isn’t so bad,” Buggy said. “They gave me a cheeseburger.”
He grabbed Lahonka and tucked her under his arm like she was a rag doll, while I scrambled to get her crutches.
“I’m just about gonna faint on account of my honey pie is so strong,” Lula said. “I’d never say anyone was fat due to that bein’ hurtful, but let’s face it, Lahonka’s a sandbag. I carry a certain amount of weight, but mine’s perfectly distributed. My big beautiful bubble butt balances out my oversized boobs. Lahonka here got all her weight sunk into one of them low-slung behinds. It gotta be hard to get someone like Lahonka off the ground.”
“You got a lot of nerve sayin’ those things about me!” Lahonka yelled at Lula. “You’re not nothin’ but a big ’ho.”
“Am not,” Lula said, hands on hips. “I gave up bein’ a ’ho.”
“I like ’hos,” Buggy said. “It’s like goin’ to Cluck-in-a-Bucket. You order something and that’s what you get.”
“Sugar, it’s like that with a girlfriend, too,” Lula said.
“Hunh,” Lahonka said. “Not with me. You get what I want to give you, and then you better say
Not with me, either, I thought. My new policy was nobody gets
Buggy carted Lahonka to the truck and dumped her into the back.
“We need to cuff her, Sweetums,” Lula said, handing Buggy cuffs.
Lahonka was spitting and clawing and swearing, and Buggy was having a hard time catching a wrist.
“You don’t hold still for me, and I’m going to kick you in your foot,” Buggy said.
Lahonka went still for a beat, digesting the threat, and Buggy sat on her and cuffed her.
“Good job,” Lula said to Buggy. “Don’t let her escape. She’s sneaky.”
Buggy looked at Lula. “Do you have any more of them Snickers?”
“No,” Lula said, “but we’ll get more as soon as we drop Lahonka off.”
“You aren’t gonna leave me back here with King Kong, are you?” Lahonka said. “He got his fat ass on me, and I can’t breathe. Isn’t it enough you shot up my foot? I’m just a poor workin’ woman. I got kids to support.”
I drove to the municipal building and parked in the lot. I didn’t need police assistance. I could get Buggy to cart Lahonka across the street if she refused to walk. Lula and I got out and went to the back of the truck.
No Lahonka.
“I could have sworn Lahonka was here when we took off,” Lula said.
Buggy was sitting with his back against the rear window. “She got out at the last light.”
“You were supposed to make sure she didn’t escape,” I said to him.
“Yeah, but she said she was a mama, and she was cryin’. So I let her go.”
“That’s so sweet,” Lula said to Buggy. “You’re a man with a good heart.”
“It’s not sweet!” I said. “Lahonka Goudge is a con artist and a felon. She steals people’s identities. And Mr. Potato Head here just let her go.”
“Do I get my Snickers now?” Buggy asked.
“You get nothing,” I said. “
Buggy squinched his face up. “You promised.”
“The deal was you’d get Snickers after we delivered Lahonka. Did we deliver Lahonka?” I asked him. “No, we did not. So you get nothing. There are consequences to all actions.”
“Nuh-ah. I do lots of things without them consequences.”
“Not in my truck,” I told him. “There are consequences in my truck.”
“That’s a good policy,” Lula said. “Just think where we’d be if we didn’t pay attention to consequences. Like, there’s consequences if you don’t got bullets in your gun. And there’s consequences if you eat bad potato salad. And there’s consequences if you’re not taking precautions with your sweetie pie.”
I had a flash of panic recalling a small inadvertent lapse in my birth-control program in Hawaii.
“Are you okay?” Lula asked me. “You got real pale just now, and you’re sort of sweating.”
“I was thinking about consequences.”
“Yeah, they freak me out, too,” Lula said.
EIGHTEEN
I OFF-LOADED LULA AND BUGGY at the bonds office so Lula could get her car. Slasher and Lancer were still parked there, both of them sound asleep. Vinnie’s car and Connie’s car were gone, and the office was closed. Everyone left early on Saturday.
“I’m going to take you home in my Firebird,” Lula said to Buggy.
Buggy’s eyes got wide. “I want to drive.”
“Of course you do,” Lula said, “but this here’s a finely tuned machine.”
“Yuh.”
“Well, okay, since you’re so adorable,” Lula said. And she handed him her key.
“Get in fast, before he takes off without you,” I said to Lula.
“He wouldn’t do that,” Lula said. “He’s my big honey.”
The big honey rammed himself behind the wheel and took off.
