'I don't want to get involved,' I told her.
'You can stay in the Firebird. It'll only take me a minute to cuff this guy and drag ... I mean, escort him out to the car.
'Okay,' I said, 'but I really don't want to get involved.'
A half hour later we were at the public housing project on the other side of town and Lula was motoring the Firebird down Carter Street, looking for 2475A.
'Here's the plan,' Lula said. 'You just sit tight and I'll go get this guy. I got pepper spray, a stun gun, a head- bashing flashlight, two pairs of cuffs, and the BP in my purse.'
'BP?'
'Big Persuader. That's what I call my Glock.' She pulled to the curb and jerked her thumb at the apartment building. 'This here's the building. I'll be back in a minute.'
'Try to keep your clothes on,' I said to her.
'Hunh,' Lula said. 'Funny.'
Lula walked to the door and knocked. The door opened. Lula disappeared inside the house and the door closed behind her. I looked at my watch and decided I'd give her ten minutes. After ten minutes I'd do something, but I wasn't sure what it would be. I could call the police. I could call Vinnie. I could run around the outside of the building yelling fire! Or I could do the least appealing of all the options - I could go in after her.
I didn't have to make the decision because the front door opened after just two minutes. Lula tumbled out the door, rolled off the stoop, landed on a patch of hard packed dirt that would have been lawn in a more prosperous neighborhood, and the door slammed shut behind her. Lula scrambled to her feet, tugged her spandex lime green miniskirt back down over her ass, and marched up to the door.
'Open this door!' she yelled. 'You open this door right now or there's gonna be big trouble.' She tried the doorknob. She rang the bell. She kicked the door with her Via Spigas. The door didn't open. Lula turned and looked over at me. 'Don't worry,' she said. 'This here's just a minor setback. They don't understand the severity of the situation. I slid lower in my seat and became engrossed in the mechanics of my seat belt.
'I'm giving you one more chance to open this door and then I'm going to take action,' Lula yelled at the house.
The door didn't open.
'Hunh,' Lula said. She backed off from the door and cut over to a front window. Curtains had been drawn across the window, but the flicker of a television screen could faintly be seen through the sheers. Lula stood on tiptoes and tried to open the window, but the window wouldn't budge. 'I'm starting to get annoyed now,' Lula said. 'You know what I think? I think this here's an accident waiting to happen.'
Lula pulled her big Maglite out of her purse, set her purse on the ground, and smashed the window with the Maglite. She bent to retrieve her purse and what remained of the window was blown out with a shotgun blast from inside.
If Lula hadn't bent down to get her purse, the surgeon of the day at St. Francis would have spent the rest of his afternoon picking pellets out of her.
'What the F!' Lula said. And Lula did a fast sprint to the car. She wrenched the drivers-side door open, crammed herself behind the wheel, and there was a second shotgun blast through the apartment window. 'That dumb son of a bitch shot at me!' Lula said.
'Yeah,' I said. 'I saw. I was impressed you could run like that in those heels.'
'I wasn't expecting him to shoot at me. He had no call to do that.'
'You broke his window.'
'It was an accident.'
'It wasn't an accident. I saw you do it with the Maglite.'
'That guy's nuts,' Lula said, taking off from the curb, leaving a couple inches of rubber on the road. 'He should be reported to somebody. He should be arrested.'
'You were supposed to arrest him.'
'I was supposed to escort him. Vinnie made that real clear. Escort him. And I could escort the hell out of him except I'm hungry. I gotta get something to eat,' Lula said. 'I work better on a happy stomach. I could take that woman-beating moron in anytime I want, so what's the rush, right? Might as well get a burger first, that's what I think. And anyway, he might be more Ranger's speed. I wouldn't want to step on Rangers toes. You know how Ranger likes all that shooting stuff.'
'I thought you liked the shooting stuff.'
'I don't want to hog it.'
'Considerate of you.'
'Yeah, I'm real considerate,' Lula said, turning into a Cluck-in-a-Bucket drive-thru. 'I'm seriously thinking of giving this case to Ranger.'
'What if Ranger doesn't want it?'
'You think he'd turn down a good case like this?'
'Yeah.'
'Hunh,' Lula said. 'Wouldn't that be a bitch?'
She got a Cluck Burger with cheese, a large side of fries, a chocolate shake, and an Apple Clucky Pie. I wasn't in a Cluck-in-a-Bucket mood so I passed.
