Finger Lickin' Fifteen by Janet Evanovich Page A

her that day,” Grandma said. “It was starting to rain and he cut his circuit short. Everybody’s mad at her, too.”
    “He won’t be in jail forever,” I said. “I’m sure Vinnie will bail him out again in the morning.”
    “Yeah, but I think his winkie-waggin’ days are over,” Grandma said.

    IT WAS DARK when I left my parents’ house. Clouds had rolled in and a light drizzle was falling. I did a sweep past the accounts I’d checked out earlier, and I went on to Broad Street and the area around the arena. Traffic was relatively heavy, and I was only able to catch glimpses of Ranger’s buildings. The drizzle turned to rain, and I decided to quit for the night and start over in the morning.
    An hour later, I was changed into my pajamas, watching television, and Lula showed up.
    “I swear I don’t know what things are coming to,” Lula said, bustling through my front door and heading straight for the refrigerator. “What have you got in here? Did you eat at your mama’s house tonight? Do you got leftovers? I need something to calm my stomach. This keeps up, and I’m gonna get a ulcer or diarrhea or something.” She bypassed the pot roast and mashed potatoes and went straight for the pineapple upside-down cake. “You don’t mind if I eat this, do you?”
    “Knock yourself out.”
    Lula found a fork and dug into the cake. “First off, I got myself a date with that hot-lookin’ fireman. You remember the one. The big brute with muscles bulgin’ out everywhere. So he came over, and we did some talkin’. And then one thing led to another, and he said would I mind if he go into my bedroom. And I told him he was sittin’ on my bedroom on account of I had to turn the bedroom into a closet. I mean, where’s a girl supposed to put her shoes and her dress-up clothes? Anyways, I supposed he had things to do with himself, so I pulled out my sleep sofa, and I wasn’t paying much attention to him, and next thing he’s all dressed up in one of my cocktail dresses from the Dolly Parton collection.”
    “Get out.”
    “Swear to God. And he didn’t look good in it, either. It was all wrong for him. He sees me lookin’ at him and he says, I hope you don’t mind I’m wearing your dress . And I say, hell yeah, I mind. You don’t fit in that dress. You’re bustin’ out of it. You’re gonna ruin it, and it’s one of my favorites.”
    “And then what?”
    “Then he gets all huffy, saying he thought he looked pretty darn good in the dress, and I shouldn’t be talkin’ about bustin’ out of stuff. So I ask him exactly what that’s supposed to mean, and he says, figure it out, fatso .”
    I sucked in some air on that one. Calling Lula fatso was like asking to die.
    “It got ugly after that,” Lula said. “I don’t want to go into the depressin’ details, but he got his ass out of my apartment, and he wasn’t wearin’ my dress when he exited, either.” She looked down at the empty cake plate. “What happened to the cake?”
    “You ate it.”
    “Hunh,” Lula said. “I didn’t notice.”
    “Easy come, easy go,” I said.
    “That’s so true. It’s true about cake and men.”
    “Doesn’t sound traumatic enough to give you an ulcer,” I said.
    “That wasn’t the traumatic part. The traumatic part came after I booted him out. I was putting my gown away, and I heard someone knockin’ at my door. I figured it was the moron fireman coming back to get his clothes. . . .”
    “He left without his clothes?”
    “He was in a hurry after I got my gun. The thing is, I already threw his clothes out my window. You know I live on the second floor of the house, so the clothes kind of floated down and landed in some bushes, and maybe he didn’t notice. So I’m thinkin’ it’s just this loser again, and I open the door, and it’s the Chipotle killers, and the one’s got the big-ass meat cleaver and the other’s got a gun.”
    “Omigosh.”
    “Yeah, that’s what I said. I jumped back real