Top Secret Twenty-One: A Stephanie Plum Novel by Janet Evanovich(75)

“Why you gonna shoot her and not me?” Lula asked.

“She’s got a gun.”

I was still holding the gun on him, and I was feeling freaked. Not only was I totally incompetent with a gun, but I had the gun in one hand and a fistful of leashes attached to Chihuahuas in the other. I dropped the leashes to have better control if I had to shoot, and the Chihuahuas flattened themselves to the floor and stalked Miguel.

“That’s friggin’ creepy,” he said.

“You better believe it,” Lula said. “Those aren’t any ordinary feral Chihuahuas. Those are minions. Those are trained killer Chihuahuas.”

“Maybe I need to shoot them,” he said.

Lula went into angry rhinoceros stance. “Kill!” she said to the Chihuahuas.

The dogs lunged at Miguel and sank their tiny Chihuahua teeth into his pant legs and held on.

“What the f*ck?” Miguel said, trying to shake the dogs off, swinging his gun at them.

I caught movement from my peripheral vision, and Morelli stepped into the room.

“Police,” Morelli said. “Drop your weapon.”

Miguel turned on Morelli and fired. Morelli and I fired back, and Miguel dropped to the floor.

“Are you okay?” I asked Morelli.

“I swear I felt that bullet skim my ear, but yeah, I’m okay.”

Miguel was on the ground, bleeding from a single chest wound. The Chihuahuas were crowded in a corner, vibrating again. A second cop appeared and went to Miguel, cuffing him, checking on the gunshot wound, calling for backup and an EMT.

“Where the heck did you come from?” I asked Morelli.

“I’ve had Buster’s apartment under video surveillance. Mike saw you go in with the dogs and called me. It was dumb luck that I was already on Stark.”

“We both fired, but I only see one gunshot wound.”

“You took out Buster’s toaster. You need to spend more time on the practice range.”

“This is just a shame, what with him doing all this bleeding,” Lula said. “This looks like a brand-new rug.”



I had the little kitchen table set when Morelli strolled into his house at 5:30. He wrapped his arms around me and kissed me, and lifted the lid on the casserole warming on the stove.

“Beef stew,” he said. “Did you make this?”

“Nope. Your mom brought it over.”

He got a beer from the fridge and chugged some.

“I’m dying to hear more about Buster.”

“Yeah, sorry I couldn’t get free to call you. Turns out all the poker players were in business together. Pepper would send his trucks down, and girls and pot would come back along with the salsa. Scootch, Siglowski, Poletti, Ritt, and Buster all had their hands in it. When Poletti got arrested and things went sour, there was a lot of money owed the Mexicans. They sent an enforcer, Miguel, up to collect, and he systematically shot the players when they didn’t pay.”

“Why didn’t they just pay him?”

“The money wasn’t there. It wasn’t liquid. Briggs had talked Poletti and Pepper into long-term investments and land deals. The Mexicans wanted cash.”

“Briggs said Poletti had a ton of money stashed somewhere.”

“Not stashed. Invested in a chicken processing plant in Nogales. The plant was a total rust bucket infested with salmonella.”

“How’s Miguel?”

“He’ll live.”

“What’s going to happen to Buster and Pepper?”

“I don’t know. That’s for the feds to sort out.”

Morelli got a dish and spooned out some stew.

“This is nice. I like coming home to you and stew.”

“Maybe we should enlarge our family. What would you think about adopting an attack Chihuahua?”

“By the time I questioned Briggs late this afternoon, there were only two dogs that hadn’t been adopted. And he wanted to keep those two. And he said to tell you he got the job. He’s the new weatherman on the evening news. Some cable station. I didn’t get all the details. Might have been the local Fox affiliate.”

“Briggs is going to be on television? He’s only three feet tall. How is he going to reach Chicago on the blue screen when he does the weather?”

“I don’t know, but I’m sure it’s going to be worth watching.”

Morelli finished his dinner and pushed back from the table.

“Briggs said it was his dream job to be on television, and it was number twelve on his bucket list.”

“What’s with this bucket list thing? Suddenly everyone has a bucket list.”

“Don’t you have a bucket list?” Morelli asked.

“No. Do you?”

“Yeah.”

“Can I see it?”

“It’s not written down.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“Most of it involves you,” Morelli said.

“Oh boy.”

Morelli got a pad and a pen from the counter and returned to the table. “I’ll write it out for you, but if you read it, you have to do it.”

“No way! What kind of bucket list is this?”

“It’s my bedroom bucket list.”

I wasn’t surprised that Morelli would have a bedroom bucket list, but I was surprised that there was anything left to put on it.