Turbo Twenty-Three (Stephanie Plum #23)(2)

“Guess you left the key in the ignition,” I said, gasping for air, coming alongside Lula.

“And you told me not to shoot him,” Lula said. “This is all your fault. If I put some holes in him this would never have happened.”

“I’ll call it in to the police,” I said.

“I’m not waiting for no police,” Lula said. “I’m going after that punk ass.”

“You won’t catch him on foot.”

“I’m not going on foot. I’m taking his truck.”

“Do you know how to drive a truck?”

“Sure I know how to drive a truck,” Lula said. “What’s to know?”

She got a foot onto the first step to the cab but couldn’t get any lift.

“This here stupid thing is too high,” Lula said. “Get your hand under my ass and give me a shove up.”

“Not for all the tea in China,” I said.

“Then go around and pull me in.”

I climbed into the cab from the passenger side, crawled over, and gave Lula a hand up.

“This is a bad idea,” I said. “You don’t have a clue where he’s headed. He’s disappeared, and on top of that he probably stole this truck.”

“I know where he’s going,” Lula said. “He’s going to the chop shop on Stark. He’s gonna sell my Firebird off for pieces. That’s what these creeps do. They got no respect for people’s personal vehicles.”

I took my cellphone out of my pocket. “I’m calling it in.”

Lula stared at the dash. “There’s a awful lot of doohickeys here.”

“I thought you said you knew how to drive one of these.”

“I’m just sayin’ this here’s a fancy rig. It got a cup holder and everything.” She looked down at the floor. “It got a lot of pedals down there. What the heck is that big one?”

“That’s the clutch.”

“Yeah, it’s all coming back to me. I used to drive my Uncle Jimmy’s dump truck before I got established as a ’ho.”

She planted a Via Spiga on the clutch pedal and shifted. “Here goes nothing.”

The truck lurched forward and ground through a gear.

“That didn’t sound good,” I said.

“No problem,” Lula said. “It don’t matter if we lose a gear or two on account of this baby got a lot of them.”

We slowly drove down the street.

“This here’s a piece of cake,” Lula said.

She turned a corner and took out a trash receptacle.

“Uh, you might have cut that corner a little tight,” I said.

“Yeah, but did you see how smooth this beauty rolled over that garbage can? It’s like driving a tank.”

“There’s a red light at the cross street,” I said. “You know how to stop, right?”

“I step on the brake.”

“Yeah, but will the big trailer behind us stop at the same time?”

Lula looked down at the floor. “I guess it’s all hooked together being that I only see one brake pedal.”

“The light! The road!” I yelled.

Lula sailed through the intersection.

“You just ran the light!” I said.

“Oops,” Lula said. “My bad. Good thing there weren’t any cars there.”

I caught flashing strobes in my side mirror. “I think we have a cop behind us,” I said. “You should pull over.”

“No way,” Lula said. “It’ll waste my time, and I gotta get to the chop shop before they start on my Firebird. I’ll outmaneuver the guy behind me.”

“You’re driving a truck! You can’t even turn a corner, much less outmaneuver someone.”

“Boy, you’re getting cranky. Anyways, this could be a good thing. What we got here is a police escort. He’ll come in handy when we get to Stark Street and confront Larry Virgil. This is our lucky day.”

The cop car zipped past us and came to a stop just before the next intersection, blocking our way. Two patrolmen got out, guns drawn.

“Hit the brakes,” I said to Lula. “Hit the brakes!”

Lula stomped on the brake pedal, and the rig slowed down but didn’t stop. The patrolmen jumped out of the way, and Lula punted the patrol car halfway down the block before bringing the semi to a stop.

“It don’t exactly stop on a dime,” Lula said.

One of the cops approached. I rolled the window down and grimaced. It was Eddie Gazarra. We went to school together, and now he was married to my cousin Shirley the Whiner.

“Hey, Eddie,” I said. “How’s it going?”

“Oh crap,” Eddie said.

Lula leaned over and looked past me to Eddie. “We gotta get going. That moron Larry Virgil stole my car, and I gotta get to Stark Street before my baby’s nothing but spare parts. So I’d appreciate it if you could get your patrol car out of my way.”

Eddie and I looked down the street at what was left of the patrol car. It wasn’t going anywhere any time soon.

“Sorry about your car,” I said. “Lula didn’t totally have the hang of driving this thing.”

Eddie’s partner, Jimmy, was standing alongside him. Our paths had crossed on a couple occasions, but I didn’t actually know Jimmy. He was hands on hips looking like he thought this was funny but was trying not to laugh out loud.