Hardcore Twenty-Four (Stephanie Plum #24)(58)

“I’m not seeing no zombie so far,” Lula said. “Maybe Slick’s already moved out of the area.”

“I’ll jump two blocks and make another sweep,” Stump said. “Do you know what direction he’s moving in?”

I shook my head. I didn’t know.

“He’s a zombie,” Lula said. “He might want to get underground. He might be heading for a cemetery or a storm sewer.”

“If he’s one of them drug zombies he could be going to Morley Street,” Stump said. “There’s a guy distributes on Morley.”

Whoa! “‘Drug zombie’?”

“Yeah, there’s some new street drug that turns people into zombies. Just popped up last week. At least that’s when I heard about it. Goes by the name Zombuzz. Nasty stuff. I tried to get a piece of it, but it’s a closed franchise.”

“Do you know the distributor?” I asked.

“No. He’s from out of town. I hear he’s weird. They say he comes and goes like smoke. I don’t even know what that means. Nobody knows much. Word is, he gives the stuff away. How do you compete with that?”

Stump’s cellphone buzzed, and he read the text message.

“Sorry, ladies, gotta go,” Stump said. “Business.”

He tapped instructions to the drone and, in less than a minute, we could hear the high-pitched whine and see the quadcopter coming at us like a giant mosquito.

“I got it. I got it,” Lula said, rushing toward the drone, arms outstretched.

The drone ticked off her fingertips and hit her on the forehead. BONK! Lula went still for a beat and then sat down hard on the ground.

“Ow,” she said.

I went to one knee beside her. “Are you okay?”

“Butterfly. Don’t let them eat all the Fudgsicles.”

Stump was packing his equipment. “You want me to put her in the back of the truck and drive her to the ER?”

Lula blinked at me and put her hand to her forehead. “What happened?”

“You tried to catch the drone, and it hit you in the head.”

“Fucking drone.”

“She’s okay,” I said to Stump. “I’ll get her a bucket of chicken, and she’ll be fine.”

Stump drove away, and I helped Lula get into Big Blue.

“Did you know about the zombie drug?” I asked her.

“No. That’s the first I heard. And usually I hear everything. What do you suppose happens to a zombie if he takes the zombie drug? Do you think he turns into a Fudgsicle?”

“Hang in there,” I said to Lula. “I’m going to get you some chicken.”

“Yeah, chicken would be good. And biscuits with gravy. And a Fudgsicle.” Lula looked over at me. “Why do I keep saying ‘Fudgsicle’?”

“Maybe you have a concussion. Do you want to go to the ER and get checked out?”

“No. I want to go to Cluck-in-a-Bucket and get some Fudgsicles.”

“They don’t have Fudgsicles at Cluck-in-a-Bucket,” I said, “but I’m pretty sure they have them at the hospital.”

“Then that’s where I want to go.”





TWENTY-FOUR


I DOUBLE-PARKED AND checked Lula in at the ER. Louise Burger was the admitting RN. I went to grade school with Louise, and one of my cousins was married to one of her cousins. I asked her to keep an eye on Lula while I ran an errand.

The office was several blocks from the hospital. I got there a little after four, just as Connie was shutting down for the day.

“I need an advance,” I said to Connie. “I’m dead broke, and my credit card got maxed out when I had to bring Grandma back from Florida.”

“What happened to Johnny Chucci?”

“Hawaii. I’m pretty sure he’ll be back.”

Connie unlocked the cash drawer. “How much do you need?”

“A hundred would be great.”

She counted out a hundred and handed it over to me. “I got a new FTA an hour ago. The guy shouldn’t be hard to find. First arrest. Not a lot of money involved, but it’ll help until Chucci returns.”

I took the file from her and paged through it. LeRoy Barker. Fifty years old. Looked all puffed up in his picture. Apple cheeks. Apple body. Wearing a three-button collared knit shirt that was two sizes too small. Self-employed electrician.

“Wow,” I said to Connie. “This guy was arrested at his own birthday party?”

“Charged with drunk and disorderly. He’s lucky he wasn’t charged with assault. The party was at Chez Thomas on Route 33. LeRoy had a few too many cocktails, took all his clothes off, and fell asleep on the banquet table. When they tried to get him off the table he punched out the ma?tre d’. Broke the guy’s nose. It took six cops to wrangle LeRoy out of the restaurant and into a squad car.”

“His address is listed as 25 Ferguson Avenue. That’s right around the corner from Morelli.”

“He’s married and has two adult children,” Connie said. “Both of the kids are out of the house, living on their own. The wife works at the button factory.”

I tucked the file into my messenger bag. “I’m on it.”

I chugged away in Big Blue, turned off Hamilton Avenue into Morelli’s neighborhood, and parked behind LeRoy’s truck on Cherry Street. His house was a small Cape Cod with two dormers in the front. No lights on in the house, but I could see the blue flicker of a television. I rang the bell, and LeRoy answered.