Top Secret Twenty-One: A Stephanie Plum Novel(42)

“That’s got a advantage,” Lula said, “being that you won’t have to give them your belt.”

“I forgot something,” Gloria said.

She turned, went back into her bedroom, and Bang! Lula and I went dead still.

“Oh crap,” Lula said.

Bang, bang, bang!

We ran to the bedroom and found Gloria pumping half a clip into a picture of her ex-husband.

She dropped the gun onto the floor, turned, and mooned the picture and farted.

Lula and I took a step back.

“Sorry,” Gloria said. “I get gas when I eat too much sugar.”

We loaded Gloria into the Buick, and I called Connie on our way to the municipal building so she could rebond Gloria. An hour later we were all back at the office. Connie was at her computer. Lula was on the couch reading Star magazine. I was looking at used cars on Craigslist.

The door crashed open and Briggs staggered in, dragging his duffel bag. His hair was sticking out every which way, his eyes were bugged out, and he had black sooty smudges all over his face and clothes.

“Someone blew up my car,” he said. “Lucky I wasn’t in it. I have one of those remote starters so I can get the air-conditioning going if I want. I pushed the starter when I came out of my cousin’s house and kaboom. It knocked me on my ass.”

“Your ass is pretty close to the ground anyways,” Lula said.

“It was a big fireball,” Briggs said. “If I was any closer I’d be a cinder now.”

“So how come you got your duffel bag with you?” Lula asked.

“It’s my clothes. My cousin kicked me out of his house, being that someone still wants to kill me.”

“Oh no,” I said. “No, no, no, no.”

“You gotta help me out,” Briggs said. “It must not have been Poletti. I need a safe place to live.”

“How about Florida?” I said. “You could rent a condo somewhere on a bus line so you don’t need a car.”

“I don’t want to live in Florida. It’s too hot. And they have big bugs and alligators.”

“You want to see a big bug, you should go into the storeroom here,” Lula said. “There’s the roach that ate Tokyo back there.”

“I don’t get it,” Briggs said. “I was sure it was Poletti. He tried to run me over. I saw him.”

“Who else’s wife did you sleep with?” Lula asked.

“Recently?”

Lula turned to me. “And we’re supposed to be keeping him from getting a rocket up his butt why?”

I didn’t have an answer to that one, so I stepped outside and called Ranger.

“Are you still in New York?” I asked him.

“I’m on my way home. Vlatko left the consulate this morning with two other men. They got into a car, and we lost them in traffic. I left Rich and Silvestor there to watch the building, but I doubt Vlatko will be back.”

“Is there anything I can do for you?”

“Babe,” Ranger said.

“Besides that.”

I thought I heard him smile just before he disconnected.

I went back into the office, and Briggs was sitting in one of the cheap orange plastic chairs. His duffel bag was between his feet, and he looked depressed.

“Okay,” I said, “let’s think about this. Someone wants you dead. And it’s someone who doesn’t want to get his hands dirty. If you take Poletti out of the equation, you have two rocket-propelled firebombs and a car bomb. Very impersonal. Death from a distance.”

“Or it could be someone who likes explosions,” Lula said.

I looked at Briggs. “Do you know anyone who likes explosions?”

“All the poker players,” Briggs said. “They were always going out to the Pine Barrens to blow stuff up. One time they blew up a refrigerator. Sometimes they took their kids. Like it was family fun day. Poletti’s older kid never went, but the stoner loved it.”

“There are three poker players left,” I said. “Ron Siglowski, Buster Poletti, and Silvio Pepper. Out of those three, who wants to kill you the most?”

“I don’t know,” Briggs said. “I didn’t boink any of their wives. Ron Siglowski and Buster Poletti don’t even have wives. And Pepper’s wife is comatose by noon.”

“Sounds like your kind of date,” Lula said.

“There are advantages,” Briggs said.

“What about Scootch and Tommy Ritt?” Connie asked. “They were shot at close range. How does that fit?”

“It doesn’t fit,” I said. “Maybe we’re looking at two different killers.”

“So far, only one of them is a killer,” Lula said. “And the other one has no luck at all.”

“Maybe you could let me live here at the office for a couple days until I figure things out,” Briggs said. “I could sleep on the couch, and if someone shoots a rocket through the window I’m close to the hospital.”

“Not happening,” Connie said.

“How about a motel room?” I said. “There are some inexpensive motels on the road to White Horse.”

“I’d be a sitting duck in a motel.”

“Maybe if you weren’t such a sleazebucket you wouldn’t be in this predicament,” Lula said. “You ever think of that?”