“I need to go to Macy‘s,” Lula said. “They‘re having a shoe sale. I got a big date to night, and now I need replacement hot shoes.”
I got to my feet and limped out onto the sidewalk, where two scrawny guys in baggy pants and wall-?to-?wall tattoos were standing by Lula‘s Firebird, trying to jimmy the door.
“Get away from my baby,” Lula shouted. And she opened fire on the two guys.
“Stop shooting,” I said.
“You can‘t kill them, either.”
“You got a lot of rules,” Lula said to me. “To hear you talk, I can‘t kill anybody.”
The two guys peeked out from behind the Firebird.
“Crazy bitch,” the one said. “We were just gonna steal your car. It‘s not like it‘s a big deal. You park a car here, it gets stolen. Everyone knows that.”
“I just broke my Via Spigas, and I‘m in no mood,” Lula said. “I‘m giving you two seconds to get invisible, and then I‘m putting a cap in your ass.”
The two guys grabbed hold of their pants and walked away, swaying as they walked on feet encased in unlaced basketball shoes that seemed way too big for their stick bodies.
“Between the pants and the shoes, it‘s a wonder they can walk at all,” Lula said.
This coming from a woman in four-?inch heels and a dress that fit her like a condom.
Lula checked her car over to make sure it wasn‘t scratched, and we got in and motored back to the bonds office.
“So what‘s this big date?” I asked her.
“Me and Tank are gonna talk about the wedding. You know, we didn‘t have enough time to do the June wedding, what with Tank needing a special-?made tuxedo and all, so now I‘m thinking a Christmas wedding would be okay.”
“Does Tank want a Christmas wedding?”
“Hard to tell. He don‘t say. He starts to sweat soon as I talk about it. I swear, sometimes I wonder if I want to spend eternity with a man who sweats like that. He‘s gonna sweat all over my wedding gown. I‘m gonna have to treat it with one of them water-?repellent chemicals before I wear it. I‘m gonna have to wear a raincoat when we dance.”
“Tank dances?”
“He don‘t now, but I signed him up for lessons.”
“No wonder he‘s sweating.”
Lula pulled to the curb in front of the office. “Tell Connie I got a shopping emergency, and I‘ll see her tomorrow.”
I waved Lula off and went in to see Connie.
“Anything on the police bands about the body in the car on Crocker?” I asked her.
“Not much. I heard the call go in. At first, I thought it was just another body in a car, but then I caught a conversation from one of the EMS guys. He said the victim‘s neck was broken, and he had two handprints burned into his neck.”
Crap. Diesel was right.
“Has the dead guy been identified?”
“I haven‘t heard anything.”
I told Connie about Guzzi and Lula‘s shopping emergency. I took a couple candies from the jar on Connie‘s desk and speed-?dialed Morelli‘s number on my cell phone.
“Yeah?” Morelli said.
When Morelli left my apartment at five-?thirty this morning, he was in jeans and an oversize blue-?and-?white striped shirt from the Gap. His black hair was still damp from the shower, a month overdue for a cut, curling around his ears and down the nape of his neck. The memory was warm and sexy down low in my stomach, resurrected by the sound o