Fearless Fourteen - Janet Evanovich [35]
I took a shower and changed into clean clothes. No more Rangeman black. That job was done. I was about to get a pot of coffee going when Connie called.
“You need to come to the office,” she said. “We have a situation.”
“What does that mean? What’s a situation?”
“You have to see for yourself.”
I locked up my apartment and went down to the lot to the Zook car. I checked the sky. No clouds. That meant no rain. The paint wouldn’t get washed away again today. When I picked Zook up from school, I was going to make him wash my car. And then I’d have him scrub my mom’s door and sidewalk.
Ten minutes later, I cruised by the office. Lula’s Firebird was parked curbside behind a black stretch limo and a TV news van. Just keep driving, I told myself. This smells like Brenda.
I was two blocks away when my phone rang.
“We saw you drive by,” Connie said.
“Maybe it wasn’t me.”
“How many cars have Zook written all over them?”
“I couldn’t find a parking place.”
“There’s lots of parking. Lula’s outside waiting for you to turn around. If you don’t turn around, she’s going to get in her car and come after you.”
“I’m pretty sure I could lose her.”
“I wouldn’t count on it. She’s really motivated.”
I hung up, hooked a U-turn, and parked in front of the limo.
Lula came running. “Hurry up!” she yelled at me. “Everybody’s inside waiting for you!”
She was dressed entirely in black leather. High-heeled stiletto boots, short black leather skirt, black leather bustier, and a black leather bomber jacket that had CRIME BUSTERS stitched in gold on the back. If you were a guy and you ordered a dominatrix by the pound, Lula would be a wet dream come true.
I got out of the Zookmobile and followed Lula into the office. Brenda was there with her hair teased up. She was dressed in tight black leather pants and a black leather vest. Nothing under the vest but Brenda. Nancy was with her, plus a man and a woman I didn’t know. A camera crew sat slouched on the couch, their equipment at their feet.
“What’s up?” I asked, not actually wanting to hear the answer.
“This is Mark Bird and his producer, Jenny Walen,” Nancy said. “Some suit at Fox was watching the local feed last night and got the brilliant idea of teaming Brenda up with you and Lula on a bust for a Sunday-night special. Mark is going to run point with it.”
I put my finger to my eye to stop the twitching. “Don’t we already have enough bounty hunter shows on television?”
“Not with Brenda,” Mark said. “I think we could really get ratings with this. It would be a cross between Dog the Bounty Hunter and Paris Hilton’s The Simple Life.”
Eeek!
“Trouble is, you’re not dressed the part,” Lula said to me. “You gotta be in black leather.”
“I’m not wearing black leather,” I told her. “And you shouldn’t, either. You look like an S&M ad.”
“This is bounty hunter clothes,” Lula said. “All the bounty hunters on television wear clothes like this.”
I pressed my finger harder against my eyeball. “First off, no real bond enforcer dresses like that. It’s like announcing, Here comes the bounty hunter. And second, my mother would have a heart attack if she saw me in that getup.”
“Yeah, but you’re always giving your mother a heart attack,” Lula said. “And anyways, you haven’t seen the best part. They had jackets made for us. And they got the show’s name on the back and our names on the front. It’s like we’re Charlie’s Angels.”
“For crissake,” Brenda said to me. “You’re a bounty hunter. Buy into the stereotype and get it over with. And here’s something to consider. I’m getting a crack at reality TV, and I’ll kick your ass from here to kingdom come if you screw it up for me.”
“I think you should ask Ranger to do this,” I said to Nancy. “He’d be a better partner for Brenda.”
“We already asked him, and he turned it down,” Brenda said.
“This isn’t a good idea,” I said to Connie.
“They called Vinnie last night, and he thinks it’s a great idea. It’s out of my hands.”
“Can I discuss this with you in private?” Lula said to me. “Would you step into my office behind the building