Three to Get Deadly by Janet Evanovich Read Free Book Online Page A

backs of our hands, not finding any worthy of purchase.
    We crossed the mall and took a moment to scope out the hot dog place. Thanks to the weather and the time of day, the mall was relatively empty. That was good. We’d make less of a spectacle of ourselves and Stuart. There were no customers buying hot dogs. One person worked the counter. That one person was Stuart Baggett, right down to his little plastic name tag.
    What I needed here was a pimpled skin-head. Or a big nasty ogre-type guy. I needed an arrest where the lines were clearly drawn. I didn’t want another Mo fiasco. I wanted bad man against the good bounty hunter.
    What I had was Stuart Baggett, five feet, six inches tall, with freshly cut sandy blond hair and eyes like a cocker spaniel. I did amental grimace. I was going to look like an idiot arresting this guy.
    “Remember,” I said to Lula, “I do the talking. And most of all, don’t shoot him.”
    “Not unless he starts something.”
    “He isn’t going to start something, and even if he does there will be no shooting! ”
    “Hunh,” Lula said. “No pocketbooks, no perfume, no shooting. You got an awful lot of rules, you know that?”
    I put my hands on the counter. “Stuart Baggett?”
    “Yes ma’am,” he said. “What can I get for you? Chili dog? Frank-n-kraut? Cheese dog?”
    I showed him my identification and told him I represented his bond agent.
    He blinked. “Bond agent?”
    “Yeah,” Lula said. “The Italian pervert who sprung your white ass from the tank.”
    Stuart still looked confused.
    “You missed your court date,” I said to Stuart.
    His face brightened as the lightbulb suddenly snapped on. “Right! My court date. I’m sorry about that, but I had to work. My boss, Eddie Rosenberg, couldn’t find anybody to sub for me.”
    “Did you inform the court of this fact and ask to have your date rescheduled?”
    His face returned to nobody home. “Should I have done that?”
    “Oh boy,” Lula said. “Stupid alert.”
    “You need to check in with the court,” I told Stuart. “I’ll give you a ride downtown.”
    “I can’t just walk off,” he said. “I’m the only one working today. I have to work until nine.”
    “Maybe if you called your boss he could find someone to fill in for you.”
    “Tomorrow’s my day off,” Stuart said. “I could go tomorrow.”
    On the surface that sounded like a reasonable idea. My bounty hunting experience, limited as it was, told me otherwise. When tomorrow arrived Stuart would have pressing plans that didn’t include a trip to the pokey.
    “It would be best if we took care of this today,” I said.
    “It would be irresponsible,” Stuart said, starting to look panicky. “I can’t do it now.”
    Lula grunted. “It isn’t like you’re doing big business here. We’re in the middle of a slush storm, Stuart. Get real.”
    “Does she work for my bond agent too?” Stuart asked.
    “You bet your ass I do,” Lula said.
    I looked out at the mall, and then I lookedat Stuart and his hot dog concession. “She’s right, Stuart,” I said. “This mall is empty.”
    “Yeah, but look, I’ve got all these hot dogs on the grill.”
    I scrounged in the bottom of my pocketbook and came up with a twenty. “Here’s enough money to cover them. Throw the hot dogs in the trash and close up.”
    “I don’t know,” Stuart said. “They’re really good hot dogs. It doesn’t seem right to throw them away.”
    I did some mental screaming. “Okay, then wrap them up. We’ll take them with us.”
    “I want two chili dogs,” Lula said. “And then I want two with sauerkraut and mustard. And do you have any of them curly fries?”
    Stuart looked at me. “How about you? How do you want the rest of the hot dogs?”
    “Plain.”
    “Hunh-uh,” Lula said. “You better get some chili dogs for Connie. She’s gonna be real disappointed she sees my chili dogs, and she’s left with some plain-ass dog.”
    “Okay, okay! Two more chili