Stephanie Plum, Bounty Hunter

We slouched down, arms crossed over our chests, seat pushed back to give more leg room. Ranger never said anything when we waited like this. Ranger had a conversational potential only slightly greater than Rex's. That was fine by me because I had my own thoughts.

He called my name, and I felt my hair stand on end like the cartoon version of an electrocuted cat.

"What the hell is George's finger doing in your pocketbook?"

It was one thing for me to snub Morelli. It was an entirely different matter for him to snub me. This was not how the game was played.

In times of crisis, when a person reacts on instinct, that person does whatever is most comfortable. I did what any other American woman would do in a similar circumstance. I roundhoused Ramirez square on the side of his head with my purse.

That's the neat part about a hamster. It doesn't take much to make a hamster happy.

We pushed and pulled, and inch by inch, got Sampson's big ugly blob of putrid flesh off the seat and onto the pavement.

"This is why I became a cop," Costanza said. "I couldn't resist the glamor of it all."

"What's the matter? This the first time you've seen a hung-over transvestite?"

"Not me," Lula said. "I've seen lots of 'em."

I knocked, and the door swung open. "Hello?" I called. No answer. I went room to room and was relieved not to find anyone dead, or scalped, or hacked into little pieces.

My mother and grandma were small women and had grown smaller with age. They were dainty-boned and petite, with baby-fine hair. Probably they were descended from pampered, caravan-cosseted Gypsy women.

I, on the other hand, was a throwback to some plow-pulling, rawboned wife of a barbarian farmer.

I was surprised anyone noticed the damage on the cop cars. Trenton's blue-and-whites had not gone gently into the night. Trenton's blue-and-whites all looked like they'd survived Bosnia.

Lula jumped out of the car and took off across the street after Mo. She had a half-eaten Boston creme in her hand, and she was getting pelted with rain and she was yelling, "Stop! Stop in the name of the law!"

Look out world. Bounty hunter in action.

I hauled Rex's cage off the front seat. "Now remember," I said, "no sniveling over the fact that our life is sucky. And no getting all mushy because Morelli is so hot. And no crying. We don't want Morelli thinking we're losers."

I hauled myself into the store and got myself a grape popsicle. "Hadda akthident," I said to the clerk. "My lip ith thwollen."

"Yo," Ranger said.

"It's Stephanie. What's happening?"

"Gonna be a party. Think you should get dressed for it."

"You mean like heels and stockings?"

"I mean like a thirty-eight S and W."

"Joe's Grandma Bella?" Mary Lou gasped. "Oh shit! Bella didn't give you the eye, did she? Remember when she put it on Raymond Cone and all his hair fell out?"

"Worse than that, she told me I was pregnant."

Grandma had climbed onto a blackjack table and was standing, sneakered feet planted wide. The dealer made a grab for her, and Grandma hit him on the head with her purse.

"I can't believe you did that!" I said to Lula. "You can't just go around shooting out people's tires!"

"Look again," Lula said.

Ranger ran effortlessly for several blocks. His stride was steady and measured. His attention directed inward. I struggled beside him... nose running, breathing labored, attention directed to surviving the next moment.

My mother slid an extra plate on the table. "It's certainly nice to have company," she said to Spiro. "We're always telling Stephanie she should bring her friends home for dinner."

"Yeah, except lately she's gotten so picky with her men friends she don't see much action," Grandma told Spiro.

I dressed in T-shirt and shorts and laced up my running shoes. Running isn't one of my favorite activities, but it was time to get serious about the job, and keeping in shape seemed like part of it.

"Thirty years old and you're still dressing in those teeny-bopper outfits. How will you ever catch a nice man like that?"

"I don't want a man. I had one, and I didn't like it."

I knew it was Morelli because my nipples contracted at the sound of his voice.

Grandma Mazur and I huddled close to the door, ever on the alert should my car cruise by. It was an uneventful, tedious wait, and Grandma seemed disappointed not to have been approached by drug dealers or pimps looking for fresh blood.

This was a community of extended families. There was safety here, along with love, and stability, and the comfort of ritual. The clock on the dash told me I was seven minutes late, and the urge to scream told me I was home.

I left Kuntz fiddling with his boom box. I'm not sure why I'd felt compelled to see him in person. I suppose I wanted to look him in the eye and learn if he'd scalped Maxine's mother.

Sally slouched onto the couch. "When I was a kid I watched reruns of Steve McQueen. Now he was a bounty hunter."

"Damn skippy," Lula said. "He was the shit."

I could manage a mortuary at seven at night when it was filled with the K of C. I wasn't crazy about tippy-toeing around at eleven in the morning, just me and Spiro and the dead people.

He glanced at the black leather bag I had draped on my shoulder. "You carrying?"

"Yes."

"Is it loaded?"

I stuck my hand in the bag and rooted around. "I'm not sure, but I think I've got a few bullets in here somewhere..."