“Lula.”
There was some static and muffled talking. And the door buzzed open. I stepped inside, took Morelli’s gun out of my messenger bag, and crept up the stairs, feeling like an idiot. I had eight Chihuahuas and a gun in my hand. Could it get any more ridiculous?
I stopped at the head of the stairs and listened. Dead silence. I stepped into the apartment and my heart flipped. Buster was sitting on a chair from the dining table with his arms handcuffed behind his back. Lula was out cold on the floor, twitching. The hoodie guy had a gun trained on me.
“What’s going on?” I said, trying hard to control my voice so I didn’t sound like Minnie Mouse.
“Put the gun down,” the hoodie guy said.
“Nope.”
“I’ll shoot you.”
“Maybe I’ll shoot you first,” I said. “Who are you anyway?”
“Miguel.”
“What happened to Lula?”
“Stun gun,” Miguel said. “I think she knocked herself out when she went down. She got no muscle coordination. What’s with the dogs?”
“We thought Buster might want to adopt one.”
“Buster’s not going to be in shape to take care of a dog. You don’t pay up to your creditors, you die. That’s our message. We give him girls and drugs, and we expect payment. That’s fair, right?”
The Chihuahuas were in a pack, pressed against my ankles, shaking bad enough for their eyes to pop out of their heads and roll across the floor.
“Yeah,” I said, “that’s fair, but he can’t pay you if he’s dead.”
“Our accountant writes it off as a bad debt and we move on,” Miguel said. “You can only spend so much time on these losers. Time is money.”
“Okay,” I said. “So how about if I drag Lula out of here and let you get on with your business transaction.”
“No can do that. It wouldn’t be good for my health to leave witnesses like this. I’m going to have to kill all of you. Good thing I got a lot of bullets.”
He clearly thought this last statement was hilarious, and he totally cracked himself up.
“Wha,” Lula said, the twitches turning to thrashing. “Whaaaa’s happening?”
“I might have to shoot her first,” Miguel said.
Lula’s eyes slid half open. “Jesus?”
“No. I’m Miguel,” he said.
Lula pushed herself up to a sitting position. “I’m all tingly.”
“Stun gun,” I said.
“Oh yeah, now I remember. That asshole stun-gunned me.”
She got to her feet, tugged her ultrashort spandex skirt down over her ass, adjusted the girls, and glared at Miguel.
“What the hell’s the matter with you?” Lula said. “Didn’t your mama teach you anything? You got no manners. And where’s the rest of my pizza?”
The Chihuahuas had stopped vibrating and were at rigid attention, focused on Miguel, their tiny lips pulled back in a snarl.
“Move to the wall,” Miguel said to Lula. “Hands on your head.”
“What if I don’t want to?”
“I’ll shoot cutie pie here.”
“Why you gonna shoot her and not me?” Lula asked.
“She’s got a gun.”
I was still holding the gun on him, and I was feeling freaked. Not only was I totally incompetent with a gun, but I had the gun in one hand and a fistful of leashes attached to Chihuahuas in the other. I dropped the leashes to have better control if I had to shoot, and the Chihuahuas flattened themselves to the floor and stalked Miguel.
“That’s friggin’ creepy,” he said.
“You better believe it,” Lula said. “Those aren’t any ordinary feral Chihuahuas. Those are minions. Those are trained killer Chihuahuas.”
“Maybe I need to shoot them,” he said.
Lula went into angry rhinoceros stance. “Kill!” she said to the Chihuahuas.
The dogs lunged at Miguel and sank their tiny Chihuahua teeth into his pant legs and held on.
“What the fuck?” Miguel said, trying to shake the dogs off, swinging his gun at them.