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Buggy looked at Lula. “Do you have any more of them Snickers?”
“No,” Lula said, “but we’ll get more as soon as we drop Lahonka off.”
“You aren’t gonna leave me back here with King Kong, are you?” Lahonka said. “He got his fat ass on me, and I can’t breathe. Isn’t it enough you shot up my foot? I’m just a poor workin’ woman. I got kids to support.”
I drove to the municipal building and parked in the lot. I didn’t need police assistance. I could get Buggy to cart Lahonka across the street if she refused to walk. Lula and I got out and went to the back of the truck.
No Lahonka.
“I could have sworn Lahonka was here when we took off,” Lula said.
Buggy was sitting with his back against the rear window. “She got out at the last light.”
“You were supposed to make sure she didn’t escape,” I said to him.
“Yeah, but she said she was a mama, and she was cryin’. So I let her go.”
“That’s so sweet,” Lula said to Buggy. “You’re a man with a good heart.”
“It’s not sweet!” I said. “Lahonka Goudge is a con artist and a felon. She steals people’s identities. And Mr. Potato Head here just let her go.”
“Do I get my Snickers now?” Buggy asked.
“You get nothing,” I said. “NOTHING.”
Buggy squinched his face up. “You promised.”
“The deal was you’d get Snickers after we delivered Lahonka. Did we deliver Lahonka?” I asked him. “No, we did not. So you get nothing. There are consequences to all actions.”
“Nuh-ah. I do lots of things without them consequences.”
“Not in my truck,” I told him. “There are consequences in my truck.”
“That’s a good policy,” Lula said. “Just think where we’d be if we didn’t pay attention to consequences. Like, there’s consequences if you don’t got bullets in your gun. And there’s consequences if you eat bad potato salad. And there’s consequences if you’re not taking precautions with your sweetie pie.”
I had a flash of panic recalling a small inadvertent lapse in my birth-control program in Hawaii.
“Are you okay?” Lula asked me. “You got real pale just now, and you’re sort of sweating.”
“I was thinking about consequences.”
“Yeah, they freak me out, too,” Lula said.
EIGHTEEN
I OFF-LOADED LULA AND BUGGY at the bonds office so Lula could get her car
. Slasher and Lancer were still parked there, both of them sound asleep. Vinnie’s car and Connie’s car were gone, and the office was closed. Everyone left early on Saturday.
“I’m going to take you home in my Firebird,” Lula said to Buggy.
Buggy’s eyes got wide. “I want to drive.”
“Of course you do,” Lula said, “but this here’s a finely tuned machine.”
“Yuh.”
“Well, okay, since you’re so adorable,” Lula said. And she handed him her key.
