Disclaimer: I own Kole and nothing else.

Relatively Speaking

By

Kole

Previously…

"Now what?" Lula wanted to know. "I'm not going to have to go back to the filing, am I?"

"Sally Sweet's next up," I said, after rolling my eyes. I don't remember Lula ever filing and I was sure she wouldn't start today just because we didn't have anything to do.

"I'm in," Lula said.

Chapter 6

Sally lived on the opposite side of town. By the time we got there, he'd be done with his morning bus run, and it'd be a good time to bring him in and get him rebonded.

I called Morelli on the way over because I knew he would have news, I also wanted to see how Eddie was doing.

"He's going to be okay." Morelli said. "He'll probably get released from the hospital tomorrow."

"That's good. Anything else going on?"

"There was another devil holdup last night. This time the firebomb worked and the store burned down."

"Anyone hurt?"

"No. It was late at night, and the store was empty. The night manager got out the back door. The word on the street is that the Comstock Street Slayers are bragging about the cop shooting."

"So the Red Devil robberies are being done by someone in the Slayers. There probably isn't much chance of youfinding him" I said to Morelli, emphasizing the 'you' in my sentence.

"That would be my guess as well. To the best of our knowledge there are twenty-eight active Slayers. And probably that figure is low."

I wasn't even going to ask about riding around in the neighborhood. I really didn't want to, but I had a feeling that with the way things seem to work out, that I would be driving through their neighborhood sooner or later.

I disconnected and turned onto Fenton Street. It was easy to find Sally's house. A big yellow school bus was parked at the curb.

I pulled up behind the bus, and we all got out.

Sally opened the door with the security chain still in place. "I've changed my mind," he said. "I don't want to go."

"Well too bad, you're going" I told him.

"I didn't do anything wrong. And now if I go with you I'm going to have to pay more money, right? Vinnie's gonna have to write another bond, right?"

"Yeah. Okay how bout this, I'll go talk to Marty Sklar and try and get him to drop the charges. He is the one who hit on you right?" I said through the door.

"Yeah, do you know him?" Sally asked. It was kind of a trick question because I didn't know Marty but the real Steph did, but I did know where I could find him.

"Something like that." I said, not really lying.

"That'd be great. You're fucking amazing! Oh, f-f-fudge." SNAP! I winced and then smiled as Sally took the security chain off.

Grandma looked down at her watch. "You're going to have to take me home now. I have a beauty-parlor appointment this afternoon, and I don't want to be late. I got a lot of ground to cover today what with the shooting and all."

We said goodbye to Sally and I promised to let him what happened with Marty and then we were on our way to the burg. I dropped Grandma off in front of my parents' house. My sister's car was in the driveway.

"They're planning the wedding," Grandma said. "Ordinarily I'd be right there, but it looks to me like this is going on for days. They spent two hours this morning talking about what kind of suit Mr. Cutie Uggums was going to wear. I don't know how your mother does it. That woman has the patience of a saint."

"Who's Mr. Cutie Uggums?" Lula wanted to know.

"Albert Kloughn. He and Valerie are getting married." I told her.

"That's scary," Lula said.

"You have no idea." I replied.

Lula and I made our way to the Toyota dealership the Marty Sklar works at once we got rid of Grandma. I parked in the area reserved for customers, and Lula and I went searching for Sklar.

"This here's a butt-ugly showroom," Lula said. They should buy some new carpet. And what's with the nasty plastic chairs? For a minute there I thought I was back at the office."

A guy in a sports coat ambled over, and it took me a moment to realize it was Marty Sklar. He was short, his hair was balding, he was wearing glasses and he had a big beer belly.

"Stephanie Plum," Marty said. "I remember you. Joe Morelli used to write poems on bathroom walls about you."

"Yeah. I carry a gun now." I said, taking a step back as he leaned towards me. There was no way I was going to let this guy touch me or my lips. I might not have my gun on me right now, but I did still carry one usually.

"A gun." He said, as he wiggled his eyebrows and smiled a creepy slime ball smile. It gave me the urge to throw up. I took another step back as he stepped towards me again and my cell phone fell out of my pocket and broke into a couple pieces.

"Great, just great." I said, as I picked up the pieces and shoved them into my purse. I stood back up and saw Marty licking his lips. Yuck.

"Hey," Lula said when she saw him take another step towards me. "Why don't you back your ugly ass up before she uses her gun to shoot your fat ass!"

Sklar cut his eyes to Lula. "Who the hell are you?"

"I'm Lula. Who the hell are you?"

"I'm Marty Sklar."

"Hunh," Lula said.

"Here's the thing, Marty. I want to talk to you about Sally Sweet." I said, before Lula could say anything else.

"What about him?"

"I thought you might want to drop the charges. It turns out he's hired a really good lawyer who's found a bunch of witnesses who've officially stated you came on to Sweet." I decided to stick to what Steph said in the book. It worked and I wasn't really in the mood to come up with some other lie for this pig.

"He hit me with his guitar."

"That's true, but I thought you might not want it to go public about the sex thing."

Once I had convinced Marty to drop the charges against Sally me and Lula left the showroom.

We didn't say anything until we were out of the lot.

"Girl, you can lie!" Lula yelled when I turned my car onto Broad.

"You are the shit. I almost gave myself a hemorrhoid trying not to laugh back there. I can't believe how good you can lie. I mean I've seen you lie before, but this was like Satan lying. It was inspired lying."

I started laughing.

"It wasn't really me, I mean it was in the book and I just figured since it worked in the book it should work now too." I said, without realizing that I had just spilled my little secret.

"What do you mean in it worked in the book, White Girl? You said that book was over." Lula asked, watching me. "Are we in the next book? Is that why you been acting so weird?"

I drove two blocks up Broad and pulled into a Subway shop.

"Yes, this is the next book. Look let's get lunch and I'll fill you in." I said, hoping she would agree.

"Alright. I am hungry and I listen better when I've got food." Lula agreed.

We each got a sub. And then we each got six doughnuts. We sat in the car and ate the sub and the doughnuts, as I explained about how I realized it was the next book and then I gave her a general recap of the tenth book. I told her that I was going to tell her about it, I just wasn't really sure how to bring it up.

She listened and told me that she would help me anyway she could and she really didn't want anything bad to happen to me. She was also really excited that I was going to see Rangeman soon. She made me promise to tell her all about it.

I crumpled my wrappers and shoved them into the doughnut bag, after I finished talking and eating.

"So, what do you know about the Slayers?" I asked Lula.

"I know they're bad news. There's a whole bunch of gangs in Trenton. The Comstock Street Slayers and the Bad Killer Cuts are the two big ones. Used to be you only heard about Slayers on the West Coast, but they're everywhere now. Kids join up in prison, and then they bring it back to the street. Comstock Street is gangland these days."

"Morelli said the Slayers are bragging about shooting Eddie Gazarra."

"Bummer. You better watch out on account of you disrespected Red Devil, and he was hanging with those guys. Not to mention, you shot one of them. You don't want to get on the bad side of a Slayer. I'd be real careful of that if I was you."

"You're the one who shot up the devil guys tire!"

"Yeah, but he didn't know it was me. He probably thought it was you. You're the big-deal bounty hunter. I'm just a file clerk."

"Speaking of file clerk, I should really get you back so you can start on your filing for the day" I told her with a smile, knowing what she was going to say.

"Yeah, but who's gonna watch out for your ass then? Who's gonna help catch the bad guys? You know what we should do? We should go take a look around Comstock Street. Maybe we could get the Red Devil, then you wouldn't have to worry about the rest of the book. We can just cut it off right now."

"I don't want to get the Red Devil. He shoots at people. He's a police problem, besides this ends badly. Trust me, I know. I've read it."

"Boy, what's with you? You changed the last book, so why not change this one. You've already changed, you said you shot one of the guys in the SUV but the Steph in the book didn't. See already different."

"I am not going the go to Comstock Street. Even if I did change the book and something bad wouldn't happen, I am not going to risk it." I told her. I was not going to be reckless again, last time I did what the book did I got Eddie shot.

"Well, we don't have to actually do anything. We could just ride around in the neighborhood. Maybe talk to a couple people. I bet we could find out who the devil guy is. You're the only one who knows what he looks like."

Lucky me.

"Look Lula, nothing good comes from it and we almost get killed. Let's not and say we did." I told her.

"Okay, but I really don't want to go back to the office. I don't wanna file, I'd rather drive through hell."

"How about we go shopping instead? I need to get a new cellphone and a couple other things that I need." I asked, knowing she would probably like this idea.

"Shopping works too." Lula said.

I drove in the direction of the mall.

We shopped and talked for a couple hours. I got a new cellphone to replace my broken one, that I didn't have very long, and a new laptop because Steph's was kind of old. I also got a couple other little things that I needed. Lula helped me pick things out, she found me a cellphone case that was pretty colors and was ridged so it wouldn't fall as easy.

I was going to have to be more careful, I might have money now but not enough to keep buying new cellphone every month.

When we were done at the mall we headed back to the office. I didn't bother to ask Connie to search anything for me, I knew the Red Devil wouldn't be in our files. I also knew that Ranger is going to show up at the bond's office a few minutes after I get there and tell me he's 'going into the wind'.