Dirty Thirty (Stephanie Plum, #30)
Janet Evanovich
CHAPTER ONE
I’m Stephanie Plum. Jersey girl. Rutgers graduate. Successful underachiever working for Vincent Plum Bail Bonds as a recovery agent, hunting down losers who’ve skipped out on their bond.
A half hour ago, I heard police chatter about Duncan Dugan exhibiting erratic behavior in an office building downtown. Dugan is a big-ticket bond who failed to show for his court appearance. He’s been accused of robbing a jewelry store on King Street at gunpoint, almost running over a crossing guard in his effort to leave the area, and leading seven police cars on a high-speed chase before running out of gas. Since I’d been assigned the task of finding Dugan and dragging his sorry butt back into the legal system, I rushed to the scene with my coworker Lula. Dugan was standing on a fourth-floor ledge. He was a little chubby with short brown hair and his eyes were hidden behind aviator shades. I knew from his arrest sheet that he was five foot ten and thirty-six years old, but he looked younger up there on the ledge. He looked like Charlie Brown, possibly because he was wearing a yellow and black Charlie Brown–style three-button knit shirt. He was flattened against the front of the building, and he was looking down at the crowd that had gathered below him.
“He’s gonna jump,” Lula said to me. “I got him pegged for a jumper.”
There was a large police presence in the area. There were fire trucks and ambulances, and a satellite news truck was parked not far away. It was lunchtime, and the outdoor eating area attached to the building’s café had been cleared of diners.
“I’m thinking this might be partly your fault on account of he knows you’re after him,” Lula said to me. “He probably don’t want to go to jail. You should yell up to him and tell him jail isn’t so bad. Tell him he’ll get free room and board and he’ll have a chance to make new friends.”
“I’m not yelling that up to him,” I said. “That’s crazy talk.”
“Yeah, but is it true?” Lula asked.
“Technically, yes.”
“Hunh,” Lula said. “There you have it.”
It was a nice October day in Trenton, New Jersey. The sky was as blue as sky gets in Trenton and the sun was shining. I was wearing jeans and sneakers and a hooded sweatshirt over my V-neck, fitted T-shirt. Lula was wearing spike-heeled, thigh-high boots, and as usual she’d managed to squeeze her plus-size body into a spandex dress designed to fit a much smaller person. Her hair was frizzed out into a big puffball and her fake lashes were furry black caterpillar quality. Lula is a person of color and I’m a person of less color. My eyes are blue. My hair is brown, naturally curly, and shoulder length. I’m lacking the patience to iron my hair into straightness or blow-dry it into luxurious waves, so it’s almost always in a ponytail. I make up for this by wearing lip gloss and smiling. Lula justifies the small dress and large lashes by being Lula. The fact is that it all works for her, and on a good day, she’s spectacular.
A woman pushed her way through the crowd and stepped out onto the street. I was guessing that she was in her midthirties, and if Duncan was Charlie Brown, then this woman was Charlie Brown’s friend Lucy. Her hair was dark brown, almost black, and cut medium short with short bangs. She was wearing a blue shirtwaist dress and blue running shoes.
“Duncan, you moron!” she yelled up to Dugan. “What the heck are you doing?”
“I’m gonna jump,” Dugan said. “I screwed up. It’s over. I’m jumping to my death.”
“Well, you better take a header then, because you’re only on the fourth floor. If you don’t fall right, you could just end up with a bunch of broken bones or maybe paralyzed.”
“I don’t like heights. Four is as high as I can go.”
“You need to crawl through that window next to you and get down here,” the woman yelled up to him.
“I’ll go to jail.”
“Big deal. My uncle Fritz went to jail, and he said it wasn’t so bad. He got free room and board and he got to make a bunch of new friends.”
“Fritz said that?”
“More or less. Anyway, it won’t be for so long, and in the meantime we can talk.”
“What would we talk about?”
“Stuff.”
He looked over at the window. “I don’t want to get broken bones.”
“You see?” Lula said to me. “You could have been the hero if you’d been the first one to tell him about making friends in jail. Although the business about broken bones was a good addition.”
Dugan turned to get to the window, his foot slipped, and he fell off the ledge. There was a collective gasp from everyone watching as Dugan crashed through the yellow and white awning that stretched over the sidewalk café and landed like a sack of wet cement on the pavement.
I’m not normally a fainter, but I came close to fainting when I heard him hit. I bent at the waist, sucked in air, and fought the nausea. When I straightened up, Dugan was surrounded by paramedics and police.
“Do you think he’s okay?” Lula asked.
“Not even a little,” I said.
“They’re bringing a stretcher over,” Lula said. “That might be a good sign.”
One of Dugan’s arms came up and he did a little finger wave. “I’m okay,” he said. “Sort of.”
The crowd dispersed after the wave and message from Dugan, but Lula and I stayed. The woman who had shouted up to Dugan approached the outer rim of the first responders, hung there for a couple minutes, and left.
The paramedics finally lifted Dugan onto the stretcher and rolled him off to the ambulance. I knew one of the men. Jerry Fisher.
“Where are you taking him?” I yelled to Jerry.
He turned and waved at me. “The medical center.”
I gave him a thumbs-up, and Lula and I walked down the street to my car.
* * *
I dropped Lula off at the bail bonds office on Hamilton Avenue and drove a couple more blocks to the hospital. The ambulance was parked in the ER drive-thru. I bypassed the drive-thru and went to the parking garage.
The bail bonds office and the medical center are on the fringe of the Burg. I grew up in the Burg and my parents still live there. It’s a residential chunk of South Trenton clinging to Hamilton Avenue, Chambers Street, and Liberty Street. Houses and yards are small. Televisions are large. Secrets are nonexistent. A few people cheat on their taxes but it’s okay because they’re grandfathered into the mob.
I checked in at the desk in the ER, showed them my papers for Dugan, certifying that I had the right to capture him, and took a seat in the waiting room. After an hour I was told Dugan was in surgery. Three hours later, he was out of surgery and in the ICU, hooked up to a bunch of machines. I talked my way into the ICU and approached Dugan. “Hey,” I said. “How’s it going?”
“Okay,” Dugan said, his voice barely a whisper.
“It looks like they have you all fixed up. I bet you’ll be as good as new in no time.”
Dugan blinked.