“Do you know something about Buster that would incriminate him?”
“No more than everyone else does. Everyone knew he was in Mexico. And now that it’s come out about the girls, you could assume Buster was part of that. I guess I know more about the money.”
“What about the money?”
“There was a lot of it.”
“In Mexico?”
“Yeah,” Briggs said. “But I don’t know exactly where. Not exactly, only approximately.”
“Good grief.”
“So how about it? Maybe you could go talk to Buster.”
“I can’t just go talk to Buster. What would I say?”
“You could ask him if he’s trying to kill me. And then you could tell him to cut it out or else.”
I left Briggs in my apartment and drove back to the bail bonds office.
“Where’s your little buddy?” Lula asked.
“I left him in my apartment. It’s sort of habitable.”
“Aren’t you afraid someone’s going to shoot another rocket through your wall if Briggs is living there?”
“Yes, but it was the best of all the alternatives.”
“You better hope the police find this rocket shooter guy,” Lula said.
I hiked my messenger bag higher on my shoulder. “I’m going to talk to Buster,” I said.
“I’ll go with you,” Lula said. “Maybe I’ll get a look at the killer Chihuahuas. And besides, I want to ride in Ranger’s Porsche.”
Ordinarily you wouldn’t park a decent car on Stark Street, but Ranger’s car was so expensive that it was protected against theft or vandalism. It would be thought that Ranger’s Porsche belonged to either a high-level drug dealer or someone making a major drug investment. And the locals didn’t want to mess with either of those kinds of people. The locals knew to protect the marketplace. Not to mention the Porsche had an alarm system that could be heard for miles. I found a parking place on Stark, and Lula and I marched over to Buster’s building and rang the buzzer on his intercom.
“Talk to me,” Buster yelled.
“It’s Stephanie Plum,” I said. “I came to show you my breasts.”
“Come on up.” And he buzzed the door open.
“That works good,” Lula said. “That’s better than the pizza delivery thing. I gotta remember this.”
Buster was waiting for us at the top of the stairs.
“Two for the price of one,” he said.
“Bad news,” I told him. “I lied about the breasts.”
“How about her?” he said. “I’d rather see hers anyway.”
“Sure,” Lula said.
She pulled one out of her tanktop, and I clapped my hands over my eyes.
“Holy crap,” Buster said. “That’s massive.”
“And because I’m in a good mood,” she said to Buster, stuffing herself back into her clothes, “I’m not even going to charge you for looking.”
“About the real reason for this visit …,” I said.
“You got Jimmy behind bars,” Buster said. “Now what?”
“I want to talk to you about Randy Briggs. Are you trying to kill him?”
“Gee, why would anyone want to kill Briggs? He’s such a sweet guy.”
“Actually, I don’t care if you want to kill him,” I said. “I just don’t want another rocket shot into my apartment. And I don’t want to find Briggs bleeding on my floor. So if you want to kill him, I’d appreciate it if you’d do it someplace far away from my apartment.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Buster said. “You sure you don’t want to show me your tits?”
“I’m sure.”
“Do you want to see mine?”
“No!”