Seven Up - By Janet Evanovich Page 0,3

someone . . ."

I carefully opened Eddie's door and stepped into the foyer. "Mr. DeChooch?"

"Go away."

The voice came from the living room to my right. The shades were drawn and the room was dark. I squinted in the direction of the voice.

"It's Stephanie Plum, Mr. DeChooch. You missed your court date. Vinnie is worried about you."

"I'm not going to court," DeChooch said. "I'm not going anywhere."

I moved farther into the room and spotted him sitting in a chair in the corner. He was a wiry little guy with white rumpled hair. He was wearing an undershirt and boxer shorts and black socks with black shoes.

"What's with the shoes?" Lula asked.

DeChooch looked down. "My feet got cold."

"How about if you finish getting dressed and we take you to reschedule," I said.

"What are you, hard of hearing? I told you, I'm not going anywhere. Look at me. I'm in a depression."

"Maybe you're in a depression on account of yon haven't got any pants on," Lula said. "Sure would make me feel happier if I didn't have to worry about seeing your Mr. Geezer hanging out of your boxer shorts."

"You don't know nothing," DeChooch said. "You don't know what it's like to be old and not to be able to do anything right anymore."

"Yeah, I wouldn't know about that," Lula said.

What Lula and I knew about was being young and not doing anything right. Lula and I never did anything right.

"What's that you're wearing?" DeChooch asked me. "Christ, is that a bulletproof vest? See, now that's so fucking insulting. That's like saying I'm not smart enough to shoot you in the head."

"She just figured since you took out that ironing board it wouldn't hurt to be careful," Lula said.

"The ironing board! That's all I hear about. A man makes one mistake and that's all anybody ever talks about." He made a dismissive hand gesture. "Ah hell, who am I trying to kid. I'm a has-been. You know what I got arrested for? I got arrested for smuggling cigarettes up from Virginia. I can't even smuggle cigarettes anymore." He hung his head. "I'm a loser. A fuckin' loser. I should shoot myself."

"Maybe you just had some bad luck," Lula said. "I bet next time you try to smuggle something it works out fine."

"I got a bum prostate," DeChooch said. "I had to stop to take a leak. That's where they caught me . . . at the rest stop."

"Don't seem fair," Lula said.

"Life isn't fair. There isn't nothing fair about life. All my life I've worked hard and I've had all these . . . achievements. And now I'm old and what happens? I get arrested taking a leak. It's goddamn embarrassing."

His house was decorated with no special style in mind. Probably it had been furnished over the years with whatever fell off the truck. There was no Mrs. DeChooch. She'd passed away years ago. So far as I knew there'd never been any little DeChooches.

"Maybe you should get dressed," I said."We really need to go downtown."

"Why not," DeChooch said. "Don't make no difference where I sit. Could just as well be downtown as here." He stood, gave a dejected sigh, and shuffled stoop-shouldered to the stairs. He turned and looked at us. "Give me a minute."

The house was a lot like my parents' house. Living room in front, dining room in the middle, and kitchen overlooking a narrow backyard. Upstairs there'd be three small bedrooms and a bathroom.

Lula and I sat in the stillness and darkness, listening to DeChooch walking around above us in his bedroom.

"He should have smuggled Prozac instead of cigarettes," Lula said. "He could have popped a few."

"What he should do is get his eyes fixed," I said. "My Aunt Rose was operated on for cataracts and now she can see again."

"Yeah, if he got his eyes fixed he could probably shoot a lot more people. I bet that'd cheer him up."

Okay, maybe he shouldn't get his eyes fixed.

Lula looked toward the stairs. "What's he doing tip there? How long does it take to put a pair of pants on?"

"Maybe he can't find them."

"You think he's that blind?"

I shrugged.

"Come to think of it, I don't hear him moving around," Lula said. "Maybe he fell asleep. Old people do that a lot."

I went to the stairs and yelled up at DeChooch. "Mr. DeChooch? Are you okay?"

No answer.

I yelled again.

"Oh boy," Lula said.

I took the stairs two at a tine. DeChooch's bedroom door was closed, so I rapped on it hard. "Mr.