Bruce, but watched Angelica out of my periphery. She hadn’t moved a muscle. She was standing back, as if she was waiting to see what happened before she got in on the action.
“Will you shut up,” Jimmy screamed at Bruce.
Bruce had dropped his gun and was hopping around on one foot. “She shot off my toes!” he yelled.
Rosemarie had flipped onto her back and was spinning around like a turtle on its shell as she tried to get to Bruce’s weapon, but she finally gave up and gave it a mighty kick so it went skidding across the pavement in the opposite direction.
The kick of the gun had blown Scarlet clear back against the wall. Her lip was split and bleeding and her Madonna wig had finally heaved its last breath and was lying on the ground like a drowned rat. Her real hair stood up in a shock of white.
Jimmy moved to lift his gun.
“Drop it!” I told him. “I’ll shoot.”
Jimmy paused long enough to look at Angelica for backup, but she just laughed—the kind of laugh that only the truly crazy could perfect—and she slowly walked a circle around us, eyeing each of us in turn like we were rats in a cage.
I heard the whump, whump, whump before the sound faded again.
“I’m telling you to stop that screaming, Bruce, or I’m going to be the one to shoot you next time,” Jimmy said.
He had the panicked look of a man who’d lost control of the situation and he was trying to figure out how to get it back. He was waving his gun between Scarlet and me and Angelica, keeping us all in check. Every time the gun passed over me my heart stopped.
We all froze as we heard the rev of an engine and the squeal of tires just before metal crashed against metal. There was another squeal of tires, and then an orange blur turned down our row and headed straight for us. We were all trapped between the Corvette and my mother in the General Lee.
I could see my mother clearly behind the windshield, and her eyes were wide as she caught sight of us and slammed on the brakes. The smell of burning rubber was overwhelming as the car door flung open and my mother hopped out, pumping her shotgun.
“Where’s my husband, you filthy tramp?” she asked. It would’ve been a lot more intimidating if she hadn’t been dressed for her Jazzercise class. There was something about leg warmers and shotguns that was a crime against nature.
“You would be amazed how many times I’ve been in this exact same situation,” Angelica said, staring at my mom.
“This isn’t the time for sass,” my mother said. “I’ve had it up to my eyeballs with all the lies and conspiracies.” Then she spotted Vince on the ground. I thought I saw his eyes flutter open, but he seemed to have second thoughts and closed them again so it looked like he was passed out.
Bruce whimpered again. He’d fallen to the ground and was cradling his foot while he rocked pitifully back and forth. Rosemarie still hadn’t made any progress in getting up, and she’d worn herself out trying.
It was then I realized there was only one reason why my mother would have known where we were, and I glared at Rosemarie. “You texted her, didn’t you?
“Don’t blame her, honey,” my mother said. “I made her promise to let me know the second y’all found Vince. I knew you’d be too busy seeing to the details. Why in the world are you dressed like you belong on Swamp People, and why does Scarlet look like Don King?”
“It’s been a busy afternoon,” I said. “And before anyone else does anything stupid—because believe me right now when I tell you the list of stupid is long—everyone needs to know that the police and FBI are both on the way. It’s cuffs or body bags. Your choice.”
“You people are crazy,” Jimmy said.
“Don King?” Scarlet asked. “Did my hair fall off?” Then she looked at my mother and narrowed her eyes. “Well, at least I don’t look like a cast member of Xanadu.”
“I like your family very much,” Angelica said. “It reminds me of Puerto Rico.”
“I don’t mean to be rude,” I said. “But you seem like the kind of woman who’d have shot things up and burned it to the ground by now. What are you doing here?”
“I’m here to save Vinny, of course,” she said. “I couldn’t let these