“Jeez,” Briggs said. “And she's a bounty hunter, too?”
“Well, she used to do makeovers at Macy's, but now she's working for Vinnie.”
“Bummer.”
“Yeah. So, how about it? Won't you let me bring you in? It won't be so bad. Honest.”
“Are you kidding? I'm not letting a loser like you bring me in. How would it look?”
Click. He hung up.
Loser? Excuse me? Loser? Okay, that does it. No more Ms. Nice Person. No more reasoning. This jerk is going down. “Open this door!” I yelled. “Open this goddamn door!”
A woman popped her head out from the apartment across the hall. “If you don't stop this racket I'm going to call the police. We don't put up with this kind of goings-?on here.”
I turned and looked at her.
“Oh, dear,” she said and slammed her door shut.
I gave Briggs' door a couple kicks with my foot and hammered on it with my fists. “Are you coming out?”
“Loser,” he said through the door. “You're just a stupid loser, and you can't make me do anything I don't want to do.”
I hauled my gun out of my shoulder bag and fired one off at the lock. The round glanced off the metal and lodged in the door frame. Christ. Briggs was right. I was a fucking loser. I didn't even know how to shoot off a lock.
I ran downstairs to the Buick and got a tire iron out of the trunk. I ran back upstairs and started whacking away at the door with the tire iron. I made a couple dents but that was about it. Bashing the door in with the tire iron was going to take a while. My forehead was beaded with sweat, and sweat stained the front of my T-?shirt. A small crowd of people had collected at the far end of the hall.
“You gotta get the tire iron between the door and the jamb,” an old man at the end of the hall said. “You gotta wedge it in.”
“Shut up, Harry,” a woman said. “Anyone can see she's crazy. Don't encourage her.”
“Only trying to be helpful,” Harry said.
I followed his advice and wedged the iron between the door and the jamb and leaned into it. A chunk of wood splintered off the jamb and some metal stripping pulled away.
“See?” Harry said. “I told you.”
I gouged some more chunks from the doorjamb down by the lock. I was trying to get the tire iron back in when Briggs opened the door a crack and looked out at me.
“What are you, nuts? You can't just destroy someone's door.”
“Watch me,” I said. I shoved the tire iron at Briggs and put my weight behind it. The security chain popped off its mooring, and the door flew open.
“Stay away from me!” he hollered. “I'm armed.”
“What, are you kidding me? You're holding a fork.”
“Yes, but it's a meat fork. And it's sharp. I could poke your eye out with this fork.”
“Not on your best day, Shorty.”
“I hate you,” Briggs said. “You're ruining my life.”
I could hear sirens in the distance. Swell. Just what I needed . . . the police. Maybe we could call in the fire department, too. And the dogcatcher. And hell, how about a couple newspaper reporters.
“You're not taking me in,” Briggs said. “I'm not ready.” He lunged at me with his fork. I jumped away, and the fork ripped a hole in my Levi's.
“Hey,” I said, “these were almost new pants.”