'Don't worry,' Lula said. 'I'm just locking the doors for good measure. We aren't going into the bad part of town. Well, okay, maybe it's a bad part of town, but it's not the worst part of town. We're not going into gangland. This here is the part of town where the unorganized criminals live.'

Grandma had her nose pressed to the glass. 'I've never seen anything like this,' she said. 'Everything's got writing on it. And there's a building that's been all burned out and now it's boarded up. Are we still in Trenton? Does the mayor know about this? How about Joe Juniak? Now that he's a congressman he should be looking into these things.'

'I used to work on this street when I was a 'ho,' Lula said.

'No kidding?' Grandma said. 'Isn't that something. Are there any working ladies out now? I sure would like to see one.'

We kept a look out for working ladies but none turned up.

'Slow time of the day,' Lula said.

Lula made a right onto Fisher, went one block, and parked in front of a narrow two-story house that looked like it was decaying from the bottom up. Clearly it had once been part of a row of attached houses, but the houses on either side had disappeared and only their connecting walls remained. The lots had been mostly cleared of debris, but the landscaping was war zone. An occasional piece of pipe remained, mixed into smatterings of crushed rubble that hadn't made the last truck out. A nine-foot-high razor wire fence had been erected around each of the lots. Refrigerators, washing machines, gas grills, lawn furniture, and a couple ATVs, all with varying degrees of rust, were displayed in the one lot. The second lot was filled with cars.

These lots are owned by a guy named Hog,' Lula said. 'Besides the lots he's got a garage on the next block. He buys junker cars at auction, fixes them up enough to get them running, and then sells them to dummies like us. Sometimes he gets cars from other sources, but we don't want to talk about that.'

Those would be the cars without registration?' I asked.

'Hog can get a registration for any car you want,' Lula said. It's just you gotta pay extra for it.'

Grandma was out of the Firebird. Those lawn chairs with the yellow cushions look pretty nice,' she said. 'I might have to take a look at them.'

I jumped out after her and grabbed her by the purse strap. 'Don't leave my side. Don't wander off. Don't talk to anyone.'

A large guy with skin the color of hot chocolate and a body like a cement truck strolled over to us. 'Lula tells me somebody wants to buy a car,' he said. 'You be happy to know you came to the right place because we got some fine cars here.'

'We don't want too fine a car,' Lula said. 'We're sort of shopping for a bargain.'

'How much of a bargain?'

'Two hundred dollars and that includes plates and registration.'

'That don't even cover my overhead. I got expenses. I got middlemen.'

'Your middlemen are all in jail,' Lula said. 'The only expenses you got is filling your car with gas so you can drive over to the workhouse to pick up your sorry-ass relatives.'

'Ouch,' Hog said. 'That's nasty. You're getting me all excited.'

Lula gave him a smack on the side of the head.

'I love when you do that,' Hog said.

'Do you have a car, or what?' Lula said. 'Because we can go down the street to Greasy Louey.'

'Course I got a car,' Hog said. 'Don't I always have a car? Have I ever failed you?' He looked at Grandma and me. 'Which of you lovely ladies is buying this car?'

'Me,' I said.

'What color you want?'

'A two-hundred-dollar color.'

He turned and considered the motley collection of cars huddled together behind the razor wire. Two hundred dollars don't get you much of a car. Maybe you be better to rent a car from Hog.' He walked over to a silver Sentra. 'I just got this car. It needs some body work, but it's structurally sound.'

Needs some body work was a gross understatement. The hood was crumpled and attached to the car with duct tape. And the left rear quarter panel was missing.

The thing is,' I said to Hog, 'I need a car that blends in. People would notice this car. They'd remember that they saw a car with only three fenders.'

'Not in this neighborhood,' Hog said. 'We got lots of cars look like this.'

'Look at her,' Lula said. 'She look like she gonna spend a lot of time in this neighborhood?'

'How about this car?' Grandma called out from across the lot. 'I like this car.'

She was standing in front of a purple Lincoln Town Car that was about a block long. It had terminal rust creeping up from the undercarriage, but the hood was attached in the normal fashion, and it had all its fenders.

'You could put a whole pack of killers in this car,' Grandma said.

'I didn't hear that,' Hog said. 'Don't matter to me who you hang with.'

"We don't hang with them. We arrest them,' Grandma said. 'My granddaughter's a bounty hunter. This here's Stephanie Plum,' she said proudly. 'She's famous.'

'Oh crap,' Hog said, eyes bugged out. 'Are you shitting me? Get out of here. You think I want to die?' He craned his neck, looking beyond us, up and down the street. 'Not only would the brothers like to get hold of her, I hear they brought someone special in from the coast.' He scrambled behind a car, putting some distance between the two of us. 'Go away. Shoo.'

'Shoo? Lula said. 'Did I hear you say shoo?'

'Some Slayer ride by here I be a dead man,' Hog said. 'Get her off my lot.'

'We came here to buy a car, and that's what we're gonna do,' Lula said.

'Fine. Take a car,' Hog said. 'Take anything. Just go away.'

'We want this pretty purple car,' Grandma said.

Hog gave Grandma another of the bug-eyed looks. 'Lady, that's an expensive car. That's a Lincoln Town Car. That's no two-hundred-dollar car!'

'We wouldn't want to cheat you,' Lula said. 'So we'll just wander around awhile and see if we like something less expensive.'

'No. Don't do that,' Hog said. 'Take the friggin' Lincoln. I got the keys in the house. I'll just be a minute.'

'Don't forget the plates and the registration,' Lula said.

Five minutes later, I had a temporary plate taped to my rearview window, Grandma was strapped into the passenger seat, and Lula was a car length ahead of us, en route back to the office.

'I feel like a movie star in this car,' Grandma said. 'It's like a big limousine. Not everybody can afford a car like this, you know. It must have belonged to somebody special.'

A gangster or a pimp, I thought.

'And it rides real smooth,' Grandma said. I had to admit the ride was smooth. The car was about the same size as Sally's bus and took two lanes to make a corner, but the ride was smooth.

Lula and I parked in front of the bonds office, and we all got out to reorganize.

'Now what?' Lula said. 'Are we going after Harold Pancek?'

'Yeah,' Grandma said. 'Are we going after Harold Pancek?'

'Lula and I are going after Harold Pancek,' I said. 'I should take you home first.'

'No way! What if you need an old lady to quiet him down?'

My mother would cut me off from pineapple upside-down cake for the rest of my life if she knew I took Grandma on a bust. Then again, I'd just driven Grandma down Stark Street, so I was most likely screwed already.

'Okay,' I said. 'You can go with us, but you have to stay in the car.'

I felt obligated to say this but it was an empty demand because Grandma never stayed in the car. Grandma was always the first out of the car. I was taking her along because I really didn't think we were going to find Pancek at home. Pancek had been here for a couple years but hadn't seemed to put down roots. According to Connie's background search, Pancek's relatives and longtime friends were in Newark. I was guessing that after last night Pancek skipped back to Newark.