Lula reached out to snap the cuffs, and without warning the front and back doors crashed open. Joyce Barnhardt, dressed in swat black with "bounty hunter" emblazoned on her T-shirt, charged into the room with guns drawn. There were three other women with her, all dressed like Joyce, all armed like Rambo on rampage, all yelling "Freeze" at the top of their lungs and doing those squatting cop stances you see in the movies.

Margie's new lamp got knocked over and crashed on the floor, and Margie and Mrs. Nowicki and Maxine started yelling and running around, trying to protect their stuff. They were yelling "Oh no!" and "Help!" and "Don't shoot!" Lula dove behind the couch and made herself as small as anyone weighing two hundred pounds could make herself. And I was yelling at everyone to stop yelling.

There was a lot of confusion and a lot of people in that one small room, and it suddenly occurred to me that Maxine wasn't one of them. I heard gravel fly against the house and looked out the window to see Maxine gun the car out of the driveway and take off down the road.

I didn't have a car, so there wasn't much point in my rushing out. And I sure as hell wasn't going to help Joyce catch Maxine, so I didn't say anything. I just backed off and sat down in a big, overstuffed chair and waited for things to calm down. What I really wanted to do was to wade in and beat Joyce to a bloody pulp, but I didn't want to set a bad example for Lula.

Joyce had recruited her cousin Karen Ruzinski and Marlene Cwik to help with the takedown. I didn't know the third woman. Karen had two little kids, and I guess she was happy to get out of the house and do something different.

"Hey Karen," I said, "where are the kids? Day care?"

"They're with my mother. She's got a pool in her yard. One of those big ones with the deck around it." Karen set her gun down on the coffee table and pulled her wallet out of one of the pockets in her swat pants. "Look here," she said. "This is Susan Elizabeth. She starts school this year."

Mrs. Nowicki picked up Karen's gun, squeezed a shot off, and a chunk of plaster fell out of the ceiling onto the television set. Everyone stopped dead in their tracks and stared at Mrs. Nowicki.

Mrs. Nowicki leveled the gun at Joyce. "Party's over."

"You're in big trouble," Joyce said. "You're harboring a fugitive."

A humorless smile slashed Mrs. Nowicki's face. "Honey, I'm not harboring anything. Look around. You see a fugitive?"

Understanding registered in Joyce's eyes. "Where's Maxine?"

Now I was smiling with Mrs. Nowicki. "Maxine left," I said.

"You deliberately let her get away!"

"Not me," I said. "I wouldn't do such a thing. Lula, would I do such a thing?"