Step, stomp, step, stomp, step, stomp.

The boot came to mid calf, was foam-padded and held secure with thick Velcro straps. The bottom of the boot was two inches of hard molded plastic. When Grandma walked, she was tipped to one side, since one leg was two inches longer now than the other.

“I feel gimpy in this boot,” Grandma said. “And my butt cheeks don’t match up. One feels higher than the other. I can’t squeeze to keep the breezers in.”

“We’ll keep the windows open on the way home,” Lula said.

Grandma looked down at the boot. “It’s pretty nifty, though. I can’t wait to show this to your mother. I bet this could get us one of those handicap parking signs. And I got some pills for when the Jack Daniels wears off.”

I brought the Jeep around to the drive-through, boosted Grandma up into it, and drove her home. I’d called ahead, and my mother was waiting at curbside.

“Here she is,” I said, lowering Grandma down to my mother. “Almost as good as new.”

“For the love of Pete,” my mother said.

“I was doing a lunge, and I broke my foot,” Grandma told her. “But it’s only a little bit broke.”

“I have to go,” I said to my mother. “I have to get back to the office.”

“Can you walk?” my mother asked my grandmother.

“Of course I can walk,” Grandma said. “Look at this.”

Step, stomp, step, stomp, step, stomp.

“Whoops,” Grandma said. And she face-planted on the grass.

Lula and I jumped out of the Jeep and rushed over.

“It’s the dang boot,” Grandma said. “It’s got me all lopsided.”

CONNIE WAS AT her desk when we walked into the bonds office.

“We would have been here sooner,” Lula said, “but we had to go on a mission of mercy. Grandma Mazur broke her foot dancing to an exercise video, and we had to get her fixed up.”

“Is she okay?” Connie asked.

I took my usual seat in front of the desk. “Yes. They put her in an orthopedic boot and sent her home.”

“And we got more news,” Lula said. “We got good news, and we got bad news, and it’s all the same news. We found Vinnie.”

Connie’s eyebrows rose a couple inches. “Are you serious?”

“They’ve got him in a back apartment in Sunflower’s building on Stark Street,” I said. “Lula heard him through the door. They’ve got a guy in there with him, and there’s a guy at the entrance downstairs. There aren’t any bars on the back windows, and there’s a rusted fire escape, but you’d die trying to get Vinnie out that way.”

“Do you have any ideas?” Connie asked me.

“No. None. And I don’t think the stink bomb will work. They’ll haul Vinnie out of the building under armed guard, and they won’t let go of him.”

“We need a diversion,” Lula said. “We need to get the guard out of the apartment. Then someone can go in and drag Vinnie’s worthless ass out of there.”