“Mostly Pizza Hut with a splash of Aunt Rose.”

I opened the door and Bob rushed out at us, nose twitching, eyes wild. He looked from Tank to Lula to me and then his head swung back to Lula and he gave a loud woof.

“What the . . .” Lula said.

Bob gave another woof, chomped down on Lula’s purse, ripped it out of her hand, and took off out the door down the street.

“Hey,” Lula yelled. “Come back with that! That’s my purse.” She looked to Tank. “Do something. I paid good money for that purse.”

Tank whistled, but Bob paid no attention. Bob was at the end of the block, tearing the purse to shreds. We jogged down to Bob and found him gnawing on a pork chop.

“That was my snack,” Lula said. “It was barbecue. I was looking forward to that pork chop.”

I took Bob by the collar and dragged him back to Morelli’s house.

“I’m on a diet,” Lula explained to Tank. “The fat just melts away on this diet, but you’ve gotta eat lots of pork chops.”

I locked Bob in the house and Lula and I drove back to the office with Tank following.

“That was sort of embarrassing,” Lula said. “It’s hard to explain a pork chop in your purse.”

“Sorry it all got destroyed.”

“Yeah, I really wanted that pork chop. I don’t care so much about the bag. I bought the bag from Ray Smiley, out of the back of his Pontiac. It was one of those things that accidentally fell off a truck.” Lula’s eyes got bigger. “Hey, we should make a stopover at the mall. I could get a new purse and then just for the hell of it we could go into Victoria’s Secret and see if Tank follows us in. That’s how you tell what a man’s really made of. It’s one thing for a man to be big and brave and kill a spider. Any man could do that. Trailin’ after a woman when she’s shopping for thongs and push-up bras is a whole other category of man. And then if you want to see how far you can go with it, you ask him to carry one of those little pink bags they give you.”

I’ve never been shopping with Ranger so I can’t say how he’d do with the Victoria’s Secret test. Morelli flunked hands down. Morelli takes off for soft-serve ice cream when I head for Victoria’s Secret.

“No time,” I told Lula. “Ranger’s picking me up at five o’clock.” And Ranger doesn’t like to be kept waiting.

AT PRECISELY FIVE, I saw Ranger’s truck ease to a stop in front of the bonds office. I grabbed my bag and my jacket and I went out to meet him. The instant I got in beside Ranger I saw Tank peel away and take off.

“I thought he was supposed to be guarding my body,” I said to Ranger.

Ranger looked at me with dark eyes. “It’s my turn to guard your body, babe.”