Mrs. Zuppa was coming in from bingo just as I was leaving the building.

"Looks like you're going to work," she said, leaning heavily on her cane. "What are you packin'?"

"A thirty-eight."

"I like a nine-millimeter myself."

"A nine's good."

"Easier to use a semiautomatic after you've had hip replacement and you walk with a cane," she said.

One of those useful pieces of information to file away and resurrect when I turn eighty-three.

Auteur: Janet Evanovich