'It's good to be a cop,' I said to him.
'Sometimes.'
We entered through the back door, skirted around the kitchen, walked past the restrooms, and stepped into a large room, packed with people. The stagnant air was saturated with kitchen grease and smelled like beer and booze and weed. There was a small stage at one end. The stage was set with amps and standup mics. A mahogany bar stretched the length of one wall, and everywhere else there were round tables crammed with chairs. There was at least one person sitting in every chair. The noise level was set at roar. Most of the women were in tube tops and shorts. The men wore jeans and muscle shirts, chains and tattoos. I was still in my jeans and little T-shirt. Morelli was wearing a gun on his ankle and at his back, both covered by clothes.
Morelli snagged a waitress by the strap on her tank top, gave her a twenty, and ordered two Coronas.
'You're disturbingly good at this,' I said to Morelli.
'I had a wild youth.'
That was an understatement. Morelli had been a womanizer and a bar brawler of the first magnitude. I slipped my hand into his, and we smiled at each other, and it was one of those moments of understanding that happens between people with a long history together.
I chugged down a cold Corona and stood close to Morelli. The lights blinked, and the What appeared onstage. There was a guy on drums, a guy on keyboard, and a guy on bass. They set up and rapped out a fanfare. No one on the floor paid any attention. And then Lula and Sally came out and everyone turned and gaped.
Lula was wearing the gold dress and spike-heeled shoes, and Sally was wearing his guitar, dangly red sparkly earrings, four-inch red sequined heels with two-inch platform soles, and a red-sequined thong. He'd foregone his usual platinum Marilyn Monroe wig and was au naturel in his shoulder-length, kinky curled black hair. His big, gangly, hairy body ambled up to the mic, and he gave a loud strum on the guitar that brought the house down.
'I usually wear a dress,' Sally said. 'But people told me it might not go over here, so I wore this thong instead. What do you think?'
Everyone whistled and hooted. Morelli had his arm around me and a grin on his face. I was smiling too, but I was afraid the good mood of the audience wasn't going to last. It looked to me like this was a crowd with a short attention span.
Sally Sweet has been punk, funk, rock, country western, and everything in between. This band looked to me like a seventies cover band since the first song was 'Love Machine.'
Lula had a handheld mic and was doing a routine somewhere between Tina Turner and a Baptist revival meeting. It wasn't bad, but every time she raised her arms the skimpy gold dress would hike up, and she'd have to tug it back down over her ass. Halfway through the song Lula lost her place and gave up on the lyrics and started singing, 'Love machine, la la la la love machine.' Not that it mattered. The entire audience was mesmerized by the fleeting glimpses of Lula's size XXX large leopard thong.
When the song ended someone yelled out that he wanted to hear 'Love Shack.'
'No way,' came back from the other side of the room. '"Disco Inferno."'
'"Disco Inferno" is gay,' the first guy yelled. 'Only pussies like "Disco Inferno."'
'Pussy this,' the Disco Inferno guy said. And he threw a beer bottle at the Love Shack guy.
'You better stop that,' Lula said to the Disco guy. 'That's rude behavior.'
An onion ring came sailing out of the audience, hit Lula in the head and dropped onto her chest.
'Now I'm getting mad,' Lula said. 'Who did that? I got a big grease spot on my dress now. You're getting my dry cleaning bill.'
'Hey,' someone yelled to Lula, 'show us the rest of those big tits. I want to see your tits.'
'How about you want to see my foot up your ass,' Lula said.
A show-us-your-tits chant went up and a bunch of the women flashed headlights.
The drunk next to me grabbed my shirt and attempted to pull it over my head. 'Show me your tits,' he said.
And that was the last thing he said because Morelli shoved his fist into the guy's face.
It pretty much went downhill after that. Beer bottles were flying, and the room looked like a WWE cage match with a frenzied mob smashing furniture, scratching and clawing and punching each other out.
Sally went off the stage with a war whoop, wading into the mess, whacking guys with his guitar, and Lula crawled under a table. Morelli wrapped an arm around my middle, lifted me two inches off the floor, and fought his way toward the hall leading to the restrooms and rear door, laying waste to anyone in his way. He got me outside, and he went back in for Lula. He shoved Lula out the rear door just as the police arrived, front and rear.
Eddie Gazarra was in one of the squad cars angled behind Morelli's SUV. He was a good friend, and he was married to my cousin, Shirley the Whiner. He was with three other cops, and they all had big smiles when they saw Morelli and Lula and me.
'What's going on?' Gazarra wanted to know, working hard not to totally crack up.
'I got hit with an onion ring,' Lula said.
'Anything else?' he asked Morelli.
'Nope, that's about it,' Morelli said, hands loose at his side, knuckles scraped and bleeding, bruise flowering on his right cheekbone. 'Be nice if you'd move your car, so we could get out of here. And when you go inside you might look for a guy in a red thong. He's with us.'
===OO=OOO=OO===
Morelli was slouched on the couch, holding an ice pack to his bruised cheek, taking in the last minutes of a West Coast ball game.
'It could have been worse,' I said.
'It could have been a lot worse. We could have had to listen to another set of songs.'
'We'd probably be sitting in jail right now if you weren't a cop.'
'My being a cop had nothing to do with it. Gazarra would never arrest you. I went along for the ride on this one.'
'You don't talk much about being a cop anymore.'
Morelli tossed the ice pack to the floor. 'I'm working homicide. There's not much I'd want to talk about. I'm up to my armpits in gang-related killings. The only decent part is usually they kill each other.' He clicked the game off. 'This game is boring. I bet we can find more interesting things to look at if we go upstairs.'
===OO=OOO=OO===
The first applicant was already in the office when I arrived. He was wearing chaps, and he had a sawed-off strapped to his back.
'We don't actually dress like bounty hunters in this office,' Connie was explaining to him. 'We find it's… too obvious.'
'Yeah, and chaps makes your ass look big,' Lula said. 'You go around looking like that and the fashion police gonna come after you.'
'I always dress like this,' the guy said. 'I ride a Hog.'
'What about the sawed-off ?' Connie asked.
'What about it?'
Two more applicants came and went after the guy with the chaps. I cracked my knuckles through both of them, wanting to move on. I had three FTAs targeted for today, plus Caroline Scarzolli was still at large. And Lonnie Johnson was out there, somewhere. And the truth was, I didn't want to find any of these people. I wanted to find Ranger.
When the last applicant walked out the door, Connie wrenched her bottom drawer open, unscrewed a bottle of Jack Daniel's, and chugged some down.
'Okay,' she said. 'I feel better now.'
'I like this job interviewing shit,' Lula said. 'It's a real boost to my self-esteem. Even with my damaged early years, I'm looking good up against these freaks.'
'Where's Pickle?' I asked Connie.
'He's working Monday through Friday. Since we usually only work half-day on Saturday anyway, I gave him weekends off.'
I looked out the front window at the black SUV. It was starting to feel eerie. No one ever saw Carmen. Just the tinted black windows.
'The SUV is still out there,' I said. 'When was the last time anyone saw that SUV move?'
'It was here when I arrived this morning, and I guess it was here when I left last night,' Connie s
aid.
I took a slurp of booze from Connie's bottle. 'I need to take a look at the car.'
I crossed the street, and I knocked on the driver's side window but nothing happened. I looked in through the windshield. Nobody home. Blood everywhere. I turned and slid down the car until I reached pavement. I sat there with my head between my knees until the nausea was under control and the noise subsided in my head. I got to my knees, waited a moment for the fog to clear, and then got to my feet. I walked to the rear of the SUV where the smell of decomposing flesh was strong. I put my face to the glass and squinted through the tinted window. A tarp had been pulled across the cargo area.
I took my cell phone out and called Morelli. 'You might want to get over here,' I said. 'I think I have a body for you.'
Seven
Connie and Lula and I waited across the street in front of the bonds office, while the police did their thing. I was so terrified at what would be found that my fingers were numb, and I could feel tears welling behind my eyes. I suspected Carmen was in the back of the SUV, but it could as easily be Ranger or his little girl, Julie.
Morelli stood to the side watching while a uniform opened the back hatch and slid the tarp aside. Morelli's eyes flicked to the body in the cargo area and then to me. Carmen, he mouthed to me.
I wasn't sure what I felt. A mixture of emotion. Horror for Carmen and relief that it wasn't Ranger or the child.
'Did we get information back on Julie's mother and stepfather?' I asked Connie. 'Anything on the Virginia business?'
'I saw reports come in, but I didn't read them.'
We went into the office, and Connie pulled up the reports. Rachel Martine had no work history. High school graduate. Lived her whole life in Miami. Nothing derogatory in her credit file. Her banking history showed a steady money stream from Ranger. No criminal history. She married Ronald Martine eight years ago. They bought a house shortly after they were married, and they were still at that same address. Ronald Martine was seven years older than his wife. Also a high school graduate. No college, but he had gone to school to repair air-conditioning systems and had been working at his trade for eighteen years. Both seemed to be very stable. There were two other Martine children, a seven-year-old girl and a four-year-old boy. They attended the local Catholic Church. You couldn't get much cleaner than Rachel and Ronald Martine.
Rangemanoso showed up on the Virginia business report. Described as bail enforcement and fugitive apprehension. The business had leased office space in Arlington. The proprietor was Rxyzzlo Xnelos Zzuvemo. In six months of operation it had incurred a long list of delinquent bills.
'I love the way he's coded his name every time it pops up in a data base,' Lula said. 'It's genius.'
This doesn't sound right,' Connie said. 'Ranger runs a tight business. He pays his bills on time.'
'I saw a TV show on identity theft,' Lula said. 'Maybe someone's posing as Ranger.' I'd actually been thinking the same thing for some time. And the fact that Ranger's name is always in code probably helped to hide the theft.
I dialed Tank. I'd sworn I'd never again dial Tank, but I couldn't help myself. I didn't know what else to do.
'They just found Carmen Manoso dead in her SUV in front of the bonds office,' I told him. 'If Ranger's looking for his body double, there's a good chance he's here in Trenton.'
'Ten four.' And Tank hung up.
'So you don't think Ranger offed Carmen?' Lula asked.
'Ranger wouldn't have left her in front of the bonds office for us to find. Ranger would have made her disappear, never to be found again. Ranger likes to keep things tidy.'
Morelli stuck his head in the office and crooked his finger at me. 'Can I see you outside?'
I left the bonds office, and we stood by the side of the building.
'Her driver's license identifies her as Carmen Manoso,' Morelli said. 'She seems to be the woman you described to me. I didn't think you'd want to see for yourself. She's been dead a while. It's not good. A single bullet in the head.'
'Could it have been self-inflicted?'
'No. Her gun was unfired on the driver's side floor.'
'I have a theory.'
'Oh boy.'
I gave Morelli a copy of the Virginia business report. 'I think some nut is posing as Ranger.'
'Identity theft.'
'Yeah, only maybe it's not that simple. Maybe this guy is wacked-out. He got married as Ranger. That's carrying identity theft a little far.'
'You still haven't heard from Ranger?'
'No. I've talked to Tank a couple times, but that's like talking to a wall.'
'What about the kid? Any more theories?'
'I think one of the Rangers took her.'
'And?'
'And I think it's the wrong one. The little girl's parents look solid. And Ranger's been regularly sending child support. I don't think he'd take the girl without telling her mom. A while ago, Ranger mentioned that he had a daughter, but I got the impression it wasn't common knowledge. So either it's someone who was at one time very close to Ranger, or else it's someone close to the little girl or her family.'
'And I want to know this because…'
'Because you want to close Carmen's case, and it's possible she was shot by the Un-Ranger.'
'Something I've learned with police work,' Morelli said. 'It's good to have theories, but don't lock yourself into them. In the end, it's facts that count, not theories. Carmen could have been killed by some random maniac. And Ranger could easily be leading his own double life. No one knows what's in Ranger's head. There are too many times a crime doesn't get solved because the investigator followed an obvious but wrong lead and ignored looking for anything else until it was too late and all other leads were cold.'
'Point taken,' I said.
'Well?' Lula asked when I returned to the office.
'A single bullet to the head,' I told her. 'Not self-inflicted.'
'Right in front of the office,' Lula said. 'Gives me the creeps.'
'I'm feeling stressed,' Connie said. 'This has been a really shitty morning.'
'I bet I got something that'll cheer you up,' Lula said. 'This here specialty shop I know about was open this morning, and I stopped on my way to the office. I got another singing gig tonight, and I needed a new outfit. Everybody wait here, and I'll try it on.'
Five minutes later, Lula swung out of the bathroom and paraded around the bonds office in a one-piece jumpsuit-type thing made out of glaring white vinyl. The bottom was short-shorts that sort of got lost in Lula's ass, and the top was strapless, squishing her boobs up so they bulged out everywhere. The outfit was accessorized with four-inch-spike-heeled white vinyl boots that came to just below her knee.
'Now when someone hits me with a onion ring and it leaves a grease spot I can just wipe it off with Lysol,' Lula said.
'Smart,' I said to Lula. 'Are you sure you want to do this?'
'Fuckin' A. I'm expanding my horizons, remember? This could be a whole new career for me. Not that I don't like bounty huntering, but I feel this is a time when I should be open to new opportunities. Anyways, the What's got a job lined up at the Golden Times Senior Center in Mercerville tonight.'
Connie and I were speechless. Lula was going to perform in a white vinyl Band-Aid in front of a bunch of impaired senior citizens.
'I know what you're probably thinking,' Lula said.
'You're thinking I probably don't have to worry about them throwing onion rings… but you never know. Some of those old people are real feisty.'
That's not what I was thinking,' Connie said. 'I was thinking you're going to give them all a heart attack if you wear that getup.'
Lula looked down at herself. 'You think it's too much?'
'I think it's not enough,' Connie said.
'What's Sally wearing?' I asked Lula.
'I got him a matching thong.' Lula glanced down at her watch. 'I gotta go. We got a rehearsal this afternoon, and then we're playing at six o'clock on account of the
old folks don't stay up real late.'
'Life just gets weirder and weirder,' Connie said, taking in the full rear view of Lula running off to the bathroom to change.
I grabbed my shoulder bag and headed for the door. 'See you Monday.'
'Don't be late,' Connie said. 'We have the last group of mutants to interview Monday morning.'
Goody. Goody.
Morelli was still standing across the street, hands on hips, keeping watch over the crime scene. The medical examiner had arrived, along with the meat wagon. A tech truck was angled into the curb, the back doors open. A squad car was double-parked, strobe flashing. A uniform was keeping traffic moving.
I didn't often see Morelli at work, and I was struck by a few things that I already knew but didn't always think about. He was movie-star handsome in a rugged, lean and muscled way. He was good at his job. He carried more responsibility than I could manage. And his job was really crappy. Every day he slogged through death and misery, seeing the worst side of society. I suppose once in a while good people walked through his life, but I didn't think it was the norm.
I slid behind the wheel of the Mini and motored off. In a few minutes I was back at my condo. I went straight to my computer and brought my e-mail up. Five more ads for penis enhancement, three ads for big-busted women, two ads for cheap mortgage money, and an answer from Nash in Virginia.
The email from Nash read:
know the guy you're looking for. one of those idiots dressing in black, tearing posters off the post office wall, had a one-room office in a strip mall but it's closed up. i checked for you. don't know any more than that, met him once while i was on a stakeout and he wandered onto my turf, i told him he was poaching and he left.
So I was more and more convinced there was a guy out there pretending to be Ranger. What I didn't have was a name for the guy. Or a face. He obviously resembled Ranger in build and coloring and had to be close in age. He was able to get a fake ID. Not a hard thing to do. Every sixteen-year-old kid has a fake ID.
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