Sizzling Sixteen

by Janet Evanovich

  “Uncle Pip would probably be alive today if he’d taken his bottle with him,” Lula said. “If nothing else, he could have pissed in it instead of on that wire.”

  “Not likely,” I said. “I can’t get the stopper out. I think it’s glued in.”

  “Let me take a look at that bottle. Maybe I can figure it out.”

  I stopped for a light and pulled the bottle out of my big leather purse.

  Lula worked at the stopper, but it wouldn’t budge. “You’re right,” she said. “This sucker’s in for good.” She shook the bottle close to her ear. “Don’t hear anything rattling around in it.” She held it up and looked at it in what little light was left. “Can’t see anything in it. The glass is too thick.”

  I think luck is a weird thing. It’s hard to tell if you make it or if it just follows you around. And it seems to me it could just as easily be bad luck as good luck. It’s not like it’s a constant ability, like playing the piano or being able to cook a perfect omelet.

  I cruised by the funeral home, and we scoped it out. There were several cars parked at the curb, and a clump of older men dressed in suits and ties stood talking by the open front door. Lights were on inside. Melon’s was having a viewing.

  I pulled over and parked half a block away. “I’ll wait here, and you go look around,” I said to Lula.

  “Why do you get to wait here?” Lula wanted to know. “I’m the one hates dead people. I should be the one to wait here.”

  “You can’t wait here. You’re the friend of the deceased.”

  “Fine, but I’m not going in alone. You’re gonna have to make yourself blend in. Just tart yourself up some, and everyone’ll think you’re a ’ho come to visit.”

  I ratted my hair, put on brighter lipstick, took my sweatshirt off, and rolled my T-shirt so I had some skin showing.

  “This is the best I can do,” I said.

  “You’re not all that hot,” Lula said. “You’re never gonna make any money looking like that.”

  “Sure I would. I’m the girl next door.”

  “You don’t know much,” she said. “You gotta have a short skirt to be the girl next door and you put your hair in two ponytails.”

  “I thought that was the Catholic schoolgirl.”

  “The Catholic schoolgirl’s skirt is plaid and pleated.”

  I put Pip’s bottle back in my bag, hiked my bag up on my shoulder, and swung myself down from the Jeep. We made our way through the clump of men, through the open door, and into the foyer. Several older women stood by a table with a coffee urn and cups. I could see more women and a couple men in an adjoining room. The casket was in that room. So far as I could tell, this was the extent of the public areas.

  “Small funeral home,” I said to Lula.

  “I guess the embalming goes on upstairs, being that the windows are blacked out, and we know Bobby Sunflower likes to keep rats in his cellars,” Lula said.

  “I want to see what’s down the hall to the left. Stand at the front of it, so no one can see me snooping.”

  The hall wasn’t long. It led to a small kitchen, stairs going up, and two doors. I opened one door to stairs going down. I held my breath and listened for a moment. No squeaking. I flipped the light on and whispered hello. No answer. I didn’t want to rescue Vinnie bad enough to creep down the stairs. I closed the cellar door and tried the second door. It opened directly onto an alley and a small paved parking lot. A hearse and a black stretch Lincoln were parked in the lot. I stepped out onto the cement stoop to get a better look at the back of the building, and the door blew closed behind me. I tried the door. Locked. Crap!

  The funeral home was in the middle of the block, with no breaks between buildings. I was going to have to walk down the alley and around the corner to get back to Stark. Ordinarily, no big deal, but this wasn’t the sort of neighborhood a girl wanted to stroll around in after dark.

  I moved to the alley and looked back at the building. Four windows on the second floor. All blacked out and barred, just like the front windows. I called Lula on my cell phone.

  “Where the heck are you?” Lula wanted to know.

  “I accidentally got locked out. I’m in the alley. Can you let me back in?”

  “Negative. Bobby Sunflower just came down the back stairs, and he’s standing in the hall talking to some idiot that’s got killer written all over him.”

  “Go ask them if they’ve got Vinnie upstairs.”

  “Funny,” Lula said. “Why don’t you rub your bottle and ask for X-ray eyes?”

  “Are you being sarcastic about my lucky bottle?”

  “Yeah, and I regret it. It’s not a good idea to disrespect a lucky bottle. I’ll meet you at the Jeep. Good thing you at least got your hairspray, ’case you meet up with some of the locals.”

  FIVE

  I POWER WALKED down the alley, keeping to the shadows, where I hoped I wouldn’t be seen. I scurried around the corner, and by the time I reached Stark Street, my heart rate was at stroke level. I did some deep breathing and tried to calm myself before I got to the car, so I wouldn’t have to listen to Lula go on about how I should carry a gun. Okay, probably she was right, but I really hated guns, and I could never remember where I hid the bullets.

  Ranger had a remote door entry on the Jeep, so I beeped us in, and Lula and I sat watching the funeral parlor.

  “Do you know Bobby Sunflower?” Lula asked me.

  “No.”

  “He’s the tall dude just come out.”

  “Is Sunflower his real name?”

  “So far as I know,” Lula said.

  Bobby Sunflower was a little over six foot tall. He was lean, with a long face and long cornrows that came to his shoulders. He was dressed in a pinstriped suit and a white shirt that was unbuttoned to halfway down his chest. He had a lot of gold chains around his neck, and I could see his diamond ring from where I sat. He had two men with him who looked like dumb muscle. They stood two steps behind while Sunflower talked to a fireplug guy in a bad-fitting black suit.

  “That’s the funeral director, Melon,” Lula said. “I was watching him from inside.”

  A black Cadillac Escalade with tinted windows rolled to a stop in front of the funeral home. Sunflower turned from Melon and got into the Escalade’s backseat. One of the gunners got into the front passenger seat, the other got in next to Sunflower, and the car moved off down the street.

  I put the Jeep in gear and followed the Escalade. I kept my distance, staying about a half block behind. They went all the way down Stark, took State Street to Broad, and I lost them on Broad. Too much traffic on Broad. I lost them when I couldn’t run a light.

  “I got a bad feeling about Bobby Sunflower,” Lula said. “Some people just make you scared inside, and he’s one of those people.”

  I turned off Broad and made my way through the Burg to Hamilton and the bonds office. I dropped Lula at her car and headed for home. I was a block from my apartment building when Mickey Gritch passed me going in the opposite direction. Black Mercedes with purple pimp lights flashing around his license plate. Hard to miss. I cut my lights and made a U-turn on Hamilton. I put a car between me and Gritch, and I put my lights back on.

  Gritch turned right on Olden, crossed the railroad tracks, and wound around, ending on Stark. He took the alley behind the funeral home, parked behind the limo, and got out. I was around the corner, on the dark side street, watching with my lights off. Gritch got out of his car, walked to the back door, and knocked. The door opened, Gritch walked in, and the door closed.

  I checked my rear view mirror and saw that a car had pulled up behind me. My pulse quickened, and I was about to step on the gas when Ranger angled out of the car and walked to the Jeep.

  I got out and stood next to him, and my pulse didn’t drop back. Ranger at close proximity on a dark and deserted street would make any woman’s heart race.

  “You scared the bejeezus out of me,” I said to him. “I didn’t know it was you at first.”
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  “Chet was monitoring the fleet, and he saw you make a U-turn and start tailing Gritch.”

  “And you were in the neighborhood?”

  “No. I grabbed my keys and came out to watch you in action.” He did a full body scan on me. “Is this a new look?”

  “Lula and I were here earlier, and Lula thought I’d fit in better if I was a ’ho.”

  Ranger put his hands to my waist and slid them up bare skin to where I had my shirt rolled and tucked into my bra. He loosened my shirt and smoothed it down.

  “You looked cold,” he said.

  I was pretty sure he was referring to the state of my nipples, and because it was Ranger, I was also pretty sure he knew cold had nothing to do with it.

  “I saw Bobby Sunflower leave here about forty-five minutes ago. And now Gritch is here,” I told him.

  Ranger looked at the back of the building. “And you think Vinnie might be here?”

  “The windows are blacked out upstairs. Originally, I thought the embalming rooms were up there, but Lula saw Bobby Sunflower come down the stairs.” I reached into the Jeep and got my sweatshirt. “I didn’t get a chance to check out anything other than the public areas.”

  Ranger looked at his watch. “Viewing hours are over. The outdoor light was off when we drove by the front of the building. We can hang here for a while and see what goes down.”

  I zipped my sweatshirt and leaned against the Jeep with Ranger. He wasn’t a guy who made a lot of small talk, and I’d gotten used to the silence. We stood like that for about ten minutes, and the door opened and Gritch stepped out. A second guy appeared in the doorway. He flipped the inside light off, and the mortuary parking area was plunged into darkness. We heard the back door click closed, and moments later, car doors opening and slamming shut. Ranger pulled me away from the Jeep, under cover of a building. He leaned into me and shielded me with his body. He was dressed in his usual black. Black T-shirt, black windbreaker, black cargo pants, black running shoes, black gun. His hair was dark brown and his skin was light brown. Ranger was a shadow.

  Two car engines turned over, and headlights flashed on. The Mercedes rolled past first. The big Lincoln followed. They took the corner and headed for Stark Street.

  Ranger stayed pressed against me, his hand at my waist, his breathing even. His lips brushed my ear, and my cheek, and found my mouth, and the contact produced a rush of heat and desire that filled every part of me. Since we were standing on a public street in a part of town that had killings nightly, I suspected this wasn’t going any farther than kissing.

  “Are you playing?” I asked him.

  “Yes,” he said, “but that could change.”

  I felt my fingers curl into his shirt, and I made an effort to uncurl them. I put a couple inches between us, and I smoothed out the wrinkles I’d made.

  “I need to find Vinnie,” I said.

  Ranger looked over at the building. “Get in your car and lock the doors. I’ll go inside and look around.”

  “I’m sure the funeral parlor has an alarm system.”

  “Even with the best alarm system, there’s a ten to fifteen minute window before anyone responds. And in this part of town, the response is a lot longer . . . if at all.”

  Ranger jogged to the back door, and within seconds, he had the door unlocked. He slipped inside, and a couple minutes later, I heard the alarm go off. I gripped the wheel and watched the building, keeping track of the time. Five minutes went by. Ten minutes. I had my teeth sunk into my lower lip, and I was thinking get out, get out, get out! The door opened at fourteen minutes. Ranger emerged alone and jogged back to the car.

  “I’ll follow you home,” Ranger said. “I don’t want to talk here.”

  I pulled away from the curb, and when I got to the corner, the stretch Lincoln slid to a stop in front of the funeral home and three men got out and went to the front door. Ranger and I drove past them and continued on down Stark.

  RANGER WALKED ME to my apartment and stepped inside.

  “Obviously, Vinnie wasn’t being held at Melon’s,” I said to him.

  “The embalming room is in the basement, and it isn’t pretty. The upstairs rooms are being used as a cash drop. There’s a counting table and a safe in one of the rooms. The other rooms are storerooms. No sign of Vinnie.”

  “What about Mickey Gritch? Did he make any more stops?”

  “I checked with Chet. Mickey Gritch went straight home from Melon’s. Looks like he’s settled in for the night.” Ranger unzipped my sweatshirt. “We could be settled in for the night, too.”

  I moved a step back from him. “Are you feeling domestic?”

  The corners of his mouth softened into the smallest of smiles. “I’m feeling friendly.” He closed the distance between us, lifted my bag off my shoulder, and his focus moved from me to the bag.

  “Are you carrying?” he asked. “This bag is heavy.”

  “It’s the bottle.”

  I took Uncle Pip’s bottle out of my bag and set it on the kitchen counter. Rex came out of his soup can house and looked through the glass aquarium at the bottle. His beady black eyes glistened, his whiskers whirred, and he put two little pink feet on the side of his cage. He blinked once and turned and scurried back into his soup can.

  “Why are you carrying this bottle?” Ranger asked.

  “This is the bottle I inherited from my Uncle Pip. It’s supposed to be lucky, and Lula decided we needed to carry it with us . . . just in case.”

  Ranger’s smile widened. “Can’t hurt,” he said.

  “Well, it didn’t do me any good tonight.”

  “The night isn’t over,” Ranger said. “You could still get lucky.”

  ______

  BEING A BOND enforcement agent almost never requires me to set my alarm clock. Felons are in the wind twenty-four hours a day, so I can pretty much pick which of those hours I want to go hunting. Lula usually rolls into the office around nine, and I’m usually right behind her. This morning was no different.

  I’d sent Ranger home early the night before, deciding I wasn’t ready to get that lucky. A night with Ranger was tempting, but the cost would be high. My relationship with Morelli was currently on hold. A morning argument in Morelli’s kitchen a couple weeks ago had ended with the notion it might not be a bad idea if we saw other people, but the reality was that we weren’t. I felt comfortable with flirting and maybe a kiss, but I wasn’t comfortable going beyond that with another man right now.

  “Hey, girl,” Lula said from the bonds office couch, “what’s up for today?”

  “Dirk McCurdle and a drug guy named Chopper.”

  “And Vinnie,” Connie said.

  “Yeah,” I said. “And Vinnie.”

  “Do you have any leads?” Connie asked.

  “I know where he isn’t,” I told her. “I’d like an address for Dirk’s best friend, Ernie Wilkes. I’ve got one Mrs. McCurdle left. If she isn’t helpful, I’ll talk to Ernie.”

  Connie punched a few keys on her computer, and it spit out Ernie’s address. She wrote the address on a slip of paper and handed it to me. “He’s retired from the button factory, so he should be at home.”

  The phone rang and Connie picked it up. “Yeah,” she said. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’ll be right there.” She disconnected and grabbed her purse. “I have to bond out Jimmie Leonard. That means I have to lock the office up for an hour until I get back.”

  “We could stay here and babysit phones,” Lula said.

  “No way,” Connie said. “I want you out there looking for Vinnie. I can’t be office manager and bond out people at the same time. I know Vinnie’s slime, but he pulls his weight here . . . at least some of the time.”

  Connie and Vinnie were the only ones authorized to write the bonds that released people from jail while they waited for their day in court. I worked as the office bounty hunter, and I signed individual contracts that gave me permission to root out felons who were FTA for their court date. Lula wasn’t au
thorized to do anything, so she just did whatever the heck she wanted.

  Connie took off for the courthouse, and Lula and I piled into the Jeep. Stella McCurdle lived in north Trenton. Ernie Wilkes and his wife lived a couple blocks from Stella. Good deal for me. I was short of gas money and not excited about the idea of driving all over creation to find McCuddle. I took Olden to Bright Street and turned onto Cherry. I parked in front of Stella’s house, and Lula and I got out and went to the door.

  “Now this here’s more what I’m talking about,” Lula said. “This looks like a bigamist house.”

  It was a narrow, two-story single-family house. And it was painted lavender with pink trim. Why Lula imagined a bigamist should live in a lavender house was anyone’s guess.

  “Yep,” I said. “This looks like a bigamist house for sure.”

  “I got high hopes for this wife,” Lula said.

  Stella McCurdle answered the door in tight lavender stretch pants, little sling-back heels, and a stretchy flower-print wrap shirt that displayed a decent amount of over-tanned, crepe paper–skinned boob. She had big chunky rings on her fingers and big chunky earrings, lots of make up, and her hair was a shade short of canary yellow, done up in a seventies bouffant.

  “Whoa,” Lula said. “It’s like Soul Train for seniors.” Stella leaned forward. “What was that, dear? My hearing’s on the blink. I’m all clogged up with wax. I was just on my way to the doctor.”

  “I’m looking for your husband,” I said to Stella.

  “What?”

  “Your husband.”

  “No, thank you,” she said. “I don’t need any.”

  “Must be a lot of wax,” Lula said.

  “Dirk!” I yelled. “Where’s Dirk?”

  “Dirk! Don’t know. Don’t care,” she said. “I’m moving on. I’m gonna find myself a new boy toy. Dirk was too old for me anyway.”

  “That’s the spirit,” Lula said.