* * *
I was dressed and had my teeth brushed when Ella rang the bell. I opened the door to her, and she bustled in carrying a large silver tray.
"Hello. Good morning!" she said, all smiles as she swept past me.
She was small and robust with short black hair and bright bird eyes. Early fifties, I thought. She was wearing bright red lipstick. No other makeup. She was dressed in black jeans and a black V-neck knit shirt. She set the tray on the dining room table and laid out two place settings.
"This is Ranger's usual breakfast," Ella said to me. "If you would like something different I'd be happy to make it for you. Maybe some eggs?"
"Thank you. This will be fine. It looks lovely."
Ella excused herself and retreated, closing the door behind herself. She'd brought hot coffee in a silver pot with matching cream and sugar, a platter of sliced fruit and berries, a small silver dish of lox, and two small pots of cream cheese. A white linen napkin covered a basket of sliced, toasted bagels.
Ranger was in the bedroom, lacing his boots. He was dressed in his usual uniform, hair still damp from the shower.
"What is that?" I said, arm straight, finger pointing to the dining room.
He rose out of the chair and walked to the doorway. "Breakfast?"
"You eat like this everyday?"
"Every day that I'm here."
"What about the tree bark and wild roots?"
He poured the coffee and took some fruit. "Only when I'm in a third world jungle. And I'm almost never in one of those."
"I've been eating that cardboard cereal in your cupboard."
Ranger cut his eyes to me. "Babe, I looked in my cupboard. You've got Frosted Flakes in there."
"So," I said, "is this the Bat Cave?"
"This is an apartment I keep in my office building. I have similar buildings and apartments in Boston, Atlanta, and Miami. It turns out security is big business these days. I supply a variety of services to a wide range of clients. Trenton was my first base of operation, and it's the place I spend most of my time. My family is still in Jersey."
"Why all the secrecy?"
"We're not secretive about the office buildings, but we try to keep a low profile."
"We?"
"I have partners."
"Let me guess—the Justice League. The Flash, Wonder Woman, and Superman."
Ranger looked like he was thinking about smiling.
"Okay, forget the partners," I said. "I want to get back to the Bat Cave. Is there a Bat Cave?"
Ranger took a bagel and speared some lox onto it. "You're going to have to work harder for that one. Its not in the phone book, and GPS isn't going to take you there."
A challenge.
Ranger glanced at his watch. "I have five minutes. Tell me about Junkman."
"Not much to tell. He wants to kill me. I told you everything I know last night."
"What are you doing about it?"
"Connie and Lula and I kidnapped a Slayer. The plan was to get him to talk to us about Junkman, but we haven't had any luck."
Ranger finished his bagel and pushed back from the table to finish his coffee. "Kidnapping a Slayer is good. Why wouldn't he talk?"
"He didn't want to."
Ranger paused with the coffee cup halfway to his mouth. "You're supposed to persuade him."
"We were going to slap him around, but when we got him tied to the chair it turned out none of us could hit him."
Ranger burst out laughing and coffee sloshed out of his cup onto the table. He put the coffee down and reached for his napkin, trying not to laugh, not having a lot of luck at it.
"Jeez," I said. "I think that's the first time I've ever seen you laugh like that."
"There's not a lot to laugh about when you're knee deep in garbage. And that's where we usually operate." He swiped his napkin across the table, blotting up the coffee spill.
"If you have all this, why do you still do fugitive apprehension?"
"I'm good at it. And someone has to do the job."
I followed him into his dressing room and watched him open the locked drawer and remove a gun. I was working hard at keeping my eyes focused above his waist, but I was thinking no underwear!
"Do you still have your Slayer hidden away?" he asked.
"Yes."
"Is he secure?"
"Yes," I said.
"My day is filled, but we can talk to him tonight. In the meantime, don't have any contact with this guy. Don't feed him. Let him worry." He clipped the gun to his belt. "I need the truck. Use one of the Porsches. The keys are in the plate on the sideboard. The communication room and gym are on the fifth floor. Feel free to use the gym. Ella and Louis live on the sixth floor. You can intercom number six if you need anything. She'll be in today to make the bed and clean and pick up laundry. She'll do your laundry if you leave it out for her." He glanced at his watch again. "I have a meeting scheduled. I'm assuming you want to live here a while longer?"
"Yes." I didn't have a lot of good choices.
His mouth curved into the almost smile. "You're going to be indebted to me, Babe. You want to start working on that guilt problem."
Oh boy.
He grabbed me and kissed me, and I felt my toes curl. And I wondered how long it would take me to get him undressed. And just exactly how many minutes did he have before the meeting. I didn't think I needed a lot of time. After all, he wasn't wearing any undies. That would help, right?
"I have to go," he said. "I'm late."
Thank God, he was late. There were no minutes. No time to cheat on Joe. No time to send myself straight to hell. I smoothed the wrinkles from his shirt where my fingers had gripped the material. "Do you know where the truck is?"
"It's in the garage. I had Tank bring it in last night. All the cars and trucks are equipped with GPS tracking. We always know where they are."
Great. Really glad I went to the trouble to park two blocks away.
I showered and dressed and left the apartment, being careful not to run into any of the men. I suspected they were also careful not to run into me. The arrangement felt awkward.
I chose the Turbo, parking at the curb when I got to the office, so I could keep an eye on the car. It was one thing to lose a bargain-basement Lincoln; I didn't want to get a bunch of unnecessary holes in Ranger's megabucks Porsche.
"Holy crap," Lula said, staring out the window at the Porsche. "Is that Ranger's Turbo?"
"Yes. He's back, and he needed the truck, so he gave me the 911. He's going to talk to our friend tonight. He said we shouldn't have any contact with him. And he didn't want us to feed him."
"Fine by me," Connie said. "I'm not anxious to repeat yesterday's performance."
"Yeah," Lula said. "That was embarrassing."
"Anything new on the books?" I asked.
"No, but you have three outstandings," Connie said. "Shoshanna Brown, Harold Pancek, and the thumb guy, Jamil Rodriguez. Maybe you want to leave Rodriguez for Ranger."
"We'll see how it goes," I said. "I'm going to pick up Shoshanna Brown this morning."
Lula looked at me hopefully. "Need any help?"
"Not with Brown. I've picked her up before. She's usually cooperative." And to make things even easier, I'd chosen the flashy Turbo. Shoshanna would be at home smoking weed in her rattrap apartment, watching the Travel Channel on her stolen television, and she'd happily trade her freedom for a ride in the Porsche.
Shoshanna lived in the projects on the other side of town. I took Hamilton to Olden and wound my way around, avoiding known Slayer territory. I parked in front of Shoshanna's building and called her. Ordinarily, I'd march up to Shoshanna's front door and encourage her to come with me in person. If I did that today, alone and in the Porsche, the car would be gone the instant I turned my back.
"Yeah, what?" Shoshanna said, answering the phone.
"It's Stephanie Plum. I want you to look out your front window."
"This better be good. I'm watching a show
on the best bathrooms in Vegas."
"I came to take you for a ride in Ranger's Turbo."
"Are you shitting me? The Porsche? You came to pick me up in the Porsche? Hold on. I'll be right out. I just gotta put on some lipstick for my new photo. I've been waiting for you anyway. I'm hoping I get sent to the workhouse on account of I got a tooth that's killing me, and they got a good dentist there. I won't have to pay for it or nothing."
Two minutes later, Shoshanna burst out of her apartment and angled herself into the Porsche. "Now this is class," she said. "I hope some of my neighbors are watching. I don't suppose you could drive me past my friend Latisha Anne's apartment so she could see?"
I drove Shoshanna past Latisha Anne's apartment, Shirelle Marie's apartment, and Lucy Sue's apartment. And then I drove her to jail.
Shoshanna was cuffed to the bench when I left with my paperwork. "Thanks," she said. "See you next time."
"You might want to think about staying out of trouble."
"It's no problemo," she said. "I only get caught when I need dental."
Morelli was waiting for me outside. "Nice car," he said.
"I borrowed it from Ranger to get Shoshanna. She jumped right in."
"Clever."
I was choking on guilt. My throat was dry and my chest was hot. I could feel sweat beginning to prickle at the roots of my hair. I happen to be excellent at rationalizing away acts of dumbness, but this one had me for a loss. I'd slept with Ranger! Not sexually, of course. But I'd been in his bed. And then there was the evil shower gel. And the kisses. And heaven help me, there'd been desire. A lot of desire.
"It was all because of the shower gel," I said.
Morelli's eyes narrowed. "Shower gel?"
I made a major effort not to sigh. "Long story. You probably don't want to hear it. Out of morbid curiosity, what sort of a relationship do we have?"
"It looks to me like we're in the off stage of on again, off again. Or maybe we're still on again . . . but in a remote sort of way."
"Suppose I wanted to change it to full-time on again?"
"For starters, you'd have to get a new job. Or even better, no job at all."
"No job?"
"You could be a housewife," Morelli said.
Our eyes locked in stunned disbelief that he'd suggested such a thing.
"Okay, maybe not a housewife," Morelli said.
I sensed a slur on my ability to housewife. "I could be a housewife if I wanted. I'd be a good one, too."
"Sure you would," Morelli said. "Eventually. Maybe."
"It's just that I was surprised because marriage is usually a prerequisite to being a housewife."
"Yeah," Morelli said. "Isn't that a frightening thought?"
* * *
Lula and Connie had their noses pressed against the front window when I got out of Ranger's Cayenne.
"Where's the Turbo? What happened to the Turbo?" Lula wanted to know. "You didn't destroy the Turbo, did you?"
I gave Connie the body receipt. "The Turbo is fine. I swapped it out after I dropped Shoshanna at the police station. It was good for luring Shoshanna out of her house, but it didn't suit my purposes for this afternoon. I thought we'd go looking for Pancek again, and we need a backseat in case we get lucky."
I was standing with my back to the door, and I saw Connie's eyes go wide.
"Be still my heart," Lula said, looking past me, through the window to the sidewalk.
I figured they were looking at either Johnny Depp or Ranger. My money was on Ranger.
The door opened, and I glanced over my shoulder, just in case, not wanting to miss Johnny Depp. But then not entirely disappointed when it turned out to be Ranger.
He crossed the room and stood close behind me, his hand at my back, heating the skin beneath his touch.
"Tank said you wanted me to stop by," he said to Connie.
Connie took the Jamil Rodriguez file from her desktop. "I originally gave this to Stephanie, but she's got a lot on her plate right now."
Ranger took the file and flipped through it. "I know this guy. The thumb belongs to Hector Santinni. Santinni stiffed Rodriguez on a drug sale, so Rodriguez chopped Santanni's thumb off and put it in a jar of formaldehyde. Rodriguez carries the thumb everywhere. Thinks the thumb gives him an edge."
"So much for the edge," Connie said. "The police have the thumb."
"A lot more where that came from," Ranger said. His hand moved to the base of my neck. "Your call, Babe," he said to me. "Do you want him?"
"Is he a gang guy?"
"No. He's an independent nut case."
"I'll keep him."
"He's probably looking for a new thumb," Ranger said. "So be careful. Most afternoons you can find him at the bar on the corner of Third and Laramie."
His fingertips trailed the length of my spine, triggering feelings I was determined to ignore. And he was gone.
"Damn," Lula said, doing thumbs up, eyes fixed on the thumbs. "I don't know if I want to go after a guy who's going big game hunting for a thumb. I'm real attached to mine."
I made chicken sounds and did wing flaps.
"Hunh," Lula said. "Smart-ass. What makes you so brave all of a sudden?"
For starters, every move I made in the Cayenne was tracked at RangeMan Central. And if that wasn't enough, I suspected I was being followed. Ranger and Morelli always ran neck and neck in the vote of no confidence race. The only difference being in the level of sneakiness. Ranger always won out on sneaky. When there's a code-red danger alert, Morelli rants and raves and tries to lock me away. Ranger just assigns a goon to watch over me. Sometimes the goons are visible. Sometimes the goons are invisible. Whatever the state of visibility, they stick to me like glue, preferring death to the hideous task of informing Ranger they've lost me.
I turned and looked out the window in time to see Ranger pull away in the big bad truck. A shiny black SUV with tinted windows was left idling at curbside behind the Cayenne. "That's what makes me so brave," I said.
"Hunh," Lula said, following my eyes to the SUV. "I knew that."
Lula and I left the bonds office and climbed into the Cayenne. "I thought we'd drive past Pancek's house first," I said. "See if he's returned."
"Are you gonna try to lose the SUV?"
"I can't lose the SUV as long as I'm in this car. It's hooked into a GPS tracking system."
"I bet there's a way to disable it," Lula said. "This is one of Ranger's personal cars, and I bet there's times Ranger doesn't want anyone to know where he's going."
I'd had the same thought, but for now I didn't want to disable the system. And I didn't want to lose my bodyguard. I had the flak vest and sweatshirt in the backseat and Ranger's loaded gun in my purse. I thought I was relatively safe until Junkman made his third hit, but I wasn't taking unnecessary chances.
I glanced back at the SUV. "To tell you the truth, I'm happy to have the added protection."
"I hear you," Lula said.
I drove a block down Hamilton, left-turned into the Burg, and followed the maze of streets that led to Canter. I didn't see the blue Honda Civic parked anywhere near Pancek's apartment. I parked two houses down, put my Kevlar vest on under the sweatshirt, got out of the car, and walked to Pancek's door. I rang the bell. No answer. I rang two more times and returned to the car.
"No luck," I told Lula.
"Are we going back to Newark?"
"Not today. Ranger told me where I can find Rodriguez. I thought I'd go after him while I have an escort."
"On the one hand, that sounds good," Lula said. "Like, we got some help if we need it. On the other hand, if we screw up we got a witness laughing his ass off."
Lula had a point. "Maybe we won't screw up."
"I just hope it's not Tank back there. I wouldn't mind taking Tank home with me someday, and it would put a crimp in my plans to embarrass myself with a lame bust."
The SUV was half a block back. Too far for us to see its occupants. We were debating the embarrassment
potential when my phone rang.
"Where are you?" Sally wanted to know. "We've been waiting for twenty minutes."
"Waiting?"
"You were supposed to meet us to get your dress fitted for the wedding."
Crap. "I forgot."
"How could you forget? Your sisters getting married. It's not like this happens every day. How do you expect me to plan this wedding if you forget things?"
"I'll be right there."
"We're at the Bride Shoppe next to Tasty Pastry."
"What'd you forget?" Lula wanted to know.
"I was supposed to go for a fitting for my bridesmaid dress. They're all waiting for me. This will only take a minute. I'll run in and run out, and we can go look for Rodriguez."
"I love wedding dresses," Lula said. "I might buy one even if I never get married. I like the bridesmaid dresses, too. And you know what else I like . . . wedding cake."
FOURTEEN
I put the Cayenne in gear and raced off, doubling back to Hamilton. I took the turn to the parking lot on two wheels and diagonal parked the SUV next to my mothers Buick LeSabre.
Lula and I jumped out of the car and sprinted for the Bride Shoppe. Ranger's men in the SUV barreled in after us. The guy in the passenger seat had one foot on the ground when I turned and pointed at him.
"Stay!" I said. And then Lula and I hustled through the front door.
The Bride Shoppe is run and owned by Maria Raguzzi, a dumpling of a woman in her late fifties. Maria's got short black hair and long black sideburns and fine black hair on her knuckles. She always wears a fat round pincushion on a Velero wrist bracelet, and for as long as I've known her, she's had a yellow tape measure draped around her neck. She's been married and divorced three times, so she knows a lot about weddings.
Loretta Stonehouser, Rita Metzger, Margaret Durski, Valerie, Grandma Mazur, my mother, and the "wedding planner" were all crammed into the little showroom. Maria Raguzzi and Sally were bustling around, distributing dresses.
Margaret Durski was the first to see me. "Stephanie!" she shrieked. "Omigod, it's been so long. I haven't seen you since Valerie's first wedding. Omigod, I see you in the paper all the time. You're always burning something down to the ground."
Plum 10 - Ten Big Ones Page 20