There was a collective gasp from the dining room.
“I must now pour bleach into my eyes,” Raymond said. “We are lucky the morality police don’t have jurisdiction in Trenton. They would beat her with a stick many times.”
“New plan,” Ranger said to me. “You wait tables and we’ll put Lula on sandwiches.”
“No one’s going to eat a sandwich she makes after seeing this,” Stretch said. “Give her phones and takeout.”
I handed Ranger a menu. “You’re up for sandwiches. Raymond works the fry station and Stretch plates and nukes. Everything you need to know is on this gravy-stained menu. Your workstation is behind Stretch.”
Ranger eyed the workstation. “Got it,” he said.
I tapped Lula on the shoulder and told her we had a new plan. “We think you’d be better behind the counter.”
“I’m good behind the counter, but it seems a shame people can’t appreciate my new dress when I’m hidden back there.” Lula looked down at herself. “This here’s a bitchin’ dress.”
“True, but it turns out there’s not enough of it for waiting tables. When you bend over all your secrets are on display.”
“Well, anyone would be lucky to see my secrets.”
“Maybe for dessert,” I said, “but not before lunch.”
“I guess you got a point.”
I took the order pad and went to the first table. I was wearing jeans and a girlie pink V-neck T-shirt and sneakers. No secrets were exposed.
It was an easy order. One number sixteen. One number seven with cheese fries. One number seven with onion rings. I stuck the order on the spindle on the service bar in front of Stretch and yelled out the order. We didn’t have computers or iPads or any of that tech stuff. We were old school. I imagine it works great if you have people who know what they’re doing and aren’t dopers. At the Red River Deli it was hit-or-miss.
The second table wanted egg salad, but it had to be on a croissant, hold the pickle, a turkey club on gluten-free, no third slice of bread, and a corned beef with the works. I handed it in and hoped Ranger knew how to do the works.
At three o’clock we were still serving lunch.
“I am out of my freshly cut frozen French fries,” Raymond said. “I cannot go on. You must lock the door and not let anyone else in.”
“Now see, that’s a brilliant idea,” Lula said. “I’m not answering any more phones, either. Some of these calls I’m taking aren’t about food. I’ve had people calling in making inappropriate comments about my mooning incident today.”
“Someone has put it on social media,” Raymond said. “I have seen it. The picture is truly terrible, but you have three thousand likes. I do not even want to come to work tomorrow. I fear it will be hell.”
“I find this inspiring, now that I know I’m a sensation again,” Lula said. “I’ve got an idea for a new creation. I’m going to call it the Lula Moonwich.”
Ranger had been making sandwiches for hours. He didn’t have a speck of mayo, mustard, or ketchup on him. His station was immaculate. Every sandwich had been perfect and cut with precision.
“Impressive,” I said.
He smiled. “I have good knife skills.”
I hung the CLOSED sign on the front door, and the dining room was empty twenty minutes later.
Ranger was hands on hips. “What happens now?”
“I chipped a nail answering phones,” Lula said. “It was my best nail too. It was the one with the stars-and-stripes decal. I’m going to have it repaired before we start with the dinner people. I gotta look my best in case the television crew comes back.”
“We can turn the door sign around at five o’clock,” Stretch said. “That’ll give us an hour and a half to reorganize. Someone has to make a store run. We’ve never done this many covers before. We’re out of everything.”
“I’ll make the store run,” I said. “Give me a list.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
RANGER STOOD BY the shopping cart while I threw bags of bread and rolls into it.
“Have you checked with your office?” I asked him. “Do you have any leads on Hal?”
“Nothing I’d call a lead, but it’s early. Right now, we’re gathering information from a lot of different sources.”
“Legally?”
“Sometimes.”
Ranger employed a bunch of ex-cons who had extraordinary skills. Hackers, pickpockets, second-story experts, locksmiths, and safecrackers. His clients were kept safe by men who knew how the bad guys operated and knew how to stop them. These men also had contacts who could be useful at retrieving stolen property and missing deli managers.
“The rye bread feels stale,” I said. “Do you think I should pass on it?”
“I think it doesn’t matter if it’s stale as long as it’s not covered in blue mold. The people who are standing in line to get into the deli aren’t interested in the food. They’re there for the freak show.”
This was true. The deli had turned into a freak show. Workers disappeared without a trace. Weird sandwiches came out of the kitchen. Customers got mooned by the waitress. And the result of the freak show was a packed deli.
“Harry must have mixed emotions about the deli,” I said. “He took possession of it and instantly started having problems. On the other hand, the problems seem to be making the deli a huge success.”
“I doubt Harry would be bothered by any of those problems,” Ranger said. “He’s made his share of people disappear in the past. The only difference is that most of those people were found shortly after they were shot, choked, or bludgeoned with a shovel.”
We moved from the bread aisle to frozen foods and filled a second cart with French fries and onion rings.
“I’m seeing a whole new side of you,” I said to Ranger. “Who would have thought you’d be so at home making sandwiches and shopping for food?”
“Domestic Ranger.”
“Exactly. You’re going to make some lucky lady a wonderful husband someday.”
He wrapped an arm around me and pulled me close. “I have other marital skills. Would you like to see them?”
“Not in the frozen food section.”
Ranger grinned. “Name the place.”
“I’ll give it some thought.”
“You’re playing with me,” Ranger said.
“And you?”
“I’m not playing.”
When I’m this close to Ranger, and his lips are brushing against my ear, it’s difficult to think beyond the desire to rip his clothes off. Fortunately, we were in a supermarket, and by the time we got to the car I would have my mind redirected to other activities . . . like finding Hal.
We added jars of pickles and sauerkraut to the cart and checked out.
“Maybe you should add extra cameras to the deli,” I said to Ranger.
He loaded the groceries into the back of the SUV. “I don’t want to make another kidnapping seem impossible. Our best shot is still for them to go after you or me.”
“You’re sure you can find me, right?”
He looked down at my shoes. “Your shoes are equipped with locators. Both of them.”
“When did that happen?”
“Right after you bought them. About a month ago.”
A couple years ago I would have been incensed and outraged. This afternoon I was resigned. I had no control over Ranger.
“What if I don’t get to keep a shoe?” I asked him.
“Glad you asked. I have a miniaturized transponder I’d like to implant.”
“Implant? Where?”
“You get to choose. I get to assist,” Ranger said.
“No, no, no. No way. No how.”
“It’s small. You won’t know you’re carrying it.”
“How do I get it out?”
�
��There’s a string attached.”
I felt myself go slack-jawed and bug-eyed for a moment. “Seriously?”
“Hal was wearing a tracking device attached to his belt. We began chasing the tracker down minutes after Hal disappeared. We found it two blocks from the deli. It was in a dumpster along with the rest of his clothes. He didn’t have a tracking device in his shoe, so we don’t know if he was allowed to keep it. Having the transponder buried inside you is the best way I know to keep you safe.”
“Morelli almost had a cow when you taped a wire to me. How am I going to explain this?”
“You can begin by telling him it was the best twenty minutes of your short life.”
“Twenty minutes?”
“I could do the job in less time, but it wouldn’t be as memorable,” Ranger said.
“It’s tempting, but I think I’m going to stick with the shoe.”
“You could also swallow the transponder.”
“What if it gets stuck somewhere?”
“It’s unlikely that it would get stuck, but you would check to make sure it leaves your body.”
“Eeuuww.”
“Babe,” Ranger said.
* * *
■ ■ ■
It was almost five o’clock when we carried everything into the deli. Raymond and Stretch were at their stations doing prep work. Ranger’s housekeeper, Ella, was at the sandwich station.
I looked over at Ranger. “You brought Ella in to make sandwiches.”
“I can’t watch the customers if I’m making sandwiches,” Ranger said. “And at some point, we’re going to have to send you out to the dumpster while I’m watching the monitor.”
Oh crap. The suicide mission. If it went wrong, I’d be stripped naked, written on with a marker pen, and I couldn’t even imagine what happened next.
“Are you sure you’ll be able to get to me in time if you’re watching in here?” I asked him.
“I have men doing undercover surveillance from the building behind the deli. And I have men on constant patrol, circling the block, in unmarked cars.”
“And the instant someone lays a hand on me all hell will break loose, right?”
“Wrong,” Ranger said. “We want them to lead us to the other captives.”
Double crap. I really hated the strip-naked part, and I feared it happening sooner rather than later.
“If you captured the kidnappers right away, you could force them to tell you about the rest of the stuff,” I said.
“Are you sure you don’t want to swallow the transponder?” Ranger asked.
“I’ll think about it.”
“Don’t think too long,” he said.
People were lining up outside the deli, and Lula pushed her way in through the front door.
“You’re not going to believe what I just saw,” she said. “I was coming back here from getting my nail repaired, and I was looking for a parking place. I was driving all over creation being that those idiot people waiting to get in here took up the parking places. Anyways, I went down one of the alleys and all of a sudden something black caught my eye. It was crawling out of a window on the third floor of a building. And then it stood up on the ledge, and I could see it was a man all dressed in black. And then he spread his arms out, and he had bat wings. And next thing he stepped off the ledge and flew away.”
“He flew away?” I said.
“Well, it looked like he was flying because he had his bat wings out, but I guess you could say he was dropping.”
“From the third floor?”
“Yeah, except he touched down on a little awning over a back door, and sort of swooped off to the ground. He folded his wings, turned and walked between two buildings and disappeared. I was a distance away, but I’m pretty sure it was Wulf.”
“I don’t suppose you could have mistaken a cape for bat wings,” I said.
“I guess that’s a possibility,” Lula said.
“Where was the alley?” Ranger asked.
“It was one street over,” Lula said. “The awning he landed on said ‘KitKat.’ It’s a bar. I think there are apartments over it.”
“Someone needs to turn the sign in the door and start letting people in,” Stretch said. “It looks like it’s getting ugly out there.”
Three minutes later, every table was full, and there were ten people in line at the takeout counter. I was the only waitress, and customers were getting surly. The first food came up before I was done taking orders. I grabbed the plates and plunked them down on a table.
“This isn’t our food,” a woman said. “We ordered the number seven and ten.”
I picked the plates up and turned to the room. “Who ordered whatever this is?”
Three tables claimed it. I looked over at Ranger and caught him smiling.
“Order up,” Stretch said.
Crap! I gave the plates away and ran to get the new order.
By eight o’clock no one was smiling. Not me. Not Lula. Not Ranger. Not Stretch, Raymond, or Ella. And certainly not the customers. Turns out, I’m not the world’s best waitress, and Lula’s patience gets thin after forty-five minutes of phone orders.
We shut down at nine o’clock. My feet were killing me and my brain was numb.
“I vote we discontinue phone orders,” Lula said. “I’m underappreciated on the phone. I give these fools my happy sunshine voice and all they do is bark orders back at me. It’s a demoralizing experience, and after a while I find myself getting phone rage and wanting to smash something. Toward the end I was thinking I got a gun in my handbag and I could kill the phone.”
“It does not sound like a terrible idea,” Raymond said. “I often feel just that way about my fries. Sometimes I leave them in the oil too long on purpose because I hate them. Kill the fuckers, I think to myself. Kill the fucking fries.”
“Damn,” Lula said. “Do you kill a lot of fries?”
“No,” Raymond said. “After I kill just one or two I take a break and smoke a big doobie and I feel much better.”
“I guess that’s the difference between you professionals and us amateurs,” Lula said. “You got good work habits established.”
Ranger was holding a garbage bag. “Someone needs to take this to the dumpster,” he said.
“I’d do it but I just got my nail repaired,” Lula said. “I’m not taking no chances at getting it broken again.”
“Pass me by,” Stretch said.
“I would not do this if all of the earth was on fire with the exception of the parking lot,” Raymond said. “I would not go out that back door. There is evil waiting in the darkness.”
Ranger handed the bag over to me. “Showtime,” he said. “Don’t rush it. We want to give these guys a good shot at you. I don’t know how many more days I can take working in this deli.”
It took me a couple beats to process, and then it hit me. Ranger was sending me out to get kidnapped. Crap!
“Suppose they shoot me or stab me?” I said.
“That’s not the way they work,” Ranger said. “There’s no evidence of violence.”
“Suppose there’s some other miscreant out there, and he wants to rob me?”
“I’m wearing an earbud, talking to my surveillance people,” Ranger said. “They tell me there’s no one in the area. Probably this is a dud night, but we’ll try anyway.”
“And if this miscreant comes along out of the blue and demands to take possession of our garbage, you should give it to him,” Raymond said.
Ranger ordered everyone to stay behind in the kitchen, and I trudged to the back door with my garbage bag. Five minutes earlier I was stupefied tired. Now I was in adrenaline overload. My heart was beating hard, and my hand was sweaty on the doorknob. I opened the door and looked out. The small parking lot was well lit, but beyond it was blackness. Ranger�
�s men were out there somewhere, and Ranger was watching on the monitor. It was all good, I told myself. I’d be fine.
I stepped out and moved toward the dumpster. I could hear the faint drone of traffic from the cross street. All else was quiet. I tried to pace myself, walking not too fast and not too slow. I tried to look natural. Just another day at the deli. I reached the dumpster and paused. Still no footsteps. No flying saucer hovering overhead. I heaved the garbage into the dumpster and turned. No one lurking behind me.
It’s not over yet, I told myself. You still have to get back inside. I lingered for a moment so Ranger could see I was a brave soldier making an effort, and then I headed for the door.
I stepped in with a mix of emotions. Relief that nothing had happened, and disappointment that nothing had happened. Ranger closed and locked the door, slipped an arm around me, and my knees almost buckled.
“I’m okay,” I said.
He kissed me on my forehead. “Babe.”
“It says on the door that the deli opens at five o’clock on Sundays,” Lula said. “Hallelujah. I need a break from this nuthouse.”
“What about provisions?” I asked.
“No provisions on Sunday,” Stretch said. “We should be okay. Sunday night is light.”
“Saturday was also supposed to be light,” Raymond said. “How did that turn out?”
* * *
■ ■ ■
I slumped in my seat in Ranger’s Porsche. “I’m exhausted,” I said. “I’m not waitress material. I’m glad this day is over.”
“It’s not over yet,” Ranger said. “I’m curious about the Wulf window exit.”
Ranger drove to the KitKat and parked one building away. It was an okay street. Mostly narrow, three-story residential row houses. Lots of graffiti but no gangbangers walking around shooting each other. There were lights on in the apartment above the bar. No lights on the third floor. The upstairs apartments were accessed through a door next to the bar. Ranger walked in, and I followed. We took the stairs to the third floor. There were two apartments up there. One facing front and one facing the rear.
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