“I don’t suppose you know where I could find him,” I said.
“Naw. Sorry. I hear he floats around.”
“Spreading his seed,” I said.
“Exactly!”
Ranger and I went back to the checkout.
“I have to give you points,” I said to Ranger. “You kept a straight face through the whole seed-spreading conversation.”
“It wasn’t easy,” Ranger said. “Points to you too. I thought you did an excellent job of indicating you might want seed.”
“I’m a professional,” I said. “All part of being a bounty hunter.”
We brought our bags of ketchup and mayo and whatever back to the deli and dumped them in the pantry.
“Where’s the chips?” Lula said. “I need chips. I’m having a meltdown here. I can’t make my world-famous Spam Chip Burger without no chips.”
“Someone wants a Spam Chip Burger?” I asked. “It’s not even on the menu. I didn’t know we even had Spam.”
“They wanted a tuna sandwich on rye but that’s lame. I can’t give those poor people tuna on rye. I got more pride than that.”
I stocked Lula up on chips and an assortment of condiments and went back to Ranger.
“Things seem to be going okay,” I said. “We’ve gone back to the normal number of customers.”
“I want to talk to Eddie. Tell your crew we’ll be back by closing.”
* * *
■ ■ ■
Eddie’s Tattoos was on the second block of Stark. It was a great location because it was next to a popular bar. People got drunk and they got a tattoo.
The second block of Stark was respectable enough to require only the standard SUV security of a deafening alarm. We parked and walked half a block back to Eddie’s. It was still early in the day for tattoos, and Eddie was alone in his shop.
Eddie was a rangy guy in his fifties who was covered in tattoos. His hair was gray and pulled into a ponytail. He obviously knew Ranger because they did one of those elaborate man-greetings with the knuckle bumps and hand-clasping routines.
“I see you got your old lady with you,” Eddie said. “You want her inked?”
“Not today,” Ranger said. “I’m looking for Victor Waggle.”
“Good luck, bro. Nobody ever knows where to find that dude. He floats.”
“Does he have friends?” Ranger asked.
“Everyone’s his friend, and no one’s his friend.”
“I need a place to start.”
“The Snake Pit.”
“Been there,” Ranger said.
“His manager is around the corner on State.”
“Manager’s dead,” Ranger said.
“I hadn’t heard. Was it recent?”
Ranger nodded.
“Victor’s gotta be broken up about that,” Eddie said. “They had some kind of a project going. A movie or a TV show.”
“Does Victor have a lot of tattoos?” I asked. “It sounds like you talk to him frequently.”
“It’s the snake,” Eddie said. “His fans all want the snake around their neck. Victor gets a commission for everyone he brings in here. I do one or two a week.”
“Let me know if you see him,” Ranger said.
They did another ritual goodbye thing, and we left the shop.
“You didn’t even pay him off,” I said.
“I helped him get rid of some parasites last year.”
“Ringworm?”
“Fire and personal injury insurers.”
“Will they continue to leave him alone?”
“They’re out of business. They’ve relocated.”
I wasn’t always sure what that meant with Ranger. It could mean they moved to North Carolina, or it could mean they were encased in cement at the bottom of the Delaware River.
“Where do we go from here?” I asked.
“Rangeman. I want to do some research on Leonard Skoogie. It won’t take long.”
* * *
■ ■ ■
Ranger grabbed a kale smoothie from the control room kitchen and took it to his office. If I’d been at the deli I would have tried the Spam Chip Burger. Since I was at Rangeman, I settled for grilled chicken in a spinach wrap. I ate at one of the small bistro tables in the kitchen area and watched the handful of men who were answering phones and watching monitors. Conversation among them was minimal and too soft for me to clearly hear. Once in a while something would beep or a blue diode would flash on a desktop. I finished my wrap and went in search of a cookie. No cookies in sight. The triathletes who worked at Rangeman ate fruit for dessert. I wasn’t up for fruit so I went back to Ranger’s office.
“How’s it going?” I asked.
“Leonard Skoogie and Ernie Sitz were college roommates. Six months after graduation, Skoogie moved to L.A. and bounced around as an extra, a production assistant, tried script writing. Got a job as a producer for a game show that was cancelled three days after he started. Represented one of the women who was a prize presenter on the show. Got her a few small acting roles. Acquired a second actress. Two years into his career as a talent agent he was arrested for procuring prostitution. He got off with a wrist slap and moved to New York. Eventually he found his way to Trenton and resumed his friendship with Ernie Sitz. It looks like he made a decent income from repping bands for frat parties and magicians for kids’ birthday parties, but so far as I can tell he’s never had a real success. And his three failed marriages were costly to dissolve. He partnered up with Sitz to produce a play, but it closed off Broadway.”
I’m a bounty hunter, barely scraping by, so I’m no one to judge, but it sounded to me like Leonard Skoogie was chasing a dream he had no chance of catching.
“Did you pull information on Sitz?”
“In an odd way, Sitz is a mirror image of Skoogie. He’s made a career of reinventing himself. He’s got a history of making bad choices in wives, business partners, and semi-legal investments. He ran from a racketeering charge that would have been difficult to prove and abandoned the one good piece of real estate he ever owned.”
“The deli?”
“Yes.”
“Speaking of the deli . . . we should get back there before the wrong person tries to take the garbage to the dumpster.”
Ranger closed his computer, stood, and stretched. His T-shirt rode up exposing three inches of abs, and I almost had an orgasm.
We took the elevator to the garage, and Ranger chose his Porsche 911 Turbo. There were no parking places in front of the deli, so he drove to the alley and parked in the small back lot.
“Tempting fate?” I asked him.
“I don’t think there’s much risk to us or the car.”
Lula and Stretch were yelling at each other when we walked in. Stretch had a spatula in his hand, and Lula was armed with a squeeze bottle of ketchup.
“He assaulted me,” Lula said.
“I didn’t assault you,” Stretch said.
“You whacked me with the spatula!”
“That was to get your attention. You always got those earbuds in your ear. You don’t hear anything anybody says to you. And if that isn’t bad enough you were singing. Loud.”
“That is true,” Raymond said. “And you are not such a good singer. It is like someone stepping on cats.”
“That’s ’cause I was singing to Janis Joplin, and she does a lot of screaming,” Lula said. “I wouldn’t have to sing if things weren’t so boring around here. No one’s ordering sandwiches. I haven’t got anything to do.”
“That is because you are a very bad sandwich maker,” Raymond said. “Word has gotten out. Not even my excellent fries can save your sandwiches.”
“Your French fries suck,” Lula said. “You use cheapskate oil. Your fries are what’s ruining my sandwich reputation.”
“That is so not true,” Raymond said. “I am insulted to my core.”
“Get real,” Stretch said. “You use the same oil all week. Remember that time when you came in and had to fish the rat out of the fry oil?”
“Oh yes,” Raymond said. “That was horrifying. I had to use the big tongs.”
“Excuse me,” Ella said. “The gentleman at table number three is waiting for his number seventeen.”
“Where’s his number seventeen?” Stretch said to Lula.
“I was thinking about making it when you hit me,” Lula said.
“What’s to think about? It’s all on the menu,” Stretch said. “Why don’t you stop farting around with the food and read the directions for a change? You might even make something edible.”
“I don’t like your attitude,” Lula said.
And she squirted him in the chest with the ketchup. SPLAT. A big red splotch on his white chef’s coat.
Stretch narrowed his eyes and smacked her on the top of her head with his spatula. Lula squirted more ketchup and Stretch swatted the ketchup out of Lula’s hand. The ketchup bottle flew through the air and landed with a splash in the fryer. There was a lot of crackling, with oil splattering onto the counter and the eight-burner gas cooktop. Flames raced in runners across the counter and up the greasy wall.
“Fire!” Lula yelled. “Somebody do something!”
Ranger looked around. “Where’s the fire extinguisher?”
“It got very old so we threw it away,” Raymond said. “We needed the space for the paper towels.”
I punched 911 on my cellphone and gave them our location. Ella cleared out the remaining customers. Stretch and Ranger attempted to smother the fire with kitchen towels.
“I got it under control,” Lula said. “Stand back.”
She aimed the sink’s handheld sprayer at the fryer, turned the water on, and WHOOSH the entire area exploded in flames.
“It is not a good idea to put water on a grease fire,” Raymond said. “This is bad. This is very, very bad.”
Ranger grabbed my wrist and yanked me to the front door. Lula, Ella, Stretch, and Raymond followed.
“I need to move my car, so the fire trucks can get in the back lot,” Ranger said to me. “Stay here with everyone and don’t move.”
He ran down the alley between the buildings and disappeared from view. It was a two-story building, and I couldn’t see in the second floor windows.
“What’s up there?” I asked Stretch.
“Nothing,” he said. “It was an apartment, but it hasn’t been occupied in years. Sitz used it like an attic. It’s full of junk.”
I heard sirens and saw flashing lights a couple blocks away. It was a dark, moonless night, but the sidewalks were lit by the faux gaslight streetlamps. Late commuters and residents were standing at a distance, watching the drama unfold. Our little deli family was huddled together. Moments before we’d been squabbling, and now we were speechless. I have no idea what was going through anyone else’s head, but I was numb. It happened so fast. It was hard to believe. There was smoke pouring out the door, and flames licking at windows. And out of the dumb numbness I had a moment of panic for the poor trapped roaches and rats.
Ranger moved next to me, put an arm around me, and cuddled me into him.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“The poor roaches and rats,” I said.
He kissed me on the forehead. “They’re fine. They were all running out the back door when I moved my car.”
“Thank God.” I looked at him. “Were they really?”
“Babe,” he said. “You couldn’t kill those roaches with a blowtorch.”
We all moved farther down the street when the trucks rolled in. The buildings on the block were brick, there were narrow alleys between them, and there was no wind, so the fire was staying contained.
“What are we to do tomorrow?” Raymond asked. “Where will I go if I have no fry station?”
“It might not be so bad,” Lula said. “Things like this always look worse in the dark, what with all the flames and smoke. This is just like that grease fire Wayne Kulicki started at Eat and Go. And that stupid Eat and Go was back in business two days later.”
“They’re pouring a lot of water in there,” Stretch said.
“Yes,” Raymond said. “The number seventeen is going to be ruined.”
I called Morelli and told him I would probably miss my curfew.
“We sort of burned the deli down,” I said. “We’re waiting to talk to one of the officials, and then Ranger will take me to your house.”
“Let me talk to Ranger.”
I handed my phone over to Ranger and waited while Ranger assured him I was undamaged.
There was a loud explosion from somewhere deep in the deli. The firemen took a couple steps back but continued to spray the water.
* * *
■ ■ ■
It was almost midnight when Ranger walked me to Morelli’s front door and handed me over. Bob ran in from the kitchen and jumped on me, almost knocking me over. He snuffled my jeans and my shirt and licked my face.
“He thinks you’re dinner,” Morelli said. “You smell like fried Spam.”
“It was horrible. We burned the deli down.”
“On purpose?”
“No! Lula and Stretch were yelling at each other. She was squirting him with ketchup, and he was whacking her with his spatula. He whacked the ketchup bottle out of her hand, and it flew into the hot fryer. It went downhill fast after that.”
“No one was hurt?”
“No people were hurt, but I imagine some rats got toasted.” I looked down at myself. My sneakers were soaked and my clothes were sooty. “I need a shower.”
“I’ll help.”
“Thanks, but I’m exhausted.”
“That’s okay. I’ll do all the work,” Morelli said. “I’m good with soap.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
MORELLI DRAGGED ME out of bed and handed me some clothes.
“It’s dark out,” I said. “It’s the middle of the night.”
“Technically it’s more the middle of the morning. Get dressed. I have coffee downstairs.”
“I don’t want coffee. I want to go back to bed.”
“I have an early meeting, and I need to drop you off at Rangeman.”
“I don’t need Rangeman. There’s no deli. It’s over.”
“It isn’t over. Five men are missing, and a man is dead. The dead man wasn’t on-site at the deli.”
“Leonard Skoogie and Ernie Sitz were college roommates.”
“Yes. And they were business partners.”
“Did you get prints off Skoogie’s shoe?”
“Waggle’s prints were on the shoe. I’m not supposed to be telling you any of this.”
“No problem. I’m too tired to remember.”
Twenty minutes later I stumbled into Rangeman and took the elevator to Ranger’s apartment. I shuffled to his bedroom, kicked my shoes off, and stretched out on his bed. I was instantly asleep, and when I finally opened my eyes Ranger was standing at bedside. I felt like Goldilocks in baby bear’s bed.
“I’m not a morning person,” I said.
Ranger was grinning. “You smell like fried Spam.”
“It’s in my hair. I can’t get it out.” I looked over at the window. The curtains were still drawn. “What time is it?”
“It’s almost ten o’clock. I want to make a run to the deli and check on the damage.”
I swung my legs over the side of the bed, stood, and straightened my shirt. “Morelli said Waggle’s prints were on the Skoogie shoe. Does that mean anything to you?”
“It’s another piece of information that will eventually make sense.”
I followed him out of his apartment and d
own to the garage. We drove to the deli and parked. A single fire truck was still in the street plus a couple cop cars. I didn’t see Morelli. There was a lot of debris on the sidewalk. Greasy runoff filled the gutters, and the air was heavy with the smell of smoke and soggy upholstery. The soot-stained building was cordoned off with crime scene tape.
“Are your men still in place?” I asked Ranger.
“No. I pulled them last night.”
I saw two forlorn figures standing in the shadow of the fire truck. Raymond and Stretch. I waved and walked over to them.
“This is a shambles,” Raymond said. “And it is a tragedy that my green card was destroyed in the fire.”
“That’s your story?”
“I will swear to it,” Raymond said.
“I guess you’ll be looking for other jobs.”
“No problem there,” Stretch said. “There are always jobs for line cooks.”
“You will have to travel to see your honey,” Raymond said to Stretch.
“There are always other honeys,” Stretch said.
“That is a good, positive attitude,” Raymond said. “It is the presence of a good purveyor that most worries me. I will first try to find employment in an establishment serviced by Frankie.”
“Freakin’ A,” Stretch said.
Vinnie’s Cadillac jerked to a stop behind the fire truck, and Vinnie lunged out of the car.
“Shit!” Vinnie said, staring at the blackened hull that used to be the deli. “Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit!”
“Who is this vulgar man?” Raymond asked. “That is a lot of shit even for Jersey.”
“He works for the guy who owns the deli,” I said. “He’s my boss.”
Vinnie spotted me and rushed over, arms waving, eyes bulging.
“You were supposed to manage,” he yelled at me. “This isn’t managing! Does this look like managing? No! This looks like Harry’s investment turned into a smoking turd. Harry’s gonna crap himself. And then he’s gonna kill me. And it’s all your fault. I put you in charge, and you burned the deli down to the ground! You’re a walking clusterfuck.”
Ranger moved into Vinnie’s range of vision and Vinnie stopped in mid-rant. Everyone knew I was under Ranger’s protection, and the possibility of angering Ranger was even more frightening than angering Harry.
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