Some thought needed to be given to my future. Being a bounty hunter was much more complicated than I’d originally assumed. Still, it had its high points, and I’d learned a lot in the past two weeks.
The heat wave had broken late in the afternoon and the temperature had dropped to a lovely seventy degrees. My curtains were closed, and a breeze played in the lightweight chintz. A perfect night for sleeping, I thought.
I kicked my shoes off and sat on the edge of my bed, suddenly feeling mildly uneasy. I couldn’t pinpoint the source of the problem. Something seemed off. I thought about my pocketbook far away on the kitchen counter, and my apprehension increased. Paranoia, I told myself. I was locked in my apartment, and if someone tried to come through the window, which was highly unlikely, I’d have time to stop them.
Still, the ripple of anxiety nagged at me.
I looked over at the window, at the gently billowing curtains, and cold understanding struck like a knife slice. When I’d left my apartment the window had been closed and locked. The window was open now. Jesus, the window was open. Fear skittered through me, snatching my breath away.
Someone was in my apartment … or possibly waiting on my fire escape. I bit down hard on my lower lip to keep from wailing. Dear God, don’t let it be Ramirez. Anyone but Ramirez. My heart beat with a ragged thud, and my stomach sickened.
As I saw it, I had two choices. I could run for the front door or dive down the fire escape. That was assuming my feet would move. I decided chances were greater that Ramirez was in the apartment than on the fire escape, so I went to the window. On a sharp intake of breath I ripped the curtains open and stared at the latch. It was secure. A circle of glass had been removed from the top window, allowing Whoever to slip an arm through and open the lock. The cool night air whistled softly through the neatly cut circle.
Professional, I thought. Maybe not Ramirez. Maybe just your garden variety second-story man. Maybe he’d gotten discouraged by my poverty, decided to move on to fatter pickings, and locked up after himself. I looked through the opening at the fire escape. It was empty and felt benign.
Call the police and report the break-in, I told myself. The phone was at bedside. I punched it on and nothing happened. Shit. Someone must have disconnected it in the kitchen. A little voice in my head whispered to get out of the apartment. Use the fire escape, it said. Move fast.
I turned back to the window and fumbled with the latch. I heard movement behind me, felt the intruder’s presence. In the window’s reflection I could see him standing in the open bedroom door, framed by the weak light from the hall.
He called my name, and I felt my hair stand on end like the cartoon version of an electrocuted cat.
“Close the curtains,” he said, “and turn around nice and slow so I can see you.”
I did as I was told, squinting in the dark in blind confusion, recognizing the voice but not understanding the purpose. “What are you doing here?” I asked.
“Good question.” He flipped the light switch. It was Jimmy Alpha, and he was holding a gun. “I ask myself that question all the time,” he said. “How did it come to this? I’m a decent man, you know? I try to do what’s right.”
“Doing what’s right is good,” I told him.
“What happened to all your furniture?”
“I had some hard times.”
He nodded. “Then you know what it’s like.” He grinned. “That why you started working for Vinnie?”
“Yeah.”
“Vinnie and me, we’re sort of alike. We do what we have to do to hang in there. I guess you’re like that too.”
I didn’t like being lumped in with Vinnie, but I wasn’t about to argue with a guy who was holding a gun. “I guess I am.”
“You follow the fights?”
“No.”
He sighed. “A manager like me waits a whole lifetime for a decent fighter to come along. Most managers die without ever getting one.”
“But you got one. You have Ramirez.”
“I took Benito in when he was just a kid. Fourteen years old. I knew right away he was gonna be different from the others. There was something about him. Drive. Power. Talent.”
Insanity, I thought. Don’t forget insanity.
“Taught him everything he knows about boxing. Gave him all my time. Made sure he ate right. Bought him clothes when he had no money. Let him sleep in the office when his mother was crazy on crack.”
“And now he’s champ,” I said.
His smile was tight. “It’s my dream. All my life I’ve worked for this.”
I was beginning to see the direction of the conversation. “And he’s out of control,” I said.
Jimmy sagged against the doorjamb. “Yeah. He’s out of control. He’s gonna ruin everything … all the good times, all the money. I can’t tell him anything, anymore. He don’t listen.”
“What are you going to do about it?”
“Ahh,” Alpha sighed. “That’s the big question. And the answer to the question is diversify. I diversify, I make a shitload of money, excuse my language, and I get out.
“You know what it means to diversify? It means I take the money I make on Ramirez, and I invest it in other businesses. A chicken franchise, a laundromat, maybe even a butcher shop. Maybe I can get a butcher shop real cheap because the guy who owns it can’t make good on some bad bets he took.”
“Sal.”
“Yeah. Sal. You got Sal real upset today. Bad timing, the way you walked in just when Louis got there, but I guess in the end it’s gonna work out okay.”
“I didn’t realize Sal knew me.”
“Honey, you’re not hard to recognize. You don’t got no eyebrows.”
“Sal was worried that I spotted Louis.”
“Yeah. So, he called me, and I said we should all meet at the marina. Louis was going to the marina anyway. There’s a drop coming in tomorrow, and I’m thinking maybe I’m going to have to do Louis because he’s such a fuck-up. The guy can’t do anything right. He lets people see him at Carmen’s, then he has to take care of them. He only gets two out of three. He can’t score Morelli. The dumb shit found Morelli’s car in your parking lot and didn’t stop to think maybe Morelli wasn’t driving it, so he ends up roasting Morty Beyers. Now you’ve got Louis fingered. I figure his time is up.
“So I borrow Benito’s car, and I go to the marina, and on the way I see you at the gas station, and I get a brilliant idea. Jimmy, I say to myself, this is your way out.”
I was having a hard time following. I still didn’t completely understand Jimmy’s involvement. “Out of what?” I asked.
“Out of the whole fucking mess. See, there’s something you got to understand about me. I gave up a lot for the fight game. I never got around to getting married or to having a family. All my life I never had anything but boxing. When you’re young, you don’t mind. You keep thinking there’s time. But then one day you wake up, and you find out there’s no more time.
“I’ve got a fighter who likes to hurt people. It’s a sickness. There’s something messed up in his head, and I can’t make it better. I know he’s not gonna go the count on his career, so I take the money we make, and I buy a couple properties. Next thing I know I meet this Jamaican guy says he’s got a better way to make money. Drugs. I make the buy, his organization does the distribution, I wash the money through my businesses and Ramirez. We do this for a while and it works real good. All we have to do is keep Ramirez out of jail so we can launder.
“Problem is, I’ve got a lot of money now, and I can’t get out. The organization’s got me by my gonads, you know what I mean?”
“Striker.”
“Yeah. Big motherfucking Jamaican posse. Greedy, nasty beggars.
“So I’m going down the road to whack Louis, I see you sitting there, and I get a plan. The plan is that I execute Sal and Louis Striker style. Then I leave some high-quality H spilled in the boat and on the barrel so the cops figure out the operation and shut it down. Now no
one’s left to talk about me behind my back, and I’m too risky for Striker to use for a while. And the beauty of it is that Sal and Louis get pinned on Ramirez, thanks to you. I’m sure when you made your statement to the cops you told them all about Ramirez buzzing by you at the gas station.”
“I still don’t understand why you’re here, holding me at gunpoint.”
“I can’t take a chance on Ramirez talking to the cops and maybe they come to the conclusion he’s really as dumb as he looks. Or maybe he tells them I borrowed his car, and they believe him. So I’m going to have you put a bullet in him. Then there’s no Benito, no Sal, no Louis.”
“What about Stephanie?”
“There’s not going to be any Stephanie, either.” He had the phone base shoved into his slacks. He plugged it into my bedroom wall jack and dialed. “My man,” he said when the connection was made. “I’ve got a girl here wants attention.”
Something was said at the other end.
“Stephanie Plum,” Jimmy answered. “She’s at home, waiting for you. And Benito, make sure no one sees you. Maybe you better come up the fire escape.”
The conversation was severed and the phone discarded.
“Is this what happened to Carmen?” I asked.
“Christ, Carmen was a mercy killing. I don’t know how she ever made it home. By the time we heard about it she’d already called Morelli.”
“Now what?”
He leaned back against the wall. “Now we wait.”
“What happens when Ramirez gets here?”
“I turn my back while he does his thing, then I shoot him with your gun. By the time the police show up, you’ll both have bled to death, and there’ll be no more loose ends.”
He was deadly serious. He was going to watch while Ramirez raped and tortured me, and then he was going to make sure I was mortally injured.
The room swam in front of me. My legs wobbled, and I found myself sitting on the edge of the bed. I dropped my head between my knees and waited for the fog to clear. A vision of Lula’s battered body flashed into my mind, feeding my terror.
The dizziness faded, but my heart pounded hard enough to rock my body. Take a chance, I thought. Do something! Don’t just sit here and wait for Ramirez.
“You okay?” Alpha said to me. “You don’t look good.”
I kept my head down. “I’m going to be sick.”
“You need to go to the can?”
My head was still between my knees. I shook it, no. “Just give me a minute to catch my breath.”
Nearby, Rex ran in his cage. I couldn’t bear to look over, knowing it might be the last time I’d see him. Funny how a person can get so attached to a little creature like that. A lump formed in my throat at the thought of Rex being orphaned, and the message came back to me. Do something! Do something!
I said a short prayer, gritted my teeth, and bucked forward, lunging at Alpha, catching him off guard, nailing him in the gut with a head butt.
Alpha let out a woof! of air, and the gun discharged over my head, shattering my window. If I’d had any cool at all I would have followed up with a good hard kick to the crotch, but I was operating on thoughtless energy, with adrenaline pumping into my system at warp speed. I was in fight-or-flight mode, and flight was the hands-down choice.
I scrambled away from him, through the open bedroom door, into the living room. I was almost to the front hall when I heard another crack from his gun, and an electric stab of heat shot down my left leg. I yelped in pain and surprise, whirling off balance, into the kitchen. I grabbed my shoulder bag off the counter with two hands and searched for my .38. Alpha moved into the kitchen doorway. He aimed his gun and steadied it. “Sorry,” he said. “There’s no other way.”
My leg was on fire and my heart was banging in my chest. My nose was running and tears blurred my vision. I had both hands on the little Smith and Wesson, still in my pocketbook. I blinked the tears away and fired.
CHAPTER
14
RAIN PATTERED GENTLY ON MY LIVING ROOM window, competing with the sound of Rex running in his wheel. It had been four days since I’d been shot, and the pain was down to an annoying but manageable ache.
The mental healing would be slower. I still had night terrors, still found it difficult to be alone in my apartment. After shooting Jimmy Alpha, I’d crawled to the phone and called the police before I’d passed out. They’d arrived in time to catch Ramirez halfway up my fire escape. Then they’d trundled him off to jail and me off to the hospital. Fortunately, I’d fared better than Alpha. He was dead. I was alive.
Ten thousand dollars had been deposited in my bank account. Not a cent of it had been spent yet. I was slowed down by seventeen stitches in my butt. When the stitches came out I figured I’d do something irresponsible like fly to Martinique for the weekend. Or maybe I’d get a tattoo or dye my hair red.
I jumped at the sound of someone knocking on my door. It was almost seven P.M., and I wasn’t expecting company. I cautiously made my way to the foyer and looked out the peephole. I gasped at the sight of Joe Morelli in sports coat and jeans, clean shaven, hair freshly trimmed. He stared directly at the peephole. His smile was smug. He knew I was looking at him, wondering if it would be wise to open the door. He waved, and I was reminded of a time two weeks earlier when our positions had been reversed.
I unlocked the two dead bolts but left the chain in place. I cracked the door. “Yes?”
“Take the chain off,” Morelli said.
“Why?”
“Because I brought you a pizza, and if I tip it on end to give it to you the cheese will slide off.”
“Is it a Pino’s pizza?”
“Of course it’s a Pino’s pizza.”
I shifted my weight to ease my left leg. “Why are you bringing me pizza?”
“I don’t know. I just felt like it. Are you going to open the door or what?”
“I haven’t decided.”
This brought a slow, evil smile. “Are you afraid of me?”
“Uh … yes.”
The smile stayed fixed in place. “You should be. You locked me in a refrigerator truck with three dead people. Sooner or later, I’m going to get you for it.”
“But not tonight?”
“No,” he said. “Not tonight.”
I closed the door, slid the chain free, and opened the door to him.
He put the white pizza box and a six-pack on the kitchen counter and turned to me. “Looks like you’re walking a little slow. How are you feeling?”
“Okay. Fortunately, Alpha’s bullet tore through some fat and did most of its damage to the wall in the hallway.”
His smile had faded. “How are you really feeling?”
I’m not sure what it is about Morelli, but he never fails to strip my defenses. Even when I’m on guard, being watchful, Morelli can piss me off, turn me on, make me question my judgment, and, in general, provoke inconvenient emotions. Concern pinched the corners of his eyes, and there was a seriousness to his mouth that belied the casual tone of his question.
I bit down hard on my lip, but the tears came anyway, silently spilling down my cheeks.
Morelli gathered me into his arms and held me close. He rested his cheek against the top of my head and pressed a kiss into my hair.
We stood like that for a long time, and if it hadn’t been for the pain in my butt I might have fallen asleep, finally comforted and at peace, feeling safe in Morelli’s arms.
“If I ask you a serious question,” Morelli murmured against my ear, “will you give me an honest answer?”
“Maybe.”
“Do you remember that time in my father’s garage?”
“Vividly.”
“And when we went at it in the bakery …”
“Un huh.”
“Why did you do it? Are my powers of persuasion really that strong?”
I tipped my head back to look at him. “I suspect it had more to do with curiosity and rebellion on my part.” Not to m
ention hormones on the rampage.
“So you’re willing to share some of the responsibility?”
“Of course.”
The smile had returned to his mouth. “And, if I made love to you here in the kitchen … how much of the blame would you be willing to assume?”
“Jesus, Morelli, I’ve got seventeen stitches in my ass!”
He sighed. “Do you think we could be friends after all these years?”
This from the person who had tossed my keys into a Dumpster. “I suppose it’s possible. We wouldn’t have to sign a pact and seal it in blood, would we?”
“No, but we could belch over beer.”
“My kind of contract.”
“Good. Now that we have that settled, there’s a ballgame I’d like to see, and you have my television.”
“Men always have ulterior motives,” I said, carting the pizza into the living room.
Morelli followed with the beer. “How do you manage this sitting business?”
“I have a rubber doughnut. If you make any cracks about it, I’ll gas you.”
He shrugged out of his jacket and shoulder holster, hung them on the doorknob to my bedroom door, buzzed the TV on, and searched for his channel. “I got some reports for you,” he said. “Are you up to it?”
“A half hour ago I might have said no, but now that I have this pizza I’m up to anything.”
“It’s not the pizza, darlin’. It’s my masculine presence.”
I raised an eyebrow.
Morelli ignored the eyebrow. “First of all, the medical examiner said you were due for the Robin Hood sharp-shooter award. You got Alpha with five rounds to the heart, all within an inch of each other. Pretty amazing, considering you also shot the shit out of your pocketbook.”
We both chugged some beer, since neither of us was sure yet how we felt about me killing a man. Pride seemed out of place. Sorrow didn’t quite fit. There was definitely regret.
“Do you think it could have ended any other way?” I asked.
“No.” Morelli said. “He would have killed you if you hadn’t killed him first.”
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