Between the Plums

by Janet Evanovich

  “But he wasn’t disappeared?” Lula guessed.

  “Not even a little,” Diesel said. “The guard pulled his gun and pointed it at Snuggy’s forehead.”

  “I don’t understand why it didn’t work,” Snuggy said. “It always worked before.”

  “Maybe it didn’t work because you aren’t a friggin’ leprechaun,” Diesel said.

  “Did you get the money?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” Diesel said. “I persuaded the guard to go to sleep, and we got the money. And then Green Pants panicked when a second guard came in. He took off shrieking like a girl and ran all the hell over the building with the guard running after him.”

  My phone rang, and I grimaced at the number displayed. It was my mother.

  “I’m calling the police,” my mother said. “Where are you?”

  “I’m on my way back to Trenton.”

  “Thank goodness. Let me talk to your grandmother.”

  “She’s sleeping.”

  “It’s morning. How could she be sleeping?”

  “I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure she’s sleeping.”

  “Will you be home soon?” my mother asked. “I have cold cuts for lunch. Should I make some potato salad? Maybe get some nice rolls.”

  “Grandma said she wanted to go shopping, so we won’t be home for lunch. I’m going to take her to Quaker Bridge Mall.” I made some static sounds. “I’m breaking up,” I yelled into the phone. “Can’t hear you. Gotta go.” And I disconnected.

  Diesel was smiling. “You’re going straight to hell for lying to your mother.”

  “You never lied to your mother?”

  “I’m a guy. It’s expected.”

  “What’s the plan when we hit Trenton?” Snuggy wanted to know. “Where am I supposed to park this monster?”

  “Drop Lula and me at the bonds office on Hamilton, so we can get our cars. Then you can park this in the lot behind my apartment building,” I said.

  7

  Lula and I watched the RV pull away from the curb and chug down Hamilton.

  “This has been a strange couple days,” Lula said. “Good luck and bad luck and good luck and bad luck. And then there’s the stupid leprechaun. And now your grandma’s been kidnapped. How often does that happen? ’Course, there was that time she got locked up in the casket and burned the funeral home down. I guess that counts for a kidnap.”

  I was fishing through my purse, searching for my car keys. “I’m worried about her. Delvina is a scary guy.”

  “Tell you the truth, I’m worried about her, too. Is there anything I can do?”

  “No, but thanks. You were great today.”

  “I’m going inside to talk to Connie.” She looked past me to the car pulling up to the curb. “You have a visitor. Mr. Tall, Hot, and Handsome is here.”

  Ranger parked his black Porsche Turbo and angled out of the car. He was in his usual Rangeman black. Black boots, black cargo pants that fit perfectly across his butt, black T-shirt under a black windbreaker with RANGEMAN written in black on the sleeve. He walked over and gave me a friendly, lingering kiss on my temple, just above my ear.

  “Babe.”

  Babe covered a lot of ground with Ranger. Depending on the inflection, it could be sexy, scolding, or wistful. He said “babe” when I amused him, astonished him, and exasperated him. Today, it was mostly hello.

  He gave my ponytail a playful tug. “You look worried.”

  “I could use some help. Lou Delvina kidnapped Grandma.”

  “When did this happen?”

  “This morning. Two days ago, on St. Patrick’s Day, Grandma found a bag of money. She bought an RV and hired Randy Briggs to drive her to Atlantic City. Turns out, the money belonged to this little guy who thinks he’s a leprechaun. And the leprechaun stole the money from Delvina. So Delvina kidnapped the leprechaun’s horse and Grandma until he gets his money. Problem is, we only have some of his money.”

  “We?”

  “Diesel and me.”

  Ranger covered his face with his hands, pressing his fingertips against his eyes. It was one of those gestures you do instead of jumping off a bridge or choking someone. “Diesel,” Ranger said.

  “He’s not your favorite person?”

  “We don’t hang out together.”

  “I think he turned Delvina into a toad.”

  “Delvina only looks like a toad. Under the warts, he’s still a middle-aged, mid-level mobster. And he’s ruthless. And a little insane.”

  “Great. This makes me feel much better.”

  “You haven’t gone to the police?”

  “No.”

  “Morelli?”

  “No. We were afraid Delvina would panic and make Grandma disappear.”

  “That’s a genuine concern,” Ranger said. “How can I help you?”

  “For starters, you can get me Delvina’s phone number.”

  Ranger called his office and asked for Delvina’s number. Moments later, he gave it to me. “Now what?” he asked.

  “Hopefully, this will do it. I’ll give him his money, and he’ll give me Grandma.”

  “Call me if there are complications. I have to run. I need to look in on a commercial account.”

  I immediately called Delvina. “Okay,” I said, “I have the money.” Most of it. “How do you want to do this?”

  “Put the duffel bag on the passenger seat of a car and take the car to the car wash at three o’clock. If the money’s all there, you’ll get your grandmother.”

  “Will she be at the car wash?”

  “More or less. We’ll deliver her to the car wash as soon as we count the money. You shouldn’t worry about it. Trust me, the sooner we’re rid of her, the better.”

  “I suppose I should tell you we’re a little short.”

  “How short?”

  “Roughly . . . a hundred and forty thousand, more or less.”

  “No deal. No way. I need all the money. At three o’clock, we shoot the horse, and then we shoot the old lady. I’m almost hoping you don’t get the money. I really want to shoot the old lady.”

  I got into my piece-of-crap car and drove to my apartment building. By the time I got there, I’d sort of stopped crying. I ran up the stairs and took a minute to blow my nose and get myself under control before I opened the door.

  Snuggy was on the couch, watching television. He was looking more like Dublin bum than leprechaun.

  “Where do you keep all your green pants?” I asked him. “Do you live near here?”

  “I have an apartment in Hamilton Township. By the pet cemetery.”

  That figured.

  Diesel strolled out of my bedroom wearing his same clothes but looking fresh out of the shower. His hair was still damp and the stubble was gone.

  “I used your razor and toothbrush,” Diesel said. “I figured you wouldn’t mind.”

  “You aren’t diseased, are you?”

  “I couldn’t get a disease if I tried.” He stood for a beat with his thumbs hooked into his pants pockets. “Are you okay?”

  “Yes.” A tear leaked out of my eye and streaked down my cheek.

  “Oh, shit,” Diesel said. “I’m not good at this. It’s not the toothbrush, is it? I’ll buy you a new one.”

  “It’s Grandma. He’s going to shoot her because we haven’t got all the money. I talked to him, and he told me they were going to count the money, and if it wasn’t all there, they were going to shoot Grandma and the horse.”

  “So we have to get more money,” Snuggy said. “How hard can it be?”

  “We’re not talking about small change,” Diesel said. “We need a hundred and forty thousand dollars.”

  “Maybe you could pop into a bank,” Snuggy said to Diesel.

  Diesel looked at his watch. “Delvina’s keeping the horse and the woman somewhere. Let’s see if we can find them. If we can’t find them by two o’clock, we’ll go to plan B.”

  “What’s plan B?” I asked him.

 
; “I don’t actually have a plan B. I suppose plan B would involve the police. I’m going to have Flash take a look at Delvina’s country house.”

  Flash works with Diesel. Or maybe Flash works for Diesel. Or maybe Flash is just Diesel’s friend. Hard to tell where Flash fits in the big picture. He’s slim and spikey-haired and a couple inches taller than me. He lives in Trenton. He has a girlfriend. He likes to ski. And he’s a handy guy to have on your team. That’s everything I know about Flash.

  Diesel punched Flash’s number into his phone. “I need you to check out Lou Delvina’s house in Bucks County,” he said when the connection was made. “He’s holding a horse and Stephanie’s grandmother as hostages somewhere. I’m going to scope out his house in Trenton.”

  “Is there something I can do?” Snuggy asked.

  “You can stay here and not make a move,” Diesel said. “When we leave, don’t open the door to anyone. Don’t order pizza. Don’t buy Girl Scout cookies. Don’t look out a window. Bolt the door and keep the television low.” Diesel had his head in the refrigerator. “There’s nothing in here. How can you live without food?”

  “I have peanut butter in the cupboard and some crackers.”

  “I like peanut butter and crackers,” Snuggy said.

  “Knock yourself out,” Diesel said. He wrapped an arm around me. “Let’s hustle. I want to see the car wash, and then we’ll snoop around Delvina’s social club. He has a house in Cranbury, but I don’t think he’d keep a horse and an old lady locked up with his wife.”

  I followed Diesel down the stairs, through the small lobby, and out the back door. We got to the car, and he took the keys from me.

  “Excuse me?” I said.

  “I’ll drive.”

  “I don’t think so. This is my car, and I drive.”

  “The guy drives. Everyone knows that.”

  “Only in Saudi Arabia.”

  He dangled the keys over my head. “Do you think you can get these keys from me?”

  “Do you think you can walk after I kick you in the knee?”

  “You can be a real pain in the ass,” Diesel said.

  Another tear slid down my cheek.

  “You forced yourself to do that,” Diesel said.

  “I didn’t. I’m feeling very emotional. I’m hungry and I need a shower and some awful toad man is going to shoot my grandmother. And I’m tired. I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night.”

  “It was nice last night,” Diesel said. “I liked holding you.”

  “You’re trying to soften me up.”

  “Is it working?”

  I did some mental eye rolling and got into the passenger side of the car.

  The car wash wasn’t far from my apartment. We cruised past, made a U-turn, and drove by a second time. It was a little after eleven o’clock on a Thursday, and the car wash was empty. Three Hispanic guys in car wash gear lounged in front of the drive-through brushless system that was built into a cement block tunnel. The waiting room and Delvina’s office were a couple feet away in a second cement block building. The waiting room was glass-fronted, and I could see some vending machines and a counter with a cash register, but no people. There were two junker cars in the lot. Nothing that looked like it would belong to Delvina.

  Diesel drove around a couple blocks, getting the lay of the land, looking for black Mafia staff cars. We didn’t see any Mafia cars, horse barns, hay wagons, or men hobbling around holding their privates because Grandma finally managed to get her leg up high enough to do damage.

  “Delvina could have your grandmother stashed anywhere,” Diesel said. “The horse is a whole other thing. You don’t ride a horse through downtown Trenton to get handed off for ransom. Delvina needs a horse van to move Doug around. So far, I’m not seeing any evidence of a horse or a van.”

  Diesel turned onto Roebling and slowed when he came to Delvina’s social club. It was a dingy, redbrick, two-story row house. Two metal folding chairs from Lugio’s Funeral Home had been placed beside the front stoop. This was Chambersburg patio furniture. Pottery Barn, eat your heart out. There was no visible activity in or around the club. No place to hide a horse.

  Diesel took the alley behind the row houses. Each house had a small, narrow yard with a single-car garage at the rear. Diesel parked halfway down the alley, left the car, and walked. He looked in each of the garages and in all the yards.

  “No sign of a horse,” he said when he returned. “But I’m guessing a couple people are hijacking trucks. Do you need a toaster?”

  I called Connie and asked if Delvina had any other properties.

  “Hold on,” Connie said. “I’ll run him through some programs.”

  I listened to Connie tap onto her computer keyboard and waited while she read through information appearing on her screen.

  “So far, I’m only showing his house in Cranbury and his house in Bucks County. Plus the car wash. I know he owns other properties, but they were probably bought through a holding company. I can run that down, but it’ll take a while. I’ll call you back.”

  “Thanks.”

  “We have time,” Diesel said. “We might as well look at the house in Cranbury.”

  Cranbury is a pretty little town within shouting distance of Route 130. Delvina lived on a quiet, tree-lined street. His house was white clapboard with black shutters and a red door. It was two stories, with a two-car detached garage. The lot was maybe a quarter acre and filled with trees and flowerbeds and shrubs. Mrs. Delvina liked to garden.

  “This all seems so benign, so normal,” Diesel said, sitting in the car, looking across the street at the house.

  “Maybe when Delvina is in this house he is sort of normal.”

  Diesel methodically drove up and down streets in Delvina’s neighborhood. There were some rural areas around Cranbury where a horse could be kept without notice, but we didn’t know where to begin.

  I called Connie for a property update.

  “I’m not finding anything local,” Connie said. “He’s got real estate in the Caymans and a condo in Miami under LD Sons Import.”

  “Did you try his wife’s maiden name?”

  “Yeah. Nothing came up.”

  Diesel put the Monte Carlo into gear and headed out of town, back to Trenton. We were on Broad Street when Flash called. I gave Diesel raised eyebrows, and he shook his head no. No sign of Grandma or Doug in Bucks County.

  “I could use a change of clothes,” Diesel told Flash. “And check to see if the O’Connor mess has been resolved. If it hasn’t been resolved and I need to keep him close, he’s going to need clothes, too. And a toothbrush.”

  We stopped at Cluck-in-a-Bucket, got bags of food, and brought them back to my apartment.

  Snuggy was still on the couch in front of the television. We dumped the food on the coffee table and we all dug in.

  “I got an idea while you were gone,” Snuggy said. “Delvina won’t give us Grandma, because we don’t have all the money, but maybe he’ll take the money we’ve got in exchange for Doug. We can ask for another twenty-four hours to come up with the rest. And here’s the best part. Once we get hold of Doug, I can ask him where Delvina is keeping Grandma.”

  Diesel was halfway into a second chicken sandwich. “On the surface, that sounds like an okay idea. If it turns out you can’t actually talk to that horse, I’ll throw you off the Route 1 bridge into the Delaware River.”

  “You have trust issues,” Snuggy said to Diesel. “I sense some passive-aggressive tendencies.”

  “I’m not passive-aggressive,” Diesel said. “I’m actively aggressive. And I’d have to be an idiot to trust you. You’re a nut.”

  “Should I call Delvina?” I asked Diesel.

  “Yeah. At the very worst, it’ll buy us some time.”

  I had the money in the duffel bag on the seat next to me. I eased the Monte Carlo up to the car wash and put it in park. I got out and a guy in a car wash uniform got in. The Monte was rolled through the car wash, and when it eme
rged on the opposite side, the guy got out holding the duffel bag. He walked over to me and gave me a piece of paper. “This is from Mr. Delvina. He said you’d know what to do.”

  Diesel and Snuggy were in the RV half a block away. I drove around the block and parked my clean Monte Carlo behind the RV. I got out, locked up, and climbed on board. Snuggy was at the wheel. He was the only one who could fit in the seat.

  “Here’s the address,” I said to Snuggy. “It’s south of town, off Broad. It’s a light industrial park that’s pretty much abandoned.”

  Ten minutes later, Snuggy maneuvered the RV into the parking lot of a small warehouse. Grass grew from cracks in the pavement and one of the front office windows was covered with a plywood slab. Diesel hopped out and stood still for a moment. I supposed he was taking some sort of cosmic temperature. He walked to a side door, and Snuggy and I hopped out of the RV and followed him.

  Diesel opened the door, and we all peered into the dim interior. Something rustled in a far corner, and deep in shadow I could see the horse. He was tethered to a cinder block. He turned his head and looked at us and made a horse sound. Not a high-pitched whinny. This was more of a low snuffle.

  “Doug!” Snuggy yelled. And he ran to the horse and threw his arms around the horse’s neck.

  Diesel and I approached the horse, and I could see why Snuggy was so taken. The animal was beautiful. His mane and tail were black and his coat was chestnut. He had large, soulful brown eyes and long lashes. And he was massive. Even in the dark warehouse, you could sense his power. It was a lot like standing next to Diesel.

  We cut the rope away from the cinder block and led Doug through the warehouse to the parking lot.

  “Are you sure this is going to work?” I asked Snuggy.

  “Sure, it’ll work,” Snuggy said. “Doug’s a real trouper—right, Doug?”

  Doug looked at Snuggy with his huge horse eye.

  “Just exactly how do you talk to him?” I asked Snuggy.

  “It’s sort of telepathic.”

  “Can he understand me?”

  “Yep. See, that’s the mistake people make. Everyone thinks just because animals can’t talk means they can’t understand.”