“No. I only had a couple isolated experiences with Morelli back then. He was one of those hit-and-run guys.”
“And now?”
“Now he’s waiting for me at the bottom.” I did some mental knuckle-cracking. “I feel like I should be doing something. I hate sitting here knowing Grandma is locked in Delvina’s trunk.”
My cell phone rang and for a moment the number displayed didn’t register. Then it hit me. Briggs. I’d totally forgotten about him.
“Yes?” I said.
“Where is everybody?”
“We’re back in Trenton. Where are you?”
“I’m in Atlantic City. I’m on a roll. I’m shooting craps with my lucky Edna money and I can’t lose. Why’d everyone leave?”
“Lou Delvina kidnapped Grandma.”
“Get out!”
“I think it’s safe to assume you’re unemployed.”
“Jeez. Did you get her back yet?”
“No. We’re working on it. We need a hundred and forty thousand dollars to ransom her. How much have you won?”
“Not that much.”
“Keep rolling,” I said. And I disconnected.
9
I slapped the alarm button on my bedside clock, but the ringing continued.
“Phone,” Diesel murmured against my ear.
I fumbled for the phone and mumbled hello.
“I just got off a triple shift,” Morelli said. “Gang fight in the projects. Two dead. Do you want to meet me for breakfast before I crash?”
“What time is it?”
“Six-thirty.”
“I’ve got a full house here. I think I should stay and keep my eye on things.”
“Who’s there?”
“Diesel and Snuggy O’Connor and Doug.”
“Snuggy O’Connor,” Morelli said. “I know that name from somewhere.”
“He was a jockey. He’s here with Doug.”
“And Doug is who?”
“Doug’s a horse.”
There was a long moment of silence.
“They’re not all in your apartment, are they?” Morelli asked.
“Yep.”
“Is Doug a little horse?”
“No. Doug is a big horse. It’s complicated.”
“It always is,” Morelli said. “I’m really tired. Probably I’m hallucinating this whole conversation. I’ll call in a day or two when I wake up.”
Diesel was in the bed with me, fully clothed except for shoes. I’d also fallen asleep in my clothes . . . minus my bra. The bra was dangling from the doorknob. I didn’t want to dwell on how it got there.
“What are you doing in my bed?” I asked Diesel.
“You fell asleep watching television, so I carried you in here and figured you wouldn’t mind if I joined you. I don’t fit on your couch, and I’m not in love with sleeping on the floor. Did you put in for a wake-up call?”
“That was Morelli coming off a triple shift. Checking in.”
I got up and peeked into the living room. No horse. No Snuggy. I went to the bedroom window and pulled the curtain aside. Snuggy and Doug were on a patch of grass at the back of my parking lot. Doug limped when he walked.
“Doug’s leg is bothering him,” I said to Diesel. “It makes me feel sad to see him limping. I bet he was a sight when he was young and healthy.”
“He’ll be okay,” Diesel said. “We’ll find a way to get him healed.”
I nodded and blinked to keep from tearing up. Between Doug and Grandma, I had a lot of painful emotions clogging my throat.
“I’m going to take a shower,” I said to Diesel.
“Would you like company?”
“No, but thanks for offering.”
“The least I could do,” Diesel said.
I got clean clothes, locked myself in the bathroom, and stepped into the shower. When I got out, I felt reenergized.
“I got an idea while you were in the shower,” Diesel said. “We need money, right? Who has money sitting around? Delvina. I watched the duffel bag get carried into the car wash, and I didn’t see it come out. I’m guessing Delvina has the money in the car wash safe.”
“And?”
“And we steal the money from Delvina. Then we can give it back to him to get Grandma. I swear, sometimes I’m so brilliant I can hardly stand it.”
“Only problem is, how do we steal the money without getting caught?”
“We need a diversion.”
“Oh boy. Been there, done that.”
“It’s going to have to be a much better diversion. Something clever. Let me jump in the shower and change my clothes and we’ll go do some recon.”
Snuggy, Diesel, and I sat in my car across from the car wash and watched the action. Friday was senior citizen discount day, and at eight o’clock, business was already jumping.
“This is going to be tough,” I said to Diesel. “Too many people. We should have done this last night, when it was dark.”
“I didn’t think of it last night. Let’s get out and walk around. Get a different perspective. See if we can come up with an angle.”
Diesel crossed the street, walked half a block down, and then doubled back, coming up behind the building. Snuggy and I walked in the opposite direction on the other side of the street.
A Doberman was sitting in a small front yard, watching traffic. He was wearing a collar with a little box attached.
“Invisible fence,” Snuggy said. “There’s a wire buried under the ground, and he gets zapped if he crosses it.” He smiled at the dog. “How’s it going?”
The dog looked at Snuggy.
“Wow, no kidding,” Snuggy said.
“What?” I asked.
“He says he ate a sock, and he’s waiting to crap it out. That’s why he’s outside. Ordinarily, he’s inside at this time of the day.”
The Doberman stood, concentrated for a moment, and sat back down. Guess the sock wasn’t ready to leave.
“We’re doing surveillance,” Snuggy said to the dog. “I’m a leprechaun and the guy who owns the car wash has my lucky money locked up in his safe.”
The dog’s eyes widened ever so slightly. Either he was impressed with the leprechaun thing or else the sock was moving south.
“Swear to God,” Snuggy said. “I’d just pop over there and take it, but I’m having trouble with my leprechaun invisibility.”
The Doberman looked Snuggy up and down.
“Really? Are you sure?” Snuggy said.
“Tell me,” I said. “What? What?”
Snuggy thunked the heel of his hand against his forehead. “Of course. Why didn’t I think of that? It’s so obvious.”
“What’s obvious? What didn’t you think of?”
“No time to explain, but I know what went wrong. Tell Diesel not to worry. I’ll take care of everything. You guys get in the car and pick me up when I come out of the office.”
“Wait! We should discuss this. What did the dog say to you?”
“He said it was my clothes! You see, it all makes sense. I was invisible, but my clothes weren’t. It was probably the new laundry detergent I used. All I have to do is take my clothes off, and then I can go in and open the safe and take the money, and no one will see me.”
“No, no, no, no. Bad idea.”
Snuggy shrugged out of his jacket and shirt and kicked his shoes off. I frantically waved at Diesel, but he was making his way around the building and didn’t see me. I made a grab for Snuggy and missed.
“Trust me. This will work,” Snuggy said, dancing away, unzipping his green pants.
Snuggy had tighty whities under the green pants, and in an instant, they were on the ground and Snuggy was running across the street.
“Eeek!” I said. And I clapped my hands over my eyes. When I took my hands away, I saw Snuggy’s lily-white leprechaun ass hop the curb and sprint for the car wash office door.
The office door opened and a big Sasquatch-type uniformed car wash guy looked out at Snuggy. �
��What the fuck?”
Diesel was on the sidewalk, rooted to the spot. He looked at Snuggy in amazement and then he looked across the street at me.
I shrugged and made an I don’t know, but it’s not my fault gesture.
Snuggy danced around in front of the car wash guy. “ ’Tis invisible I be, and lucky fer you or t’wud be the wrath o’ me shillelagh ye’d be feelin’.”
“Your shillelagh don’t look like anything to worry about,” the guy said.
A couple more uniformed guys stopped work and looked over at Snuggy.
“What’s with him?” one of them said.
“He thinks he’s a leprechaun,” Sasquatch told him.
“No way,” the guy said. “Leprechauns got red hair down there.”
Everyone stared at Snuggy’s thatch and exposed plumbing, including Snuggy.
“Cripes, I’ve smoked fatter joints than that,” one of the guys said. “I didn’t know they came that small.”
“I’m supposed to be invisible,” Snuggy said.
Several cars were lined up to take advantage of senior discount day. The drivers honked their horns at Snuggy and yelled at him out of their windows.
“You’re holding up the line.”
“Get out of the way. You think I have all day to do this?”
“Pervert!”
“Somebody shoot him.”
“You should come nice and peaceful with us,” Sasquatch said. “We’ll take you to the hospital. They got a special room set aside for leprechauns.”
Sasquatch reached for Snuggy, and Snuggy yelped and jumped away. The men ran after Snuggy, and Snuggy took off in blind panic, running around the cars that were waiting in line. Two more uniformed car wash attendants joined the chase, and the sheer number of people running after Snuggy added to his confusion. The seniors kept honking their horns and everyone was yelling.
“Catch him!”
“Cut him off on the other side.”
“Go left.”
“Go right.”
It probably only took a couple minutes, but it seemed like it went on for hours, with Snuggy shrieking like a girl, waving his arms in the air as he ran. He dodged two guys, sprinted straight into the car wash tunnel, and disappeared from view behind a curtain of water.
“Eeeeeeeeyiiii!” Snuggy squealed inside the tunnel.
The car wash guys ran in after Snuggy, but Snuggy was the only one who ran out. He was soaking wet and clumped with soapsuds, and he was moving at light speed. Sasquatch crawled out on his hands and knees, and two more men windmilled out and fell on their asses in the soapy water.
Diesel came from out of nowhere, grabbed the back of my sweatshirt, and yanked me toward the car. “Get in!” Diesel yelled at me.
I jumped in next to Diesel, and he rocketed away from the curb. Snuggy was running down the street in front of us, knees high, arms pumping, not looking back. Diesel honked the horn at him and pulled alongside. Snuggy ripped the back door open and threw himself in.
“Damn Doberman,” Snuggy said. “I should have known better than to trust a Doberman. They’re all practical jokers.”
I was facing forward, not wanting to look at Snuggy naked in my backseat. Snuggy naked wasn’t an inspiring sight.
“You’ve had this happen before with a Doberman?” I asked him.
“I never learn,” Snuggy said. “I’m too trusting. Are these my clothes?”
“Yeah. I picked them up off the ground and put them in the car. I figured sooner or later you’d get cold.”
“Thanks,” Snuggy said. “That was real nice of you.”
I looked down at my feet and realized that I was sharing space with the duffel bag. “How’d this get here?”
“No one was paying attention to the office,” Diesel said. “Everyone was chasing Snuggy. So I scrambled the security system, walked in, opened the safe, and took the money.”
I opened the bag and counted the money. It was all there. “Woohoo! Did anyone see you?”
“No. I went in and out through a back door. The office was empty.”
Snuggy was dressed by the time we got back to my apartment. He still had some suds in his hair, but aside from that, he looked okay. I opened the door to my apartment, and Doug was stomping around in my kitchen.
“Doug has to go,” Snuggy said.
“Go where?”
“Out! Hold the elevator.”
I ran to the elevator and punched the button. The doors opened, Snuggy and Doug trotted down the hall, and we got into the elevator. Doug was dancing around, looking frantic. He lifted his tail, there was the sound of air escaping from a balloon, and the elevator filled with horse fart.
“Holy crap!” I said.
“Doug says he’s sorry. He says it slipped out.”
The doors opened, and we all rushed into the lobby and out into the parking lot. Doug took a wide stance and whizzed for about fifteen minutes. He walked around a little and dropped a load of road apples. We had a pooper-scooper law in Trenton, but I wasn’t sure it applied to horseshit. I’d need a snow shovel and a twenty-gallon garbage bag to pooper-scooper what Doug dropped.
“Maybe an apartment isn’t the best place for Doug,” I said to Snuggy.
“He’s too cramped in the RV. I don’t know where else to put him.”
“I have a friend who owns a building with a parking garage. It’s very secure and the garage is well lit and really clean.” Actually, cleaner than my apartment.
“That might be okay,” Snuggy said. “He’d have room to walk around in a parking garage. And maybe I could bring some straw in for him to stand on just for a couple days until his surgery.”
I dialed Ranger.
“Yo,” Ranger said.
“Yo yourself. I was wondering if I could park something in your garage for a couple days.”
“Something?”
“A horse.”
A moment of silence.
“Babe,” Ranger said.
“He used to be a racehorse.”
More silence.
“He’s sort of a homeless horse,” I said.
“I’m leaving for the airport in two seconds, and I won’t be back for a couple days. You can put the horse in the garage, but I don’t want that horse in my apartment.”
“Who would put a horse in an apartment? That’s dumb.”
“Where’s the horse staying now?”
“My apartment.”
“I can always count on you to brighten my day,” Ranger said. And he disconnected.
I ran upstairs to tell Diesel and to get my purse.
“Snuggy can stay with Doug as long as he promises not to leave Rangeman property,” Diesel said.
“I’m going to ride over with Snuggy. I’ll be back as soon as I get them settled in. I thought I’d call Delvina before I go.”
Diesel was foraging in the refrigerator. He found the leftover pizza and dug in. “If he lets you choose the exchange site, ask for the car wash again.”
I called Delvina and told him we had the money.
“I’ll get back to you,” Delvina said. “I gotta make arrangements.”
“The car wash was good last time,” I told him. “Why don’t we do the car wash again?”
“The car wash won’t work for this,” Delvina said. “I’ll find someplace better and call you back.”
We had enough overhead clearance to drive the RV into the underground Rangeman garage. We parked to one side and we off-loaded Doug.
The elevator doors opened and Hal stepped out. Hal was Rangeman muscle, with a body like a stegosaurus. He was dressed in Rangeman black, his blond hair had been freshly buzzed, and his face was brightened by a smile.
“This is a horse,” Hal said, looking like an eight-year-old on Christmas morning.
“Ranger told me I could park him here for a couple days.”
The smile got wider. “He’s big.”
“He was a racehorse.”
“No kidding? Wow. I’m supposed t
o get you whatever you need.”
“A couple bales of straw would be perfect,” Snuggy said.
“Sure. And we have a bay over on the other side where we wash the cars. You can get water there. Just give me a holler if you need anything else.”
“I could use a ride home,” I said to Hal. “I’m going to leave the RV here.”
Snuggy and I hauled Doug’s food and buckets out of the RV, and Snuggy looked at the hose on the far wall.
“I’d like to clean up the sore on Doug’s leg and rewrap it with a fresh bandage,” Snuggy said. “I found some gauze bandages in the bathroom, but there’s not enough soap.”
I had a gizmo on my keychain that got me into the Rangeman garage and Ranger’s private apartment. I rode the elevator to the seventh floor, let myself into Ranger’s lair, and went straight to his bathroom. I grabbed a bottle of shower gel and returned to the garage. It was Ranger’s Bulgari Green, and I’d probably get a rush every time I smelled Doug, but it was the fastest solution.
“I have to go,” I said to Snuggy. “If there’s a problem, you can call Hal or me. I’ll have someone drop food and clean clothes off for you. Diesel says you’re not to leave the Rangeman building.”
I parked the RV against the wall, and Hal pulled alongside in a black Explorer. We drove past the car wash on the way to my apartment. It was all business as usual. No one was running around looking like a robbery had just been committed. Fingers crossed that they wouldn’t open the safe and freak. I didn’t want anything to go wrong. I was excited about getting my hands on Grandma.
I thanked Hal and hurried into the lobby. Dillon Ruddick, the building super, and a couple tenants were milling around in front of the open elevator.
“I’ve never smelled anything like it,” Mrs. Ruiz said. “I got out of the elevator, and it wouldn’t go away. It’s stuck in my clothes.”
“It’s a horse fart,” Mr. Klein said. “There’s manure in the parking lot, and the elevator smells like a horse fart. Someone’s keeping a horse in this building.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Mrs. Ruiz said. “Who would do such a thing?”
Everyone turned and looked at me.
“Do you smell it?” Mr. Klein asked.
“What?”
“Horse fart.”
“I thought that was the guy in 3C.”
Between the Plums Page 31