Ten Big Ones

  It was too noisy to hear my phone ring, but I felt the vibration.

  'Stephanie,' my mother said, 'is your sister with you? She was supposed to be here an hour ago.'

  'Did you call the apartment?'

  'Yes. I talked to Albert. He said Valerie wasn't there. He said she took off in the Buick. I thought maybe she got confused and went to the shower without me. She's been getting confused a lot lately.'

  'Valerie doesn't have a Buick.'

  'She was having problems with her car, so she borrowed Uncle

  Sandor's Buick yesterday.'

  I got a sick feeling in my stomach. `I'll get back to you.'

  I located Grandma and asked if she'd seen Valerie.

  'Nope,' Grandma said. 'But she better show up soon. The natives are restless.'

  I went out to the lot, got the gun Ranger always kept under the seat, and put it in my denim jacket pocket. Somewhere in the lot was a black SUV with Ranger's man in it. I thought that was a good thing. And my sister was somewhere in the powder blue Buick.

  That was a bad thing. I was associated with the powder blue Buick.

  That's why I wasn't driving it. I'd thought it was safely locked up in my parents' garage. Out of sight, out of the Slayers' minds. Not to panic, I told myself. Junkman was in jail, and probably Valerie was in a bar trying to get numb enough to survive the shower. I just hoped she didn't pass out before she got to the hall.

  I called Morelli.

  'You've got Junkman locked up in jail, right?' I asked him.

  'We've got someone locked up in jail. We're not sure who he is.

  He's telling us he's Junkman, but he's not checking out. He was driving a car with California plates belonging to Norman Carver, and Gang Intelligence tells us Junkman's name is Norman Carver.'

  'So, what's the problem?'

  'He's too short. According to California DMV, Carvers a big guy.

  And we got a little guy.'

  'No ID on him?'

  'None.'

  Tattoos?'

  'None.'

  That's not good.'

  Tell me about it,' Morelli said. 'Where are you?'

  'Valerie's shower.'

  `I'm assuming Ranger's got a man on you?'

  That's what he tells me.'

  'Poor dumb bastard,' Morelli said. And he hung up.

  I wasn't sure what to do next. Part of me wanted to run back to the safety of Ranger's building. Part of me wanted to go inside the hall and fill my plate with meatballs. And part of me worried about

  Valerie. The worrying about Valerie part was at the front of the line. Problem was, I hadn't a clue where to look for Valerie.

  I saw my mother pull into the lot and park. She hurried out of the car, and I met her before she got to the door.

  'I left your father at home to wait for Valerie.' she said. 'I can't imagine what's happened to her. I hope she hasn't been in a car crash. Do you think I should call the hospital?'

  I was mentally gnawing on my fingernails. I wasn't worried about a car crash. I was worried that Valerie had been spotted by a

  Slayer. I was worried that they sometimes staked out places I was known to frequent. Like my apartment. Not a thought I wanted to share with my mother. I had my phone in my hand, and I was about to call Morelli back when I heard a familiar rumble. It was the sound of gas getting sucked into an internal combustion engine at an astonishing rate. It was the Buick.

  Valerie swung Big Blue into the lot and parked in handicapped parking a couple feet from my mother and me. Neither of us said anything because we both thought Val qualified.

  'I got lost,' she said. 'I left the apartment, and I had so much on my mind I guess I was on autopilot. Anyway, next thing I knew I was on the other side of town by Helene Fuld Hospital.'

  I got a head-to-toe chill. She'd been way too close to Slayerland.

  In fact, she probably passed over Comstock. Thank goodness, luck had been with her, and she'd found her way to the VFW unharmed.

  Grandma appeared at the front door to the hall.

  There you are!' she said. 'Hurry up inside. The band ran out of steam and had to go outside to smoke some weed. I don't know why anybody'd want to smoke weeds, but that's what they said. And worse than that, we're gonna run out of food if we don't get this crowd to sit down soon.'

  I still didn't feel comfortable with the Buick being out on the streets. And I especially didn't want Valerie driving it home to my apartment. 'Give me your key,' I said to Valerie. `I'll move the car out of the handicapped spot.' Way out. All the way to my parents' garage.

  Val gave me the keys, and everyone went inside. I got into the

  Buick and started it up. I backed out of the parking slot, and I cruised the length of the lot to the exit. I'd spotted Ranger's man parked across the street. It was a smart spot that gave him full view of the entrance to the lot and the front door to the hall.

  Unfortunately, he didn't have a good view of the exit, so I made a left turn out of the lot to circle the block and come alongside him.

  He could follow me to my parents' house, and then he could give me a ride back to the hall. Val could go home with either my mother or me.

  I'd barely made the turn out of the lot when the black Hummer came out of nowhere, swerved around me and pulled in front, forcing me into a parked car. I leaned on the horn and reached for

  Ranger's gun, but I had two guys on me before I got the gun in my hand. I did all the things I knew I was supposed to do. Put up a fight. Make noise. And it didn't matter. In a matter of seconds, I was yanked from behind the wheel and dragged around to the back of the Buick. The trunk was opened, and I was shoved in. The trunk slammed shut, and that was it. The world went black.

  Sixteen

  I remember seeing a nature show on television where a ground squirrel was hiding in an underground den, and a wolverine reached in and grabbed the ground squirrel. It happened so fast it was a blur on the screen. That's the way it is with disaster. In an instant your future can disappear. And nothing can adequately prepare you for the moment. There's a millisecond of surprise and then a heaviness of heart when finality is recognized.

  I didn't have the gun. It had fallen out of my pocket in the scramble. And I didn't have my cell phone. My phone was in my purse, and my purse was inside the car. I'd made some noise, so there was the possibility that Rangers man might have heard me. I didn't think the possibility was good. There might have been a way to open the trunk from the inside, but I was at a loss. It was an old car, designed before safety features like interior-opening trunk lids.

  I felt around the lock area, trying to pry the lid up with my nails, trying to trip a catch that I couldn't see.

  1 was twisted into a fetal position, wrapped around and on top of a spare tire. I knew there had to be a tire iron in the trunk. If I found the tire iron I might be able to force the trunk open. Or I might be able to do some damage when one of the Slayers opened the trunk. Enough to give me a chance to run.

  The air was thick with the smell of tire, and the total blackness was smothering. Still, the smothering blackness was better than what awaited me when the trunk was opened. More irony, I thought. I drove Anton Ward to the shore like this. And here I am being driven to my fate under the same frightening, painful conditions. The Catholic in me rose to the surface. What goes around, comes around.

  I gave up searching for the tire iron. Probably it was under the tire. And try as I might, I couldn't get myself into a position to get under the tire. So, I concentrated my energies on kicking at the trunk and yelling. The car was stopping for lights and pausing at intersections. Maybe someone would hear me.

  I was so absorbed in kicking and yelling that I missed the moment when the engine cut off. I was in midscream when the trunk was opened, and I looked up into the faces of the men who'd abducted me. After all my recoveries, I was on the other side.

  I'd always thought in a situation like this the major emotion I'd feel would be terror, but my major emotio
n was anger. I'd been taken away from my sister's shower. How freaking rude is that? And on top of it, I was still dieting, and I was cranky as hell. There'd been meatballs at the shower. And sheet cake. I'd been steadily working myself into a frenzy while I was in the trunk, thinking about the sheet cake. I glared out at the faces of the degenerate losers who'd kidnapped me, and I wanted to get close enough to them to sink my thumbs into their eye sockets. I wanted to draw blood with my nails.

  I was hauled out of the trunk, in full rant, and dragged across the street to a bleak vest-pocket playground. The playground equipment was skeletal, covered with gang graffiti. The ground was littered with bottles and cans and fast food wrappers. The lighting was eerie. Dark shadows and an unearthly green wash from an overhead streetlight.

  The playground was surrounded by four-story brick apartment buildings. Windows were tightly shut and shades drawn on the park exposure. No one wanted to see or hear what transpired here.

  This was the middle of the seven-hundred block of Comstock

  Street. This was Slayerland.

  Someone had painted a large white circle onto the cracked blacktop. I was shoved into the circle, and the members gathered around, careful not to step inside. Most of them were young. In their teens or early twenties. Hard to say how many there were.

  Could be ten. Could be fifty. I was still in a blind rage, too crazed to count.

  A big guy stepped forward, his face lost in the shadow of his hooded sweatshirt. Junkman.

  This is the circle where we try the enemy,' he said. If you're not a member, you're the enemy. We already disposed of three of the enemy. This is your night. Are you the enemy?'

  I didn't say anything. His fist swung out and caught me on the side of my face. The impact cracked like a rifle shot inside my head, my teeth cut into my bottom lip, and I staggered back. A roar went up from the group and hands grabbed at me, holding fast to my jacket, tearing my T-shirt. I lurched away, sacrificing the jacket to the grabbing men, going down to one knee.

  This is the game, I thought, crawling to the relative safety of the center of the circle. They can't put a foot inside the ring. Only

  Junkman was inside the ring. And Junkman would continue to hit me until I was dragged out of the circle by the grabbing hands. And once I was out of the circle I guessed I was at the mercy of the gang, and they would do whatever it was that crazed depraved mobs did to women.

  Junkman pulled me to my feet and hit me with another roundhouse swing, the force of the blow sending me to the circle's edge. I tried to escape to the center, but one of the men had a handful of T-shirt and another had me by the hair. I was yanked over the line and hand-passed deep into the mob. And brought face to face with Eugene Brown.

  'Remember me?' Eugene asked. 'You ran over me. Now I'm gonna be the first to run over you.'

  My nose was running, and my vision was blurred by tears. Hard to say if the tears were from fright or from roiling, flaming fury. I didn't think I had a lot to lose by getting in one last kick, so I swung from the knee with as much power as I could find, and I caught

  Brown square in the crotch with my toe. He doubled over and went to the ground. I'd probably get raped by every other member of the gang, but I had the satisfaction of depriving Eugene Brown of the honor. I'd shoved Brown's nuts halfway up his throat. Brown wasn't going to be raping anyone for a while.

  A murmur rippled through the men behind me. I was ready to kick out again, but the mobs attention had shifted to the street.

  Several blocks south, a single set of headlights could be seen moving forward down Comstock. There'd been no traffic on the street prior to this. Probably there were Slayer sentries redirecting cars. Or maybe no one dared to travel the street after dark. I prayed that it was Joe or Ranger or Ranger's man in the SUV. No red light flashing. Hard to tell what sort of vehicle was attached to the headlights.

  Everyone was watching the approaching vehicle. No one spoke.

  Guns were drawn.

  The vehicle was a block away.

  'What the...' one of the men said.

  It was a big yellow school bus.

  The disappointment was crushing. I knew who drove the bus, and it was unlikely he could pull off a rescue. His intentions were undoubtedly heroic, but I worried that not only couldn't he save me... he probably was rushing to his own death.

  The bus was barreling down the street at an alarming speed, bouncing and swaying, barely under control. It was surreal. It was riveting. And the mob watched in stupefied silence.

  The bus went into a skid as it came abreast of the playground. It jumped the curb and plowed into the stunned gang members, brakes squealing, gang members yelling and scrambling to get out of the way.

  The bus lurched to a smoking stop in the middle of the circle.

  The door to the bus opened with a whoosh, and Sally wobbled out, all long, gangly, hairy legs and knobby knees, in his red chiffon cocktail dress and four-inch red sequined heels. His hair was Wild

  Man of Borneo. His eyes were dilated to the size of quarters.

  I had a split second of mind-numbing terror for Sally. And then

  I saw that he was two-handing an Uzi.

  'Rock and roll,' Sally said.

  A bullet zinged past him and bounced off the bus. I dropped flat to the ground, and Sally squeezed off what sounded to me like about seven hundred rounds. When the dust settled there were several bloody bodies writhing in pain on the blacktop. Some had been run over, and some had been shot. Fortunately, I wasn't one of them.

  Junkman had been one of those run over, his feet sticking out from under the bus like the Wicked Witch in The Wizard of Oz. The rest of the Slayers had scattered like cockroaches when the light goes on.

  'F-F-F-fudge,' Sally said. 'Freaking fucking fudge.'

  'Guess you were scared, hunh?'

  'Mother freaking fucking fudge,' he said. 'I almost pissed myself.'

  I was surprisingly calm. My life had taken on a feature film quality. I was living Die Hard in Trenton. And Bruce Willis was in drag. And I wasn't dead. I wasn't raped. I was almost completely dressed. I was beyond calm. I was euphoric. The anger was gone.

  Sirens and lights were flashing in the distance. Lots of headlights. It looked like everything but the Marines were on their way to the playground.

  There were a bunch of dropped guns on the blacktop. I kicked them around to make sure all of the guys Sally'd nailed had a gun by him, not within reach, but close enough to believe they'd first drawn on Sally.

  Two heads popped out of the bus door. The rest of the band.

  'Holy shit,' one guy said. And they both retreated back into the bus and closed the door.

  'We were taking a break out back, and I saw them grab you,'

  Sally said. 'I couldn't get across the parking lot fast enough to stop them, so I ran and got the bus. By the time I got it started up and out of the lot you were gone, but I got to thinking about this spot.

  I drive by here all the time on my route, and the kids talk about it, and how this is where the beatings and killings happen.'

  The first car to arrive was a Trenton PD blue-and-white. It slid to a stop behind the bus and Robin Russell got out, gun drawn, eyes wide. 'Holy Toledo,' she said.

  'I called everyone I could think of while I was driving,' Sally said.

  'Including the fire department.'

  No shit. I was going to have a seizure from the flashing lights.

  Ranger pulled to a stop behind Russell's blue-and-white, and

  Morelli was behind Ranger. Morelli had his portable Kojak light, flashing red, stuck to the roof of his SUV. I knew he had to have flown through town to get here this fast.

  Morelli and Ranger hit the ground running. They slowed when they saw Sally and me standing in the middle of the massacre, the

  Uzi dangling from Sally's trigger finger.

  I smiled at Morelli and Ranger and gave them a small wave.

  'My heroes,' I said to Sally. 'Upstaged by a guy in a
red dress and heels.'

  'Freakin' humbling,' Sally said.

  Robin Russell was already securing the crime scene with tape.

  Ranger and Morelli slipped under the tape and picked their way around the bodies.

  'Hi,' I said to them. 'What's up?'

  'Not a lot,' Morelli said. "What's up with you?'

  'Same old, same old.'

  'Yeah, I can see that,' Morelli said.

  'You remember Sally Sweet,' I said.