Hardcore Twenty-Four

  When we first met, Ranger was working as a bounty hunter. Since then he’s become a successful businessman, owning and operating Rangeman, a high-tech security firm housed in a stealth building in downtown Trenton. We’ve been intimate in the past, but much like with Diesel, there’s no possibility of marriage or even a long-term, stable relationship. Ranger has complicated life goals. He also has an overly protective attitude, and he puts trackers on my cars so he can keep tabs on me. I’ve given up trying to remove them.

  “My control room tells me your car just went for a swim in the Delaware River,” Ranger said.

  “It was just stolen. You should probably send the police to see if there’s anyone in it.”

  “Do you need a ride?”

  I blew out a sigh. “Yes. And I have Lula with me. Do you know where I am?”

  “State and Lincoln.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Do you have my messenger bag bugged again?”

  “No. I can ping your cellphone.”

  “Is Mr. Tall, Dark, and Hot coming to get us?” Lula asked after I put my phone back into my pocket.

  “Yep.”

  “Even better than stealing a car. That man is fine.”

  • • •

  Lula and I were sitting on the curb when Ranger eased to a stop in front of us in his black Porsche Cayenne turbo. I slid into the seat next to him, he studied me in the dark car, and he almost smiled.

  “Babe,” Ranger said.

  Babe covered a lot of ground with Ranger. I was guessing tonight it meant I was a mess.

  “We got involved in a demonstration,” I said.

  When Ranger was working as a bounty hunter he’d had a diamond stud in his ear and his hair pulled back into a ponytail. He’s a businessman now, and he’s always perfectly groomed and tailored. No more diamond stud and no more ponytail. Today he was wearing the Rangeman uniform of black fatigues.

  “And some loser took my Farrah wig right off my head,” Lula said. “That’s why I don’t look completely put together.”

  Ranger flicked his eyes to the rearview mirror and returned his attention to the road. Twenty minutes later he dropped Lula at her house. He waited until she walked inside and closed her door before turning to me.

  “You have the beginnings of a black eye, your shirt is ripped, and you look hungry,” Ranger said. “Where do we go from here? Would you like to come home with me, or do you have other plans?”

  I leaned back in the seat and closed my eyes. “I suppose I have other plans. I should go back to my apartment.”

  Ranger drove in silence. Never a man of many words. More of an action kind of guy. He pulled into the parking lot to my apartment building and looked up at my windows on the second floor.

  “Did you leave your lights on?” he asked.

  I gave up a sigh. “Diesel showed up today.”

  “And?”

  “And I’m guessing he’s still here.”

  “Would you like me to remove him?”

  “No. I’ll take care of it.”

  “Babe,” Ranger said. “You don’t want to get involved with Diesel.”

  “No problem. Not a chance.”

  He looked down at the license plates that were resting on my lap. “They left the plates behind?”

  “Yep.”

  “Thoughtful.” He leaned in and kissed me, being careful of the eye. “I’ll have one of my men drop a car off for you.”

  “Thanks. I’ll try not to lose it.”

  “If you can manage to keep it intact for a week, it’s yours. If it gets stolen, blown up, crushed by a garbage truck, set on fire, filled with cement, or dies an untimely death by any other means, I’ll expect you to spend the night with me.”

  I got out of his Cayenne and watched him drive away. It would be tempting to blow the car up myself.

  • • •

  Diesel was slouched on my couch, watching television, when I let myself into my apartment. He stood and stretched, his shirt rode up exposing his perfect abs, and I sucked in some air. I had too many men in my life. And none of them were doing me any good.

  I put the plates on the kitchen counter, tapped on Rex’s cage, and said hello. Diesel strolled in and did a head-to-toe body scan.

  “What’s the other guy look like?” he asked.

  “There were multiple other guys. I’m not sure what they looked like. It was dark and chaotic.”

  “Was it fun?”

  “Not especially.”

  He opened some kitchen drawers until he found a tea towel. He loaded it with ice, smashed the ice with a fry pan, and gently put the towel to my swollen black eye.

  “Are you hungry?”

  “Yes!”

  He poured me a glass of red wine, took two mac and cheese boxes out of the freezer, and popped them into the microwave. He sliced the hot dogs, put them in the defrosted mac and cheese, and nuked it all for another minute. He dumped one box onto a plate for me and the other onto a plate for him.

  “Instant happiness,” he said, draping an arm around me, shepherding me into the living room. “The Yankees are losing. It’s all good.”

  “You’re not a Yankees fan?”

  “Red Sox.”

  I forked into my frank and cheese. “Who would have thought you could cook?”

  “Just the tip of the iceberg.”

  “No doubt.”

  I ate my dinner, drank my wine, and put the ice pack back on my eye.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” Diesel asked.

  “No. It’s not that interesting.”

  “You’ve got something on your forehead and in your hair. It’s either raw egg or else someone got happy on you.”

  “It’s egg. I guess I should take a shower and wash it out.”

  “Let me know if you need help,” Diesel said. “I’m good in the shower.”

  I shuffled off to the bathroom and cringed when I saw myself in the mirror. My eye was swollen and ringed with deep purple. My T-shirt was ripped at the neck. My hair was spiked with egg goo.

  This is no way to live, I told myself. There must be a better way to pay the rent. When my face stopped throbbing I was going to think about it.

  I called Morelli and told him I was going to pass on the dinner thing. For starters, I didn’t have a car.

  “Rekko said he saw you at the Korean grocery protest. He said you started a riot.”

  “I wasn’t the one who started the riot. I tried to make an apprehension and it went south, and then one thing led to another. How’s the head count going?”

  “It’s going freaky. Bad enough we’ve got these heads in cold storage, it turns out they haven’t got brains.”

  “Say what?”

  “I’m not going to repeat it. I shouldn’t have told you because it hasn’t been released, but I’m creeped out, and I’ve had two whiskeys straight up. No fucking brains.”

  “Do you think it’s the zombies?”

  “No. I think it’s some sick psychotic asshole. Or maybe a bunch of assholes. Or hell, I guess it could be zombies.”

  “I still haven’t found Ethel.”

  “I’d like to help, but I haven’t got time. I’m pulling double shifts, running down decapitation leads.”

  “Grandma will be happy when you find the head thief. Leonard Friedman had to have a closed casket. And you know how Grandma hates a closed casket.”

  “I knew Leonard. A closed casket would have been a good idea even if his head was attached. He wasn’t an attractive man.”

  I said good night to Morelli and stepped into the shower. I have an ugly 1970s-era bathroom. I tell myself the avocado wallpaper and baby-diarrhea yellow fixtures are retro, but truth is they were a bad idea in the ’70s and they’re a worse idea now. I scrubbed the egg away and stood under the hot water until i
t started to go cold. I toweled off, blasted my hair with the dryer, got into my pajamas, and went out to see if Diesel was still in my living room.

  “Yeah, I’m still here,” he said. “Come cuddle.”

  “Gonna pass on the cuddling and go straight to bed.”

  “Is that an invitation?”

  “No. It’s a declaration. I’m beat.” I put my finger to my eye and tested it for puffiness. “How does my eye look?”

  “It looks like you smashed it into someone’s fist.”

  SIX

  I WOKE UP a little after midnight and realized I was in bed alone, and there were no television sounds drifting under my door. I got out of bed and walked through my apartment. No Diesel. Lights were off. The front door was locked. Rex was running on his wheel. On my way back to bed I caught sight of Diesel’s beat-up knapsack resting against the side of the couch. He was gone but not forever.

  The next time I awoke it was morning. The sun was shining, and Diesel was sleeping peacefully beside me. His arm was draped across my chest. The clothes he’d been wearing were on the floor. All of them.

  Best to sneak out of bed before he wakes up and gets amorous, I thought. I maneuvered out from under the arm and tiptoed into the bathroom. When I emerged a half hour later I was dressed and ready to start my day, and Diesel was still asleep. I made coffee, and ate a peanut butter and banana sandwich. I returned to the bathroom to brush my teeth and take another look at my eye. The swelling was down but the bruise was worse. Diesel was still sleeping.

  “Hey!” I shouted, standing over him.

  He rolled over onto his back and opened his eyes. “What?”

  “Just wanted to make sure you weren’t dead.”

  “Late night,” he said. “I smell coffee.”

  “Where were you?”

  “Working.”

  “Night watchman?”

  “More or less.” He threw the covers off, stood, and stretched.

  “God’s sake!” I said. “Don’t you have any modesty?”

  “None. You just noticed?”

  I noticed lots of things. Actually, everything. The man was stupefyingly gorgeous.

  “I’m going to work,” I said. “Will you still be here when I return?”

  “Probably. You might want to pick up more mac and cheese.”

  He padded off to the bathroom, and I left the apartment. I walked out into the parking lot and realized I didn’t have a car. A moment later a black Mercedes SUV pulled up in front of me and stopped. A Rangeman guy got out and handed me a key fob.

  “From Ranger,” he said. “Registration is in the glove compartment, and it’s equipped with the usual.”

  That meant it had a GPS tracker stuck somewhere, and a loaded gun in a lockbox under the driver’s seat.

  A black Ford Explorer drove up, the Rangeman guy got in, and the SUV left the parking lot.

  • • •

  Lula was already at the office when I arrived.

  “Whoa,” she said. “You got a hideous eye.”

  “The swelling is down and my nose doesn’t feel broken.”

  “Yeah, your nose looks okay. Good thing too because you have an excellent nose. People pay big money to get a nose like that.”

  “Anything new?” I asked Connie.

  Connie looked up from her computer. “No new FTAs, but my cousin Miriam told me that the funeral home on Liberty Street lost two heads last night. Miriam works there as a cosmetologist. She came to work this morning to get Mrs. Werner and Mr. Shantz ready for their viewings and when they pulled them out of the drawer they didn’t have their heads.”

  “I don’t like this,” Lula said. “This is creeping me out. Who goes around taking dead people’s heads? It’s just not right. Hold on, do you think it’s terrorists?”

  “Unlikely,” Connie said. “These people were already dead.”

  “Maybe they were practicing,” Lula said. “Like the way medical students do on cadavers.”

  I took a donut from the box on Connie’s desk. “I have my own problems. I need to find Diggery’s snake.”

  “I’d rather look for the missing heads,” Lula said. “I don’t like snakes. And I especially don’t like big snakes.”

  “You can stay in the car,” I said.

  “Whose car we talking about?”

  “My car. The one that’s parked at the curb.”

  Lula looked out the large plate glass window. “There’s a Mercedes out there.”

  “It’s from Ranger.”

  “That’s one of them little GLE SUVs. That car’s the bomb. And it’s all new and shiny. It’s almost as good as my Firebird.”

  “Remember Johnny Chucci?” Connie asked me.

  I nodded yes. “He robbed the jewelry store on State. The one by the porn store.”

  “He’s the dude who wears underpants on his head,” Lula said. “He didn’t just rob the jewelry store. He robbed the porn store too. Except we’re not supposed to call it a ‘porn store’ nowadays. The politically correct name is ‘adult entertainment emporium.’ They even got that on a new sign. Anyways, they caught him with his pockets full of cock rings. Not that I know why any man would want more than one cock ring, but what the heck.”

  “He skipped out and stuck us with his bail bond,” Connie said. “Left the area, and we had no luck tracing him. It’s been almost a year, but there are rumors that he’s back in town. We might be able to collect some of the bond if you could bring him in. It was armed robbery, so he’s worth money.”

  “I’m sure I have his file at home,” I said.

  Connie tapped “C-h-u-c-c-i” into her computer. “I’ll print out a new one for you.”

  “He should be easy to spot if he’s still wearing his Fruit of the Looms like a ski mask,” Lula said.

  “He only did that when he was robbing something,” I said. “It was his signature statement.”

  “It was his nutcase statement,” Lula said. “He couldn’t see with them on. He got caught on account of he fell off the curb when he ran out of the adult emporium.”

  I took the file from Connie, and Lula and I headed out in the Mercedes. First stop would be Diggeryville. Get the snake responsibility over first.

  “That snake could be anywhere by now,” Lula said. “It could be in Delaware.”

  “Usually a pet will stay close to home,” I said.

  “It might be different if there’s zombies around. Ethel might be worried about her brain. Okay, so it’s about as big as a walnut, but it might still make a good zombie snack.”

  I crept down the rutted dirt road, looking side to side. I parked in Diggery’s yard, got out, and looked around. No boa in a tree. No boa sunning herself in front of the double-wide stoop. I cautiously walked to the makeshift steps and peeked through the open door. No boa in sight.

  BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

  Lula was blowing the horn and waving at me. Frantic. I could see her mouth working, and knew she was yelling something at me, but I couldn’t hear over the horn beeping.

  I ran back to the SUV and got in.

  “Get me out of here,” Lula said. “Go now! I saw them. They were coming to get me.”

  “Who?”

  “The zombies. I saw them. Two of them. All raggedy and dead looking. Their eyes were red and glowing and sunken in, and the one had a big hole in his forehead. That’s probably where some other zombie sucked out his brain.”

  I looked around. “I don’t see any zombies.”

  “They went back into the woods when I started blowing the horn. They were horrible! I could even smell them. They smelled like dirt and mold and rotting carnations.”

  “Carnations?”

  “Yeah. I’m thinking they were the funeral home head robbers, and they picked up the carnation stench while they were there.”

&nb
sp; I put the SUV in gear and drove back to the main road, being careful not to run over any zombies.

  “Maybe you nodded off and dreamed there were zombies,” I said to Lula.

  “I wasn’t nodded off. I know what I saw, and I saw zombies. And I didn’t like the way they were looking at me. Like I was lunch or something. Like they wanted to suck out my brain. You know how when men get scared, their gonads shrink up inside their body? That’s how my brain was feeling. If my brain was a gonad it’d be all sneaked up behind my kidneys.”

  “Good thing it’s not a gonad then.”

  “You bet your ass,” Lula said.

  I turned onto State Street. “Johnny Chucci and Zero Slick are in the wind. Pick your poison,” I said. “Who’s first on our list?”

  “I got a real interest in Zero Slick. He looks like an unpleasant chubby little nerd, but he picked himself an excellent name. He’s like an enigma, right?”

  I thought he was more loser than enigma but hell, who am I to judge.

  “We haven’t got much to go on with him,” I said. “He doesn’t have an address, but he seems to have a neighborhood. I guess we could ride around the building he blew up and see if we get lucky.”

  I was a block away when Connie called me.

  “I’m listening to the police band, and a call just came in about a boa spotted on the three hundred block of Pilkman Street,” Connie said. “Pilkman backs up to the patch of woods by Diggery’s double-wide. If you hurry you could get there ahead of animal control.”

  I made an instant U-turn. “I’m on it.”

  “I’m not on it,” Lula said. “I’m not in favor of this. Suppose it’s Ethel? Then what? You gonna escort her into your Mercedes and put a seatbelt on her? You gonna talk her into turning around and following you through zombie country, back to Diggery’s place?”

  “I’ll think of something.”

  “We don’t even have any snake-catching equipment with us. We don’t have one of those loop things you see on the nature channel. We don’t have no rats or chickens or roadkill to feed it. We don’t got a snake cage. I don’t even know what a snake cage looks like. The snakes at the zoo are behind glass.”