Three to Get Deadly

  He shook his head, no. “I've got paperwork. Then I've got an autopsy.”

  I watched him walk down the hall and disappear into the elevator. Only an idiot would think they could talk to Morelli and not be talking to Morelli the cop. Cops never stopped being cops. It had to be the world's hardest job.

  Trenton cops wore more hats than I could name. They were arbitrators, social workers, peacekeepers, baby-sitters and law enforcers. The job was boring, terrifying, disgusting, exhausting and often made no sense at all. The pay was abysmal, the hours were inhuman, the department budget was a joke, the uniforms were short in the crotch. And year after year after year, the Trenton cops held the city together.

  Rex was in his soup can, butt side out, half buried under wood shavings, hunkered in for his morning nap. I cracked a walnut and dropped it into his cage. After a moment there was movement under the wood shavings. Rex backed himself out, snatched half of the walnut and carried it into his can. I watched a couple minutes longer, but the show was over.

  I checked my pocketbook to make sure I had the essentials . . . beeper, tissues, hair spray, flashlight, cuffs, lipstick, gun with bullets, recharged cell phone, recharged stun gun, hairbrush, gum, pepper spray, nail file. Was I a kick-ass bounty hunter, or what?

  I grabbed my keys and stuffed myself into my jacket. First thing on my agenda was a visit to the office. I wanted to make sure Jackie was holding up her part of the bargain.

  The sky felt low and forbidding over the parking lot, and the air was as cold as a witch's fadiddy. The lock was frozen on the Buick, and the windshield was coated with ice. I hammered on the lock, but it wouldn't break loose, so I trekked back to my apartment and got some deicer and a plastic scraper. Ten minutes later, I had my door open, the heater going full blast, and I'd chipped a squint hole in the ice on my windshield.

  I slid behind the wheel, tested the hole for vision and decided it would do if I didn't drive too fast. By the time I got to Vinnie's I was nice and toasty and could see my entire hood, not to mention the road. Jackie's Chrysler was parked in front of the office. I took the slot behind her and hustled inside.

  Jackie was pacing in front of Connie's desk.

  “Don't see why I need to do this,” Jackie was saying. “It isn't like I can't control myself. It isn't like I couldn't stop if I wanted. I just like to do some once in a while. Don't see what's so wrong about that. Everybody do some once in a while.”

  “I don't,” Connie said.

  “Me either,” Lula said.

  “Me either,” I said.

  Jackie looked at us one by one. “Hunh.”

  “You'll be happy when you get straight,” Lula said.

  “Oh yeah?” Jackie said. “I'm happy now. I'm so goddamn happy I can't hardly stand it. Sometimes I just happy myself into a state.”

  Connie had her copy of Mo's file on her desk. “We don't get Mo in the next five days and we're going to have to forfeit the bond,” she said to me.

  I flipped the file open and took another look at the bond agreement and the picture.

  Jackie looked over my shoulder. “Hey,” she said, “it's Old Penis Nose. You after him? I just saw him.”

  Everyone turned and stared at Jackie.

  “Yep, that's him all right,” she said, flicking a false red fingernail against the photo. “Drives a blue Honda. Remember we used to see him on the street sometimes. Saw him coming out of the apartment building on Montgomery. The one next to the mission.”

  Lula and I looked at each other. Duh.

  “He alone?” I asked Jackie.

  “I wasn't paying much attention, but I don't remember anyone else.”

  “I'm gonna drive Jackie over to the clinic on Perry Street,” Lula said. “Help her get started.”

  The problem with the clinic on Perry Street was that it was filled with dopers. Therefore, the street outside was filled with dealers. The dopers came to get their daily dose of methadone, but on the way in and out it was like walking through a controlled-substance supermarket. Easiest place to get dope in any city is always at the meth clinic.

  Lula wasn't going along to make sure Jackie got started. Lula was going along to make sure Jackie didn't OD before she even signed the papers.

  Lula followed me to my parents' house and waited while I parked the Buick in the driveway. Then she and Jackie dropped me at the Nissan service center.

  “Don't t let them give you no baloney about that truck,” Lula said. “You test-drive it. You tell them you'll bust a cap up their ass if that truck isn't fixed.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Don't worry. Nobody's taking advantage of me.”

  I waved her off and went in search of the service manager. “So what do you think?” I asked him. “Is the truck in okay shape?”

  “We've got it running like a top.”

  “Excellent,” I said, relieved that I didn't have to do any cap busting.

  Jackie had seen Mo coming out of an apartment building on the corner of Montgomery and Grant. I wouldn't t call it a hot lead, but it was better than nothing, and I thought it deserved a look. Montgomery and Grant were southeast of the burg in an area of Trenton that worked hard at staying prosperous. The apartment building anchored the street, with the rest of the block given over to small businesses. Sal's Cafe, A&G Appliances, Star Seafood, Montgomery Street Freedom Mission and the Montgomery Street Freedom Church.

  I circled the block, looking for a blue Honda. None turned up. The apartment building had its own underground parking, but a key card was required to get past the gate. No problem. I could park on the street and check the garage on foot.

  I did three laps around the block, and finally someone pulled out of a desirable space at the curb. I wanted to be on Montgomery, in view of both the front door and the garage entrance. I thought I'd snoop in the garage, take a look at the mailboxes, and then maybe I'd hang out and see if anything interested me.

  There were seventy-two mailboxes. None had the name “Moses Bedemier” printed on it. The garage was only a third full. I found two blue Hondas, but none with the correct plate.

  I went back to the truck and sat. I watched the people on the street. I watched the cars. I didn't see anyone I knew. At one o'clock I got a sandwich at Sal's Cafe. I showed Mo's picture and asked if he'd been seen.

  The waitress looked at it.

  “Maybe,” she said. “Looks sort of familiar, but it's hard to say for sure. We get so many people passing through. A lot of older men come in for coffee before the mission opens its doors for breakfast. It started out being for the homeless, but it's used more by seniors who are lonely and strapped for money.”

  At four I left the pickup and positioned myself just inside the building entrance where I could flash Mo's picture and question the tenants. By seven I was out of tenants and out of luck. Not a single person had recognized Mo's picture.

  I bagged the stakeout at eight. I was cold. I was starved. And I was twitchy with pent-up energy. I drove back to the burg, to Pino's Pizzeria.

  Two blocks from Pino's I stopped for a stop sign, and sensed seismic activity under the hood. I sat through a few shakes and some rough idle. KAPOW. The truck backfired and stalled. “Son of a bitch!” I yelled out. “Goddamn Japanese piece-of-shit truck. Goddamn lying, cheating, goat-piss mechanic!”

  I rested my forehead on the steering wheel for a second. I sounded like my father. This was probably how it felt to go down on the Titanic.

  I babied the truck into Pino's lot, swiveled from behind the wheel and bellied up to the bar. I ordered a draft beer, a deluxe fried chicken sandwich, a small pepperoni pizza and fries. Failure makes me hungry.

  Pino's was a cop hangout. Partly because half of the force lived in the burg, and Pino's was in a convenient location. Partly because Pino had two sons who were cops, and cops supported cops. And partly because the pizza was top of the line. Lots of cheese and grease, a little tomato sauce and great crust. Nobody cared that the roaches in the kitchen were as big as barn c
ats.

  Morelli was at the other end of the bar. He watched me order, but held his distance. When my food arrived he moved to the stool next to me.

  “Let me guess,” he said, surveying the plates. “You've had a bad day.”

  I made a so-so gesture with my hand.

  He was six hours over on a five o'clock shadow. Even in the darkened barroom I could see the tiny network of lines that appeared around his eyes when he was tired. He slouched with one elbow on the bar and picked at my fries.

  “If you had a decent sex life you wouldn't need to gratify yourself like this,” he said, his mouth curved into a grin, his teeth white and even against the dark beard.

  “My sex life is okay.”

  “Yeah,” Morelli said. “But sometimes it's fun to have a partner.”

  I moved my fries out of his reach. “Been to any good autopsies lately?”

  “Postponed to tomorrow morning. The doc is hoping Cameron Brown will be thawed out by then.”

  “Know anything on cause of death? Like what kind of bullet did the job?”

  “Won't know until tomorrow. Why the interest?”

  I had my mouth full of chicken sandwich. I chewed and swallowed and washed it back with beer. “Just curious.” Curious because this was the second dead drug dealer I'd stumbled over since starting the Mo search. It was a stretch to think there might be a connection. Still, my radar was emitting a low-level hum.

  Morelli looked pained. “You and your girlfriends didn't do him the first time, did you?”

  “No!”

  He stood and tugged at my hair. “Be careful driving home.”

  He snagged a brown leather bomber jacket off a hook on the wall at the far end of the bar and left.

  I stared after him, dumbstruck. He'd tugged my hair. First a chuck on the chin, and now a tug at my hair. This was a definite put-off. It was one thing for me to snub Morelli. It was an entirely different matter for him to snub me. This was not how the game was played.

  I rolled out of Pino's at nine-thirty, feeling sulky and suspicious. I stood staring at my truck for a moment before getting in. More misery. My truck wasn't cute anymore. It looked like it needed orthodontia. I'd gotten new points and plugs, but I didn't have money for the body work. I slipped behind the wheel and shoved the key in the ignition. The truck started and . . . stalled.

  “SHIT!”

  My parents' house was only three blocks away. I raced the engine all the way and was relieved to finally be able to let the rotten truck die at the curb.

  The Buick sat gloating in the driveway. Nothing was ever wrong with the Buick.

  The phone woke me out of a dead sleep. The digital display on my bedside clock read 2 A.M. The voice at the other end was girlish.

  “Hi ya,” the voice said. “It's Gillian!”

  Gillian. I didn't know anyone named Gillian. “You have the wrong number,” I told her.

  “Oops,” she said. “Sorreee. I was looking for Stephanie Plum.”

  I pushed myself up on an elbow. “This is Stephanie Plum.”

  “This is Gillian Wurtzer. You gave me your card, and you said I should call you if I saw Uncle Mo.”

  Now I was fully awake. Gillian, the kid across from Mo's!

  Gillian giggled. “My boyfriend was over tonight. You know, helping me with my homework. And he just left. And while we were saying good-bye I noticed there was a light on in the candy store. It must have been the hall light in the back. And I saw someone moving around in there. I couldn't tell if it was Uncle Mo or not, but I thought I should call you anyway.”

  “Is the light still on?”

  “Yes.”

  “I'm ten minutes away. Keep your eye on the store, but don't t go out. I'll be right there.”

  I was wearing a red flannel nightgown and thick white socks. I pulled on a pair of jeans, shoved my feet into my Doc Martens, grabbed my jacket and my pocketbook and flew down the hall, punching Ranger's number into my cell phone while I ran.

  By the time I reached the Buick I'd explained it all to Ranger and had the phone back in my pocketbook. It had begun to drizzle with the temperature hovering at freezing so that every car in the lot sat under a shroud of ice. Déjà vu. I used my nail file to chip the ice away from the door handle and counted to ten in an attempt to lower my blood pressure. When the blood stopped pounding in my ears I used the nail file to carve a six-inch hole in the ice on my windshield. I jumped in the car and took off, driving with my nose practically pressed to the glass.

  Please, please, please still be there.

  I really wanted to catch Uncle Mo. Not so much for the money as for the curiosity. I wanted to know what was going on. I wanted to know who killed Ronald Anders. And I wanted to know why.

  The burg was quiet at this time of night. Houses were dark. Streets were empty of traffic. Streetlights were hazy behind misting rain. I slowly rolled by Mo's store. A light was burning in the back hall, just like Gillian had said. There was no sign of Ranger. No blue Honda parked at the curb. No movement anywhere. I took King and turned into the alley leading to Mo's garage. The garage door was open, and deep in shadow, I could see a car parked in the garage. The car was a Honda.

  I cut my lights and angled the Buick so that it was blocking the Honda's exit. I sat for a moment with my window cracked, listening, watching. I silently slipped out of the Buick, walked the length of the alley down King to Ferris and crossed the street. I stood in black shade, behind the Wurtzers' oak, and I waited for Ranger, waited for the store light to be extinguished, for a form to appear.

  I glanced at my watch. I'd give Ranger three more minutes. If Ranger wasn't here in three minutes I'd cross the street and cover the back door. I had my gun in one pocket and pepper spray in the other.

  Car lights appeared a block down King. When the car reached Ferris the lights in the store blinked out. I took off at a sprint just as Ranger's BMW turned the corner and slid to a stop.

  Ranger owned two cars. The first was a black Bronco equipped with a state-of-the-art Bird Dog tracking system. When Ranger was doing a takedown and expected to transport felons he drove the Bronco. When Ranger wasn't responsible for a takedown, he drove a black BMW, limited production 850 Ci. I'd priced the car and found it listed at close to seven figures.

  “The lights just went out,” I called in a stage whisper. “His car's in the garage. He's going to go out the back door.”

  Ranger was dressed in black. Black jeans, black shirt, black flak vest with FUGITIVE APPREHENSION AGENT lettered in yellow on the back. His earring shone silver against dark skin. His hair was held back in his usual ponytail. He had his gun in hand when his foot hit the curb. If he'd been after me I'd have wet my pants on the spot.

  “I'll take the back,” he said, already moving away from me. “You cover the front.”

  This was fine with me. I was perfectly happy to play second string.

  I scooted to one side of the candy shop's front door, pressing myself against the brick front. I had fairly good vision through the window, into the store, and I was in a good position to nab Uncle Mo if he bolted for Ferris Street.

  A dog barked in the distance. It was the only sound in the sleeping neighborhood. Ranger was undoubtedly at the back door, but there was no indication of entry or capture. My stomach was clenched in anticipation. I had my lower lip caught between my teeth. Minutes passed. Suddenly the store was flooded with light. I inched to the window and looked inside. I could clearly see Ranger in the back hall. No one else was visible.

  Ranger was opening doors just as I had done days ago. He was looking for Mo, and in my gut I knew he wouldn't find him. Mo had slipped away. And it was all my fault. I should have moved sooner. I shouldn't have waited for Ranger.

  I turned at the sound of labored breathing and almost collided with Mo. His face was shadowed, but the shadows did little to hide his annoyance.

  “You blocked my car,” he said. “And now your cohort is nosing around in my store. You keep this up, and
you'll ruin everything!”

  “You failed to show for your court appearance. I don't know why you decided to run, but it's not a good idea. You should let me drive you to the police station to reschedule.”

  “I'm not ready. It's too soon. You'll have to talk to my lawyer.”

  “You have a lawyer?”

  “Yes.” His eyes locked onto Ranger's Beemer. The door was open, and the keys dangled from the ignition. “Ohhh,” he said. “This will do nicely.”

  “Oh no. Not a good idea.”

  His mouth tipped up at the corners into an ironic smile. “It looks like the Batmobile.”

  “It's not the Batmobile. Batman doesn't drive a BMW And I can't let you go driving off in it. You're going to have to come with me.”