Seven Up

  I slid my cell phone back into my jacket pocket and told Lula and Ranger the plan.

  “He's pretty cagey for an old guy,” Lula said. “That's not a bad plan.”

  I'd already paid for the food, so I dropped a tip on the table and Lula and I left. The black and green around my eyes had faded to yellow and the yellow was hidden behind dark glasses. Lula hadn't worn her leathers. She was dressed in boots and jeans and a T-shirt that had a lot of cows on it and advertised Ben & Jerry's ice cream. We were just two normal women out for a couple burgers at the diner. Even the cooler seemed innocuous. No reason to suspect it contained a heart to ransom my grandmother.

  And these other people, scarfing down fries and cole slaw, ordering rice pudding for dessert. What were their secrets? Who was to say they weren't spies and thugs and jewel thieves? I looked around. For that matter, who was to say they were human?

  I took my time getting to Cherry Street. I was worried about Grandma and nervous about giving Ronald a pig heart. So I drove very carefully. Crashing the bike would put a real crimp in my rescue effort. Anyway, it was a nice night to be on a Harley. No bugs and no rain. I could feel Lula behind me, holding tight to the cooler.

  The porch light was on at Ronald's house. Guess he was waiting for me. Hope he had room in his freezer for an organ. I left Lula on the bike with her Glock in her hand, and I walked the cooler to the front door and rang the bell.

  Ronald opened the door and looked out at me and then at Lula. “Do you two sleep together, too?”

  “No,” I said. “I sleep with Joe Morelli.”

  Ronald looked a little grim at that since Morelli is a vice cop and Ronald is a vice purveyor.

  “Before I hand this over to you I want you to call and have Grandma released,” I said.

  “Sure. Come on in.”

  “I'll stay here. And I want to hear Grandma tell me she's okay.”

  Ronald shrugged. “Whatever. Let me see the heart.”

  I slid the top back and Ronald looked inside.

  “Jesus,” he said, “it's frozen.”

  I looked in the cooler, too. What I saw was a blechy-looking lump of maroon ice wrapped in plastic.

  “Yeah,” I said, “it was starting to look a little funky. You can't keep a heart around forever, you know. So I froze it.”

  “You saw it when it wasn't frozen, though, right? And it looked okay?”

  “I'm not exactly an expert on this stuff.”

  Ronald disappeared and returned with a portable phone. “Here,” he said, handing the phone over to me. “Here's your granny.”

  “I'm at Quaker Bridge with Eddie,” Grandma said. “I saw a jacket I like at Macy's, but I have to wait for my Social Security check.”

  Eddie got on the line. “I'm going to leave her at the pizza place here. You can pick her up anytime.”

  I repeated it for Ranger. “Okay, let me get this straight. You're going to leave Grandma at the pizza place at Quaker Bridge Mall.”

  “Yeah,” Eddie said, “what are you, wearing a wire?”

  “Who, me?”

  I gave the phone back to Ronald and handed him the cooler. “If I were you I'd put the heart in the freezer for now and then maybe pack it in dry ice for the trip to Richmond.”

  He nodded. “I'll do that. Wouldn't want to give Louie D a heart full of maggots.”

  “Out of morbid curiosity,” I said, “was it your idea for me to bring the heart here?”

  “You said don't let anything go wrong.”

  When I got back to the bike I hauled my cell phone out and called Ranger.

  “I'm on my way,” Ranger said. “I'm about ten minutes from Quaker Bridge. I'll call when I have her.”

  I nodded my head and disconnected, unable to speak. There are times when life is just fucking overwhelming.

  LULA LIVES IN a tiny apartment in a part of the ghetto that's pretty nice as far as ghettos go. I took Brunswick Avenue, wound around some, crossed over the train tracks, and found Lula's neighborhood. Streets were narrow and houses were small. Probably originally built for immigrants imported to work in the porcelain factories and steel mills. Lula lived in the middle of the block on the second floor of one of these houses.

  My phone rang just as I cut the engine.

  “I've got your grandmother with me, babe,” Ranger said. “I'm taking her home. Do you want any pizza?”

  “Pepperoni, extra cheese.”

  “That extra cheese will kill you,” Ranger said and disconnected.

  Lula got off the bike and looked at me. “You gonna be all right?”

  “Yep. I'm fine.”

  She leaned forward and hugged me. “You're a good person.”

  I smiled back at her and blinked hard and wiped my nose on my sleeve. Lula was a good person, too.

  “Uh-oh,” Lula said. “Are you crying?”

  “No. I think I inhaled a bug a couple blocks ago.”

  It took me ten more minutes to get to my parents' house. I parked one house down and cut my lights. No way was I going in ahead of Grandma. My mother was probably berserk by now. Better to explain Grandma was kidnapped after Grandma was there in the flesh.

  I sat on the curb and used the down time to call Morelli. I got him on his cell phone.

  “Grandma's safe,” I told him. “She's with Ranger. He picked her up at the mall and he's bringing her home.”

  “I heard. I was behind you at Ronald's. I stayed there until I got the word from Ranger that he had your grandmother. I'm on my way home now.”

  Morelli asked me to spend the night at his house, but I declined. I had things to do. I got Grandma back, but Mooner and Dougie were still out there.

  After a while headlights flashed at the end of the street and Ranger's gleaming black Mercedes eased to a stop in front of my parents' house. Ranger helped Grandma out and smiled at me. “Your grandmother ate your pizza. Guess you work up an appetite being a hostage.”

  “Are you coming in with me?”

  “You'd have to kill me first.”

  “I need to talk to you. This won't take long. Will you wait for me?”

  Our eyes held and the silence stretched between us.

  I mentally licked my lips and fanned myself. Yep. He'd wait.

  I turned to go into the house and he pulled me back. His hands slid under my shirt and my breath caught.

  “The wire,” he said, removing the tape, his fingertips warm against my skin, skimming the swell of breast not covered by my bra.

  Grandma was already through the door when I caught up with her.

  “Boy, I can't wait to go to the beauty parlor tomorrow and tell everyone about this one.”

  My father looked up from his paper, and my mother gave an involuntary shudder.

  “Who's laid out?” Grandma asked my father. “I haven't seen a paper in a couple days. Did I miss anything?”

  My mother narrowed her eyes. “Where were you?”

  “Danged if I know,” Grandma said. “I had a bag over my head when I went in and out.”

  “She was kidnapped,” I told my mother.

  “What do you mean . . . kidnapped?”

  “I happened to have something that Eddie DeChooch wanted, and so he kidnapped Grandma and held her for ransom.”

  “Thank God,” my mother said. “I thought she was shacked up with a man.”

  My father went back to reading his paper. Just another day in the life of the Plum family.

  “Did you learn anything from Choochy?” I asked Grandma. “Do you have any idea where Mooner and Dougie have gone?”

  “Eddie doesn't know anything about them. He'd like to find them, too. He says Dougie's the one who started it all. He says Dougie stole his heart. I could never figure out what that heart business was about, though.”

  “And you don't have any idea where you were kept?”

  “He had a bag over my head when we went in and out. At first I didn't realize I was kidnapped. I thought it was some kinky sex thing. What I know i
s we did some driving around and then we went into a garage. I know because I heard the garage door open and close. And then we went into the downstairs part of a house. It was like the garage opened into the cellar except the cellar was fixed up. There was a television room and two bedrooms and a little kitchen down there. And another room with the furnace and the washer and dryer. And I couldn't see out because there were only those little basement windows and they were closed up with shutters on the outside.” Grandma yawned. “Well, I'm going to bed. I'm pooped and I've got a big day tomorrow. I've got to make the most of this kidnapping. I've got a lot of people to tell.”

  “Just don't say anything about the heart,” I told Grandma. “The heart is a secret.”

  “Fine by me since I don't know what to say about it, anyway.”

  “Are you going to press charges?”

  Grandma looked surprised. “Against Choochy? Heck no. What would people think?”

  Ranger was leaning against his car, waiting for me. He was dressed in black. Black dress slacks, expensive-looking black loafers, black T-shirt, black cashmere jacket. I knew the jacket wasn't for warmth. The jacket covered the gun. Not that it made any difference. The jacket was handsome.

  “Ronald is probably going to take the heart to Richmond tomorrow,” I said to Ranger. “And I'm worried they'll discover it doesn't belong to Louie D.”

  “And?”

  “And I'm afraid they might want to send a message by doing something terrible to Mooner or Dougie.”

  “And?”

  “And I think Mooner and Dougie are in Richmond. I think Louie D's wife and sister are secretly working together. And I think they have Mooner and Dougie.”

  “And you'd like to rescue them.”

  “Yes.”

  Ranger smiled. “Might be fun.”

  Ranger has an odd sense of fun.

  "I got Louie D's home address from Connie. Louie D's wife has supposedly been locked up there since Louie died. Estelle Colucci, Louie's sister, is down there, too. She left for Richmond the same day Mooner disappeared. I think somehow the women kidnapped Mooner and took him to Richmond. And I bet Dougie's also in Richmond. Maybe

  Estelle and Sophia got fed up with Benny and Ziggy bumbling around and decided to take matters into their own hands." Unfortunately, my theory got a lot fuzzier from there on out. One of the reasons for the fuzziness was that Estelle Colucci didn't fit the description of the crazy-eyed woman. In fact, she didn't even fit the description of the woman in the limo.

  “Do you want to stop home first for anything?” Ranger asked. “Or do you want to leave now?”

  I looked back at the bike. I had to stash the bike somewhere. Probably it wasn't a good idea to tell my mother I was going to Richmond with Ranger. And I didn't feel entirely comfortable just leaving the bike in my parking lot. The seniors in my building tend to run over objects smaller than a Cadillac. God knows, I didn't want to leave it with Morelli. Morelli would insist on going to Richmond. Morelli was as competent at this sort of operation as Ranger. In fact, Morelli might even be better than Ranger because Morelli wasn't as crazy. Problem was, this wasn't a police operation. This was a bounty hunter operation.

  “I need to do something with the bike,” I told Ranger. “I don't want to leave it here.”

  “Don't worry about it. I'll have Tank take care of it until we get back.”

  “He needs the key.”

  Ranger looked at me like I was a very dim bulb.

  “Right,” I said. “What was I thinking?” Tank didn't need a key. Tank was one of Ranger's merry men and Ranger's merry men had better fingers than Ziggy.

  We left the Burg and headed south, picking the turnpike up at Bordentown. The rain started a few minutes later, a fine mist at first, growing more steady as the miles flew by. The Mercedes hummed along, following the ribbon of road. The night enveloped us, the darkness broken only by the lights on the dash.

  All the comforts of a womb with the technology of a jet airplane cockpit. Ranger pushed a button on the CD player and classical music filled the car. A symphony. Not Godsmack, but nice anyway.

  By any calculations it was about a five-hour trip. Ranger wasn't the sort to make small talk. Ranger kept his life and his thoughts to himself. So I reclined my seat and closed my eyes. “If you get tired and want me to drive just let me know,” I said.

  I relaxed back into the seat and wondered about Ranger. When we first met he was all muscle and street swagger. He talked the talk and walked the walk of the Hispanic end of the ghetto, dressing in fatigues and SWAT black. Now suddenly he was dressed in cashmere, listening to classical music, sounding more like Harvard Law and less like Coolio.

  “You don't by any chance have a twin brother, do you?” I asked.

  “No,” he said softly. “There's only one of me.”

  Stephanie Plum 7 - Seven Up

  13

  I WOKE UP when the car stopped moving. It was no longer raining, but it was very dark. I looked at the digital clock on the dash. It was almost three. Ranger was studying the large brick colonial on the opposite side of the street.

  “Louie D's house?” I asked.

  Ranger nodded.

  It was a large house on a small lot. The houses around it were similar. They were all relatively new houses. No mature trees or shrubs. In twenty years it would be a lovely neighborhood. Right now it seemed a little too new, too bare. There were no lights shining in Louie D's house. No cars parked at the curb. Cars were kept in garages or driveways in this neighborhood.

  “Stay here,” Ranger said. “I need to look around.”

  I watched him cross the street and disappear into the house shadows. I cracked the window and strained to hear sounds but heard nothing. Ranger had been Special Forces in another life, and he's lost none of his skills. He moves like a large lethal cat. I, on the other hand, move like a water buffalo. Which I suppose was why I was waiting in the car.

  He emerged from the far side of the house and sauntered back to the Mercedes. He slid behind the wheel and turned the key in the ignition.

  “It's locked up tight,” he said. “The alarm is on and most of the windows have heavy drapes drawn. Not much to see. If I knew more about the house and its routine I'd go in and look around. I'm reluctant to do that not knowing how many people are inside.” He pulled away from the curb and rolled down the street. “We're fifteen minutes away from a business district. The computer tells me there's a strip mall, some fast-food places, and a motel. I had Tank get us rooms. You can have a couple hours to sleep and get freshened up. My suggestion is to knock on Mrs. D's door at nine and finesse ourselves into the house.”

  “Works for me.”

  Tank had gotten rooms in a classic two-story chain motel. Not luxurious but not awful, either. Both rooms were on the second floor. Ranger opened my door and hit the light, giving the room a quick scan. Everything looked in order. No mad man lurking in darkened corners.

  “I'll come for you at eight-thirty,” he said. “We can get breakfast and then say hello to the ladies.”

  “I'll be ready.”

  He pulled me toward him, lowered his mouth to mine, and kissed me. The kiss was slow and deep. His hands were firm on my back. I grasped his shirt and leaned into him. And I felt his body respond.

  A vision of myself in the wedding gown popped into my head. “Shit!” I said.

  “That's not the usual reaction I get when I kiss a woman,” Ranger said.

  “Okay, here's the truth. I'd really like to sleep with you, but I have this stupid wedding gown . . .”

  Ranger's lips swept along my jawline to my ear. “I could make you forget the gown.”

  “You could. But that would create really terrible problems.”

  “You have a moral dilemma.”

  “Yes.”

  He kissed me again. Lightly this time. He stepped back and a small humorless smile pulled at the corners of his mouth. “I don't want to put any pressure on you and your moral dilemma, but y
ou better hope you can bring Eddie DeChooch in all by yourself because if I help you I'll collect my fee.”

  And then he left. He closed the door behind him, and I could hear him walk partway down the hall and enter his own room.

  Yikes.

  I stretched out on the bed, fully clothed, lights on, eyes wide. When my heart stopped hammering in my chest and my nipples started to relax I got up and splashed water on my face. I set the alarm for eight. Yippee, four hours to sleep. I turned the light out and crawled into bed. Couldn't sleep. Too many clothes. I got up and stripped down to my panties and crawled into bed. Nope, couldn't sleep that way, either. Not enough clothes. I put my shirt back on, crawled back under the covers, and instantly clonked off to dreamland.