High Five

  “Thanks for the ride,” I said to Mary Lou, my eyes on Ranger, wondering about his mood.

  “You going to be okay? He looks so . . . dangerous.”

  “It's the hair.”

  “It's more than the hair.”

  It was the hair, the eyes, the mouth, the body, the gun on his hip . . .

  “I'll call you tomorrow,” I told Mary Lou. “Don't worry about Ranger. He's not as bad as he looks.” Okay, so I fib now and then, but it's always for a good cause. No point Mary Lou spending the night in a state.

  Mary Lou gave Ranger one last look and whipped out of the lot. I took a deep breath and ambled over.

  “Where's the BMW?” Ranger asked.

  I pulled the plates and the piece of dashboard out of my bag and gave them to him. “I sort of had a problem . . .”

  His eyebrows raised, and a smile started to twitch at the corners of his mouth. “This is what's left of the car?”

  I nodded my head and swallowed. “It got stolen.”

  The smile widened. “And they left you the plates and registration tag. Nice touch.”

  I didn't think it was a nice touch. I thought it was very crappy. In fact, I was thinking my life was crappy. The bomb, Ramirez, Uncle Fred—and just when I thought I'd succeeded at something and made a capture, someone stole my car. The whole crappy world was thumbing its nose at me. “Life sucks,” I said to Ranger. A tear popped out of my eye and slid down my cheek. Damn.

  Ranger studied me for a moment, turned, and dropped the plates in his backseat. “It was a car, Babe. It wasn't important.”

  “It's not just the car. It's everything.” Another tear squeezed out. “I have all these problems.”

  He was very close. I could feel the heat from his body. And I could see that his eyes were dilated black in the dark parking lot.

  “Here's something else to worry about,” he said. And he kissed me—his hand at the nape of my neck and his mouth on mine, soft at first, then serious and demanding. He drew me closer and kissed me again and desire washed over me, hot and liquid and scary.

  “Oh boy,” I whispered.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Think about it.”

  “What I think . . . is that it's a bad idea.”

  “Of course it's a bad idea,” Ranger said. “If it was a good idea I'd have been in your bed a long time ago.” He took a notecard from his jacket pocket. “I have a job for you tomorrow. The young sheik is going home and needs a ride to the airport.”

  “No! No way am I driving that little jerk.”

  “Look at it this way, Steph. He deserves you.”

  He had a point. “Okay,” I said. “I haven't got anything else to do.”

  “Instructions are on the card. Tank will bring the car around for you.”

  And he was gone.

  “Omigod,” I said. “What did I just do?”

  I rushed into the lobby and pushed the elevator button, still talking to myself. “He kissed me and I kissed him,” I said. “What was I thinking?” I rolled my eyes. “I was thinking . . . yes!”

  The elevator door opened and Ramirez stepped out at me. “Hello, Stephanie,” he said. “The champ's been waiting for you.”

  I shrieked and jumped away, but I'd had my mind on Ranger and not Ramirez, and I didn't move fast enough. Ramirez grabbed a handful of hair and yanked me toward the door. “It's time,” he said. “Time to see what it's like to be with a real man. And then when the champ is done with you, you'll be ready for God.”

  I stumbled and went down to one knee, and he dragged me forward. I had my hand in my bag, but I couldn't find my gun or the stun gun. Too much junk. I swung the bag as hard as I could and caught him in the face. He paused, but he didn't go down.

  “That wasn't nice, Stephanie,” he said. “You're gonna have to pay for that. You're gonna have to get punished before you go to God.”

  I dug my heels in and screamed as loud as I could.

  Two doors opened on the first floor.

  “What's going on here?” Mr. Sanders said.

  Mrs. Keene stuck her head out. “Yeah, what's the racket?”

  “Call the police,” I yelled. “Help! Call the police.”

  “Don't worry, dear,” Mrs. Keene said, “I've got my gun.” She fired two off and took out an overhead light. “Did I get him?” she asked. “Would you like me to shoot again?”

  Mrs. Keene had cataracts and wore glasses as thick as the bottom of a beer glass.

  Ramirez had bolted for the door at the first shot.

  “You missed him, Mrs. Keene, but that's okay. You scared him off.”

  “Do you still want us to call the police?”

  “I'll take care of it,” I told them. “Thanks.”

  Everyone thought I was a big professional bounty hunter, and I didn't want to ruin that image, so I calmly walked to the stairs. I climbed one step at a time, and I told myself to stay focused. Get yourself into your apartment, I thought. Lock the door, call the police. I should have found my gun and gone into the lot after Ramirez. But the truth is, I was too scared. And if I was being really honest here, I wasn't such a good shot. Better to leave it to the police.

  By the time I got to my door, I had my key in my hand. I took a deep breath and got the key in on the first try. The apartment was dark and quiet. Too early for Briggs to be asleep. He must have gone out. Rex was silently running on his wheel. The red light was lit on my answering machine. Two messages. I suspected one was from Ranger, left early afternoon. I flipped the light on, dropped my bag on the kitchen counter, and played the messages.

  The first was from Ranger, just as I'd thought, telling me to page him again.

  The second was from Morelli. “This is important,” he said. “I have to talk to you.”

  I dialed Morelli at home. “Come on,” I said. “Pick up the phone.” No answer, so I started working my way down the speed dial. Next on the list was Morelli's car phone. No answer there either. Try his cell phone. I took the phone into my bedroom, but only got as far as the bedroom door.

  Allen Shempsky was sitting on my bed. The window behind him was broken. No secret how he got into my bedroom. He was holding a gun. And he looked terrible.

  “Hang up,” he said. “Or I'll kill you.”

  Stephanie Plum 5 - High Five

  Stephanie Plum 5 - High Five

  Stephanie Plum 5 - High Five

  15

  “WHAT ARE YOU doing?” I asked Shempsky.

  “Good question. I thought I knew. I thought I had it all figured out.” He shook his head. “It's all gone to heck in a handbasket.”

  “You look awful.” His face was flushed, his eyes were bloodshot and glassy, and his hair was a mess. He was in a suit, but his shirt was hanging out, and his tie was twisted to one side. His slacks and jacket were wrinkled. “Have you been drinking?”

  “I feel sick,” he said.

  “Maybe you should put the gun down.”

  “Can't. I have to kill you. What is it with you anyway? Anyone else would know when to quit. I mean, no one even liked Fred.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Hah! Another good question.”

  I heard muffled noise coming from my closet.

  “It's the dwarf,” Shempsky said. “He scared the hell out of me. I thought no one was in here. And all of a sudden this little Munchkin came running in.”

  I was at the closet in two strides. I opened the door and looked down. Briggs was trussed up like a Christmas goose, his hands tied behind his back with my bathroom clothesline, mailing tape across his mouth. He seemed okay. Very scared and boiling mad.

  “Shut the door,” Shempsky, said. “He's quieter if you shut the door. I guess I have to kill him, too, but I've been procrastinating. It's like killing Doc or Sneezy, or Grumpy. And I have to tell you I feel real bad about killing Sneezy. I really like Sneezy.”

  If you've never had a gun pointed at you, you can't imagine the terror. And the regret that life was too short, too unapprec
iated. “You don't really want to kill Sneezy and me,” I said, working hard to keep my voice from shaking.

  “Sure I do. Hell, why not. I've killed everybody else.” He sniffed and wiped his nose on his jacket sleeve. “I'm getting a cold. Boy, I tell you, when things start going bad . . .” He ran his hand through his hair. “It was such a good idea. Take a few customers and keep them for yourself. Real clean. Except I didn't count on people like Fred stirring things up. We were all making money. Nobody was getting hurt. And then things started to go wrong and people started to panic. First Lipinski and then John Curly.”

  “So you killed them?”

  “What else could I do? It's the only way to really keep someone quiet, you know.”

  “What about Martha Deeter?”

  “Martha Deeter,” he said on a sigh. “One of my many regrets is that she's dead, and I can't kill her again. If it wasn't for Martha Deeter . . .” He shook his head. “Excuse my language, but she had a real stick up her ass about the accounts. Everything strictly by the books. Wouldn't budge on the Shutz thing. Even though it was none of her business. She was a stupid receptionist, but she wouldn't keep her nose out of anything. After you left the office she decided she was going to make an example out of you and your aunt. Sent a fax off to the home office suggesting they look into the matter and prosecute you for making fraudulent claims. Can you imagine what that could lead to? Even if they just called to pacify you, it could start an investigation.”

  “So you killed her?”

  “It seemed like the prudent thing to do. Looking back it might have been a little extreme, but like I said before, it's really the only way you can be sure of keeping someone quiet. Human nature, such as it is, is not dependable. And you know, I discovered this amazing thing. It's not that hard to kill someone.”

  “Where did you learn about bombs?”

  “The library. Actually, I'd built the bomb for Curly, but by chance I happened to see him crossing the street to get to his car. It was late at night, and he was coming out of a bar. Nobody around. Couldn't believe how lucky I was. So I ran him over a bunch of times. I had to make sure he was dead, you know. Didn't want him to suffer. He wasn't such a bad guy. It was just he was a loose end.”

  I gave an involuntary shiver.

  “Yeah,” he said, “it was kind of creepy the first time I ran over him. I tried to pretend it was a bump in the road. So anyway, I had this bomb all ready to go, and then I found out you were going over to RGC again. I called Stemper and gave him some baloney about delaying you for a half hour so the bank could run the check through the system.”

  “Then you had to kill Stemper.”

  “Stemper was your fault. Stemper'd still be alive if you hadn't been so compulsive about that check. Two dollars,” Shempsky said, sniffling. “All these people are dead, and my life is unraveling because of two fucking dollars.”

  “Seems to me it started with Laura Lipinski.”

  “You figured that out?” He slumped a little. “She was giving Larry a hard time. He'd made the mistake of telling her about the money, and she wanted it. She was leaving him, and she wanted the money. Said if she didn't get it, she'd go to the police.”

  “So you killed her?”

  “The mistake we made was in getting rid of the body. I'd never done anything like that before, so I figured chop it up, stuff it in a couple garbage bags, leave them spread out over town the night before garbage pickup. First off, let me tell you, it isn't easy to chop up a body. And second, cheapskate Fred was out, trying to save a buck on his leaves, and saw Larry and me with the bag. I mean, what are the chances?”

  “I don't get Fred's part in this.”

  “He saw us dump the bag and didn't think anything of it. I mean he was out there doing the same thing. The next morning Fred goes to RGC, and Martha pisses him off and sends him packing. Fred gets a block away and thinks to himself that he knows Martha's office partner. He thinks about it for another block and realizes he's the guy who dumped the bag. So Fred goes to the real estate office alongside the deli with a camera and starts taking pictures. I guess he was going to wave them in Larry's face, trying to embarrass him enough to give him his money. Only after a couple pictures Fred thinks the bag looks too lumpy and smells pretty bad. And Fred opens the bag.”

  “Why didn't Fred report this to the police?”

  “Why do you think? Money.”

  “He was going to blackmail you.” That's why Fred left the canceled check on his desk. He didn't need it. He had the pictures.

  “Fred said he didn't have any retirement account. Worked at the button factory for fifty years and had hardly any retirement account. Said he read where you needed ninety thousand to get into a decent nursing home. That's what he wanted. Ninety thousand.”

  “What about Mabel? Didn't he want nursing home money for her, too?”

  Shempsky shrugged. “He didn't say anything about Mabel.”

  Cheap bastard.

  “Why did you kill Larry?” Not that I actually cared at this point. What I cared about was time. I wanted more of it. I didn't want him to pull the trigger. If it meant I had to talk to him then that's what I was going to do.

  “Lipinski got cold feet. He wanted out. Wanted to take his money and run. I tried to talk to him, but he was really freaked out. So I went over to see if I could calm him down.”

  “You succeeded. You can't get much calmer than dead.”

  “He wouldn't listen, so what could I do? I thought I did a good job of making it look like a suicide.”

  “You have a nice life—a nice house, a nice wife and kids, a good job. Why were you skimming?”

  “In the beginning it was just fun money. Tipp and me used to play poker with a bunch of guys on Monday nights. And Tipp's wife would never give Tipp any money. So Tipp started skimming. Just a couple accounts for poker money. But then it was so easy. I mean, nobody knew the money was gone. So we enlarged until we had a nice chunk of Vito's accounts. Tipp knew Lipinski and Curly, and he brought them in.” Shempsky wiped his nose again. "It wasn't like I was ever going to make money at the bank. I'm in a dead-​end job. It's my face, you know. I'm not stupid. I could have been somebody, but nobody pays attention to me.

  “God gives everybody a special talent. And you know what my talent is? Nobody remembers me. I have a forgettable face. It took me a bunch of years, but I finally figured out how to use my gift.” He gave a crazy little laugh that sent all the hairs on my arm standing at attention. “My talent is that I can rob people blind, kill them on the street, and nobody remembers.”

  Allen Shempsky was drunk or crazy or both. And at the rate we were going he wouldn't even have to shoot me, because he was scaring me to death. My heart was pounding in my chest, echoing in my ears.

  “What will you do now?” I asked him.

  “You mean after I kill you? I guess I'll go home. Or maybe I'll just get in my car and drive somewhere. I have lots of money. I don't need to go back to the bank if I don't want to.”

  Shempsky was sweating, and under the flush on his cheeks his face was pale. “Christ,” he said. “I really feel sick.” He stood up and pointed the gun at me. “You got any cold medicine?”

  “Just aspirin.”

  “I need more than aspirin. I'd like to sit and talk some more, but I gotta get some cold medicine. I bet I have a fever.”

  “You don't look good.”

  “I bet my face is all flushed.”

  “Yeah, and your eyes are glassy.”

  There was a scraping sound on the fire escape outside my window, and we both swiveled our heads to look. We saw only darkness beyond the broken pane.

  Shempsky turned back to me and cocked the hammer on his revolver. “Now hold still so I kill you with the first bullet. It's better that way. There's a lot less mess. And if I shoot you in the heart, you can have an open casket. I know everybody likes that.”

  We both took a deep breath—me to die, and Shempsky to aim. And in that instant the air
was pierced with a bloodcurdling roar of rage and lunacy. And Ramirez filled the window, his face contorted, his eyes small and evil.

  Shempsky instinctively whirled and fired, emptying his gun in Ramirez.

  I wasted no time running. I flew out of the room, through my living room, and out my front door. I sprinted down the hall, leaped down two flights of stairs, and almost bashed in Mrs. Keene's door.

  “Goodness,” Mrs. Keene said, “you certainly are having a full night. What now?”