Hot Six

  “Darn,” Grandma said, “I always miss the good stuff.”

  I popped up onto my feet and adjusted my T-shirt. “You didn't miss much. I was just going to make some hot chocolate. Do you want some?”

  “Sure,” Grandma said. “I'll go get my bathrobe on.”

  Ranger looked up at me. It was dark in the room, with only a shaft of light coming from the open bedroom door. Still, it was light enough for me to see that his mouth was smiling but his eyes were serious. “Saved by the grandma.”

  “Do you want hot chocolate?”

  He followed me out to the kitchen. “Pass.”

  I gave him the piece of paper with the house design on it. “Here's the diagram you wanted.”

  “Anything else you want to tell me?”

  He knew about Alexander Ramos. “How do you know?”

  “I've been watching the beach house. I saw you pick Ramos up.”

  I poured milk into two mugs and put them in the microwave. “What's the deal with him? He flagged me down to mooch a cigarette.”

  Ranger smiled. “You ever try to quit smoking?”

  I shook my head.

  “Then you wouldn't understand.”

  “Did you used to smoke?”

  “I used to everything.” He picked the motion detector off the counter and turned it over in his hand. “I noticed the broken security chain.”

  “You weren't my only visitor tonight.”

  “What happened?”

  “A failure to appear broke into my apartment. I shot him in the foot, and he left.”

  “You must not have read the Bounty Hunter Handbook. We're supposed to catch the bad guys and drag their ass back to jail.”

  I mixed the cocoa into the hot milk. “Ramos wants me to return today. He offered me a job as his cigarette smuggler.”

  “That's not a job you want to accept. Alexander can be impulsive and erratic and paranoid. He's on medication, but he doesn't always take it. Hannibal's hired bodyguards to keep an eye on the old man, but he makes them look like amateurs. Sneaks out on them every chance he gets. There's a power struggle going on between him and Hannibal, and you don't want to get caught in the crossfire.”

  “Isn't this nice,” Grandma said, shuffling into the kitchen, taking her mug of chocolate. “It's much more fun living with you. We never had men visiting in the middle of the night when I lived with your mother.”

  Ranger returned the alarm to the counter. “I have to go. Enjoy your hot chocolate.”

  I walked him to the door. “Is there anything else you want me to do? Check your mail? Water your plants?”

  “My mail is being forwarded to my lawyer. And I'm watering my own plants.”

  “So, you feel safe in the Batcave?”

  The corners of his mouth curved into the hint of a smile. He leaned forward and kissed me at the base of my neck, just above my T-shirt collar. “Sweet dreams.”

  Before he left, he said good-night to Grandma, who was still in the kitchen.

  “What a nice, polite young man,” Grandma said. “And he's got an excellent package.”

  I went straight to her closet, found the bottle of booze, and dumped some into my cocoa.

  THE NEXT MORNING, Grandma and I were both hung over.

  “I've gotta stop drinking cocoa so late at night,” Grandma said. “I feel like my eyes are going to explode. Maybe I should go get checked for glaucoma.”

  “Better yet, how about getting checked for the level of hooch in your bloodstream?”

  I took a couple aspirin and dragged myself out to the parking lot. Habib and Mitchell were there, sitting waiting in a green minivan with two kiddie seats in the back but no kiddies.

  “Nice stakeout car,” I said. “Fits right in.”

  “Don't start,” Mitchell said. “I'm not in a good mood.”

  “It's your wife's car, right?”

  He gave me a black look.

  “Just to make life easier for you, so you don't get lost, you might as well know I'm going to the office first thing.”

  “I hate that place,” Habib said. “It is cursed! It is evil!”

  I drove to the office and parked in front. Habib stayed half a block back and kept the motor running.

  “Hey, girlfriend,” Lula said. “Where's Bob?”

  “He's with Grandma. They're sleeping in today.”

  “Looks like you should have slept in, too. You look awful. If the rest of your face was as black as the circles under your eyes you could move into my neighborhood. 'Course, the good news is what with the dark circles and bloodshot eyes you don't hardly notice that big nasty pimple.”

  And the really good news was that I didn't give a fig about the pimple today. Funny how a little thing like a life-threatening experience can put a pimple into perspective. What I cared about today was nailing Munson. I didn't want to put in another sleepless night, worrying about going up in flames.

  “I have a hunch Morris Munson is back at his row house this morning,” I told Lula. “I'm going over there, and I'm going to stomp on him.”

  “I'll go with you,” Lula said. “I wouldn't mind stompin' on someone today. In fact, I'm in a real stompin' mood.”

  I took my gun out of my shoulder bag. “I'm sort of out of bullets,” I said to Connie. “You have any extras lying around?”

  Vinnie stuck his head out of his office. “You're putting bullets in your gun? Did I hear right? What's the occasion?”

  “I have bullets in my gun a lot,” I said, eyes narrowed, feeling testy. “In fact, just last night I shot someone.”

  There was a collective gasp.

  “Who'd you shoot?” Lula asked.

  “Morris Munson. He broke into my apartment.”

  Vinnie rushed over. “Where is he? Is he dead? You didn't get him in the back, did you? I keep telling everyone—not in the back!”

  “I didn't shoot him in the back. I shot him in the foot.”

  “So? Where is he?”

  “Omigod,” Lula said. “You shot him in the foot with your last bullet, didn't you? You blew off a little piggy and ran out of bullets.” She shook her head. “Don't you just hate when that happens?”

  Connie returned from the back room with a box of bullets. “You sure you want these?” she asked me. “You don't look too good. I don't know if it's a good idea to give a woman a box of bullets when she's got a pimple.”

  I put four rounds in my gun, and dropped the box into my shoulder bag. “I'll be fine.”

  “This here's a woman with a plan,” Lula said.

  This here was a woman with a hangover who just wanted to get through the day.

  Halfway to Munson's house on Rockwell Street I pulled to the curb and threw up. Habib and Mitchell grimaced behind me.

  “Must have been some night,” Lula said.

  “I don't want to think about it.” And that was more than just an expression. I really didn't want to think about it. I mean, what the hell was this thing going on between me and Ranger? I must be crazy! And I couldn't believe I'd actually sat drinking bourbon and hot chocolate with Grandma. I'm no good at drinking. I get drunk on two bottles of beer. I felt like my brain had been beamed into outer space and my body had been left behind.

  I drove another quarter-mile and pulled into the McDonald's drive-through for my never-fail hangover remedy: french fries and a Coke.

  “As long as we're here I might as well get a little something, too,” Lula said. “Egg McMuffin, breakfast fries, chocolate shake, and a Big Mac,” she yelled across me.

  I felt myself go green. “That's a snack?”

  “Yeah, you're right,” she said. “Hold the breakfast fries.”

  The guy in the drive-through window handed me the bag of food and looked into the Buick's backseat. “Where's your dog?”

  “Home.”

  “Too bad. That was pretty cool last time. Lady, that was a mountain of—”

  I stepped on the gas and took off. By the time we got to Munson's house the food
was gone, and I felt much better.

  “What makes you think this dude's come back here?” Lula asked.

  “Just a feeling I have. He needed to bandage his foot and get a new pair of shoes. If it was me, I'd go home to do those things. And it was late at night. Since I was already in my house I'd want to sleep in my own bed.”

  We couldn't tell anything from the outside of his house. The windows were dark. No sign of life inside. I drove around the block and took the alley to the garage. Lula jumped out and looked in the garage window.

  “He's here, all right,” she said, climbing back into Big Blue. “At least, his wreck of a car is here.”

  “Do you have your stun gun and pepper spray?”

  “Does a chicken have a pecker? I could invade Bulgaria with the shit I've got in my handbag.”

  I drove back to the front of the house and dropped Lula off to guard the front door. Then I parked the car two houses down, out of Munson's line of sight, in the alley. Habib and Mitchell parked behind me in the kiddie car, locked their doors, and opened their McDonald's breakfast bags.

  I cut through two yards, came up to the back of Munson's house, and carefully looked in his kitchen window. Nothing happening. A box of Band-Aids and a roll of paper towels on the kitchen table. Am I a genius, or what? I stepped back and looked up to the second floor. There was the very faint sound of running water. Munson was taking a shower. Boy, life didn't get much better than this.

  I tried the door. Locked. I tried the windows. Locked. I was about to break one when Lula opened the back door.

  “Not much of a lock on the front door,” she said.

  I had to be the only person in the entire world who couldn't pick a lock.

  We stood listening in the kitchen. The water was still running overhead. Lula had pepper spray in one hand and her stun gun in the other. I had one hand free and one hand holding cuffs. We crept up the stairs and paused at the top. The row house was small. Two bedrooms and a bath on the second floor. The doors to the bedrooms were open, and the bedrooms were empty. The bathroom door was closed. Lula stood to one side, poised with the spray. I stood to the other side. We both knew exactly how to do this, because we watched the cop shows on television. Munson wasn't known to carry a gun, and it was unlikely he'd be armed in the shower, but it didn't hurt to be careful.

  “On the count of three,” I mouthed to Lula, my hand on the doorknob. “One, two, three!”

  Stephanie Plum 6 - Hot Six

  9

  “WAIT A MINUTE,” Lula said, “he's gonna be naked. Maybe we don't want to see this. I've seen a lot of ugly men in my day. I'm not so anxious to see any more.”

  “I don't care about the naked part,” I said. “I care about the part that he won't have a knife or a propane torch.”

  “Good point.”

  “Okay, I'm counting again. Get ready. One, two, three!”

  I opened the bathroom door, and we both jumped in.

  Munson ripped the shower curtain aside. “What the hell?”

  “You're under arrest,” Lula said. “And we'd appreciate it if you'd get a towel on account of I don't feel like looking at your sad, shriveled privates.”

  He had his hair full of shampoo, and he had a big bandage on his foot, which he was protecting with a plastic bag held tight at the ankle with an elastic band.

  “I'm crazy!” he shrieked. “I'm freaking crazy, and you'll never take me alive!”

  “Yeah, whatever,” Lula said, handing him a towel. “You want to shut that water off now?”

  Munson took the towel and snapped it back at Lula.

  “Hey!” Lula said, “hold on here. You snap that towel at me again, and you're gonna get a snootful of pepper spray.”

  Munson snapped it again. “Fat, fat, fatty,” he sang.

  Lula forgot about the pepper spray and lunged for his neck. Munson reached up and turned the shower spray on her and jumped out of the shower. I tried to grab him, but he was wet and slippery with soap, and Lula was flailing around, trying to get away from the water.

  “Spray him!” I yelled to Lula. “Electrocute him! Shoot him! Do something!”

  Munson knocked the two of us aside and streaked down the stairs. He ran the length of the house and out the back door. I was close behind, and Lula was about ten feet behind me. His foot had to be killing him, but he ran flat out through two yards and then cut off to the alley. I took a flying leap and caught him square in the small of his back. The two of us went down to the ground and rolled around, locked together, swearing and clawing. Munson was trying to scramble away, and I was trying to hang on and cuff him. It would have been easier if he'd had clothes to grab hold of. As it was, I didn't really want to grab what was available.

  “Hit him where it hurts!” Lula was yelling. “Hit him where it hurts!”

  So I did. A person reaches a point where she just doesn't want to roll around anymore. I hauled back and gave Munson a knee in the gonads.

  “Ulk,” Munson said, and assumed the fetal position.

  Lula and I pried his hands away from Mr. Sad Sack and cuffed him behind his back.

  “Wish I had a movie of you wrestlin' with this guy,” Lula said. “It reminded me of that joke about the midget at the nudist colony who kept sticking his nose in everyone's business.”

  Mitchell and Habib had gotten out of their car and were standing a few feet away looking pained.

  “I could feel that all the way over here,” Mitchell said. “If we get the word that we have to rough you up, I'm wearing a cup.”

  Lula ran back to the house to get a blanket and lock up.

  And Habib and Mitchell and I dragged Munson over to the Buick. When Lula got back we wrapped Munson up, tossed him into the backseat and drove him to the police station on North Clinton. We took him to the back entrance, which had a drive-in.

  “Just like McDonald's,” Lula said. “Except we're dropping off instead of picking up.”

  I rang the buzzer and identified myself. A moment later Carl Costanza opened the back door and looked over at the Buick. “Now what?” he said.

  “I have a body in the backseat. Morris Munson. FTA.”

  Carl stared into the car window and grinned. “He's naked.”

  I blew out a sigh. “You aren't going to give me a hard time with this, are you?”

  “Hey, Juniak,” Costanza yelled, “come take a look at this naked guy. Guess who he belongs to!”

  “Okay,” Lula said to Munson, “end of the line. You can get out now.”

  “No,” Munson said, “I'm not getting out.”

  “The hell you aren't,” Lula said.

  Juniak and two other cops joined Costanza at the door. Everyone was grinning dopey cop grins.

  “Sometimes I think this is a really crappy job,” one of the cops said. “But then there are other times when you get to see stuff like this, and it makes it all worthwhile. Why's the naked guy got a plastic bag on his foot?”

  “I shot him,” I said.

  Costanza and Juniak exchanged glances. “I don't want to know about it,” Costanza said. “I didn't hear anything.”

  Lula gave Munson her junkyard-dog look. “You don't haul your bony white carcass out of this car, I'm coming back there.”

  “Fuck you,” Munson said. “Fuck your fat ass.”

  The cops all sucked in a breath and took a step backward.

  “That does it,” Lula said. “You put me in a bad mood now. You went and wrecked my good disposition. I'm gonna come back there and root you out like the little pencil-dick rodent you are.” She heaved herself out of the car and wrenched the back door open.

  And Munson jumped out of the car.

  I wrapped the blanket around him, and we all shuffled into the police station, except for Lula, who has a phobia about police stations. She backed out of the drive-in, found a space in the lot, and parked.

  I cuffed Munson to the bench by the docket lieutenant, handed my paperwork in, and got my body receipt. Next on my list of
things to do was visit Brian Simon.

  I was on my way to the third floor when Costanza stopped me. “If you're looking for Simon, don't bother. He took off the instant he heard you were here.” He gave me the once-over. “I don't want to be insulting, or anything, but you look like hell.”