“You should file a report.”
“There's only one body part I'd ever recognize on this guy, and I don't think you've got it in the mug books.”
“Are you carrying a gun?”
“Yes. I didn't have time to get to it.”
“Put it on your hip. It's illegal to carry concealed anyway. And it wouldn't be a bad idea to actually put a couple bullets in it.”
“I have bullets in it.” Ranger put them in. “Have they identified the guy in the trunk yet?”
“Thomas Turkello. Also known as Thomas Turkey. Muscle for hire out of Philadelphia. My guess is he was expendable, and better to snuff him than take a chance on him talking. The rabbit is probably inner circle.”
“Anything else?”
“What would you want?”
“Abruzzi's fingerprint on a murder weapon.”
“Sorry.”
I was reluctant to disconnect, but I didn't have anything else to say. The truth is, I had a hollow feeling in my stomach that I hated to put a name to. I was mortally afraid it was loneliness. Ranger was fire and magic, but he wasn't real. Morelli was everything I wanted in a man, but he wanted me to be something I wasn't.
I hung up and retreated to the living room. If you sat in front of the television in my parents' house, you weren't expected to talk. Even if asked a direct question, the viewer had the discretion of feigning hearing loss. Those were the rules.
Grandma and I were side by side on the sofa, watching the Weather Channel. Hard to tell which of us was more shell-shocked.
“I guess it's a good thing I didn't touch it,” Grandma said. “Although, I gotta admit, I was kind of curious. It wasn't real pretty, but it was big toward the end there. Have you ever seen one that big?”
The perfect time to invoke the television no-answer privilege.
After a couple minutes of weather I went back to the kitchen and had my second doughnut. I collected my things and I headed out. “I'm going,” I said to Grandma. “All's well that ends well, right?”
Grandma didn't answer. Grandma was zoned out to the Weather Channel. There was a high pressure area moving across the Great Lakes.
I went back to my apartment. This time I had my gun in my hand before I got out of the car. I crossed the lot and entered the building. I paused when I got to my door. This was always the tricky part. Once I was in the apartment I felt fairly secure. I had a security chain and a bolt besides the deadlock. Only Ranger could get in unannounced. Either he walked through the door ghost style, or else he vaporized himself like a vampire and slid under the jamb. I guess there might be a mortal possibility, but I didn't know what it was.
I unlocked my door and searched through my apartment like the movie version of a CIA operative, skulking from room to room, gun drawn, crouched position, ready to fire. I was crashing open doors and jumping around. Good thing no one was there to see me because I knew I looked like an idiot. The good part was, I didn't find any rabbits with their tools hanging out. Compared to rape by the rabbit, spiders and snakes seemed like small change.
Ranger called ten minutes after I got into my apartment.
“Are you going to be home for a while?” he asked. “I want to send someone over to set up a security system.”
So the man of mystery reads minds, too.
“My man's name is Hector,” Ranger said. “He's on his way.”
Hector was slim and Hispanic, dressed in black. He had a gang slogan tattooed onto his neck and a single tear tattooed under his eye. He was in his early twenties, and he only spoke Spanish.
Hector had my door open and was making a final adjustment when Ranger arrived. Ranger gave a barely audible greeting to Hector in Spanish and glanced at the sensor that had just been installed in my doorjamb.
Then Ranger looked at me, giving away nothing of his thoughts. Our eyes held for a few long moments, and Ranger turned back to Hector. My Spanish is limited to burrito and taco, so I couldn't understand the exchange between Ranger and Hector. Hector was talking and gesturing, and Ranger was listening and questioning. Hector gave Ranger a small gizmo, picked up his tool chest, and left.
Ranger crooked his finger at me, giving me the come here sign. “This is your remote. It's a keypad, small enough to hook to your car key. You have a four-digit code to open and close your door. If the door has been violated the remote will tell you. You're not attached to a watchdog. There's no alarm. This is designed to give you easy access and to tell you if someone's broken into your apartment, so you have no more surprises. You have a steel fire door, and Hector's installed a floor bolt. If you lock yourself in, you should be safe. There's not much I can do about your windows. The fire escape is a problem. It's less of a problem if you keep your gun on your nightstand.”
I looked down at the remote. “Does this go on the tab?”
“There's no tab. And there's no price for what we give each other. Not ever. Not financial. Not emotional. I have to get back to work.”
He stepped away to leave, and I grabbed him by the front of his shirt. “Not so fast. This isn't television. This is my life. I want to know more about this no-emotional-price thing?”
“It's the way it has to be.”
“And what's this job you have to get back to?”
“I'm running a surveillance operation for a government agency. We're independent contractors. You aren't going to grill me on details, are you?”
I released his shirt and blew out a sigh. “I can't do this. This isn't going to work.”
“I know,” Ranger said. “You need to repair your relationship with Morelli.”
“We needed a time-out.”
“I'm being a good guy right now because it suits my purposes, but I'm an opportunist, and I'm attracted to you. And I'll be back in your bed if the Morelli time-out goes on for too long. I could make you forget Morelli if I put my mind to it. That wouldn't be good for either of us.”
“Yeesh.”
Ranger smiled. “Lock your door.” And he was gone.
I locked my door, and I set the floor bolt. Ranger had successfully taken my mind off the masturbating rabbit. Now if I could just get my mind to stop thinking about Ranger. I knew everything Ranger said was true, with the possible exception of forgetting Morelli. It wasn't easy to forget Morelli. I'd put a lot of effort into it over the years, but had never been successful.
My phone rang, and someone made kissy sounds to me. I hung up, and it rang again. More kissy sounds. When it rang a third time I pulled the plug.
A half hour later, someone was at my door. “I know you're in there,” Vinnie yelled. “I saw the CR-V in the parking lot.”
I unlocked the floor bolt, the door bolt, the security chain, and the dead bolt.
“Jesus Christ,” Vinnie said when I finally opened the door. “You'd think there was something valuable in this rat trap.”
“I'm valuable.”
“Not as a bounty hunter, you aren't. Where's Bender? I've got two days to produce Bender, or I pay the money to the court.”
“You're here to tell me that?”
“Yeah. I figured you needed some reminding. I've got my mother-in-law at my house today, driving me nuts. I thought this would be a good time to get Bender. I tried to call you, but your phone isn't working.”
What the hell, I didn't have anything else to do. I was sitting here trapped in my apartment with my phone disconnected.
I left Vinnie to wait in the entrance hall, and I went in search of my gun belt. I returned with the black nylon web holster strapped to my leg and my .38 loaded and ready for quick draw.
“Whoa,” Vinnie said, clearly impressed. “You're finally serious.”
Right. Serious about not getting porked by a rabbit. We cruised out of the lot with me driving and Vinnie working the radio. I turned toward the center of town, keeping one eye on the road ahead and one eye on the rearview mirror. A green SUV came up behind me. He cut over a double line and passed me. The guy in the Clinton mask was behind the
wheel, and the big ugly rabbit was riding shotgun. The rabbit turned and popped up through the sun roof and looked back at me. His ears were whipping around in the wind, and he was holding his head on with both hands.
“It's the rabbit,” I yelled. “Shoot him! Take my gun and shoot him!”
“What are you, nuts?” Vinnie said. “I can't shoot an unarmed rabbit.”
I was struggling, trying to get my gun out of the holster, trying to drive at the same time.
“I'm going to shoot him then. I don't care if I get sent to jail. It'll be worth it. I'm going to shoot him in his stupid rabbit head.” I wrenched the gun out of the holster, but I didn't want to shoot through Ranger's windshield. “Take the wheel,” I yelled to Vinnie. I opened the window, leaned out, and got off a shot.
The rabbit instantly retreated into the car. The SUV accelerated and turned left, onto a side street. I waited for traffic to pass, and then I turned left, also. I saw them ahead of me. They were turning and turning until we went full circle, and we were back on State. The SUV pulled up at a convenience store, and the two men took off on foot, around the brick building. I slid to a stop beside the Explorer. Vinnie and I jumped from the CR-V and ran after the men. We chased them for a couple blocks, they cut through a yard, and they disappeared.
Vinnie was bent at the waist, sucking air. “Why are we chasing a rabbit?”
“It's the rabbit who firebombed my CR-V.”
“Oh yeah. Now I remember. I should have asked sooner. I would have stayed in the car. Jesus, I can't believe you got off a shot hanging out the window. Who do you think you are, the Terminator? Christ, your mother would have my nuts if she knew you did that. What were you thinking?”
“I got excited.”
“You weren't excited. You were berserk!”
Stephanie Plum 8 - Hard Eight
14
WE WERE IN a neighborhood of large old houses. Some of them had been renovated. And some were waiting for renovation. Some had been turned into apartment buildings. Most of the houses were on good-size lots and sat back from the road. The rabbit and his partner had disappeared around the side of one of the apartment houses. Vinnie and I prowled around the house, standing still from time to time, listening, hoping the rabbit would give himself away. We checked between cars parked in the driveway, and we looked behind shrubs.
“I don't see them,” Vinnie said. “I think they're gone. Either they slipped past us and doubled back to their car, or else they're holed up in this house.”
We both looked at the house.
“Do you want to search the house?” Vinnie asked.
It was a big Victorian. I'd been in houses like this before, and they were filled with closets and hallways and closed doors. Good houses for hiding. Bad houses for searching. Especially for a chickenshit like me. Now that I was out in the air, sanity was returning. And the longer I was out walking around, the less I wanted to find the rabbit.
“I think I'll pass on the house.”
“Good call,” Vinnie said. “Easy to get your head blown off in a house like this. Of course, that wouldn't figure into the equation for you, because you're so freaking nuts. You've gotta stop watching those old Al Capone movies.”
“You should talk. What about the time you shot up Pinwheel Soba's house? You just about destroyed it.”
Vinnie's face creased into a smile. “I got lost in the moment.”
We walked back to the car with guns still drawn, staying alert to sounds and movement. Half a block from the convenience store, we saw smoke billowing from the other side of the brick building. The smoke was black and acrid, smelling like burning rubber. The sort of smoke you get when a car catches fire.
Sirens were wailing in the distance, and I had another one of those parakeet-flying-away feelings. Dread in the pit of my stomach. It was followed by a rush of calm that signaled the arrival of denial. It couldn't possibly be happening. Not another car. Not Ranger's car. It had to be someone else's car. I started making deals with God. Let it be the Explorer, I suggested to God, and I'll be a better person. I'll go to church. I'll eat more vegetables. I'll stop abusing the shower massage.
We turned the corner and, sure enough, Ranger's car was burning. Okay, that's it, I told God. All deals are off.
“Holy crap,” Vinnie said. “That's your car. That's the second CR-V you've burned up this week. This might set a new record for you.”
The clerk was standing outside, watching the spectacle. “I saw the whole thing,” he said. “It was a big rabbit. He rushed into the store and got a can of barbecue starter fuel. And then he poured it in the black car and lit a match to it. Then he drove away in the green SUV.”
I holstered my gun, and I sat on the cement apron in front of the store. Bad enough the car was totaled, my bag had been in it. My credit cards, my driver's license, my lip gloss, my defense spray, and my new cell phone were all gone. And I'd left the keys in the ignition. And the keypad to my security system was hooked onto the key ring.
Vinnie sat next to me. “I always have a good time when I go out with you,” Vinnie said. “We should do this more often.”
“Do you have your cell phone on you?”
Morelli was the first number I dialed, but Morelli wasn't home. I hung my head. Ranger was next on the list.
“Yo,” Ranger said when he answered.
“Small problem.”
“No kidding. Your car just went off the screen.”
“It sort of burned up.”
Silence.
“And you know that keypad you gave me? It was in the car.”
“Babe.”
VINNIE AND I were still sitting on the curb when Ranger arrived. Ranger was dressed in jeans and a black T-shirt and boots, and he looked almost normal. He glanced at the smoldering car, then he looked at me and shook his head. The head shake was actually more the suggestion of a head shake. I didn't want to try to guess the thought that prompted the head shake. I didn't imagine it would be good. He spoke to one of the cops and gave him a card. Then he collected Vinnie and me and brought us back to my apartment building. Vinnie got into his Caddie and took off.
Ranger smiled and gestured to the gun on my hip. “Looking good, babe. Did you shoot anyone today?”
“I tried.”
He gave a soft laugh, crooked his arm around my neck, and kissed me just above my ear.
Hector was waiting for us in the hall. Hector looked like he should be wearing an orange jumpsuit and leg irons. But hey, what do I know? Probably Hector is a real nice guy. Probably he doesn't know that a teardrop under the eye signifies a gang kill. And even if he does know, it's only one teardrop, so it's not like he's a serial killer, right?
Hector gave Ranger a new keypad, and he said something in Spanish. Ranger said something back, they did one of those complicated handshakes, and Hector left.
Ranger beeped my door open and went in with me. “Hector's already been through. He said the apartment is clean.” He put the keypad on the kitchen counter. “The new keypad is programmed exactly like the last.”
“Sorry about the car.”
“It was just a matter of time, babe. I'll write it off as entertainment.” He glanced at the readout on his pager. “I have to go. Make sure you engage the floor bolt when I leave.”
I kicked the bolt into place, and I paced around in my kitchen. Pacing is supposed to be calming, but the more I paced, the more annoyed I became. I needed a car for tomorrow, and I wasn't going to take another car from Ranger. I didn't like being entertainment. Not automotive entertainment. Not sexual entertainment.
Ah hah! a voice inside me said. Now we're getting somewhere. This pacing you're doing isn't about the car. This is about the sex. You're all bummed out because you got boinked by a man who wanted nothing more than physical sex. Do you know what you are? the voice asked. You're a hypocrite.
So? I said to the voice. And? What's your point?
I thrashed through my cupboards and refrigerator looking for a T
astykake. I knew there were none left, but I looked anyway. Another exercise in futility. My specialty.
Okay. Fine. I'll go out and buy some. I grabbed the keypad Ranger left for me, and I stomped out of the apartment. I slammed the door shut, punched in the code, and realized I was standing out there with nothing but a keypad. No car keys. Unnecessary, of course, because I didn't have a car. Also, I was without money and credit cards. Large sigh. I needed to go back inside and rethink this.
I punched in the code and tried the door. The door wouldn't open. I put the code in again. Nothing. I didn't have a key. All I had was the damn stupid keypad. No reason to panic. I had to be doing something wrong. I went through it again. It wasn't that complicated. Punch in the numbers and the door unlocks. Maybe I was remembering the numbers wrong. I tried a couple other combinations. No luck.