Lean Mean Thirteen

  “Hey, how's it going,” Joyce said. “I saw the car parked in the driveway, and I said to myself, I bet that's Stephanie's car. So I thought I'd come in and see how she was doing.” Her eyes flicked to Ranger for a split second, and I was pretty sure I saw her nipples get hard behind the black leather.

  My father was frozen in his chair with his fork halfway to his mouth. And Elmer looked like he'd just filled his bag.

  “Give me your gun,” I whispered to Ranger.

  Ranger slid his arm across the back of my chair and leaned close. “Stay calm.”

  “Nice house you've got here, Mrs. P.,” Joyce said. “You obviously have a talent for decorating. I could tell that by the fabric choice on the slipcovers in the living room.”

  Grandma beamed at Joyce. “I've always said that. She's got a real eye for picking out just the right thing.”

  “And you set an excellent table too.”

  “The secret is you gotta take the olives out of the jar and put them in a little bowl,” Grandma said. “If you notice, we put everything in a bowl. That's what makes the difference.” “I'll try to remember that,” Joyce said. “Put everything in a bowl.”

  Grandma turned to my mom. “Isn't it nice to see such a polite young person? Almost no one appreciates things today.”

  My mother tried to refill her wineglass, but the bottle was empty. “Darn,” my mother said.

  “We cooked up two big chickens,” Grandma said to Joyce. “You could stay for dinner if you want. We have plenty.”

  Joyce wedged a chair between Grandma and Elmer so she could look across the table at Ranger. “I wouldn't want to impose.”

  “I'll get you a place setting,” Grandma said, scraping back in her chair.

  “Eddie Haskell,” Ranger whispered against my ear, leaning in to me.

  “What?”

  “Joyce is doing Eddie Haskell from Leave It to Beaver. Eddie Haskell was the obnoxious kid who was always sucking up to the Cleavers.”

  “You watched Leave It to Beaver?”

  “Hard to believe, but I didn't start out at age thirty. I actually had a childhood.”

  “Mind-boggling.”

  “Sometimes it boggles even my mind,” Ranger said.

  “What are you two whispering about?” Joyce asked. “And where's Morelli? I thought this was his gig.” “Joes working,” I told her. “Ranger volunteered to stand in.”

  Joyce opened her mouth to say something, thought better of it, and forked up some chicken.

  “I'm going to the kitchen to get some hot gravy,” I told everyone. “Joyce why don't you help me?”

  I closed the kitchen door behind us, nuked the gravy boat, and turned to Joyce. “What s going on?”

  “I realized I was going about this wrong. We're both looking for Dickie, right? But you have Studman out there working with you. That gives you a real advantage over me. So instead of forcing you to butt out, I'm going to stick to you like glue. You and Studman will find Dickie for me.”

  “Ranger won't turn Dickie over to you.”

  “I'll worry about that when he finds him. Ranger's a man, and I know what to do with a man. You get them undressed, and they're all basically the same. Scrotum and ego. If you stroke them, they're happy. And I don't see you doing much stroking with Ranger. Looks to me like he's open season.”

  I took the gravy boat out of the microwave and carried it back to the table. Rangers chair was empty.

  'Where's Ranger?" I asked Grandma.

  “He said he had business to take care of, but he left you the keys to the car. They're by your plate. He said he'd catch up with you later.”

  I put the keys in my pocket and wondered about Ranger's needs. It wasn't as if I was fulfilling them. And it wasn't as if he was a low-testosterone kind of guy. “That's some outfit you got on,” Elmer said to Joyce. “I bet you put out.”

  Stephanie Plum 13 - Lean Mean Thirteen

  “Behave yourself,” Joyce said.

  “And you got a nice pair of melons there. Are they real?”

  Joyce smacked Elmer on the head and his toupee flew off and landed on the table in front of my mother. She jumped in her seat and beat the toupee to death with the empty wine bottle.

  “Omigod,” my mother said, looking at the mangled hair. “It startled me. I thought it was a giant spider.”

  Elmer reached over, retrieved his hair, and settled it back onto his head. “This used to happen all the time at the home too.”

  I made it through the chicken and the chocolate cake. I helped my mom clear the table and do the dishes, and that brought me up to seven-thirty.

  “Gotta go,” I said to my mom. “Things to do.”

  “Me too,” Joyce said, following me to the door.

  I couldn't have Joyce tail me to my meeting at the Marriott, so as I saw it I had two options. The first option would be to handcuff her at gunpoint to a dining room chair. The second would be to lose her on the road. I decided to go with option two. Mostly because I had the box of bullets in my purse, but no gun.

  Joyce was driving a black Mercedes sedan, which I was pretty sure represented husband number two. She got behind the wheel and gave me a thumbs-up. I got into Ranger's Porsche and responded with a stiff middle finger.

  I drove off, and after a block I realized Joyce wasn't following. I checked her out in my rearview mirror and saw that she was out of the car, looking under the hood. I turned around and pulled alongside her.

  “What's up?” I asked.

  “I don't know much about cars,” Joyce said, “but I think someone took my engine.”

  EIGHT

  I parked in the hotel garage and walked to the hotel. It was a few minutes before eight, and there was a corporate party going on in the ballroom. Lots of women in cocktail dresses and men in suits congregating in the public areas. Lots of drinking and laughing and flirting. I suspected some of it would get nasty in a couple of hours.

  The bar was packed, but Smullen wasn't there. I found a chair in the lobby and waited. After half an hour, I did a tour of the bar and restaurant. Still no Smullen. I called Ranger at nine.

  “I've been stood up,” I told him.

  “Lucky you,” Ranger said.

  “Did you take Joyce s engine?”

  "My instructions were to disable the car, but one of my men bet Hal a burger he couldn't

  get the engine out. So Hal removed the engine."

  I knew Hal. He'd been with RangeMan for a couple of years, and he was one of my favorite people. He looked like a stegosaurus, and he fainted at the sight of blood.

  I left the hotel and walked past a few desperate souls hunkered in a corner by the entrance, trying to smoke without freezing their asses off. No one coming or going to the parking garage. Just me, my steps echoing on the cement floor. I approached the Cayenne, and Ranger moved out of a shadow.

  “I'll drive,” he said. “I want to make sure no one's waiting for you in your apartment.”

  “I appreciate the thought, but I wasn't going home. I was going to hang out in the cemetery and see if Diggery relieves Lorraine Birnbaum of her diamond.”

  “It's seventeen degrees,” Ranger said. “If Diggery is desperate enough to rob graves in this weather, the least you can do is let him have the diamond.”

  Ranger crossed Broad and turned onto Hamilton. A dark figure scuttled from between parked cars, and quick as a flash it scooped something off the road with a shovel. The figure was momentarily caught wide-eyed in Ranger's headlights. And then the figure was gone, sucked back between the parked cars, lost in the night. I gasped and did a whole body shiver.

  “Someone you know?” Ranger asked.

  “Crazy Carl Coglin. He's on my FTA list.”

  “Babe.”

  If I was any kind of bounty hunter, I would have chased Coglin down, but I really didn't want to see what was on the shovel. So I decided to go with Ranger's philosophy. If Coglin needed roadkill that badly, the least I could do was let him keep it.

/>   Three traffic lights later, Ranger cut off Hamilton and parked in my lot. He looked up at my dark apartment windows, shut the Cayenne off, and turned to face me. “Tell me about your kitchen discussion with Joyce.”

  "She realized you would be helping me find Dickie and decided it was smarter to follow me around than to go off on her own. So she's my new best friend.

  “I told her I didn't think it was likely you'd turn Dickie over to her, and she said she had a way with men. She said men were basically scrotum and ego, and they were happy when they got stroked.”

  Ranger reached across the console and traced a line down the side of my face. His fingertip was warm and his touch was gentle. “I'd like to think I'm more than just scrotum and ego, but she was right about the stroking.”

  An SUV crept into the lot and parked behind us.

  Ranger looked back at it. “That's Tank. He's giving me a ride back to RangeMan after I check your apartment. I'll leave the Cayenne with you.”

  Caesar rang my bell precisely at nine a.m. He was dressed in RangeMan black, and he was slimmer than most of Rangers men. Caesar wouldn't single-handedly haul an engine out of a Mercedes. I placed him in his late twenties. He handed a tote bag plus winter jacket over to me and politely stepped into my apartment.

  “I'll just be a minute,” I told him. “Make yourself at home.”

  He nodded, but he remained standing just inside the door, hands folded in front of him. Parade rest.

  I'd worked for RangeMan once before, and Rangers housekeeper, Ella, knew my size. She'd sent black leather cross-trainers, black cargo pants, a long-sleeved black T-shirt with the RangeMan logo in magenta, and a black webbed canvas belt. The black winter jacket was identical to the one Ranger wore with the logo in black.

  I got dressed and looked at myself in the mirror. I was mini-Ranger. I said good-bye to Rex, locked the apartment, and followed Caesar to an immaculate black Ford Explorer. No logo.

  Caesar drove to a large rambling colonial north of town. The grounds were perfectly landscaped even in winter, and the house had a sweeping view of the river. We parked in the circular drive, Caesar took a clipboard from the backseat, and we went to work.

  “The owners are off-site,” Caesar said, keying us into the house. “A vacation in Naples. We're installing a new security system while they're away. The husband does a lot of travel, and the wife stays home with two school-age children. So we need to make the system meet the wife's needs. Ranger thought you would be helpful since you see things from a woman's perspective.”

  We did a fast tour of the house and then went through a second time more slowly, making notes. I didn't know anything about living in a house like this, and I didn't have experience as a mother, but I knew something about fear. And I've broken into enough houses to know what serves as a deterrent. In a house this size, I'd want to know if a door was opened. I'd want closed-circuit television on entrances. I'd want exterior security lighting. I'd want some mobile touchpads to give myself flexibility. I'd want to make sure the children's rooms were protected against intrusion. That would mean the screens should be wired into the alarm system.

  It was almost noon when Caesar dropped me at my apartment building. I ran upstairs, made myself a peanut butter and olive sandwich, and pawed through my junk drawer while I ate. My job as a bounty hunter heavily relies on my ability to stretch the truth and go into sneaky mode. I have patches and hats for almost any occasion, from pizza delivery to plumbing to security specialist.

  I found a patch that advertised Richter Security and used double-sided sticky tape to plaster the patch over the RangeMan logo on the black jacket. I dropped a travel flash drive into my pocket so I could record computer data, and I grabbed a clipboard and pad.

  It was Saturday, and I was guessing there would be a single security guard on front-desk duty at Petiak, Smullen, Gorvich, and Orr. I hadn't learned anything from Dickie's house. I was hoping his files were still intact at his office.

  I parked the Cayenne in the small lot adjacent to the building, and sat there for a moment, gathering my courage. Truth is, “I’m not all that brave. And I’m not all that good at what I do. And I was pretty close to getting nervous bowels. I was going to break into Dickie's office, and I was doing it because it wasn't nearly as frightening as the prospect of going to jail for a murder I didn't commit. Still, it was pretty damn frightening.

  I talked myself into getting out of the Cayenne, walked to the front of the building, and let myself into the foyer. The large glass door leading to the law offices was locked and, just as Fd suspected, a security guard was behind the desk. I showed him my clipboard and pointed to my watch, and he came to the door.

  “Richter Security,” I told him, handing him a business card that went with the Richter Security logo on my jacket. “ “I’m scheduled to come in and work up an estimate on a new system.”

  “I don't know anything about that,” he said. “The offices are closed.”

  “You were supposed to be notified. There must be someone you can call.”

  “I've only got emergency numbers.”

  “They specifically requested a Saturday so business wouldn't be disturbed. I moved a lot of jobs around so I could do this, and if I can't get in today, I don't have another Saturday opening until October.”

  Now, here's the good part. Men trust women. Even if I looked like a five-dollar hand-job hooker, this guy would think I was the real deal. Women grow up wary, and men grow up thinking they're immortal. Maybe that's overstated, but I'm in the ballpark.

  “Just exactly what are you supposed to do?” he asked.

  “I guess everyone got a little freaked over the disappearance of one of the partners, and they decided to upgrade the security system. My specialty is video surveillance. I'll be designing an enhanced video system for use throughout the building. Obviously, this isn't something that can be done during business hours. No one wants to think their every action is being monitored.”

  “Yeah, I guess I can see that. How long will this take?”

  “An hour, tops. I just need to draw some room diagrams. Are the partners' offices open?”

  “Yeah. No point locking them. They're hardly used. Only Mr. Orr came in every day. And sometimes Mr. Smullen when he's in town.”

  “That's weird. What kind of lawyer doesn't use his office?”

  “Don't ask me. I'm just part-time. Maybe they're all a bunch of rich guys who don't need to work. They just like to have their names on the door-you know what I mean?”

  “Yeah. Well, I'm not rich like that, so I'd better get to work.”

  “Holler if you need anything.”

  I started in Dickie s office. My original intent had been to get into his computer and search for a client list, but his computer was gone. That brought me to Plan B. Raid his file cabinet. I went through three drawers of files and understood nothing. Why can't lawyers write in English?

  I gave up on the files and sat at his desk. I opened the top drawer and found two file folders. One was labeled nuts and stalkers and the other was labeled current. Hooray! Now I was getting somewhere. I shoved the folders into my pants, under the waistband, and buttoned my coat over them.

  Smullens office was similar in design to Dickies. Same furniture, but Smullens desk drawers were filled with candy bars. Mounds, Baby Ruths, M&Ms, Snickers, Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, Twizzlers. His computer was fresh out of the box. Software installed. Nothing else. No Rolodex. A pen and a pad, but nothing written. Coffee cup stains on his leather desktop. Nothing of interest in his file drawers.

  I snitched a couple Snickers and a Reese s and moved on to Gorvich. His office was also unused. No candy bars in the drawers. Gorvich s drawers were empty.

  Ditto Petiak.

  c. j. SLOAN had been printed in small block letters on the door to the office next to Petiaks. I had no idea what Sloan did for the firm, but he obviously did it in his office because there were stacks of files on every flat surface. There were four in/ou
t baskets on his desk, and they were all filled with papers. His computer monitor was extra wide. And while there was a lot of clutter in the office, it was all perfectly aligned. Sloan was a totally anal neat freak.

  I went into Sloans computer and struck gold. Sloan had client lists with billable hours, current and past. I plugged my flash drive into a USB port and downloaded a bunch of files. In a last-ditch effort, when I left Sloan's office, I tried the secretary's desk. She had all the hardware but not much content. Multiline phone, super-duper computer, and a drawer filled with take-out menus. There was a small wooden crate, two cardboard boxes, and an industrial staple gun by the desk. Someone was packing.