Lean Mean Thirteen

  The elevator binged and before I had time to react, a huge guy stepped out. He was dressed in shirt and tie and a badly fitting dark blue suit. He was late twenties, early thirties, and he lifted. Probably did some 'roids. His hair was buzzed short and bleached blond. L.A. muscleman.

  Muscleman approached the desk and looked down at me. “Whatchadom?”

  I had the Pizza Hut menu in my hand. “Ordering out. Do you like pepperoni?”

  “The loser downstairs said he let you up here to install televisions.”

  I was on my feet behind the desk. “I'm doing the prelim on some security monitors.”

  “No, you're not. I know who you are. I saw your picture in the paper. You're the nut who tried to choke Mr. Orr.”

  “You're mistaken. I work for Richter Security. I guess I have a double out there somewhere, eh?”

  “I don't make mistakes like that, lady. I got an eye for the girls. I even remember your name. Stephanie Plum. I remember it 'cause it's a 'ho name. Stephanie Juicy. Stephanie Goodto-Eat. Stephanie I’m-Gonna-Sink-My-Teeth-into-You.” Yikes. ”Sorry,“ I told him. ”I'm not on the menu."

  “I think you are. I think I'm gonna have some fun with you before I turn you over to Mr. Petiak.”

  “Is he your boss?”

  “Yeah. And he don't like intruders. He's got things he does to them so they don't intrude anymore, but sometimes he lets me have fun with them first.”

  I had pepper spray and a stun gun in my bag. “Let me show you my identification-”

  “The only identification I care about is between your legs, Stephanie Juicy.”

  He was around the desk in two strides, reaching out for me. I knocked his hand away, grabbed the staple gun, pressed it into his crotch, and bam, bam, bam, bam … I stapled his nuts. At least, I thought it felt like nuts, but hell, what do I know. There's other equipment down there, and I guess it could have been most anything.

  Muscleman's mouth dropped open and his face turned red. He froze for a moment, sucking air, and then he doubled over and crashed to the floor.

  I was in love with the genius who'd invented the electric stapler.

  I wasted no time getting out of there. I ran out of the office and flew down the stairs. I crossed the lobby and was out the front door before the guard at the desk was on his feet. I bolted for the lot and ran flat-out into Ranger when I turned the corner. He absorbed the impact without moving and wrapped his arms around me to keep me from falling. “I need to get out of here," I told him.

  Tank was idling behind the Cayenne. Ranger signaled that he could leave, and Ranger and I got into the Porsche. Ranger drove out of the lot, made a U-turn half a block away, and parked.

  “What were you doing in the lot?” I asked him.

  “Hal was working the remote monitors and suspected you were in the law office building. He was worried about you.”

  “How about you? Were you worried about me?”

  “I always worry about you.”

  “We didn't get anything out of Dickies house,” I told Ranger, “so I decided to look at his office. Didn't think there'd be much activity on a Saturday. Figured I could fly under the radar.”

  Ranger peeled the Richter Security label off my jacket. “And?”

  “Dickie's office is a normal, working office. It looked like everything was still intact… at least until I got there.” I unbuttoned my jacket, removed the files, and handed them to Ranger.

  We were sitting there watching the building when the big blond goon stumbled out the front door. He was doubled over, holding himself. He inched his way to the lot, crawled into a silver Camry, and slowly drove down the street.

  Ranger looked over at me, eyebrows raised in question.

  “It turned out I wasn't entirely under the radar,” I told Ranger. “And I had to staple his nuts.” “Babe.”

  “He said he worked for Petiak. I'm not sure what he was doing there on a Saturday because the desk guard said Petiak never comes into the office. And Petiaks office looked unused. For that matter, all the partners' offices looked unused, excluding Dickie s.”

  Ranger skimmed the current folder. “These are all one-page summaries for quick reference, and at first glance they all look like normal low-grade cases. A couple property damage cases. A criminal case against Norman Wolecky for assault. Litigation against a landscaper. More property damage. I could be missing something, but it doesn't look to me like any of these cases would bring in big money.”

  “So we have three partners with empty file cabinets, a fourth partner who chased ambulances, forty million dollars withdrawn from a Smith Barney account, a dead accountant, and a missing Dickie.”

  “I talked to Zip about his brother. He said Ziggy did high-volume accounts. He was under the impression Petiak, Smullen, Gorvich, and Orr represented power.”

  “Apparently not Dickie. Dickie represented Norman Wolecky.”

  Ranger looked at the second folder. “Nuts and Stalkers.” He flipped it open. “There are only two summaries in here.”

  “Am I one of them?”

  "No. I imagine you would be filed under bitch EX-wife. The first summary is for Harry Slesnik. According to this, Slesnik is a self-described separatist who seceded from the United States and declared his town house a sovereign country. He was arrested when he tried to annex his neighbor's garage. Dickie quit the case after being paid in Slesnik dollars. The last piece of paper attached to this is a formal declaration of war against Dickie.

  “The second nut is Bernard Gross.”

  “I know him,” I told Ranger. “He's a Worlds Strongest Man wannabe. Vinnie bonded him out on a domestic violence charge, and he went FTA. I found him in a gym, and when I got him outside he freaked and wrecked my car. He got his hands under the frame and flipped it over like a turtle.”

  “Dickie represented him in his divorce… at least initially,” Ranger said. “While deposing Gross, the subject of gynecomastia came up. Dickie made the fatal mistake of referring to them as man boobs, and Gross destroyed the conference room in a fit of steroid-induced rage. Apparently, Gross is sensitive about his… gynecomastia.”

  “Something to remember. Do you think either of these guys is crazy enough to steal Dickie?”

  Ranger handed the file back to me. “I can see them stealing him. I can't see them keeping him.”

  “The office next to Petiak was occupied by someone who actually did work there. Probably the firms finance officer. I downloaded a bunch of files onto a flash drive, but I'm not sure I have the software on my computer to read them. Spreadsheets and things. I was hoping you could open it.”

  Ranger turned the key in the ignition and gave the Cayenne some gas. 'What should we do with your hitchhiker? Do you want to let her tag along, or do you want me to get rid of her?"

  I turned and looked out the rear window. Joyce was behind us in a white Taurus. No doubt a rental.

  “She must have picked me up when I left my apartment. You can let her follow. It'll kill her when we drive into the RangeMan garage.”

  We were in Rangers office, which was attached to the RangeMan control room. Ranger was relaxed in his chair with a stack of reports in front of him.

  “When Ziggy Zabar went missing, I ran Dickie and his partners through the system,” Ranger said. “Credit reports, real estate, personal history, litigation. They look clean on the surface, but you put them together and it feels off. SmuUen spends a lot of time out of country. Gorvich is a Russian immigrant. Petiak was military. Did a couple tours and got out. Smullen, Gorvich, and Petiak all look like they bought their law degrees a couple years ago. And they all lived in Sheepshead Bay before moving here.”

  “So maybe they were getting together for Monday Night Football and decided they'd become lawyers and move to Trenton.”

  “Yeah,” Ranger said. “That would work.”

  “Here's something weird. It's been four days since Dickie was dragged out of his house, leaving a trail of blood. Ordinarily, the chances of d
eath increase with length of disappearance, but for some reason, the longer this goes on, the more I believe Dickie is alive. Probably just wishful thinking since “I’m the prime murder suspect.”

  “I think Dickie and his partners were involved in bad business and something happened that made the deal start to unravel. Ziggy Zabar seems to be the first victim. Dickie appears to be the second. And now houses are getting tossed, and Smullen has contacted you and Joyce. We don't really know what happened at Dickies house. We have gunshots fired and evidence indicating someone was dragged out of the house. DNA testing on the blood hasn't come back yet, so we aren't sure who got shot. It's possible Dickie is in the wind, and someone is scrambling to find him. It's also possible he's dead, and he had something that wasn't recovered before he died.”

  “Like the forty million,” I said.

  “Yes.”

  “What else do we know about the partners?”

  “All three partners are in their early fifties. Petiak moved into the area five years ago, and Gorvich and Smullen followed. Petiak owns a modest house in Mer-cerville. Gorvich and Smullen are renting in a large apartment complex off Klockner Boulevard. Before moving to Trenton, Smullen owned a car wash in Sheepshead, Gorvich had part ownership in a restaurant, and Petiak owned a limo service consisting of one car. Somehow, the three men found Dickie, and between them they managed to buy an office building downtown, an apartment building that sits on the edge of public housing, and a warehouse on Stark Street. No litigation against any of them. Smullen is married, with a wife and children in South America. Gor-vich is currently unmarried and has been divorced three times. And Petiak has never married.”

  Ranger plugged the flash drive into his computer, opened a spreadsheet, and broke into a smile. “You downloaded the firms financial records. Clients. Fees for service. Services provided. There's a separate spreadsheet for each partner.”

  I dragged my chair next to his so I could see the screen as he scrolled down.

  “Dickie has normal clients and is pulling in around two hundred thousand,” Ranger said after a half hour of reading. “Smullen, Petiak, and Gorvich have client lists that read like Who's Who in Hell. South American drug lords, gunrunners, mercenaries, and some local thugs. And they're billing big money.”

  I'd been taking notes and doing a tally in my head as we moved from one partner to the next, and I had a grip on how much money we were talking about.

  “Forty million and change,” I said.

  “Now we know who owned the Smith Barney money. We just don't know where it went.” Ranger gathered the reports together, slid them into a large envelope, and handed them over to me. “This is your copy. I'll have my financial guy go over the material on the flash drive and summarize it for us.” He looked at his watch. “I have to get to the airport. I'm flying to Miami to escort a high-bond FTA back to Jersey. I should be home tomorrow night. I'll call when I get in. Tank will be available if you have problems.”

  NINE

  “Okay, so run this by me again,” Lula said. “We're all dressed up like Handy Andy for why?”

  “Dickie is part owner of an apartment building. On the odd chance that he isn't dead, I thought it might be a place he'd hole up. Or maybe a place someone would hold him hostage. Its on Jewel Street, right on the edge of public housing. I did a drive-by, and it looks like a candidate for urban renewal. There are ten units, and I'm sure they all have leaky faucets and broken toilets. I figure we go in looking like maintenance, and we won't have a problem poking around.”

  “I hope you realize I could be shopping right now. There's a big shoe sale at Macy s.”

  “Yes, but since you're with me, going on a crime-solving adventure, you get to wear this neat tool belt. It's got a hammer and a tape measure and a screwdriver.”

  “Where'd you get this thing anyway? It don't hardly fit a full-figure woman like me.”

  “Borrowed it from my building super, Dillon Rudick.”

  I parked the Cayenne next to a Dumpster in the alley behind the building. Joyce was still following me, but I didn't care a whole lot as long as she stayed in her rental car and didn't interfere.

  “We'll start at the bottom and work our way to the top,” I told Lula. “It shouldn't take long.”

  “Just suppose we find this dickhead, then what? It's not like he committed a crime. It's not like he's FTA and we can haul his bony ass off to jail.”

  “I guess we sit on him and call the Trenton Times to come over with a photographer.”

  “I would have worn something different if I'd known that. I got a sweatshirt and baggy-ass jeans on so I look handy. This isn't gonna show me off in a photograph. And look at my hair. Do I have time to change my hair color? I photograph much better when I'm blond.”

  I opened the back door to the building and peered into the dark interior. It was a three-story walk-up with a central stairway. Four apartments on the first floor, four on the second, and two on the third. It was late afternoon. Coming up to dinnertime. Most tenants would be at home.

  I knocked on A and a Hispanic woman answered. I told her we were checking toilet seals.

  “Toilet don't work,” the woman said. “No toilet.”

  “What do you mean it don't work? You gotta have a toilet,” Lula said.

  “Don't work.”

  Lula elbowed her way in. “Maybe we could fix it. Let me have a look at this toilet. Sometimes you just gotta jiggle the handle.”

  The apartment consisted of one large room opening off a galley kitchen, plus a single bedroom and bathroom. Seven kids and six adults were watching a small television in the living room. A big pot of something vaguely smelling like chili bubbled on the stove.

  Lula wedged herself into the little bathroom and stood in front of the toilet. “This toilet looks okay to me,” Lula said. “What s wrong with it?”

  “Don't work.”

  Lula flushed the toilet. Nothing. She picked the lid up and looked inside. “There's no water in this toilet,” she said. “That's your problem.” Lula reached around and turned the valve on the pipe leading to the toilet. “It's gonna work just fine now,” she said. She flushed the toilet again and the bowl began to fill with water.

  The Hispanic woman was waving her arms and talking rapid-fire Spanish.

  “What's she saying?” Lula asked me.

  I shrugged. “I don't speak Spanish.”

  “You're with Ranger all the time. Don't he ever speak Spanish?”

  “Yes, but I don't know what he says.”

  The toilet bowl was now entirely filled with water and the water was still running.

  “Uh-oh,” Lula said. “Maybe I should shut the water off.” She reached behind the toilet, turned the valve, and it came off in her hand. “Hunh,” she said. “This ain't good.” “Don't work,” the Hispanic woman said. “Don't work. Don't work.”

  The water was running over the side of the toilet bowl, splashing onto the floor.

  “We gotta go now,” Lula said to the woman, giving her the handle to the valve. “And don't worry, we're gonna put this on our report. You'll be hearing from someone.” Lula closed the apartment door behind us and we headed for the stairs. “Maybe we should skip right to the second floor,” she said.

  “Don't offer to fix anything this time,” I said. “And let me do the talking.”

  “I was just trying to be helpful is all. I saw right off her problem was she didn't have the water turned on.”

  “She didn't have it turned on because the valve was broken”

  “She didn't communicate that to me,” Lula said.

  I knocked on the door to A and my knock was answered by a little black woman with short gray hair.

  “We're checking to see if there are any maintenance issues with this building,” I told her.

  “I don't have any problems,” the woman said. “Thank you for asking.”

  “How about your toilet?” Lula said. “Does your toilet work okay?”

  “Yes. My toi
let is fine.”

  I thanked the woman and pushed Lula away from the door, over to 2 B.

  “I know something's wrong here,” Lula said, sniffing the air. “Smells like a gas leak. Good thing we're going around checking on these things.”

  “We're not checking on anything. We're looking for Dickie.”

  “Sure, I know that,” Lula said. “That don't mean we can't detect a gas leak.”

  The door was answered by a fat guy wearing boxer shorts. “Waddaya want?” he asked.

  “We been sent by the gas company,” Lula said. “We smelled a leak.” She stuck her head into his apartment. “Yeah, it's coming from in here all right.”