Twelve Sharp

  'Cripes, just trying to be helpful. I figured you cared about your appearance.'

  'If I cared about my appearance I wouldn't be wearing these butt-crack pants,' I snapped back at him.

  'Yeah, they're kind of small,' he said. 'Maybe you should lay off the doughnuts.'

  I thought this was a good chance to get hysterical and try to rattle Scrog.

  'You have a lot of nerve,' I said, all emotional. 'All you brought me to eat for breakfast was cake and candy. If I'm so fat, why didn't you bring me some fruit? You didn't even bring me coffee. All I wanted was coffee. Was that so much to ask?'

  And to my surprise I'd actually popped out a couple tears and gotten my nose to run a little.

  'I'm sorry!' Scrog said. 'Hold it down, will you? I'll get you some coffee. I swear to God, this isn't turning out like I thought.' Scrog opened the trunk on the car. 'Get in, and we'll go get coffee.'

  'I'm not getting into the trunk! I've got a bomb strapped to me,' I said, hiccupping back sobs that were only half fake. 'What if I roll around? And anyway, it's demeaning. How would you feel if I made you ride in the trunk?'

  I couldn't believe I was actually saying this. Demeaning. How was I thinking of this crap?

  'It's so you can't see where we are. It's for your own good.'

  I wiped my nose with the back of my hand. 'It's not for my own good if I blow myself up.'

  'Oh man, you have to stop crying. You got mascara running all down your face.'

  'It's all your fault. You started it. You said I was fat.'

  'I didn't say you were fat. You're putting words in my mouth. Hell, get in the car. I'm starting to think it would be a relief to go to jail.'

  'This is a nice car,' I said, buckling myself in. 'Is it new?'

  'Yeah, I picked it up this morning when I went out for breakfast.'

  'You should steal a Lexus next time. I hear they're really comfy.'

  'I'll keep that in mind.'

  'We're coming out of the woods now, so I want you to close your eyes and put your head down so you can't see.'

  'Oh, for crying out loud.'

  'Just do it. I'm ready to blow you up just to shut you up.'

  I thought I'd pushed him about as far as I could, so I bent in my seat and put my head between my knees. The car swerved off the dirt road and skidded to a stop in a patch of grass.

  'What the heck was that?' I yelled.

  'Shoot, I'm sorry,' Scrog said. 'But you haven't got much leather back there when you bend over like that.'

  I pulled the T-shirt down. 'If you were a gentleman you wouldn't look.'

  'Wasn't my fault. I was just about blinded by all that white ass.'

  I felt my eyes bug out of my head. 'Excuse me? All that white ass?'

  'That didn't come out good,' Scrog said. 'I didn't mean it exactly that way. You're not gonna start crying again, are you?'

  'Just drive. Just get the heck back on the road.'

  'Actually, after looking at your uh, backside, I wouldn't mind taking some time here to get better acquainted, if you know what I mean.'

  'Let me get this straight. You have me wired to explode and now you want to get friendly?'

  'Well, yeah.'

  'I am so sorry to tell you that as long as I am a walking bomb I am not engaging in friendly activities. If you want to get friendly you're going to have to take this bomb off me.'

  'I can't do that. Last time I wasn't careful with you, you kicked me in the head.'

  I wasn't sure what to say to that. First chance I got I was going to shoot him in the head, but I didn't want to spook him. I folded my arms across my chest and tried to look petulant. I'd never looked petulant before but it seemed like it fit the role I was playing.

  'Is that no?' he asked.

  I did an exaggerated pout. 'I've said my last word on the subject.'

  Scrog blew out a sigh and backed the car out of the grass and onto the dirt road. 'Where are we going?'

  'Stark Street.'

  Stephanie Plum 12 - Twelve Sharp

  Twenty-two

  We were on East State Street, driving toward the center of the city, and we were looking for a Dunkin' Donuts drive-through.

  'We passed a bunch of shit,' Scrog said. 'I don't see why it's gotta be Dunkin' Donuts.'

  'They make the best coffee. Everybody knows that.'

  'They just put a lot of cream in it,' Scrog said. 'All it does is clog your arteries up. And I don't ever remember seeing a Dunkin' Donuts here anyway.'

  'Maybe if you go to Greenwood.'

  'I hate to keep thinking ill of you, but I'm starting to wonder if you're making us drive around so someone sees us.'

  'That's silly. You drive around all the time, and you're never spotted.'

  'Yeah, but I'm mostly dressed up like a woman when I'm driving around. I have three different wigs, too.'

  'Well I'm sure there's a drive-through on Greenwood.'

  'Okay, but that's the last street we're gonna try. After Greenwood we gotta go after Lonnie Johnson.'

  This is it,' I said to Scrog. 'It's the building on the right with the door missing and the boarded-up windows on the ground floor.'

  'It looks deserted.'

  'Lots of these buildings look like this. Some are even condemned, but people still live in them. If you look at the windows on the second and third floors you can see signs that the units are being used. A sheet tacked up for privacy. A couple empty beer bottles on the window sill.'

  Friday morning was a quiet time on Stark Street. Everyone was sleeping off something… drink, drugs, desperation. In another hour the bars would open, and the hookers would start to stake out corners. Traffic would pick up and security cages would get rolled back on local groceries, adult videos, pawnshops, hash shops, and liquor stores. And little by little the bedraggled, angry, lost souls of Stark Street would roll out of their sweat-soaked beds and make their way to cement stoops and street-side folding chairs and discarded sofas to enjoy the first smoke of this steamy summer day.

  There was a new black Cadillac Escalade with temporary plates parked in the alley next to Johnson's building. So there was a slim chance Johnson was inside.

  I had no idea how this would play out. I was with a man who floated in and out of varying degrees of insanity. He wanted to take over Ranger's life, but there was a corner of his brain that always knew it was a sham. He didn't mind shooting people, but I doubted he was much of a match for Lonnie Johnson. Scrog was nuts. Lonnie Johnson was bad. My real concern was that Johnson would unload a clip into Scrog, and Scrog would fall on the detonator and I'd be dust.

  I suspected Scrog hadn't any idea what to do next, but I didn't think he'd want me running the show, so I sat back and let him wing it. He circled the block and parked in front of Johnson's building. He sat there for a minute, and I swear I could see him calling up his Ranger personality.

  'Let's do it,' he finally said, and I had to look closely because the change was striking. He wasn't Ranger, but he wasn't Edward Scrog either. 'Do you know which unit this guy is in?'

  'No,' I said. 'He just gave the address.'

  We got out of the car and entered the building. It was dark and musty. No bulb in the overhead foyer light. The stairwell smelled like urine and fast-food burgers. Paint peeling off the wall. A dead roach, feet up, on the third step.

  'You go first,' Scrog said. 'I want to keep an eye on you. Sniff this guy out.'

  It wasn't a big building. Three floors. Two units on each floor. No one in the two ground-floor apartments. The doors were missing. It looked like they were using 1B to dump garbage. A stained mattress and a bunch of fast-food wrappers on the floor in 1A. A rat as big as a beaver rustled through the wrappers.

  I hurried up the stairs. Doors were closed to 2A and 2B. I listened at the doors. Spanish coming out of 2A. I didn't have Lonnie Johnson pegged as bilingual. Nothing in 2B. I knocked, and no one answered. I was losing patience. I put my boot to the door, and the door crashed open. I was totall
y impressed with myself. I'd never kicked a door open before.

  'Nice,' Scrog said. 'Now go in and look around.'

  Someone was living there, but it was hard to tell who it was. Junkyard furniture. Mattresses on the floor. Empty beer bottles filling the sink. Didn't feel like Lonnie Johnson.

  I went to floor three and did the same routine, listening at doors. A woman answered my knock on 3A. She was hollow eyed and rail thin. I looked beyond her to a man on a mattress. He was equally wasted. No Lonnie there. She didn't know who was across the hall. No one answered 3B, so I crashed that door open, too. The apartment was empty but neat. This felt more like Johnson. A pair of men's sneakers had been placed on the floor beside a small stack of clothes.

  'If I had $32,000 I wouldn't be living in this dump,' Scrog said.

  'I'm not the only one after him. Someone shot up his house and then burned it down. That was when he disappeared. Something brought him back, but this is probably just a short visit before he moves on.'

  We went back down the stairs and out of the building. A man was walking our way, carrying a brown grocery bag. I looked him in the eye and I knew. 'Lonnie Johnson?' I asked.

  'Yeah?'

  'We'd like to talk to you, if you wouldn't mind stepping inside.'

  Johnson was big. Late thirties and about 250 pounds. Lots of those pounds were fried dough and beer, but there was some muscle, too. His eyes were small and close set and radiated mean.

  'Fuck off,' Johnson said.

  I took two steps back and left Scrog standing face-to-face with Godzilla.

  'We have a business proposition,' Scrog said.

  'What kinda proposition? You look like that stupid bounty hunter on television.'

  Scrog glanced over at me and smiled as if to say, See? Now we look like bounty hunters!

  'We need to go upstairs to talk about it,' Scrog said. 'I don't want to talk about it here on the street.'

  I heard the staccato tap of heels on the sidewalk behind me. I turned and saw Joyce Barnhardt striding toward us.

  'What the hell's going on?' she wanted to know. 'This guy belongs to me. I was here first. I've had this building under surveillance since yesterday. You think I'm sitting in this shit-hole neighborhood for my health? Back off.'

  'I need to talk to him,' Scrog said.

  Joyce planted her hands on her hips and got into Scrog's face.

  'And you would be, who?'

  'None of your business. You can have him when I'm done.'

  'Yeah, right,' Joyce said. 'That makes me feel all warm and fucking fuzzy. Like I'm going to hand this guy over to the Ms Plumber Butt and Mini Ranger. I don't think so. Go find your own meal ticket.' And she gave Scrog a hard shot to the chest, knocking him on his ass.

  Scrog and Barnhardt both pulled guns. Scrog squeezed off two rounds. The first went wide of Joyce and blew out a tire on Scrog's stolen car. The second stovepiped and jammed the gun. Joyce's first shot caught Scrog in the foot, ripping off a chunk of boot. Scrog yelped and rolled. And Lonnie Johnson bolted, shoving into Joyce, sending her gun flying out of her hand, skittering halfway down the block.

  Meanwhile I was furiously working at the tape that was holding the bomb to me. It was heavy-duty electrician's tape, and it was wrapped around and around my torso. Scrog had the detonator stuffed into his utility belt. I kept one eye on Scrog's hand to make sure it wasn't going for the detonator, and I clawed at the tape. Scrog had momentarily forgotten about me, more focused on Joyce and Lonnie Johnson. I had a length of the tape ripped free. One piece to go. Scrog looked over at me and went for his stun gun and not the detonator. I gave a frantic yank on the tape and the bomb broke loose and went sailing into the street.

  Lonnie Johnson peeled out of the alley in his Escalade. He whipped the wheel around, put his foot to the floor, and laid down a quarter inch of rubber before he took off down Stark. His back tire ran over the bomb and there was a fireball explosion. The Escalade jumped up a couple feet and came down on its side, the undercarriage smoking.

  I was now face to face with Scrog. He had the stun gun. I had a lot of rage.

  'Bring it on,' I said to him. 'Come get me.'

  Scrog cut his eyes to his car. Flat tire, and the Escalade was blocking his exit. The only way he was going to get me to go with him was to stun me and drag me. And if that wasn't bad enough, his foot was bleeding where he'd been shot.

  He turned to leave, and I grabbed him by the back of his shirt and took him down to the sidewalk, cracking his head on the cement. I punched him in the face and then the son of a bitch did it again.

  I was struggling to get to my feet, my brain still fried, and I realized the hands helping me stand belonged to Morelli. After a moment his face came into focus. His eyes were red-rimmed and shadowed from fatigue. His shirt was soaked in sweat.

  'Jeez,' I said. 'You look like crap.'

  'This is nothing. You should see Ranger. We worked through the night looking for you.'

  'I got zapped again.'

  'I heard. I was a couple blocks away, following a lead, when the call came in on the explosion and shooting. Joyce called it in. She wanted to make sure she got credit for her capture. She had Johnson cuffed to his steering wheel when we got here.'

  'How is he?'

  'Let's just say it wasn't necessary to cuff him. And if he ever gets out of jail, he'll remember to wear a seatbelt.'

  'You have to get to Julie before Scrog. I know where she is. He's got her in a rusted-out motor home at the end of a dirt road. The road goes off Ledger. It looks like nothing is down there. You go past an abandoned house with a tar paper roof and then it's the next left.'

  Morelli called it in.

  'He can't have that much of a head start,' I said. 'Joyce shot him in the foot. And he didn't have a car. He had to steal one.'

  'He got a car right away. He flagged a guy down and yanked him from behind the wheel and drove off. We got a description of the car, and it's already gone out. The driver didn't say anything about Scrog's foot. He said Scrog was bleeding from the nose.'

  'I punched him.'

  'And would you know how the Escalade happened to explode?'

  'I had a bomb strapped to me, and when Scrog and Joyce were arguing I managed to work the bomb loose, and when it ripped free it flew into the street, and Johnson accidentally ran over it.'

  'You had a bomb strapped to you,' Morelli said, sounding a little dazed.

  'Scrog made it. It was only supposed to go off when he pushed the detonator, but obviously getting run over by an SUV could do it too.'

  'You had a bomb strapped to you,' Morelli repeated.

  'Yeah. It was really scary at first, but terror is a strange thing. It's such a strong emotion it can't sustain itself. After a while a numbness sets in, and the terror starts to feel normal. And that's a good thing because it allows you to function.'

  Morelli hugged me against him. 'I need a new girlfriend. I need someone who doesn't wear bombs.'

  'You're squeezing me too tight,' I said. 'I can't breathe.'

  'I can't let go.'

  'Look at me. I'm okay.'

  'I'm not! I thought… I don't know what I thought, but I'm not sure I ever got to the numb-and-functioning stage. I've been at the terror level ever since you dropped off the radar screen.' He blew out a sigh. 'And where the hell did you get these pants? Half your ass is hanging out.'

  We slowed when we reached the entrance to the dirt road and maneuvered around the cop cars that had been first on the scene. We'd already heard the motor home was deserted, but I wanted to see with my own eyes. A uniform was ringing the area with crime scene tape. One of the first cars in was a black Range Man SUV. No reason for Ranger to remain hidden. Everyone knew about Scrog.

  Morelli and I ducked under the tape and went to the motor home. The door was open. There were blood splotches on the steps leading in. I went inside and raised the shades and pulled taped cardboard off windows. The shackles were still chained to the bed, but Julie was
gone. Scrog had cleared out in a hurry. He'd left the wigs and the few pieces of clothing he possessed behind. It looked to me like he grabbed Julie and took off. Even at that, I was surprised he hadn't run into the police.

  Ranger was standing hands on hips, waiting for me when I came out of the motor home. Morelli was right. Ranger didn't look good. Our eyes met and a very, very small smile played at the corners of his mouth.