Top Secret Twenty-One

  Leo looked at me from across the room, and I gave him a flirty finger wave. I felt a little bad about leading him on like this, but what the heck, he probably had a wife and five kids back in Russia, and he deserved to be lied to.

  For lack of something better to do, I went in search of the ladies’ room. I adjusted my toilet paper and put on fresh lipstick. I found some hair clips in my bag and used them to secure my hair so that it wasn’t fluffing out all over my face.

  “How’s it going?” I asked Ranger.

  “I’m on the top floor, and I’m limited by the security cameras everywhere.”

  As I ran water to wash my hands, my earbud fell out of my ear and went down the drain.

  “Crap!”

  I hauled my cellphone out of my bag and texted Ranger. Bad news. Your earbud just went down the drain in the ladies’ room.

  It was only a matter of time, he texted back.

  I left the ladies’ room, and as I stepped out into the long hallway that led to the front of the building, a man came out of nowhere, slammed me into the wall, and held me there with one hand at my neck.

  “I know who you are,” he said. “Nice of Manoso to deliver you like this.”

  He had a slight British accent and a skull and flower tattoo showing just above his white shirt collar. It was Vlatko. He was younger than I’d expected. Not much older than Ranger. Slightly shorter and slimmer than Ranger. More boyish-looking. In fact, he could probably pass for a college student until you looked closely and saw the network of fine lines around his eyes. A psychopath you would be inclined to trust. Ash blond hair fell over his forehead. One of his eyes was covered with a black patch like a pirate’s. The other was pale blue. A ragged scar showed above and below the patch.

  I wanted to say something clever to show I wasn’t afraid, but my heart was pounding so hard in my chest it was rattling my brain, and I was speechless.

  “He’s in the building,” Vlatko said. “I saw him on the outside video feed. He’s searching for me, isn’t he?” He smiled. “In many ways this is much more fun than if everyone had been infected with the aerosol.”

  “Why are you doing this after all these years?”

  “Convenience. I’ve kept an eye on Manoso, waiting for an opportunity to even the score and finish the job I started. And here it is. It was dropped into my lap. I had a job to do in Miami, where, as you know, Manoso has many relatives. And when my Miami job was completed I was scheduled to travel to New York. It was perfect. I convinced my superior that I would need an extra canister for a test run, and then I sourced out someone from Miami who could place the polonium for me in the Rangeman building.”

  “This was a test?”

  “It was a dry run of sorts to see if the polonium would work, and obviously the scheme was flawed. Truth is, we all had some doubts. Too many variables. And using an amateur to deliver a package like that is too unreliable.”

  “So you’re done with Ranger?”

  He gave a bark of laughter. “No. I’m only beginning. I’m going to kill him, but I’ll torture him first. I’ll let him watch you die, and then I’ll finish the work I started on him in Korea. It will be even more satisfying than the radiation poisoning I originally planned. Although polonium is a very elegant assassination tool.”

  “That’s sick.”

  “Not in my profession.”

  “Your profession is sick!”

  “You need something to show Manoso,” he said. “A small appetizer before he’s treated to the main course.”

  He pulled a switchblade out of his pocket, flicked it open, and, still holding me against the wall with his left hand, slashed my right breast. The knife easily cut through the silky material of my shirt and my bra, and a huge wad of toilet paper fell out.

  “Jeez,” I said. “This is embarrassing.”

  “Unsatisfying and disappointing,” Vlatko said, “but consistent with the intelligence report I got on you.”

  A woman left the party room and turned toward us. Two men also left the party room and walked toward the front entrance. Vlatko spun on his heel and, without another word, exited through a door across the hall.

  I went back to the ladies’ room and with shaking hands pulled the rest of the toilet paper out of my bra and buttoned my suit jacket. I texted Ranger that Vlatko was in the building and I was leaving. I would meet him in front.

  I left the ladies’ room and walked past the party room without even waving at Leo. He was going to have to figure it out on his own. I exited the building, and Ranger was moments behind me.

  “He’s probably watching us on the outside video feed,” I said.

  “I pulled the plug on the feed, but he could be watching from a window.” He looked at the suit jacket buttoned over my vastly reduced chest. “You lost some weight.”

  “Long story. I’ll tell you in the car.”

  Ranger gave me his keys. “Take the car and go home, and feel free to use it until I come for it. I’m going to stay and stake out the building. There’s no rear exit. He has to come out this way.”

  “I can stay with you.”

  “Not necessary. I’ve already asked Tank to send men. They should be halfway here by now.”

  “Vlatko wants to finish the job he started in Korea,” I said. “And I think there’s something else going on. He said the episode at Rangeman was a dry run.”

  I borrowed money from Ranger for parking and tolls and drove back to Trenton. Morelli called just as I was approaching my Turnpike exit.

  “I’m driving,” I said. “I’m not supposed to be talking on the phone.”

  “I grilled hotdogs for dinner, and I don’t know if I should save the leftovers for you or feed them to Bob.”

  “Save one for me. I’m about an hour away.”

  Rush hour had come and gone, and traffic was light. I reached Morelli’s house in just under an hour and parked Ranger’s Porsche behind a bright blue RAV4.

  Briggs was in the living room, holding on to his duffel bag, when I walked in.

  “My cousin Eddie said I could stay with him now that no one wants to kill me,” Briggs said.

  “Is that your RAV4 at the curb?”

  “Yeah. I was afraid to drive it when Poletti was looking for me.”

  “Do you have any job prospects?”

  “No, but that’s never an issue. I just play my short card and people are afraid I’ll sue them if they don’t hire me.”

  Briggs left, and I went into the kitchen in search of my hotdog. I removed my suit jacket, and I heard Morelli suck in some air. I looked down and saw that not only was my shirt slashed open, it was stained with dried blood.

  “Psychopath encounter,” I said to Morelli. “I think it’s just a scratch.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “There was a lot going on.” I checked myself out and verified that it wasn’t serious. I added mustard, ketchup, pickles, and potato chips to my hotdog and took a bite. “I’m starving,” I said with my mouth full of hotdog.

  “About this psychopath,” Morelli said.

  “I went to New York with Ranger following a lead on the polonium thing. I had a run-in with this crazy guy named Vlatko who planned the poisoning, and he sort of slashed me.”

  “Where was Ranger when all this was happening?”

  “He was snooping around in the Russian consulate.”

  Morelli was looking like his blood pressure was approaching stroke level. “Tell me you weren’t in the consulate with him.”

  “It was a party. Technically I was there with a Russian vodka maker.”

  “How do you know a Russian vodka maker?”

  “I picked him up in a bar.”

  “You’ve managed to do a lot in a short amount of time,” Morelli said.

  I washed the hotdog down with a beer. “We weren’t able to catch Vlatko, but Ranger has him pinned down in the consulate.”

  “I don’t suppose you brought the FBI in on this?”

  “Not whil
e I was there. It all happened too fast. I guess Ranger could have called them in after I left.”

  Personally, I thought chances of that were slim to none. Ranger would want to call the shots on this, and the FBI would freeze him out.

  “So how did your day go?” I asked Morelli.

  “My grandmother says your grandmother is stalking her.”

  “That could be true. Grandma made a bucket list, and getting your grandmother is on it.”

  “Did she say how she was going to get her?”

  “I don’t think she’s decided.”

  “She wouldn’t do anything crazy like shoot her or beat her silly with a baseball bat, would she? I don’t want to have to arrest your grandmother.”

  “I’ll talk to her.”

  EIGHTEEN

  WHEN I WALKED in, Grandma was in the kitchen, chopping vegetables for soup.

  “Help yourself to coffee,” she said. “Would you like me to make you some eggs? Your mother is at mass.”

  “I already ate breakfast,” I said, “but coffee would be great.”

  “I guess you’re happy now that Jimmy Poletti’s behind bars,” Grandma said.

  “Yep. Briggs is out of my life, and I can afford to get a car of my own. Thanks for helping with the takedown.”

  “I got a good start on my bucket list,” Grandma said. “Not that I’m planning on getting planted anytime soon, but I figure why not get all that stuff out of the way, right?”

  “There’ve been some rumors that you’re stalking Joe’s Grandma Bella.”

  “You bet I’m stalking her. I’m freaking her out. She tried to put the whammy on me a couple times, but I just whammied her back.”

  “You know how to do that?”

  “I Googled it. I’m pretty sure I got it right.”

  Joe’s Grandma Bella is the scourge of the Burg. She looks like an extra from a Godfather movie. Steel gray hair pulled back into a bun. No makeup. Ferocious black eyebrows. Eyes like a fish hawk. Five long black chin hairs. She’s short and stooped and wears black shirtwaist dresses and flat black shoes. The longer she’s lived in this country, the stronger her Sicilian accent has become. And she is feared for her ability to give people the eye. The eye is some weird Sicilian curse that makes your hair fall out, your face break out in warts, your teeth rot in your mouth, and your private parts shrivel. Intelligent people cross the street rather than pass too close to Bella. Grandma prefers to pass as close as possible and double-dare Bella to look at her cross-eyed. And Bella is happy to comply. The result is sometimes an ugly display of old lady bitch slapping. And God forbid they should simultaneously get to the cookie table at the funeral home with just one cookie remaining.

  “I know getting the best of Bella is on your bucket list.”

  “You bet it is. I’m going to get her good. She’s messed with me one time too many. Remember when she called me an old slut?” Grandma whacked a carrot in half. “Well, I’m not all that old. And she bumped me on purpose with her shopping cart at the grocery store. She said I wasn’t moving fast enough. And then she tried to push in front of me in the checkout line.”

  My mom came into the kitchen at the end of Grandma’s tirade.

  “She’s a silly old lady,” my mother said. “You could be a good Christian and turn the other cheek.”

  “I’m a plenty good Christian,” Grandma said, “but I got it on good authority that God wants me to get Bella for Him.”

  My mother made the sign of the cross and wistfully looked over at the cabinet where she keeps her booze. Being a good housewife and Christian woman, she knew it was too early in the day for medicinal help from Jack Daniel’s.

  “I have to get to work,” I said to Grandma. “Don’t do anything that’ll get you arrested.”

  “Don’t worry,” Grandma said. “I’m going to be sneaky.”

  “Wow,” Lula said when I got to the office. “Is that Ranger’s car you’re driving?”

  “Yeah, it’s a loaner.”

  “You must have done something real good to get that car as a loaner.”

  “Sadly, no.”

  “I have a new skip,” Connie said. “It just came in. Gloria Grimley. She’s in Hamilton Township.”

  “What did she do?” I asked.

  “She held up the bakery on Nottingham Way. Armed robbery.”

  “How much did she take?”

  “No money, but she cleaned out the cannoli display.”

  “And she got arrested for that?” Lula said. “That’s just terrible. Obviously the woman needed a cannoli. I don’t know what this world’s coming to when you get arrested for needing a cannoli.”

  I took the file, paged through it, and stopped at her picture.

  Lula looked over my shoulder. “What’s that on her face in her mugshot?”

  “I think it’s chocolate,” I said.

  “At least she knows what she’s doing when it comes to stealing cannoli,” Lula said. “And that bakery on Nottingham was a good choice. They make excellent cannoli. And they stuff them with all kinds of shit, too. Not just the usual stuff.”

  I left Ranger’s two-seater Porsche at the office and took Lula and the Buick. Gloria lived in Hamilton Township. I knew the area. Classic suburbia. Three-bedroom, two-bath ranch houses built in the sixties. Enough yard for a swing set. A driveway but no garage.

  Her house was painted a cheerful yellow and white. A Honda Civic was parked in the driveway. Lula and I went to the door and rang the bell.

  “This here’s a house where happy people live,” Lula said. “I can tell these things. I got a good feeling about this house. This woman probably just accidentally left her purse at home and needed to celebrate something with a pastry. I know the feeling. I’ve been there a couple times myself. ’Course I never robbed a store for a pastry, but only because I never forgot my purse.”

  I rang a second time, the door opened, and a fiend from hell looked out at us. She vaguely resembled the booking photo, but her hair was way beyond bed head, she had dark circles under her bloodshot eyes, she had a huge herpes sore at the corner of her mouth, and she was wearing a pink flannel nightgown with what looked like gravy stains splotching the front of it. Her nose was running, and she had a balled-up tissue in her hand.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Whoa,” Lula said, backing up.

  I held my ground. “Gloria Grimley?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you okay?” I asked her.

  “Yes,” she said. “I’m fine.” And she burst into tears. “F-f-f-fine.”

  “Where’s the happy people in this house?” Lula asked. “I was pretty sure this was a happy house.”

  “The son of a bitch left me,” Gloria said, sniffing up some snot. “Just like that. One minute everything is roses, then he says he’s met someone else, and he’s sure she’s his soulmate. Can you believe that?”

  “What about this here cheerful house?” Lula asked.

  “Rented,” she said. “I’m stuck with a year’s lease.”

  “Good news,” Lula said. “You’re up for armed robbery. By the time you get out of the pokey, your lease will be up.”

  This got another giant sob.

  “I don’t suppose you’ve got any of those cannoli left,” Lula said.

  “I ate them,” Gloria said. “All of them. I was depressed.”

  “I saw the report, and that was a lot of cannoli,” Lula said.

  Gloria looked down at her nightgown. “Tell me about it. This is the only thing that fits.”

  “We need to take you downtown to get you rebooked and rebonded out,” I said to Gloria. “It would be good if you could find something else to wear.”

  “Maybe you got some big-ass sweatpants or something,” Lula said.

  Gloria shuffled off to her bedroom and came back minutes later in jeans and a T-shirt. The jeans were only zipped halfway.

  “That’s got a advantage,” Lula said, “being that you won’t have to give them your belt.”


  “I forgot something,” Gloria said.

  She turned, went back into her bedroom, and Bang! Lula and I went dead still.

  “Oh crap,” Lula said.

  Bang, bang, bang!

  We ran to the bedroom and found Gloria pumping half a clip into a picture of her ex-husband.

  She dropped the gun onto the floor, turned, and mooned the picture and farted.

  Lula and I took a step back.

  “Sorry,” Gloria said. “I get gas when I eat too much sugar.”

  We loaded Gloria into the Buick, and I called Connie on our way to the municipal building so she could rebond Gloria. An hour later we were all back at the office. Connie was at her computer. Lula was on the couch reading Star magazine. I was looking at used cars on Craigslist.

  The door crashed open and Briggs staggered in, dragging his duffel bag. His hair was sticking out every which way, his eyes were bugged out, and he had black sooty smudges all over his face and clothes.

  “Someone blew up my car,” he said. “Lucky I wasn’t in it. I have one of those remote starters so I can get the air-conditioning going if I want. I pushed the starter when I came out of my cousin’s house and kaboom. It knocked me on my ass.”

  “Your ass is pretty close to the ground anyways,” Lula said.

  “It was a big fireball,” Briggs said. “If I was any closer I’d be a cinder now.”

  “So how come you got your duffel bag with you?” Lula asked.

  “It’s my clothes. My cousin kicked me out of his house, being that someone still wants to kill me.”

  “Oh no,” I said. “No, no, no, no.”

  “You gotta help me out,” Briggs said. “It must not have been Poletti. I need a safe place to live.”

  “How about Florida?” I said. “You could rent a condo somewhere on a bus line so you don’t need a car.”

  “I don’t want to live in Florida. It’s too hot. And they have big bugs and alligators.”

  “You want to see a big bug, you should go into the storeroom here,” Lula said. “There’s the roach that ate Tokyo back there.”

  “I don’t get it,” Briggs said. “I was sure it was Poletti. He tried to run me over. I saw him.”

  “Who else’s wife did you sleep with?” Lula asked.