Top Secret Twenty-One

  “Recently?”

  Lula turned to me. “And we’re supposed to be keeping him from getting a rocket up his butt why?”

  I didn’t have an answer to that one, so I stepped outside and called Ranger.

  “Are you still in New York?” I asked him.

  “I’m on my way home. Vlatko left the consulate this morning with two other men. They got into a car, and we lost them in traffic. I left Rich and Silvestor there to watch the building, but I doubt Vlatko will be back.”

  “Is there anything I can do for you?”

  “Babe,” Ranger said.

  “Besides that.”

  I thought I heard him smile just before he disconnected.

  I went back into the office, and Briggs was sitting in one of the cheap orange plastic chairs. His duffel bag was between his feet, and he looked depressed.

  “Okay,” I said, “let’s think about this. Someone wants you dead. And it’s someone who doesn’t want to get his hands dirty. If you take Poletti out of the equation, you have two rocket-propelled firebombs and a car bomb. Very impersonal. Death from a distance.”

  “Or it could be someone who likes explosions,” Lula said.

  I looked at Briggs. “Do you know anyone who likes explosions?”

  “All the poker players,” Briggs said. “They were always going out to the Pine Barrens to blow stuff up. One time they blew up a refrigerator. Sometimes they took their kids. Like it was family fun day. Poletti’s older kid never went, but the stoner loved it.”

  “There are three poker players left,” I said. “Ron Siglowski, Buster Poletti, and Silvio Pepper. Out of those three, who wants to kill you the most?”

  “I don’t know,” Briggs said. “I didn’t boink any of their wives. Ron Siglowski and Buster Poletti don’t even have wives. And Pepper’s wife is comatose by noon.”

  “Sounds like your kind of date,” Lula said.

  “There are advantages,” Briggs said.

  “What about Scootch and Tommy Ritt?” Connie asked. “They were shot at close range. How does that fit?”

  “It doesn’t fit,” I said. “Maybe we’re looking at two different killers.”

  “So far, only one of them is a killer,” Lula said. “And the other one has no luck at all.”

  “Maybe you could let me live here at the office for a couple days until I figure things out,” Briggs said. “I could sleep on the couch, and if someone shoots a rocket through the window I’m close to the hospital.”

  “Not happening,” Connie said.

  “How about a motel room?” I said. “There are some inexpensive motels on the road to White Horse.”

  “I’d be a sitting duck in a motel.”

  “Maybe if you weren’t such a sleazebucket you wouldn’t be in this predicament,” Lula said. “You ever think of that?”

  “Talk about the pot calling the kettle black,” Briggs said. “I never took money for sex acts.”

  “That’s ’cause no one would pay you,” Lula said.

  Dillan Ruddick called on my cellphone.

  “I have your apartment pretty cleaned up, and the claims adjuster is going to be here in ten minutes,” he said. “I thought you might want to walk through with him.”

  “Sure,” I told him. “I’m on my way.”

  “What about me?” Briggs asked. “Am I on my way too? What was that about?”

  “I’m going to meet the claims adjuster at my apartment.”

  “I could be helpful,” Briggs said. “I have a good head for finance. I could take notes for you.”

  NINETEEN

  THE ADJUSTER WAS already in my apartment when I walked in with Briggs.

  “This isn’t so bad,” Briggs said. “They’ve got your rug taken up already, and all the stuff’s gone that was in the living room. It doesn’t even smell bad.”

  Correction. The apartment didn’t smell as bad as Briggs. Briggs smelled like burning rubber, and he looked like a train had run over him.

  “Hey, I remember you,” Dillan said to Briggs. “You’re the little guy who was in the apartment when it got hit by the rocket.”

  “Yeah, lucky me,” Briggs said.

  The adjuster looked up from his clipboard. “Goodness,” he said, “are you still wearing the same clothes?”

  “No,” Briggs said, glancing down at himself. “Different explosion. Some idiot blew up my car this morning.”

  “That’s amazing,” the adjuster said. “Two explosions in one week.”

  “Three,” Briggs said. “Three explosions.”

  “Maybe you want to check out the rest of the apartment while I walk around with the adjuster,” I said to Briggs.

  “This is a fairly straightforward claim,” the adjuster said. “Most of the significant damage was confined to one area. There’s some smoke and water damage. And there’s the hole in the wall. That’s actually covered under another policy.”

  “Probably you don’t get a lot of claims for damage done by handheld rockets.”

  “Not in this neighborhood. Mostly those claims are in the projects and in the area around Stark Street.”

  The adjuster left, and Dillan stayed behind.

  “We’re doing the same carpet and paint color as last time, right?” Dillan asked.

  “Right.”

  “That makes it easy. I should have you all put back together in a week, depending on the carpet guy, the masons, carpenters, drywallers, and painters.”

  Dillan left, and Briggs went from the bedroom to the kitchen, looking in the refrigerator and the cupboards.

  “There’s even mustard in the refrigerator,” he said. “And your dishes look okay. You could move back in.”

  “It’s easier for me to live with Morelli,” I said. “I probably need to get a new mattress, and I’d rather not live with the paint smell.” Not to mention that Morelli has a toaster, his mom fills his refrigerator with lasagna and ricotta pie, and he is available for snuggling. Snuggling with Morelli is not to be underestimated.

  “I don’t mind paint smell,” Briggs said. “I could live here until you want to come back.”

  This was much better than having Briggs live with Morelli and me. I was running the risk that eventually I’d have to eject Briggs at gunpoint, but I’d deal with that later.

  “Sure,” I said. “But you have to leave when the carpet goes in.”

  “Yeah, I know. Boy, this will be great. This is a terrific apartment.”

  “What’s going on with your apartment?”

  “They’re saying six months to rewire and rebuild. So I was let out of my lease. There was also some mention of me being an undesirable tenant, being that people wanted to blow me up.”

  “Personally, if I was walking in your shoes, I’d take my chances with the giant bugs and gators in Florida.”

  “My life will be all straightened out as soon as you find out who’s trying to kill me.”

  “That would be a job for a cop. I was looking for Poletti because he skipped out on his bond.”

  “But you’re so good at this. I bet you could find the creep.”

  “Even if I wanted to help you, I have no idea where to start looking.”

  “How about talking to Buster? He’s related to Jimmy Poletti. Maybe they were working together to off me. And Buster was involved in the Mexican business, so he might think I know something.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “Do you?”

  “What?”

  “Do you know something about Buster that would incriminate him?”

  “No more than everyone else does. Everyone knew he was in Mexico. And now that it’s come out about the girls, you could assume Buster was part of that. I guess I know more about the money.”

  “What about the money?”

  “There was a lot of it.”

  “In Mexico?”

  “Yeah,” Briggs said. “But I don’t know exactly where. Not exactly, only approximately.”

  “Good grief.”

  “S
o how about it? Maybe you could go talk to Buster.”

  “I can’t just go talk to Buster. What would I say?”

  “You could ask him if he’s trying to kill me. And then you could tell him to cut it out or else.”

  I left Briggs in my apartment and drove back to the bail bonds office.

  “Where’s your little buddy?” Lula asked.

  “I left him in my apartment. It’s sort of habitable.”

  “Aren’t you afraid someone’s going to shoot another rocket through your wall if Briggs is living there?”

  “Yes, but it was the best of all the alternatives.”

  “You better hope the police find this rocket shooter guy,” Lula said.

  I hiked my messenger bag higher on my shoulder. “I’m going to talk to Buster,” I said.

  “I’ll go with you,” Lula said. “Maybe I’ll get a look at the killer Chihuahuas. And besides, I want to ride in Ranger’s Porsche.”

  Ordinarily you wouldn’t park a decent car on Stark Street, but Ranger’s car was so expensive that it was protected against theft or vandalism. It would be thought that Ranger’s Porsche belonged to either a high-level drug dealer or someone making a major drug investment. And the locals didn’t want to mess with either of those kinds of people. The locals knew to protect the marketplace. Not to mention the Porsche had an alarm system that could be heard for miles. I found a parking place on Stark, and Lula and I marched over to Buster’s building and rang the buzzer on his intercom.

  “Talk to me,” Buster yelled.

  “It’s Stephanie Plum,” I said. “I came to show you my breasts.”

  “Come on up.” And he buzzed the door open.

  “That works good,” Lula said. “That’s better than the pizza delivery thing. I gotta remember this.”

  Buster was waiting for us at the top of the stairs.

  “Two for the price of one,” he said.

  “Bad news,” I told him. “I lied about the breasts.”

  “How about her?” he said. “I’d rather see hers anyway.”

  “Sure,” Lula said.

  She pulled one out of her tanktop, and I clapped my hands over my eyes.

  “Holy crap,” Buster said. “That’s massive.”

  “And because I’m in a good mood,” she said to Buster, stuffing herself back into her clothes, “I’m not even going to charge you for looking.”

  “About the real reason for this visit …,” I said.

  “You got Jimmy behind bars,” Buster said. “Now what?”

  “I want to talk to you about Randy Briggs. Are you trying to kill him?”

  “Gee, why would anyone want to kill Briggs? He’s such a sweet guy.”

  “Actually, I don’t care if you want to kill him,” I said. “I just don’t want another rocket shot into my apartment. And I don’t want to find Briggs bleeding on my floor. So if you want to kill him, I’d appreciate it if you’d do it someplace far away from my apartment.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” Buster said. “You sure you don’t want to show me your tits?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Do you want to see mine?”

  “No!”

  I stopped at a deli on lower Stark, and Lula made a sandwich run while I took a call from Briggs.

  “I need to go food shopping,” Briggs said.

  “And?”

  “I haven’t got a car.”

  “Do you have feet?”

  “Yeah, but there aren’t any supermarkets nearby, and I can’t carry a whole lot anyway. I swear this is the last favor I’ll ever ask of you. Ever, ever, ever.”

  I dropped Lula at the office and picked Briggs up at the back door of my apartment building. He’d cleaned himself up as best he could, but his hair was singed, his face looked sunburned, and he still smelled slightly of smoking rubber.

  “I just need some basic things,” Briggs said. “And I want a bottle of wine.”

  “There’s a liquor store next to Shop and Bag.”

  “This is a really nice car,” he said. “I like riding in it. These seats are real leather, too. Do you get it on with Ranger in this car?”

  “Ranger isn’t my boyfriend. Ranger and I have a professional relationship.”

  “Yeah, but that doesn’t mean you can’t play hide the salami once in a while.”

  I punched XM Radio on, tuned in to an electronic dance station, and turned the volume up. Ten minutes later I swung into the Shop and Bag strip mall parking lot.

  “You work on your grocery list, and I’ll get the wine,” I said. “What kind of wine do you want?”

  “I want a cabernet. California is okay. And get me a Russian River pinot noir.”

  “Sure. What’s your price point? Do you want something in a box or in a bottle?”

  “How about you get the food and I’ll get the wine,” Briggs said.

  I took his shopping list and looked it over. Seemed simple enough. Bread, milk, cereal, butter, coffee, some deli meat, cookies, and cheese. I added a bag of chips, a frozen pizza, a jar of peanut butter for me, and a chew toy for Bob. I was at the checkout when an explosion rattled the store windows. I left my shopping cart and ran outside. Black smoke billowed off a flaming inferno, and people were running toward something lying in the parking lot.

  “Briggs,” I said on a sigh. “And Ranger’s Porsche.”

  A couple people got Briggs to his feet and walked him away from the fire toward the store. I met them halfway.

  “What happened?” I asked Briggs.

  “Boom,” Briggs said. His eyes were glazed, and his hair was smoking. “Big boom.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “How do I look?”

  “You look good,” I told him.

  That was a lie. He looked like an overcooked marshmallow. The one that got dropped into the fire and retrieved and was all sooty.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I feel okay. Did you get the cookies?”

  “Yeah, I got cookies.”

  “I think the wine got blown up.”

  “That’s okay,” I said. “I’ll get more wine. Maybe you should sit down over there by the store.”

  “It went boom,” Briggs said. “There was a big boom.”

  I stayed with Briggs until the paramedics came and checked him out. He had some superficial burns and scrapes, but he was basically okay. I went back inside the store, paid for my groceries, and returned to Briggs with the bag of cookies.

  Briggs selected a cookie. “I put the wine in the car and sat down in the passenger seat, and then I decided to see if you were finding everything okay in the store. So I got out of the car and next thing I hear WHOOOSH! and KABBAM! and I was flying through the air.”

  What was left of the car had been hosed down, and the fire truck was packing up. I’d given the police a preliminary report.

  Ranger called on my cellphone.

  “The tracking mechanism on my Porsche went dead,” Ranger said. “Is there a problem?”

  “There are some mechanical difficulties,” I said. “It would be great if you could send someone to pick me up.”

  Fifteen minutes later, Briggs had eaten the entire bag of cookies, and Ranger arrived in a black SUV. He got out and stood looking at the smoldering lump of melted, mangled Porsche.

  “I assume this is my car,” he said.

  “Yep,” I replied.

  “No one was hurt?”

  “Nope. Briggs was a little rattled, but he’s okay.”

  He wrapped an arm around me. “How about you? Were you rattled?”

  “I’m always rattled.”

  “Do we know who did this?”

  “No. I was in the grocery store, and Briggs was sitting in the car. He decided to come get me, got out of the car, heard a WHOOSH, and next thing he was flying through the air. He didn’t see anything, but I think it sounds like the rocket guy.”

  “So this is the fourth attempt to kill him?”

  “Yes. Three
firebombs shot from some sort of rocket launcher, and one car bomb.”

  “Any suspects?”

  “Several.”

  “We have two options,” Ranger said. “We find the inept amateur who’s doing this, or I put a bullet in Briggs’s brain and we get on with our lives.”

  I was pretty sure Ranger wasn’t serious about shooting Briggs, but then again, he had a point.

  We looked back at Briggs. He was sitting on a bench with a blanket wrapped around him, and his feet didn’t touch the ground.

  “Your call,” Ranger said.

  “Boy, this is a tough decision.”

  A smile twitched at the corner of Ranger’s mouth, and he kissed me just above my ear. “I suppose we should take him home. Where is he living?”

  “In my apartment.”

  “Babe.”

  “I’m letting him stay there while it’s under construction.”

  “And you?”

  “I’m rooming with Morelli.”

  TWENTY

  WE DROPPED BRIGGS and his groceries at my apartment building, and Ranger drove me to the bail bonds office, where the Buick was still parked.

  “Have you heard from Vlatko?” I asked Ranger.

  “No. With any luck, he’s busy working on his primary assignment and I have time to find him before he goes on the attack after us. I had a contact comb through recently issued visas, and no one named Vlatko was on the list, so we can assume he’s using a different name.”

  “We know he’s working out of the Russian consulate in New York,” I said. “Suppose I go back there and try to get a name.”

  “Do you have an angle?”

  “I can go back with my lawyer and my slashed shirt and accuse Vlatko of viciously attacking me at the party.”

  “Who’s your lawyer?”

  “Briggs. When all else fails, he’s good at playing the short card.”

  “I like it, but if something goes wrong, you’re on foreign soil and a rescue will be more difficult.”

  “But not impossible?”

  “Not impossible,” Ranger said. “When do you want to do this?”

  “Tomorrow morning.”

  I watched Ranger drive away, and I called Briggs.

  “Do you have a suit?” I asked him.

  “Did you say ‘fruit’?”