Top Secret Twenty-One

  A very competent looking woman with short brown hair and a pleasant, makeup-free face knocked once on the open door and walked into the office with the dossier. She handed it to Sergei and left without a word.

  Sergei read through the file, found the photo, and showed it to me. “Is this the man?”

  “Yes!”

  I clapped a hand over my mouth and gave my best shot at looking horrified and terrified, and to my credit I think I might have even gotten a little teary.

  “I can assure you we’ll look into this,” Sergei said.

  “Yeah, but what about her blouse?” Briggs said. “Who’s going to pay for the blouse?”

  “I’m not actually authorized to reimburse her,” Sergei said, “but when we conclude our investigation I might be able to recommend some compensation.”

  Briggs cupped his ear. “What?” He looked at me. “What did he say? Did he say something about condensation?”

  “He has a temporary hearing loss,” I said to Sergei.

  “Yeah,” Briggs said. “Someone blew up my car, and I was standing too close.”

  “It was a political act,” I said to Sergei. “I’m sure you understand about these things.”

  “So what about the blouse?” Briggs said. “There was no condensation on it. Just handprints. And my good friend and client here has a big scar on her tit from where this Viktor guy went after her.”

  Briggs was having a hard time seeing Sergei, so he got up and stood on the chair seat.

  “We demand action,” Briggs said, jumping up and down. “Action, action, action!”

  He lost his balance on the third jump, fell off the chair, and crashed to the floor.

  “Ow!” he yelled. “My leg. I broke my leg. I need a doctor. Call the paramedics.”

  He was rolling around on the floor, holding his leg and moaning.

  “I feel sick,” he said. “I’m gonna throw up. I need air. Someone get me some air. This office is closing in on me.”

  He crawled to the door, dragging his broken leg behind him, making gagging sounds. Sergei was on his phone again, calling his assistant, telling her to call for an EMT. Briggs made it into the hall. Sergei hovered over him, not sure what to do. And as soon as I was left alone in the office, I took photos of the three-page dossier on Viktor Volkov with my smartphone.

  I went into the hall and looked down at Briggs. “Are you sure your leg is broken?”

  “I thought it was broken,” Briggs said. “But now it’s feeling better.”

  “He has panic attacks,” I explained to Sergei.

  “You might think about getting a new lawyer,” Sergei said.

  I grabbed Briggs by the arm and hauled him to his feet. “Upsy-daisy,” I said.

  Briggs gingerly tried his leg. “It’s a miracle!”

  “Oh gosh, look at the time,” I said. “I have to be at work. Thank you so much for looking into this for me. I’ll check back next week.”

  “I didn’t get your name,” Sergei said.

  “Joyce Barnhardt.”

  Briggs was already in the elevator, holding the door for me. I jumped in, and Briggs hit the button for the first floor.

  We passed the brunette on our way out. She was at the door, presumably waiting for the EMTs.

  “False alarm,” I said to her. “So sorry.”

  A black Rangeman SUV rolled down the street and stopped in front of us. Briggs and I got into the backseat. Ranger was in the front seat, and one of his men was driving. A second Rangeman SUV was behind us.

  I removed my earbud and gave it back to Ranger. “It looks like you’re ending surveillance on the consulate.”

  “I am. I don’t see Vlatko returning.”

  “We did good, right?” Briggs said to me. “Did you see the brilliant way I diverted the Ruskie’s attention away from his desk so you could steal the dossier? That was an Academy Award–winning performance. I should be a movie actor. I’d make all those other Hobbits look like crap.”

  Ranger turned in his seat and looked at me. “Did you get the dossier?”

  “I photographed it.” I pulled the document photos up on my phone and sent them to Ranger, and he downloaded them into his phone.

  “Viktor Volkov,” he said, reading off his phone. “He’s here as a representative of the Russian Ministry of Industry and Trade. A government liaison to the Russian spirits trade mission.”

  “Vodka,” I said.

  “Yes, among other liquors, but primarily vodka. This gives a Moscow address as his permanent residence, and several contact addresses while he’s in this country. The contact addresses are all hotels. One in Miami, the Gatewell Hotel, and a hotel in Atlantic City.”

  “There’s a big international trade show coming to Atlantic City,” I said. “The Russian vodka makers will be part of it. The consulate official I spoke to said he was there making arrangements for some important general who would be speaking.”

  “From the little I know about Vlatko, I’m guessing almost everything in this dossier is cover and not true. He probably has a local handler who knows more, but the consulate staff would know only what they see here and take it at face value. Russian bureaucrats learn not to ask questions.”

  “But we know he’s going to Atlantic City,” I said. “He might not have stayed in the hotels he gave, but he was in Miami and New York. And it looks like his cover was created to bring him into contact with the vodka makers. So maybe his primary target is one of the vodka makers.”

  “That’s too simple,” Ranger said. “Someone went to a lot of trouble to get Vlatko here. He’s a Russian government assassin and a specialist. He’s been sent here to eliminate someone who’s difficult to reach, or he’s been sent here to create chaos.”

  “He’s off to a good start in Trenton,” I said.

  “Fortunately, there was only one death. It looks like McCready is going to be okay. And I should be back in my building sometime tomorrow.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  RANGER DROPPED BRIGGS off at my apartment.

  “Thanks,” I said to Briggs. “You were great.”

  “What? I need a mate?”

  “No! You were great!” I yelled. “Thank you!”

  “Yeah, anytime,” Briggs said. “I could use some wine when you get back this way. Mine went when the car blew up.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ll make sure you get wine.”

  “I could have someone pick him up and drop him off in North Carolina,” Ranger said.

  I declined the offer, and parted company with Ranger at the bail bonds office.

  “Hey, look who’s back,” Lula said. “Is everything secure in Rangerland?”

  “Pretty much. I think he’ll be able to go back into his building tomorrow.”

  “I have a new skip for you,” Connie said. “Forest Kottel. He’s a low-level bond, and there’s no rush on it. Gives his address as a cardboard box on Geneva Street, off Stark. Wanted for shoplifting in a grocery store on Stark.”

  “That’s just sad,” Lula said. “A man finds a nice box to live in, you’d think he could put it someplace better than that corner.”

  “Vinnie bonded out a homeless person?” I asked Connie. “How did this guy secure his bond?”

  “A relative in Cleveland wired the money.”

  I took the file and shoved it into my bag. “I’m going to mooch lunch from my mom,” I said. “I’ll probably stop back later this afternoon.”

  “I got a better idea,” Lula said. “How about if I go with you, and then after you mooch lunch we can look for Forest? His box is a block away from the pizza place in Buster’s building. If we get there in the middle of the afternoon, I bet there’s no line, and we can waltz right in and get pizza.”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  My mother was ironing when Lula and I walked into the kitchen.

  “Hey, Mrs. P.,” Lula said. “How’s it going?”

  “She’s ironing,” Grandma said. “That’s how it’s going. She’s been ir
oning for four hours.”

  “I guess you’re needing some mental health time, eh?” Lula said to my mom. “I know how that is. And ironing is real calming. Although you might want to think about how you’re scorching that shirt you’re working on.”

  “She’s been ironing the same shirt for forty-five minutes,” Grandma said. “She’s run out of clothes.”

  “Maybe you want to switch her over to alcohol before she starts to smoke,” Lula said.

  “It’s Bella,” Grandma said. “Even though she has no good proof that I was the one who pied her, she’s going all over telling everyone I did it.”

  “Well, were you the one?” Lula asked Grandma.

  “I don’t want to admit to anything, but I might have done it.”

  “So what’s the problem?”

  “Everyone’s scared she’ll put the eye on them, so we got disinvited to Amy Shute’s wedding shower, and I got a phone call that the Bingo game was all full tonight, and when your mother went to mass this morning, no one would sit on that side of the church with her.”

  “Before you know it, everyone will forget about it,” I said.

  “As long as you’re already getting the heat, I think you should hit her again,” Lula said. “I think you should TP her house.”

  My mother looked up, wild-eyed, and took off after Lula with the iron. “That’s the devil talking!” she shouted.

  The plug popped out of the wall, and Lula put the kitchen table between herself and my mom.

  “Take it easy, Mrs. P.,” Lula said. “You’re gonna get your blood pressure up and you’ll burst a blood vessel. That happened to my Aunt Celia, only she was working at the time being a ’ho.”

  “No kidding?” Grandma said. “I guess it can be hard work being a ’ho.”

  “You’re all lunatics,” my mother said.

  “I don’t mean to be disrespecting or nothing, but you’re the one who got the iron,” Lula said. “How about we get you a pill or something?”

  “I didn’t realize I still had it in my hand,” my mother said, looking at the iron.

  “Happens to me all the time,” Lula said, “but usually it’s a gun or a donut.”

  “Do you want me to go get the blood pressure machine?” Grandma asked my mom. “I got one upstairs for when I watch Naked and Afraid.”

  “Not necessary,” my mother said. “I just had a moment.” She put the iron back on the ironing board. “Ironing doesn’t do it for me anymore. Maybe I’ll take up knitting again.”

  “I don’t know if you want to be handling knitting needles while you’re having another one of them moments,” Lula said. “How about baking cupcakes? That’s a real good activity.”

  “And my daughter’s a real good cupcake maker,” Grandma said. “Did you girls come over for something special?”

  “Nope,” I said. “We were in the neighborhood and thought we’d say hello.”

  “Yeah, just stopped by to say hello,” Lula said.

  Grandma walked us to the door. “Are you going after bad guys now?”

  “Yep,” Lula said. “We’re going to make the city a safer place.”

  I wasn’t sure rousting a homeless guy out of his cardboard box was all that noble, but it was my job, and I was going to do it … probably.

  We got into the Buick, and I turned to Lula. “I didn’t think this was a good day to mooch lunch.”

  “Hell,” Lula said. “I’m not even hungry no more. And that hardly ever happens.”

  We roared off with the V8 guzzling gas at a furious rate. I drove through town on autopilot and turned up Stark. Buster lived in a manageable part of Stark, not the best and not the worst. Forest Kottel lived two blocks up in an area that was not the worst but getting there fast. It was open range for gangs, crazies, and drugged-out zombies. Geneva Street was the demarcation line for Lula and me. We didn’t stop the car beyond Geneva if we could possibly avoid it. No FTA was worth it.

  We passed the pizza place, drove two more blocks, and didn’t see a cardboard box on the corner of Stark and Geneva. I left-turned onto Geneva, and half a block in we ran into a city of cardboard boxes, plastic tents, and patched-together one-man shanties that had been erected in the alley cutting the block.

  “Used to be you had to get on a plane to see a slum of this quality,” Lula said. “This is better than the tent city they got going under the bridge abutment.”

  I parked the Buick at the corner and shoved pepper spray into one pocket and my stun gun into another. I hung handcuffs from my waistband and slung my messenger bag across my chest. For the most part I’ve found that homeless people aren’t violent, but many of them are crazy and unpredictable, especially when they live this far up Stark.

  “Do you have your gun with you?” I asked Lula.

  “Hell, yeah.”

  “Do you have it someplace you can reach it in a hurry?”

  Lula searched through her huge purse, found the gun, and shoved it into the waistband of her black spandex skirt.

  Forest Kottel’s photo was stapled to the second page of his file. Weathered face. Lots of tangled hair. Squinty eyes. His description had him at 5′ 10″ and 170 pounds. Caucasian. Connie had listed the color of his eyes as red.

  We approached the first box and were at a loss what to do next. No doorbell. No name on the box. Lots more boxes in the alley. No way to know if there was something alive in the box.

  “Knock, knock,” I said.

  No answer.

  “I’m not touching it,” Lula said. “That box got the skeebies. I can tell just by looking at it.”

  I toed the box with my sneaker.

  “Go away,” said someone from inside the box.

  “I’m looking for Forest Kottel.”

  “Well, you haven’t found him.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “Sorry to disturb you. Have a nice day.”

  “He lives in a box,” Lula said. “How nice could his day get?”

  We tiptoed past several bedraggled tents and stopped at another box.

  “Hello,” I said. “Anybody home?”

  I walked around the box and looked inside through a door cut into the cardboard. Empty.

  “Hey, look at that beauty of a box that’s alongside the dumpster,” Lula said. “It must be from one of them doublewide refrigerators. Now, that’s a box a man could be proud of.”

  She took a step toward the box, and a little brown creature with big ears crept from behind the dumpster. It was followed by a second and then a third creature, all with teeth bared, softly growling.

  “Chihuahuas!” Lula said. “It’s the rabid Chihuahuas from hell! Run for your life!”

  Lula took off in her five-inch heels, waving her arms and shrieking, and I ran after her. She reached the Buick, wrenched the door open, and jumped inside.

  “Did you see them?” she asked when I got behind the wheel. “Did you see their glowing eyes?”

  “No. I didn’t see any glowing eyes.”

  “They were from hell.”

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “I think they were from someone’s cardboard box.”

  “Yeah, but they looked ferocious.”

  “They were only three pounds each.”

  “Like big rats.”

  “They didn’t look like rats. I thought they were kind of cute with their big ears.”

  “I did like their ears,” Lula said. “But what about the creeping and growling?”

  Okay, I had to admit I was freaked about the creeping and growling.

  “Now that I’m thinking about it, I bet those dogs just need some bacon,” Lula said. “Everybody feels happy when they got bacon.”

  “So you think if we gave them bacon, they’d be friendly?”

  “Remember when we had to get past that alligator in whatshisname’s apartment? We just kept feeding him chicken wings. Our problem was we didn’t bring enough wings.”

  I drove back down Stark, turned onto State Street, and pulled into a fast-food drive-t
hru. They didn’t list bacon on their à la carte menu, so I did the next best thing and got a bagful of bacon cheeseburgers.

  “Those cheeseburgers smell pretty good,” Lula said. “I might have to test drive one or two of them. And personally, I think those Chihuahuas would have liked some fries.”

  “You can have one burger. The rest are for the dogs.”

  Kottel wasn’t a high-end bond, but when added to the Poletti capture money, my recovery fee would keep me going for a while. Problem was, I was having a hard time focusing on Forest Kottel when Ranger was tracking a psychopathic assassin who had me at the top of his hit list. I wanted to get Kottel as quickly as possible so I’d be free to help Ranger or maybe to go underground if necessary.

  I returned to the alley off Geneva, parked the car, and set off with my bacon cheeseburgers. We approached the big box next to the dumpster, and two attack Chihuahuas circled the box and growled at us. I tossed a burger at them, and eight more dogs instantly appeared. All ten dogs pounced on the burger, devoured it, and then sat back on their tiny haunches looking at me expectantly.

  “You got their attention,” Lula said. “You just better hope they don’t figure out there’s more burgers in the bag or they’ll be on you like white on rice.”

  A shaved bald head popped out of a flap on the top of the box, followed by a lanky body dressed in a grungy black bathrobe. It was Forest Kottel.

  “Who goes there?” he asked. “Who approaches my private lair and disturbs my minions?”

  “This guy’s a whackadoodle,” Lula said. “We should have brought the butterfly net.”

  “Stephanie Plum,” I said. “I represent your bail bondsman. You missed a court date, and you need to reschedule.”

  “You remind me of someone,” Lula said.

  Forest stood ramrod straight. “You may remember me from when I stole the moon. Or from when I saved the world from El Macho.”

  “That sounds real familiar,” Lula said. “Like I read it somewhere or saw it on the news.”

  “It’s an animated movie,” I said. “He’s Gru from Despicable Me.”

  “Lies!” Forest said, wild-eyed. “All lies. El Macho turned my minions into Chihuahuas using a top-secret formula known as Chihuahua Maker Number 42. They might look like Chihuahuas, but underneath they’re one hundred percent minion.”