Top Secret Twenty-One

  We stared down at the street. It was clogged with police and firemen and vodka salesmen. No one was being allowed back into the hotel.

  “What’s next to us?” Ranger asked the hotel security guard.

  “It’s the new hotel that’s all jungle theme. The Monkey Pod.”

  Ranger told Tank to get a suite and an extra room at the Monkey Pod. And he asked him to get us new clothes and to bring a first-aid kit from one of the Rangeman cars. We took the elevator to the ground level and exited the garage from the rear, away from the crowd. Ranger’s men came with us, and the FBI went to check out Vlatko.

  The Monkey Pod manager met us in the hotel lobby and escorted us upstairs. There were monkeys everywhere. Monkey wallpaper, monkey designs on hall carpets, and monkey sconces. It was worse than the birthday cake hotel. It was dark, and the monkeys didn’t look happy.

  Ranger took the key cards and assured the manager that everything was wonderful. He gave one card to the two men who accompanied us, and they went next door.

  The suite had the same monkey theme as the hall. Monkey lights, monkey candy dishes, monkey wallpaper. At least it was large and everything was new and clean. And it felt far away from the horrors that had just happened in the poor birthday cake hotel.

  My cellphone buzzed in my pocket. Grandma.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “Hey, yourself,” Grandma said. “I hope you’re not missing all the action at that hotel that looks like a birthday cake. First off, the fire alarm sent everybody out. And then some guy went splat on the road. Nobody knows if it was a suicide or what. Lula and I were at the Monkey Pod when it all happened, and I got out in time to see the guy before the police roped it all off. He was flat as a fried egg, and his head was burst open like a ripe melon. It was terrible … in a fascinating kind of way.”

  “Poor man.”

  “Yeah. One of the people there said the smushed dead guy just broke up with his girlfriend and they had a big fight in the casino. Where are you, anyway? Did you get a chance to see all the commotion?”

  “I’m at the Monkey Pod. Just checked in.”

  “We’re out on the boardwalk. Boy, I’d kill to see one of those rooms. Do they have the monkey theme like the casino?”

  “Yep. There are monkeys everywhere.”

  “I don’t suppose we could come up just to take a peek?” Grandma asked.

  “Sure. Just to take a peek, but this is actually Ranger’s room and he’s working, so you can’t stay long.”

  “We’ll be in and out.”

  I gave her the room number and hung up.

  “Grandma and Lula want to see the room,” I said to Ranger.

  Ranger’s shirt was soaked with blood. “I’m going to rinse off in the shower,” he said. “I can’t tell how deep this slash is on my arm. You’re welcome to join me.”

  “Tempting, but I’ll wait here for Grandma and Lula. They said they’d be right up.”

  I went to the powder room, switched the light on, looked in the mirror, and had to steady myself with my hands on the vanity. I looked like something from a horror movie. I washed my face, neck, and chest as best I could. I scrubbed my arms to above the elbow. I couldn’t do anything about the blood on my shirt and jeans, but at least the shirt was red from the start.

  The suite had a doorbell that sounded like a monkey screaming. I opened the door to Lula and Grandma.

  “Look at this,” Lula said, pushing past me. “This is the shit. This is the bomb. It’s got a dining room table. I bet the Queen of England lives like this. Like when she goes on vacation, I bet she stays in places like this.”

  “There’s a separate bedroom,” Grandma said, rushing into the bedroom. “And it’s got its own television. And it’s got monkey lamps and a monkey bedspread with a bunch of monkey pillows.”

  “Yeah, but that’s nothing,” Lula said. “It got a kitchen area with bottles of wine and packages of crackers. And there’s a basket with Snickers in it, and all kinds of shit.”

  I understood their excitement. This was a high roller suite, and we weren’t high roller people. Unfortunately, I’d just gotten punched in the face and thought I was going to swan dive off a ledge, so I was having a hard time getting excited about the Snickers and the monkey pillows. The adrenaline rush had burned off, and I was exhausted.

  “They even got two bathrooms here,” Grandma said. “There’s a powder room, and then there’s this bathroom here off the bedroom.”

  “Do you want this Snickers?” Lula asked me. “Because if you don’t want it, I might want it for the ride home. And what about Granny? Does she want anything here?”

  I looked around. I didn’t see Grandma. She was in the bedroom, and she’d mentioned the bathroom, and Oh my God!

  “Babe!” Ranger shouted from the bathroom. “Come get your grandmother.”

  Ranger was standing in the glass-enclosed shower with the door open, looking out at Grandma. He was dripping wet and seemed not especially concerned that he was naked.

  “It’s like she’s paralyzed,” he said.

  “Amazing,” Grandma said, eyes wide, staring in unblinking stupefaction.

  I yanked Grandma out and closed the bathroom door.

  “It was mesmerizing,” Grandma said. “It was like staring into the eye of a cobra. I don’t care if I do anything else on the bucket list. This was awesome. It was like a biblical experience.”

  Lula stared at my shirt and my face. “What the heck happened to you?”

  “There was a little skirmish,” I said. “It’s all okay.”

  “You got a nasty bruise shaping up on your face. You didn’t get that from anybody I know, did you?”

  “Nope. We took down a bad guy. Where are you going now? More slots?”

  “We didn’t get to Caesars yet,” Grandma said. “That’s our next stop. And we’re going home after the dinner buffet. Call if you need a ride.”

  I walked them to the door and locked up after them. Ranger was out of the shower when I went into the bedroom. His hair was damp, and he was wearing a hotel robe.

  “Sorry about Grandma,” I said. “She got away from me.”

  “She just stood there staring. It was eerie. I was afraid she’d had a stroke.”

  A stroke of good fortune, I thought. Not everyone was lucky enough to see Ranger naked.

  “I heard a text come in while you were in the shower,” I said.

  Ranger looked at his phone. “It’s from Mac. This was a more sophisticated delivery system than the one they were going to use on Rangeman. The timer actually showed the start time, and they calculate that the ballroom emptied well before the gas reached it. Plus Mac immediately shut the ventilation system down, so much of the polonium was trapped in the duct.”

  Rafael came to the door with a couple bags of clothes. “I did the best I could,” he said, “but everything downstairs has monkeys on it.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “I’m sure they’re great.”

  THIRTY

  RANGER NEEDED TO stay in Atlantic City to debrief with the FBI, but I was free to leave with Grandma and Lula. I might have been more inclined to stay with Ranger but for the fact that I was wearing head-to-toe monkeys. The day had been traumatic enough, and the day before hadn’t been all that good either, and now I had monkey underpants on. The saying “Out of sight, out of mind” didn’t apply to monkey underpants. I wanted to go home and try to feel normal and convince myself that the threat was gone.

  Rafael and Hal walked me from the room to the hotel drive court and made sure I was securely belted into Lula’s Firebird. Hard to tell if Ranger was still afraid for my safety, or if he was afraid I’d change my mind and come back to the room with Lula and Grandma.

  Lula pulled away from the hotel and headed for the freeway.

  “I must have ate a million shrimps at that buffet. And the cocktail sauce had just the right amount of horseradish.”

  “Yep,” Grandma said. “This was a real good day. We should do t
his more often. I wouldn’t mind having another day just like this one.”

  I was in the backseat with an ice pack on my bruised cheek, and I didn’t ever want to repeat my day.

  It was close to nine o’clock when I walked into Morelli’s house. He was on the couch watching television with Bob, and they both looked happy to see me. Then Morelli took a closer look, and his expression changed from happy to heartburn. Good thing he hadn’t seen me before the shower and clean clothes.

  I dumped my messenger bag and clothes bag on the floor and squeezed in next to Morelli. “It looks worse than it is,” I said. “The important thing is that it ended well. Vlatko is gone and will never come back. And I’m here with you and Bob.”

  “You have a monkey on your shirt,” Morelli said.

  “I have a monkey on my everything. What happened today? Did I miss anything good?”

  “Miriam Pepper had a few too many Manhattans for breakfast, and her bathrobe caught fire while she was attempting to scramble some eggs. She managed to get herself out of the bathrobe, but in the process she set her kitchen on fire and half her house burned down.”

  “Is she okay?”

  “Yeah, but here’s the good part. When the fire marshal went into the basement, he found bricks of high-grade Mexican marijuana stacked up like cordwood, plus some rocket launchers and stuff to make firebombs. They started to question Pepper, and he lawyered up. When they questioned Miriam, she said the marijuana was for personal use and medicinal purposes.”

  “What about the rocket launchers?”

  “She said they were used for family fun outings.”

  “Did she say anything about Briggs?”

  “Yeah. She said Silvio hated Briggs. Briggs was driving Silvio nuts with his nitpicking all the transportation expenses. And Silvio told Miriam that Briggs hums when he works. Briggs would come in to do the books, and he’d hum.”

  “Pepper was trying to blow Briggs up for humming?”

  “That’s one theory.”

  “So let me get this straight. No one wanted to kill Briggs because he knew about Poletti’s money stash and about the cooked books. Everyone wanted to kill Briggs because he’s annoying.”

  “That’s what we’re hearing.”

  “It’s a real accomplishment to be that annoying.”

  “I don’t buy it,” Morelli said. “There has to be more.”

  “What about Scootch, Siglowski, Ritt, and Poletti? Do you have a lead on the shooter? I was going with Silvio Pepper.”

  “The gun wasn’t found in Pepper’s house or office.”

  “Too bad. That would have tied things up nice and neat.”

  Morelli was long gone by the time I rolled out of bed. I had a bruise on my face and a Band-Aid on my neck. The cut on my lip was slightly swollen but not terrible. I made myself a peanut butter sandwich and washed it down with two cups of coffee. I slung the messenger bag over my shoulder, told Bob to be good, and went to the front door. There were two black SUVs at the curb and two Rangeman guys. One SUV was an Escalade, the other was a small Mercedes. I was handed the key to the Mercedes.

  “Ranger wanted you to have this,” one of the men said.

  I texted Thank you to Ranger and got behind the wheel. I had money to get another car, but this made my life instantly better. I was spending a fortune on gas for the Buick, and sourcing out a good used SUV would take time.

  First stop was my apartment, to check on Briggs. I ran into Dillan, the super, in the hall.

  “We’re painting on Friday, and your carpet is supposed to get installed the following Monday,” he said.

  “That’s great,” I told him. “Thanks.”

  I let myself into the apartment, and the dogs rushed over to me.

  “Hey, look who’s here!” Briggs said. “It’s Aunt Stephanie.”

  He was dressed in the tan suit, and it looked like he’d gotten a haircut.

  “What’s with the suit?” I asked him.

  “I have a job interview, so Nick let me keep it a while longer. What happened with the Russian guy?”

  “The problem is solved.”

  “I bet.”

  “Dillan said the rugs are going in next Monday, so that means I’ll be able to move back in.”

  “No problem. I got my new credit cards, and I got some insurance money, and my old apartment building gave me a good chunk of money as encouragement to live someplace else. So I’ll go apartment hunting after the job interview. My cousin Bruce is going to drive me around.”

  “I’m only counting eight dogs,” I said to Briggs.

  “Mrs. Brodsky on the first floor took one. And Mr. Grezbek down the hall took one.”

  Someone hammered on my door, and I looked out the peephole at Oswald Poletti.

  I opened the door, and Oswald slouched in. “Hey,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

  “This is my apartment,” I told him.

  “No shit? I thought this belonged to the little turd. What are you two, a couple or something?”

  “He’s an acquaintance. I let him stay here because someone firebombed his apartment.”

  “Yeah, that was me,” Oswald said. “I was trying to run him out of town so he wouldn’t ruin everything for Miriam. But then he moved here, so I shot off another rocket, only I didn’t count for wind and my aim was off. Sorry about the hole in the wall.”

  Briggs and I were momentarily speechless.

  “What about the two cars?” Briggs asked.

  “I don’t know about two cars. I just shot a rocket into one car. A Porsche. It was awesome. Freaking awesome. I got a freaking boner over it.”

  “Miriam?” I finally said. “Are you talking about Miriam Pepper?”

  “Yeah, she’s a real nice lady. She makes a bad Manhattan, man. I mean, they’re so bad you could drink until you pass out. And she’s got good Mexican dope too.”

  “How do you know Miriam?”

  “Her old man kept all the ammo for the shooting range in the Pine Barrens. Man, those were the days. I’d cart all the shit down there for him, and then we’d all get stoned and blow the shit up. Refrigerators, televisions, you name it and we blew it up.”

  “Do you see the difference between blowing up a refrigerator and sending a rocket into an apartment?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You could have killed someone.”

  “It was just a refrigerator. There wasn’t no one in it.”

  “I mean the apartment!”

  “Yeah, but I thought it was him in the apartment. And anyway that didn’t work so I came over here to tell him to leave Miriam alone.”

  “I don’t even know Miriam,” Briggs said. “Are you high?”

  “Well, yeah,” Oswald said, smiling. “Of course I’m high. Miriam said you were going to ruin everything. She said nobody trusted you, and you were going to talk to the police, and that would be the end of the Manhattans and weed. So I said, ‘Don’t worry, Miriam, I’ll take care of him.’ ” Oswald looked around. “I’m starving, man. You have any chips, or something?”

  “I ate all the chips,” Briggs said.

  “Then I guess I have to kill you,” Oswald said. “So what do you have? Weed? Demerol? M&M’s?”

  “How about a puppy?” Briggs said. “You could give it to Miriam.”

  “Where?”

  “Here,” Briggs said, pointing to the Chihuahuas sitting at his feet. “Pick one. They’re up for adoption.”

  “They look like rats with big ears.”

  “Watch what you say about my dogs,” Briggs said. “They’re very sensitive.”

  “Sorry, man. I wasn’t thinking.”

  “Miriam probably doesn’t want a dog right now,” I said. “She sort of burned her house down.”

  “Yeah, she’s like living in the garage,” Oswald said. “It’s got air-conditioning and everything, but the cops took all the weed and rockets. It’s like such a bummer.”

  “Jeez, this has been a terrific conversatio
n,” Briggs said, “but I have stuff to do. And don’t worry about Miriam. I won’t bother Miriam.”

  “Do you need a ride?” I asked Oswald.

  “No. I got a car. I’m sort of supposed to be at work, but the kitchen’s loose, being that nobody else’ll work the fry station.”

  I pointed Oswald in the direction of the elevator and closed and locked the door behind him.

  “Boy,” Briggs said, “I didn’t see that one coming.”

  “There’s no limit to your unpopularity.”

  I called Morelli and told him to pick Oswald up in connection with the firebombings.

  “I have to run,” Briggs said. “Bruce is probably already out there, and I don’t want to be late for my interview. This would be a great job. Can you lock up for me?”

  “Sure. Good luck.”

  I watched Briggs run down the hall and get into the elevator, and then I turned to the dogs.

  “Okay,” I said, “try not to vibrate too much until Briggs gets back. You don’t want to go into a seizure or anything.”

  I stepped into the hall, closed and locked the door, took five steps, and the dogs started yipping. Considering they were such small dogs, the yipping was pretty loud.

  I unlocked the door and stepped inside. “You can’t make noise like that,” I said to them. “The neighbors won’t like it.”

  They all settled down and calmly stared up at me with their bug eyes.

  “All right, then,” I said.

  I moved into the hall and closed the door, and instant yipping! I jumped back into the apartment, got the dog biscuits from the cupboard, and threw a bunch of them at the Chihuahuas.

  I ran out of the apartment, got almost to the elevator, and the yipping turned into yelping.

  Damn!

  Five minutes later, the dogs were leashed and in the back of the Mercedes SUV. I drove to the office and brought the dogs in with me.

  “What’s with the minions?” Lula asked.

  “I’m babysitting.”

  “Looks like you brought the little critters in a shiny new Mercedes,” Lula said. “We should take it to lunch.”