“It’s possible. This is a good place to hide.”
“Hiding in plain sight.”
“Exactly.”
We wandered into a restaurant with a massive buffet. Everyone was having fun. Donald Duck was there, and I got a selfie with him.
“This is so great,” I said to Ranger. “They have Mickey Mouse waffles.”
He hooked an arm around me. “You like this?”
“I do! Can we stay to see the fireworks?”
“We’d have to spend the night.”
“Yes! That would be awesome. Omigod, is that Minnie Mouse? Can we have lunch?”
“We had lunch on the plane.”
“I know, but Donald and Minnie weren’t on the plane. If we have lunch here I can get more pictures.”
Ranger looked over at Donald. Donald was waving to everyone and making Donald Duck sounds.
“Babe,” Ranger said. “You need to focus. We’re here to talk to Mrs. Bogart.”
“Sure. I know that. It’s just that it’s not every day you get to take a picture with Donald.”
“I don’t see Mrs. Bogart here,” Ranger said. “Let’s try the pool.”
The pool was jammed with moms and kids and an occasional dad. Harry’s wife, Susan, was poolside, reading a book. She was blond and tanned and toned. The perfect corporate wife. She answered a call on her cellphone and glanced over at the hotel. She checked her watch and finished the call.
“Are we going to talk to her?” I asked Ranger.
“No. We’re going to talk to Harry. He’s in the room.”
“How do you know?”
“Instinct.”
We went back to the lobby and took the elevator to the third floor. Ranger rapped on the door and looked at me.
“Housekeeping,” I called.
After a moment the door opened and Harry Bogart stared out at us. The shock of seeing Ranger was obvious. He tried to close the door, but Ranger was already halfway in by then.
“What are you doing here?” Bogart asked. “What’s going on?”
“Two people have been killed, the Jolly truck was blown up, and this morning someone tried to kill Stephanie,” Ranger said.
“I don’t know anything about any of that,” Bogart said. “I swear.”
“You went to the plant in the middle of the night in your pajama top. You walked into your office, and after a few minutes you left the building, abandoned your car, and disappeared.”
“I felt like getting away. I can do that. I own the company. I can do whatever I want.”
“I can do whatever I want too,” Ranger said. “And I might feel like pitching you off the third-floor balcony.”
Bogart narrowed his eyes. “Don’t threaten me. The tough-guy act doesn’t work.”
I could see where Bogart might think this was an idle threat, but I’ve seen Ranger in action and he doesn’t make threats he isn’t capable of carrying out. I saw him throw a man out a second-floor window once. He was a really bad guy, and no one much cared what shape he was in when he hit the ground…but still.
“I need answers,” Ranger said.
Bogart blew out a sigh. “I’m in a mess. I thought I could handle it, but it keeps getting worse and worse.”
He removed a piece of paper from a computer case on the small writing desk.
“This is what it’s come to,” he said, handing the paper to Ranger.
Ranger read it aloud. “ ‘Your time is up.’ ”
“It was on my desk. Either I hand my company over to them or else I’m next in the freezer,” Bogart said. “I got a phone call from some man. I didn’t recognize the voice. He said he’d just visited my office and left me a message. He said he was sure that I knew now what they were capable of doing. He said a lawyer would present papers to me first thing in the morning, and I needed to sign them. I got off the phone and I was angry, and I guess I was scared. I don’t even know what I felt. I wasn’t thinking. I pulled on some pants and drove to the plant and went to my office.” Bogart’s face was flushed, and he was breathing heavy. “It was like that scene in the Godfather movie where he finds the horse head in his bed. Horror. Panic. I was sick with it.” Bogart took a beat to get it together. “I ran. I didn’t know what else to do. I knew if I signed the plant over to them it wouldn’t end there. They’d have to kill me. I’d disappear like Jimmy Hoffa. So I left the car in a parking lot and called a friend I trusted to pick me up. I went back to the house, got some clothes and my computer, and had my friend drive me to the airport. I just wanted to get far away from them. I thought I needed to go someplace where I could figure it out. My wife was already here, and I thought it was a good place to hide. I mean, who would think to look for me at Disney, right?”
“Who’s ‘them’?” Ranger asked.
“I don’t know. I needed money, and Soon appeared. He represents a businessman who invests in growth companies. That’s what I was trying to do. I wanted to expand. It seemed like a sure thing. Short-term loan. Almost immediately bad things started to happen. Tainted ice cream. Freezer malfunctions. Jeff Soon moved in to help get things back on track. I was so stupid. Naïve. I couldn’t make my loan payments, so I gave them a piece of the company. Now they’re making impossible demands. And people are dying. First Zigler. I have no proof, but I think they made an example of him because he was suspicious of Soon. And then Gus. I don’t know why Gus was killed, but he worked the loading dock and maybe he saw something. Or maybe he was just convenient because he was usually the last man in the freezer. Soon wasn’t happy when I hired Rangeman. I suppose Gus was another warning to me.”
“Why did you hire Rangeman?” Ranger asked.
“You have a reputation for being the best and for taking on special security issues. I hoped you might scare them off. That they would decide it wasn’t worth the risk with you on board. I thought by bringing you in I might get some control back. Maybe they wouldn’t want to deal with you, and they would move on and ruin someone else. And if that wasn’t enough, I was hoping to get something on them with the security cameras.”
“Why didn’t you go to the police?” I asked.
“I can’t. I’m in the middle of it. I’ll go to jail. I’ll lose my company. My God, I’m practically an accomplice to two murders. How do you explain something like this?”
“I want to see whatever documents you signed,” Ranger said to Bogart. “Do you have them with you?”
“No. They’re in a safety-deposit box in Trenton.”
“You’re going back with me,” Ranger said. “And you’re going to get the documents for me.”
“They’ll find me and kill me,” Bogart said.
“I can keep you safe.”
“And the rest of my family. My wife and daughter.”
“I can put you all in a safe house. I’ll straighten this out as best as I can, but eventually you’re going to have to deal with the police.”
“I don’t see where I have much choice,” Bogart said. “I need a little time to explain this to my wife and my daughter. They know something is wrong, but they don’t know the extent of it.”
“You don’t want to tell them everything,” Ranger said. “Tell them only enough to make them cooperate. We’ll fly out at nine o’clock tomorrow morning. I’ll make the arrangements.”
We left Bogart and went back to the lobby.
“Do you think he’ll still be here in the morning?” I asked Ranger. “Or do you think he’ll run?”
“If he runs I can find him. We can find his wife’s and his daughter’s phones, and I dropped a GPS locator into his computer case when I returned the note.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
WE GOT A room, and we went to the Magic Kingdom.
“You owe me big,” Ranger said. “This is worth a lot more than one night of fun at the Contemporary Resort.”
“This is the happiest place on earth,” I said. “I heard it on television, so it has to be true.”
We were on Main Street wit
h shops on either side of us.
“I need a T-shirt,” I said, going into a store. “I don’t have any clothes with me.”
“Babe, everything has the mouse on it.”
“Not true. There are Disney Princess T-shirts and Tinker Bell T-shirts. And I need some undies. Don’t you need undies?”
“I’ll go commando.”
“I think it might be illegal to go commando at Disney.” I pulled some boxers off a shelf. “Buzz Lightyear.”
“I don’t think so.”
“I could take you to infinity and beyond if you were wearing these briefs.”
“You’re going to take me there anyway.”
I got a hot flash. “I’m a little flustered,” I said.
“Maybe this is the happiest place on earth,” Ranger said. “I’m starting to feel happy.”
I bought Tinker Bell panties and a pink Tinker Bell T-shirt with glitter on it.
“We should go back to the hotel so you can put the panties on,” Ranger said.
“Not now.”
“When?”
“You have to wait for it.”
He wrapped an arm around me. “Tinker Bell brings out the best in you.”
I wasn’t sure if that was true, but the physical distance currently between me and my life in Jersey gave me a sense of freedom. Jersey seemed very far away, in more than just miles.
“Instead of going back to the hotel, I think we should have ice cream and go on rides.”
“Don’t even think about the tea cups,” Ranger said.
We watched the fireworks from Main Street and took the water taxi back to our hotel. Ranger called his control room to check on Bogart.
“He’s still here,” Ranger said to me. “I’ll get a text if either of them moves.”
I’ve spent some time in the bedroom with Ranger, but not lately. We have incompatible goals in life. It’s hard for me to have goals beyond the end of the week right now. Things like marriage and children dangle in front of me but I see them in the distance, as if I’m looking through Bernie’s cataract. Ranger has big long-term goals. Life everlasting and saving the world from evil. His short-term goal is to get me into his bed. I’m sure he has other short-term goals but this is the goal of the moment. It’s a decent goal but it puts me between a rock and a hard spot.
The Tinkerbell part of me was in a mental shouting match with the Wendy part of me. Tinkerbell was dying to sleep with Ranger and she was telling me to go for it. Wendy was saying it wouldn’t be the responsible, adult thing to do. And it certainly wouldn’t be a nice thing to do to Morelli.
Ranger was watching me from across the room. “Is there a problem?”
“It’s our goals. They’re different.”
“Not at the moment.”
“Long term. I’m drifting through life without direction. The only thing I see in my future is a hazy picture of marriage. You have a clear direction and marriage isn’t a part of it.”
“This is true.”
“So I need a man who shares my goal of getting married and starting a family.”
“Do you have someone in mind?”
“Morelli.”
Ranger smiled at that.
I narrowed my eyes. “What?”
“Babe, he’s been stringing you along since you were five years old. You’re no closer to marriage with him than you were in kindergarten.”
“We might be engaged to be engaged.”
“You’re not sure?”
“Of course I’m sure.” Sort of. “We just don’t talk about it a lot.”
In fact, we didn’t talk about it ever. He avoided dinner with my parents so he didn’t have to talk about it. The subject never came up between us. Not even during intimate moments. Plus, there was the billiard table. Initially I thought he was saving his money to buy me a ring, but he bought the table with the money. Face facts, Stephanie, when a man is thinking about marriage and starting a family he doesn’t replace his dining-room table with a billiard table. Besides, I don’t even like billiards.
“Sonovabitch!” I said.
Ranger gave me a slightly raised eyebrow. “You’ve had an epiphany?”
Ordinarily an unpleasant piece of news would send me to 7-Eleven to load up on Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and pints of Häagen-Dazs. 7-Eleven wasn’t immediately available to me but I had Ranger. And Ranger was the mother of all delicious, self-indulgent treats. A peanut butter cup was chump change compared to the possibility of sinking my teeth into Ranger. Not that I would do any real damage, but the temptation was getting stronger by the minute. I mean, what the hell, I was at Disney. I was one step away from the magic kingdom. This wasn’t the time to hold back on what might turn out to be the happiest experience of the day. In the interest of mental health, I needed to do this.
“Babe,” Ranger said. “Your eyes are dilated. Are you all right?”
I was better than all right. I was Tinkerbell, and I was about to uncork the bottle and release the Ranger genie. Ranger is an alpha male. Leader of the pack. Always. In the bedroom he sets the pace. There’s never an awkward moment because he’s focused on the prize, the pleasure, the human experience. He knows where to touch. He knows when to ask the question. He’s strong and hard where it counts. He’s smart. He’s patient. He’s magic. In short, he assumes the decision burden that I was currently very relieved to give up. Again, in the interest of mental health.
“Bring it on,” I said to him. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”
• • •
I showered and got dressed in my new Tinker Bell T-shirt and panties. They were fun but anticlimactic after the night with Ranger.
“Are you coming to breakfast with me?” I asked him. “Goofy might be there.”
“Going to pass. I’ll have something sent up.”
“You’ll be sorry. You’re going to miss the Mickey Mouse waffles.”
He stopped scrolling through emails on his phone and looked over at me. “I like the shirt.”
“That’s nothing,” I said. “Look at this.”
I unzipped my jeans and flashed him a look at the panties.
He stood and slipped his phone into his pocket. “The car is picking us up at eight o’clock.”
I looked at him in his black fatigues. “Are you really commando?”
“Only one way to find out, babe. How bad do you want those waffles?”
• • •
It was early afternoon when I rolled into the bonds office.
“Good shirt,” Connie said, looking up from her computer. “I’ve always admired Tinker Bell.”
“I like the way she leaves a trail of fairy dust when she flits around,” Lula said, “but I think she’s self-absorbed. And she needs to control that jealous streak.”
“Vinnie is making noise about Kwan,” Connie said. “He’s a high bond, and Vinnie is worried he’s going to jump.”
I didn’t want to ask Ranger to help again. He had his own business to run, and he was busy with Bogart. The only way I could capture Kwan before he was ready to get caught was to get him alone, without his posse. That meant surveillance.
“No problem,” I said. “Easy-peasy.” Tinker Bell was in the hood.
Lula was on her feet. “I’ll go with you. We might run into the banana man again. I’ve been thinking about him.”
Running into the banana man wasn’t in my plan, but I’d be happy to have Lula riding shotgun. Surveillance was boring at best. It was deadly when you did it alone. As soon as you went to find a ladies’ room the mark took off and you didn’t even know it.
“Where are we going?” Lula asked, settling into my car. “Are we going to sit and watch his travel office?”
“It’s a place to start.”
I drove to Stark Street and parked half a block away and across the street from Kwan’s office. Four windows ran across the front of the building on the second floor. Occasionally a shadowy figure would cross behind a window. Occasionally someone would look out. N
ot Kwan.
At five-thirty a black Mercedes sedan drove up to the travel office and parked. Kwan and three minions came out of the building and got into the car. The car drove them to Sadie’s Steak House on Liberty Street. Everyone went in and the car drove away.
“They’re having dinner and we’re sitting out here like hungry idiots,” Lula said.
“We’re less than a mile from my parents’ house,” I said. “We can hop over and get something to eat and be back here before they leave the restaurant.”
I called ahead to warn my mother that Lula and I were coming to dinner.
“I have a ham,” she said. “And macaroni and cheese. There’s plenty to go around. We’re already at the table, but I’ll put out two more settings.”
Grandma was at the door when we stepped onto the porch. “Your mother’s heating things up,” she said. “Good thing you came, or we would have been eating ham for a week.”
“Whoa, Granny,” Lula said. “Badass hair!”
“I did it for my honey,” Grandma said, “but I’m thinking of kicking him to the curb. I might not want to be tied down to just one man at my age.”
“I hear you,” Lula said.
“I don’t know if I want any man,” Grandma said.
“I’d rather have a dog,” Lula said, “but my landlady said it wasn’t allowed.”
We took our seats at the table, and my mother brought in reheated macaroni and cheese and green beans.
“This is a feast,” Lula said, forking into the ham. “This is all my favorite food. I’m all about macaroni and cheese.”
“How did the Zigler viewing and the funeral go?” I asked Grandma. “Did anything interesting happen?”
“First off, it was closed casket. A lot of people were real disappointed at that. You get dressed up and you make an effort to pay your respects, you should at least get something to look at.”
“I hear there was an overflow crowd,” Lula said. “Marjorie Bend said they were handing out numbered wristbands just to get in.”
“I was lucky. I went early. Even going early I didn’t get the best seat, but I still did pretty good. From what I saw there weren’t any Bogarts there. I think there might have been a couple people the Bogart Bar man worked with, but I didn’t know any of them. I heard the clown was there, but I didn’t see him personally.”