Eleven on Top

  “This is disgusting,” Morelli said, opening the box, checking the mole out.

  “This is sick.”

  “Yeah. You'd better call Grandma and let her come over to have a look before you turn it in. Grandma will never forgive you if you don't let her see the mole.”

  Morelli looked at the packet of painkillers on his coffee table. “I need more drugs,” he said. “If I have to have your grandmother over here examining the mole I definitely need more drugs.”

  I gave him a fast kiss and ran back to the SUV. If I got all the lights right I might make work on time.

  I parked in the underground garage and took the elevator to the fifth floor.

  I already knew most of the guys who worked for Ranger. No one looked surprised to see me when I came onto the floor of the control room. Everyone was dressed in black jeans or cargo pants and black T-shirts. Ranger and I were the only ones without Range-man embroidered on the front of the shirt.

  Ranger had been slouched in a chair, watching a monitor, when I stepped out of the elevator. He came to my side and walked me station to station.

  “As you can see there are two banks of monitors,” Ranger said. “Hal's watching the cameras in the building and listening to police scanners. He also watches the GPS screen that tracks Rangeman vehicles. Woody and Vince are monitoring private security systems. Rangeman provides personal, commercial and residential security to select clients. It's not a large operation in the world of security specialists, but the profit margin is good. I have similar operations in Boston, Miami, and Atlanta. I'm in the middle of a sellout to my Atlanta partner, and I'll probably sell Boston. I like being out on the street. I'm not crazy about running a national empire. Too difficult to control quality.”

  “I'm going to give you the cubby on the far side of the room. It's the area we set aside for investigation. Silvio has been doing this job, but he's transferring to the Miami office on Monday. He has family there. He'll sit with you today and make sure you know how to get into the search programs. Initially, I want you to concentrate on Benny Gorman. We've already run him through the system. Silvio will give you the file. I want you to read the file and then start over. The gym is open to you. Unfortunately, the locker room is men only. I'm sure they'd be happy to share, but I don't think it's a good idea. If you need to change clothes or shower you can use my apartment. Tank will issue you a key fob similar to mine. It'll get you into the building and into my apartment. My housekeeper, Ella, keeps food in the kitchen at the end of the hall. It's for staff use. There are always sandwiches, raw vegetables, and fruit. You're going to have to bring your own Cheez Doodles and Tastykakes. My business manager will stop by later this morning to discuss salary and benefits. I'll have Ella order some Rangeman shirts for you. If you decide to go back to Vinnie you can keep the shirts.” Ranger almost smiled. “I like the idea of you wearing my name on your breast.” He had his hand at the back of my waist, and he guided me into the cubby. “Make yourself comfortable. I'll send Silvio in to you. I'll be out of the office all day, but you can reach me on my cell if there's a problem. Are there any new disasters you want to share with me before I take off?”

  “Spiro sent me Mama Mac's mole.”

  “Her mole?”

  “Yeah, she had this horrible mutant mole on her face that the crime lab was never able to find. Spiro left it for me in my apartment. He had it all gift wrapped in a little box.”

  “Walk me through this.”

  “I went back to my apartment this morning to find something black to wear to work. I opened my locked door and the little gift-wrapped package was on the floor in the foyer. I was worried Spiro might still be in the apartment, so I called Lula and we went through together.”

  “Why didn't you call me?”

  “It felt wimpy.”

  “Do you honestly think Lula would protect you against Spiro?”

  “She had a gun.”

  There was an awkward pause while Ranger came to terms with the possibility that I didn't have my own gun.

  “My gun melted down in the Cluck-in-a-Bucket fire,” I told him. Not nearly so much of a loss as my lip gloss.

  “Tank will also outfit you with a gun,” Ranger said. “I expect you to carry it. And I expect it to be loaded. We have a practice range in the basement. Once a week I expect you to visit the practice range.”

  I snapped him a salute. “Aye, aye, sir!”

  “Don't let the rest of the men see you being a smartass,” Ranger said.

  “They're not allowed.”

  “I'm allowed?”

  “I have no illusions over my ability to control you. Just try to keep the power play private, so you don't undermine my authority with my men.”

  “You're assuming we'll have private time?”

  “It would be nice.” The almost smile turned into a for-sure smile. “Are you flirting with me?”

  “I don't think so. Did it feel like flirting?” Of course I was flirting with him. I was a horrible person. Morelli was home with a broken leg and a mutant mole, and I was flirting with Ranger. God, I was such a slut.

  “Finish walking me through your latest disaster.”

  “Okay, so Lula and I went through the apartment and there was no Spiro. So we went back to the box, and I opened it.”

  “You weren't worried that it was a bomb?”

  “It would have been a little bomb.”

  Ranger looked like he was trying hard not to grimace. “What happened after you opened it?”

  “I threw up.”

  “Babe,” Ranger said.

  “Anyway, I gave the mole to Morelli. I figured he'd know what to do with it.”

  “Good thinking. Anything else you want to share?”

  “Maybe later.”

  “You're flirting again,” Ranger said.

  And he left.

  I saw him stop to talk to Tank on his way out. Tank nodded and looked my way. I gave Tank a little finger wave and both men smiled.

  The cubby walls were corkboard. Good for deadening sound, and also good for posting notes. I could see holes where Silvio had tacked messages and whatever, but the messages had all been removed, and only the pushpins remained. I had a workstation desk, a comfy-looking leather desk chair, a computer that could probably e-mail Mars, a phone that had too many buttons, a headset to go with the phone, file cabinets, in/out baskets that were empty, a second chair for guests, and a printer.

  I sat in my chair and swiveled around. If I leaned back I could see out of the cubby, into the control room. The computer was different from the one I had at home. I hadn't a clue how to work the darn thing. Ditto the multiline phone. Maybe I shouldn't throw the personal products plant application away.

  Maybe overseeing the boxing machine was more my speed. I looked in the desk drawers. Pens, sticky-note pads, tape, stapler, lined pads, Advil. The Advil might not be a good sign. I was dying to go to the kitchen for coffee, but I didn't want to leave my cubby. It felt safe in the cubby. I didn't have to make eye contact with any of the guys. Some of Ranger's men looked like they should be wearing orange jumpsuits and ankle monitors. Five minutes after Ranger left, Tank came into my cubicle with a small box. He set the box on my desk and removed the contents. Key fob for the garage and Rangers apartment, Sig Sauer 9 with extra mag, stun gun, cell phone, laminated photo ID on a neck chain identifying me as a Rangeman employee. I hadn't posed for the photo and decided not to ask how it was obtained.

  “I don't know how to work this kind of gun,” I told Tank. “I use a revolver.”

  “Ranger has practice time reserved for you tomorrow at ten a.m. You're required to carry the gun, the phone, and the ID with you at all times. You don't have to wear the ID. It's for fieldwork. It's a good idea to keep it on you in case you're questioned about the gun.”

  Silvio arrived with a cup of coffee, and Tank disappeared. “I brought you cream, no sugar,” he said, setting the coffee on the desk in front of me.

  “If you want sugar
there are some packets in the left-hand drawer.” He pulled the extra chair next to mine. “Okay,” he said. “Let's see what you know about computers.”

  Oh boy.

  By noon I had the phone figured out, and I could navigate the Net. I was already familiar with most of the search programs used by Rangeman. I'd used them from time to time on Connie's computer. Beyond the standard search programs that Connie used, Rangeman had a few extra that were frighteningly invasive.

  Just for the heck of it, I typed my name in on one of the super searchers and blanched at what appeared on my screen. I had no secrets. The file stopped just short of a Webcam view of my last gyn exam.

  I followed Silvio to the kitchen and took a food survey. Fresh fruit and vegetables, cut and washed. Turkey, roast beef, tuna sandwiches on seven-grain bread. Low-fat yogurt. Energy bars. Juice. Skim milk. Bottles of water.

  “No Tastykakes,” I said to Silvio.

  “Ella used to set out trays of cookies and brownie bars, but we started to get fat so Ranger banned them.”

  “He's a hard man.”

  “Tell me about it,” Silvio said. “He scares the crap out of me.”

  I took a turkey sandwich and a bottle of water and returned to my cubicle.

  Hal, Woody, and Vince were watching their screens. Silvio went off to clean out his locker. So I was now officially Miz Computer Wiz. Three requests for security searches were sitting in my in-box. Mental note. Never leave cubby.

  Work appears when cubby is left unattended. I looked at the name requesting the search requests. Frederick Rodriguez. Didn't know him. Didn't see him out and about in the control room. There was another floor of offices. I guessed Frederick Rodriguez was in one of those offices.

  I called my mom on my new cell phone and gave her the number. I could hear my grandmother yelling in the background.

  “Is that Stephanie?” Grandma Mazur hollered. “Tell her the Macaroni funeral is tomorrow morning, and I need a ride.”

  “You're not going to the funeral,” my mother said to Grandma Mazur.

  “It's gonna be the big event of the year,” Grandma said. “I have to go.”

  “Joseph let you see the mole before he gave it over to the police,” my mother said. “You're going to have to be satisfied with that.” My mother's attention swung back to me. “If you take her to that funeral there's no more pineapple upside-down cake for the rest of your life.”

  I disconnected from my mother, ate my sandwich, and ran the first name. It was close to three by the time I was done running the second name. I set the third request aside and paged through the Gorman file. Then I did as Ranger suggested and ran Gorman through all the searches again. I called Morelli to make sure he was okay and to tell him I might be late. There was a stretch of silence while he wrestled with trust, and then he put in a request for a six-pack of Bud and two chili dogs.

  “And by the way,” Morelli said. “The lab guy called and told me the mole was made out of mortician's putty.”

  “Don't tell Grandma,” I said. “It'll ruin everything for her.”

  Stephanie Plum 11 - Eleven On Top

  TEN

  I printed the Gorman search, and then I searched Louis Lazar. Both men yielded volumes of information. Date of birth, medical history, history of employment, military history, credit history, history of residence, class standings through high school. Neither man attended college. Personal history included photos, wives, kids, assorted relatives.

  I printed Lazar and moved to Michael Barroni. Most of this information I already knew. Some was new and felt embarrassingly intrusive. His wife had miscarried two children. He'd gotten psychiatric counseling a year ago for anxiety. He'd had a hernia operation when he was thirty-six. He'd been asked to repeat the third grade.

  I'd just started a credit check on Barroni when my cell rang.

  “I'm hungry,” Morelli said. “It's seven o'clock. When are you coming home?”

  “Sorry. I lost track of the time.”

  “Bob is standing by the door.”

  “Okay! I'll be right there.”

  I put the Barroni search on hold and dropped the Lazar file and the Gorman file into my top desk drawer. I grabbed my bag and my jacket and dashed out of my cubby. There was an entirely new crew in the control room. Ranger ran the control room in eight-hour shifts around the clock. A guy named Ram was at one of the monitor banks. Two other men were at large.

  I crossed the room at a run, barreled through the door to take the stairs, and crashed into Ranger. We lost balance and rolled tangled together to the fourth-floor landing. We lay there for a moment, stunned and breathless.

  Ranger was flat on his back, and I was on top of him.

  “Oh my God,” I said. “I'm so sorry! Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, but next time it's my turn to have the top.”

  The door opened above us and Ram stuck his head out. “I heard a crash... oh, excuse me,” he said. And he pulled his head back and closed the door.

  “I wish this was as bad as it looks,” Ranger said. He got to his feet, scooping me up with him. He held me at arm's length and looked me over.

  “You're a wreck. Did I do all this damage?”

  I had some scratches on my arm, the knee had gotten torn on my jeans, and there was a rip in my T-shirt. Ranger was perfect. Ranger was like Big Blue. Nothing ever touched Ranger.

  “Don't worry about it,” I said. “I'm fine. I'm late. Gotta go.” And I took off, down the rest of the stairs and out the door to the garage.

  I crossed town and stopped at Mike the Greek's deli for the hot dogs and beer. Five minutes later, I had the SUV locked up in Morelli's garage. I took his back porch steps two at a time, opened the back door, and Bob rushed past me and tinkled in the middle of Morelli's backyard.

  The instant the last drop hit grass, Bob bolted off into the night. I rustled the hot dog bag, pulled out a hot dog, and waved it in Bob's direction. I heard Bob stop galloping two houses down, there was a moment of silence, and then Bob came thundering back. Bob can smell a hot dog a mile away.

  I lured him into the house with the hot dog and locked up. Morelli was still on the couch with his foot on the coffee table. The room was trashed around him. Empty soda cans, newspapers, a crumpled fast-food bag, a half-empty potato chip bag, an empty doughnut box, a sock (probably Bob ate the mate), assorted sports and girlie magazines.

  “This room is a Dumpster,” I said to him. “Where'd all this stuff come from?”

  “Some of the guys visited me.”

  I doled out the hot dogs. Two to Morelli, two to Bob, two to me. Morelli and I got a Bud. Bob got a bowl of water. I kicked through the clutter, brushed potato chip crumbs off a chair, and sat down. “You need to clean up.”

  “I can't clean up. I'm supposed to stay off my leg.”

  “You weren't worrying about your leg last night.”

  “That was different. That was an emergency. And anyway, I wasn't on my leg. I was on my back. And what's with the scratches on your arm and the torn clothes? What the hell were you doing? I thought you were supposed to be working in the office.”

  “I fell down the stairs.”

  “At Rangeman?”

  “Yep. Do you want another beer? Ice cream?”

  “I want to know how you managed to fall down the stairs.”

  “I was rushing to leave, and I sort of crashed into Ranger, and we fell down the stairs.”

  Morelli stared at me with his unreadable cop face. I was ready for him to morph into the jealous Italian boyfriend with a lot of arm flapping and yelling, but he gave his head a small shake and took another pull on his Bud. “Poor dumb bastard,” he said. “I hope he's got insurance on that building.”

  I was pretty sure I'd just been insulted, but I thought it was best to let it slide.

  Morelli leaned back into the couch and smiled at me. “And before I forget, your cello is in the front hall.”

  “My cello?”

  “Yeah, every great cel
lo player needs a cello, right?”

  I ran to the hall and gaped at the big bulbous black case leaning against the wall. I dragged the case into the living room and opened it. There was a large violin sort of thing in it. I supposed it was a cello.

  “How did this get here?” I asked Morelli.

  “Your mother rented it for you. She said you gave yours away, and she knew how much you were looking forward to playing at Valerie's wedding, so she rented a cello for you. I swear to God, those were her exact words.”

  I guess the panic showed on my face because Morelli stopped smiling.