Explosive Eighteen

TWENTY-FIVE

LULA PULLED INTO MY LOT to drop me off, and we spotted Brenda’s car.

“That’s Brenda’s toaster,” she said. “And it looks like Brenda waiting for you at the door. And she don’t look good.”

Brenda was hunched, arms wrapped around herself, head down.

Lula cut the engine, and we went to where Brenda was standing and chain-smoking, the butts littering the ground around her.

“What’s up?” I asked her.

“I have terrible problems. I need you to help me. I don’t know who else to ask. It’s my son, Jason. He’s been kidnapped. I was there when they grabbed him and dragged him away.”

“Omigosh,” I said. “That’s serious. Did you call the police?”

“I can’t. There are circumstances.”

“Such as?”

“The police are sort of looking for Jason,” Brenda said. “It’s not like he’s done anything bad. I mean, he hasn’t killed anyone or anything.”

“What has he done?”

Brenda lit up another cigarette. Now she had two going at the same time.

“He’s a hacker,” she said.

“I know about them,” Lula said. “They go around giving people a virus. And they steal Sarah Palin’s email.”

“Jason isn’t that kind of a hacker,” Brenda said. “He would never do anything mean. He’s just interested in the technology. He says it’s like a chess game, and he’s playing the computer. He’s really smart. He’s a genius.”

“So why do the police want him if he hasn’t done anything wrong?” I asked.

“He has a couple friends who are just like him. It’s, like, a geek club. I guess for giggles they break into government computers and leave funny messages. They don’t take information out, but the government doesn’t like when their systems get hacked.”

“The government got no sense of humor,” Lula said.

“Anyway, Jason and his friends went underground a year ago. Jason says they aren’t leaving any more funny messages, but the FBI is still looking for them. The thing is, the FBI doesn’t know who they are or what they look like, so if Jason keeps a low profile, he might be okay.”

I took a step back to get away from the smoke cloud surrounding Brenda. “Jason is the friend who sent you the photograph from Hawaii, isn’t he?”

“He was trying to help me get my car. He’s such a good boy.”

“Do you know enough about computers to use the photograph?” I asked her.

“No. Jason has a friend here who was going to help me.”

“Sounds to me like Jason come home,” Lula said. “Why’d he do that if the FBI is lookin’ for him? Why didn’t he just send you another photograph?”

“When poor Ritchy got killed, and we found out Razzle Dazzle was involved, Jason knew he was in danger and had to move. Razzle Dazzle has been chasing after Jason for over a year. There are terrorists who would love to get their hands on Jason. And Razzle Dazzle would deliver Jason to them.”

“I’m confused,” Lula said. “Why did this Razzle guy want the photograph? Why didn’t he just go get Jason?”

“Raz only knows Jason by his electronic imprint. I don’t know what that means. Jason says Raz is like a stupid hacker. Eventually, Raz tracks Jason down, but he doesn’t know his human identity or what he looks like. I think Raz thought Ritchy had a picture of Jason. I don’t think he knew about the code. At least, that’s what Jason thinks. So since Jason had to leave Hawaii anyway, he came home for a couple days to help me get my car and to visit with me. He was supposed to fly out tomorrow, but he got kidnapped.”

My heart did a flip in my chest. “Razzle Dazzle?”

“No. My brother has him. Jason and I were eating dinner, and my asshole brother came in with his two thugs and snatched him. I don’t know how he knew Jason was here. Maybe he heard Sammy the Pig had his car stolen and put it together.”

Okay, I could breathe again. “At least your brother won’t hurt Jason.”

“No, but Chester could hold Jason hostage until he agrees to show him how to hack into who knows what. And then Jason could be implicated in a crime. Or if Jason stays here too long, Razzle Dazzle or the FBI might find him. I thought of you because you grab people all the time. I was hoping you’d help me. I figure Chester has Jason at the warehouse.” Brenda squinted at me through the smoke haze. “What happened to your hair? It’s all flat and back in a ponytail.”

“Rain,” I said. “I got caught in the rain.”

“I didn’t see any rain.”

“It must have been a rogue cloud. It drifted over me and whoosh there was a downpour.”

“So are we gonna stage a big rescue?” Lula asked me. “We goin’ in with guns blazin’? I would have worn my Ranger outfit if I’d known.”

Lula had forsaken the black for gold. Gold tank top, hot-pink short spandex skirt, gold spike-heeled shoes. It was a wonder Razzle hadn’t taken her out with one shot. She made a really good target.

“We’ll go in with guns not blazing,” I said. “These aren’t hardened criminals.”

“Chester might be a little hardened,” Brenda said.

“You hear that?” Lula said to me. “A little hardened. No telling what we can expect. That means we need to take my Firebird, on account of I got extra ammo in my trunk.”

“Extra ammo might be good,” Brenda said. “You can never have too much ammo.”

We piled into Lula’s Firebird, and I called Ranger when we reached Broad.

“Checking in,” I said to him. “I’m off the radar because I’m in Lula’s car, but I wanted you to know I’m making a sort of mercy illegal capture just north of Bordentown. I might need help.”

“Babe, you’re not off the radar. You’re wearing my watch. I know exactly where you are.”

I looked down at the watch. “I forgot.”

“I’ll have someone follow you. Let me know if you want him to go in.”

“Thanks.”

“It’s good to have a Ranger,” Lula said. “He’s like a personal Spidey.”

Lula hesitated when she got to the Billings warehouse lot. There were two cars parked. One was the bashed-in Lincoln. The other car was a Mercedes. Lights were on inside the building in the office area.

“What’s the plan?” Lula wanted to know. “We can’t be sellin’ Girl Scout cookies out here. Girl Scouts are supposed to be in bed by now.”

“Park at the back edge, where the Firebird won’t be so visible,” I told her. “We’ll try the front door. If that doesn’t work, we’ll see if we can get in through the loading dock.”

Lula parked, and we all got out.

“Hold on,” Lula said. “I’ll get my ammo.”

I pulled my Glock out of my bag. “I really don’t think we need extra.”

“Yeah, but this is good,” Lula said, opening her trunk.

I looked inside and stopped breathing for a beat. “That’s a rocket launcher!”

“Yep,” Lula said. “It’s the big boy. I got it at a yard sale in the projects. It’s loaded for bear, too. See that mother stuck onto the end of it? It goes KABOOM!”

“No rocket launchers!” I told her. “Absolutely no rocket launchers. This isn’t Afghanistan.”

“We don’t have to use it,” Lula said. “We just knock on their door and show them this bitch. Then they wet their pants and hand over Jason.”

“It could work,” Brenda said. “I almost wet my pants seeing it in the trunk.”

She had a point. I had to admit, I had a moment when I first saw it, too. “I guess it might be okay, as long as we only use it to scare them.”

“Show-and-tell,” Lula said.

Lula shouldered her rocket launcher. I had my hand wrapped around my Glock. And Brenda had her cute little girl gun. We marched up to the front door of Billings Gourmet Food, and I tried the doorknob. Locked. We circled the building and tried the loading-dock gates and the roll-up garage doors. All locked.

“I’m not going home without Jason,” Brenda said. “I’m going in.”

“Me, too,” Lula said. “I’m right behind you.”

“How are you going in?” I asked them.

Brenda set off for the office entrance. “The front door. I’m going to ring the bell and ask for Jason.”

“And if they won’t give him to us, I’ll shoot a rocket up their ass,” Lula said, following her.

I had to run to catch up, and I checked the parking lot on the way. I didn’t see a Rangeman vehicle. Not good, I thought. This smelled like disaster.

Brenda went straight to the door and put her finger to the bell. After a couple minutes, the door opened and Lancer looked out.

“Oh shit,” Lancer said.

He tried to close the door, but I already had my foot in it.

“Where’s Jason?” Brenda asked. “I want my son.”

“I dunno,” Lancer said. “He’s not here.”

Brenda pushed past him into the office. “Of course he’s here. Where else would he be? My sister-in-law wouldn’t put up with him in her house.”

“Hey,” Lancer said. “You can’t come in here. It’s not office hours.”

Lula shoved past him, close on Brenda’s heels. “S’cuse us. Outta our way.”

Lancer eyeballed the rocket lancher and turned white. “I’m going to have to get tough now. I’m going to have to force you to leave.”

“Do you got one of these babies?” Lula asked him, patting the rocket launcher.

“No.”

“Then how you gonna force us to leave?”

“I have a gun,” Lancer said. And he pointed his gun at Lula.

“I don’t like when people point a gun at me,” Lula said. “It makes me nervous, and it’s rude. Do you see me pointing my rocket launcher at you? I don’t think so.”

“It’s rude to break into people’s private property,” Lancer said.

“It’s rude to kidnap my son,” Brenda said.

We were in a small lobby. A hall led off to the right.

“I bet you have him down here,” Brenda said, moving along the hall, little girlie gun held out in front of her.

Lula followed Brenda. Lancer followed Lula. And I followed Lancer.

Brenda opened a door and looked inside. “Warehouse,” she said. And she moved on.

I did a fast scan of the cavernous space. Rows of boxes stacked one on another. Gallon tins of olive oil on wire shelves. More boxes. An eighteen-wheeler in the garage area. No Jason.

Brenda opened a door at the far end of the hall and yelped. “Jason!”

We all ran down the hall and looked into the room. Jason was working on his laptop. Slasher and another man were slouched into a couch, watching a small television.

“I’m sorry, boss,” Lancer said. “I couldn’t stop them.”

“What do you mean you couldn’t stop them?” the man said. “You have a gun, don’t you? Shoot them.”

Lancer hesitated.

The man stood, pulled a gun, and pointed it at Jason. “How about this, Brenda. How about I shoot your kid if you don’t go home. He’s doing good stuff for us here, so I’ll only shoot him in the leg.”

Brenda went beady-eyed. “Chester, you bastard. If anyone’s going to get shot, it’s going to be you.”

And before anyone could move, she fired on Chester, tagging him in the arm.

“Kill her!” Chester yelled. “Kill her!”

Lancer trained his gun on Brenda, and I tackled him from behind. We went to the floor, and his gun discharged two rounds. One zinged past Lula, and the second cut off two inches from her four-inch stiletto heel.

“What the heck?” Lula said, toppling over, off balance from the two-inch heel difference. “I’m hit!” she yelled. “The asshole shot me. Woman down. Woman down. Call 911.”

“You’re fine,” I said to her. “You just fell off your shoe.”

“I see darkness,” Lula said. “It’s closing in on me. There’s a tunnel of light. I see angels. No, wait a minute, there’s no angels. Shit, it’s Tony Soprano.”

It wasn’t Tony Soprano. It was Chester Billings, roaring like a wounded bull elephant, charging across the room at Lula and Brenda. He knocked the little gun out of Brenda’s hand and grabbed the rocket launcher. Somehow in the scuffle the rocket got launched, whooshing across the room, punching a hole in the far wall, disappearing from view. There was an explosion that rocked the building. Plaster fell from the ceiling. Everyone was yelling and scrambling for cover. A second smaller explosion rattled furniture, and I could see flames lick through the hole made by the rocket.

“Fire in the warehouse,” Lancer said. “The rocket must have hit a propane tank.”

Smoke poured into the windowless room, and there was a rush to evacuate. Everyone ran into the hall and scattered. Lancer, Slasher, and Billings ran in one direction. Lula, Brenda, and Jason ran in another. I was the last out of the room. I stepped into the hall and the lights blinked off. I was confused in the dark, choking on the smoke. An arm wrapped around me, nearly lifting me off my feet, moving me in the opposite direction. It was Ranger.

“This way,” he said, pushing me down the hall to a fire door.

He shoved the door open, and we were out of the building. I could hear emergency vehicles screaming on the approach road.

“How many people were in the building?” Ranger asked.

“Six plus me.”

Ranger was connected to Tank in the other SUV. “Talk to me,” Ranger said.

I could hear Tank on speakerphone. “Lula disappeared into the woods behind us. I shouted at her, but she kept going. Five more people came out of the building and scattered. A woman and a young guy panicked and ran in opposite directions when a flaming chunk of roof landed next to them. The woman is hiding behind the Dumpster. We tried to get her, but she shot at us. The guy is out there somewhere. Looked like he had a computer. Three men jumped into a Mercedes and took off.”

“Everyone’s out of the building,” Ranger said to me. “Let’s move, unless you want to talk to the police.”

“No!”

He grabbed my hand and pulled me at a flat-out run across the lot, over a grassy median that separated Billings Gourmet Food from the neighboring business, Dot Plumbing. Two Rangeman SUVs sat at idle in the shadow of the Dot building. Ranger got behind the wheel of one, and the second followed us to the edge of the lot, lights off.

Flames were shooting from the top of the Billings warehouse. Police cars slid to a stop in the lot. Fire trucks rumbled in.

“Did you call the fire and police?” I asked Ranger.

“No. I didn’t have to. The explosion blew the roof off the building. It could be seen for miles. And my control room heard the fire alert go in from Billings’s security system.”

“I don’t see Lula’s car in the lot.”

“I had Hal move it. He’s on the road in front of us.”

Ranger pulled onto the service road and Lula jumped out of a clump of bushes, waving her arms and yelling. She had one shoe on and one shoe off, leaves were stuck in her soot-smudged pink-and-yellow hair, and her gold sequined tank top was blinding in Ranger’s headlights.

“It’s Lula Sunshine,” Ranger said, stopping to let her jump into the SUV.

“Holy cow. Holy crap. Holy moly,” Lula said. “That was freakin’ scary. And look what that idiot did to my shoe. These are genuine Louboutin knock-offs. Where am I gonna get another shoe to match this?”

Ranger turned onto Route 295, and Lula sat forward in her seat.

“What about my car?” Lula asked. “We can’t leave my baby here. It’ll get ashes all over it. That sucker went up like a whatdoyoucallit? An inferno.”

“Hal has the Firebird,” Ranger said. “He’s taking it back to Trenton.”

“Really? Wow. Hal’s a sweetie,” Lula said. “I’m gonna have to do something real nice for him.”

The corners of Ranger’s mouth twitched into a small smile.

“Gutter head,” I said to him.

That turned the twitch to a full-on smile.

A police car blew past us, lights flashing.

Lula had her nose to the window. “I think that was Brenda’s kid behind the wheel of the cop car!”

A half hour later, Ranger and I were parked in my lot. Lula was gone. She’d retrieved her Firebird and was meeting Hal at a downtown bar to show him her appreciation.

“Thanks for rescuing me,” I said to Ranger.

“I sent Hal and Rafael to keep an eye on you, and I went to check on a commercial account in Whitehorse. Rafael called to tell me Lula went in with a rocket launcher, so I skipped Whitehorse. I pulled into the lot seconds before you destroyed Billings Foods.”

“It was an accident,” I said.

He looked at my hair. “And?”

“Professional necessity. I had to get information out of a hairdresser.”

“I knew the explanation would be worthwhile.” He checked his watch. “I’d like to stay and seduce you, but I have to backtrack to Whitehorse. Someone managed to hack into the alarm system and clean out a computer store we’re supposed to be protecting.”

I squelched a grimace. I suspected I knew who’d done the hacking.

“How sophisticated are these hackers?” I asked him. “Suppose the photograph everyone was looking for had a code hidden in it? Like, could the photo look like Ashton Kutcher, but when you fed it into a computer it would break down into digital components? And those digital components could be a code a hacker could use to start a car? Is that possible or is it just fiction?”

“The technology is real. And it’s an increasing threat to my business. They’re not so much codes as messages that instruct another computer to perform a function, like starting a car or disabling a security system.”

I woke up the next morning thinking about Razzle Dazzle. I had my phone in my hand to call Morelli, and a text message buzzed in from him.

I’m in meetings until noon. I’ll call later. Raz slipped away last night. Be careful.

My equipment was loaded and charged and positioned in my bag for easy access. I stayed vigilant when I crossed the parking lot to my truck, and I drove watching my rear.

By the time I got to the bonds office, everyone else was already there. Connie was behind her desk. Lula was perched on a folding chair, doing the day’s Jumble. Vinnie was pacing, checking messages on his smartphone.

“News of the day?” I asked.

“Vinnie just wrote a bond on Brenda,” Connie said. “There was an explosion at her brother’s warehouse, and she was arrested on the scene.”

“They arrested her for just being there?” I asked. “Did they think she was responsible for the explosion?”

“No, a defective propane tank apparently exploded,” Connie said. “I’ve been listening to police chatter.”

Lula looked up from the Jumble, rolled her eyes, and made the sign of the cross.

“Brenda was there when the police arrived, one thing led to another, and she punched out a cop.” Connie looked up at the ceiling. “Hey, something just dripped on my desk.”

We all looked at the ceiling. There were big wet splotches, and it looked like it was buckling.

Lula sniffed. “It’s the rats. They’re relievin’ themselves, and it’s soakin’ through. There must be a lot of them. When I was a ’ho, I used to do business out of a Chinese restaurant, and they had this problem. It used to drip into the hot-and-sour soup.”

“There’s no rats,” Vinnie said. “There’s probably a busted pipe. Somebody call the landlord.”

“I know rats when I smell them,” Lula said. “And there’s rats.” She got a broom from the corner and poked the ceiling. “Shoo!”

The minute the broom made contact with the ceiling, a piece of the ceiling broke loose and fell onto Connie’s desk. A crack opened up above us, and there were some smooshy, groaning sounds. The crack stretched the length of the room, the ceiling sagged, the crack gaped open, and about a thousand rats poured down on us. Big rats, small rats, fat rats, startled rats. Bug-eyed and squealing. Nasty little rat feet treading air. Tails stiff as a stick. They thudded onto Connie’s desk and the floor, stunned for a second and then up and running.

“RATS!” Lula shrieked. “It’s raining rats.”

She climbed onto her chair and covered her head with the Jumble.

Connie was on her desk, punting rats across the room like they were footballs. “Someone open the door so they can get out!” she yelled.

I was afraid to move for fear of stepping on a rat and pissing him off. I think I was screaming, but I don’t remember hearing myself.

Vinnie lunged for the door, bolted out, and the rats rushed after him.

Minutes later, we were on the sidewalk, looking in at the office. Most of the rats had departed for parts unknown. A few rats, too dumb to find the door, were hunkered down in corners.

“I feel like I got rat cooties,” Lula said. “I bet I got fleas. And I think one of them bit me on the ankle.”

I examined Lula’s ankles. No bite marks.

“It must have been one of those bites that don’t show,” Lula said, “on account of I’m coming down with something. I can feel it. Lord, I hope it’s not the plague. I don’t want the plague. You break out in them booboos when you got the plague.”

“I don’t see any booboos on you,” I told her.

“Well, it’s still early,” Lula said.

Better booboos than Buggy, I thought, hiking my bag onto my shoulder. “I’m heading out. I’m going to look for Magpie.”

“I’ll go with you,” Lula said. “Only I gotta get something to settle my stomach. I gotta keep my strength up in case I get the plague. I need chicken.”

I cruised into the Cluck-in-a-Bucket drive-thru and Lula got a bucket of extra-crispy, a bag of biscuits with dipping gravy, an apple pie, and a large diet root beer. I helped myself to a piece of chicken, and I got a text message from Brenda.

Thanks for everything. I’ll send you the formula for your hair.

I texted her back and asked if she was at the salon and could she do my hair.

Negative, she texted. Arrivederci.

“Change of plans,” I said to Lula. “Brenda’s running.”

“How do you know?”

“I just know. I’m going to see if I can talk her out of it.”

Forty minutes later, I was about to turn off Route 1 into Brenda’s neighborhood when her toaster zipped out in front of me. There were four cars between us, but I knew it was Brenda.

“You want me to call her?” Lula asked.

“No. Let’s see where she’s going.”

She took Route 1 to Route 18, and got onto the Turnpike heading north. It was clear where she was going. She was going to the airport, and Jason was in the car with her.

“Maybe she’s just taking her kid,” Lula said. “He’s still hiding, right?”

“It’s possible.”

I followed her to the short-term parking garage and watched from a distance while she took suitcases out of the Scion. They walked toward the terminal, dragging their luggage. It didn’t look to me like she even bothered to lock the car. I knew she was jumping bail.

I found a parking place, and Lula and I hustled to catch up with Brenda. A man was a short distance away, walking toward us. He was carrying a suiter, looking very tanned.

It was The Rug. Simon Ruguzzi. The skip responsible for all my problems in Hawaii. Our eyes met, and he dropped the suiter and took off.

Brenda was worth loose change to Vinnie. The Rug was worth big bucks.

I changed course in the middle of the parking garage and ran for Ruguzzi. I could hear Lula clattering in her heels behind me, and I was gaining on the guy in front of me. I got to within a couple feet of him, took a flying leap, and grabbed his pants cuffs. He went to the ground, and Lula rushed over and sat on him. I cuffed him and dragged him to his feet.

“How’d you know to run?” I asked him.

“You’re famous,” he said. “I saw you on the side of a bus, in an ad for the bonds office.”

Vinnie’s brilliant idea, and not a highlight in my life.

I loaded The Rug into the backseat and headed back to Trenton. I called Ranger from the road.

“I just captured The Rug,” I told him. “I had a feeling Brenda was going to skip, so I followed her to the airport. I ran into Ruguzzi in the parking garage, and Lula and I took him down.”

“Babe,” Ranger said.

It was late afternoon by the time I met Vinnie at the coffee shop.

“Sorry about Brenda,” I said. “I’m pretty sure she skipped.”

“I was counting on it,” Vinnie said. “She put her Ferrari up for bond. Now I can give it to DeAngelo.”

“It’s hot,” I told him. “And it doesn’t come with keys.”

“Don’t care,” Vinnie said. “That’s DeAngelo’s problem. I’ll send it to him on a flatbed.”

I got a Frappuccino and got into my truck. Magpie would wait for another day. Truth is, I was rolling in money from my Ruguzzi capture. I stopped at my parents’ house on the way home.

“Looks like you tore the knees out of your jeans,” Grandma said.

I followed her into the kitchen. “Occupational hazard.”

“Are you staying for dinner?” my mom asked.

“No. I need to go home and take a shower and change my clothes.”

I’d been pelted by rats, plus I’d skidded across about five feet of cement when I tackled The Rug. I didn’t think she wanted to know the details.

“I was hoping I could mooch some sandwich stuff from you. I need to go shopping, but I didn’t want to go into Giovichinni’s with this hair and the skinned knees, and my black eye is turning green.”

“Green is good,” Grandma said. “That’s one of the last colors.”

My mom fixed a bag of food for me and handed it over. She went to the cupboard where she kept her liquor stash, pulled out a photograph, and held it up. It was the photograph from the plane!

“Your grandmother had this in her room,” she said. “I know you were looking for it. I found it when I went in to change the linens today.”

“The guy in the photo is a hottie,” Grandma said. “I pulled it out of the garbage. I didn’t know you wanted it.”

I tucked the photo into the food bag. I’d give it to Ranger for safekeeping. Or maybe for giggles I’d give it to Berger. He’d think he finally had a picture of the hacker he’d been after. As far as I knew, Berger and Razzle Dazzle didn’t know the photo was a composite that hid a computer message.

“Gotta go,” I said. “Thanks for the food and the photo. I’ll find a hot replacement for you, Grandma.”

Grandma took a little bottle filled with pink stuff off the counter. “Annie dropped this off for you.”

“More Pepto-Bismol?”

“No. She said this is the real thing.”

I’d picked Morelli’s SUV out in my parking lot, so I wasn’t surprised when I opened my door and Bob bounced up to me. I scratched behind his ears and gave him a kiss on the top of his head. Morelli strolled in from the living room. The television was on.

“Suppose I came home with some hot guy, and you were here in your socks, watching television,” I said.

“It would be awkward.”

I set the bag on the counter and unpacked.

“Looks like you stopped off at your mom’s house,” Morelli said. “Oh man, is that chocolate cake?”

“Yes. And I have some sandwich stuff. Are you hungry?”

“Starved.” He opened a plastic baggie and snitched a piece of ham. “I have good news for you. Berger got Raz.”

“Get out!”

“Actually, he was dead by the time he got him, but he got him all the same.” Morelli opened another baggie. “Corned beef. This is the mother lode.”

“How did Raz get dead?”

“He escaped from the cemetery, but he stole a car sometime during the night, and this morning one of Trenton’s finest spotted him. There was a chase, and Raz lost control of his car and hit a bridge abutment.”

“Jeez.”

He looked down at my knees. “I heard you brought The Rug in. Looks like you tackled him.”

“Yeah, I should take a shower. The blood’s caking.”

“I could help with the shower.” He put the corned beef down and picked up Annie’s little bottle. “Your mom thinks of everything. I’ve had heartburn all day.” He unscrewed the bottle and drank it before I could stop him.

I stared at him. “Um, how do you feel?” I asked.

He thought for a moment. “Better,” he finally said. “Warm.” His eyes got dark and soft, and the corners of his mouth tipped into a smile. “Very friendly.” He reached out for me and pulled me into him. “Come here, Cupcake.”