High Five

6

"WORD ON THE street is that Ramirez got religion," Ranger said, relaxed against my kitchen counter, arms crossed over his chest.

"So maybe he doesn't want to rape and mutilate me. Maybe he just wants to save me."

"Either way, you should carry a gun."

When Ranger left I listened to the single message on my phone machine. "Stephanie? This is your mother. Remember you promised to take your grandmother to the funeral parlor tomorrow night. And you can come early and have something to eat with us. I'm going to have a nice leg of lamb."

The lamb sounded good, but I would have preferred the message to have been about Fred. Like, guess what, the funniest thing just happened . . . Fred showed up.

There was another knock on the door, and I looked out the peephole at Bunchy.

"I know you're lookin' out at me," he said. "And I know you're thinking you should go get your gun and your pepper spray and your electronic torture device, so just go get them all because I'm getting tired of standing here."

I opened the door a bit, leaving the security chain in place.

"Give me a break," Bunchy said.

"What do you want?"

"How come the Rambo guy gets in and I don't?"

"I work with him."

"You work with me, too. I just did a surveillance shift for you."

"Anything happen?"

"I'm not telling you until you let me in."

"I don't need to know that bad."

"Yes, you do. You're nosy."

He was right. I was nosy. I slid the chain off and opened the door.

"So what happened?" I asked.

"Nothing happened. The grass grew an eighth of an inch." He got a beer out of the refrigerator. "You know, your aunt is a real boozer. You should get her into AA or something." He noticed the dress on the counter. "Wowy kazowy," he said. "This your dress?"

"I got it to wear to a wedding."

"You need a date? I don't look so bad when I get cleaned up."

"I have a date. I've been sort of seeing this guy—"

"Yeah? What guy?"

"His name's Morelli. Joe Morelli."

"Oh, man, I know him. I can't believe you're going with Morelli. The guy is a loser. Excuse me for saying so, but he porks everyone he meets. You shouldn't have anything to do with him. You could do better."

"How do you know Morelli?"

"We have a professional relationship, being that he's a cop and I'm a bookie."

"I asked him about you, and he said he never heard of you." Bunchy tipped his head back and laughed. It was the first time I'd ever heard him laugh, and it wasn't bad.

"He might know me by one of my other names," Bunchy said. "Or maybe he just doesn't want to come clean because he knows I might spill the beans about him."

"What would these other names be?"

"They're secret names," he said. "If I told you, then they wouldn't be secret anymore."

"Out!" I said, pointing stiff-armed to the door.

* * * * *

MORELLI CALLED AT nine the next morning. "Just wanted to remind you the wedding is tomorrow," he said. "I'll pick you up at four. And don't forget you have to come in to make a report on the Sloane Street shooting."

"Sure."

"You get any leads on Fred?"

"No. Nothing worth mentioning. Good thing I don't do this for a living."

"Good thing," Morelli said, sounding like he was smiling.

I hung up, and I called my friend Larry at RGC.

"Guess what, Larry?" I said. "I found the check. It was on my uncle's desk. Payment for three months' worth of garbage pickup. And the check has been canceled and everything."

"Fine," Larry said. "Bring the check in, and I'll credit the account."

"How late are you open?"

"Five."

"I'll be there before you close."

I shoveled my gear into my shoulder bag, locked my apartment behind me, and took the stairs to the lobby. I exited the building and crossed the lot to my car. I had the key in hand, ready to unlock my door, when I felt the presence of someone behind me. I turned and found myself toe-to-toe with Benito Ramirez.

"Hello, Stephanie," he said. "Nice to see you again. The champ missed you while he was away. He thought about you a lot."

The champ. Better known as Benito Ramirez, who was too crazy to talk about himself in the first person.

"What do you want?"

He smiled his sick smile. "You know what the champ wants."

"How about you tell me."

"He wants to be your friend. He wants to help you find Jesus."

"If you continue to stalk me, I'll get a restraining order."

The smile stayed on his mouth, but his eyes were cold and hard. Steel orbs floating in empty space. "Can't restrain a man of God, Stephanie."

"Move away from my car."

"Where are you going?" Ramirez asked. "Why don't you go with the champ? The champ'll take you for a ride." He stroked my cheek with the back of his hand. "He'll take you to see Jesus."

I dug down in my shoulder bag and pulled out my gun. "Get away from me."

Ramirez laughed softly and took a step backward. "When it's your time to see God, there'll be no escape."

I unlocked the driver's side door, slid behind the wheel, and drove away with Ramirez still standing in the lot. I stopped for a light two blocks down Hamilton and realized there were tears on my cheeks. Shit. I swiped the tears away and yelled at myself. "You are not afraid of Benito Ramirez!"

That was a stupid, empty statement, of course. Ramirez was a monster. Anyone with a grain of sense would be afraid of him. And I was beyond afraid. I was terrified to tears.

* * * * *

BY THE TIME I reached the office I was in pretty decent condition. My hands had stopped shaking, and my nose wasn't running. I still had some nausea, but I didn't think I'd throw up. It seemed like a weakness to be so frightened, and I wasn't crazy about the feeling. Especially since I'd chosen to work in a form of law enforcement. Hard to be effective when you're blubbering in fear. My one point of pride was that I hadn't shown my fear to Ramirez.

Connie stroked vermilion nail polish onto her thumbnail. "You calling the hospitals and the morgue about Fred?"

I placed the check facedown on the copier, closed the lid, and pushed the button. "Every morning."

"What's next?" Lula wanted to know.

"I got a picture of Fred from Mabel. I thought I'd flash it around the strip mall and maybe go door-to-door on the streets behind Grand Union." Hard to believe there wasn't someone out there who saw Fred leave the parking lot.

"Don't sound like a lot of fun to me," Lula said.

I took the copy of the check and dropped it into my shoulder bag. Then I made a folder with Fred's name on it, dropped the original check into the folder, and filed it in the office file cabinet under Shutz. It would have been easier to put it in my desk . . . but I didn't have a desk.

"How about Randy Briggs?" Lula said. "Aren't we gonna visit him today?"

Short of burning the building down, I didn't know how to get Randy Briggs out of his apartment.

Vinnie stuck his head out of his office. "I hear somebody say something about Briggs?"

"Not me. I didn't say nothing," Lula said.

"You have one chickenshit case," Vinnie said to me. "Why haven't you brought this guy in?"

"I'm working on it."

"Yeah, and it's not her fault," Lula said, "on account of he's wily."

"You have until eight o'clock Monday morning," Vinnie said. "Briggs' ass isn't in the slammer by Monday morning, I'm giving the case to somebody else."

"Vinnie, you know a bookie named Bunchy?"

"No. And trust me, I know every bookie on the East Coast." He pulled his head back into his office and slammed the door shut.

"Tear gas," Lula said. "That's the way to get him. We just lob a can of tear gas through his dumb-ass window and then wait for him to come running out, gagging and choking. I know where we can get some, too. I bet we could get some from Ranger."

"No! No tear gas," I said.

"Well, what are you gonna do? You gonna let Vinnie give this to Joyce Barnhardt?"

Joyce Barnhardt! Shit. I'd eat dirt before I'd let Joyce Barnhardt bring in Randy Briggs. Joyce Barnhardt is a mutant human being and my arch enemy. Vinnie hired her on as a part-time bounty hunter a couple months ago in exchange for services I didn't want to think about. She'd tried to steal one of my cases back then, and I had no intention of letting that happen again.

I went to school with Joyce, and all through school she'd lied and snitched and was loosey-goosey with other girls' boyfriends. Not to mention, I'd been married for less than a year when I'd caught Joyce woman-superior on my dining room table with my sweating, cheating exhusband.

"I'm going to reason with Briggs," I said.

"Oh boy," Lula said. "This is gonna be good. I gotta see this."

"No. I'm going alone. I can do this by myself."

"Sure," Lula said. "I know that. Only it'd be more fun if I was there."

"No! No, no, no."

"Boy, you sure do got an attitude these days," Lula said. "You were better when you were getting some, you know what I mean? I don't know why you gave Morelli the boot anyway. I don't usually like cops, but that man has one fine ass."

I knew what she meant about my attitude. I was feeling damn cranky. I hitched my bag onto my shoulder. "I'll call if I need help."

"Unh," Lula said.

* * * * *

THINGS WERE QUIET at Cloverleaf Apartments. No traffic in the lot. No traffic in the dingy foyer. I took the stairs and knocked on Briggs' door. No answer. I moved out of sight and dialed his number on my cell phone.

"Hello," Briggs said.

"It's Stephanie. Don't hang up! I have to talk to you."

"There's nothing to talk about. And I'm busy. I have work to do."

"Look, I know this court thing is inconvenient for you. And I know it's unfair because you were unjustly charged. But it's something you have to do."

"No."

"Then do it for me."

"Why should I do it for you?"

"I'm a nice person. And I'm just trying to do my job. And I need the money to pay for a pair of shoes I just bought. And even more, if I don't bring you in, Vinnie is going to give your case to Joyce Barnhardt. And I hate Joyce Barnhardt."

"Why do you hate Joyce Barnhardt?"

"I caught her screwing my husband, who is now my ex-husband, on my dining-room table. Can you imagine? My diningroom table."

"Jeez," Briggs said. "And she's a bounty hunter, too?"

"Well, she used to do makeovers at Macy's, but now she's working for Vinnie."

"Bummer."

"Yeah. So, how about it? Won't you let me bring you in? It won't be so bad. Honest."

"Are you kidding? I'm not letting a loser like you bring me in. How would it look?"

Click. He hung up.

Loser? Excuse me? Loser? Okay, that does it. No more Ms. Nice Person. No more reasoning. This jerk is going down. "Open this door!" I yelled. "Open this goddamn door!"

A woman popped her head out from the apartment across the hall. "If you don't stop this racket I'm going to call the police. We don't put up with this kind of goings-on here."

I turned and looked at her.

"Oh, dear," she said and slammed her door shut.

I gave Briggs' door a couple kicks with my foot and hammered on it with my fists. "Are you coming out?"

"Loser," he said through the door. "You're just a stupid loser, and you can't make me do anything I don't want to do."

I hauled my gun out of my shoulder bag and fired one off at the lock. The round glanced off the metal and lodged in the door frame. Christ. Briggs was right. I was a fucking loser. I didn't even know how to shoot off a lock.

I ran downstairs to the Buick and got a tire iron out of the trunk. I ran back upstairs and started whacking away at the door with the tire iron. I made a couple dents but that was about it. Bashing the door in with the tire iron was going to take a while. My forehead was beaded with sweat, and sweat stained the front of my T-shirt. A small crowd of people had collected at the far end of the hall.

"You gotta get the tire iron between the door and the jamb," an old man at the end of the hall said. "You gotta wedge it in."

"Shut up, Harry," a woman said. "Anyone can see she's crazy. Don't encourage her."

"Only trying to be helpful," Harry said.

I followed his advice and wedged the iron between the door and the jamb and leaned into it. A chunk of wood splintered off the jamb and some metal stripping pulled away.

"See?" Harry said. "I told you."

I gouged some more chunks from the doorjamb down by the lock. I was trying to get the tire iron back in when Briggs opened the door a crack and looked out at me.

"What are you, nuts? You can't just destroy someone's door."

"Watch me," I said. I shoved the tire iron at Briggs and put my weight behind it. The security chain popped off its mooring, and the door flew open.

"Stay away from me!" he hollered. "I'm armed."

"What, are you kidding me? You're holding a fork."

"Yes, but it's a meat fork. And it's sharp. I could poke your eye out with this fork."

"Not on your best day, Shorty."

"I hate you," Briggs said. "You're ruining my life."

I could hear sirens in the distance. Swell. Just what I needed . . . the police. Maybe we could call in the fire department, too. And the dogcatcher. And hell, how about a couple newspaper reporters.

"You're not taking me in," Briggs said. "I'm not ready." He lunged at me with his fork. I jumped away, and the fork ripped a hole in my Levi's.

"Hey," I said, "these were almost new pants."

He came at me again, shouting, "I hate you. I hate you." This time I smacked the fork out of his hand, and he stumbled into an end table, knocking the table over, smashing a lamp in the process. "My lamp," he shrieked. "Look what you did to my lamp." He lowered his head and charged at me bull-style. I stepped to the side, and he crashed into a bookcase. Books tumbled out, and knickknacks shattered on the polished wood floor.

"Stop it," I said. "You're wrecking your apartment. Get a grip on yourself."

"I'll get a grip on you," he snarled, lunging forward, catching me with a body tackle at knee level.

We both went down hard to the floor. I had him by about seventy pounds, but he was in a frenzy and I couldn't pin him. We rolled around, locked together, cursing and breathing heavy. He slithered away from me and ran for the door. I scrambled after him on hands and knees and grabbed him by the foot at the top of the stairs. He yelped and fell forward, and we both went head over heels tumbling down the stairs to the landing, where we tangled again. There was some scratching and hair grabbing and attempted eye-gouging. I had him by the front of his shirt when we lost balance and pitched down the second flight of stairs.

I flopped to a stop in the foyer, flat on my back, gasping for air. Briggs was squashed under me, dazed into inertia. I blinked my eyes to clear my head and two cops swam into focus. They were staring down at me, and they were smiling.

One of the cops was Carl Costanza. I'd gone to school with Carl and we'd stayed friends . . . in a remote sort of way.

"I heard you liked the top," Carl said, "but don't you think this is carrying it a little far?"

Briggs squirmed under my weight. "Get off me. I can't breathe."

"He doesn't deserve to breathe," I said. "He ripped my Levi's."

"Yeah," Carl said, lifting me off Briggs, "that's a capital offense."

I recognized the other cop as Costanza's partner. His name was Eddie Something. Everyone called him Big Dog.

"Jeez," Big Dog said, barely controlling laughter, "what did you do to this poor little guy? Looks like you beat the crap out of him."

Briggs was standing on wobbly legs. His shirt was untucked and he'd lost a shoe. His left eye was starting to bruise and swell, and his nose was bleeding.

"I didn't do anything!" I yelped. "I was trying to take him into custody and he went berserk."

"That's right," Harry said from the top of the landing. "I saw the whole thing. This runty little guy just about ruined himself. And this lady hardly put a hand to him. Except of course when they were wrestling."

Carl looked at the cuff still attached to Briggs' wrist. "Your bracelet?" he asked me.

I nodded.

"You're supposed to cuff both hands."

"Very funny."

"You got papers?"

"Upstairs in my shoulder bag."

We climbed the stairs while Big Dog baby-sat Briggs.

"Holy shit," Costanza said when he saw Briggs' door. "Did you do this?"

"He wouldn't let me in."

"Hey, Big Dog," Costanza yelled. "Lock the little guy in the car and come take a look. You gotta see this."

I gave Costanza the bond documents. "Maybe we could keep this all kind of quiet—"

"Holy shit," Big Dog said when he saw the door.

"Steph did that," Costanza told him proudly.

Big Dog clapped me on the shoulder. "I guess they don't call you the bounty hunter from hell for nothing."

"Everything seems to be in order," Costanza said to me. "Congratulations. You caught yourself a Munchkin."

Big Dog examined the doorjamb. "You know there's a slug in here?"

Costanza looked at me.

"Well, I didn't have a key—"

Costanza put his hands over his ears. "I don't want to hear this."

I limped into Briggs' apartment, found a set of keys on a hook in his kitchen, and used one to lock his door. Then I collected his shoe, which had been left on the landing, gave the shoe and the keys to Briggs, and told Carl I'd follow him in.

When I walked back to the Buick, Bunchy was waiting for me. "Cripes," he said. "You beat the bejeezus out of that little guy. Who the hell was he, the Son of Satan?"

"He's a computer operator who got picked up for carrying concealed. He really isn't such a bad guy."

"Man, I'd hate to see what you do to someone you don't like."

"How did you know where to find me? And why weren't you in my parking lot when I needed you?"

"I picked you up leaving the office. I overslept this morning, so I tried hitting your usual haunts and got lucky. What's new with Fred?"

"I haven't found him."

"You aren't giving up, are you?"

"No, I'm not giving up. Listen, I have to go. I have to get my body receipt."

"Don't drive too fast. There's something wrong with my transmission. It makes this real bad sound when I do over forty."

I watched him walk to his car. I was pretty sure I knew what he was, and he wasn't a bookie. I just didn't know why he was tagging after me.

* * * * *

COSTANZA AND BIG Dog brought Briggs through the back door to the docket lieutenant.

The docket lieutenant looked over his desk at Briggs. "Damn, Stephanie," he said, smiling, "what'd you do to the poor little guy? What, are you on the rag today?"

Juniak was passing through. "You're lucky," he said to Briggs. "Usually she blows people up."

Briggs didn't look like he thought that was funny. "I've been framed," he said.

I got my body receipt for Briggs, and then I went upstairs to Crimes Against Persons and gave my report on the Sloane Street shooting. I called Vinnie and told him I brought Randy Briggs in, so America could rest easier tonight. Then I drove over to RGC with Bunchy close on my bumper.

It was a little after three when I got to Water Street. Clouds had rolled in late in the day, thick and low, the color and consistency of lard. I could feel them pressing on the roof of the Buick, slowing my progress, dulling down the firing of brainy synapses. I cruised on autopilot, my thoughts sliding from Uncle Fred to Joe Morelli to Charlie Chan. Life was good for Charlie Chan. He knew freaking everything.

Two blocks from RGC I snapped out of the stupor, realizing there was something going on in the street ahead. There were cops in front of RGC. Lots of them. The medical examiner's truck was there, too, and this was not a good sign. I parked half a block from RGC and walked the rest of the way, Bunchy trailing after me like a faithful dog. I looked for a familiar face in the crowd. No luck. A small knot of uniformed RGC employees huddled on the fringe. Probably had just come in with the trucks.

"What's going on?" I asked one of the men.

"Somebody got shot."

"Do you know who?"

"Lipinski."

The shock must have shown on my face, because the man said, "Did you know him?"

I shook my head. "No. I was just coming to settle my aunt's bill. How did it happen?"

"Suicide. I was the one who found him," another of the men said. "I brought my truck in early, and I went inside to get my paycheck. And there he was with his brains blown out. He must have put the gun in his mouth. Christ, there was blood and brains all over the place. I wouldn't have thought Lipinski had that much brains."

"Are you sure it was suicide?"

"There was a note, and I read it. Lipinski said he was the one who offed Martha Deeter. Said they'd had a fight over an account, and he shot her. And then he tried to make it look like she was robbed. Said he couldn't live with what he'd done, so he was checkin' out."

Oh boy.

"That's horseshit," Bunchy said. "That smells like a load of horseshit."

I hung around for a while longer. The forensic photographer left. And most of the police left. The RGC men left one by one. And then I left, too, with Bunchy in tow. He'd gotten quiet after his horseshit pronouncement. And very serious.

"Two RGC employees are dead," I said to him. "Why?"

We locked eyes for a moment, and he shook his head and walked away.

* * * * *

I TOOK A fast shower, dried my hair, and dressed in a short denim skirt and red T-shirt. I took a look at my hair and decided it needed some help, so I did the hot roller thing. My hair still didn't look wonderful after the rollers, so I lined my eyes and added extra mascara. Stephanie Plum, master of diversion. If your hair is bad, shorten your skirt and add extra mascara.

Before I left the apartment, I took a minute to go through the Yellow Pages and find a new garbage company for Mabel.

Bunchy was in the lobby when I came down. He was leaning against the wall, and he was still looking serious. Or maybe he just looked tired.

"You look nice," he said to me. "Real nice, but you wear too much makeup."

* * * * *

GRANDMA WAS AT the door when I arrived. "Did you hear about the garbage guy? Blew his brains out. Lavern Stankowski called and said her son, Joey, was working the EMS truck. And he said he never saw anything like it. Said there was brains all over the place. Said the whole back half of the guy's head was stuck to the wall in the garbage office."

Grandma slid her uppers around some. "Lavern said the deceased was being laid out at Stiva's. Imagine the job Stiva's going to have with that one. Probably use up two pounds of putty to fill all the holes. Remember Rita Gunt?"

Rita Gunt was ninety-two when she died. She'd lost a lot of weight in the later years of her life, and her family had asked Stiva to give her a more robust look for her last public appearance. I guess Stiva had done the best he could with what he had to work with, but Rita had gone into the ground looking like Mrs. Potato Head.

"If somebody was going to kill me I wouldn't want it to be with a bullet to the head," Grandma said.

My father was in the living room in his favorite chair. And from the corner of my eye I saw him peek around the edge of his newspaper.

"I want to get poisoned," Grandma said. "That way my hair wouldn't get messed."

"Hmm," my father said thoughtfully.

My mother came out from the kitchen. She smelled like roast lamb and red cabbage, and her face glowed from stove steam. "Any word about Fred?"

"Nothing new," I said.

"I think there's something funny going on with these garbage people," Grandma said. "Somebody's killing the garbage people, and I bet they killed Fred, too."

"Larry Lipinski left a suicide note," I told her.

"It could have been forged," Grandma said. "It could have been a fake to throw everybody off guard."

"I thought it was aliens that took Fred," my father said from behind his paper.

"That would account for a lot of things," Grandma said. "Nothing to say aliens didn't off the garbage people, too."

My mother shot my father a warning glance and went back to the kitchen. "Everyone come to the table before the lamb gets cold," she said. "And I don't want to hear any more talk about aliens and killing."

"It's the change," Grandma whispered to me. "Your mother's been snarfy ever since she started the change."

"I heard that," my mother said. "And I'm not snarfy."

"I keep telling her she should take them hormone pills," Grandma said. "I've been thinking about taking them myself. Mary Jo Klick started taking them, and she said there were parts to her that had got all shriveled, and after a week on them hormones she was all plumped up again." Grandma looked down at herself. "I wouldn't mind getting plumped up in some of them parts."

We all went to the table and took our places. Grace was said at Christmas and Easter. Since this wasn't either of those, my father shoveled food onto his plate and dug in, head down, concentrating on the task at hand.

"What do you think happened to Uncle Fred?" I asked, catching his attention between forkfuls of lamb and potato.

He looked up surprised. No one ever asked his opinion. "Mob," he said. "When someone disappears without a trace, it's the mob. They've got ways."

"Why would the mob want to kill Uncle Fred?"

"I don't know," my father said. "All I know is it sounds like the mob."

"We better hurry," Grandma said. "I don't want to be late for the viewing. I want to get a good seat right up front, and there'll probably be a crowd, being that the deceased was shot. You know how some people are nosy about that sort of thing."

There was silence at the table, no one daring to make a comment.

"Well, I guess I might be a little nosy," Grandma finally said.

When we were done I put some lamb and potatoes and vegetables in a disposable aluminum pie plate.

"What's that for?" Grandma wanted to know.

I added a plastic knife and fork. "Stray dog down by the Kerner's."

"He eat with a knife and fork?"

"Don't ask," I said.