Hot Six

8

SO MY GRANDMOTHER has a red Corvette, and I have a blue '53 Buick and a big zit on my chin. Hell, it could be worse, I told myself. The zit could be on my nose.

"Besides," Grandma said, "I know how you like the Buick. I didn't want to take the Buick away from you."

I nodded and tried to smile. "Excuse me," I said. "I'm going to wash my hands for dinner."

I calmly walked to the bathroom, closed and locked the door, looked at myself in the mirror over the sink, and sniffled. A tear leaked out of my left eye. Get a grip, I told myself. It's just a pimple. It'll go away. Yes, but what about the Buick? I asked. The Buick was worrisome. The Buick showed no signs of going away. Another tear leaked out. You're too emotional, I said to the person in the mirror. You're making a big deal over nothing. Probably this is just a temporary hormone imbalance resulting from lack of sleep.

I splashed some water on my face and blew my nose. At least I could sleep easier tonight knowing I had an alarm on the door. I didn't so much mind Ranger visiting at two in the morning… it was that I hated him sneaking up on me. What if I was drooling in my sleep, and he was sitting there watching me? What if he was sitting there staring at my pimple?

MOONER LEFT AFTER dinner and Grandma went to bed early after showing me her new car.

Morelli called at five after nine. "Sorry I couldn't get back to you sooner," he said. "It's been one of those days. How about you?"

"I have a pimple."

"I can't compete with that."

"Do you know a woman named Cynthia Lotte? Rumor has it she was Homer Ramos's girlfriend."

"From what I know about Homer, he changed girlfriends like other men change socks."

"Have you ever met his father?"

"I've spoken to him a couple times."

"And your opinion?"

"Typical good of boy Greek gun-runner. Haven't seen him lately." There was a pause. "Grandma Mazur still with you?"

"Yep."

Morelli did a big sigh.

"My mom wants to know if you'd like to come to dinner tomorrow. She's making a pork roast."

"Sure," Morelli said. "You're going to be there, right?"

"Me and Grandma and Bob."

"Oh boy," Morelli said.

I hung up, took Bob for a walk around the block, gave Rex a grape, and then watched television for a while. I fell asleep somewhere in the middle of the hockey game and woke up in time to catch the last half of a show on serial killers and forensics. When the show was over I triple-checked the locks on the front door and hung the motion detector from the doorknob. If someone opened the door, the alarm would go off. I sure hoped that didn't happen, because after the show on forensics I felt a little freaked. Ranger staring at my pimple didn't seem like much of a concern compared to someone cutting my tongue out and taking it home for his frozen-tongue collection. Just to play it safe I went into the kitchen and hid all the knives. No sense in making it easy for a madman to sneak in and carve me up with my own steak knife. Then I took my gun out of the cookie jar and tucked it under a couch cushion in case I needed to get at it quickly.

I turned the lights out and crawled under the quilt on my makeshift bed on the couch. Grandma was snoring in the bedroom. The freezer whirred into the defrost cycle in the kitchen. There was the distant sound of a car door slamming shut in the parking lot. All normal sounds, I told myself. Then why was my heart beating with this sickening thud? Because I watched that stupid serial killer show on television, that's why.

Okay, forget the show. Go to sleep. Think about something else.

I closed my eyes. And I thought about Alexander Ramos, who probably wasn't too far down the road from the insane killers who were giving me heart palpitations. What was the deal with Ramos? Here was a man who controlled the flow of clandestine arms worldwide, and he had to flag down a stranger to buy him some cigarettes. The word on the street was that Ramos was sick, but he hadn't seemed senile or crazy when he was with me. A little aggressive, maybe. Not a lot of patience. I guess there are some places where his behavior would have seemed erratic, but this was Jersey, and it looked to me like Ramos fit right in.

I'd been so flustered I'd hardly spoken to him. Now that some time had passed I had a million questions. Not only did I want to talk to him some more, I had a bizarre curiosity to see the inside of his house. When I was a kid my parents took me to Washington to see the White House. We stood in line for an hour, and then we got led through the public rooms. Major rip-off. Who cares about the State Dining Room? I wanted to see the kitchen. I wanted to see the President's bathroom. And now I wanted to see Alexander Ramos's living room rug. I wanted to browse through Hannibal's suite and take a look in the fridge. I mean, they'd all been on the cover of Newsweek. So they must be interesting, right?

This led me to thinking about Hannibal, who hadn't looked interesting at all. And about Cynthia Lotte, who didn't look all that interesting either. How about Cynthia Lotte naked with Homer Ramos? Still not interesting. Okay, how about Cynthia Lotte and Batman? That was better. Wait a minute, how about Hannibal Ramos and Batman? Sick! I ran into the bathroom and brushed my teeth. I don't think I'm especially homophobic, but I draw the line at Batman.

When I came out of the bathroom someone was fumbling at my front door, making scraping sounds at the lock. The door popped open and the alarm went off. The door caught on the security chain, and when I got to the foyer I could see Mooner looking in at me between door and jamb.

"Hey dude," he said when I shut the alarm off. "How's it going?"

"What are you doing here?"

"I forgot to give your granny the second key to the car. Had it in my pocket. So I brought it over." He dropped the key in my hand. "Boy, that's a cool alarm you've got. I know someone's who got one that plays the theme song to Bonanza. Remember Bonanza? Man, that was a great show."

"How did you get my door open?"

"I used a pick. I didn't want to bother you so late at night."

"That was thoughtful of you."

"The Mooner always tries to be thoughtful." He gave me the peace sign and ambled off, down the hall.

I closed the door and reset the alarm. Grandma was still snoring in my bedroom, and Bob hadn't budged from his place by the couch. If the serial murderer showed up in this apartment, I was on my own.

I looked in on Rex and explained to him about the alarm. "Nothing to worry about," I said. "I know it's loud but at least you were already up and running." Rex was balanced on his little hamster butt, front legs dangling in front of him, whiskers twitching, parchment thin ears vibrating, black ball-bearing eyes wide open. I dropped a chunk of cracker into his food cup, and he rushed over, shoved it into his cheek pouch, and disappeared into his soup can. Rex knows how to handle a crisis.

I returned to the couch and pulled the quilt up to my chin. No more thoughts about Batman, I told myself. No more peeking under his big rubber codpiece. And no serial killers. And no Joe Morelli since it might be tempting to call him up and beg him to marry me… or something.

Then what should I think about? How about Grandma's snoring? It was loud enough to make me hearing-impaired for the rest of my life. I'd put the pillow over my head, but then I might not hear the alarm and the serial killer would come in and cut out my tongue. Oh shit, now I was thinking about the serial killer again!

There was another sound at my door. I tried to see my watch in the dark. It had to be around one A.M. The door clicked open and the alarm sounded. Undoubtedly Ranger. I ran a hand through my hair and checked to be sure the Band-Aid was still in place. I was wearing flannel boxers and a white T-shirt and had a last-minute panic attack that my nipples might be showing through the T-shirt. Rats! I should have thought of this sooner. I hurried to the foyer to silence the alarm but before I reached the door a pair of shears was shoved between the door and the jamb, the shears snipped through the security chain, and the door flew open.

"Hey," I said to Ranger, "that's cheating!"

But it wasn't Ranger who stepped through the open door. It was Morris Munson. He ripped the alarm off the doorknob and stabbed it with the shears. The alarm gave one last squeak and died. Grandma was still snoring. Bob was still sprawled next to the couch. And Rex was standing at attention, doing his grizzly bear impersonation.

"Surprise," Munson said, closing the door, stepping further into the foyer.

My stun gun, pepper spray, bludgeoning flashlight, and nail file were all in my shoulder bag, which was hanging on a hook, out of reach, behind Munson. My gun was somewhere in the couch, but I really didn't want to use my gun. Guns scare the hell out of me… and they kill people. Killing people isn't high on my favorite-things-to-do list.

Probably I should have been happy to see Munson. I mean, I'm supposed to be looking for him, right? And here he is, doing a B amp; E in my apartment.

"Stop right where you are," I said. "You're in violation of your bond, and you're under arrest."

"You ruined my life," he said. "I did everything for you, and you ruined my life. You took everything. The house, the car, the furniture-"

"That's your ex-wife, you dope! Do I look like your ex-wife?"

"Sort of."

"Not at all!" Especially since his ex-wife was dead, with tire tracks up her back. "How did you find me?"

"I followed you home one day. You're hard to miss in that Buick."

"You don't actually think I'm your wife, do you?"

His mouth pulled back into a loopy grin. "No, but if they think I'm really flipped out I can plead insanity. Poor distraught husband goes berserk. I've laid all the groundwork with you. Now all I have to do is carve you up and set you on fire, and I'm home free."

"You're crazy!"

"See, it's working already."

"Well, you won't have any luck, because I'm a professional trained in self-defense."

"Get real. I asked around about you. You're trained in nothing. You used to sell ladies' underpants until you got fired."

"I wasn't fired. I was laid off."

"Whatever." He opened his hand, palm up, to show me he held a switchblade. He pressed the button, and the blade flicked out. "Now, if you just cooperate it won't be so bad. It isn't as if I want to kill you. I thought I'd just stab you a couple times to make it look good. Maybe cut off a nipple."

"No way!"

"Listen, lady, give me a break, okay? I'm facing a murder charge here."

"This is stupid. This will never work! Have you talked to a lawyer about this?"

"I can't afford a lawyer! My wife freaking cleaned me out."

I was inching my way back toward the couch as we talked. Now that I knew about his plan to cut off a nipple, using the gun didn't seem like such a bad idea.

"Hold still," he said. "You're not going to make me chase you all around the apartment, are you?"

"I just want to sit down. I don't feel so good." And this wasn't so far from the truth. My heart was flopping around in my chest, and the roots of my hair had started to sweat. I plopped down on the couch and dipped my fingers into the space between the cushions. No gun. I ran my hand under the cushion next to me. Still no gun."

"What are you doing?" he wanted to know.

"I'm looking for a cigarette," I said. "I need one last cigarette to steady my nerves."

"Forget it. Time's up." He lunged at me with the knife, I rolled away, and he plunged the knife into the couch cushion.

I let out a shriek and scrambled on my hands and knees, looking for the gun, finding it deep under the middle cushion. Munson came at me again, and I shot him in the foot.

Bob opened one eye.

"Son of a bitch!" Munson yelled, dropping the knife, grabbing his foot. "Son of a bitch!"

I backed away and held him at gunpoint. "You're under arrest."

"I'm shot. I'm shot. I'm gonna die. I'm gonna bleed to death."

We both looked down at his foot. The blood wasn't exactly pouring out. A small spot by the little toe.

"I must have just nicked you," I said.

"Jesus," he said, "what a lousy shot. You were right on top of me. How could you have missed my foot?"

"Want me to try again?"

"It's all ruined now. You ruined it just like always. Every time I have a plan you have to go ruin it. I had it all worked out. I was going to come over here, cut off a nipple and set you on fire. And now it's ruined." He threw his hands into the air in disgust. "Women!" He turned and started limping toward the door.

"Hey," I yelled, "where are you going?"

"I'm leaving. My toe is killing me. And look at my shoe. It has a big rip in it. You think shoes grow on trees? See, this is what I'm talking about. You have no regard for anybody but yourself. You women are all alike. Just take, take, take. Gimme, gimme, gimme."

"Don't worry about the shoe. The state will see to it that you get a new one." Along with a nice orange jumpsuit and ankle chains.

"Forget it. I'm not going back to jail until everyone's convinced I'm insane."

"You've made a believer out of me. And besides, I've got a gun, and I'll shoot you again if I have to."

He held his hands in the air. "Go ahead and shoot."

Not only couldn't I bring myself to shoot an unarmed man, but I was out of bullets. They'd been on my shopping list. Milk, bread, bullets.

I raced past him, snatched my shoulder bag off the wall hook and dumped everything onto the floor, since that was the fastest route to finding my cuffs and pepper spray. Munson and I both dived at the scattered junk, and he won. He snatched the pepper spray off the floor and hopped to the door. "If you come after me I'll spray you," he said.

I watched him do a sort of gallop down the hall, favoring the injured foot. He stopped at the elevator doors and shook the pepper canister at me. "I'll be back," he said. Then he stepped into the elevator and disappeared.

I closed and locked the door. Terrific… for what that was worth. I went to the kitchen and searched for something comforting. The cake was gone. The pie was gone. No Mounds bars hid forgotten in the dark recesses of a cupboard. No booze. No Cheez Doodles. The peanut butter jar was empty.

Bob and I tried a couple of olives, but they weren't totally what the situation called for. "They need frosting," I said to Bob.

I scooped up the mess on the foyer floor and dumped it back into my shoulder bag. I put the broken alarm on the counter, turned the lights off, and returned to the couch. I lay there in the dark, and Munson's parting threat kept replaying in my mind. It really didn't matter if he was crazy by design or for real; the bottom line was that I'd come close to being nippleless. Probably I shouldn't go to sleep until I got a bolt put on the door. He'd said he'd be back, and I didn't know if he meant in an hour or a day.

Trouble was, I could hardly keep my eyes open. I tried singing, but I drifted off somewhere in the middle of "Ninety-nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall." Last I remember I was at fifty-seven bottles of beer, and then I was jolted awake with the feeling that I wasn't alone in the room. I lay perfectly still, my heart skipping beats, my lungs in suspended animation. There had been no sound of shoes treading across carpet. No deranged-madman body odor disturbed the air around me. There was just the irrational knowledge that someone was in my space.

And then, without warning, fingertips settled on my wrist, and I was galvanized into action. Adrenaline spiked into my system, and I catapulted myself off the couch into the intruder.

We were both caught by surprise, the two of us crashing into the coffee table, going down to the floor in a tangle of arms and legs. And in an instant I was pinned beneath him, which was not an entirely unpleasant experience once I realized it was Ranger. We were groin to groin, chest to chest, with his hands locked around my wrists. A moment passed while we did nothing but breathe.

"Nice tackle, babe," he said. And then he kissed me. No doubt about the intention this time. Not the sort of kiss you'd give your cousin, for instance. More like the sort of kiss a man would give a woman when he wanted to rip her clothes off and give her a reason to sing the Hallelujah Chorus.

He deepened the kiss and ran his hands under my T-shirt, splaying them flat on my abdomen. Thank God I still had both of them! A rush of electric heat contracted my nipples.

My bedroom door cracked open and Grandma stuck her head out. "Is everything okay out here?"

Great. Now she wakes up!

"Yep. Everything's just fine," I said.

"Is that Ranger on top of you?"

"He was showing me a self-defense move."

"I wouldn't mind knowing some self-defense," Grandma said.

"Well, we were sort of finishing up here."

Ranger rolled off me, onto his back. "If she wasn't your grandmother I'd shoot her."

"Darn," Grandma said, "I always miss the good stuff."

I popped up onto my feet and adjusted my T-shirt. "You didn't miss much. I was just going to make some hot chocolate. Do you want some?"

"Sure," Grandma said. "I'll go get my bathrobe on."

Ranger looked up at me. It was dark in the room, with only a shaft of light coming from the open bedroom door. Still, it was light enough for me to see that his mouth was smiling but his eyes were serious. "Saved by the grandma."

"Do you want hot chocolate?"

He followed me out to the kitchen. "Pass."

I gave him the piece of paper with the house design on it. "Here's the diagram you wanted."

"Anything else you want to tell me?"

He knew about Alexander Ramos. "How do you know?"

"I've been watching the beach house. I saw you pick Ramos up."

I poured milk into two mugs and put them in the microwave. "What's the deal with him? He flagged me down to mooch a cigarette."

Ranger smiled. "You ever try to quit smoking?"

I shook my head.

"Then you wouldn't understand."

"Did you used to smoke?"

"I used to everything." He picked the motion detector off the counter and turned it over in his hand. "I noticed the broken security chain."

"You weren't my only visitor tonight."

"What happened?"

"A failure to appear broke into my apartment. I shot him in the foot, and he left."

"You must not have read the Bounty Hunter Handbook. We're supposed to catch the bad guys and drag their ass back to jail."

I mixed the cocoa into the hot milk. "Ramos wants me to return today. He offered me a job as his cigarette smuggler."

"That's not a job you want to accept. Alexander can be impulsive and erratic and paranoid. He's on medication, but he doesn't always take it. Hannibal's hired bodyguards to keep an eye on the old man, but he makes them look like amateurs. Sneaks out on them every chance he gets. There's a power struggle going on between him and Hannibal, and you don't want to get caught in the crossfire."

"Isn't this nice," Grandma said, shuffling into the kitchen, taking her mug of chocolate. "It's much more fun living with you. We never had men visiting in the middle of the night when I lived with your mother."

Ranger returned the alarm to the counter. "I have to go. Enjoy your hot chocolate."

I walked him to the door. "Is there anything else you want me to do? Check your mail? Water your plants?"

"My mail is being forwarded to my lawyer. And I'm watering my own plants."

"So, you feel safe in the Batcave?"

The corners of his mouth curved into the hint of a smile. He leaned forward and kissed me at the base of my neck, just above my T-shirt collar. "Sweet dreams."

Before he left, he said good-night to Grandma, who was still in the kitchen.

"What a nice, polite young man," Grandma said. "And he's got an excellent package."

I went straight to her closet, found the bottle of booze, and dumped some into my cocoa.

THE NEXT MORNING, Grandma and I were both hung over.

"I've gotta stop drinking cocoa so late at night," Grandma said. "I feel like my eyes are going to explode. Maybe I should go get checked for glaucoma."

"Better yet, how about getting checked for the level of hooch in your bloodstream?"

I took a couple aspirin and dragged myself out to the parking lot. Habib and Mitchell were there, sitting waiting in a green minivan with two kiddie seats in the back but no kiddies.

"Nice stakeout car," I said. "Fits right in."

"Don't start," Mitchell said. "I'm not in a good mood."

"It's your wife's car, right?"

He gave me a black look.

"Just to make life easier for you, so you don't get lost, you might as well know I'm going to the office first thing."

"I hate that place," Habib said. "It is cursed! It is evil!"

I drove to the office and parked in front. Habib stayed half a block back and kept the motor running.

"Hey, girlfriend," Lula said. "Where's Bob?"

"He's with Grandma. They're sleeping in today."

"Looks like you should have slept in, too. You look awful. If the rest of your face was as black as the circles under your eyes you could move into my neighborhood. 'Course, the good news is what with the dark circles and bloodshot eyes you don't hardly notice that big nasty pimple."

And the really good news was that I didn't give a fig about the pimple today. Funny how a little thing like a life-threatening experience can put a pimple into perspective. What I cared about today was nailing Munson. I didn't want to put in another sleepless night, worrying about going up in flames.

"I have a hunch Morris Munson is back at his row house this morning," I told Lula. "I'm going over there, and I'm going to stomp on him."

"I'll go with you," Lula said. "I wouldn't mind stompin' on someone today. In fact, I'm in a real stompin' mood."

I took my gun out of my shoulder bag. "I'm sort of out of bullets," I said to Connie. "You have any extras lying around?"

Vinnie stuck his head out of his office. "You're putting bullets in your gun? Did I hear right? What's the occasion?"

"I have bullets in my gun a lot," I said, eyes narrowed, feeling testy. "In fact, just last night I shot someone."

There was a collective gasp.

"Who'd you shoot?" Lula asked.

"Morris Munson. He broke into my apartment."

Vinnie rushed over. "Where is he? Is he dead? You didn't get him in the back, did you? I keep telling everyone-not in the back!"

"I didn't shoot him in the back. I shot him in the foot."

"So? Where is he?"

"Omigod," Lula said. "You shot him in the foot with your last bullet, didn't you? You blew off a little piggy and ran out of bullets." She shook her head. "Don't you just hate when that happens?"

Connie returned from the back room with a box of bullets. "You sure you want these?" she asked me. "You don't look too good. I don't know if it's a good idea to give a woman a box of bullets when she's got a pimple."

I put four rounds in my gun, and dropped the box into my shoulder bag. "I'll be fine."

"This here's a woman with a plan," Lula said.

This here was a woman with a hangover who just wanted to get through the day.

Halfway to Munson's house on Rockwell Street I pulled to the curb and threw up. Habib and Mitchell grimaced behind me.

"Must have been some night," Lula said.

"I don't want to think about it." And that was more than just an expression. I really didn't want to think about it. I mean, what the hell was this thing going on between me and Ranger? I must be crazy! And I couldn't believe I'd actually sat drinking bourbon and hot chocolate with Grandma. I'm no good at drinking. I get drunk on two bottles of beer. I felt like my brain had been beamed into outer space and my body had been left behind.

I drove another quarter-mile and pulled into the McDonald's drive-through for my never-fail hangover remedy: french fries and a Coke.

"As long as we're here I might as well get a little something, too," Lula said. "Egg McMuffin, breakfast fries, chocolate shake, and a Big Mac," she yelled across me.

I felt myself go green. "That's a snack?"

"Yeah, you're right," she said. "Hold the breakfast fries."

The guy in the drive-through window handed me the bag of food and looked into the Buick's backseat. "Where's your dog?"

"Home."

"Too bad. That was pretty cool last time. Lady, that was a mountain of-"

I stepped on the gas and took off. By the time we got to Munson's house the food was gone, and I felt much better.

"What makes you think this dude's come back here?" Lula asked.

"Just a feeling I have. He needed to bandage his foot and get a new pair of shoes. If it was me, I'd go home to do those things. And it was late at night. Since I was already in my house I'd want to sleep in my own bed."

We couldn't tell anything from the outside of his house. The windows were dark. No sign of life inside. I drove around the block and took the alley to the garage. Lula jumped out and looked in the garage window.

"He's here, all right," she said, climbing back into Big Blue. "At least, his wreck of a car is here."

"Do you have your stun gun and pepper spray?"

"Does a chicken have a pecker? I could invade Bulgaria with the shit I've got in my handbag."

I drove back to the front of the house and dropped Lula off to guard the front door. Then I parked the car two houses down, out of Munson's line of sight, in the alley. Habib and Mitchell parked behind me in the kiddie car, locked their doors, and opened their McDonald's breakfast bags.

I cut through two yards, came up to the back of Munson's house, and carefully looked in his kitchen window. Nothing happening. A box of Band-Aids and a roll of paper towels on the kitchen table. Am I a genius, or what? I stepped back and looked up to the second floor. There was the very faint sound of running water. Munson was taking a shower. Boy, life didn't get much better than this.

I tried the door. Locked. I tried the windows. Locked. I was about to break one when Lula opened the back door.

"Not much of a lock on the front door," she said.

I had to be the only person in the entire world who couldn't pick a lock.

We stood listening in the kitchen. The water was still running overhead. Lula had pepper spray in one hand and her stun gun in the other. I had one hand free and one hand holding cuffs. We crept up the stairs and paused at the top. The row house was small. Two bedrooms and a bath on the second floor. The doors to the bedrooms were open, and the bedrooms were empty. The bathroom door was closed. Lula stood to one side, poised with the spray. I stood to the other side. We both knew exactly how to do this, because we watched the cop shows on television. Munson wasn't known to carry a gun, and it was unlikely he'd be armed in the shower, but it didn't hurt to be careful.

"On the count of three," I mouthed to Lula, my hand on the doorknob. "One, two, three!"