Sizzling Sixteen

TWENTY-THREE

I GOT GRANDMA in the line inching its way to the casket, and I set off to find Lenny Pickeral. After five minutes of circulating through the room, I realized everyone looked like Lenny Pickeral. Even the women. Some Pickerals were older than others, but other than that they were interchangeable.

I stopped a random Pickeral and asked about Lenny.

“I’m looking for Lenny,” I said. “Have you seen him?”

“I was just talking to him,” she said. “He’s here somewhere.”

“Did you notice what he was wearing?”

“Dark sports coat and a blue dress shirt.”

Great. That described half the Pickerals. I moved to the other side of the room and asked again.

“He’s right over there, talking to Aunt Sophie,” the woman said. “He has his back to us.”

I slipped in next to Lenny and put my hand on his arm. “Lenny Pickeral?” I asked.

He turned and looked at me. “Yeah.”

“Excuse us,” I said to Aunt Sophie. “I’d like a word with Lenny.”

Lenny was my height and slim. His clothes were neat but inexpensive. His skin tone was office worker. I led him to a quiet corner and introduced myself.

“What does that mean?” Lenny asked. “Bond enforcement.”

“When you didn’t show up for trial, my employer had to forfeit the money he posted for you. If I bring you back to the court to get a new date, we get our money back.”

“That sounds okay,” Lenny said. “When do you want to do that?”

“Now.”

“Will it take long? I drove my mom here.”

“Can she get someone else to take her home?”

“I guess. Is there night court? How does this work?”

He was asking too many questions. And I could see the panic pooling in his eyes. He was going to run. I pulled cuffs out of my purse and click! One was around his wrist. His eyes got wide, and his mouth dropped open, and he looked at the cuff like it was reptilian.

“I don’t want to make a scene. Just quietly and calmly walk out with me,” I said.

“What’s going on?” a woman said. “Why did you put handcuffs on Lenny? Hey, Maureen, look at this.”

In the space of a heartbeat, Lenny and I were surrounded by Pickerals.

“Nothing dramatic going on,” I said. “I’m just taking Lenny downtown to reschedule his court date.”

“Is this over the toilet paper?” a man asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“It’s not fair. He gave it all back.”

“And it was for a good cause,” another man said. “He was protesting. You ever have to use one of them restrooms on the Turnpike? That toilet paper’s like wax paper.”

Okay, here’s the thing. I actually hated the toilet paper in the Turnpike restrooms, so I understood the protest. Problem was, the only thing worse than the wax paper toilet paper was no toilet paper at all.

An older woman bustled in. “I’m his mother. What’s this?” she said, taking in the handcuffs.

“It’s about the toilet paper,” someone said.

“Oh, for goodness sakes,” Mrs. Pickeral said. “It was toilet paper. And it wasn’t even any good.”

“Besides, it’s his life’s work,” a woman said. “He’s a crusader. He’s like Robin Hood.”

“Yeah,” everyone murmured. “Robin Hood.”

“He still has to keep his court date,” I told them.

“There’s no court tonight,” Mrs. Pickeral said. “And I need him to give me a ride home. I’ll make sure he goes tomorrow morning.”

I heard this a lot. No one ever showed up in the morning.

“Look at him,” Mrs. Pickeral said. “Does he look like a criminal?”

My nose was running and my eyes were feeling puffy from the flowers. And I was caring less and less about Lenny Pickeral and his stupid toilet paper crime spree.

“Fine,” I said, unlocking the cuffs. “I’m letting him go, but I’m holding all of you responsible. If Lenny doesn’t show up at court tomorrow morning to get rebonded, you’ll all be accessories to a crime.”

That was a crock of doodie, but I felt like I had to say something. And it was at that instant that God rewarded me for showing compassion and letting Lenny walk. Or maybe it was the bottle that was back in my bag that brought me luck. I turned from Lenny, and from the corner of my eye I caught a glimpse of a head sticking up above the mourning masses. It was Butch Goodey. Lenny’s capture fee would have bought me a meatball sub. Goodey’s capture fee would pay my rent and then some.

Goodey was up by the casket, paying condolences to the family. I hugged the wall, coming at him from the rear. I had no clue how to take him down. I didn’t have a stun gun or pepper spray. I wasn’t about to shoot him. Even if I could get the cuffs on him, I didn’t think I could stop him from fleeing. I stood to one side and waited for him to move from the casket area.

“Yo,” I said, stepping in front of him. “How’s it going?”

His expression was blank for a moment while he connected the dots, and then recognition slammed into him.

“You again!” he said, wheeling around, looking for an exit, fixing on the door to the lobby.

“Wait!” I said, grabbing the back of his jacket. “We need to talk. We can deal.”

“I’m not going to jail,” he said. And he took off for the door. I still had my fingers wrapped into his jacket, and I held tight, trying to slow him down with my weight, not having any luck with it. He was knocking people over, pushing them aside, muscling his way to the lobby.

Grandma was just inside the open double doors, standing beside the cookie station. “Hey!” she said to Butch. “What the heck’s going on with you and my granddaughter?”

“Get outta my way,” Butch said.

“That’s no way to talk to a old lady,” Grandma said, and she whacked Butch in the shins with her crutch.

“Ow!” Butch said, stopping just long enough for me to bash him in the gonads with my purse. Butch sucked air, went down to his knees, and doubled over.

I rushed at him with FlexiCuffs and bound his ankles. Twice.

“Boy,” Grandma said. “You pack a wallop with that purse. What have you got in it?”

“Uncle Pip’s lucky bottle.”

Now I had Butch rolling around on the floor of the funeral parlor. I sort of had him captured, but I had no way to get him into my car. I couldn’t drag him, and he couldn’t walk with his ankles bound. If I cuffed his hands and released the shackles on his ankles, he’d run away.

“I need help getting him to my car,” I said to the crowd of people clustered around us.

Everyone shuffled their feet. No one volunteered.

“For goodness sakes,” I said. “This man is a felon.”

The funeral director, Milton Shreebush, rushed over. “Holy cats,” he said, looking down at Butch.

“He’s FTA,” Grandma said. “My granddaughter just made a bond enforcement maneuver.”

“I see that,” Milton said. “But he can’t stay on the floor like this.”

“Then help me drag him to my car,” I told him.

Milton reached for Butch, and Butch growled and grabbed him. Milton slapped at Butch, and they rolled around, locked together.

“Help!” Milton yelled. “Get the police. Somebody do something!”

I stepped in and hit Butch in the head with my purse. Butch shook his head, stunned, and Milton scrambled away.

“That didn’t work so good,” Grandma said.

Butch was crabbing around, waving his arms, trying to grab people, and everyone was keeping their distance. I figured my choices were hit him with the bottle and knock him out, call the police, call Rangeman, or let him go. I decided to go with Rangeman.

It took Rangeman five minutes to respond to my call for help. Two big guys wearing Rangeman black uniforms and full utility belts calmly walked up to Butch and looked at him. Butch was still on the floor, sweating and snarling and spitting and making threatening grabbing motions.

One of the men gave Butch a bunch of volts with a stun gun. The Rangeman guy didn’t move fast enough, and Butch grabbed the gun and threw it across the room.

“Hunh,” the Rangeman guy said.

“Yeah,” I said. “Been there, done that.”

“Are you sure he’s human?”

“Maybe you could hook a chain to the FlexiCuffs on his ankles and drag him behind your car,” I said.

“We tried that once, and Ranger didn’t like it,” the guy said. “You do something twice that Ranger doesn’t like, and you’re out of a job and damaged.”

“We need to clear the area,” the other guy said. “Get rid of the audience.”

Most of the gawkers had gotten bored and moved on, and I was able to persuade the few remaining to think about refreshments. I was guiding them to the cookie table, and I heard a sound like a baseball bat hitting a sack of sand. Thwack! I turned and saw that Butch was sleeping.

“Is he okay?” I asked them.

“Yeah,” the Rangeman guy said. “He’ll be fine. He just had to calm down. Would you like us to deliver him to the police station for you?”

“Yes. That would be great,” I said.

They cuffed Butch’s massive hands behind his back and dragged him away.

“They seem like nice young men,” Grandma said.

I TOOK GRANDMA home and called Ranger.

“Have you got a minute?” I asked him.

“As many as you need.”

I drove to the center of the city, turned onto Ranger’s street, and parked in the Rangeman garage. I took the elevator to the seventh floor and pressed the intercom button next to Ranger’s door. I could have just gone in. I had a key, but I thought that might send the wrong message.

Ranger opened his door and looked me over. “Pretty.”

“Thank you. I was at a viewing.”

“I heard.”

He was still dressed from work. Black T-shirt, black cargo pants, black running shoes. Five o’clock shadow. His apartment was always cool and pristine. Subdued lighting in the hall. Fresh flowers on the narrow hall table. All the work of his housekeeper. I followed him to the kitchen, and he poured me a glass of red wine. His kitchen was small but state-of-the-art. Stainless steel and black granite.

“What are the minutes about?” he asked. “Is this visit personal or business?”

“Business.” I sipped the wine. “Nice,” I said.

Morelli would have offered me a beer. Ranger always offered me wine I couldn’t afford to buy. Ranger knew the value of temptation and bribery.

Ranger leaned against the kitchen counter, arms crossed over his chest. “I’m guessing this is about Vinnie.”

“We managed to raise the money to buy back his debt, and we were all at the office and the president of Wellington called and said he wanted to talk to Vinnie.”

“This was today?”

“Yes. This afternoon. So Vinnie and I went to Wellington. The offices are in the Meagan Building. And the offices were empty. The president, Roger Drager, was there, and a couple guys in suits playing online solitaire, and a kid working a giant paper shredder. Drager said the company was on flex hours, but the cubicles and offices didn’t look used to me. No clutter, nothing in wastebaskets. And Drager was nervous. His hands were sweaty.”

“What did he want?”

“Money. He knew about the phony bonds, and he wanted his money back.”

“He didn’t shut Vinnie down? Didn’t go to the police?”

“No. Vinnie said the setup looked fishy. Like it was a shell company. He was worried he was scamming someone who was an even bigger scammer.”

“That’s not good,” Ranger said.

“It gets worse. We got back to the office and three goons came in and tried to snatch Vinnie at gunpoint. One of them shot Lula, but it just knicked her, and then Connie shot one of them in the knee and they left.”

Ranger smiled. “Connie’s probably been shooting men in the knee since she was twelve.”

“So what do you think about Wellington?”

“I think I wouldn’t want to work for them.”

“Should I go to Morelli?”

“Only if you want second best,” Ranger said.

“I’m talking about police action.”

Ranger took my wine from me, tasted it, and set it on the counter. “Let’s look in on Wellington.”

“Now?”

“Yes.”

I followed him through his living room into his bedroom.

“The building will be empty,” Ranger said, moving into his dressing room. “The cleaning crew should be gone by now.”

“What about the alarm?”

“Rangeman installed the security system in the Meagan Building.”