Sizzling Sixteen

FIVE

I POWER WALKED down the alley, keeping to the shadows, where I hoped I wouldn’t be seen. I scurried around the corner, and by the time I reached Stark Street, my heart rate was at stroke level. I did some deep breathing and tried to calm myself before I got to the car, so I wouldn’t have to listen to Lula go on about how I should carry a gun. Okay, probably she was right, but I really hated guns, and I could never remember where I hid the bullets.

Ranger had a remote door entry on the Jeep, so I beeped us in, and Lula and I sat watching the funeral parlor.

“Do you know Bobby Sunflower?” Lula asked me.

“No.”

“He’s the tall dude just come out.”

“Is Sunflower his real name?”

“So far as I know,” Lula said.

Bobby Sunflower was a little over six foot tall. He was lean, with a long face and long cornrows that came to his shoulders. He was dressed in a pinstriped suit and a white shirt that was unbuttoned to halfway down his chest. He had a lot of gold chains around his neck, and I could see his diamond ring from where I sat. He had two men with him who looked like dumb muscle. They stood two steps behind while Sunflower talked to a fireplug guy in a bad-fitting black suit.

“That’s the funeral director, Melon,” Lula said. “I was watching him from inside.”

A black Cadillac Escalade with tinted windows rolled to a stop in front of the funeral home. Sunflower turned from Melon and got into the Escalade’s backseat. One of the gunners got into the front passenger seat, the other got in next to Sunflower, and the car moved off down the street.

I put the Jeep in gear and followed the Escalade. I kept my distance, staying about a half block behind. They went all the way down Stark, took State Street to Broad, and I lost them on Broad. Too much traffic on Broad. I lost them when I couldn’t run a light.

“I got a bad feeling about Bobby Sunflower,” Lula said. “Some people just make you scared inside, and he’s one of those people.”

I turned off Broad and made my way through the Burg to Hamilton and the bonds office. I dropped Lula at her car and headed for home. I was a block from my apartment building when Mickey Gritch passed me going in the opposite direction. Black Mercedes with purple pimp lights flashing around his license plate. Hard to miss. I cut my lights and made a U-turn on Hamilton. I put a car between me and Gritch, and I put my lights back on.

Gritch turned right on Olden, crossed the railroad tracks, and wound around, ending on Stark. He took the alley behind the funeral home, parked behind the limo, and got out. I was around the corner, on the dark side street, watching with my lights off. Gritch got out of his car, walked to the back door, and knocked. The door opened, Gritch walked in, and the door closed.

I checked my rear view mirror and saw that a car had pulled up behind me. My pulse quickened, and I was about to step on the gas when Ranger angled out of the car and walked to the Jeep.

I got out and stood next to him, and my pulse didn’t drop back. Ranger at close proximity on a dark and deserted street would make any woman’s heart race.

“You scared the bejeezus out of me,” I said to him. “I didn’t know it was you at first.”

“Chet was monitoring the fleet, and he saw you make a U-turn and start tailing Gritch.”

“And you were in the neighborhood?”

“No. I grabbed my keys and came out to watch you in action.” He did a full body scan on me. “Is this a new look?”

“Lula and I were here earlier, and Lula thought I’d fit in better if I was a ’ho.”

Ranger put his hands to my waist and slid them up bare skin to where I had my shirt rolled and tucked into my bra. He loosened my shirt and smoothed it down.

“You looked cold,” he said.

I was pretty sure he was referring to the state of my nipples, and because it was Ranger, I was also pretty sure he knew cold had nothing to do with it.

“I saw Bobby Sunflower leave here about forty-five minutes ago. And now Gritch is here,” I told him.

Ranger looked at the back of the building. “And you think Vinnie might be here?”

“The windows are blacked out upstairs. Originally, I thought the embalming rooms were up there, but Lula saw Bobby Sunflower come down the stairs.” I reached into the Jeep and got my sweatshirt. “I didn’t get a chance to check out anything other than the public areas.”

Ranger looked at his watch. “Viewing hours are over. The outdoor light was off when we drove by the front of the building. We can hang here for a while and see what goes down.”

I zipped my sweatshirt and leaned against the Jeep with Ranger. He wasn’t a guy who made a lot of small talk, and I’d gotten used to the silence. We stood like that for about ten minutes, and the door opened and Gritch stepped out. A second guy appeared in the doorway. He flipped the inside light off, and the mortuary parking area was plunged into darkness. We heard the back door click closed, and moments later, car doors opening and slamming shut. Ranger pulled me away from the Jeep, under cover of a building. He leaned into me and shielded me with his body. He was dressed in his usual black. Black T-shirt, black windbreaker, black cargo pants, black running shoes, black gun. His hair was dark brown and his skin was light brown. Ranger was a shadow.

Two car engines turned over, and headlights flashed on. The Mercedes rolled past first. The big Lincoln followed. They took the corner and headed for Stark Street.

Ranger stayed pressed against me, his hand at my waist, his breathing even. His lips brushed my ear, and my cheek, and found my mouth, and the contact produced a rush of heat and desire that filled every part of me. Since we were standing on a public street in a part of town that had killings nightly, I suspected this wasn’t going any farther than kissing.

“Are you playing?” I asked him.

“Yes,” he said, “but that could change.”

I felt my fingers curl into his shirt, and I made an effort to uncurl them. I put a couple inches between us, and I smoothed out the wrinkles I’d made.

“I need to find Vinnie,” I said.

Ranger looked over at the building. “Get in your car and lock the doors. I’ll go inside and look around.”

“I’m sure the funeral parlor has an alarm system.”

“Even with the best alarm system, there’s a ten to fifteen minute window before anyone responds. And in this part of town, the response is a lot longer… if at all.”

Ranger jogged to the back door, and within seconds, he had the door unlocked. He slipped inside, and a couple minutes later, I heard the alarm go off. I gripped the wheel and watched the building, keeping track of the time. Five minutes went by. Ten minutes. I had my teeth sunk into my lower lip, and I was thinking get out, get out, get out! The door opened at fourteen minutes. Ranger emerged alone and jogged back to the car.

“I’ll follow you home,” Ranger said. “I don’t want to talk here.”

I pulled away from the curb, and when I got to the corner, the stretch Lincoln slid to a stop in front of the funeral home and three men got out and went to the front door. Ranger and I drove past them and continued on down Stark.

RANGER WALKED ME to my apartment and stepped inside.

“Obviously, Vinnie wasn’t being held at Melon’s,” I said to him.

“The embalming room is in the basement, and it isn’t pretty. The upstairs rooms are being used as a cash drop. There’s a counting table and a safe in one of the rooms. The other rooms are storerooms. No sign of Vinnie.”

“What about Mickey Gritch? Did he make any more stops?”

“I checked with Chet. Mickey Gritch went straight home from Melon’s. Looks like he’s settled in for the night.” Ranger unzipped my sweatshirt. “We could be settled in for the night, too.”

I moved a step back from him. “Are you feeling domestic?”

The corners of his mouth softened into the smallest of smiles. “I’m feeling friendly.” He closed the distance between us, lifted my bag off my shoulder, and his focus moved from me to the bag.

“Are you carrying?” he asked. “This bag is heavy.”

“It’s the bottle.”

I took Uncle Pip’s bottle out of my bag and set it on the kitchen counter. Rex came out of his soup can house and looked through the glass aquarium at the bottle. His beady black eyes glistened, his whiskers whirred, and he put two little pink feet on the side of his cage. He blinked once and turned and scurried back into his soup can.

“Why are you carrying this bottle?” Ranger asked.

“This is the bottle I inherited from my Uncle Pip. It’s supposed to be lucky, and Lula decided we needed to carry it with us… just in case.”

Ranger’s smile widened. “Can’t hurt,” he said.

“Well, it didn’t do me any good tonight.”

“The night isn’t over,” Ranger said. “You could still get lucky.”

BEING A BOND enforcement agent almost never requires me to set my alarm clock. Felons are in the wind twenty-four hours a day, so I can pretty much pick which of those hours I want to go hunting. Lula usually rolls into the office around nine, and I’m usually right behind her. This morning was no different.

I’d sent Ranger home early the night before, deciding I wasn’t ready to get that lucky. A night with Ranger was tempting, but the cost would be high. My relationship with Morelli was currently on hold. A morning argument in Morelli’s kitchen a couple weeks ago had ended with the notion it might not be a bad idea if we saw other people, but the reality was that we weren’t. I felt comfortable with flirting and maybe a kiss, but I wasn’t comfortable going beyond that with another man right now.

“Hey, girl,” Lula said from the bonds office couch, “what’s up for today?”

“Dirk McCurdle and a drug guy named Chopper.”

“And Vinnie,” Connie said.

“Yeah,” I said. “And Vinnie.”

“Do you have any leads?” Connie asked.

“I know where he isn’t,” I told her. “I’d like an address for Dirk’s best friend, Ernie Wilkes. I’ve got one Mrs. McCurdle left. If she isn’t helpful, I’ll talk to Ernie.”

Connie punched a few keys on her computer, and it spit out Ernie’s address. She wrote the address on a slip of paper and handed it to me. “He’s retired from the button factory, so he should be at home.”

The phone rang and Connie picked it up. “Yeah,” she said. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’ll be right there.” She disconnected and grabbed her purse. “I have to bond out Jimmie Leonard. That means I have to lock the office up for an hour until I get back.”

“We could stay here and babysit phones,” Lula said.

“No way,” Connie said. “I want you out there looking for Vinnie. I can’t be office manager and bond out people at the same time. I know Vinnie’s slime, but he pulls his weight here… at least some of the time.”

Connie and Vinnie were the only ones authorized to write the bonds that released people from jail while they waited for their day in court. I worked as the office bounty hunter, and I signed individual contracts that gave me permission to root out felons who were FTA for their court date. Lula wasn’t authorized to do anything, so she just did whatever the heck she wanted.

Connie took off for the courthouse, and Lula and I piled into the Jeep. Stella McCurdle lived in north Trenton. Ernie Wilkes and his wife lived a couple blocks from Stella. Good deal for me. I was short of gas money and not excited about the idea of driving all over creation to find McCuddle. I took Olden to Bright Street and turned onto Cherry. I parked in front of Stella’s house, and Lula and I got out and went to the door.

“Now this here’s more what I’m talking about,” Lula said. “This looks like a bigamist house.”

It was a narrow, two-story single-family house. And it was painted lavender with pink trim. Why Lula imagined a bigamist should live in a lavender house was anyone’s guess.

“Yep,” I said. “This looks like a bigamist house for sure.”

“I got high hopes for this wife,” Lula said.

Stella McCurdle answered the door in tight lavender stretch pants, little sling-back heels, and a stretchy flower-print wrap shirt that displayed a decent amount of over-tanned, crepe paper-skinned boob. She had big chunky rings on her fingers and big chunky earrings, lots of make up, and her hair was a shade short of canary yellow, done up in a seventies bouffant.

“Whoa,” Lula said. “It’s like Soul Train for seniors.” Stella leaned forward. “What was that, dear? My hearing’s on the blink. I’m all clogged up with wax. I was just on my way to the doctor.”

“I’m looking for your husband,” I said to Stella.

“What?”

“Your husband.”

“No, thank you,” she said. “I don’t need any.”

“Must be a lot of wax,” Lula said.

“Dirk!” I yelled. “Where’s Dirk?”

“Dirk! Don’t know. Don’t care,” she said. “I’m moving on. I’m gonna find myself a new boy toy. Dirk was too old for me anyway.”

“That’s the spirit,” Lula said.

“What?” Stella yelled. “What did you say?”

Lula and I screamed good-bye to Stella, we got back into the car, and I drove to Ernie’s house. I didn’t think Dirk was living with Ernie, but I thought Ernie might be talking to him.

“What time is it?” Lula asked. “I might need a doughnut. Is it doughnut time?”

“I’m thinking about eating healthier,” I said. “More vegetables and fewer doughnuts.”

“What’s that about?”

“I don’t know. It just came over me.”

“It’s a bad idea. What do I look like, Mr. Green Jeans? How would it sound if I said it’s vegetable time? People would think I was a nut. Nobody gets a craving for a vegetable. And I’m on the one diet. What am I gonna do with one carrot or one asparagus? They’re not mood enhancers, if you see what I’m saying.”

“I see what you’re saying, but there aren’t any doughnuts between here and Ernie’s house.”

“I guess I could wait. And maybe you’re right about the healthy eating. I’m gonna get a carrot cake doughnut.”

I drove a block, pulled over, and called Ernie. I had a feeling he’d be more helpful if I got him away from his wife. My guess was his wife wouldn’t be happy to learn he was still palling around with Dirk the bigamist.

Ernie answered and I introduced myself.

“Is your wife home?” I asked him.

“Yes,” he said.

“Would she be upset if she knew you were still friends with Dirk McCurdle?”

“What’s this about?”

“I can knock on your door and talk to you in front of your wife, or we can meet somewhere for just a couple minutes. I need to find Dirk.”

“Okay.”

“Just go out in your car or go for a walk, and I’ll follow you.”

“Okay.”

And he hung up.

Five minutes later, a car pulled out of the Wilkeses’ driveway and headed for Olden. The car pulled to the curb after three blocks and Ernie Wilkes got out.

“I don’t know anything about Dirk McCurdle,” Ernie said to Lula and me. “We used to be friends, but I don’t see him anymore.”

“When was the last time you talked to him?” I asked.

Ernie hesitated a beat. “A long time ago.”

“Try again,” I told him.

Ernie blew out a sigh. “A couple days ago. He’s got a new wife. At least, he says she’s a wife.”

“Do you know her name? Do you know where she lives?”

“Her name’s Dolly. I don’t know her last name. He said they met at the Senior Center on Greenwood. And he said she has a house close by there.”

“Does Dirk have his own place?”

Ernie shook his head. “Not that I know about. He’s always lived in his wives’ houses. I tell you, he’s a real character.”

I thanked Ernie, gave him my card, and Lula and I took Olden to Greenwood.

“Hold up here,” Lula said. “There’s a bakery on the right, and I bet they’ve got healthy doughnuts. Like maybe they got a whole wheat and green bean cruller.”