Ten Big Ones

Twelve

The back door to Vinnies beach bungalow opened to the kitchen. The floor was yellow-and-white linoleum that looked relatively new. The counters were red Formica. The cabinets were painted white. The appliances were also white. GE. Midgrade. A small white wood table, covered with a blue-and-white checked plastic tablecloth, sat to one side. There were four chairs at the table.

Beyond the kitchen was a combination living room and dining room. The carpet was gold and showing wear. The dining-room table was white and gold, French provincial. Probably confiscated from a bad bond. The living-room furniture was overstuffed brown velour. Tasteful in an upper-end whorehouse sort of way. End tables were dark fruitwood, Mediterranean style. Handstitched pillows with messages were everywhere. KISS ME I'M ITALIAN. HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS. SUMMER STARTS HERE.

There was a downstairs bathroom and a small downstairs bedroom. Both rooms looked out at the driveway.

'Here's where we'll beat Anton,' Lula said, standing in the bathroom. 'Just in case there's blood, it'll be easy to clean up with all this tile.'

Blood? My stomach went sick and little black dots floated in front of my eyes.

Lula kept going. 'And there's only that one little frosted window over the tub. So nobody can see us. Yep, this is gonna be good. Nice and private. No neighbors around. That's important on account of he's probably gonna be screaming in pain, and we don't want no one to hear.'

I sat down on the toilet and put my head between my legs.

'You okay?' Lula asked.

'I've been dieting. I think I must be weak from hunger.'

'I remember when I was dieting, and I felt like that,' Lula said.

'And then I discovered that protein diet, and I was eating all those pork roasts. I felt real good on the protein diet. Except sometimes I'd overdo it. Like when I found that sale on boiled lobsters. And I was eating all those lobsters and melted butter. I'm telling you that butter went through me like goose grease.'

I didn't want to hear about goose grease right now. I stayed on the toilet, taking deep breaths, and Lula went exploring upstairs. 'There's two bedrooms and a bathroom up there. Nothing special. Looks like it's for lads and guests,' Lula said, returning to the bathroom. 'Maybe we should get you food.'

I didn't need food. I needed someone to intervene and stop me from kidnapping a guy and beating him bloody. I left the bathroom and walked through the living room to the front door. I opened the door and stepped out onto the covered front porch. There was a minuscule front yard, just big enough for an aluminum and nylon webbed chaise and a small table.

A boardwalk ran the length of the beach for as far as the eye could see. Beyond the boardwalk, the wet sand was the color and texture of fresh concrete. The ocean was loud and scary. Big gray rollers crashed onto the beach, conjuring visions of tsunamis barreling in, gobbling up Point Pleasant.

The wind had picked up, driving the rain across the porch in sheets. I retreated into the house and locked the door. We pulled every shade and closed every curtain and then we left.

I called Connie when we hit White Horse. 'What's up?' I asked.

'It's all set,' Connie said. 'Ward and his brother bought the whole enchilada. Ward's being held at the prison on Cass Street. I have to get there before four o'clock to bond him out.'

I picked Connie up at three thirty and dropped her at the prison.

We decided Ward might not be happy to see Lula and me, so we waited in the truck. In a half hour, Connie emerged with Ward cuffed behind his back. Ranger's truck was a four-door supercrew cab with a full backseat and steel rings conveniently bolted into the floor, just right for securing leg shackles. Connie got in back with Ward, and I swung the truck out into traffic. Ward didn't say anything. And I didn't say anything. And Lula didn't say anything. All of us being careful not to rock the boat.

Ward thinking he was going home. And Lula and Connie and me thinking we were going to beat the crap out of him. I parked curbside when I reached the office. We took our time off-loading Ward, making a show of it as best we could in the rain.

We wanted people to witness the fact that we'd brought him this far. The whole time I was having heart palpitations, and I couldn't get the phrase 'harebrained scheme' out of my head. We finally brought him inside and sat him in the chair in front of Connie's desk. The plan was to give him a shot at talking to us. If he refused to cooperate we'd hit him with the stun gun, blindfold him, and trundle him out to the Firebird.

'I want to know about Junkman,' I said.

He was slouched in the chair. Hard to do when your hands are cuffed behind your back, but he managed. He cut his eyes to me under half-lowered lids. Sullen. Insolent. He didn't say anything.

'Do you know Junkman?' I asked.

Nothing.

'You better answer her,' Lula said. 'Otherwise we might get upset, and then I'd have to sit on you again.'

Ward spit on the floor.

That's disgusting,' Lula said. 'We don't put up with that. You don't watch your step, I'll give you enough volts to make you pee your pants.' And she showed him her stun gun.

'What the hell is this?' Ward said, sitting up straighter. 'I thought

I was supposed to get hooked up to a monitor. What's with this stun-gun bullshit?'

'We thought you might want to talk to us first,' Lula said.

'I got rights, and I'm being violated,' Ward said. 'You got no business keeping me cuffed. Either put the fucking monitor on me or turn me loose.'

Lula got into his face and wagged her finger at him. 'Don't you use that language in front of ladies. We don't tolerate that.'

'I don't see no ladies,' Ward said. 'I see a big fat black…' And he used the c word. The mother of all swear words. Even better than the word.

Lula lunged at him with the stun gun, and Ward jumped out of his chair.

Connie was on her feet, too, trying to contain the disaster. 'Don't let him get to the door!' she yelled.

I sprang into action, blocking his way. He turned and ran for the back door. Connie and Lula both had stun guns in hand.

'I got him. I got him,' Lula shouted.

Ward lowered his head, and gave Lula a head butt to the stomach that knocked her on her ass. Connie rounded on him in a crouch, and they sized each other up. Ward sidestepped and bolted around her. He wasn't smart, but he was nimble.

I took a flying leap and tackled him from behind. We both went down, I rolled off, and Connie swooped in and tagged him with the stun gun.

'Unh,' Ward said. And he went inert.

We all popped our heads up to see if anyone was looking in the front window.

'We're in the clear,' Connie said. 'Quick, help me drag him behind the file cabinets before someone sees him.'

Ten minutes later we were set to go. Ward was cuffed and shackled. We wrapped him in a blanket and carted him out the back door to Lula's car. We dumped him in the trunk, and we all made the sign of the cross. Then Connie slammed the trunk lid shut.

'Holy Mary Mother of God,' Connie said. She was breathing heavy, and her forehead was beaded with perspiration.

'He isn't going to die in there, is he?' I asked Connie. 'He can breathe, right?'

'He'll be fine. I asked my cousin Anthony. Anthony knows these things.'

Lula and I didn't doubt for a moment that Anthony knew all about stuffing bodies in trunks. Anthony was an expediter for a construction company. If you treated Anthony right, your construction project moved along without a hitch. If you decided you didn't need Anthony's services, you were likely to have a fire. Connie locked the office, and we all piled into the Firebird.

Twenty minutes into the trip Anton Ward came to life and started yelling and kicking inside the trunk. It wasn't that loud from where I was sitting, but it was unnerving. What must he be feeling? Anger, panic, fear. What was

I feeling? Compassion? No. In spite of Connie's expert assurances,

I was worried Ward would die, and we'd have to bury him in the dark of night in the Pine Barrens. I was going straight to hell for this, I thought. It was all adding up. I was for sure beyond Hail Marys.

This guy's creeping me out,' Lula said. She punched a number on her CD player and drowned Ward out with rap.

Ten minutes later I could feel my cell phone vibrating. It was hooked to my Kevlar vest, and I couldn't hear the ring over the rap, but I could feel the vibration.

I flipped the phone open and yelled, 'What?'

It was Morelli. 'Tell me you didn't bond out Ward.'

'There's a lot of static here,' I said. 'I can't hardly hear you.'

'Maybe it would help if you turned the radio down. Where the hell are you, anyway?'

I made crackling, static sounds, disconnected, and shut my phone off.

Hard to tell when the yelling and kicking stopped, but there were no sounds coming from the trunk when Lula parked in Vinnie's driveway and cut the engine.

It was still raining, and the street was dark. No lights shining from any of the houses. The ocean roiled in the distance, the waves thundering down onto the sand and then swooshing up the beach.

It was pitch black when we huddled around the rear end of the

Firebird. I had a flashlight. Connie had the stun gun. Lula was hands free to open the trunk.

'Here goes,' Lula said. 'Here's the plan. Soon as I get the lid up we want Stephanie to shine the light in his eyes in case the blankets come undone, and then Connie can zap him.'

Lula opened the trunk. I switched the light on and aimed it at

Ward. Connie leaned forward to zap Ward, and he kicked out at Connie. He caught Connie square in the chest and knocked her back four feet onto her keister. The stun gun flew out of Connie's hand and disappeared into the darkness.

'Shit,' Connie said, scrambling to get to her feet. I ditched the flashlight, and Lula and I wrestled Ward out of the trunk. He was bucking and swearing, still wrapped in the blanket.

We lost our grip and dropped him twice before we got him into the house. As soon as we were in the kitchen, we dropped him again.

Connie closed and locked the kitchen door, and we stood there breathing hard, dripping wet, gaping at the pissed-off guy writhing around on the linoleum. He stopped wriggling when the blanket fell away.

He had big baggy homey pants that had slipped off his boney ass and were around his knees. He was wearing cotton boxers with red and white stripes. His oversize four-hundred-dollar basketball shoes were unlaced in hood fashion. He looked pretty bad, but it was an improvement over the last time I saw him.

'This is kidnapping,' he said. 'You can't do this, bitch.'

'Of course we can,' Lula told him. 'We're bounty hunters. We kidnap people all the time.'

'Well, maybe not all the time,' I said.

Connie looked pained. Kidnapping wasn't actually allowed. We could detain and transport people if we had the right documentation.

'If you stop flopping around we'll stand you up and sit you on a chair,' I told him.

'We'll even pull your pants up, so we don't have to look at Mr Droopy hanging out,' Lula said. 'I've seen enough of Mr Droopy to last a long time. It's not that great.'

We dragged him to his feet, pulled his pants up, and plopped him onto one of the wooden kitchen chairs, securing him with a length of rope that we wrapped and knotted around his chest and the chair back.

'You're at our mercy now,' Lula said. 'You're going to tell us what we want to know.'

'Yeah, right. I'm real scared.'

'You should be scared. If you don't start talking about Junkman, I'm gonna hit you one.'

Ward gave a bark of laughter.

'Okay, that's it. I guess we have to persuade you,' Lula said. 'Go ahead, Stephanie, make him talk.'

'What?'

'Go ahead and hurt him. Slap him around.'

'You're going to have to excuse us for a moment,' I said to Ward.

'I need to talk to my associates in private.'

I pulled Lula and Connie into the living room. 'I can't slap him around,' I said.

'Why not?' Lula wanted to know.

'I've never slapped anyone around before.'

'So?'

'So, I can't just walk up to him and hit him. Its different when someone attacks you, and you get lost in the heat of the moment.'

'No, it's not,' Lula said. 'You just be thinking he hit you first. You just walk up to him, and you imagine him punching you in the face.

And then you punch him back. Once you get started, I bet you'll like it.'

'Why don't you hit him?'

'I could if I wanted,' Lula said.

'Well, then?'

'I just don't think it's my place. I mean, you're the one needs to know about Junkman. And you're the bounty hunter. I'm just a bounty hunter assistant. I figured you'd want to do it.'

'You figured wrong.'

'Boy, I never had you figured for chicken,' Lula said.

Unh. I walked back to Ward and stood in front of him. 'Last chance,' I said.

He waggled his tongue at me and spit on my shoe.

I made a fist, and I told myself I was going to hit him. But I didn't hit him. My fist stopped just short of his face, and my knuckles sort of bumped against his forehead.

'That's pathetic,' Lula said.

I dragged Lula and Connie back into the living room.

'I can't hit him,' I said. 'Someone else is going to have to hit him.'

Lula and I looked at Connie.

'Fine,' she said. 'Get out of my way.'

Connie marched up to Ward, squared her shoulders, and gave him a light slap.

'Jeez,' Lula said. 'Is that bitch slap the best you can do?'

'I'm an office manager,' Connie said. 'What do you want from me?'

'Well, I guess it's up to me,' Lula said. 'But I'm pretty rough when I get going. He'll be all bruised and bloody and cut up and stuff. We might get into trouble for that.'

'She has a point,' I said to Connie. It'd be best if he didn't look too beat up.'

'How about if we all kick him in the nuts,' Lula said.

We repaired to the living room.

'I can't kick him in the nuts,' Connie said.

'Me either,' I said. 'He's just sitting there. I can't kick a guy in the nuts when he's just sitting there. Maybe we should turn him loose. Then we could chase him around the house and get into the moment.'

'No way,' Connie said. 'He already knocked me on my ass once tonight. I'm not giving him another shot at it.'

'We could burn him with lighted cigarettes,' Lula said.

We looked at each other. None of us smoked. We didn't have any cigarettes.

'How about if I get a stick,' Lula said. 'Like a broomstick. And then we could hit him like he was a pinata.'

Connie and I did a grimace.

'You could really hurt someone like that,' Connie said.

'So what we want to do is inflict maximum pain without hurting him?' Lula asked. 'Hey, how about sticking him with a needle? I hate when I get stuck with a needle. And it only makes a tiny hole in you.'

'That has potential,' Connie said. 'And we can stick him in places that won't show.'

'Like his dick,' Lula said. 'We could use his dick for a pincushion.'

'I'm not touching his dick,' I said.

The either,' Connie said. 'Not even with rubber gloves. How about his feet? You could stick the needle between his toes and then nobody would see it.'

'I bet you got that idea from Anthony,' Lula said.

'Dinner-table conversation,' Connie said.

We fanned out and looked for a needle. I took the downstairs bedroom and found a sewing kit in the closet. I selected the biggest needle in the kit, and I brought it into the kitchen.

'Who's going to do this?' I asked.

'I'll take his shoe off,' Connie said.

'And I'll take his sock off,' I said.

That left Lula with the sticking.

'I bet you think I can't do it,' Lula said.

Connie and I made some encouraging sounds.

'Huh,' Lula said. And she took the needle.

Connie took Ward's shoe off. I removed his sock. Then Connie and I stepped back to give Lula room to operate. Ward was looking nervous, and he was shuffling his shackled feet around.

'This here's a moving target,' Lula said. 'I can't do my best work like this.'

Connie got another length of rope and tied Ward's ankles to the

chair legs.

This little piggy went to market,' Lula said, touching the little toe with the tip of the needle. 'And this little piggy stayed home-'

'Just stick him,' Connie said.

Lula grabbed Ward's big toe, closed her eyes, and rammed the needle into Ward dead center between two toes. Ward let out an unearthly scream that raised every hair on my body.

Lula's eyes flew open. Her eyes rolled back into her head, and

Lula crashed over in a dead faint. Connie ran into the bathroom and threw up. And I staggered outside and stood in the rain, on the front porch, until the clanging stopped in my head.

By the time I got back to the kitchen, Lula was sitting up. The back of her shirt was soaked in sweat and sweat beaded on her upper lip.

'Must have been something I ate,' she said.

The toilet flushed and Connie joined us. Her hair was a wreck, and she'd washed off most of her makeup. It was a sight that was more frightening than Lula with the needle.

Ward's eyes were dilated black. If looks could kill we'd all be dead.

'So, are you ready to talk?' Lula asked Ward.

Ward shifted the death look to Lula.

'Huh,' Lula said.

We all went into the living room.

'Now what?' I asked Connie and Lula.

'He's pretty tough,' Lula said.

'He's not tough at all,' I said. 'He's a jerk. We're a bunch of wimps.'

'How about if we lock him up here and don't give him any food,'

Lula said. 'I bet he'll talk when he gets hungry.'

'That could take days.'

Connie looked at her watch. It's getting late. I should be heading for home.'

'Me, too,' Lula said. 'I gotta get home to feed the cat.'

I looked over at Lula. 'I didn't know you adopted a cat.'

It's more like I'm thinking about it,' Lula said. 'I'm thinking of stopping at the pet store on the way home and getting a cat, and then I'm going to have to feed him.'

'So what are we going to do with this idiot?' Connie asked.

We swung our attention back to Ward.

'I guess we leave him here for now,' I said. 'Maybe we can think of something overnight.'

We cut the ropes away, stood Ward up, shoved him into the bathroom, and cuffed him to the main pipe of the pedestal sink. He had one hand free, and he was within reach of the toilet. We removed everything from the medicine chest. We left the ankle bracelets in place and attached an extra length of chain to the shackle and wrapped the extra chain around the base of the toilet. Then we closed the door on him.

'This feels a little like kidnapping,' I said.

'No way,' Lula said. 'We're just detaining him. We're allowed to do that.'

'I'm thinking about changing careers,' Connie said. 'Something more sane… like being the detonator on the bomb squad.'

We turned the lights out and locked up. We piled into Lula's car and left Point Pleasant.

'I never even got to play the claw machine,' Lula said.

Ranger's truck was still parked in front of the bond office. It wasn't covered with graffiti or riddled with bullet holes. I thought that was a good sign. I got out of the Firebird and unlocked the truck with the remote. Then I stood back, held my breath, and started the truck with the remote. I blew out a sigh of relief when the truck didn't explode.

'You're in business,' Lula said. 'See you tomorrow. Be careful.'

I got into the truck and locked the doors. I sat there for a moment in the dark, enjoying the silence, not sure what to think of the day. I was tired. I was depressed. I was appalled. I jumped when someone rapped on the driver-side window. I sucked in some air when I saw the guy. He was big. Over six feet.

Hard to tell his build in the dark. But I was guessing he was heavily muscled. He was wearing an oversize black hooded sweatshirt, and his face was lost in shadow inside the hood. His skin in the dark looked as black as the sweatshirt. His eyes were hidden behind dark glasses. He could be one of Ranger's men. Or he could be a messenger from the dead. Either way, he was freaking scary. I released the emergency brake and put the truck in gear in case I needed to lay rubber.

I cracked the window an inch. 'What?' I asked.

'Nice truck.'

'Un huh.'

'Yours?'

'For now.'

'You know who I am?'

'No.'

'You wanna know?'

'No.'

Pretty amazing that my voice was staying steady, because my heart was racing, and I had a cramp in my large intestine.

'I'll tell you anyway' he said. I'm your worst nightmare. I'm Junkman. And I'm not just gonna kill you… I'm gonna eat you alive. You can take that as a literal promise.'

His voice was deep, the inflection serious. No smile in his voice, but I knew he was getting off on the moment. I'd run into his type before. He fed off fear, and he was hoping to see fear in my face. I was looking into his mirrored lenses, my face reflecting back at me.

I decided my face wasn't showing much. That was good. I was learning from the men in my life.

'Why do you want to kill me?' I asked.

'For fun. And you can think about it for a while because I gotta cut the balls off a cop before I let myself enjoy you.'

There was more to it than fun, I thought. He wasn't a lad. He probably got the muscle and the attitude in prison. He was brought in by the Slayers, and I thought Connie was right, Junkman wanted something from these killings besides satisfying his blood lust. Not to trivialize the blood lust. I was guessing Junkman liked to kill.

Probably emasculated his victims for a show of power over the enemy, and I was betting he also liked the blood on his hands. He gave me some kind of gang sign language and stepped back from the truck. 'Make the most of your last hours on earth, bitch,' he said.

A black Hummer came out of nowhere and pulled up beside me. Junkman got in, and the Hummer disappeared down the street. No chance to get the plate.

I sat perfectly still and rigid until I could no longer see the

Hummer taillights. The instant the lights vanished from my field of vision, all my bravado vanished as well. Tears poured out of my eyes, and it was painful to swallow. I didn't want to die. I had more doughnuts to eat. I had nieces to spoil. If I died, poor Rex would be orphaned. And Morelli. Don't even go there, I thought. I didn't know what to think about Morelli, but I wished I'd told him I loved him. I'd never said it out loud. I'm not sure why not. Just never felt right, I guess. And I always thought I'd have lots of time. Morelli had been a part of my life since I was a kid. It was hard to imagine a life without him, but sometimes it was equally hard to imagine his role in my future. I couldn't get past two months of cohabitation with him without going nutty. Probably not a good sign.

I had a dilemma now. My eyes were leaking, and my nose was running. I was trying real hard not to progress to openmouthed sobbing. Stop it! I told myself. Get a grip. Easier said than done. I was feeling vulnerable and incompetent. The vulnerable and incompetent Stephanie wanted to run to Morelli. The stubborn Stephanie hated to give in. And the halfway intelligent Stephanie knew it would be a bad thing to leave Ranger's truck sitting in front of Morelli's house. Junkman would recognize it if he rode by, and Morelli's house would be a target for God knows what.

I took the path of mindless action. I stepped on the gas, and I let the truck take me someplace. Of course, it took me to Ranger's building. I parked in my usual spot, two blocks from the garage entrance. I reached under the seat and helped myself to Ranger's gun. It was a semiautomatic. I was pretty sure it was loaded. To say I wasn't a gun person was a gross understatement. I wasn't sure I knew how to fire the gun, but I figured I might be able to scare someone with it.

I retreated into my hooded sweatshirt, locked the truck, and walked head down in the rain to the garage. Minutes later I was in Ranger's apartment with the door bolted behind me. I left the gun and the truck keys on the sideboard. I ditched the sweatshirt, hat, and Kevlar vest. I removed my wet shoes and socks. My jeans were soaked from the knee down, but I'd lived with them like that for the entire day, and I could endure a few minutes more. I'd stopped whimpering, and I was starving.

I stuck my head into Ranger's refrigerator and pulled out one of his low-fat plain yogurts. No way was I going to die with a roll of fat hanging over my waistband.

I scraped the last smidgen of yogurt from the cup and looked at Rex. 'Turn,' I said. 'I'm stuffed.'

Rex was running on his wheel and didn't bother to respond. Rex was a little slow. He didn't always see the humor in sarcasm.

'Probably I should call Morelli,' I said to Rex. 'What do you think?'

Rex was noncommittal on the subject, so I dialed Morelli.

'Hey.' Morelli said.

I gave him my smiley voice. 'It's me. Sorry we had a bad connection this afternoon.'

'You've got to practice your crackle. You've got too much phlegm in it.'

'I thought it was pretty good.'

'Second rate,' Morelli said. 'What's up? Are you going to tell me about Ward? It seems he's disappeared.'

'He escaped from us.'

'Apparently he escaped from everybody. His brother hasn't seen him either.'

'Hmmm. That's interesting.'

'You didn't kidnap him, did you?'

'Kidnap is an ugly word.'

'You didn't answer my question,' Morelli said.

'You don't really want me to, do you?'

'Jesus.'

'I have something else to tell you before this conversation goes down the drain. I met Junkman today. About an hour ago. I was in Ranger's truck, parked in front of the office, and Junkman rapped on my window and introduced himself.'

There was a long empty space where nothing was said, and I could feel the electric mix of emotion traveling the phone line.

Astonishment that this had happened. Fear for my safety. Anger that I'd allowed contact. Frustration that he couldn't fix the problem. When he finally spoke it was in his flat cop voice.

'Tell me about it,' Morelli said.

'He was big. Around six foot two. And he was chunky. It looked like muscle, but it was hard to tell for sure. I didn't get to see his face. He was wearing dark glasses. And he had a big oversize sweatshirt hood over his head.'

'Caucasian, Hispanic, African-American?'

'African-American. Maybe some Hispanic. He had a slight accent. He said he was going to kill me, but he had to kill a cop first. He said he was doing it for fun, but I think that's just part of it. When he left he gave me a hand signal. Probably some gang tiling. Definitely not Italian.'

It's almost ten o'clock. What were you doing in front of the bonds office at nine o'clock?'

'Lula and Connie and I were out looking for Ward.'

'Where were you looking?'

'Around.'

There was another big silence and I sensed things were going to deteriorate now, so I moved to wrap it up. 'Gotta go,' I said to him. 'Turning in early tonight. I just wanted to check with you. And I wanted to tell you I… uh, like you.' Shit. I chickened out! What was it with me that I couldn't say the big L word? I am such a dope.

Morelli sighed into the phone. 'You are such a dope.'

I returned the sigh and disconnected.

That went well,' I said to Rex. Yeesh.