Three To Get Deadly

CHAPTER 7

Jackie and Lula and I rendezvoused at a Dunkin’ Donuts parking lot, about a quarter mile from RiverEdge. We parked our cars side by side and got out to have a huddle.

“I need a doughnut,” Jackie said. “I want one of those fancy ones with the colored sprinkles on top.”

“You need more than a doughnut,” Lula told her. “You need your head examined. You just shot up a dead man. What were you thinking?”

Jackie was rummaging in her pockets, looking for doughnut money. “I guess I got a right to shoot someone if I want to.”

“Nuh-uh,” Lula said. “There’s rules. This man was already dead, and you showed disrespect for the deceased.”

“The deceased didn’t deserve no respect. He stole my car.”

“Everybody deserves respect when they’re dead,” Lula said. “It’s a rule.”

“Says who?”

“Says God.”

“Oh yeah? Well, God don’t know jack-shit about rules. I’m telling you, that’s a stupid rule.”

Lula had her hands on her hips, and her eyes bugged out of her head. “Don’t you talk about God like that, you worthless ho. I’m not gonna stand here and let you blaspheme God.”

“Hold it!” I shouted. “What about the police?”

“What about them?” Jackie wanted to know.

“We need to call them.”

Jackie and Lula looked at me like I was speaking Klingon.

“Someone killed Cameron Brown before Jackie made Swiss cheese out of him. We can’t just leave Brown lying there alongside the Dumpster,” I told them.

“No need to worry about that,” Lula said. “That place is crawling with cops by now. They’ll find Cameron. He’s right out there in the open.”

“Yeah, but shooting dead people is probably a crime. That makes us accessories if we don’t report it.”

“I’m not going to the police,” Jackie said. “Unh-uh. No way.”

“It’s the right thing to do,” I said.

“The hell,” Jackie said. “It’s the stupid thing to do.”

“Stephanie’s right,” Lula told Jackie. “It’s the dope and the liquor that’s stopping you from doing the right thing. Just like it’s the dope and the liquor that makes you blaspheme God. You gotta do something for yourself,” Lula said to Jackie. “You gotta go to detox.”

“Don’t need detox,” Jackie said.

“Uh-huh,” Lula told her.

“Unh-uh.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I know what you’re doing,” Jackie said. “You’ve been trying to get me to detox ever since you got straight. This here’s just a trick.”

“You bet your ass,” Lula said. “And either you go to detox, or we turn you in.” Lula looked at me. “Isn’t that right?”

“Yeah,” I said. “That’s right.” Seemed like that’s what the court would do anyway. Probably the clinic on Perry Street would do it better.

It started with polite rapping on my door. And then when I didn’t answer, it turned to pounding. I looked through my peephole and saw Morelli pacing and muttering. He turned and gave my door another shot with his fist.

“Come on, Stephanie,” he said. “Wake up. Get out of bed and answer your door.”

It was eight-thirty, and I’d been awake for an hour. I’d taken a shower, gotten dressed and had breakfast. I wasn’t answering my door because I didn’t want to talk to Morelli. I suspected he’d just come from RiverEdge.

I heard him fiddling with the lock. The lock clicked open. Thirty seconds later he had the deadbolt. My front door pushed open but caught on the chain.

“I know you’re there,” Morelli said. “I can smell your shampoo. Open the door, or I’m coming back with a bolt cutter.”

I slid the chain and opened the door. “Now what?”

“We found Cameron Brown.”

I opened my eyes wider to simulate surprise. “No!”

“Yes. Frozen solid. And extremely dead. Been dead for days is my guess. Found him next to the Dumpster at the RiverEdge condo complex.”

“I’ll have to tell Jackie.”

“Uh-huh. Funny thing about the body. Looked like whoever killed Brown had him tossed into the Dumpster. And then someone came along last night, dragged the body out of the Dumpster and pumped half a clip into him.”

“No!”

“Yes. It gets even funnier. Two of the RiverEdge residents came forward, saying they heard a bunch of women arguing in the lot, late at night, then they heard gunshots. When they looked out their windows what do you suppose they saw?”

“What?”

“Three cars leaving the lot. One of them was an old Buick. They thought it might be powder blue with a white top.”

“Did they get a plate? Did they see the women?”

“No.”

“Guess that’s a tough break for you guys, huh?”

“I thought you might be able to shed some light on the incident.”

“Am I talking to you as a cop this morning?”

“Shit,” Morelli said. “I don’t want to hear this.”

“So, is it against the law to shoot someone after he’s already dead?”

“Yes, it’s against the law.”

I made a small grimace. “I thought it would be. Just exactly what law is it against?”

“I don’t know,” Morelli said. “But I’m sure there’s something. I suppose there were extenuating circumstances.”

“A woman scorned…”

“Is this scorned woman going to come forward?”

“She’s going into detox.”

“Your job description reads ‘bounty hunter,’” Morelli said. “Social worker is a whole different job.”

“You want some coffee?”

He shook his head, no. “I’ve got paperwork. Then I’ve got an autopsy.”

I watched him walk down the hall and disappear into the elevator. Only an idiot would think they could talk to Morelli and not be talking to Morelli the cop. Cops never stopped being cops. It had to be the world’s hardest job.

Trenton cops wore more hats than I could name. They were arbitrators, social workers, peacekeepers, baby-sitters and law enforcers. The job was boring, terrifying, disgusting, exhausting and often made no sense at all. The pay was abysmal, the hours were inhuman, the department budget was a joke, the uniforms were short in the crotch. And year after year after year, the Trenton cops held the city together.

Rex was in his soup can, butt side out, half buried under wood shavings, hunkered in for his morning nap. I cracked a walnut and dropped it into his cage. After a moment there was movement under the wood shavings. Rex backed himself out, snatched half of the walnut and carried it into his can. I watched a couple minutes longer, but the show was over.

I checked my pocketbook to make sure I had the essentials…beeper, tissues, hair spray, flashlight, cuffs, lipstick, gun with bullets, recharged cell phone, recharged stun gun, hairbrush, gum, pepper spray, nail file. Was I a kick-ass bounty hunter, or what?

I grabbed my keys and stuffed myself into my jacket. First thing on my agenda was a visit to the office. I wanted to make sure Jackie was holding up her part of the bargain.

The sky felt low and forbidding over the parking lot, and the air was as cold as a witch’s fadiddy. The lock was frozen on the Buick, and the windshield was coated with ice. I hammered on the lock, but it wouldn’t break loose, so I trekked back to my apartment and got some deicer and a plastic scraper. Ten minutes later, I had my door open, the heater going full blast, and I’d chipped a squint hole in the ice on my windshield.

I slid behind the wheel, tested the hole for vision and decided it would do if I didn’t drive too fast. By the time I got to Vinnie’s I was nice and toasty and could see my entire hood, not to mention the road. Jackie’s Chrysler was parked in front of the office. I took the slot behind her and hustled inside.

Jackie was pacing in front of Connie’s desk.

“Don’t see why I need to do this,” Jackie was saying. “It isn’t like I can’t control myself. It isn’t like I couldn’t stop if I wanted. I just like to do some once in a while. Don’t see what’s so wrong about that. Everybody do some once in a while.”

“I don’t,” Connie said.

“Me either,” Lula said.

“Me either,” I said.

Jackie looked at us one by one. “Hunh.”

“You’ll be happy when you get straight,” Lula said.

“Oh yeah?” Jackie said. “I’m happy now. I’m so goddamn happy I can’t hardly stand it. Sometimes I just happy myself into a state.”

Connie had her copy of Mo’s file on her desk. “We don’t get Mo in the next five days and we’re going to have to forfeit the bond,” she said to me.

I flipped the file open and took another look at the bond agreement and the picture.

Jackie looked over my shoulder. “Hey,” she said, “it’s Old Penis Nose. You after him? I just saw him.”

Everyone turned and stared at Jackie.

“Yep, that’s him all right,” she said, flicking a false red fingernail against the photo. “Drives a blue Honda. Remember we used to see him on the street sometimes. Saw him coming out of the apartment building on Montgomery. The one next to the mission.”

Lula and I looked at each other. Duh.

“He alone?” I asked Jackie.

“I wasn’t paying much attention, but I don’t remember anyone else.”

“I’m gonna drive Jackie over to the clinic on Perry Street,” Lula said. “Help her get started.”

The problem with the clinic on Perry Street was that it was filled with dopers. Therefore, the street outside was filled with dealers. The dopers came to get their daily dose of methadone, but on the way in and out it was like walking through a controlled-substance supermarket. Easiest place to get dope in any city is always at the meth clinic.

Lula wasn’t going along to make sure Jackie got started. Lula was going along to make sure Jackie didn’t OD before she even signed the papers.

Lula followed me to my parents’ house and waited while I parked the Buick in the driveway. Then she and Jackie dropped me at the Nissan service center.

“Don’t let them give you no baloney about that truck,” Lula said. “You test-drive it. You tell them you’ll bust a cap up their ass if that truck isn’t fixed.”

“Okay,” I said. “Don’t worry. Nobody’s taking advantage of me.”

I waved her off and went in search of the service manager. “So what do you think?” I asked him. “Is the truck in okay shape?”

“We’ve got it running like a top.”

“Excellent,” I said, relieved that I didn’t have to do any cap busting.

Jackie had seen Mo coming out of an apartment building on the corner of Montgomery and Grant. I wouldn’t call it a hot lead, but it was better than nothing, and I thought it deserved a look. Montgomery and Grant were southeast of the burg in an area of Trenton that worked hard at staying prosperous. The apartment building anchored the street, with the rest of the block given over to small businesses. Sal’s Café, A&G Appliances, Star Seafood, Montgomery Street Freedom Mission and the Montgomery Street Freedom Church.

I circled the block, looking for a blue Honda. None turned up. The apartment building had its own underground parking, but a key card was required to get past the gate. No problem. I could park on the street and check the garage on foot.

I did three laps around the block, and finally someone pulled out of a desirable space at the curb. I wanted to be on Montgomery, in view of both the front door and the garage entrance. I thought I’d snoop in the garage, take a look at the mailboxes, and then maybe I’d hang out and see if anything interested me.

There were seventy-two mailboxes. None had the name “Moses Bedemier” printed on it. The garage was only a third full. I found two blue Hondas, but none with the correct plate.

I went back to the truck and sat. I watched the people on the street. I watched the cars. I didn’t see anyone I knew. At one o’clock I got a sandwich at Sal’s Café. I showed Mo’s picture and asked if he’d been seen.

The waitress looked at it.

“Maybe,” she said. “Looks sort of familiar, but it’s hard to say for sure. We get so many people passing through. A lot of older men come in for coffee before the mission opens its doors for breakfast. It started out being for the homeless, but it’s used more by seniors who are lonely and strapped for money.”

At four I left the pickup and positioned myself just inside the building entrance where I could flash Mo’s picture and question the tenants. By seven I was out of tenants and out of luck. Not a single person had recognized Mo’s picture.

I bagged the stakeout at eight. I was cold. I was starved. And I was twitchy with pent-up energy. I drove back to the burg, to Pino’s Pizzeria.

Two blocks from Pino’s I stopped for a stop sign, and sensed seismic activity under the hood. I sat through a few shakes and some rough idle. KAPOW. The truck backfired and stalled. “Son of a bitch!” I yelled out. “Goddamn Japanese piece-of-shit truck. Goddamn lying, cheating, goat-piss mechanic!”

I rested my forehead on the steering wheel for a second. I sounded like my father. This was probably how it felt to go down on the Titanic.

I babied the truck into Pino’s lot, swiveled from behind the wheel and bellied up to the bar. I ordered a draft beer, a deluxe fried chicken sandwich, a small pepperoni pizza and fries. Failure makes me hungry.

Pino’s was a cop hangout. Partly because half of the force lived in the burg, and Pino’s was in a convenient location. Partly because Pino had two sons who were cops, and cops supported cops. And partly because the pizza was top of the line. Lots of cheese and grease, a little tomato sauce and great crust. Nobody cared that the roaches in the kitchen were as big as barn cats.

Morelli was at the other end of the bar. He watched me order, but held his distance. When my food arrived he moved to the stool next to me.

“Let me guess,” he said, surveying the plates. “You’ve had a bad day.”

I made a so-so gesture with my hand.

He was six hours over on a five o’clock shadow. Even in the darkened barroom I could see the tiny network of lines that appeared around his eyes when he was tired. He slouched with one elbow on the bar and picked at my fries.

“If you had a decent sex life you wouldn’t need to gratify yourself like this,” he said, his mouth curved into a grin, his teeth white and even against the dark beard.

“My sex life is okay.”

“Yeah,” Morelli said. “But sometimes it’s fun to have a partner.”

I moved my fries out of his reach. “Been to any good autopsies lately?”

“Postponed to tomorrow morning. The doc is hoping Cameron Brown will be thawed out by then.”

“Know anything on cause of death? Like what kind of bullet did the job?”

“Won’t know until tomorrow. Why the interest?”

I had my mouth full of chicken sandwich. I chewed and swallowed and washed it back with beer. “Just curious.” Curious because this was the second dead drug dealer I’d stumbled over since starting the Mo search. It was a stretch to think there might be a connection. Still, my radar was emitting a low-level hum.

Morelli looked pained. “You and your girlfriends didn’t do him the first time, did you?”

“No!”

He stood and tugged at my hair. “Be careful driving home.”

He snagged a brown leather bomber jacket off a hook on the wall at the far end of the bar and left.

I stared after him, dumbstruck. He’d tugged my hair. First a chuck on the chin, and now a tug at my hair. This was a definite put-off. It was one thing for me to snub Morelli. It was an entirely different matter for him to snub me. This was not how the game was played.

I rolled out of Pino’s at nine-thirty, feeling sulky and suspicious. I stood staring at my truck for a moment before getting in. More misery. My truck wasn’t cute anymore. It looked like it needed orthodontia. I’d gotten new points and plugs, but I didn’t have money for the bodywork. I slipped behind the wheel and shoved the key in the ignition. The truck started and…stalled.

“SHIT!”

My parents’ house was only three blocks away. I raced the engine all the way and was relieved to finally be able to let the rotten truck die at the curb.

The Buick sat gloating in the driveway. Nothing was ever wrong with the Buick.

The phone woke me out of a dead sleep. The digital display on my bedside clock read 2 A.M. The voice at the other end was girlish.

“Hi ya,” the voice said. “It’s Gillian!”

Gillian. I didn’t know anyone named Gillian. “You have the wrong number,” I told her.

“Oops,” she said. “Sorreee. I was looking for Stephanie Plum.”

I pushed myself up on an elbow. “This is Stephanie Plum.”

“This is Gillian Wurtzer. You gave me your card, and you said I should call you if I saw Uncle Mo.”

Now I was fully awake. Gillian, the kid across from Mo’s!

Gillian giggled. “My boyfriend was over tonight. You know, helping me with my homework. And he just left. And while we were saying good-bye I noticed there was a light on in the candy store. It must have been the hall light in the back. And I saw someone moving around in there. I couldn’t tell if it was Uncle Mo or not, but I thought I should call you anyway.”

“Is the light still on?”

“Yes.”

“I’m ten minutes away. Keep your eye on the store, but don’t go out. I’ll be right there.”

I was wearing a red flannel nightgown and thick white socks. I pulled on a pair of jeans, shoved my feet into my Doc Martens, grabbed my jacket and my pocketbook and flew down the hall, punching Ranger’s number into my cell phone while I ran.

By the time I reached the Buick I’d explained it all to Ranger and had the phone back in my pocketbook. It had begun to drizzle with the temperature hovering at freezing so that every car in the lot sat under a shroud of ice. Déjà vu. I used my nail file to chip the ice away from the door handle and counted to ten in an attempt to lower my blood pressure. When the blood stopped pounding in my ears I used the nail file to carve a six-inch hole in the ice on my windshield. I jumped in the car and took off, driving with my nose practically pressed to the glass.

Please, please, please still be there.

I really wanted to catch Uncle Mo. Not so much for the money as for the curiosity. I wanted to know what was going on. I wanted to know who killed Ronald Anders. And I wanted to know why.

The burg was quiet at this time of night. Houses were dark. Streets were empty of traffic. Streetlights were hazy behind misting rain. I slowly rolled by Mo’s store. A light was burning in the back hall, just like Gillian had said. There was no sign of Ranger. No blue Honda parked at the curb. No movement anywhere. I took King and turned into the alley leading to Mo’s garage. The garage door was open, and deep in shadow, I could see a car parked in the garage. The car was a Honda.

I cut my lights and angled the Buick so that it was blocking the Honda’s exit. I sat for a moment with my window cracked, listening, watching. I silently slipped out of the Buick, walked the length of the alley down King to Ferris and crossed the street. I stood in black shade, behind the Wurtzers’ oak, and I waited for Ranger, waited for the store light to be extinguished, for a form to appear.

I glanced at my watch. I’d give Ranger three more minutes. If Ranger wasn’t here in three minutes I’d cross the street and cover the back door. I had my gun in one pocket and pepper spray in the other.

Car lights appeared a block down King. When the car reached Ferris the lights in the store blinked out. I took off at a sprint just as Ranger’s BMW turned the corner and slid to a stop.

Ranger owned two cars. The first was a black Bronco equipped with a state-of-the-art Bird Dog tracking system. When Ranger was doing a takedown and expected to transport felons he drove the Bronco. When Ranger wasn’t responsible for a takedown, he drove a black BMW, limited production 850 Ci. I’d priced the car and found it listed at close to seven figures.

“The lights just went out,” I called in a stage whisper. “His car’s in the garage. He’s going to go out the back door.”

Ranger was dressed in black. Black jeans, black shirt, black flak vest with FUGITIVE APPREHENSION AGENT lettered in yellow on the back. His earring shone silver against dark skin. His hair was held back in his usual ponytail. He had his gun in hand when his foot hit the curb. If he’d been after me I’d have wet my pants on the spot.

“I’ll take the back,” he said, already moving away from me. “You cover the front.”

This was fine with me. I was perfectly happy to play second string.

I scooted to one side of the candy shop’s front door, pressing myself against the brick front. I had fairly good vision through the window, into the store, and I was in a good position to nab Uncle Mo if he bolted for Ferris Street.

A dog barked in the distance. It was the only sound in the sleeping neighborhood. Ranger was undoubtedly at the back door, but there was no indication of entry or capture. My stomach was clenched in anticipation. I had my lower lip caught between my teeth. Minutes passed. Suddenly the store was flooded with light. I inched to the window and looked inside. I could clearly see Ranger in the back hall. No one else was visible.

Ranger was opening doors just as I had done days ago. He was looking for Mo, and in my gut I knew he wouldn’t find him. Mo had slipped away. And it was all my fault. I should have moved sooner. I shouldn’t have waited for Ranger.

I turned at the sound of labored breathing and almost collided with Mo. His face was shadowed, but the shadows did little to hide his annoyance.

“You blocked my car,” he said. “And now your cohort is nosing around in my store. You keep this up, and you’ll ruin everything!”

“You failed to show for your court appearance. I don’t know why you decided to run, but it’s not a good idea. You should let me drive you to the police station to reschedule.”

“I’m not ready. It’s too soon. You’ll have to talk to my lawyer.”

“You have a lawyer?”

“Yes.” His eyes locked onto Ranger’s Beemer. The door was open, and the keys dangled from the ignition. “Ohhh,” he said. “This will do nicely.”

“Oh no. Not a good idea.”

His mouth tipped up at the corners into an ironic smile. “It looks like the Batmobile.”

“It’s not the Batmobile. Batman doesn’t drive a BMW. And I can’t let you go driving off in it. You’re going to have to come with me.”

Mo was carrying a plastic bag in one hand and a bear-sized can of pepper spray in the other. He narrowed his eyes and pointed the can at me. “Don’t make me use this.”

I’d seen people get sprayed. It wasn’t fun. “Bond is the one in the BMW,” I told him. “Happy driving.”

“Bond,” he repeated. “Of course.”

And then he took off.

Ranger rounded the corner at a run and stopped short in the middle of the sidewalk, watching the Beemer’s taillights disappear into the night. “Mo?”

I nodded and pulled my collar tight to my neck.

“Probably there’s a good reason why you didn’t take him down.”

“His can of pepper spray was bigger than my can of pepper spray.”

We stood there for a few more minutes, squinting into the mist, but Ranger’s car didn’t reappear.

“I’m going to have to kill him,” Ranger said, his voice matter-of-fact.

I thought Ranger might be kidding, but then again…maybe not.

I’d once asked Ranger how he could afford such expensive cars, and he said he’d made some good investments. I wasn’t sure what he meant by that. A money market account seemed a little tame for Ranger. If I had to venture a guess on the contents of Ranger’s portfolio, I’d lean toward running guns to well-connected foreign gunmongers.

“Find anything unusual in the store?” I asked Ranger. Like a dead body.

“Nothing. He must have seen you on the street. Didn’t even take the time to make sure the back door was closed. Just cleared out of there.”

I filled Ranger in on Cameron Brown and the RiverEdge while we walked back to my car. Then I told him about Jackie seeing Mo on Montgomery Street, coming out of the apartment building. I told Ranger how I’d staked the building out but hadn’t come up with anything.

Ranger looked at my bedraggled hair and at the red flannel nightgown hanging under my jacket. “Who are you supposed to be?”

“I was in a hurry.”

“You’re going to give bounty hunters a bad name you go around looking like that.”

I unlocked the passenger door for Ranger, climbed behind the wheel and cranked the engine over. “Where to?”

“Montgomery Street.”

That would have been my choice too. I’d listened to the BMW drive away. It had gone southeast, toward Montgomery.

“Nobody home,” Ranger said, after walking the underground lot.

“We could wait.”

“Babe, I don’t know how to break this to you, but we’re not exactly inconspicuous. Doing surveillance in this car is like trying to hide a whale in a jelly jar.”

Fine by me. I was cold and wet and tired. I wanted to go home and crawl into my nice warm bed and sleep until July.

“Now what?” I asked.

“You can drop me at Twelfth and Major.”

No one knew where Ranger lived. I had Norma run a check on him once at the DMV and his address turned out to be an empty lot.

“You aren’t really going to kill him, are you?” I asked, nosing the Buick toward Twelfth.

“You steal an eight-fifty Ci, you should be killed.”

“It’s Uncle Mo.”

“Uncle Mo is wacko,” Ranger said.

“Yes, but he’s my wacko. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t kill him until after I log him in and straighten a few things out.” Like who killed Ronald Anders.

“Professional courtesy.”

“Yeah.”

“You have any leads?”

“No.”

“We’ll work together on this one,” Ranger said. “I’ll pick you up tomorrow at five.”

“Five in the morning?”

“You got a problem with that?”

“Nope. No problem.”

Trenton is creepy at three in the morning. Forlorn and subterranean, the pulse of the city checked behind black glass and acid-etched brick. Even the night people, the drunks and the kiddie crews, were tucked away, leaving the occasional fluorescent wash of light to derelict pigeons, walking the sidewalks, pecking at fool’s food.

What sort of person would cruise these streets at this hour? Cops, shift workers, evildoers, bounty hunters.

I swung into my lot and cut the engine. Chunks of yellow dotted the big block building in front of me. Mrs. Karwatt, Mrs. Bestler, the DeKune apartment, Mr. Paglionne. Seniors don’t waste a lot of time sleeping. Mr. Walesky, across the hall from me, was probably watching TV.

I stepped away from the Buick and heard a car door open and close behind me. My heart did a little tap dance at the sound. I looked to the building entrance and saw two figures move from the shadows. My gun was still in my pocket. I hauled it out and spun around, almost smacking a wiry little guy in the nose with it.

He immediately jumped back a step, hands in the air. “Take it easy,” he said.

I had the other two in my peripheral vision. They’d stopped and raised their hands. All three men were wearing ski masks and brown coveralls over their street clothes.

“Who are you?” I asked. “What’s going on?”

“We’re concerned citizens,” the wiry little guy said. “We don’t want to hurt you, but if you keep after Mo we’re going to have to take action.” He reached into his breast pocket and pulled out an envelope. “You’re a businesswoman. We understand that. So here’s the deal. The money in this envelope represents your fee for bringing Mo in to Vinnie, plus a two-hundred-dollar bonus. Take the money and hop a plane for Barbados.”

“Number one, I don’t want your money. Number two, I want some answers.”

The wiry guy made a come-on signal with his hand, and car lights blinked on behind him. The car rolled forward and the back door opened.

“Get in that car, and I’ll shoot,” I said.

“I’m unarmed. You wouldn’t want to shoot an unarmed man.”

He was right there. Not that it mattered. It had been an empty threat to begin with.

I’d set my alarm for four fifty-five and was so startled when it rang that I fell out of bed. I hadn’t allowed myself time for a shower, so I brushed my teeth, dressed myself in some clothes I found on the floor from the previous day and staggered downstairs.

Ranger was waiting for me in the lot. He pulled a piece of paper, folded into four sections, from his jacket pocket and gave it to me. “A list of Montgomery Street tenants,” he said. “Anything jump out at you?”

I didn’t ask how he’d gotten the list. I didn’t want to know the details of Ranger’s network. I suspected his methods for acquiring information might sometimes involve broken bones and small-caliber bullet holes.

I handed the list back to him. “Don’t know any of these people.”

“Then we go door-to-door at nine o’clock.”

Oh goody.

“In the meantime we’ll stake out the lobby and the garage.”

The plan was for Ranger to take the lobby and for me to take the garage, to position ourselves at the elevator banks and question the tenants as they left for work. At nine o’clock, after drawing a big zero, we started working the floors.

The first four floors were a washout.

“This doesn’t feel hopeful,” I said to Ranger. “We’ve talked to a lot of people, and we haven’t even had a nibble.”

Ranger shrugged. “People don’t notice. Especially in a building like this. No sense of community. And there’s another possible reason for no one to have seen him.”

“Jackie might have been wrong.”

“She’s not the most reliable witness.”

We walked up a flight and started moving down the hall, knocking on doors, showing Mo’s picture. Third door down I got a hit.

The woman was older than most in the building. Sixties, I guessed. Nicely dressed.

“I’ve seen this man,” she said. She studied the photo. “I just don’t know…Maybe Stanley Larkin. Yes, I think I must have seen him with Stanley.”

“Is Larkin’s apartment on this floor?” I asked.

“Two doors down on this side. Number five-eleven.” Two little frown lines creased her forehead. “You said you were apprehension agents. What does that mean?”

I gave her the minor charge, the missed-a-court-appearance line, and she seemed relieved.

Ranger knocked on Larkin’s door, and we both flattened ourselves against the wall so Larkin couldn’t see us through the security peephole.

A moment later, Larkin opened the door. “Yes?”

Ranger badged him. “Bond enforcement. May we step inside to ask you a few questions?”

“I don’t know,” Larkin said. “I don’t think so. I mean, what is this all about?”

Larkin was in his late sixties. About five feet, ten inches. Ruddy complexion. Sandy hair, thin on the top.

“It will only take a moment,” Ranger said, his hand on Larkin’s elbow, gently guiding him back a few steps.

I used the opportunity to step inside and look around. It was a small apartment packed with furniture. Avocado green wall-to-wall carpet. Harvest gold drapes straight from the seventies. I could see the kitchen from where I stood. One juice glass and one cereal bowl in the dish drain. A coffee mug and newspaper on the kitchen table.

Ranger was showing Larkin the picture, asking him about Mo. Larkin was shaking his head.

“No,” Larkin said. “I don’t know him. Mrs. Greer must have been confused. I have some older men friends. Maybe from a distance one of them might look like this man.”

I quietly stepped to the bedroom door. Queen-size bed in the bedroom. Perfectly made with a dark green paisley spread. A few pictures on the dresser in an assortment of silver frames. Night table at bedside with a clock radio.

Ranger handed Stanley Larkin a card. “Just in case,” Ranger said. “If you see him, we’d appreciate a call.”

“Of course,” Stanley said.

“What do you think?” I asked when we were alone in the hall.

“I think we need to finish the building. If no one else places Mo with Larkin, my inclination is to put it on hold. Larkin didn’t feel like he had secrets.”