07 Seven Up (31 page)

“We're eating cupcakes,” I said.

Grandma took a cupcake and sat down. “Have you been on Stephanie's motorcycle yet?” she asked Valerie. “I rode on it tonight and it made my privates tingle.”

Valerie almost choked on her cupcake.

“Maybe you want to give up on being a lesbian and get a Harley,” I said to Valerie.

My mother came into the kitchen. She looked at the cupcake plate and sighed. “They were supposed to be for the girls.”

“We're girls,” Grandma said.

My mother sat down and took a cupcake. She chose the vanilla with the colorful spinkles. We all stared in shock at this. My mother almost never ate a perfect cupcake with sprinkles. My mother ate leftover halves and cupcakes with ruined icing. She ate the broken cookies and pancakes that got burned on one side.

“Wow,” I said to her, “you're eating a whole cupcake.”

“I deserve it,” my mother said.

“I bet you've been watching Oprah again,” Grandma said to my mother. “I always know when you've been watching Oprah.”

My mother fiddled with the wrapper. “There's something else . . .”

We all stopped eating and stared at my mother.

“I'm going back to school,” she said. “I applied to Trenton State, and I just got word I'm accepted. I'm going part-time. They have night courses.”

I let out a whoosh of air in relief. I'd been afraid she was going to announce she was getting a tongue stud or maybe a tattoo. Or maybe that she was running away from home and joining the circus. “That's great,” I said. “What kind of a program are you in?”

“It's just general right now,” my mother said. “But someday I'd like to be a nurse. I always thought I'd make a good nurse.”

IT WAS ALMOST twelve when I got back to my apartment. The adrenaline high was gone, replaced by exhaustion. I was full of cupcakes and milk and I was ready to crawl into bed and sleep for a week. I took the elevator and when the doors opened on my floor I stepped out and stood statue still, barely believing my eyes. Down the hall, in front of my door, sat Eddie DeChooch.

DeChooch had a huge wad of towel held to his head with his belt, the buckle jauntily placed at his temple. He looked up when I walked toward him, but he didn't get to his feet and he didn't smile or shoot me or say hello. He just sat there staring.

“You must have a beaut of a headache,” I said.

“I could use an aspirin.”

“Why didn't you just let yourself in? Everyone else does.”

“No tools. You need tools to do that.”

I pulled him to his feet and helped him into my apartment. I sat him down in my comfy living room chair and hauled out the half-empty bottle of hooch Grandma had left hidden in my closet from an overnight stay.

DeChooch chugged three fingers and got some color back into his face.

“Christ, I thought you were gonna carve me up like a Sunday goose,” he said.

“It was close. When did you come around?”

“When you were talking about getting through the ribs. Jesus. Makes my balls crawl just remembering it.” He took another hit on the bottle. “I got out of there as soon as the two of you went down the stairs.”

I had to smile. I booked through the kitchen so fast I didn't even notice DeChooch was gone. “So what's up now?”

He slouched back into the chair. “I rode around for a while. I was gonna take off, but my head hurts. She shot half the ear away. And I'm tired. Jeez, I'm tired. But you know what? I'm not so depressed. So I figure, what the hell, let's see what my lawyer can do for me.”

“You want me to bring you in.”

DeChooch opened his eyes. “Hell no! I want Ranger to bring me in. I just don't know how to get in touch with him.”

“After all I've been through, I at least deserve the collar.”

“Hey, what about me? I only got half an ear!”

I did a large sigh and called Ranger.

“I need help,” I said. “But it's a little strange.”

“It always is.”

“I'm here with Eddie DeChooch, and he doesn't want to be brought in by a girl.”

I could hear Ranger laughing softly at the other end.

“It's not funny,” I said.

“It's perfect.”

“Are you going to help me out here, or what?”

“Where are you?”

“My apartment.”

This wasn't the sort of help I'd anticipated, and it didn't seem to me the bargain should hold. Still, you never knew with Ranger. For that matter, I wasn't entirely sure he'd ever been serious about the price for aid.

Twenty minutes later, Ranger was at the door. He was dressed in black fatigues, with a full utility belt. God only knows what I'd dragged him away from. He looked at me and grinned. “Blond?”

“It was one of those impulse things.”

“Any other surprises?”

“Nothing I want to tell you about right now.”

He walked farther into the apartment and raised an eyebrow at DeChooch.

“I didn't do it,” I said.

“How bad is it?”

“I'll live,” DeChooch said, “but it hurts like hell.”

“Sophia showed up and shot his ear off,” I told Ranger.

“And she's where now?”

“Police custody.”

Ranger got an arm under DeChooch and pulled him to his feet. “I have Tank in the SUV outside. We'll take Chooch to the emergency room and have him admitted overnight. He'll be more comfortable there than in jail. They can lock him down at the hospital.”

DeChooch had been smart to hold out for Ranger. Ranger had ways of accomplishing the impossible.

I closed the door after Ranger and locked it. I zapped the television on and flipped through the channels. No wrestling or hockey. No movies of interest. Fifty-eight channels and nothing to watch.

I had a lot of things on my mind, and I didn't want to think about any of them. I prowled through the house, annoyed and at the same time relieved that Morelli hadn't called.

I had nothing on my slate. I'd found everyone. I had no open cases. On Monday I'd collect my finder's fee from Vinnie, and I'd be able to pay another month's worth of bills. My CR-V was in the shop. I hadn't gotten the estimate on that yet. With any luck the insurance would cover it.

I took a long hot shower, and when I came out I wondered who the blond person was in the mirror. Not me, I thought. Probably next week I'd go to the mall and have my hair dyed back to its original color. One blonde in the family is enough.

The air coming through my open bedroom window smelled like summer, so I decided on undies and a T-shirt for bed. No more flannel nightgowns until next November. I dropped a white shirt over my head and crawled under the quilt. I shut the light out and lay there for a long time in the dark, feeling alone.

I have two men in my life and I don't know what to think of either of them. Strange how things turn out. Morelli has been in and out of my life since I was six years old. He's like a comet that once every ten years gets sucked into my gravitational pull, furiously circles me, and then rockets back out into space. Our needs never seem to be in total alignment.

Ranger is new to my life. He's an unknown quantity, starting as mentor and progressing to . . . what? Hard to assess exactly what Ranger wants from me. Or what I want from him. Sexual satisfaction. Beyond that I'm not sure. I gave an involuntary shiver at the thought of a sexual encounter with Ranger. I know so little about him that in some ways it would be like making love blindfolded . . . pure sensation and physical exploration. And trust. There is a quality to Ranger that instills trust.

The blue numbers of my digital clock floated in blackness across the room. It was one o'clock. I couldn't sleep. An image of Sophia popped into my mind. I closed my eyes tight against it and willed it to go away. More sleepless minutes ticked by. The blue numbers said 1:30.

And then in the silent apartment I heard the distant click of a lock turning. And the soft scrape of my broken security chain as it swung across the wood door. My heart stopped dead in my chest. When it restarted it banged so hard against my rib cage my vision blurred. Someone was in my apartment.

The footsteps were light. Not cautious. Not pausing periodically to listen, to look around the dark apartment. I tried to control my breathing, to steady my heart. I suspected I knew the intruder's identity, but that did little to lessen the panic.

He stepped into the doorway to my bedroom and knocked softly on the jamb. “Are you awake?”

“I am now. You scared the hell out of me.”

It was Ranger.

“I want to see you,” he said. “Do you have a night-light?”

“In the bathroom.”

He got the light from the bathroom and plugged it into a baseboard outlet in my bedroom. It didn't give off much light, but it was enough to see him clearly.

“So,” I said, mentally cracking my knuckles. “What's going on? Is DeChooch okay?”

Ranger removed his gun belt and dropped it on the floor. “DeChooch is fine, but we have unfinished business.”