12 Twelve Sharp (18 page)

'You could see in the dark office?'

'I had a flashlight on him. I was right up to the glass, trying to see in.'

'What happens next?' I asked Gail.

'I'm waiting on a doctor. Probably we'll take him into the OR to remove the bullet, but I don't think it's major surgery. He's going to have some bruising on his chest from where the bullet impacted the vest. I imagine we'll monitor him and keep him overnight.'

'Can I see him when he comes out of surgery?'

'Sure,' Gail said. 'You're his wife.' She looked over at his chart. 'You're Mrs Manuel Ramos.'

I returned to the waiting room and called Connie. Since Vinnie was still out of town, Connie would get called in to check out the office.

I heard the connection open and there was a lot of background noise and police band squawk.

'Hello,' Connie yelled over the noise.

'I imagine you're at the office.'

'Yeah, and you would be where?'

'At the hospital checking on the guy who got shot.'

'How is he?'

'He'll be okay. What are you finding at the office?'

'Guns and ammo missing. That's about it. He left the petty cash. Probably didn't have time to look. It was locked away. Didn't want a George Foreman grill.'

'The police having any luck finding him?'

'No. He was long gone by the time they got there. My understanding is that he set off the alarm when he entered, and Rangeman responded fast because they already had men in the area. I guess he shot the one guy and then took off out the back door.'

'Is Morelli there?'

'No. We got a bunch of uniforms and two suits. A guy from out of state named Rhodenbarr. I don't know any of them. They tell me a lot of the men are at an awards banquet for Joe Juniak who was just appointed Emperor of the Universe.'

'Do you need help?'

'No. I'm fine. And Meri is here. She was on her way to pick up a pizza and she saw all the cop cars so she stopped.'

I called Ranger next and told him everything I knew. I'm going to wait until Manuel is out of surgery,' I said.

'Stay inside the hospital. Call me when you're ready to leave.'

'Is Tank back on the job?'

'Yeah. And he's smiling but completely wasted. I saw him run a half marathon once and look better than this.'

'He's had a tough day. First he got his clock cleaned by an old lady, and then he had to buy Lula a burger.'

'Must have been some burger.'

I thought Ranger sounded a little wistful.

I was in my knit tank top and cotton boxers. My teeth were brushed, and my face was washed and moisturized. I was exhausted. I wanted to go to sleep. Problem was… there was a man in my bed. And I didn't exactly know what to do with him. I knew what I wanted to do with him. And I knew what I should do with him. Unfortunately, what I wanted to do and what I should do were two very different things. Even without Morelli I'd have a dilemma deciding on a path of action with Ranger. I blew out a sigh. Stephanie, Stephanie, Stephanie, I said to myself. That's a big fib. You know exactly what you'd do about Ranger if Morelli wasn't in the picture. You'd ride him like Zorro.

Ranger was watching me. 'Are you coming to bed?'

'I'm thinking about it,' I told him.

'Come closer, and I'll help you decide.'

'Omigod,' I said on a sudden flash of sleep-deprived insight. 'You're the big bad wolf.'

'There are some similarities.'

I grabbed my pillow and took the extra blanket draped over the chair. 'I'm too tired to wrestle with this tonight. Since you can't sleep on the couch, I'll sleep on the couch.'

I stomped off to the living room with my pillow and blanket, flipped the lights off, and flopped onto the couch. Turns out the couch is too short. No matter, just curl up a little, I told myself. Turns out the couch is too narrow. And the cushions were sliding around. And there was a ridge of something sticking up into my back. I threw the pillow and blanket onto the floor and tried sleeping on the floor. Too hard. Too flat.

I stomped back into the bedroom, climbed over Ranger, and slid under the covers.

'The princess returns,' Ranger said.

'Don't start.'

I rolled around in the dark, trying to get comfortable.

'Now what?' Ranger said.

'I left my pillow in the living room.'

Ranger reached out and gathered me into him. 'You can share mine. Just don't climb on top of me like you did last night or those cute little pajamas you're wearing will be on the floor when you wake up.'

'I didn't climb on top of you!'

'Babe, you were all over me.'

'You wish. And your hand is on my ass.'

'My hand on your ass is the least of your worries.'

I woke up completely entangled with Ranger.

'Uh-oh,' I said. 'Sorry! I seem to be on top of you.'

Ranger kissed my neck and slid the strap to my tank top off my shoulder. And then his hand was under my little knit top, his fingers skimming across my breast. He kissed me, and our tongues touched, and his mouth moved lower and lower… and lower! And this is the thing I knew about Ranger from the one time we'd been together. Ranger made love. And Ranger liked to kiss. Ranger kissed everything. A lot.

Ranger froze in mid kiss.

'What? I asked.

'Someone's at your door. I just heard the lock tumble.'

'How could you possibly hear the lock tumble? You had your head under the covers!'

He moved off me, slipped out of bed, and started for the door.

'Holy cow!' I said. 'You can't go to the door like that!'

'My gun's in the kitchen.'

'Yes, but your underwear's on the floor in my bedroom!' And that wasn't the biggest problem.

The front door to my apartment opened, and the chain caught with a snap. There was a moment's silence, and then Morelli's voice sounding impatient.

'Steph?'

There've been times in my life when I couldn't get a decent date. Long dry spells with no boyfriend, no sex, no relationship prospects. And now I had two men. Life was a bitch. I scrounged under the covers for my pajamas, rammed myself into them and jumped out of bed. I padded barefoot to my front door and peeked at Morelli over the chain.

'Hi,' I said.

'Are you going to let me in?'

'Sure.'

I slid the chain back and opened the door for him.

'I'm not staying,' he said. 'I'm just dropping off.' And he tossed a duffle bag into the foyer.

'What's this?' I asked.

'I'm moving in.'

Oh boy.

Morelli looked at the pillow and blanket in the living room. 'Who's sleeping on the floor?'

'Ranger's here.'

'Going to be tight in the bathroom in the morning,' Morelli said. And he kissed me and left.

I made coffee and ate a Pop Tart while Ranger showered. Then I went across the hall and swiped Mr Wolesky's newspaper. I was standing in the kitchen, reading about the shooting when Ranger strolled in. He was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, his hair still damp.

'That was close,' he said, helping himself to coffee.

'Yeah, you almost opened the door to Morelli.'

'I wasn't talking about Morelli. I was talking about us.'

'That too,' I said.

Ranger sliced a bagel and looked for the toaster.

'It's broken,' I told him.

He turned the broiler on and slid the bagel into the oven.

'That's surprisingly domestic for the man of mystery,' I said to him.

He looked at me over the rim of his coffee mug. 'I like things hot.'

The sidewalk in front of the bonds office was wet from being scrubbed down and hosed off in an attempt to remove the bloodstains, and two guys were working to repair the front window. I parked the Mini in front of the used bookstore, carefully stepped around the men and the glass, and walked through the open front door.

It was after nine, and I was the last to arrive for work. Connie was at her desk. Meri was at a card table with a phone and a laptop, Melvin Pickle was a filing demon, and Lula was on the couch reading Star magazine.

'How's Ranger's man?' Connie wanted to know.

'He's okay. I stayed at the hospital until he was out of recovery. They wanted him to spend the night, but he refused. Lucky for him he was wearing a vest.'

'He told the police it looked like Ranger shooting him,' Meri said.

'Yes, but when I talked to him in the hospital he said that was a first impression. He said it freaked him out, and he didn't respond because of it. His second impression was that it wasn't Ranger. It was someone who was dressed in black and resembled Ranger.'

'How could he be sure it wasn't Ranger?' Meri asked. 'I mean, he was getting shot!'

'He said he was right up to the window, shining his flashlight on the guy. He said the guy looked him in the eyes and raised the gun and shot him without blinking.'

'Gives me the heebie jeebies,' Lula said. 'That's so cold. And I bet he's the one who's got the little girl. How terrible is that? That child must be terrified.'

'I don't know,' Meri said. 'I'm having a hard time with this. Everything always points back to this Ranger person. How can you be so sure it's not actually him? I mean, he could have gone nutso. From what I hear he was dark anyway, like Batman. Silent. Tortured soul. Always dressed in black.'

'The all black clothes just make things easy,' I said. 'He doesn't have to mix and match. He doesn't have any decisions in the morning. His housekeeper doesn't have to worry about colors running.'

Meri's eyes got wide. 'Do you know him that well?'

'Um, no,' I said. 'I was sort of putting myself in his place.' Okay, so that was liar, liar pants on fire, but there was something about Meri that had me on guard. Hard to say what it was, but she still felt off to me. Something about her manner, the way she looked, the way she asked questions, the way she showed up and was too good to be believed… too perfect for the job.

'Your problem is you don't know him,' Lula said to Meri. 'If you knew him you'd understand. He's dark in a good way. And besides, anybody that hot can't be all bad.'

'What's happening with Dooby Biagi and Charles Chin?' I asked Meri.

She handed the files over to me. 'They're both business as usual. I made some phone calls and neither seems to have skipped town.'

'Ready to ride?' I asked Lula.

'Yeah, I gotta talk to you anyway.'

We took my Mini, and Lula waited until we were away from the curb before she spoke.

'I got three things,' she said. 'First is, there's something bothering me about Meri. I don't know what it is. Second thing, where the heck did Ranger and Tank come from last night? Tank doesn't talk. He wouldn't say nothing. And third is, Tank don't need to talk because he was right about being big. It's like wrestling some prehistoric monster. Like having a go at King Kong. And he's big all over the place, if you know what I mean. I tell you I'm in love. I don't need to go visiting that Pleasure Treasures on account of I found my own pleasure treasure and his name is Tank. Probably he has some other name, but I don't know what it is. He wouldn't tell me that either.'

'Maybe it's just that Meri is new.'

'Melvin is new, and I don't feel like that about him. And it isn't that I don't like Meri. She's real likeable. I just don't feel comfortable somehow.'

I had Dooby Biagi's file on top. Dooby worked the counter at one of the fast-food places and got caught with his hand in the cash register. He said he was making change, but the day manager found more than change in Dooby's pocket. Dooby had a couple hundred plus a pipe and a dime bag of crack.

Dooby lived in a row house in the Burg. According to Meri's research, Dooby rented with three other guys. And needless to say, Dooby was unemployed.

I idled in front of Dooby's house, and Lula and I stared out at it, neither of us moving.

'I don't feel like doing this,' I finally said.

'Me either,' Lula said. 'I'm wore out with this job. I'm tired of dragging these people off to jail. Nobody's ever happy. I feel like the Grinch.'

'Somebody's got to do it,' I said, trying to convince myself of my worth.

'I know that,' Lula said. 'This here's for the good of society. It's not like the police have time to find these people. I just think I need a mental health day.'

I looked in my rearview mirror for Ranger.

Lula looked too. 'He's back there, isn't he? He's following you around, right? That's how come they were at the Pleasure Treasures.'

'We're hoping the Ranger impostor will come after me. And then when he nabs me he'll lead us to Julie.'

'That's a pretty good plan,' Lula said. 'Unless the Ranger impostor decides to kill you instead.'

I slumped a little lower in my seat.

'It's gonna be a hot one today,' Lula said. 'You know what I'd like to do? I'd like to go to Point Pleasant and play the claw machine in the arcade and get one of them orange and vanilla swirly frozen custard ice creams.'

I put the Mini into gear, hooked a U-turn, and drove back to the office. 'We need to take your car,' I said. 'Is it parked in back?'

'Yep. It's in the lot. The glass truck was parked in my usual spot on the street.'

'Just changing cars,' I said to Connie, as we breezed through the office.

I selected a gun from the cabinet, took a box of rounds, and left the panic button in the gun cabinet. I dropped the gun and the ammo in my bag and Lula and I went out the back door.

'I know this is the wrong thing to do,' I said to Lula, 'but I need a break from all the sad scary things. And I need to get away from Ranger for a couple hours.'

'I don't see nobody back here,' Lula said. 'I think we tricked them.'

Ranger called when we were on the bridge, crossing the Manasquan Inlet. 'Where are you?' he asked.

'I'm taking a day off.'

'You removed the panic button.'

'Yes, but I took a gun. And it's even loaded. And I have extra bullets. And Lula is with me.'

Silence.

'Hello?' I said. 'Are you mad?'

'Mad doesn't come close. Are you going to tell me where you are?'

'Not when you're in this kind of mood.'