High Five (3 page)

“Hard to keep track,” Grandma said. She looked over at my mother. “What do you think, Ellen? You think he's still seeing Loretta Walenowski?”

“I heard that was over,” my mother said.

My cell phone rang in my shoulder bag.

“Hey, Cupcake,” Morelli said. “What's the disaster?”

“How do you know it's a disaster?”

“You left messages on three different phones plus my pager.

It's either a disaster or you want me bad, and my luck hasn't been that good today.”

“I need to talk to you,”

“Now?”

“It'll only take a minute.”

T
HE
S
KILLET IS
a sandwich shop next to the hospital and could be better named the Grease Pit. Morelli got there ahead of me. He was standing, soda in hand, looking like the day was already too long.

He smiled when he saw me .. . and it was the nice smile that included his eyes. He draped an arm around my neck, pulled me to him, and kissed me. “Just so my day isn't a complete waste,” he said.

“We have a family problem.”

“Uncle Fred?”

“Boy, you know everything. You should be a cop.”

“Wiseass,” Morelli said. “What do you need?”

I handed him the packet of pictures. “Mabel found these in Fred's desk this morning.”

He shuffled through them. “Christ. What is this shit?”

“Looks like body parts.”

He tapped me on the head with the stack of pictures. “Comedian.”

“You have any ideas here?”

“They need to go to Arnie Mott,” Morelli said. “He's in charge of the investigation.”

“Arnie Mott has the initiative of a squash.”

“Yeah. But he's still in charge. I can pass them on for you.”

“What does this mean?”

Joe shook his head, still studying the top photo. “I don't know, but this looks real.”

I
MADE AN
illegal U-turn on Hamilton and parked just short of Vinnie's office, docking the Buick behind a black Mercedes S600V, which I suspected belonged to Ranger. Ranger changed cars like other men changed socks. The only common denominator with Ranger's cars was that they were always expensive and they were always black.

Connie looked over at me when I swung through the front door. “Was Briggs really only three feet tall?”

“Three feet tall and uncooperative. I should have read the physical description on his application for appearance bond before I knocked on his door. Don't suppose anything else came in?”

“Sorry,” Connie said. “Nothing.”

“This is turning into a real bummer of a day. My uncle Fred is missing. He went out to run errands on Friday, and that was the last anyone's seen him. They found his car in the Grand Union parking lot.” No need to mention the butchered body.

“I had an uncle do that once,” Lula said. “He walked all the way to Perth Amboy before someone found him. It was one of them senior moments.”

The door to the inner office was closed, and Ranger was nowhere to be seen, so I guessed he was talking to Vinnie. I cut my eyes in that direction. “Ranger in there?”

“Yeah,” Connie said. “He did some work for Vinnie.”

“Work?”

“Don't ask,” Connie said.

“Not bounty hunter stuff.”

“Not nearly.”

I left the office and waited outside. Ranger appeared five minutes later. Ranger's Cuban-American. His features are Anglo, his eyes are Latino, his skin is the color of a mocha latte, and his body is as good as a body can get. He had his black hair pulled back into a ponytail. He was wearing a black T-shirt that fit him like a tattoo and black SWAT pants tucked into black high-top boots.

“Yo,” I said.

Ranger looked at me over the top of his shades. “Yo yourself.”

I gazed longingly at his car. “Nice Mercedes.”

“Transportation,” Ranger said. “Nothing fancy.”

Compared to what? The Batmobile? “Connie said you were talking to Vinnie.”

“Transacting business, babe. I don't
talk
to Vinnie.”

“That's sort of what I'd like to discuss with you . . . business. You know how you've kind of been my mentor with this bounty hunter stuff?”

“Eliza Doolittle and Henry Higgins Do Trenton.”

“Yeah. Well, the truth is, the bounty huntering isn't going all that good.”

“No one's jumping bail.”

“That too.”

Ranger leaned against his car and crossed his arms over his chest. “And?”

“And I've been thinking maybe I should diversify.”

“And?”

“And I thought you might help me.”

“You talking about building a portfolio? Investing money?”

“No. I'm talking about
making
money.”

Ranger tipped his head back and laughed softly. “Babe, you don't want to do that kind of diversifying.”

I narrowed my eyes.

“Okay,” he said. “What did you have in mind?”

“Something legal.”

“There's all kinds of legal.”

“I want something entirely legal.”

Ranger leaned closer and lowered his voice. “Let me explain my work ethic to you. I don't do things I feel are morally wrong. But sometimes my moral code strays from the norm. Sometimes my moral code is inconsistent with the law. Much of what I do is in that gray area just beyond entirely legal.”

“All right then, how about steering me toward something mostly legal and definitely morally right.”

“You sure about this?”

“Yes.” No. Not at all.

Ranger's face was expressionless. “I'll think about it.”

He slipped into his car, the engine caught, and Ranger rolled away.

I had a missing uncle who quite possibly had butchered a woman and stuffed her parts into a garbage bag, but I also was a month overdue on my rent. Somehow I was going to have to manage both problems.

 

 

I
WENT BACK
to Cloverleaf Apartments and parked in the lot. I got a black nylon web utility belt from the back of the Buick and strapped it on, arming it with a stun gun, pepper spray, and cuffs. Then I went in search of the building superintendent. Ten minutes later I had a key to Briggs' apartment and was at his door. I rapped twice and yelled, “Bail enforcement.” No answer. I opened the door with the key and walked in. Briggs wasn't there.

Patience is a virtue bounty hunters need and I lack. I found a chair facing the door and sat down to wait. I told myself I'd stay for as long as it took, but I knew it was a lie. To begin with, being in his apartment like this was a little illegal. And then there was the fact that I was actually pretty scared. Okay, so he was only three feet tall . . . that didn't mean he couldn't shoot a gun. And it didn't mean he didn't have friends who were six-foot-four and nuts.

I'd been sitting for a little over an hour when there was a knock at the door, and I realized a piece of paper had been slipped under the doorjamb.

“Dear Loser, I know you're there,” the message on the paper said, “and I'm not coming home until you leave.”

Great.

M
Y APARTMENT BUILDING
bears a striking resemblance to Cloverleaf. Same blocky brick structure, same minimalist attention to quality. Most of the tenants in my building are senior citizens with a few Hispanics thrown in to make things interesting. I'd come directly home after vacating Briggs' apartment. I'd gotten my mail when I'd passed through the lobby, and I didn't have to open the envelopes to know the contents. Bills, bills, bills. I unlocked my door, tossed the mail on the kitchen counter, and checked my answering machine for messages. None. My hamster, Rex, was asleep in his soup can in his cage.

“Hey, Rex,” I said. “I'm home.”

There was a slight rustling of pine shavings but that was it. Rex wasn't much for small talk. I went to the refrigerator to get him a grape and found a sticky note tacked to the door. “I'm bringing dinner. See you at six.” The note wasn't signed, but I knew it was from Morelli by the way my nipples got hard.

I threw the note into the trash and dropped the grape into Rex's cage. There was a major upheaval of shavings. Rex appeared butt-first, stuffed the grape into his cheek pouch, blinked his shiny black eyes, twitched his whiskers at me, and scooted back into the can.

I took a shower, did the gel-and-blow-dry thing with my hair, dressed in jeans and a denim shirt, and flopped onto the bed facedown to think. My usual thinking position is on my back, but I didn't want to wreck my hair for Morelli.

The first thing I thought about was Randy Briggs and how it would feel good to drag him by his little feet down the stairs of his apartment building, with his stupid melon head going bump, bump, bump on the steps.

Then I thought about Uncle Fred, and I got a sharp pain in my left eyeball. “Why me?” I said, but there was no one around to answer.

Truth is, Fred wasn't exactly Indiana Jones, and I couldn't imagine anything other than an Alzheimer's attack happening to Fred, in spite of the gory photographs. I searched my mind for memories of him, but found very little. When he smiled it was big and phony, and his false teeth made a clicking sound. And he walked with his toes pointed out . . . like a duck. That was it. Those were my memories of Uncle Fred.

I dozed off while walking down memory lane, and suddenly I awoke with a start, all senses alert. I heard the front door to my apartment click open, and my heart started knocking around in my chest. I'd locked the door when I'd gotten home. And now someone had opened it. And that someone was in my apartment. I held my breath. Please, God, let it be Morelli. I didn't much like the idea of Morelli sneaking into my apartment, but it was a lot more palatable than coming face-to-face with some ugly, droolly guy who wanted to squeeze my neck until my tongue turned purple.

I scrambled to my feet and searched for a weapon, settling for a stiletto-heeled pink-satin pump left over from a stint as bridesmaid for Charlotte Nagy. I crept out of my bedroom, through the living room, and peeked into the kitchen.

It was Ranger. And he was dumping the contents of a large plastic container into a bowl.

“Jesus,” I said, “you scared the hell out of me. Why don't you try knocking next time.”

“I left you a note. I thought you'd be expecting me.”

“You didn't sign the note. How was I supposed to know it was you?”

He turned and looked at me. “Were there any other possibilities?”

“Morelli.”

“You back with him?”

Good question. I glanced at the food. Salad. “Morelli would have brought sausage sandwiches.”

“That stuff 11 kill you, Babe.”

We were bounty hunters. People shot at us. And Ranger was worried about trans fats and nitrates. “I'm not sure our life expectancy is all that good anyway,” I said.

My kitchen is small, and Ranger seemed to be taking up a lot of space, standing very close. He reached around me and snagged two salad bowls from the over-the-counter cabinet. “It's not length of life that's important,” he said. “It's the quality. The goal is to have purity of mind and body.”

“Do you have a pure mind and body?”

Ranger locked eyes with me. “Not right now.”

Hmm.

He filled a bowl with salad and handed it to me. “You need money.”

“Yes.”

“There are lots of ways to make money.”

I stared down into my salad, pushing greens around with my fork. “True.”

Ranger waited for me to look up at him before he spoke. “You sure you want to do this?”

“No, I'm not sure. I don't even know what we're talking about. I don't actually know what it is that you
do.
I'm just searching for a second profession that'll supplement my income.”

“Any restrictions or preferences?”

“No drugs or illegal gun sales.”

“Do you think I'd deal drugs?”

“No. That was thoughtless.”

He helped himself to salad. “What I have going now is a renovation job.”

This sounded appealing. “You mean like interior decorating?”

“Yeah. Guess you could call it interior decorating.”

I tried the salad. It was pretty good, but it needed something. Croutons fried in butter. Big chunks of fattening cheese. And beer. I looked in vain for another bag. I checked the refrigerator. No beer there either.

“This is the way it works,” Ranger said. “I send a team in to renovate, and then I place one or two people in the building to take care of long-term maintenance.” Ranger looked up from his food. “You're keeping in shape, right? You run?”

“Sure. I run all the time.” I run
never.
My idea of exercise is to barrel through a shopping mall.

Ranger gave me a dark look. “You're lying.”

“Well, I
think
about running.”

He finished his food and put the bowl in the dishwasher. “I'll pick you up tomorrow at five
A.M.”

“Five
A.M.
! To start an interior decorating job?”

“It's the way I like to do it.”

A warning message flashed through my brain. “Maybe I should know more—”

“It's routine. Nothing special.” He checked his watch. “I have to go. Business meeting.”

I didn't want to speculate on the nature of his business meeting.

I
BUZZED THE
television on, but couldn't find anything to watch. No hockey. No fun movies. I went to my shoulder bag and pulled out the large envelope from the copier. I'm not sure why, but I'd made color copies of the pictures before meeting Morelli. I'd been able to fit six photos to a page and had filled four pages. I spread the pages on my dining-room table.

Not nice stuff to look at.

When the photos were laid out side-by-side, certain things became evident. I was pretty sure there was only one body and that it wasn't the body of an old person. No gray hair. And the skin was firm. Difficult to tell if it was a woman or a young man. Some of the pictures had been taken quite close. Some were from further away. It didn't look like the parts were ever rearranged. But the bag was sometimes pulled down to reveal more.

Okay, Stephanie, put yourself in the photographer's shoes. Why are you taking these pictures? Trophy shots? I didn't think so, because none showed the face. And there were twenty-four pictures here, so the roll was intact. If I wanted a remembrance of this grisly act, I'd want a face shot. Ditto for proof that the job had been done. Proof of a kill required a face shot. What was left? A visual record by someone who didn't want to disturb the evidence. So maybe Uncle Fred happened on a bag of body parts and ran out and got himself a point-and-shoot. And then what? Then he put the pictures in his desk drawer and disappeared while running errands.

That was my best guess, as weak as it was. The truth is, the pictures could have been taken five years ago. Someone could have given them to Fred for safekeeping or as a macabre joke.

I stuffed the prints back into their envelope and grabbed my shoulder bag. I thought searching the neighborhood around Grand Union would be wasted effort, but I felt the need to do it anyway.

I drove to a residential area behind the strip mall and parked on the street. I grabbed my flashlight and set out on foot, walking streets and back alleys, looking behind bushes and trash cans, calling Fred's name. When I was a kid I had a cat named Katherine. She showed up on our doorstep one day and refused to leave. We started feeding her on the back porch, and then somehow she found her way into the kitchen. She went out at night to roam the neighborhood, and slept curled up in a ball on my bed during the day. One night Katherine went out and never came back. For days I walked the streets and alleys, looking behind bushes and trash cans, calling her name, just like I was doing now for Fred. My mother said cats sometimes wander off like that when it's their time to die. I thought it was a lot of hooey.

I
STUMBLED OUT
of bed at four-thirty, staggered into the bathroom and stood in the shower until my eyes opened. After a while my skin started to shrivel, and I figured I was done. I toweled off and shook my head by way of styling my hair. I didn't know what I was supposed to wear for interior decorating, so I wore what I always wore . . . jeans and a T-shirt. And then to dress it up, just in case this actually turned out to be interior decorating, I added a belt and a jacket.

Ranger was waiting in the parking lot when I swung out the back door. He was driving a shiny black Range Rover with tinted side windows. Ranger's cars were always new and their point of purchase was never easy to explain. Three men took up the backseat. Two were black, one was of indeterminate origin. All three men had Marine buzz cuts. All were wearing black SWAT pants and black T-shirts. All were heavily muscled. Not an ounce of fat among them. None of them looked like interior decorators.

I buckled myself into the seat next to Ranger. “Is that the interior decorating team in the backseat?”

Ranger smiled in the predawn darkness and cruised out of the lot.

'I'm dressed different from everybody else,” I said.

Ranger stopped at the light on Hamilton. “I've got a jacket and a vest for you in the back.”

“This isn't interior decorating, is it?”

“There's all kinds of interior decorating, Babe.”

“About the vest—”

“Kevlar.”

Kevlar was bulletproof. “Rats,” I said. “I hate getting shot at. You know how I hate getting shot at.”

“Just a precaution,” Ranger said. “Probably no one will get shot.”

Probably?

We rode in silence through center city. Ranger was in his zone. Thinking private thoughts. The guys in back looking like they had no thoughts at all—ever. And me, debating jumping out of the car at the next light and running like hell back to my apartment. And at the same time, as ridiculous as it sounds, I was keeping an eye peeled for Fred. He was stuck in my brain. It was like that with my cat, Katherine, too. She'd been gone fifteen years, but I always looked twice when I caught a glimpse of a black cat. Unfinished business, I guess.

“Where are we going?” I finally asked.

“Apartment building on Sloane. Gonna do some house cleaning.”

Sloane Street runs parallel and two blocks over from Stark. Stark is the worst street in the city, filled with drugs and despair and feed-lot housing. The ghetto gentrifies as the blocks march south, and much of Sloane is the demarcation line between the lawless and the law-abiding. It's a constant struggle to hold the line and keep the pushers and hookers off Sloane. And word is that lately Sloane's been losing the battle.

Ranger drove three blocks up Sloane and parked. He nodded at the yellow-brick building across the street, two doors down. “That's our building. We're going to the third floor.”

The building was four stories tall, and I guessed there were two or three small apartments on each floor. Ground-level brick was covered with gang graffiti. Windows were dark. No street traffic. Wind-blown trash banked against curbs and collected in doorways.

I glanced from the building to Ranger. “You sure this is legal?”

“Been hired by the landlord,” Ranger said.

“Does this housecleaning involve people or is it just . . . things?”

Ranger looked at me.

“There's a legal process involved in getting people and their possessions out of an apartment,” I said. “You need to present an eviction notice and—”

“The legal process is moving a little slow,” Ranger said. “And in the meantime, the kids in this building are being harassed by the people who come to shoot up in 3C.”

“Think of this as community service,” one of the guys in the back said.