Stephanie Plum - Finger Lickin' Fifteen Part 11

"Stop that this instant," Mrs. Gritch said. "You're going to roll over my mums." And she turned the hose on us.

A black boot came into my line of vision, the water stopped, and Ranger lifted Turley off me and held him out at arm's length, Turley's feet not touching the ground, his pride and joy hanging limp against his drenched pants like a giant slug.

"I'm guessing this is the flasher," Ranger said.

I got to my feet and pushed my wet hair back from my face. "Yep. Junior Turley. And he owes me cuffs."

"I left them with your granny," Junior said.

I was soaked to the skin and getting cold. "I need to get out of these wet clothes," I said to Ranger.

"Go home and change. I'll have one of my men drop Mr. Turley at the police station."

"Thanks. I'll start riding around, checking things out for you, as soon as I get dry clothes."

I TOOK A shower, put on clean jeans and my last clean sweater, and carted my overflowing laundry basket out to my car. The plan was to ride around and do a fast look at the Rangeman accounts that were between my house and my parents' house. This included Hamilton Avenue. Then I would mooch dinner from my mom and do my laundry at her house. There were machines in the bas.e.m.e.nt laundry room of my apartment building, but I was pretty sure the place was inhabited by trolls, and I'd eat dirt before I'd go down there.

I drove by two houses and three businesses. The third business was the insurance company that had already been robbed. I didn't see anything suspicious at any of the locations. No one skulking in the shadows, casing the joint. No one throwing Snickers wrappers on the ground. The two houses were large, set in the middle of large landscaped lots. Easy to burgle if you didn't have to worry about the alarm system. The two remaining businesses were on Hamilton and would be more difficult to break into. They were both in high-visibility areas with poor back access. In both cases, the rear entrance opened to a chain-link-fenced lot that was gated at night.

I motored over to my parents' house and was surprised not to find Lula's car parked at the curb. I thought for sure this would be another barbecue night.

My mom and dad and Grandma Mazur were already seated when I walked in. I told them not to get up, but my mother and grandmother jumped to their feet and set a place for me. My father kept eating.

"Leave the laundry," my mother said. "I'll do the laundry later."

I sat at the table and filled my plate with pot roast, potatoes, gravy, and green beans.

"Where's Lula?" I asked Grandma Mazur. "I'm surprised you aren't barbecuing again tonight."

"She had a date with some hot fireman," Grandma said. "She said she was gonna give him brown sugar, and I said that was okay so long as she had some left for the barbecue sauce."

The phone rang and my mother and grandmother looked at each other and sat firm.

"Aren't you going to answer the phone?" I asked.

"It's been ringing off the hook," Grandma said. "I don't want to talk to any more grumpy women. Who'd think this would make such a stink? I help my granddaughter do her job, and next thing, we're all in the doghouse."

"It's about Junior Turley," my mother said to me. "Some of the women in the neighborhood are upset because you put him in jail."

"He exposed himself," I said. "Men aren't supposed to go around exposing themselves at unsuspecting women."

"Well, technically none of us was unsuspecting," Grandma said. "We wait for him to show up. I guess it's one of them generation things. You get to an age and you look forward to seeing a winkie at four in the afternoon when you're peeling potatoes for supper. The thing about Junior and his winkie is, you don't have to do anything about it. You just take a look and he moves on."

I poured more gravy over my potatoes. "Mrs. Zajak filed a complaint against him."

"She was in a snit because he skipped her that day," Grandma said. "It was starting to rain and he cut his circuit short. Everybody's mad at her, too."

"He won't be in jail forever," I said. "I'm sure Vinnie will bail him out again in the morning."

"Yeah, but I think his winkie-waggin' days are over," Grandma said.

IT WAS DARK when I left my parents' house. Clouds had rolled in and a light drizzle was falling. I did a sweep past the accounts I'd checked out earlier, and I went on to Broad Street and the area around the arena. Traffic was relatively heavy, and I was only able to catch glimpses of Ranger's buildings. The drizzle turned to rain, and I decided to quit for the night and start over in the morning.

An hour later, I was changed into my pajamas, watching television, and Lula showed up.

"I swear I don't know what things are coming to," Lula said, bustling through my front door and heading straight for the refrigerator. "What have you got in here? Did you eat at your mama's house tonight? Do you got leftovers? I need something to calm my stomach. This keeps up, and I'm gonna get a ulcer or diarrhea or something." She bypa.s.sed the pot roast and mashed potatoes and went straight for the pineapple upside-down cake. "You don't mind if I eat this, do you?"

"Knock yourself out."

Lula found a fork and dug into the cake. "First off, I got myself a date with that hot-lookin' fireman. You remember the one. The big brute with muscles bulgin' out everywhere. So he came over, and we did some talkin'. And then one thing led to another, and he said would I mind if he go into my bedroom. And I told him he was sittin' on my bedroom on account of I had to turn the bedroom into a closet. I mean, where's a girl supposed to put her shoes and her dress-up clothes? Anyways, I supposed he had things to do with himself, so I pulled out my sleep sofa, and I wasn't paying much attention to him, and next thing he's all dressed up in one of my c.o.c.ktail dresses from the Dolly Parton collection."

"Get out."

"Swear to G.o.d. And he didn't look good in it, either. It was all wrong for him. He sees me lookin' at him and he says, I hope you don't mind I'm wearing your dress I hope you don't mind I'm wearing your dress. And I say, h.e.l.l yeah, I mind. You don't fit in that dress. You're bustin' out of it. You're gonna ruin it, and it's one of my favorites."

"And then what?"

"Then he gets all huffy, saying he thought he looked pretty darn good in the dress, and I shouldn't be talkin' about bustin' out of stuff. So I ask him exactly what that's supposed to mean, and he says, figure it out, fatso figure it out, fatso."

I sucked in some air on that one. Calling Lula fatso was like asking to die.

"It got ugly after that," Lula said. "I don't want to go into the depressin' details, but he got his a.s.s out of my apartment, and he wasn't wearin' my dress when he exited, either." She looked down at the empty cake plate. "What happened to the cake?"

"You ate it."

"Hunh," Lula said. "I didn't notice."

"Easy come, easy go," I said.

"That's so true. It's true about cake and men."

"Doesn't sound traumatic enough to give you an ulcer," I said.

"That wasn't the traumatic part. The traumatic part came after I booted him out. I was putting my gown away, and I heard someone knockin' at my door. I figured it was the moron fireman coming back to get his clothes. ..."

"He left without his clothes?"

"He was in a hurry after I got my gun. The thing is, I already threw his clothes out my window. You know I live on the second floor of the house, so the clothes kind of floated down and landed in some bushes, and maybe he didn't notice. So I'm thinkin' it's just this loser again, and I open the door, and it's the Chipotle killers, and the one's got the big-a.s.s meat cleaver and the other's got a gun."

"Omigosh."

"Yeah, that's what I said. I jumped back real quick and slammed the door shut, and bang, bang, bang bang, bang, bang, there was three bullets shot through my door. Can you imagine the nerve of them defacing my door? And it's not even like I own the door. This here's a rental property. And I don't see where I should be held responsible to pay for that door."

"What happened next?"

"I got my my gun and gun and I I shot a whole bunch more holes in the door while they were trying to kick it in." shot a whole bunch more holes in the door while they were trying to kick it in."

"Did you hit anyone?"

"I don't know. I emptied about half a clip in the door, and when I stopped shooting, there weren't any sounds coming from the other side. So I waited a minute, and then I peeked out, and I didn't see no decapitators. And there wasn't any blood all splattered around, either, although hard to believe I missed them, on account of they had their foot to the door when I started shooting."

It was easy for me to believe. Lula was the worst shot ever. Lula couldn't hit the side of a barn if she was three feet away from it.

"So that's why I'm here," Lula said, retrieving a big black garbage bag she'd left in the outside hall. "I brought some clothes and stuff with me because I figure I could stay with you while my door is getting fixed. It looks like Swiss cheese, and the lock's broke from those a.s.sholes kickin' at it." Lula closed my door behind her and took a look at it. "You got a real good door here. It's one of them metal fire doors. I only had a wimp-a.s.s wood one."

I was speechless. Lula's a good friend, but having her as a roommate would be like getting locked in a closet with a rhinoceros in full attention deficit disorder mode.

"You don't have Morelli coming over or nothin', do you?" she asked. "I don't want to interfere. And I'll be gone as soon as they get my new door put up. Don't seem to me there's much to it. You get a new door and you put it up on those hinges, right?"

I nodded. "Yuh," I said.

"Are you okay?" Lula asked. "You look all gla.s.sy-eyed. Good thing I'm here. You might be coming down with something." She settled into my couch and focused on the TV screen. "This is one of my favorite shows. I watch this every Thursday."

I joined her on the couch and tried to relax. It'll be fine, I told myself. It's just for tonight. Tomorrow she'll get the door fixed, and I'll have my apartment back. And Lula's a good person. This is the least I could do.

Three minutes after sitting down, Lula's head dropped forward, and she was asleep, softly snoring. The snoring got louder and louder, until finally it was drowning out the sound from the television and I was sitting on my hands to keep from choking her.

"Hey!" I yelled in her ear.

"What?"

"You're snoring."

"No way. I was watching television. Look at me. Do I look like I'm asleep?"

"I'm going to bed," I said.

"You sure you don't want to see the end of this? This is a real good show."

"I'll catch it on reruns."

I closed the door to my bedroom, crawled into bed, and shut my light off. I took a couple deep breaths and willed myself to go to sleep. Relax, I told myself. Calm down. Life is good. Think of a gentle breeze. Think of the moon in a dark sky. Hear the ocean. My eyes snapped open. I wasn't hearing the ocean. I was hearing Lula snoring. I put my pillow over my head and went back to talking myself into sleep. Hear the ocean. Hear the wind in the trees. s.h.i.+t! s.h.i.+t! It wasn't working. All I could hear was Lula. It wasn't working. All I could hear was Lula.

Okay, I had a choice. I could kick her out of my apartment. I could hit her in the head with a hammer until she was dead. Or I could leave.

I PARKED IN the Rangeman garage and fobbed myself into the elevator and up to the seventh floor. I knew all eyes were on me in the control room. I waved at the Minicam hidden in the far corner of the elevator and tried to look nonchalant. I was wearing sneakers, flannel pajamas, and a sweats.h.i.+rt. I'd called Ranger on the way across town and told him I needed a room. He said he was out on surveillance, and the only room available was his bedroom ... so that was where I was headed.

I walked through his apartment in the dark and debated sleeping on the couch, but in the end Ranger's bed was too alluring. He was working a double s.h.i.+ft, doing drive-bys on accounts he felt were at highest risk for break-in. That meant he wouldn't be back until six A.M. All I had to do was set the alarm so I'd be out of his bed before he rolled in.

The next morning, I was still in my pajamas and was standing in Ranger's kitchen when he got home. I wasn't entirely with the program, needing at least another two hours of sleep and a lot of hot coffee. Ranger had been up for more than twenty-four hours and looked annoyingly alert.

He wrapped an arm around me and kissed me just above my ear. "There's something wrong with this picture," Ranger said. "You're in my bed a lot, but never with me."

"It was nice of you to let me stay here. Lula has taken over my apartment."

"Nice has nothing to do with it," Ranger said.

"How was your night?"

"Long. And uneventful. I need to get some sleep. Are you coming back to bed with me?"

"No. I'm up for the day. Gotta get to work and solve all your problems."

"If you call Ella, she'll bring breakfast. Or you can get dressed and have breakfast on the fifth floor."

"I haven't got any clothes."

"Ella has clothes for you."

He took a bottle of water from the refrigerator, kissed me on the forehead, and left the kitchen. I called Ella, told her I was in Ranger's apartment, and ten minutes later, Ella was at the door with a breakfast tray and a shopping bag filled with Rangeman gear.

Ella wore Rangeman black just like everyone else in the building. Today she was in a girl-style V-neck T-s.h.i.+rt and black jeans.

I took the bag and tray from her at the door and thanked her.

"Let me know if the clothes don't fit," she said. "I saw you in the building yesterday, and I took a guess at the size. I didn't think you'd changed from the last time you worked here."

"I didn't see you," I said. "I never see you! Food just mysteriously appears and disappears in the fifth floor kitchen."

"I try to stay invisible and not disrupt the men's routine."

Ella left, and I ate a bagel with cream cheese, drank a couple cups of coffee, and picked at some fresh fruit. My eyes were pretty much open, but I wasn't sure my heart was beating fast enough to propel me through the day. I collapsed on Ranger's couch and woke up a little before eight A.M. I picked some clothes out of the shopping bag, tiptoed past Ranger, and quietly closed the bathroom door.

I took a shower, brushed my teeth, dressed in my new clothes, and emerged from the bathroom feeling like a functioning human being. I was awake. I was clean. The caffeine had kicked in and my heart was racing. Okay, maybe it wasn't the caffeine. Maybe it was the sight of Ranger with a day-old beard, sleeping in the bed I'd recently vacated.

I left the apartment and took the elevator to the fifth floor. Roger King was monitoring the station that included the code computer. I paused in front of him to watch him work. He was on the phone with an account that had accidentally tripped their alarm. He was polite and professional. The conversation was short. The account gave King their pa.s.sword, King verified the pa.s.sword and ended the call.

"That's the first time I've seen someone verify a pa.s.sword," I said to King.

King was a nice-looking guy with a voice like velvet. I knew from his human resources file that he was twenty-seven years old and had a degree in criminal justice from a community college. He'd worked as a cop in a small town in Pennsylvania but quit to take the job with Rangeman.

"If you work this s.h.i.+ft, you get a lot of bogus alarms," King said. "People get up in the morning and forget the alarm is on. By the time Chet takes over, this desk is like a graveyard."

When Chet showed up for his s.h.i.+ft, I ventured out of my cubicle again and attempted small talk. Chet was polite but not stimulating, and I was feeling like I was contributing to the graveyard syndrome, so I moseyed on back to work, starting a computer search on a deadbeat client.

Louis had made good on the new chair, and my a.s.s no longer cramped after a half hour. I was wearing black slacks that had some stretch, and a short-sleeved V-neck knit s.h.i.+rt with Rangeman Rangeman st.i.tched on it and my name st.i.tched below the st.i.tched on it and my name st.i.tched below the Rangeman Rangeman. Ella had also given me cargo pants and matching b.u.t.ton-down-collared s.h.i.+rts with roll-up sleeves, a couple stretchy little skirts, black running shoes, black socks, a black zippered sweats.h.i.+rt, and a black windbreaker. I was on my own for underwear.