Stephanie Plum - Seven Up Part 26

Omar didn't blink an eye. Guess he got requests for hearts all the time. "Sure," he said, "what kind of a heart do you want? What are you going to do with it? Make soup? Slice it and fry it?"

"I don't suppose you have any human hearts?"

"Not today. They're special order."

"What's the next closest thing, then?"

"Pig heart. Can't hardly tell the difference."

"Okay," Lula said, "I'll take one of those."

Omar went to the end case and pawed through a vat of organs. He picked one out and put it on the scale on a piece of waxed paper. "How's this?"

Lula and I looked around the scale at it.

"I don't know much about hearts," Lula said to Omar. "Maybe you could help us out here. We're looking for a heart that would fit a two-hundred-and-thirty-pound pig who just had a heart attack."

"How old is this pig?"

"Late sixties, maybe seventy."

"That's a pretty old pig," Omar said. He went back and picked out a second heart. "This one's been in the vat for a while. I don't know if the pig had a heart attack, but the heart don't look all that good." He poked it with his finger. "It's not that it's missing any parts, or anything, it just looks like it's been around the block, you know what I mean?"

"How much is it?" Lula asked.

"You're in luck. This one's on sale. I could let you have this one for half price."

Lula and I exchanged glances.

"Okay, we'll take it," I said.

Omar looked over the counter at the cooler in Lula's hand. "You want Porky wrapped up or do you want him packed in ice?"

ON THE WAY back to the office I pulled up for a light, and a guy on a Harley Fat Boy eased to a stop beside me.

"Nice bike," he said. "What have you got in the cooler?"

"A pig heart," Lula said.

And then the light changed and we both took off.

Five minutes later we were in the office, showing the heart to Connie.

"Boy, it looks like the real thing," Connie said.

Lula and I gave Connie some raised eyebrows.

"Not that I'd know," Connie said.

"This is gonna work good," Lula said. "All we have to do now is swap this for Granny."

Tendrils of fear curled in my stomach. Nervous little flutterings that took my breath away. I didn't want anything bad to happen to Grandma.

Valerie and I used to fight all the time when we were kids. I always had some crazy idea and Valerie always snitched on me to my mother. Stephanie's up on the garage roof trying to fly, Valerie would scream to my mother, running into the kitchen. Or, Stephanie's in the backyard trying to tinkle standing up like a boy. After my mother yelled at me, when no one was looking, I'd give Valerie a really good smack on the head. Whack Whack! And then we'd fight. And then my mother would yell at me again. And then I'd run away from home.

I always ran to Grandma Mazur's house. Grandma Mazur never pa.s.sed judgment. Now I know why. Deep down inside Grandma Mazur was even crazier than I was.

Grandma Mazur would take me in without a word of admonishment. She'd haul her four kitchen chairs into the living room, arrange them in a square and drape a sheet over them. She'd give me a pillow and some books to read and send the into the tent she'd made. After a couple minutes a plate of cookies or a sandwich would get pa.s.sed under the sheet.

At some point in the afternoon, before my grandfather came hone from work, my mother would come fetch me and everything would be fine.

And now Grandma was with crazy Eddie DeChooch. And at seven I'd trade her for a pig heart. "Unh!" I said.

Lula and Connie glanced over at me.

"Thinking out loud," I told them. "Maybe I should call Joe or Ranger for backup."

"Joe's the police," Lula said. "And DeChooch said no police."

"DeChooch wouldn't know Joe was there."

"Do you think he'll go along with the plan?"

That was the problem. I'd have to tell Joe I was trading Grandma for a pig heart. It was one thing to disclose something like that when it was all over and it had worked perfectly. At the moment it sounded a lot like the time I tried to fly off the garage.

"Maybe he'd come up with a better plan," I said.

"Only one thing DeChooch wants," Lula said. "And you've got it in that cooler."

"I have a pig heart pig heart in this cooler!" in this cooler!"

"Well yeah, technically technically that's true," Lula said. that's true," Lula said.

Probably Ranger was the better way to go. Ranger fit in with the nut cases of the world . . . like Lula and Grandma and me.

There was no answer on Ranger's cell phone, so I tried his pager and got a call back in less than a minute.

"There's a new problem with the DeChooch thing," I said to Ranger. "He's got Grandma."

"A match made in heaven," Ranger said.

"This is serious! I let it be known that I had what DeChooch was after. Since he doesn't have Mooner he's kidnapped Grandma so he has something to trade. The swap is set for seven."

"What are you planning on giving DeChooch?"

"A pig heart."

"That sounds fair," Ranger said.

"It's a long story."

"What can I do for you?"

"I could use backup in case something goes wrong." Then I told him the plan.

"Have Vinnie wire you," Ranger said. "I'll stop by the office later this afternoon to get the receiver. Switch the wire on at six-thirty."

"Is the price the same?"

"This is a freebie."

AFTER I GOT wired, Lula and I decided to head for the mall. Lula needed shoes, and I needed to keep my mind off Grandma.

Quaker Bridge is a two-level mall just off Route 1, between Trenton and Princeton. It has all the typical mall stores plus a couple larger department stores anchoring each end with a Macy's in the middle. I parked the bike close to the Macy's door because Macy's was having a shoe sale.

"Look at this," Lula said to me in the Macy's shoe department. "We're the only people here with a picnic cooler."

Truth is, I had a death grip on the cooler, clutching it to my chest with both hands. Lula was still in full leather. I was in boots and jeans with my two black eyes and Igloo cooler. And people were cras.h.i.+ng into display cases and mannequins, staring at us.

Bounty hunter rule number one . . . be inconspicuous.

My phone rang and I almost dropped the cooler.

It was Ranger. "What the h.e.l.l are you doing? You're attracting so much attention you've got a security guard following you around. He probably thinks you've got a bomb in the cooler."

"I'm a little nervous."

"No s.h.i.+t."

And he disconnected.

"Listen," I said to Lula, "why don't we go have a piece of pizza and just chill until it's time."

"Sounds good to me," Lula said. "I don't see any shoes I like anyway."

At six-thirty I drained the ice melt out of the cooler and asked the kid at the pizza counter for some fresh ice.

He handed me a cupful.

"Actually I need it for the cooler," I said. "I need more than a cup."

He looked over the counter at the cooler. "I don't think I'm allowed to give you that much ice."

"You don't give us ice and our heart's gonna go bad," Lula said. "We gotta keep it cold."

The kid did another take on the cooler. "Your heart?"

Lula slid the top back and showed him the heart.

"Holy c.r.a.p, lady," the kid said. "Take all the ice you want."

We filled the cooler half full, so that the heart looked nice and fresh on its bed of new ice. Then I went into the ladies' room and flipped the wire on.

"Testing," I said. "Can you hear me?"

A second later my phone rang. "I can hear you," Ranger said. "And I can hear the woman in the stall next to you."

I left Lula at the pizza place and walked to the middle of the mall, in front of Macy's. I sat on a bench with the cooler on my lap and my cell phone in my jacket pocket for easy access.

At exactly seven the phone rang.

"Are you ready for the instructions?" Eddie DeChooch asked.

"I'm ready."

"Drive to the first underpa.s.s going south on Route One . . ."

And at that moment I was tapped on the shoulder by the security guard.

"Excuse me, ma'am," he said, "but I'm going to have to ask to see the contents of that cooler."

"Who's there?" DeChooch wanted to know. "Who is that?"

"It's no one," I said to DeChooch. "Go ahead with the directions."

"I'm going to have to ask you to step away from the cooler," the guard said. "Now."

From the corner of my eye I could see another guard approaching.

"Listen," I said to DeChooch. "I've got a little problem here. Could you call me back in about ten minutes?"

"I don't like this," DeChooch said. "It's off. It's all off."

"No! Wait!"

He hung up.