04 Four to Score (29 page)

“Okay,” Ranger said. “We're going to walk through the room and look for this guy. Pretend I'm not here.”

“You going to be the wind again?” I asked.

Ranger grinned. “Wiseass.”

Women spilled drinks and walked into walls at the sight of Ranger grinning. Good thing he didn't want to be the wind. The wind would have had a hard time with this group.

We cautiously elbowed our way to the back, where people were dancing. Women were dancing with women. Men were dancing with men. And a man and a woman in their seventies, who must have been from a different planet and had accidentally landed on Earth, were dancing together.

Two men stopped Sally to tell him Sugar was looking for him. “Thanks,” Sally said, ashen faced.

Ten minutes later, we'd circled the room and had come up empty.

“I need another drink,” Sally said. “I need drugs.”

The mention of drugs made me think of Mrs. Nowicki. No one was watching her. I just hoped to God she was hanging around for her doctor's appointment. Priorities, I told myself. The apprehension money wouldn't do me much good if I was dead.

Sally went off to the bar, and I went off to the ladies' room. I pushed through the door labeled Rest Rooms and walked the length of a short hall. Men's room on one side. Ladies' room on the other. Another door at the end of the hall. The door closed behind me, locking out the noise.

The ladies' room was cool and even more quiet. I had a moment of apprehension when I saw it was empty. I looked under the three stall doors. No size-ten red shoes. That was stupid, I thought. Sugar wouldn't go to the ladies' room. He was a man, after all. I went into a stall and locked the door. I was sitting there enjoying the solitude when the outer door opened and another woman came into the room.

After a moment I realized I wasn't hearing any of the usual sounds. The footsteps had stopped in the middle of the room. No purse being opened. No running water. No opening and closing of another stall door. Someone was silently standing in the middle of the small room. Great. Caught on the toilet with my pants down. A woman's worst nightmare.

Probably my overactive imagination. I took a deep breath and tried to steady my heartbeat, but my heartbeat wouldn't steady, and my chest felt like it was on fire. I did a mental inventory of my shoulder bag and realized the only genuine weapon was a small canister of pepper spray.

There was the scrape of high heels on the tile floor, and a pair of shoes moved into view. Red.

Shit! I clapped a hand over my mouth to keep from whimpering. I was on my feet now. And I was dressed. And I felt sick to my stomach.

“Time to come out,” Sugar said.

I reached for my bag, hanging on the hook on the back of the door, but before I could grab it the bolt popped off and the door was wrenched open, taking my bag with it.

“I did everything for him,” Sugar said, tears streaming down his cheeks. “I kept the apartment clean, and I made all his favorite food. And it was working—until you showed up. He liked me. I know he did. You ruined everything. Now all he thinks about is this bounty hunter business. I can't sleep at night. I worry all the time that he's going to get hurt or killed. He has no business being a bounty hunter.”

He held a gun in one hand, and he swiped at his tears with the other. Both hands were shaking, and he was scaring the hell out of me. I had my doubts that he was a killer, but an accidental gunshot wound is just as deadly as an intentional one.

“You've got this all wrong,” I said. “Sally just decodes messages for me. He doesn't do anything dangerous. And besides, he really does like you. He thinks you're terrific. He's outside. He's been looking for you all night.”

“I've made up my mind,” Sugar said. “This is the way it's going to be. I'm going to get rid of you. It's the only way I can protect Sally. It's the only way I can get him back.” He motioned to the door with the gun. “We need to go outside now.”

This was good, I thought. Going outside was a break. When we walked through the Ballroom, Ranger would kill him. I carefully inched my way to the door and stepped out into the hall, moving slowly, not wanting to spook Sugar.

“No, no,” Sugar said. “You're going the wrong way.” He pointed to the door at the other end of the hall. “That way.”

Damn.

“Don't think about trying something dumb. I'll shoot you dead,” he said. “I could do it, too. I could do anything for Sally.”

“You're in enough trouble. You don't want to add murder to the list.”

“Ah, but I do,” he said. “I've gone too far. Every cop in Trenton is looking for me. And do you know what will happen to me when I'm locked up? No one will be gentle. I'm better off on death row. You get your own room on death row. I hear they let you have a television.”

“Yes, but eventually they kill you!”

More tears streaked down his cheek, but his eyeliner didn't smudge. The man knew makeup.

“No more talking,” he said, pulling the hammer back on the revolver. “Outside. Now. Or I'll shoot you here. I swear I will.”

I opened the door and looked out. There was a small employee parking lot to the right and two Dumpsters to the left. A single overhead bulb lit the area. Beyond the Dumpsters was a blacktopped driveway. Then a grassy lawn and the seniors' building. It was a really good place for him to shoot me. It was private and sound wouldn't carry. And he had several exits. He could even choose to go back into the building.

My heart was going ka-thunk, ka-thunk, and my head felt spongy. “Wait a minute,” I said. “I need to go back inside. I forgot my shoulder bag.”

He closed the door behind him. “You don't need your shoulder bag where you're going.”

“Where's that?”

“Well, I don't know exactly. Wherever you go when you're dead. Climb into the Dumpster so I can shoot you.”

“What are you nuts? I'm not climbing into the Dumpster. That thing is disgusting.”

“Okay, fine, then I'll just shoot you here.” He pulled the trigger and click.

No bullet in the chamber. Standard safety procedure.

“Darn,” he said. “I can't do anything right.”

“You ever shoot a gun before?”

“No. But it didn't seem like it'd be all that complicated.” He looked at the gun. “Ah, I see the problem. The guy I borrowed the gun from left one of the bullets out.”

He sighted the gun at me, and before he had time to pull the trigger, I jumped behind one of the Dumpsters. Bang, zing. A bullet hit the Dumpster. Bang, zing again. We were both so panicked we were acting unreasonably. I was running between Dumpsters like a tin duck in a shooting gallery, and Sugar was firing at shadows.

He got off five rounds, and then there was the telltale click again. He was out of bullets. I peeked out from my hiding place.

“Shit,” he said. “I'm such a loser I can't even shoot somebody. Damn.” He plunged his hand into his red purse and came out with a knife.

He was between me and the back door. My only real option was to run like hell around the building or across the grass to the seniors' building. He looked more athletic than me, but he was in heels and a skirt, and I was wearing shorts and sneakers.

“I'm not giving up,” he said. “I'll do it with my bare hands if I have to. I'll rip your heart out!”

I didn't like the sound of that, so I took off across the grass for all I was worth, running full out for the seniors' building. I'd been in the building before. There was always a guard at the door at this time of the night. The front of the building was well lit. There were two double glass doors, and then the guard. Beyond the guard was a lobby where the old folks sat.

I could hear Sugar laboring behind me, breathing heavily and shrieking for me to stop so he could kill me.

I barreled through the doors and hollered for the guard, but no guard came running. I looked over my shoulder and saw the knife arc down at me. I spun to the side, and the knife blade sliced through the sleeve of my Rangers jersey.

The lobby couches were filled with seniors.

“Help!” I yelled. “Call the police! Get the guard!”

“No guard,” one woman explained. “Budget cuts.”

Sugar lunged again.

I jumped away, grabbed a cane from an old geezer and started slashing at Sugar.

I'm one of those people who imagine themselves acting heroically at disasters. Saving children from school buses dangling precipitously from bridges. Performing first aid at car wrecks. Rescuing people from burning buildings. The truth is, I totally lose my cool in an emergency, and if things turn out okay, it's through no effort of mine.

I was blindly slashing at Sugar. My nose was running and I was making animal sounds, and by sheer accident I connected with the knife and sent it sailing through the air.

“You bitch!” Sugar shrieked. “I hate you! I hate you!” He hurled himself at me, and we went down to the ground.

“In my day, you'd never see two women fighting like that,” one of the seniors said. “It's all of that violence on television. That's what does it.”

I was rolling around with Sugar, and I was shouting “Call the police, call the police.” Sugar grabbed me by my hair and yanked, and when I jerked back I caught him with my knee and pushed his gonads a good six inches into his body. He rolled off me into a fetal position and threw up.

I flopped over onto my back and look up at Ranger.

Ranger was grinning again. “Need any help?”

“Did I wet my pants?”

“No sign of it.”

“Thank God.”

*    *    *    *    *

RANGER, SALLY AND I stood on the sidewalk in front of the seniors' building and watched the police drive off with Sugar. I'd pretty much stopped shaking, and my skinned knees had stopped bleeding.

“Now what am I going to do?” Sally said. “I'm never going to be able to get into that corset all by myself. And what about makeup?”

“It's not easy being a drag queen,” I said to Ranger.

“Fuckin' A,” Ranger said.

We walked back to the club parking lot and found our cars. The night was humid and starless. The air-conditioning system droned from the club roof, and canned music and muffled conversation spilled out the open front door into the lot.

Sally was unconsciously bobbing his head in time to the music. I loaded him into the Porsche and thanked Ranger.

“Always enjoy seeing you in action,” Ranger said.

I drove out of the lot and headed for Hamilton. I noticed my knuckles were white on the wheel and made another effort to relax.

“Man, I'm really stoked,” Sally said. “I think we should do more clubs. I know this great place in Princeton.”

I'd just almost been shot, slashed, and choked to death. I wasn't feeling all that stoked. I wanted to sit someplace quiet and nonthreatening and eat my mother's cookies.

“I need to talk to Morelli,” I said. “I'm going to pass on the clubs, but you can go on your own. You don't have to worry about Sugar now.”

“Poor little guy,” Sally said. “He isn't really a bad person.”

I supposed that was true, but I was having a hard time finding a lot of sympathy for him. He'd destroyed my car and my apartment and had tried to kill me. And if that wasn't enough, he'd ruined my Gretzky Rangers jersey. Maybe I'd feel more generous tomorrow, when I'd regained my good humor. Right now, I was tending toward grouchy.

I turned at Chambers and wound my way to Morelli's. The van was no longer on his street, and I didn't see the Duc. Lights were on in the downstairs part of Morelli's house. I assumed he'd been told about Sugar and had ended the stakeout. I took my cookies and angled out of the Porsche.

Sally slid over to the driver's seat. “Later, dude,” he said, taking off with his foot to the floor.

“Later,” I said, but the street was already empty.

I knocked on the screen door. “Yo!” I hollered above the TV.

Morelli padded out and opened the door for me. “Were you really rolling around on the floor at the senior citizens' home?”

“You heard.”

“My mother called. She said Thelma Klapp phoned her and told her you just beat the crap out of some pretty blond woman. Thelma said that since you were pregnant and all she thought you shouldn't be rolling around like that.”

“The pretty blond woman wasn't a woman.”

“What's in the bag?” Morelli wanted to know.

Morelli could sniff out a cookie a mile away. I took one and handed the bag over to him. “I have to talk to you.”

Morelli flopped onto the couch. “I'm listening.”

“About Francine Nowicki, Maxine's mother . . .”

Morelli went still. “Now I'm really listening. What about Francine Nowicki?”

“She passed another phony twenty. And my informant tells me Francine had a roll of them.”

“That's why you were so hot to put her under surveillance. You think she's mixed up in this counterfeiting thing and she's going to take off . . . along with Maxine.”

“I think Maxine might already be gone.”

“Why are you still interested if you think Maxine's gone?”

I took another cookie. “I don't know for sure that she's gone. And maybe she's not so gone that I can't find her.”

“Especially if her mother or her friend rats on her.”

I nodded. “There's always that possibility. So what do you say, can I use your truck?”

“If she's still there in the morning I'll put a van in place.”

“Her doctor appointment's at three.”

“Why did you decide to tell me?”

I slouched lower on the couch. “I need help. I don't have the right equipment to do any kind of decent surveillance. And I'm tired. I hardly slept last night, and I've had a nightmare day. This guy emptied a revolver at me tonight, and then he chased me with a knife in his hand. I hate when people do that!” I was trying to eat a cookie, but my hand was shaking so bad I could hardly get it to my mouth. “Look at me. I'm a wreck!”

“Adrenaline surplus,” Morelli said. “As soon as it wears off you'll sleep like the dead.”

“Don't say that!”

“You'll feel better in the morning.”

“Maybe. Right now I'm happy for whatever assistance you can give me.”

Morelli got up and shook out cookie crumbs. “I'm going to get a glass of milk. Want one?”