09 To the Nines (12 page)

“You mean like someone setting up a dart gun?”

“Yeah. That would be worth a phone call.”

I'd gotten in touch with Andrew first thing this morning, before leaving the house. I told him I needed some information and he said he'd be happy to help. Andrew, the people person. Hopefully I could get to him without crossing paths with Bart. I hated to admit it, but I was afraid of Bart.

I did a brisk walk across the lot to the building entrance and hurried through the large glass door. The woman at the desk smiled and waved me through to Andrews office. I thanked her on a whoosh of expelled air. I'd just had two bad parking lot experiences and many of my body functions, like breathing, now stopped when I set foot on parking lot pavement.

Andrew stood and smiled when I entered his office. “You didn't say much on the phone. How's the Singh search going?”

“We're making progress. I'm looking for a woman named Susan. I was hoping you could check through your employee list and pull out the Susans.”

“Susan is a pretty common name. What's the connection to Singh?”

“It's vague. She's just a name that turned up and I thought I should check it through.”

Andrew turned to his computer, typed in a series of commands, and the screen filled with the employee database. Then it executed a search for all Susans.

“We employ eight Susans,” he finally said. “When I set the age at forty or below, I'm left with five Susans. I'll give you a printout and you can talk to them if you want. All are married. None work in Singh's department, but he would have had a chance to mingle with the general population during breaks and at lunch. We're a relatively small company. Everyone knows everyone else.”

Clyde appeared in the open doorway. He was wearing a faded Star Trek T-shirt and new black jeans that were pooled around his ankles. Scruffy sneakers peaked out from under the jeans. He had a can of Dr Pepper in one hand and a bag of Cheez Doodles in the other. He had a Betty Boop tattoo on his chunky left arm.

“Hey, Stephanie Plum,” Clyde said. “I was taking a break and I heard you were here. What's up? Anything exciting going on? Did you find Samuel Singh?”

“I haven't found Singh, but I'm working on it.” My eyes strayed to Betty Boop.

Clyde grinned and looked down at Betty. “It's a fake. I got it last night. I'm too chicken to get a real one.”

“Stephanie has a list of people she'd like to talk to,” Andrew said. “Do you have time to take her around?”

“You bet. Sure I do. Is this part of the investigation? How do you want me to act? Should I be casual?”

“Yeah,” I said. “You should be casual.”

Clyde reminded me a lot of Bob with the unruly hair and goofy enthusiasm.

“These are all Susans,” Clyde said, looking at the list. “That's a lead, right? Some woman named Susan knows where Singh is hiding. Or maybe some woman named Susan bumped Singh off! Am I close? Am I getting warm?”

“Its nothing that dramatic,” I told Clyde. “It was just a name that popped up as a possible friend.”

“I know all these women,” Clyde said, leading me out of Andrews office. “I can tell you all about them. The first Susan is real nice. She has two kids and a beagle. And the beagle's always at the vet. I think her whole paycheck goes to the vet. The dog eats everything. One time he was real sick and they x-rayed him and found out he had a stomach full of loose change. Her husband works here, too. He's in shipping. They live in Ewing. They just bought a house there. I haven't seen the house, but I think it's one of those little tract houses.”

Clyde was right about the first Susan. She was very nice. But she only knew Singh from a distance. And the same was true for the other four Susans. And I believed them all. None of the Susans seemed like girlfriend material. None of them looked like sharpshooters or killers. They all looked like they might send roses and carnations.

“Those are all the Susans,” Clyde said. “None of them worked out, huh? Do you have any other leads? Any clues we could work on next?”

“Nope. That's it for now.”

“How about lunch?”

“Gee, sorry. I have a friend waiting for me in the parking lot.” Thank God.

“I'm a pretty interesting guy, you know,” he said. “I have a lot going on.” His eyes got round. “You haven't seen my office yet. You have to see my office.”

I glanced at my watch. “It's getting late ...”

“My office is right here.” He galloped down the hall and opened the door to his office. “Look at this.”

I followed him and stepped into his office. One wall was floor-to-ceiling shelves and the shelves were filled with action figures. Star Trek, professional wrestlers, GI Joe characters, Star Wars, Spawn, about two hundred Simpsons figures.

“Is this an awesome collection, or what?” he asked.

“It's fun.”

“And I collect comic books, too. Mostly action comics. I have a whole stack of original Spider-Man McFarlanes. Man, I wish I could draw like him.”

I looked around the room. Large old wooden partner's desk with desk chair, computer with oversize LCD monitor, trash basket filled with squashed Dr Pepper cans, framed poster of Barbarella behind the desk, single chair in front of the desk, dog-eared comics piled high on the chair seat. None of the catalogues and product samples I saw in Bart's office.

“So,” I said, “what's your part in the business?”

Clyde giggled. “I don't have one. Nobody trusts me to do anything. Now, on the surface that might seem a little insulting, but if you examine it more closely you see that I have a good deal. I collect a paycheck for staying out of the way! How good is that?”

“Does it get boring? Do you have to sit here all day?”

“Yeah, I guess sometimes it's a little boring. But everyone's nice to me and I get to do all the things I like. I can play with my action figures and read comics and play games on the computer. It isn't like I'm mentally retarded . . . it's just that I screw up a lot. The truth is, I'm not real interested in making thingamabobs.”

“What would you like to do?”

He shrugged. “I don't know. I guess I'd like to be Spider-Man.”

Too bad Clyde wasn't older. He'd be perfect for Grandma Mazur.

Lula was sound asleep with the driver's seat tipped back when I returned to the car. I jumped in and locked my door and nudged Lula.

“Hey,” I said. “You're supposed to be on lookout.”

Lula sat up and stretched. “There wasn't anything to see. And I got sleepy after eating all that chicken. I ate the whole thing. I even ate the skin. I love skin. And you know how all other diets tell you not to eat the skin? Well, guess what? I'm doing the skin diet now, girlfriend.”

“That's great. Let's get out of here.”

“Something happen in there to make you in such a rush to take off?”

“Just feeling antsy.”

“Fine by me. Where we going next?”

I didn't know. I was out of leads. Out of ideas. Out of courage. “Let's go back to the office.”

Lula and I saw the black truck simultaneously. It was parked in front of Vinnie's office. It was a new Dodge Ram. It didn't have a speck of dust on it. It had bug lights on the cab, oversize tires, and a license plate that was probably made in someone's basement. Ranger drove a variety of cars. All of them were black. All were new. All were expensive. And all were of dubious origin. The Ram was his favorite.

“Be still my beating heart,” Lula said. “Does my hair look okay? Am I starting to drool?”

I wasn't nearly so excited. I suspected he was waiting for me. And I worried that it wasn't going to be a good conversation.

I followed Lula into the office. Connie was at her desk, head down, furiously shuffling papers. Vinnie's door was closed. Ranger was slouched in a chair, elbows on the arms, fingers steepled in front of him, his eyes dark and intense, watching us.

I smiled at Ranger. “Yo,” I said.

He smiled back but he didn't yo.

“We're just checking in,” I said to Connie, leaning on the front of her desk. “Do you have anything for me?”

“I have slaps piling up on my desk,” Connie said, “but Vinnie doesn't want anyone even looking at them until Singh is found.”

“No calls? No messages?”

Ranger unfolded himself and crossed the room, standing close behind me, sucking me into his force field. “We need to talk.”

A flash of heat rippled through my stomach. Ranger always evoked a mixture of emotion. Usually that mixture was attraction followed by a mental eye roll.

“Sure,” I said.

“Now. Outside.”

Lula scurried behind the file cabinets and Connie bent into the nonsense paper shuffling. No one wanted to get caught in the line of fire when Ranger was in a mood. I followed Ranger out the door to the sidewalk and stood blinking in the sun.

“Get into the truck,” Ranger said. “I feel like driving.”

“I don't think so.”

The line of his mouth tightened.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“Do you want a full itinerary?”

“I don't want to get locked up in a safe house.”

“I'd love to lock you up in a safe house, babe, but that wasn't my plan for the day.”

“Promise? Cross your heart and hope to die?”

There was a slight narrowing of his eyes. Ranger wasn't feeling playful. “I guess you have to decide if it's more dangerous to be in the truck with me or to stand out here as a potential target for the sniper.”

I stared at Ranger for a beat.

“Well?” he asked.

“I'm thinking.”

“Christ,” Ranger said, “get in the damn truck.”

I climbed into the truck and Ranger drove two blocks down Hamilton and turned into the Burg. He wound through the Burg and parked on Roebling in front of Mar-silio's restaurant.

“I thought you wanted to drive,” I said. “That was the original plan, but you smell like rotisserie chicken and it's making me hungry.”

“It's from Lula. She's on this diet where she eats meat all day.”

Bobby V. met us at the door and gave us a table in the back room. The Burg is famous for its restaurants. They're stuck all over the place in the neighborhood, between houses, next to Betty's bridal shop and Rosalie's beauty parlor. Most are small. All are family affairs. And the food is always great. I'm not sure where Bobby V. fits in the scheme of things at Mar-silio's, but he's always on hand to direct traffic and shmooze. He's a snappy dresser, he's got a handful of rings and a full head of wavy silver hair, and he looks like he wouldn't have much trouble breaking someone's nose. If you're in bad with Bobby V. don't even bother showing up, because you won't get a table.

Ranger sat back in his chair, took a moment to scan the menu, and ordered. I didn't need the menu. I always got the fettuccini Alfredo with sausage. And then because I didn't want to die, I got some red wine to help unclog my arteries.

“Okay,” Ranger said when we were alone. “Talk to me.”

I filled him in on the shooting, the dart, the email. “And what really has me freaked is that Joe's grandma saw me dead in one of her visions,” I said, an involuntary shiver ripping through me.

Ranger was motionless. Face impassive.

“Every lead I get ends up in the toilet,” I told him.

“Well, you must be doing something right. Someone wants to kill you. That's always a good sign.”

I guess that was one way of looking at it. “Problem is, I'm not ready to die.”

Ranger looked at the food in front of me. Noodles and sausage in cheese and cream sauce. “Babe,” he said.

Ranger's plate held a chicken breast and grilled vegetables. He was hot, but he didn't know much about eating.

“Where are you now?” Ranger wanted to know. “Do you have any more leads to follow?”

“No leads. I'm out of ideas.”

“Any gut instincts?”

“I don't think Singh's dead. I think he's hiding. And I think the freak who's stalking me is directly or indirectly associated with TriBro.”

“If you had to take a guess, could you pull a name out of a hat?”

“Bart Cone is the obvious.”

Ranger made a phone call and asked for the file on Bart Cone. In my mind I imagined the call going into the nerve center of the Bat Cave. No one knows the source of Rangers cars, clients, or cash. He operates a number of businesses which are security related. And he employs a bunch of men who have skills not normally found outside a prison population. His right-hand man is named Tank and the name says it all.

Tank walked into the restaurant twenty minutes later with a manila envelope. He smiled and nodded a hello to me. He helped himself to a slice of Italian bread. And he left.

Ranger and I read through the material, finding few surprises. Bart was divorced and living alone in a townhouse north of the city. He had no recorded debts. He paid his credit cards and his mortgage on time. He drove a two-year-old black BMW sedan. The packet included several newspaper clippings on the murder trial and a profile on the murdered woman.

Lillian Paressi was twenty-six years old at the time of her death. She had brown hair and blue eyes and from the photo in the paper she looked to be of average build. She was pretty in a girl-next-door way, with curly shoulder-length hair and a nice smile. She was unmarried, living alone in an apartment on Market just two blocks from the Blue Bird luncheonette, where she'd worked as a waitress.

In a very general sort of way I suppose she resembled me. Not a good thought to have when investigating an unsolved murder that had serial killer potential. But then half the women in the Burg fit that same description, so probably there was no reason for me to be alarmed.

Ranger reached over and tucked a brown curl behind my ear. “She looks a little like you, babe,” Ranger said. “You want to be careful.”

Super.

Ranger looked at my pasta dish. I'd eaten everything but one noodle. A smile twitched at the corner of his mouth.

“I don't want to get fat,” I told him.

“And that noodle would do it?”

I narrowed my eyes. “What's your point?”

“Do you have room for dessert?”

I sighed. I always had room for dessert.

“You're going to have dessert at the Blue Bird luncheonette,” Ranger said. “I bet they have good pie. And while you're eating the pie you can talk to the waitress. Maybe she knew Paressi.”