12 Twelve Sharp (25 page)

'You mean we like, take him down and force him to tell us where the money is?'

'Yeah.'

I knew in my heart that Lonnie Johnson pissed away every cent he stole. The fact that he was trying to get a loan to buy a car would seem to support my theory. No point bothering Scrog with this line of reasoning.

'Okay, I guess I don't see any harm in trying,' Scrog said. 'You're going to have to strap the bomb on though and I swear if you do anything stupid I'll blow you to bits.'

I got the bomb strapped on, and I looked over at him. 'Unlock the ankle bracelet. If we go out now, we might catch him at home.'

Scrog stepped back. He had the little detonator in one hand, and he threw the key onto the bed with the other. I unlocked the shackle and skated the key back to him across the linoleum floor.

'Now you have to get dressed in your bounty hunter clothes,' he said. 'If I'm going to do this, I'm going to do it right. We need to look like a couple bad asses.'

'Sure,' I said, 'but you have to get dressed up too.'

'Don't worry about me. I'll be dressed.'

I went into the little bathroom and wriggled into the black leather pants. I took the T-shirt off and put the vest on and stepped out. 'What about the bomb?' I said. 'You can see I have a bomb strapped to my stomach.'

Julie was on the bed behind me. 'That's not all you can see,' she said, giggling.

Scrog had changed into black leather pants and a black T-shirt and was wearing a black leather Sam Brown belt armed with cuffs and stun gun and Glock. It was better than the ladies' dress, but he sure as hell was no Ranger. Ranger would crack a smile at the thought of someone impersonating him in leather pants.

'Put the T-shirt on over the vest,' Scrog said. 'It's the best we can do right now.'

I dropped the T-shirt over my head and walked ahead of Scrog, out of the motor home. I stood blinking in the bright sunlight, waiting for my eyes to adjust, trying not to get hysterical over the fact that I had a bomb strapped to my stomach.

'Jeez,' Scrog said. 'Now that you're out in the sun you look like the Bride of Frankenstein. Can't you do something with your hair?'

'Maybe if you'd stop running electricity through me my hair would look better! Ever think of that? And what do you think, hair just happens? I need a roller brush. I need gel and hair spray and a hair dryer. Next time you rob something, make it a hair salon.'

'Cripes, just trying to be helpful. I figured you cared about your appearance.'

'If I cared about my appearance I wouldn't be wearing these butt-crack pants,' I snapped back at him.

'Yeah, they're kind of small,' he said. 'Maybe you should lay off the doughnuts.'

I thought this was a good chance to get hysterical and try to rattle Scrog.

'You have a lot of nerve,' I said, all emotional. 'All you brought me to eat for breakfast was cake and candy. If I'm so fat, why didn't you bring me some fruit? You didn't even bring me coffee. All I wanted was coffee. Was that so much to ask?'

And to my surprise I'd actually popped out a couple tears and gotten my nose to run a little.

'I'm sorry!' Scrog said. 'Hold it down, will you? I'll get you some coffee. I swear to God, this isn't turning out like I thought.' Scrog opened the trunk on the car. 'Get in, and we'll go get coffee.'

'I'm not getting into the trunk! I've got a bomb strapped to me,' I said, hiccupping back sobs that were only half fake. 'What if I roll around? And anyway, it's demeaning. How would you feel if I made you ride in the trunk?'

I couldn't believe I was actually saying this. Demeaning. How was I thinking of this crap?

'It's so you can't see where we are. It's for your own good.'

I wiped my nose with the back of my hand. 'It's not for my own good if I blow myself up.'

'Oh man, you have to stop crying. You got mascara running all down your face.'

'It's all your fault. You started it. You said I was fat.'

'I didn't say you were fat. You're putting words in my mouth. Hell, get in the car. I'm starting to think it would be a relief to go to jail.'

'This is a nice car,' I said, buckling myself in. 'Is it new?'

'Yeah, I picked it up this morning when I went out for breakfast.'

'You should steal a Lexus next time. I hear they're really comfy.'

'I'll keep that in mind.'

'We're coming out of the woods now, so I want you to close your eyes and put your head down so you can't see.'

'Oh, for crying out loud.'

'Just do it. I'm ready to blow you up just to shut you up.'

I thought I'd pushed him about as far as I could, so I bent in my seat and put my head between my knees. The car swerved off the dirt road and skidded to a stop in a patch of grass.

'What the heck was that?' I yelled.

'Shoot, I'm sorry,' Scrog said. 'But you haven't got much leather back there when you bend over like that.'

I pulled the T-shirt down. 'If you were a gentleman you wouldn't look.'

'Wasn't my fault. I was just about blinded by all that white ass.'

I felt my eyes bug out of my head. 'Excuse me? All that white ass?'

'That didn't come out good,' Scrog said. 'I didn't mean it exactly that way. You're not gonna start crying again, are you?'

'Just drive. Just get the heck back on the road.'

'Actually, after looking at your uh, backside, I wouldn't mind taking some time here to get better acquainted, if you know what I mean.'

'Let me get this straight. You have me wired to explode and now you want to get friendly?'

'Well, yeah.'

'I am so sorry to tell you that as long as I am a walking bomb I am not engaging in friendly activities. If you want to get friendly you're going to have to take this bomb off me.'

'I can't do that. Last time I wasn't careful with you, you kicked me in the head.'

I wasn't sure what to say to that. First chance I got I was going to shoot him in the head, but I didn't want to spook him. I folded my arms across my chest and tried to look petulant. I'd never looked petulant before but it seemed like it fit the role I was playing.

'Is that no?' he asked.

I did an exaggerated pout. 'I've said my last word on the subject.'

Scrog blew out a sigh and backed the car out of the grass and onto the dirt road. 'Where are we going?'

'Stark Street.'

We were on East State Street, driving toward the center of the city, and we were looking for a Dunkin' Donuts drive-through.

'We passed a bunch of shit,' Scrog said. 'I don't see why it's gotta be Dunkin' Donuts.'

'They make the best coffee. Everybody knows that.'

'They just put a lot of cream in it,' Scrog said. 'All it does is clog your arteries up. And I don't ever remember seeing a Dunkin' Donuts here anyway.'

'Maybe if you go to Greenwood.'

'I hate to keep thinking ill of you, but I'm starting to wonder if you're making us drive around so someone sees us.'

'That's silly. You drive around all the time, and you're never spotted.'

'Yeah, but I'm mostly dressed up like a woman when I'm driving around. I have three different wigs, too.'

'Well I'm sure there's a drive-through on Greenwood.'

'Okay, but that's the last street we're gonna try. After Greenwood we gotta go after Lonnie Johnson.'

This is it,' I said to Scrog. 'It's the building on the right with the door missing and the boarded-up windows on the ground floor.'

'It looks deserted.'

'Lots of these buildings look like this. Some are even condemned, but people still live in them. If you look at the windows on the second and third floors you can see signs that the units are being used. A sheet tacked up for privacy. A couple empty beer bottles on the window sill.'

Friday morning was a quiet time on Stark Street. Everyone was sleeping off something… drink, drugs, desperation. In another hour the bars would open, and the hookers would start to stake out corners. Traffic would pick up and security cages would get rolled back on local groceries, adult videos, pawnshops, hash shops, and liquor stores. And little by little the bedraggled, angry, lost souls of Stark Street would roll out of their sweat-soaked beds and make their way to cement stoops and street-side folding chairs and discarded sofas to enjoy the first smoke of this steamy summer day.

There was a new black Cadillac Escalade with temporary plates parked in the alley next to Johnson's building. So there was a slim chance Johnson was inside.

I had no idea how this would play out. I was with a man who floated in and out of varying degrees of insanity. He wanted to take over Ranger's life, but there was a corner of his brain that always knew it was a sham. He didn't mind shooting people, but I doubted he was much of a match for Lonnie Johnson. Scrog was nuts. Lonnie Johnson was bad. My real concern was that Johnson would unload a clip into Scrog, and Scrog would fall on the detonator and I'd be dust.

I suspected Scrog hadn't any idea what to do next, but I didn't think he'd want me running the show, so I sat back and let him wing it. He circled the block and parked in front of Johnson's building. He sat there for a minute, and I swear I could see him calling up his Ranger personality.

'Let's do it,' he finally said, and I had to look closely because the change was striking. He wasn't Ranger, but he wasn't Edward Scrog either. 'Do you know which unit this guy is in?'

'No,' I said. 'He just gave the address.'

We got out of the car and entered the building. It was dark and musty. No bulb in the overhead foyer light. The stairwell smelled like urine and fast-food burgers. Paint peeling off the wall. A dead roach, feet up, on the third step.

'You go first,' Scrog said. 'I want to keep an eye on you. Sniff this guy out.'

It wasn't a big building. Three floors. Two units on each floor. No one in the two ground-floor apartments. The doors were missing. It looked like they were using 1B to dump garbage. A stained mattress and a bunch of fast-food wrappers on the floor in 1A. A rat as big as a beaver rustled through the wrappers.

I hurried up the stairs. Doors were closed to 2A and 2B. I listened at the doors. Spanish coming out of 2A. I didn't have Lonnie Johnson pegged as bilingual. Nothing in 2B. I knocked, and no one answered. I was losing patience. I put my boot to the door, and the door crashed open. I was totally impressed with myself. I'd never kicked a door open before.

'Nice,' Scrog said. 'Now go in and look around.'

Someone was living there, but it was hard to tell who it was. Junkyard furniture. Mattresses on the floor. Empty beer bottles filling the sink. Didn't feel like Lonnie Johnson.

I went to floor three and did the same routine, listening at doors. A woman answered my knock on 3A. She was hollow eyed and rail thin. I looked beyond her to a man on a mattress. He was equally wasted. No Lonnie there. She didn't know who was across the hall. No one answered 3B, so I crashed that door open, too. The apartment was empty but neat. This felt more like Johnson. A pair of men's sneakers had been placed on the floor beside a small stack of clothes.

'If I had $32,000 I wouldn't be living in this dump,' Scrog said.

'I'm not the only one after him. Someone shot up his house and then burned it down. That was when he disappeared. Something brought him back, but this is probably just a short visit before he moves on.'

We went back down the stairs and out of the building. A man was walking our way, carrying a brown grocery bag. I looked him in the eye and I knew. 'Lonnie Johnson?' I asked.

'Yeah?'

'We'd like to talk to you, if you wouldn't mind stepping inside.'

Johnson was big. Late thirties and about 250 pounds. Lots of those pounds were fried dough and beer, but there was some muscle, too. His eyes were small and close set and radiated mean.

'Fuck off,' Johnson said.

I took two steps back and left Scrog standing face-to-face with Godzilla.

'We have a business proposition,' Scrog said.

'What kinda proposition? You look like that stupid bounty hunter on television.'

Scrog glanced over at me and smiled as if to say, See? Now we look like bounty hunters!

'We need to go upstairs to talk about it,' Scrog said. 'I don't want to talk about it here on the street.'

I heard the staccato tap of heels on the sidewalk behind me. I turned and saw Joyce Barnhardt striding toward us.

'What the hell's going on?' she wanted to know. 'This guy belongs to me. I was here first. I've had this building under surveillance since yesterday. You think I'm sitting in this shit-hole neighborhood for my health? Back off.'

'I need to talk to him,' Scrog said.

Joyce planted her hands on her hips and got into Scrog's face.

'And you would be, who?'

'None of your business. You can have him when I'm done.'

'Yeah, right,' Joyce said. 'That makes me feel all warm and fucking fuzzy. Like I'm going to hand this guy over to the Ms Plumber Butt and Mini Ranger. I don't think so. Go find your own meal ticket.' And she gave Scrog a hard shot to the chest, knocking him on his ass.

Scrog and Barnhardt both pulled guns. Scrog squeezed off two rounds. The first went wide of Joyce and blew out a tire on Scrog's stolen car. The second stovepiped and jammed the gun. Joyce's first shot caught Scrog in the foot, ripping off a chunk of boot. Scrog yelped and rolled. And Lonnie Johnson bolted, shoving into Joyce, sending her gun flying out of her hand, skittering halfway down the block.

Meanwhile I was furiously working at the tape that was holding the bomb to me. It was heavy-duty electrician's tape, and it was wrapped around and around my torso. Scrog had the detonator stuffed into his utility belt. I kept one eye on Scrog's hand to make sure it wasn't going for the detonator, and I clawed at the tape. Scrog had momentarily forgotten about me, more focused on Joyce and Lonnie Johnson. I had a length of the tape ripped free. One piece to go. Scrog looked over at me and went for his stun gun and not the detonator. I gave a frantic yank on the tape and the bomb broke loose and went sailing into the street.

Lonnie Johnson peeled out of the alley in his Escalade. He whipped the wheel around, put his foot to the floor, and laid down a quarter inch of rubber before he took off down Stark. His back tire ran over the bomb and there was a fireball explosion. The Escalade jumped up a couple feet and came down on its side, the undercarriage smoking.