High Five (7 page)

“You are
not
my friend. And your shoes are under the coffee table.”

He retrieved the shoes and laced them up. “So where were you?”

“I had a job. I was moonlighting.”

“Must have been some job. Your mother called and said she heard you blew someone up.”

“You talked to my mother?”

“She left a message on your machine.” He was looking around again. “Do you see my gun?”

I turned on my heel and went in to the kitchen to play my messages.

“Stephanie, it's your mother. What's this about an explosion? Edna Gluck heard from her son, Ritchie, that you blew someone up? Is this true? Hello? Hello?”

Bunchy was right. Damn that big-mouth Ritchie.

I played the second message. Breathing. As was message number three.

“What's with the breathing?” Bunchy wanted to know, standing in the middle of my kitchen floor, hands stuck in his pockets, his rumpled, beyond-faded, plaid flannel shirt hanging loose.

“Wrong number.”

“You'd tell me if you had a problem, right? Because, you know, I have a way of solving problems like that.”

No doubt in my mind. He didn't look like a bookie, but I had no trouble at all believing he could solve
that
kind of problem. “Why are you here?”

He prowled through my cabinets, looking for food, finding nothing that interested him. Guess he wasn't crazy about hamster pellets.

“I wanted to know if you found anything,” he said. “Like, do you have clues or something?”

“No. No clues. Nothing.”

“I thought you were supposed to be this hotshot detective.”

“I'm not a detective at all. I'm a bail enforcement agent.”

“Bounty hunter.”

“Yeah. Bounty hunter.”

“So, that's okay. You go out and find people. That's what we want to have happen here.”

“How much money did Fred owe you?”

“Enough that I want it. Not enough to make a man feel like he had to disappear. I'm a pretty nice guy, you know. It isn't like I go around breaking people's knees 'cause they don't pay up. Well, okay, so sometimes I might break a knee, but it's not like it happens every day.”

I rolled my eyes.

“You know what I think you should do?” Bunchy said. “I think you should go check at his bank. See if he's taken any money out. I can't do things like that on account of I look like I might break people's knees. But you're a pretty girl. You probably got a friend works in the bank. People would want to do a favor for you.”

“I'll think about it. Now go away.”

Bunchy ambled to the door. He took a beat-up brown leather jacket from one of the pegs on the wall and turned to look at me. His expression was serious. “Find him.”

What hung unsaid in the air was . . . or else.

I slipped the bolt behind him. First chance I had I was going to have to get a new lock. Surely someone made a lock that actually kept people out.

I called my mother back and explained to her that I hadn't blown someone up. He'd sort of blown himself up with some help from an old lady in a pink nightgown.

“You could have a good job,” my mother said. “You could take lessons from that place that advertises on television and teaches you to be a computer operator.”

“I have to go now.”

“How about dinner. I'm making a nice pot roast with potatoes and gravy.”

“I don't think so.”

“Pineapple upside-down cake for dessert.”

“Okay. I'll be there at six.”

I erased the breathing messages and told myself they were wrong numbers. But in my heart, I knew the breather.

I double-checked all the locks on my door, and I checked to make sure my windows were secure and no one was hiding in a closet or under the bed. I took a long, hot shower, wrapped myself in a towel, stepped out of the bathroom . . . and came face-to-face with Ranger.

 

 

“Y
IKES
!”
I
JUMPED
back and clapped my hand to my chest, tightening my towel. “What are you doing here?” I yelled at Ranger.

His eyes dropped to the towel and then back to my face. “Returning your hat, Babe.” He put the SEALs hat on my head and adjusted it over my damp hair. “You left it in the lobby.”

“Oh. Thanks.”

Ranger smiled.

“What?” I asked.

“Cute,” Ranger said.

I narrowed my eyes. “Anything else?”

“You doing the shift with Tank tonight?”

“You're still policing that building?”

“It's got a big hole in it, Babe. Gotta keep the bad guys out.”

“I'll pass on that one.”

“No problem. I have other jobs you can try on.”

“Oh, yeah? Like what?”

Ranger shrugged. “Things turn up.” He reached behind him and came up with a gun. My gun. “Found this in the lobby, too.”

He tucked the gun under the top edge of my towel, wedging it between my breasts, his knuckles brushing against me.

My breath caught in my throat, and for a moment I thought my towel might catch fire.

Ranger smiled again. And I did more eye narrowing.

'I'll be in touch,” Ranger said.

And then he was gone.

Dang. I carefully extracted the gun from the towel and put it in the cookie jar in the kitchen. Then I went back to my door to examine the locks. Worthless pieces of junk. I locked them anyway, including the bolt. I didn't know what more I could do.

I went into the bedroom, dropped the towel, and shimmied into a sports bra and Jockey bikinis. This wasn't going to be one of those silk and lace days. This was going to be a no-nonsense Jockey day all the way through.

Half an hour later, I was out the door, dressed in jeans and a denim shirt. I buckled myself into Big Blue and motored out of the lot. Two blocks later, I turned onto Hamilton and noticed a car close on my tail. I swiveled in my seat and looked at the driver. Bunchy. I pressed my lips together, getting a smile and a wave from him. This guy was unreal. He'd pulled a gun on me, and probably he had something to do with the body in the garbage bag, but I was having a hard time working up any real fear of him. In all honesty, he was sort of likeable . . . in an annoying kind of way.

I swerved to the curb, yanked the emergency brake up, got out, and stomped over. “What are you doing?” I shouted into his window.

“Following you.”

“Why?”

“I don't want to miss anything. In case you get lucky and find Fred, I want to be there.”

“I don't know how to break this to you, but between you and me, I think it's unlikely that Fred is going to be in any shape to repay your money if and when I find him.”

“You think he's fish food?”

“It's a possibility.”

He shrugged. “Call me crazy, but I'm an optimist.”

“Fine. Go be an optimist someplace else. I don't like you following me around. It's creepy.”

“I won't be any bother. You won't even know I'm here.”

“You're driving six inches from my rear. How am I going to not know you're here?”

“Don't look in your mirror.”

“And I don't think you're a bookie, either,” I said. “Nobody knows you. I've been asking around.”

He smiled, like this was pretty funny. “Oh, yeah? Who do you think I am?”

“I don't know.”

“Let me know when you find out.”

“Asshole.”

“Sticks and stones,” Bunchy said. “And I bet your mother wouldn't like you using that language.”

I huffed off to the Buick, jammed myself behind the wheel, and drove to the office.

“You see that guy parked behind me?” I asked Lula.

“The one in the piece-of-shit brown Dodge?”

“His name's Bunchy, and he says he's a bookie.”

“He don't look like no bookie to me,” Lula said. “And I never heard of anyone named Bunchy.”

Connie squinted out the window, too. “I don't recognize him, either,” she said. “And if he's a bookie, he's not doing all that good.”

“He says Fred owes him money, and he's following me in case I find Fred.”

“Does that float your boat?” Lula wanted to know.

“No. I need to get rid of him.”

“Permanently? 'Cause I got a friend—”

“No! Just for the rest of the day.”

Lula took another look at Bunchy. “If I shoot out his tires, will he shoot back?”

“Probably.”

“I don't like when they shoot back,” Lula said.

“I thought maybe I could trade cars with you.”

“Trade my Firebird for that whale you drive? I don't think so. Friendship don't go
that
far.”

“Fine! Great! Forget I asked!”

“Hold on,” Lula said. “Don't have to go getting all snippy. I'll have a talk with him. I can be real persuasive.”

“You aren't going to threaten him, are you?”

“I don't threaten people. What kind of woman you think I am?”

Connie and I watched her sashay out the office over to the car. We knew what kind of woman she was.

Lula was wearing a canary-yellow spandex miniskirt and a stretchy top that was at least two sizes too small. Her hair was orange. Her lipstick was bright pink. And her eyelids were gold glitter.

We heard her say, “Hello, handsome,” to Bunchy, and then she lowered her voice, and we couldn't hear any more.

“Maybe you should try to sneak away while Lula's got his attention,” Connie said. “Maybe you could roll the Buick back nice and easy, and he won't notice.”

I thought chances of Bunchy not noticing were pretty slim, but I was willing to try. I quickly walked to the car, snuck in on the curb side, and slid behind the wheel. I released the emergency brake, held my breath, and turned the key in the ignition.
Varoooom.
A V8 does
not
sneak.

Bunchy and Lula both turned to look at me. I saw Bunchy say something to Lula. And Lula grabbed Bunchy by the shirt-front and yelled
“Go!”
to me. “I got him,” she said. “You can count on me!”

Bunchy slapped at her hand, and Lula squashed herself into the car window with her big yellow ass hanging out, looking from the outside like Pooh Bear stuck in the rabbit hole. She had Bunchy by the neck, and when I drove by I saw her plant a kiss square on his mouth.

M
ABEL WAS IN
the kitchen making tea when I got there.

“Anything new in the investigation?” she asked.

“I talked to the man who was looking for Fred. He says he's Fred's bookie. Did you know Fred was gambling?”

“No.” She paused with the tea bag in her hand. “Gambling,” she said, testing the word. “I had no idea.”

“He could be lying,” I said.

“Why would he do that?”

Good question. If Bunchy wasn't a bookie, then what? What was his involvement?

“About those pictures,” I said to Mabel. “Do you have any idea when they might have been taken?”

Mabel added water to her teapot. “I think it must have been recently because I never saw them before. I don't go into Fred's desk all the time, but every now and then I need something. And I never saw any pictures. Fred doesn't take pictures. Years ago, when the kids were little, we used to take pictures. Now Ronald and Walter bring us pictures of the grandchildren. We don't even own a camera anymore. Last year we had to take pictures of the roof for the insurance company, and we got one of those disposable cameras.”

I left Mabel to her tea and got back behind the wheel. I looked up and down the street. So far, so good. No Bunchy.

My next stop was the strip mall where Fred did his shopping. I parked in the same area where Fred's car was found. It was about the same time of day. Weather was similar. Seventy and sunny. There were enough people moving around that a scuffle would be noticed. A man walking around dazed would probably be noticed too, but I didn't think that's what I was looking for.

First Trenton was located at the end of the strip mall. It was a branch office with a drive-through window outside and full-service banking inside. Leona Freeman was a teller at First Trenton. She was a second cousin on my mother's side, a couple years older than me, and she had a head start on the family thing, with four kids, two dogs, and a nice husband.

Business was slow when I walked in, and Leona waved at me from behind the counter. “Stephanie!”

“Hey, Leona, how's it going?”

“Pretty good. What's with you? You want some money? I gotta lot.”

I grinned.

“Bank joke,” Leona said.

“Did you hear about Fred going missing?”

“I heard. He was in here right before it happened.”

“Did you see him?”

“Yeah, sure. He got money from the machine, and then he went in to see Shempsky.”

Leona and I went to school with Allen Shempsky. He was an okay guy who'd worked his way up the ladder and was now a VP. And this was a new development. No one had said anything about Fred going to see Shempsky. “What'd Fred want with Allen?”

Leona shrugged. “Don't know. He was in there talking to Allen for about ten minutes. He didn't stop to say hello or anything when he came out. Fred was like that. Not the most sociable person.”

Shempsky had a small private office tucked between two other small private offices. His door was open, so I stuck my head in.

“Knock, knock,” I said.

Allen Shempsky looked at me blank-faced for a moment, and then I saw recognition kick in. “Sorry,” he said, “my mind was someplace else. What can I do for you?”

“I'm looking for my uncle Fred. I understand he talked to you just before he disappeared.”

“Yeah. He was thinking of taking out a loan.”

“A loan? What kind of a loan?”

“Personal.”

“He say what he needed the money for?”

“No. Wanted to know what interest rates were and how long would it take. That sort of thing. Preliminary stuff. No paperwork or anything. I think he was only in here for maybe five minutes. Ten tops.”

“Did he seem upset?”

“Not that I remember. Well, not any more than usual. Fred was sort of a grumpy guy. The family ask you to look for Fred?”

“Yeah.” I stood and gave Shempsky my card. “Let me know if you think of anything significant.”

A loan. I couldn't help wondering if it was to pay off Bunchy. I didn't think Bunchy was a bookie, but I wouldn't be shocked to find he was a blackmailer.

The dry cleaner was in the middle of the strip of buildings, next to Grand Union. I knew the woman behind the counter by sight, but not by name. I brought my clothes here too, sometimes.

She remembered Fred, but not much else. He'd picked up his clothes and that was it. No conversation. They'd been busy at the time. She hadn't paid a lot of attention to Fred.

I went back to the Buick and stood there, looking around, trying to imagine what might have happened. Fred had parked in front of Grand Union, anticipating that he'd have groceries to carry. He'd laid the cleaning neatly on the backseat, then closed and locked the car. Then what? Then he'd disappeared. The mall opened to a four-lane highway on one side. Behind the mall was an apartment complex and the neighborhood of single-family houses where I'd searched for Fred.

The RGC office was down by the river, on the other side of Broad. It was an industrial area of warehouses and mom-and-pop factories. Not especially scenic. Perfect for a waste hauler.

I eased into traffic and pointed Big Blue's nose west. Ten minutes and seven lights later, I rolled down Water Street, squinting at the somber brick buildings, looking for numbers. The road was cracked and pocked with potholes. Parking lots associated with businesses were ringed by chain-link fences. Sidewalks were empty. Windows were dark and lifeless. I didn't need to see the numbers, RGC was easy to spot. Large sign. Lots of garbage trucks parked in the lot. There were five visitor slots next to the building. They were all empty. No surprise there. It didn't exactly smell like roses outside.

I parked in one of the slots and scurried inside. The office was small. Linoleum floor, death-pallor-green walls, and a counter cut the room in half. There were two desks and file cabinets in the back half of the room.

A woman got up from one of the desks and stood at the counter. A plaque on the counter read
MARTHA DEETER, RECEPTIONIST,
and I assumed this was Martha.

“Can I help you?” Martha asked.

I introduced myself as Fred's niece and told her I was looking for Fred.

“I remember speaking to him,” she said. “He went home to get his canceled check and never returned. It never occurred to me that something might have happened to him. I just assumed he'd given up. We get a lot of people in here trying to get something for nothing.”

“Go figure.”

“Exactly. That's why I sent him home for the check. The old ones are the worst. They're all on fixed incomes. They'll say anything to hang on to a dollar.”

There was a man sitting at the second desk. He got up and moved next to Martha. “Perhaps I can be of assistance here. I'm the bookkeeper, and I'm afraid this is my problem. Truth is, this has happened before. It's the computer. We just can't get it to recognize certain customers.”

Martha tapped a finger on the counter. “It's
not
the computer. There are people out there who'll take advantage. People think it's okay to gyp big business.”

The man gave me a tight smile and extended his hand. “Larry Lipinski. I'll make sure the account is set straight.”

Martha didn't look happy. “We really should see the canceled check.”

“For goodness' sakes,” Lipinski said to Martha, “the man disappeared in the middle of his errands. He probably had the check on him. How do you expect them to show you the check?”