High Five (4 page)

Okay, Stephanie, put yourself in the photographer's shoes. Why are you taking these pictures? Trophy shots? I didn't think so, because none showed the face. And there were twenty-four pictures here, so the roll was intact. If I wanted a remembrance of this grisly act, I'd want a face shot. Ditto for proof that the job had been done. Proof of a kill required a face shot. What was left? A visual record by someone who didn't want to disturb the evidence. So maybe Uncle Fred happened on a bag of body parts and ran out and got himself a point-and-shoot. And then what? Then he put the pictures in his desk drawer and disappeared while running errands.

That was my best guess, as weak as it was. The truth is, the pictures could have been taken five years ago. Someone could have given them to Fred for safekeeping or as a macabre joke.

I stuffed the prints back into their envelope and grabbed my shoulder bag. I thought searching the neighborhood around Grand Union would be wasted effort, but I felt the need to do it anyway.

I drove to a residential area behind the strip mall and parked on the street. I grabbed my flashlight and set out on foot, walking streets and back alleys, looking behind bushes and trash cans, calling Fred's name. When I was a kid I had a cat named Katherine. She showed up on our doorstep one day and refused to leave. We started feeding her on the back porch, and then somehow she found her way into the kitchen. She went out at night to roam the neighborhood, and slept curled up in a ball on my bed during the day. One night Katherine went out and never came back. For days I walked the streets and alleys, looking behind bushes and trash cans, calling her name, just like I was doing now for Fred. My mother said cats sometimes wander off like that when it's their time to die. I thought it was a lot of hooey.

I STUMBLED OUT of bed at four-thirty, staggered into the bathroom and stood in the shower until my eyes opened. After a while my skin started to shrivel, and I figured I was done. I toweled off and shook my head by way of styling my hair. I didn't know what I was supposed to wear for interior decorating, so I wore what I always wore . . . jeans and a T-shirt. And then to dress it up, just in case this actually turned out to be interior decorating, I added a belt and a jacket.

Ranger was waiting in the parking lot when I swung out the back door. He was driving a shiny black Range Rover with tinted side windows. Ranger's cars were always new and their point of purchase was never easy to explain. Three men took up the backseat. Two were black, one was of indeterminate origin. All three men had Marine buzz cuts. All were wearing black SWAT pants and black T-shirts. All were heavily muscled. Not an ounce of fat among them. None of them looked like interior decorators.

I buckled myself into the seat next to Ranger. "Is that the interior decorating team in the backseat?"

Ranger smiled in the predawn darkness and cruised out of the lot.

"I'm dressed different from everybody else," I said.

Ranger stopped at the light on Hamilton. "I've got a jacket and a vest for you in the back."

"This isn't interior decorating, is it?"

"There's all kinds of interior decorating, Babe."

"About the vest—"

"Kevlar."

Kevlar was bulletproof. "Rats," I said. "I hate getting shot at. You know how I hate getting shot at."

"Just a precaution," Ranger said. "Probably no one will get shot."

Probably?

We rode in silence through center city. Ranger was in his zone. Thinking private thoughts. The guys in back looking like they had no thoughts at all—ever. And me, debating jumping out of the car at the next light and running like hell back to my apartment. And at the same time, as ridiculous as it sounds, I was keeping an eye peeled for Fred. He was stuck in my brain. It was like that with my cat, Katherine, too. She'd been gone fifteen years, but I always looked twice when I caught a glimpse of a black cat. Unfinished business, I guess.

"Where are we going?" I finally asked.

"Apartment building on Sloane. Gonna do some house cleaning."

Sloane Street runs parallel and two blocks over from Stark. Stark is the worst street in the city, filled with drugs and despair and feed-lot housing. The ghetto gentrifies as the blocks march south, and much of Sloane is the demarcation line between the lawless and the law-abiding. It's a constant struggle to hold the line and keep the pushers and hookers off Sloane. And word is that lately Sloane's been losing the battle.

Ranger drove three blocks up Sloane and parked. He nodded at the yellow-brick building across the street, two doors down. "That's our building. We're going to the third floor."

The building was four stories tall, and I guessed there were two or three small apartments on each floor. Ground-level brick was covered with gang graffiti. Windows were dark. No street traffic. Wind-blown trash banked against curbs and collected in doorways.

I glanced from the building to Ranger. "You sure this is legal?"

"Been hired by the landlord," Ranger said.

"Does this housecleaning involve people or is it just . . . things?"

Ranger looked at me.

"There's a legal process involved in getting people and their possessions out of an apartment," I said. "You need to present an eviction notice and—"

"The legal process is moving a little slow," Ranger said. "And in the meantime, the kids in this building are being harassed by the people who come to shoot up in 3C."

"Think of this as community service," one of the guys in the back said.

The other two nodded. "Yeah," they said. "Community service."

I cracked my knuckles and chewed on my lower lip.

Ranger angled from behind the wheel, walked to the rear of the Range Rover, and opened the door. He gave everyone a flak vest, and then he gave everyone a black windbreaker that had SECURITY printed in large white letters on the back.

I strapped my vest on and watched while everyone else buckled on black nylon web utility belts and holstered guns.

"Let me take a wild guess here," Ranger said, slinging an arm around my shoulder. "You forgot to bring your gun."

"Interior decorators don't use guns."

"They do in this neighborhood."

The men were lined up in front of me.

"Gentlemen," Ranger said, "this is Ms. Plum."

The indeterminate-origin guy put his hand out. "Lester Santos."

The next man in line did the same. "Bobby Brown."

The last man was Tank. It was easy to see how he'd come by the name.

"I better not get into trouble for this," I said to Ranger. "I'm going to be really bummed if I get arrested. I hate getting arrested."

Santos grinned. "Man, you don't like to get shot. You don't like to get arrested. You don't know how to have fun at all."

Ranger shrugged into his jacket and set off, crossing the street with the band of merry men closing ranks behind him.

We entered the building and climbed two flights of stairs. Ranger went to 3C and listened at the door. The rest of us flattened against the wall. No one spoke. Ranger and Santos stood, guns in hand. Brown and Tank held flashlights.

I braced myself, expecting Ranger to kick the door down, but instead, he took a key from his pocket and inserted it in the lock. The door started to open but caught on a security chain. Ranger took two steps back and threw himself at the door, catching the door at chain height with his shoulder. The door popped open, and Ranger was in first. Then everyone was in except me. Lights flashed on. Ranger shouted, "Security!" and everything was chaos. Half-naked people were scrambling off floor mattresses. Women were shrieking. Men were swearing.

Ranger's team went room by room, cuffing people, lining them up against the living room wall. Six people in all.

One of the men was berserk, waving his arms to avoid getting cuffed. "You can't do this, you fuckers," he was yelling. "This is my apartment. This is private property. Somebody call the fucking police." He pulled a knife from his pants pocket and flicked it open.

Tank grabbed the guy by the back of his shirt, lifted him off his feet, and threw him out the window.

Everyone went still, staring dumbstruck at the shattered glass. My mouth was open and my heart had gone dead in my chest.

Ranger didn't look all that disturbed. "Have to replace that window," he said.

I heard a groan and some scraping sounds. I crossed the room to the window and looked out. The guy with the knife was spreadeagle on the fire escape, making feeble attempts to right himself.

I clapped a hand to my heart, relieved to find it had started beating again. "He's on the fire escape! God, for a minute there I thought you dumped him three stories."

Tank looked out the window with me. "You're right. He's on the fire escape. Sonovagun."

It was a small apartment. One small bedroom, one small bath, small kitchen, small living room. Kitchen counters were littered with fast-food wrappers and bags, empty soda cans, food-encrusted plates, and cheap, dented pots. The Formica was scarred with burn marks from cigarettes and crack cookers. Used syringes, half-eaten bagels, filthy dish towels, and unidentifiable garbage clogged the sink. Two stained and torn mattresses had been pushed against the wall in the living room. No lamps, no tables, no chairs, no sign that civilized man occupied the apartment. Just filth and clutter. The same refuse that banked against gutters outside filled the rooms of 3C. The air was stale with the odors of urine and pot and unwashed bodies and something nastier.

Santos and Brown herded the bedraggled occupants into the hall and down the stairs.

"What happens to them now?" I asked Ranger.

"Bobby'll drive them over to the meth clinic and drop them off. They're on their own from there."

"No arrests?"

"We don't do arrests. Not unless someone's FTA."

Tank returned from the car with a cardboard box filled with interior decorating supplies, which in this case consisted of disposable gloves, trash bags, and a coffee can for syringes.

"This is the deal," Ranger said to me. "We strip the apartment of everything not nailed down. Tomorrow the landlord will bring someone in to clean and do repairs."

"What's to stop the tenant from returning?"

Ranger just stared at me.

"Right," I said. "Stupid question."

IT WAS MIDMORNING when we went through with the broom. Santos and Brown had positioned themselves on folding chairs in the small vestibule downstairs. They were to take the first security shift. Tank was on his way to the landfill with the mattresses and bags of garbage. Ranger and I were left to lock up the apartment.

Ranger angled the brim of a Navy SEALS ball cap to shade his eyes. "So," he said, "what do you think of security work? You want to be on the team? I can let you take the graveyard shift with Tank."

"He isn't going to throw any more people out windows, is he?"

"Hard to say, Babe."

"I don't know if I'm cut out for this."

Ranger took his SEALS hat off and put it on me, tucking my hair behind my ears, letting his hands linger a moment too long. "You have to believe in what you're doing."

That could be a problem. And Ranger could be a problem. I was feeling much too attracted to him. Ranger wasn't listed under
potential boyfriends
in my Rolodex. Ranger was listed under
crazed mercenaries.
An attraction to Ranger would be like chasing after the doomsday orgasm.

I took a steadying breath. "I guess I could try a shift," I said. "See how it goes."

I WAS STILL wearing the hat when Ranger dropped me off at my apartment. I removed the cap and held it out to him. "Don't forget your SEALS hat."

Ranger looked at me from behind dark glasses. His eyes hidden. His thoughts unreadable. His voice soft. "Keep it. Looks good on you."

"It's a righteous hat."

He smiled. "Live up to it, Babe."

I pushed through the double glass doors into the lobby. I was about to take the stairs when the elevator opened and Mrs. Bestler leaned out. "Going up," she said. "Step to the rear of the car."

Mrs. Bestler was eighty-three and had an apartment on the third floor. When things got boring she played elevator operator.

"Morning, Mrs. Bestler," I said. "Second floor."

She hit the two button and eyeballed me. "Looks like you've been working. Catch any bad guys today?"

"Helped a friend clean an apartment."

Mrs. Bestler smiled. "What a good girl." The elevator stopped and the doors opened. "Second floor," Mrs. Bestler sang out. "Better dresses. Designer suits. Ladies' lounge."

I let myself into my apartment and went straight to the phone machine and its blinking red light.

I had two messages. The first was from Morelli, and it was for dinner. Miss Popularity, that's me.

"Meet you at Pino's at six," Morelli said.

Morelli's invitations always produced mixed emotions. The initial reaction was a sexual rush at the sound of his voice, the rush was followed by a queasy stomach while I considered his motives, and the queasy stomach eventually gave way to curiosity and anticipation. Ever the optimist.

The second message was from Mabel. "A man just came asking about Fred," Mabel said. "Something about a business deal, and he needed to find Fred right away. I explained how I couldn't help him, but I said you were on the job, so he shouldn't worry. I thought you might want to know."

I called Mabel back and asked who the man was and what he looked like.

"He was about my height," she said. "And he had brown hair."

"Caucasian?"

"Yes. And now that you mention it, he didn't give me his name."

"What kind of business deal was he talking about?"

"I don't know. He didn't say."

"Okay," I said. "Let me know if he bothers you again."

I checked in with the office to see if there were any new FTAs and was told no luck. I called my best friend, Mary Lou, but she couldn't talk because her youngest kid was sick with a cold, and the dog had eaten a sock and had just pooped it out on the living room rug.