Hot Six

  REX WAS RUNNING on the wheel when I walked in the door, and Bob ran up to me, eyes bright, panting in anticipation of a pat on the head and possible food. I said hello to Rex and gave him a raisin. Then I gave a couple raisins to Bob, making him wag his tail so hard the whole back half of his body whipped side to side.

  I set the box of raisins on the counter and went to the bathroom, and when I returned the raisins were gone. Only a slobbery, mangled corner of the box remained.

  “You have an eating disorder,” I said to Bob. “And take it from someone who knows, compulsive eating isn't the way to go. Before you know it your skin won't fit.”

  Grandma had set a pillow and blanket out for me in the living room. I kicked my shoes off, crawled under the blanket, and was asleep in seconds.

  I woke up feeling tired and disoriented. I looked at my watch. Two o'clock. I squinted into the darkness. “Ranger?”

  “What's with the dog?”

  “I'm baby-sitting. Guess he's not much of a watchdog.”

  “He would have opened the door if he could have found the key.”

  “I know it's not that hard to pick a lock, but how do you get past the security chain?”

  “Trade secret.”

  “I'm in the trade.”

  Ranger handed me a large envelope. “Check out these pictures and tell me who you recognize.”

  I sat up, switched the table lamp on, and opened the envelope. I identified Alexander Ramos and Hannibal. There were also photos of Ulysses and Homer Ramos and two first cousins. All four were very much alike; each could have been the man I saw standing in the doorway of the Deal house. Except, of course, Homer, who was dead. There was another woman, photographed with Homer Ramos. She was small and blond and smiling. Homer had his arm around her, and he was smiling back.

  “Who's this?” I asked.

  “Homer's latest girlfriend. Her name's Cynthia Lotte. She works downtown. Receptionist for someone you know.”

  “Omigod! Now I recognize her. She works for my exhusband.”

  “Yeah,” Ranger said. “Small world.”

  I told Ranger about the town house being dark, with no sign of life, and then the toilet flushing.

  “What does that mean?” I asked Ranger.

  “It means someone's in the house.”

  “Hannibal?”

  “Hannibal's in Deal.”

  Ranger snapped the table lamp off and stood. He was wearing a black T-shirt, black Gore-Tex windbreaker, and black cargo pants tucked into black boots, army style. The well-dressed urban commando. I could guarantee that any man facing him in a blind alley would have an empty scrotum, his most prized possessions gone north. And any woman would be licking dry lips and checking to make sure all her buttons were buttoned. He looked down at me, hands in pockets, his face barely visible in the dark room.

  “Would you be willing to visit your ex and check out Cynthia Lotte?”

  “Sure. Anything else?”

  He smiled, and when he answered his voice was soft. “Not with your grandmother in the next room.”

  Eek.

  When Ranger left I slid the security chain in place and flopped back onto the couch, thrashing around, thinking erotic thoughts. No doubt about it. I was a hopeless slut. I looked heavenward, only the ceiling got in the way. “It's all hormones,” I said to Whoever might be listening. “It's not my fault. I have too many hormones.”

  I got up and drank a glass of orange juice. After the orange juice I returned to the couch and thrashed around some more because Grandma was snoring so loud I was afraid she'd suck her tongue down her throat and choke to death.

  “ISN'T THIS A pip of a morning!” Grandma said, on her way to the kitchen. “I feel like having some pie!”

  I checked my watch. Six-thirty. I dragged myself off the couch and into the bathroom where I stood under the shower for a long time, sullen and bitchy. When I got out of the shower I looked at myself in the mirror over the sink. I had a big zit on my chin. Well, isn't this just great. I have to go see my ex-husband with a zit on my chin. Probably God's punishment for last night's mental lusting.

  I thought about the .38 in the cookie jar. I made a fist, thumb up, index finger extended. I put the index finger to my temple and said, “Bang.”

  I dressed myself up in an outfit like Ranger's. Black T-shirt, black cargo pants, black boots. Big zit on my face. I looked like an idiot. I took the black T-shirt and pants and boots off and stuffed myself into a white T-shirt, topped with a plaid flannel shirt and a pair of Levi's with a small hole in the crotch which I convinced myself no one could see. This was an outfit for someone with a zit.

  Grandma was reading the paper when I came out of the bedroom.

  “Where'd you get the paper?” I asked.

  “Borrowed it from that nice man across the hall. Only he don't know it yet.”

  Grandma was a fast learner.

  “I don't have another driving lesson until tomorrow, so Louise and me are going to look at some condos today. I've been checking out the job situation too, and it looks to me like there's lots of good stuff. There's jobs for cooks and cleaning people and makeup ladies and car salesmen.”

  “If you could have any job in the world, what would you choose?”

  “That's easy. I'd be a movie star.”

  “You'd make a good one,” I said.

  “Of course, I'd want to be a leading lady. Some of my parts have started to sag, but my legs are still pretty good.”

  I looked at Grandma's legs sticking out from under her dress. I guess everything is relative.

  Bob was standing at the door with his knees together, so I clipped his leash on him and we headed out. Look at this, I thought, I'm getting exercise first thing in the morning. Probably after two weeks of Bob I'll be so skinny I'll have to buy all new clothes. And the fresh air is good for my pimple, too. Hell, it might even cure it. Maybe the pimple will be gone by the time I get back to the apartment.

  Bob and I were walking along at a pretty good rate. We rounded the corner and swung into the lot, and there were Habib and Mitchell, waiting for me in a ten-year-old Dodge totally upholstered in chartreuse broadloom. A neon sign on the top of the car advertised Art's Carpet's. It made the wind machine look tasteful.

  “Holy cow,” I said. “What is this?”

  “It was all that was available on short notice,” Mitchell said. “And I wouldn't make a big deal out of it if I was you, because it's a sensitive topic. And not to change the subject, or anything, but we're getting impatient. We don't want to freak you out, but we're gonna have to do something real mean if you don't deliver your boyfriend pretty soon.”

  “Is that a threat?”

  “Well, yeah, sure,” Mitchell said. “It's a threat.”

  Habib was behind the wheel, wearing a large foam whiplash collar. He gave a small nod of acknowledgment.

  “We're professionals,” Mitchell said. “You don't want to be fooled by our pleasant demeanor.”

  “Just so,” Habib said.

  “Are you going to follow me around today?” I asked.

  “That's the plan,” Mitchell said. “I hope you're gonna do something interesting. I don't feel like spending the day at the mall lookin' at ladies' shoes. Like we said, our boss is getting antsy.”

  “Why does your boss want Ranger?”

  “Ranger has something that belongs to him, and he'd like to discuss the matter. You could tell him that.”

  I suspected that discussing the matter might involve a fatal accident. “I'll pass it along if I happen to hear from him.”

  “You tell him he just gives back what he's got and everyone's gonna be happy. Bygones will be bygones. No hard feelings.”

  “Uh-huh. Well, I've got to be running along now. I'll see you guys later.”

  “When you come back to the parking lot I would appreciate your bringing me an aspirin,” Habib said. “I am suffering with this neck whiplashing.”

  “I don't know about you,” I said to
Bob when we got in the elevator, “but I'm sort of freaked out.”

  Grandma was reading the comics to Rex when I came in. Bob sidled up to join in the fun, and I took the phone into the living room to call Brian Simon.

  Simon answered on the third ring. “ 'Lo.”

  “That was a short trip,” I said.

  “Who's this?”

  “It's Stephanie.”

  “How'd you get my number? I have an unlisted number.”

  “It's printed on your dog's collar.”

  “Oh.”

  “So I imagine now that you're home, you're going to be around to get Bob.”

  “I'm kind of busy today—”

  “No problem. I'll drop him off. Where do you live?”

  A moment of silence. “Okay, here's the thing,” Simon said. “I don't actually want Bob back.”

  “He's your dog!”

  “Not anymore. Possession is nine-tenths of the law. You have the food. You have the pooper-scooper. You have the dog. Listen, he's a nice dog, but I don't have time for him. And he makes my nose run. I think I'm allergic.”

  “I think you're a jerk.”

  Simon sighed. “You're not the first woman to tell me that.”

  “I can't keep him here. He howls when I leave.”

  “Don't I know it. And if you leave him alone he eats the furniture.”

  “What? What do you mean, he eats the furniture?”

  “Forget I said that. I didn't mean to say that. He doesn't actually eat the furniture. I mean, chewing isn't really eating. And not that he even chews. Oh, shit,” Simon said. “Good luck.” And he hung up. I redialed, but he wouldn't answer.

  I returned the phone to the kitchen and gave Bob his breakfast bowl of dog crunchies. I poured a cup of coffee and ate a chunk of pie. There was one piece of pie left so I gave it to Bob. “You don't eat furniture, do you?” I asked.

  Grandma was hunkered down in front of the television, watching the Weather Channel. “Don't worry about supper tonight,” she said. “We can have leftover balls.”

  I gave her a thumbs-up, but she was concentrating on the weather in Cleveland and didn't see me.

  “Well, I guess I'll go out now,” I said.

  Grandma nodded.

  Grandma looked all rested. And I felt all done in. I wasn't getting enough sleep. The late-night visits and the snoring were taking a toll on me. I dragged myself out of the apartment and down the hall. My eyes drooped closed while I waited for the elevator.

  “I'm exhausted,” I said to Bob. “I need more sleep.”

  I drove to my parents' house and Bob and I trooped in. My mother was in the kitchen, humming as she put together an apple pie.

  “This must be Bob,” she said. “Your grandmother told me you had a dog.”

  Bob ran over to my mother.

  “No!” I yelled. “Don't you dare!”

  Bob stopped two feet from my mother and looked back at me.

  “You know what I'm talking about,” I said to Bob.

  “What a well-mannered dog,” my mother said.

  I stole a chunk of apple from the pie. “Did Grandma also tell you she snores, and she's up at the crack of dawn, and she watches the Weather Channel for hours on end?” I poured myself a cup of coffee. “Help,” I said to the coffee.

  “She's probably taking a couple nips before bed,” my mother said. “She always snores after she's belted back a few.”

  “That can't be it. I don't have any liquor in the house.”

  “Look in the closet. That's where she usually keeps it. I clean bottles out of her closet all the time.”

  “You mean she buys it herself and hides it in the closet?”

  “It's not hidden in the closet. That's just where she keeps it.”

  “Are you telling me Grandma's an alcoholic?”

  “No, of course not. She just tipples a little. She says it helps get her to sleep.”

  Maybe that was my problem. Maybe I should be tippling. Trouble is, I throw up when I tipple too much. And once I start tippling it's hard to tell when it's too much until it's too late. One tipple always seems to lead to another.

  The kitchen heat washed over me and soaked into the flannel shirt, and I felt like the pie, sitting in the oven, steaming. I struggled out of the flannel shirt, put my head down on the table, and fell asleep. I had a dream that it was summer, and I was baking on the beach in Point Pleasant. Hot sand under me, and hot sun above me. And my skin all brown and crispy like pie crust. When I woke up the pie was out of the oven, and the house smelled like heaven. And my mother had ironed my shirt.

  “Do you ever eat the dessert first?” I asked my mother.

  She looked at me dumbfounded. As if I'd asked whether she ritually sacrificed cats every Wednesday at the stroke of midnight.

  “Suppose you were home alone,” I said, “and there was a strawberry shortcake in the refrigerator and a meatloaf in the oven. Which would you eat first?”

  My mother thought about it for a minute, her eyes wide. “I can't remember ever eating dinner alone. I can't even imagine it.”

  I buttoned myself into the shirt and slipped into my denim jacket. “I have to go. I have work to do.”

  “You could come to dinner tomorrow night,” my mother said. “You could bring your grandmother and Joseph. I'm making a pork roast and mashed potatoes.”

  “Okay, but I don't know about Joe.”

  I got to the front door and saw that the carpet car was parked behind the Buick.

  “Now what?” my mother asked. “Who are those men in that weird car?”

  “Habib and Mitchell.”

  “Why are they parked here?”

  “They're following me, but don't worry about it. They're okay.”

  “What do you mean, 'Don't worry about it'? What kind of thing is that to say to a mother. Of course, I'll worry about it. They look like thugs.” My mother pushed past me, walked up to the car, and rapped on the window.

  The window slid down and Mitchell looked out at my mother. “How ya doin?” he asked.

  “Why are you following my daughter?”

  “Did she tell you we're following her? She shouldn't have done that. We don't like to worry mothers.”

  “I have a gun in the house, and I'll use it if I have to,” my mother said.

  “Jeez, lady, you don't have to get your panties all in a bunch,” Mitchell said. “What is it with this family? Everybody's always so hostile. We're just following your kid around a little.”

  “I have your license plate number,” my mother said. “If anything happens to my daughter I'll tell the police all about you.”

  Mitchell pressed the window button and his window slid closed.

  “You don't really have a gun, do you?” I asked my mother.

  “I just said that to throw a scare into them.”

  “Hmm. Well, thanks. I'm sure I'll be okay now.”

  “Your father could pull some strings and get you a good job at the Personal Products plant,” my mother said. “Evelyn Nagy's girl is working there, and she gets three weeks' paid vacation.”

  I tried to visualize Wonder Woman working the line at the Personal Products plant, but the picture wouldn't finetune. “I don't know,” I said. “I don't think I have a future in Personal Products.” I got into Big Blue and waved goodbye to my mother.

  She gave Mitchell one last warning glare and returned to her house.

  “She's going through the change,” I said to Bob. “She gets excited. Nothing to worry about.”

  Stephanie Plum 6 - Hot Six

  7

  I DROVE OVER to the office with Mitchell and Habib tagging along behind.

  Lula looked out the storefront window when Bob and I swung through the door. “Looks like those two idiots got a carpet car.”

  “Yeah. They've been with me since the crack of dawn. They tell me their employer's losing patience with the Ranger hunt.”

  “He's not the only one,” Vinnie said from his inner office
. “Joyce is turning up a big fat nothing on Ranger, and I'm feeling an ulcer coming on. Not to mention, I'm in for big bucks with Morris Munson. You better get your ass out there and find that creep.”

  With any luck Munson was in Tibet by now and I'd neverfind him. “Anything new?” I asked Connie.