Seven Up

by Janet Evanovich

  We drove in silence to Mary Maggie's condo building, parked one row over from her Porsche, and took the elevator to the seventh floor.

  Mary Maggie answered on the second knock. Her breath caught when she saw us and she took a step backward. Ordinarily this reaction might be construed as a sign of fear or guilt. In this case it was the normal reaction women have when confronted with Ranger. To Mary Maggie's credit it wasn't followed by flushing and stammering. Her attention traveled from Ranger to me. “You again,” she said.

  I gave her a finger wave.

  “What happened to your eye?”

  “Parking dispute.”

  “Looks like you lost.”

  “Looks can be deceiving,” I said. Not necessarily in this case . . . but sometimes.

  “DeChooch was riding around town last night,” Ranger said. “We thought you might have seen him.”

  “Nope.”

  “He was driving your car, and he was involved in an accident. Hit-and-run.”

  It was clear from the expression on Mary Maggie's face that this was the first she'd heard of the accident.

  “It's his eyes. He shouldn't be driving at night,” she said.

  No shit. Not to mention his mind, which should be keeping him off the road all together. The man was a lunatic.

  “Was anyone hurt?” Mary Maggie asked.

  Ranger shook his head.

  “You'll call us if you see him, right?” I said.

  “Sure,” Mary Maggie said.

  “She's not going to call us,” I said to Ranger when we were in the elevator.

  Ranger just looked at me.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Patience.”

  The elevator doors opened to the underground garage and I jumped out. “Patience? Mooner and Dougie are missing, and I've got Joyce Barnhardt breathing down my neck. We ride around and talk to people, but we don't learn anything and nothing happens and no one even seems to be worried.”

  “We're leaving messages. Applying pressure. You apply pressure in the right spot and things start to break down.”

  “Hmm,” I said, still not feeling like we'd accomplished a lot.

  Ranger unlocked his car with the remote. “Don't like the sound of that hmm.”

  “The pressure stuff sounds a little . . . obscure.”

  We were alone in the dimly lit garage. Just Ranger and me and two levels of cars and concrete. It was the perfect setting for a gangland murder or an attack by a deranged rapist.

  “Obscure,” Ranger repeated.

  He grabbed me by my jacket lapels, pulled me to him, and kissed me. His tongue touched mine and I got a rush that was just a millimeter below climax. His hands slid inside my jacket and circled my waist. He was hard against me. And suddenly nothing mattered but a Ranger-induced orgasm. I wanted one. Now. The hell with Eddie DeChooch. One of these days he'd drive himself into a bridge abutment and that'd be the end of that.

  “Yes, but what about the wedding?” a small voice murmured from deep in my brain.

  Shut up, I told the voice. I'll worry about it later.

  “And what about your legs?” the voice asked. “Did you shave your legs this morning?”

  Cripes, I was barely able to breathe with needing this goddamn orgasm and now I was supposed to worry about the hair on my legs! Where's the justice in this world? Why me? Why am I the one worrying about the hair on my legs? Why is it always the woman worrying about the freaking hair?

  “Earth to Steph,” Ranger said.

  “If we do it now does it count as a credit toward capturing DeChooch?”

  “We aren't doing it now.”

  “Why not?”

  “We're in a parking garage. And by the time I get you out of the garage you'll have changed your mind.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “So what's the point here?”

  “The point is that you can break down a person's defense system if you apply the right pressure.”

  “Are you telling me this was just a demonstration? You got me into this . . . this state to prove a point?”

  His hands were still at my waist, holding me against him. “How serious is this state?” he asked.

  If it was any more serious I'd spontaneously combust. “It's not that serious,” I told him.

  “Liar.”

  “How serious is your state?”

  “Frighteningly serious.”

  “You're complicating my life.”

  He opened the car door for me. “Get in. Ronald DeChooch is next on the list.”

  The front room to the paving company offices was empty when Ranger and I walked in. A young guy poked his head around a corner and asked what we wanted. We said we wanted to talk to Ronald. Thirty seconds later Ronald strolled in from somewhere in the back of the building.

  “I heard an old lady popped you in the eye, but I didn't realize she did such a good job,” Ronald said to me. “That's a first-class shiner.”

  “Have you seen your uncle lately?” Ranger asked Ronald.

  “No, but I heard he was involved in the accident outside the funeral parlor. He shouldn't be driving at night.”

  “The car he was driving belongs to Mary Maggie Mason,” I said. “Do you know her?”

  “I've seen her around.” He looked at Ranger. “Are you working this case, too?”

  Ranger gave a barely perceptible nod.

  “Good to know,” Ronald said.

  “What was that?” I asked Ranger when we got outside. “Was that what I think it was? Was that hemorrhoid saying it made a difference with you on board? Like, now he was going to take the search seriously?”

  “Let's take a look at Dougie's house,” Ranger said.

  Dougie's house hadn't changed since the last time I was there. No evidence of a new search. No evidence that Dougie or Mooner had passed through. Ranger and I went room by room. I filled Ranger in on the previous searches and the missing pot roast.

  “Do you think it's significant that they took a pot roast?” I asked Ranger.

  “One of life's mysteries,” Ranger said.

  We walked around back and snooped in Dougie's garage.

  The little yappy dog that lives next door to Dougie left his post on the Belskis' back porch and skipped around us, yipping and snapping at our pants legs.

  “Think anyone would notice if I shot him?” Ranger asked.

  “I think Mrs. Belski would come after you with a meat cleaver.”

  “Have you talked to Mrs. Belski about the people searching the house?”

  I smacked myself in the forehead with the heel of my hand. Why hadn't I thought to talk to Mrs. Belski? “No.”

  The Belskis have lived in their row house forever. They're in their sixties now. Hard-working, sturdy Polish stock. Mr. Belski is retired from Stucky Tool and Die Company. Mrs. Belski raised seven children. And now they have Dougie for a neighbor. Lesser people would have been at war with Dougie, but the Belskis have accepted their fate as God's will and coexist.

  The Belskis' back door opened, and Mrs. Belski stuck her head out. “Is Spotty bothering you?”

  “Nope,” I said. “Spotty is fine.”

  “He gets excited when he sees strangers,” Mrs. Belski said, coming across the yard to get Spotty.

  “I understand there've been some strangers going through Dougie's house.”

  “There are always strangers in Dougie's house. Were you there when he held his Star Trek party?” She shook her head. “Such goings-on.”

  “How about lately? In the last couple days.”

  Mrs. Belski scooped Spotty up in her arms and held him close. “Nothing like the Star Trek party.”

  I explained to Mrs. Belski that someone had broken into Dougie's house.

  “No!” she said. “How terrible.” She gave a worried glance at Dougie's back door. “Dougie and his friend Walter get a little wild sometimes, but they're really nice young people at heart. They're always nice to Spotty.”

  “Have you seen anyone

suspicious hanging around the house?”

  “There were two women,” Mrs. Belski said. “One was my age. Maybe a little older. In her sixties. The other was a couple years younger. I was coming back from walking Spotty and these women parked their car and let themselves into Dougie's house. They had a key. I assumed they were relatives. Do you suppose they were thieves?”

  “Do you remember the car?”

  “Not really. All cars look alike to me.”

  “Was it a white Cadillac? Was it a sports car?”

  “No. It wasn't either of those. I would have remembered a white Cadillac or a fancy sports car.”

  “Anyone else?”

  “An older man has been stopping by. Thin. In his seventies. Now that I think about it, he might have been driving a white Cadillac. Dougie gets lots of visitors. I don't always pay attention. I haven't noticed anyone looking suspicious, except for the women who had a key. I remember them because the older one looked at me and there was something about her eyes. Her eyes were scary. Angry and crazy.”

  I thanked Mrs. Belski and gave her my card.

  When I was alone in the car with Ranger I got to thinking about the face Mooner saw in the window the night he got shot. It had seemed so improbable we hadn't given it a lot of attention. He hadn't been able to identify the face or even give it much detail . . . with the exception of the scary eyes. And now here was Mrs. Belski telling me about a sixty-something woman with scary eyes. There was also the woman who'd called Mooner and accused him of having something that belonged to her. Maybe this was the woman with the key. And how did she get a key? From Dougie, maybe.

  “Now what?” I said to Ranger.

  “Now we wait.”

  “I've never been very good at waiting. I have another idea. How about if we use me as bait? How about if I call Mary Maggie and tell her I have the thing and I'm willing to trade it for Mooner. And then I ask her to pass it on to Eddie DeChooch.”

  “You think Mary Maggie's the contact?”

  “It's a shot in the dark.”

  MORELLI CALLED A half hour after Ranger dropped me off. “You're what?” Morelli yelled.

  “Bait.”

  “Jesus.”

  “It's a good idea,” I said. “We're going to let people think I have whatever it is that they're after . . .”

  “We?”

  “Ranger and me.”

  “Ranger.”

  I had a mental picture of Morelli clenching his teeth.

  “I don't want you working with Ranger.”

  “It's my job. We're bounty hunters.”

  “I don't want you doing that job, either.”

  “Well, guess what? I'm not crazy about you being a cop.”

  “At least my job is legitimate,” Morelli said.

  “My job is just as legitimate as yours.”

  “Not when you work with Ranger,” Morelli said. “He's a nut case. And I don't like the way he looks at you.”

  “How does he look at me?”

  “The same way I do.”

  I could feel myself hyperventilating. Breathe slow, I told myself. Don't panic.

  I got rid of Morelli, made myself a peanut butter and olive sandwich, and called my sister.

  “I'm worried about this marriage thing,” I said. “If you couldn't stay married, what are my chances?”

  “Men don't think right,” Valerie said. “I did everything I was supposed to do and it was wrong. How can that be?”

  “Do you still love him?”

  “I don't think so. Mostly I'd like to punch him in the face.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I have to go now.” And I hung up.

  Next, I paged through the phone book, but there was no Mary Maggie Mason listed. No surprise there. I called Connie and asked her to get me the number. Connie had sources for unlisted phones.

  “While you're on the line, I've got a quickie for you,” Connie said. “Melvin Baylor. He didn't show up for court this morning.”

  Melvin Baylor lives two blocks from my parents. He's a perfectly nice forty-year-old guy who got taken to the cleaners in a divorce settlement that stripped him of everything but his underwear. To add insult to injury, two weeks after the settlement his ex-wife Lois announced her engagement to their unemployed next-door neighbor.

  Last week the ex and the neighbor got married. The neighbor is still unemployed but now driving a new BMW and watching his game shows on a big-screen TV. Melvin, meanwhile, lives in a one-room apartment over Virgil Selig's garage and drives a ten-year-old brown Nova. On the night of his ex's wedding Melvin gulped down his usual dinner of cold cereal and skim milk and in profound depression drove his sputtering Nova to Casey's Bar. Not being any kind of a drinker, Melvin got properly snockered after two martinis. He then got into his wreck of a car, and for the first time in his life showed some backbone by crashing his ex-wife's wedding reception and relieving himself on the cake in front of two hundred people. He was roundly applauded by every man in the room.

  Lois's mother, having paid eighty-five dollars for the three-tiered extravaganza, had Melvin arrested for indecent exposure, lewd conduct, trespass on a private party, and destruction of private property.

  “I'll be right there,” I said. “Have the paperwork ready for me. And I'll get Mason's number when I come in.”

  I grabbed my bag and yelled to Rex that I wouldn't be gone long. I ran down the hall, down the stairs, and slammed into Joyce in the lobby.

  “I heard from people that you've been going all over this morning asking about DeChooch,” Joyce said. “DeChooch is mine now. So back off.”

  “Sure.”

  “And I want the file.”

  “I lost it.”

  “Bitch,” Joyce said.

  “Snot.”

  “Fat ass.”

  “Douche bag.”

  Joyce whirled around and stormed out of the building. Next time my mother had chicken I was going to wish on the wishbone that Joyce got herpes.

  The office was quiet when I got there. Vinnie's door was closed. Lula was asleep on the couch. Connie had Mary Maggie's phone number and Melvin's permission-to-capture paper ready.

  “There's no answer at his house,” Connie said. “And he called in sick from work. He's probably at home hiding under the bed, hoping it's all a bad dream.”

  I tucked the permission-to-capture into my bag and used Connie's phone to call Mary Maggie.

  “I've decided I want to make a deal with Eddie,” I said to Mason when she answered. “Trouble is, I don't know how to get in touch with him. I thought since he's using your car he might call you or something . . . let you know the car's okay.”

  “What's the deal?”

  “I have something Eddie's looking for and I want to trade Mooner for it.”

  “Mooner?”

  “Eddie will understand.”

  “Okay,” Mason said. “If he calls in I'll pass it on, but there's no guarantee I'll be talking to him.”

  “Sure,” I said. “Just in case.”

  Lula opened one eye. “Uh-oh, are you telling fibs again?”

  “I'm bait,” I said.

  “No kidding.”

  “What is this thing Chooch is looking for?” Connie wanted to know.

  “I don't know,” I said. “That's part of the problem.”

  USUALLY PEOPLE MOVE out of the Burg when they get divorced. Melvin was one of the exceptions. I think at the time of his divorce he was simply too exhausted and down-trodden to conduct any kind of a search for a place to stay.

  I parked in front of Selig's house and walked around back to the garage. It was a ramshackle two-car garage with a second-story, one-man, one-room ramshackle apartment. I climbed the stairs to the apartment and knocked. I listened at the door. Nothing. I banged on the door some more, put my ear to the scarred wood, and listened again. Someone was moving around in there.

  “Hey Melvin,” I yelled. “Open up.”

  “Go away,” Melvin said through the door. “I'm not feeling well. Go away.”

  “It's Stephanie Plum,” I said. “I need to talk to you.”

  The door opened and Melvin looked out. His hair was uncombed and his eyes were bloodshot.

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