“Ham sandwich.”
“Maybe you want to just shoot yourself in the head.”
“I like ham.”
He jogged a few feet in front of me. “Come on. We'll do another mile.”
“I just threw up!”
“Yeah, so?”
“So I'm not running anymore.”
“No pain, no gain, Babe.”
“I don't like pain,” I said. “I'm going home. And I'm walking.” He pushed off. “I'll catch you on the way back.”
Look on the bright side, I thought. At least I didn't have to worry about breakfast going straight to my thighs. And throwing up is so attractive that chances were real good I wouldn't have to worry about Ranger having a libido attack over me anytime in the near future.
I was walking one block from Hamilton, in a neighborhood of small single-family houses. Traffic was picking up on Hamilton, but one block over, where I walked, activity was centered in kitchens. Lights were on, coffee was brewing, cereal bowls were being set out. It was Saturday, but Trenton wasn't sleeping in. Kids had to be chauffeured to football and soccer. Laundry had to go to the cleaner. Cars needed washing. And the farmer's market was calling . . . fresh vegetables, eggs, baked goods, and sausages.
The sun was weak in a murky sky, and the air felt cold against my sweat-soaked clothes. I was three blocks from my apartment building, planning my day. Canvass the area around the strip mall, showing Uncle Fred's photo. Get home in time to pour myself into the little black dress. All the while keeping an eye out for Bunchy.
I heard a runner coming up behind me. Ranger, I thought, steeling myself not to get coerced into racing him home.
“Hello, Stephanie,” the runner said.
My walking faltered. The runner was Ramirez. He was dressed in sweats and running shoes, but he wasn't sweating. And he wasn't breathing heavy. He was smiling, dancing around me on the balls of his feet, alternately shadowboxing and jogging in place.
“What do you want?” I asked.
“The champ wants to be your friend. The champ can show you things. He can take you places you've never been.”
I was torn between wanting Ranger to show up and save me, and not wanting Ranger to see Ramirez at all. I suspected Ranger's solution to my stalking problem might be death. There was a good possibility that Ranger killed people on a regular basis. Only bad guys, of course, so who was I to criticize? Still, I didn't want him killing someone on my behalf. Not even if it was Ramirez. Although, if Ramirez died in his sleep or was accidentally run over by a truck, it wouldn't bother me too much.
“I'm not going anywhere with you, ever,” I said. “And if you continue to harass me I'll take steps to make sure it stops.”
“It's your destiny to go with the champ,” Ramirez said. “You can't escape it. Your friend Lula went with me. Ask her how she liked it, Stephanie. Ask Lula what it's like to be with the champ.”
I got a mental picture of Lula left naked and bloodied on my fire escape. Good thing I'd already thrown up because if there was anything in my stomach I'd be ralphing now.
I strode off, walking away from him. You don't debate with a madman. He pitty-patted after me for half a block, and then he laughed softly and called good-bye, and he was gone, jogging off toward Hamilton.
Ranger didn't reach me until I was at my parking lot. His skin was slick with sweat, and his breathing was labored. He'd been running hard, and he looked like he'd enjoyed it.
“Are you okay?” he asked. “Your face is white. I thought you'd have recovered by now.”
“Think you're right about ham,” I said.
“You want to try this again tomorrow?”
“I don't think I'm cut out to be this healthy.”
“You still looking for work?”
I mentally cracked my knuckles. I needed money, but Ranger's jobs weren't turning out so good. “What is it this time?”
Ranger unlocked his car, reached inside, and retrieved a large yellow envelope. “I have a high-bond FTA floating around Trenton. I have someone watching his girlfriend's house and someone watching his apartment. The guy's mother lives in the Burg. I don't think it's worthwhile to put someone on the mother's house twenty-four hours, but you know a lot of people in the Burg, and I thought you might be able to find an informant.” He handed the envelope over. “The guy's name is Alphonse Ruzick.”
I knew the Ruzicks. They lived on the other side of the Burg, two doors down from Carmine's Bakery, across from the Catholic school. Sandy Polan lived on that block. I'd gone to school with Sandy. She was married to Robert Scarfo now, so I guess she was Sandy Scarfo, but I still thought of her as being Sandy Polan. She had three kids, and the last one looked a lot more like the next-door neighbor than like Robert Scarfo. I peeked inside the envelope. Photo of Alphonse Ruzick, apprehension authorization, bond agreement, and personal information sheet.
“Okay,” I said. “I'll see if I can find someone to rat on Alphonse.”
I pushed through the glass door to the lobby and did a fast sweep to make sure Ramirez wasn't lying in wait for me. I took the stairs and felt safe when I stepped onto my floor. There was the smell of bacon cooking behind Mrs. Karwatt's door. And the television was blaring in Mr. Wolesky's apartment. A normal morning. Business as usual. Aside from the fact that I'd barfed and been scared half to death by a psychopathic maniac.
I opened my door and found Bunchy on the couch, reading the paper.
“You've got to stop breaking into my apartment,” I said. “It's rude.”
“I feel conspicuous sitting out in the hall. I figure it doesn't look good for you to have men loitering. What'll people think?”
“Then loiter in your car, in the lot.”
“I was cold.”
Someone knocked on my door. I went to the door and peeked out. It was my neighbor from across the hall, Mr. Wolesky.
“Did you take my paper again?” he asked.
I got the paper from Bunchy and returned it to Mr. Wolesky.
“Out,” I told Bunchy. “Good-bye.”
“What are you doing today? Just so I know.”
“I'm going to the office, and then I'm putting some posters up at the Grand Union.”
“The office, huh? Maybe I'll pass on the office. But you can tell Lula there's gonna be payback for making me lose you the other day.”
“You should be happy she didn't use her stun gun.”
He stood at the couch with his hands in his pockets. “You want to tell me about the color copies on your table?”
Damn. I hadn't put the prints away. “They're nothing special.”
“Body parts in a garbage bag?”
“Do you find them interesting?”
“I don't know who it is, if that's what you're getting at.” He moved to the table. “Twenty-four pictures. The whole roll. Two with the bag tied up. That's got me thinking. And they're recent, too.”
“How do you know that?”
“There are newspapers stuck in the bag along with the body. I looked at them with your magnifying glass, and you see this one here with the color? I'm pretty sure this is a supplement from Kmart advertising the Mega Monster. I know because my kid made me go get him one the second he saw the ad.”
“You have a kid?”
“Why is that such a big shock? He lives with my ex-wife.”
“When was the first time the ad ran?”
“I called and checked. It was a week ago Thursday.”
The day before Fred disappeared.
“Where'd you get these pictures?” Bunchy asked.
“Fred's desk.”
Bunchy shook his head. “Fred was involved in some very bad shit.”
I locked and bolted the door after Bunchy left. I showered and dressed in Levi's and a black turtleneck. I tucked the turtleneck in and added a belt. I stuffed Uncle Fred's picture into my shoulder bag and took off to do my pseudo-private investigator thing.
My first stop was at the off
ice to collect my pittance on Briggs.
Lula looked up from the filing when I walked in. “Girl, we've been waiting for you. We heard how you beat the crap out of that Briggs guy. Not that he didn't deserve it, but I think if you was gonna beat the crap out of someone, you could let me in on it. You know how bad I wanted to beat the crap out of that little wiener.”
“Yeah,” Connie said to me, “you've got some nerve hogging all the brutality.”
“I didn't do anything,” I said. “He fell down the stairs.”
Vinnie opened his office door and stuck his head out. “Jesus Christ,” he said. “How many times have I told you not to hit people in the face? You hit them in the body where it doesn't show. Kick them in the nuts. Sucker-punch them in the kidney.”
“He fell down the stairs!” I said again.
“Yeah, but you pushed him, right?”
“No!”
“See, that's good,” Vinnie said. “Lying is good. Stick with that story. I like it.” He stepped back into his office and slammed the door shut.
I gave Connie the body receipt, and Connie wrote me a check.
“I'm off to find a witness,” I said.
Lula had her purse in her hand. “I'll go with you. Just in case that Bunchy guy decides to follow you some more. I'll take care of his ass.”
I smiled. This should be interesting.
WE STARTED AT the copy store on Route 33. I enlarged Fred's photo and reproduced it onto a hand-printed request for information about Fred's disappearance.
After the copy store, I cruised into the Grand Union lot and was disappointed not to see Bunchy waiting for us. I parked close to the store, and Lula and I took the posters inside.
“Hold on here,” Lula said. “They got Coke on sale. This is a real good price for Coke. And they got some good-lookin' lunchmeat in the deli section. What time is it? Is it lunchtime? You mind if I do some food shopping?”
“Hey,” I said to Lula, “don't let me slow you down.” I tacked a poster onto the bulletin board in the front of the store. Then I took the original photo and started quizzing shoppers while Lula foraged in the bakery aisle.
“Have you seen this man?” I asked.
The reply would be no. Or sometimes, “Yeah, that's Fred Shutz. What a putz.”
No one could remember seeing him on the day of the disappearance. And no one had seen him since. And no one especially cared that he was missing.
“How's it going?” Lula asked, wheeling a shopping cart past me, en route to the car.
“Slow. No takers.”
“I'm gonna drop these bags off. And then I'm going to look in that little video store at the end.”
“Knock yourself out,” I said. I showed Fred's photo to a few more people and at noon I broke for lunch. I searched my pockets and the bottom of my bag and came up with enough money to buy a small bag of nutritious, already washed and ready-to-eat baby carrots. For the same amount of money I could also buy a giant Snickers bar. Boy, what a tough decision.
Lula returned from the video store just as I was licking the last of the chocolate off my fingers. “Look at this,” Lula said. “They had Boogie Nights on sale. I don't care much about the movie. I just like to look at the ending once in a while.”
“I'm going door-to-door with Fred's photo,” I told her. “Want to help?”
“Sure, you just give me one of them posters, and I'll door-to-door the hell out of you.”
We divided the neighborhood in half and decided to work until two o'clock. I was done early, scoring a big zero. One woman said she saw Fred go off with Harrison Ford, but I thought that was unlikely. And another woman said she'd seen a vision of Fred floating across her television screen. I didn't put a lot of stock in that, either.
Since I had some time to kill I went back to the Grand Union to buy pantyhose for the wedding. I stepped into the glass vestibule and noticed an elderly woman was staring at the Fred poster I'd tacked up on the community bulletin board. That's good, I thought. People read these things.
I bought the pantyhose, and as I was leaving I saw the woman was still standing in front of the poster. “Have you seen him?” I asked.
“Are you Stephanie Plum?”
“Yes.”
“I thought I recognized you. I remember your picture from when you blew up that funeral home.”
“Do you know Fred?”
“Sure, I know Fred. He's in my seniors club. Fred and Mabel. I didn't realize he was missing.”
“When did you see him last?”
“I was trying to remember that. I was sitting on the bench outside Grand Union here, waiting for my nephew to come pick me up, on account of I don't drive anymore. And I saw Fred come out of the cleaners.”
“That must have been Friday.”
“That's what I think, too. I think it was Friday.”
“What did Fred do when he came out of the cleaners?”
“He went to his car with the clothes. And it looked like he laid them out real careful on the backseat, although it was hard to tell from here.”
“What happened next?”
“A car pulled up alongside Fred and a man got out, and him and Fred talked for a while. And then Fred got in the car with the man and they drove away. I'm pretty sure that's the last time I saw Fred. Except I can't be certain of the day. My nephew would know.”
Holy shit. “Did you know the man Fred was talking to?”
“No. He wasn't familiar to me. But I got the feeling Fred knew him. They seemed friendly.”
“What did he look like?”
“Goodness. I don't know. He was just a man. Ordinary.”
“Caucasian?”
“Yes. And about the same height as Fred. And he was dressed in a suit.”
“What color hair? Was his hair long or short?”
“It wasn't like I was paying attention to remember something,” she said. “I was just passing time until Carl got here. I suppose his hair was short and maybe brown. I can't actually remember, but if it was unusual, it would have stuck in my mind.”
“Would you know him if you saw him again? Would you recognize him from a picture?”
“I don't think I could say for sure. He was a ways away, you know, and I didn't see his face much.”
“How about the car he was driving? Do you remember the color?”
She was silent for a moment, her eyes unfocused while she searched for a mental image of the car. “I just wasn't paying attention,” she said. “I'm sorry. I can't recall the car. Except that it wasn't a truck or anything. It was a car.”
“Did it look like they were arguing?”
“No. They were just talking. And then the man walked around the car and got behind the wheel. And Fred got in the passenger side. And they drove away.”
I gave her my card in exchange for her name, address, and phone number. She said she didn't mind if I called to ask more questions. And she said she'd keep her eyes open and call me if she saw Fred.
I was so psyched I almost didn't see Lula standing two inches from me. “Wow!” I said, bumping into her.
“Earth to Stephanie,” Lula said.
“How'd you do?” I asked her.
“Lousy. There's a bunch of dummies living here. Nobody knows nothing.”
“I didn't have any luck back there, either,” I said. “But I found someone in the store who saw Fred get into a car with another man.”
“You shitting me?”
“Swear to God. The woman's name is Irene Tully.”
“So who's the man? And where's ol' Fred?” Lula asked.
I didn't know the answers to those questions. Some of the wind went out of my sails when I realized not a whole lot had changed. I had a new puzzle piece, but I still didn't know if Fred was in Fort Lauderdale or the Camden landfill.
We'd been walking back to Lula's Firebird, and I'd been lost in thought. I looked at the Firebird and thought there was something strange about it. It hit me at the same
time Lula started shrieking.
“My baby,” Lula yelled. “My baby, my baby.”
The Firebird was up on blocks. Someone had stolen all four wheels.
“This is just like Fred,” she said. “What is this, the Bermuda Triangle?”
We got closer and looked in the car window. Lula's groceries were stuffed onto the front seat, and two of the wheels were in the back. Lula popped the trunk and found her other two wheels.
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