Finger Lickin' Fifteen

by Unknown

  “Get out.”

  “Swear to God. And he didn’t look good in it, either. It was all wrong for him. He sees me lookin’ at him and he says, I hope you don’t mind I’m wearing your dress. And I say, hell yeah, I mind. You don’t fit in that dress. You’re bustin’ out of it. You’re gonna ruin it, and it’s one of my favorites.”

  “And then what?”

  “Then he gets all huffy, saying he thought he looked pretty darn good in the dress, and I shouldn’t be talkin’ about bustin’ out of stuff. So I ask him exactly what that’s supposed to mean, and he says, figure it out, fatso.”

  I sucked in some air on that one. Calling Lula fatso was like asking to die.

  “It got ugly after that,” Lula said. “I don’t want to go into the depressin’ details, but he got his ass out of my apartment, and he wasn’t wearin’ my dress when he exited, either.” She looked down at the empty cake plate. “What happened to the cake?”

  “You ate it.”

  “Hunh,” Lula said. “I didn’t notice.”

  “Easy come, easy go,” I said.

  “That’s so true. It’s true about cake and men.”

  “Doesn’t sound traumatic enough to give you an ulcer,” I said.

  “That wasn’t the traumatic part. The traumatic part came after I booted him out. I was putting my gown away, and I heard someone knockin’ at my door. I figured it was the moron fireman coming back to get his clothes. . . .”

  “He left without his clothes?”

  “He was in a hurry after I got my gun. The thing is, I already threw his clothes out my window. You know I live on the second floor of the house, so the clothes kind of floated down and landed in some bushes, and maybe he didn’t notice. So I’m thinkin’ it’s just this loser again, and I open the door, and it’s the Chipotle killers, and the one’s got the big-ass meat cleaver and the other’s got a gun.”

  “Omigosh.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I said. I jumped back real quick and slammed the door shut, and bang, bang, bang, there was three bullets shot through my door. Can you imagine the nerve of them defacing my door? And it’s not even like I own the door. This here’s a rental property. And I don’t see where I should be held responsible to pay for that door.”

  “What happened next?”

  “I got my gun and I shot a whole bunch more holes in the door while they were trying to kick it in.”

  “Did you hit anyone?”

  “I don’t know. I emptied about half a clip in the door, and when I stopped shooting, there weren’t any sounds coming from the other side. So I waited a minute, and then I peeked out, and I didn’t see no decapitators. And there wasn’t any blood all splattered around, either, although hard to believe I missed them, on account of they had their foot to the door when I started shooting.”

  It was easy for me to believe. Lula was the worst shot ever. Lula couldn’t hit the side of a barn if she was three feet away from it.

  “So that’s why I’m here,” Lula said, retrieving a big black garbage bag she’d left in the outside hall. “I brought some clothes and stuff with me because I figure I could stay with you while my door is getting fixed. It looks like Swiss cheese, and the lock’s broke from those assholes kickin’ at it.” Lula closed my door behind her and took a look at it. “You got a real good door here. It’s one of them metal fire doors. I only had a wimp-ass wood one.”

  I was speechless. Lula’s a good friend, but having her as a roommate would be like getting locked in a closet with a rhinoceros in full attention deficit disorder mode.

  “You don’t have Morelli coming over or nothin’, do you?” she asked. “I don’t want to interfere. And I’ll be gone as soon as they get my new door put up. Don’t seem to me there’s much to it. You get a new door and you put it up on those hinges, right?”

  I nodded. “Yuh,” I said.

  “Are you okay?” Lula asked. “You look all glassy-eyed. Good thing I’m here. You might be coming down with something.” She settled into my couch and focused on the TV screen. “This is one of my favorite shows. I watch this every Thursday.”

  I joined her on the couch and tried to relax. It’ll be fine, I told myself. It’s just for tonight. Tomorrow she’ll get the door fixed, and I’ll have my apartment back. And Lula’s a good person. This is the least I could do.

  Three minutes after sitting down, Lula’s head dropped forward, and she was asleep, softly snoring. The snoring got louder and louder, until finally it was drowning out the sound from the television and I was sitting on my hands to keep from choking her.

  “Hey!” I yelled in her ear.

  “What?”

  “You’re snoring.”

  “No way. I was watching television. Look at me. Do I look like I’m asleep?”

  “I’m going to bed,” I said.

  “You sure you don’t want to see the end of this? This is a real good show.”

  “I’ll catch it on reruns.”

  I closed the door to my bedroom, crawled into bed, and shut my light off. I took a couple deep breaths and willed myself to go to sleep. Relax, I told myself. Calm down. Life is good. Think of a gentle breeze. Think of the moon in a dark sky. Hear the ocean. My eyes snapped open. I wasn’t hearing the ocean. I was hearing Lula snoring. I put my pillow over my head and went back to talking myself into sleep. Hear the ocean. Hear the wind in the trees. Shit! It wasn’t working. All I could hear was Lula.

  Okay, I had a choice. I could kick her out of my apartment. I could hit her in the head with a hammer until she was dead. Or I could leave.

  I PARKED IN the Rangeman garage and fobbed myself into the elevator and up to the seventh floor. I knew all eyes were on me in the control room. I waved at the Minicam hidden in the far corner of the elevator and tried to look nonchalant. I was wearing sneakers, flannel pajamas, and a sweatshirt. I’d called Ranger on the way across town and told him I needed a room. He said he was out on surveillance, and the only room available was his bedroom . . . so that was where I was headed.

  I walked through his apartment in the dark and debated sleeping on the couch, but in the end Ranger’s bed was too alluring. He was working a double shift, doing drive-bys on accounts he felt were at highest risk for break-in. That meant he wouldn’t be back until six A.M. All I had to do was set the alarm so I’d be out of his bed before he rolled in.

  The next morning, I was still in my pajamas and was standing in Ranger’s kitchen when he got home. I wasn’t entirely with the program, needing at least another two hours of sleep and a lot of hot coffee. Ranger had been up for more than twenty-four hours and looked annoyingly alert.

  He wrapped an arm around me and kissed me just above my ear. “There’s something wrong with this picture,” Ranger said. “You’re in my bed a lot, but never with me.”

  “It was nice of you to let me stay here. Lula has taken over my apartment.”

  “Nice has nothing to do with it,” Ranger said.

  “How was your night?”

  “Long. And uneventful. I need to get some sleep. Are you coming back to bed with me?”

  “No. I’m up for the day. Gotta get to work and solve all your problems.”

  “If you call Ella, she’ll bring breakfast. Or you can get dressed and have breakfast on the fifth floor.”

  “I haven’t got any clothes.”

  “Ella has clothes for you.”

  He took a bottle of water from the refrigerator, kissed me on the forehead, and left the kitchen. I called Ella, told her I was in Ranger’s apartment, and ten minutes later, Ella was at the door with a breakfast tray and a shopping bag filled with Rangeman gear.

  Ella wore Rangeman black just like everyone else in the building. Today she was in a girl-style V-neck T-shirt and black jeans.

  I took the bag and tray from her at the door and thanked her.

  “Let me know if the clothes don’t fit,” she said. “I saw you in the building yesterday, and I took a guess at the size. I didn’t think you’d
changed from the last time you worked here.”

  “I didn’t see you,” I said. “I never see you! Food just mysteriously appears and disappears in the fifth floor kitchen.”

  “I try to stay invisible and not disrupt the men’s routine.”

  Ella left, and I ate a bagel with cream cheese, drank a couple cups of coffee, and picked at some fresh fruit. My eyes were pretty much open, but I wasn’t sure my heart was beating fast enough to propel me through the day. I collapsed on Ranger’s couch and woke up a little before eight A.M. I picked some clothes out of the shopping bag, tiptoed past Ranger, and quietly closed the bathroom door.

  I took a shower, brushed my teeth, dressed in my new clothes, and emerged from the bathroom feeling like a functioning human being. I was awake. I was clean. The caffeine had kicked in and my heart was racing. Okay, maybe it wasn’t the caffeine. Maybe it was the sight of Ranger with a day-old beard, sleeping in the bed I’d recently vacated.

  I left the apartment and took the elevator to the fifth floor. Roger King was monitoring the station that included the code computer. I paused in front of him to watch him work. He was on the phone with an account that had accidentally tripped their alarm. He was polite and professional. The conversation was short. The account gave King their password, King verified the password and ended the call.

  “That’s the first time I’ve seen someone verify a password,” I said to King.

  King was a nice-looking guy with a voice like velvet. I knew from his human resources file that he was twenty-seven years old and had a degree in criminal justice from a community college. He’d worked as a cop in a small town in Pennsylvania but quit to take the job with Rangeman.

  “If you work this shift, you get a lot of bogus alarms,” King said. “People get up in the morning and forget the alarm is on. By the time Chet takes over, this desk is like a graveyard.”

  When Chet showed up for his shift, I ventured out of my cubicle again and attempted small talk. Chet was polite but not stimulating, and I was feeling like I was contributing to the graveyard syndrome, so I moseyed on back to work, starting a computer search on a deadbeat client.

  Louis had made good on the new chair, and my ass no longer cramped after a half hour. I was wearing black slacks that had some stretch, and a short-sleeved V-neck knit shirt with Rangeman stitched on it and my name stitched below the Rangeman. Ella had also given me cargo pants and matching button-down-collared shirts with roll-up sleeves, a couple stretchy little skirts, black running shoes, black socks, a black zippered sweatshirt, and a black windbreaker. I was on my own for underwear.

  A little before noon, I sensed a shift in the climate and looked up to find Ranger on deck. He spoke briefly to each of the men at the monitoring stations, grabbed a sandwich from the kitchen, and stopped at my cubicle on his way to his office. He was freshly showered and shaved and perfectly pressed in black dress slacks and shirt.

  “I have a client meeting in the boardroom in fifteen minutes,” he said. “After that, I need to catch up on paperwork, and then I’ll take another surveillance shift at six. How far did you get on the accounts list yesterday?”

  “Not that far. I was getting ready to pack up here and spend the afternoon riding around.”

  “Do you need a company car?”

  “No. I’m okay in the Escort.”

  I stuffed myself into my new Rangeman sweatshirt, hiked my purse onto my shoulder, and went to the kitchen to load up on free food. Ella had set out vegetable soup and crackers, assorted sandwiches, a salad bar, and a large display of fresh fruit. I looked it all over and blew out a sigh.

  Ramon was behind me, and he burst out laughing. “Let me guess what that sigh was about. You want a hot dog, fries, and a brownie with ice cream.”

  “I’d kill for a meatball sub and a hunk of birthday cake, but this is better for me,” I said, selecting a barbecue chicken sandwich.

  “Yeah, I keep telling myself that. If I get shot dead on the job, there won’t be an ounce of fat on me.”

  “Do you worry about that?”

  “Getting shot dead? No. I don’t do a lot of worrying, but the reality is most of this job is routine, with the occasional potential for really bad shit.”

  I dropped the sandwich into my purse, along with an apple and an organic granola bar. “Gotta go,” I said. “Things to do.”

  “Knock yourself out.”

  I took the elevator to the garage, wrenched open the rusted door on my p.o.s. Escort, and motored out to the street. Probably it was stupid to refuse Ranger’s offer of a company car, but it seemed like the right thing to do at the time. I had lousy car karma, and I always felt crappy when I used Ranger’s Porsche and it got stolen or crushed by a garbage truck.

  I had my map on the seat beside me, and I drove from one account to the next according to neighborhood. By four o’clock, I’d gone through all the accounts and had checked off a handful that I thought had the potential for a future break-in. I’d gone full circle around the city and ended on lower Hamilton, a half mile from the bonds office.

  Lula hadn’t called about the door, but I felt confident the door had been replaced and everything was cool. I drove up Hamilton to talk to Connie and Lula and found Connie was manning the office all by herself.

  “Where is everyone?” I asked Connie.

  “Vinnie is writing bond for someone, and Lula is at your apartment. She said she lives there now.”

  “I let her stay last night because her door was broken.”

  “I guess her door is still broken,” Connie said.

  “That’s ridiculous. How long does it take to replace a door? You go to Home Depot, buy a door, and hang it on those doohickey hinge things.”

  “Something about it being a crime scene. The door can’t be replaced until the lab checks it out.”

  “Who said that?”

  “Morelli. He stopped by the office to talk to her after she reported the shooting.”

  Unh! Mental head slap.

  I dialed Morelli and did some anti-hyperventilation exercises while I waited for him to pick up.

  “What?” Morelli said.

  “Did you tell Lula she couldn’t replace her door?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s stupid. She has to replace her door. How can she live in her apartment without a door?”

  “It’s a crime scene that’s part of an ongoing murder investigation, and we couldn’t schedule evidence collection today. I’ll have a guy out there tomorrow, and then she can replace her door.”

  “You don’t understand. She’s camped out in my apartment.”

  “And?”

  “I can’t live with her! She rumbles around. She takes up space. Lots of space! And she snores!!”

  “Listen,” Morelli said. “I have my own problems.”

  “Such as?”

  “You don’t want to know.”

  A woman’s voice called out in the background. “Get off the phone. I need help with my zipper.”

  My heart felt like it had stopped dead in my chest. “Is that who I think it is?” I asked Morelli.

  “Yeah, and I can’t get rid of her. Thank God her zipper’s stuck. I’m moving in with my brother.”

  For a moment, my entire field of vision went red. Undoubtedly due to a sudden, violent rise in blood pressure once my heart started beating again. It was Joyce Barnhardt. I hated Joyce Barnhardt. She was a sneaky, mean little kid when we were in school together. She spread rumors, stole boyfriends, alienated girlfriends, cheated on tests, and looked under stall doors in the girls’ bathroom. And now that she was all grown up, she wasn’t much different. She stole husbands, boyfriends, and jobs, cheating in any way possible. Her very presence in Morelli’s house sent me into the irrationally enraged nutso zone.

  I sucked in some air and pretended I was calm. “You’re a big strong guy,” I said, my voice mostly steady, well below the screaming level. “You could get rid of her if you wanted.”

  “It’s not
that easy. She walked right into my house. I’m going to have to start locking my doors. And she came in with a tray of lasagna. I’m afraid to touch it. She’s probably got it laced with roofies.”

  Okay, get a grip here. She walked into Morelli’s house. She wasn’t invited. It could be worse, right?

  “Why is she suddenly bringing you food?” I asked him.

  “She’s been up my ass ever since you broke up with me.”

  “Hey, stud,” Joyce yelled to Morelli. “Get over here.”

  “Shit,” Morelli said. “Maybe I should just shoot her and get it done with.”

  I had a bunch of bitchy comments rolling through my head, but I clamped my mouth shut to keep the comments from spewing out into the phone. I mean, honestly, how hard is it to shove a woman out your back door? What am I supposed to be thinking here?

  “I have to go,” Morelli said. “I don’t like the way she’s looking at my olive oil.”

  I made a sticking-my-finger-down-my-throat gagging motion and hung up.

  “What was that about?” Connie wanted to know.

  “Barnhardt is trying to feed her lasagna to Morelli.”

  “She’s fungus,” Connie said.

  “I’m not too happy with Morelli, either.”

  “He’s a man,” Connie said. As if that explained it all.

  “I suppose I should go home and see what Lula is doing.”

  “I know what she’s doing,” Connie said. “She’s brewing barbecue sauce with your grandmother.”

  “In my apartment?”

  “That was the plan.”

  Eek! Okay, so I know my apartment isn’t going to get a full-page spread in Home Beautiful, but it’s all I’ve got. Bad enough I have Lula in it. Lula and Grandma together are total facaca.

  “Gotta go,” I said to Connie. “See you tomorrow.”