Finger Lickin' Fifteen

by Unknown

  Al Rochere ran over with his film crew and went in for an interview.

  “Get him out of here,” Dudley said. “I’ll shoot her. Swear to God.”

  “Wait a minute,” Lula said. “This could be my big break.”

  There was the unmistakable wup wup wup of a helicopter, and the medevac chopper flew low over us and landed in an empty area of the field.

  Dudley still had the gun to Lula’s head. “I’m taking her with me. I’ll release her when we land.”

  “I don’t like this,” Lula said. “I don’t like helicopters. I’m gonna get the runs.”

  “Shut up, and get walking.”

  “I don’t feel so good,” Lula said. And she farted.

  Dudley stepped back and fanned the air with his gun. “Jeez, lady, what have you been eating?”

  “Barbecue,” Lula said. And she sucker punched him in the throat.

  Dudley gagged and dropped his gun. And Morelli was on him.

  “Is there still a reward?” Lula asked. “Does anybody know the ruling on that?”

  A bunch of cops and security guards swarmed in, keeping the curious back. Morelli’s partner cuffed Dudley and a couple uniforms moved in to help.

  “My hero,” I said to Morelli.

  Morelli grinned. “Lula’s the hero. She sucker punched him.”

  “And it was a pip of a fart, too,” Grandma said.

  I looked over at Joyce. The paramedics had her stable and ready to medevac out.

  “How is she?” I asked one of them.

  “Lost some blood, but I don’t think anything critical was hit.”

  “I need to go downtown with Dudley,” Morelli said to me. “Call me when you get things figured out.”

  I walked to our kitchen, where Grandma, Lula, and Connie were standing, staring at the blackened ribs and ashes spread across the ground.

  “I don’t suppose we’re gonna win the contest, what with the grill falling apart and the ribs burning up,” Grandma said.

  “I’m tired of this whole barbecue thing, anyway,” Connie said. “I could use a calzone.”

  “I’m in for a meatball sub,” Lula said.

  “And spaghetti,” Grandma said. “Do you think we should stick around to see who wins the contest?”

  “I don’t care who wins the contest, since it’s not me,” Lula said.

  Connie had her bag hiked up on her shoulder. “We can read about it in the paper tomorrow.”

  TWENTY

  IT WAS A little after six when I pulled into the Rangeman garage. Marco the Maniac and Zito Dudley were in jail. Joyce was being treated. Lula, Grandma, and Connie were at Pino’s. I parked the cab next to the Buick and took the elevator to the seventh floor.

  Ranger had called shortly after four o’clock and asked that I come in when the dust settled on the barbecue fiasco. I entered his apartment and found him in his office, at his computer.

  “Come here,” he said. “I want you to see something. This came in at four o’clock.”

  I looked over his shoulder at a grainy picture of a wall. A motion detector was fixed at the top of the wall, and alongside the motion detector was a small square box, the same size as the detector. A slim young man dressed in khakis and a white collared shirt came into the picture, looked around, fixed on the Rangeman camera for a moment, and left.

  “Is that your break-in guy?” I asked Ranger.

  “He fits the description, other than the uniform. I have Hal and Ramon watching the house, and they missed him. He drove up in a van from the client’s pest control company.”

  “Was anyone home when he went in?”

  “Mrs. Lazar, the homeowner. Her husband was still at work. She said she let someone in from pest control. We called the company, and they said he didn’t belong to them. He was in and out before we could get the information to Hal and Ramon.”

  “So for some reason, he changed his routine. Maybe he saw Hector go into the house to install your camera.”

  “Or maybe he just decided it was time for a change.”

  “Now what?”

  Ranger pushed back in his chair. “More of the same.”

  “I’m still driving my father’s cab. Unless you have something for me to do, I’m going to run to the Starbucks on the corner, get him a couple of his favorite cookies as a thank-you, and return the cab.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Ranger said.

  I took the elevator to the first floor and walked the half block to Starbucks. I ordered a coffee for myself and three cookies for my father. There were several people in line, buying a caffeine fix to get them through the night after a day in the office. Several people were hunkered down in the big leather armchairs, making use of the Internet connection. A guy sat alone at one of the small tables. He had a cup of coffee, and he was absorbed in a handheld electronic game. He was wearing loose-fitting jeans, a Cowboy Bebop T-shirt, and a baggy sweatshirt.

  It was the guy in Ranger’s surveillance video. I hadn’t recognized him at first. He looked like everyone else at Starbucks. Except for the game. The game caught my attention.

  I pulled my phone out of my pocket and dialed Ranger. “I think I’ve got him,” I said. “You know how the break-in guy always took those little electronic games kids play? Well, I’m in Starbucks, and there’s a guy who looks like the guy in your video, and he’s sitting here playing with one of those games.”

  “Sit tight,” Ranger said. And he disconnected.

  The break-in guy stood and pocketed his game. He stretched and left the coffee shop, walking north on Myrtle Street. I left the pickup line and followed at a distance. I called Ranger and gave him the new directions. The break-in guy went into an ugly 1970s-style office building. Five floors of tinted glass and aquamarine panels interspersed with yellow brick.

  I was able to see him through the revolving glass door. He crossed the small lobby and stepped into an elevator. I ran into the lobby and read through the list of tenants. Fourth floor: GOT GAME SECURITY. Bingo.

  I was on the phone with Ranger again, and an instant later, three black Rangeman SUVs rolled to a stop outside the building.

  I took the elevator with Ranger and Tank, Ramon and his partner took the stairs, Hal and his partner stayed in the lobby. We reached the fourth floor, and Ranger tried the door to Got Game Security. Locked. He rapped on the door. The door buzzed unlocked, and Ranger pushed the door open.

  The break-in guy was at a ratty wooden desk. He looked at Ranger standing in his doorway and went pale.

  “What?” he said. And then he jumped up and tried to make a run for an adjoining suite.

  Ranger reached him in two strides, grabbed him by the shirt, and threw him against the wall. He hit with a SPLAT and slid down the wall like a sack of sand.

  “Get him out of here,” Ranger said to Tank.

  There was nothing in the office other than the desk and a desk chair. No phone. No computer. Ranger pulled the top drawer open, and it was filled with handheld games.

  The door to the adjoining suite opened, and a scrawny guy with a mop of curly red hair and freckled skin peeked out. “Oh shit!” he said. And he slammed the door shut.

  Ranger opened the door, and we walked into a room crammed with all the stuff that had been stolen. The red-haired guy was pressed against the far wall, and I swear I could see his heart beating against his Final Fantasy T-shirt.

  “Talk to me,” Ranger said.

  The red-haired guy opened his mouth and nodded his head, but no words came out. His eyes got glassy, and he slid down the wall and sat down hard on the floor. He looked to be about eighteen years old.

  “Do we need medical?” Ramon asked, entering the room.

  “Give him some time,” Ranger said.

  We stood around for a couple minutes, waiting for the kid’s eyes to focus. When he looked like he had a thought in his head, Ranger pulled him to his feet.

  “We wanted to be security guys,” the kid said. “We wanted a job at Rangeman, but you
wouldn’t even talk to us. You wouldn’t even take our applications. The guy at the desk said we were too young. So we figured we’d start our own security company.”

  “And?”

  “And Toby thought it would be cool if we financed our company by robbing your accounts. Like we could make a game out of it. Toby is all into games. He had it all figured out. He had all these rules to keep it interesting. Toby’s probably the smartest guy I know.”

  Ranger looked around. “Why have you got all the stolen property stacked up here?”

  “We didn’t know what to do with it. We figured we’d fence it, but we don’t know anybody who does that. So we used the money to rent these offices while we looked for a fence.”

  “Turn them in,” Ranger said to Ramon. “Let me know if there are problems.”

  Ramon took the kid out of the office, and his partner followed.

  “You should be happy,” I said to Ranger. “You solved your mystery.”

  “I was almost ruined by two goofy kids. I’m embarrassed.”

  “Whoa,” I said. “That’s an emotion.”

  “You think I don’t have emotions?”

  “I don’t think you very often get embarrassed.”

  “It takes a lot,” Ranger said.

  “You brought me in to snoop around. Now that you ‘ve found your bad guys, does this mean I’m being terminated?”

  Ranger looked at me. “That’s your decision.”

  “I think I’ll keep the job for a while longer, but I’ll move out of your bed.”

  “That’s the safe way to go,” Ranger said. “But not the most satisfying. The job will get boring.”

  “But not your bed?”

  “Not if we’re in it together.”

  There was no doubt in my mind.

  AN HOUR LATER, I was in my father’s cab with Rex on the seat next to me and a small stash of Rangeman uniforms in a bag on the backseat. I was on my way to my parents’ house, but I took a detour and drove past Morelli’s house just for the heck of it. Lights were on in his downstairs windows, and his SUV was parked curbside. I pulled in behind the SUV, went to Morelli’s door, and knocked.

  Morelli grinned when he saw me. “Couldn’t resist my charms?”

  “Couldn’t resist your television. My father’s going to be watching baseball, and the Rangers are playing the Devils tonight.”

  “I’m all set,” Morelli said. “I’ve got chips and dip and beer.”

  I ran back to the cab and got Rex’s cage. Rex wouldn’t want to miss the Rangers playing, and he loved chips.

  I put Rex on the coffee table, and I settled in on the couch, next to Bob.

  “Have you heard anything about Joyce?”

  “She’s going to be okay.”

  “And what about the guy who owns the sauce company and hired Marco to whack Chipotle?”

  Morelli scooped some dip onto a chip and fed it to me. He had to reach over Bob to do it. “They’re looking for him, but haven’t found him so far. He’s probably in Venezuela.”

  “That was pretty scary at the cook-off. It took a lot of guts for Lula to punch that guy.”

  “I’m more impressed with the fart.”

  “Men.”

  “Hey, what can I say, men like farts.”

  I told him about finding the break-in guy and his friend, Morelli fed me another chip, and I drank some of his beer.

  “Look at us,” I said to Morelli. “We aren’t arguing.”

  “That’s because the game hasn’t started,” Morelli said. “Maybe we shouldn’t watch the game. Maybe we should do something else. Are you still off men?”

  “I think I’m off and on.”

  Morelli grinned at me. “Which night is this? Off or on?”

  I smiled back at him. “There are some things a man should find out for himself.”

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty