Top Secret Twenty-One

by Janet Evanovich

  I turned and picked out Jimmy Poletti, partly hidden by the tree, dressed in a dark suit, looking solemn.

  “I feel bad that we’re taking him down at his mother’s funeral,” I said.

  “Babe, he shot a firebomb into your apartment.”

  “We don’t know for sure that it was him.”

  “Do you want to let him walk?”

  “No, but it would be nice if we could wait until the ceremony is over to grab him.”

  “I’m willing to wait, but I can’t speak for the undercover guys.”

  “Do you think they see him?”

  “Not yet, but it’s only a matter of time, because he’s creeping closer.”

  “How did he get here?”

  “He has a car parked on the other side of the hill.”

  “And he’s alone?”

  “He was the only one in the car.”

  “How is it that you know all these things and I don’t?” I asked.

  “I know where to look.”

  I couldn’t hear the priest from where I was standing, but I could see that he was going through the ritual. Briggs looked bored, shifting his weight from foot to foot. He couldn’t see much in front of him. He was looking around, up at the sky, back at me, over to the maple tree. I saw him stiffen, and I knew he’d spotted Jimmy Poletti.

  “Briggs!” I said to Ranger. “He sees Jimmy.”

  Ranger moved forward, but not in time to stop Briggs.

  “It’s him!” Briggs yelled, pointing to Poletti. “You son of a bitch!”

  The priest froze midblessing, mouth open, eyes wide. Every head swiveled to the maple tree. Poletti went deer in the headlights.

  “I got a gun,” Lula said, shoving her hand into her purse. “Just everyone hold up until I get my gun.”

  The plainclothes guys were on the move, and fifty geriatric mourners scrambled to get away from the action, pushing and shoving, heading for their cars.

  Poletti turned to go up the hill, saw a cop running down the hill toward him, and changed direction, running straight for the grave. A shot was fired and everyone hit the deck, except Lula, Grandma, and Briggs, who were holding their ground.

  Lula had a two-handed grip on her Glock and was trying to get a sight on Poletti. Briggs was enraged, his face bright red, his eyes crazy.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” Briggs yelled at Poletti. “You blew up my apartment, you moron!”

  “You fucked my wife!” Poletti yelled back, running full-tilt at Briggs. “I hate you.”

  “Everybody fucks your wife,” Briggs shouted. “I don’t see you blowing up everybody’s apartment. It’s because I’m short, isn’t it?”

  Lula fired off a shot that went wide, and Poletti charged Briggs. Grandma swung her purse just as Poletti swept past her. The big black patent leather bag caught Poletti on the side of the head, and Poletti staggered and crashed to the ground. Ranger cuffed him, and the three cops took over.

  Lula and Grandma did a complicated high five.

  “I did it,” Grandma said. “I just ticked off one of the things on my bucket list. I just took down a bad guy. I got to put on some fresh lipstick. I’m going to be the talk of the wake.”

  “I could have taken him,” Briggs said. “I would have ripped him to shreds.”

  “Yeah, you could have bitten him in the knee,” Lula said.

  “Don’t underestimate a bite in the knee,” Briggs said. “It could cripple someone.”

  SIXTEEN

  RANGER AND I followed Poletti and the police down the hill to the cars and on to the police station. I waited while Poletti was booked in, I got my body receipt, and I returned to the parking lot, where Ranger was waiting. He was dressed in black slacks, a form-fitting black T-shirt, and a black blazer.

  “You’re not in Rangeman fatigues,” I said. “Are you a businessman today, or is this just funeral attire?”

  “I need to go to New York, and I thought the security guard look would be limiting. It would be helpful if you could come with me.”

  “I assume you’re looking for Vlatko.”

  “Right now the hotel is my only lead.”

  I drove to the office and handed the body receipt to Connie.

  “I’m going on a field trip with Ranger,” I told her. “Poletti is off the streets. So Briggs can manage on his own now.”

  I don’t get to New York as often as I’d like. Mostly because I have no time and no money. So even though this was business, I was excited about the trip. And let’s be honest, I was excited about going to New York with Ranger. Plus I know this is shallow, but I was in his megabucks Porsche, feeling like I was in a James Bond movie.

  Ranger took the Turnpike to the Lincoln Tunnel and parked in a lot on the Upper West Side of Manhattan not far from the Gatewell Hotel. It was midday, and the streets were crammed and the sidewalks weren’t much better. The Gatewell was in the middle of the block, two blocks off Broadway. The doorman was dressed to look like Chairman Mao. The lobby was small but elegant. Lots of shiny black and white and silver with touches of red.

  Ranger showed the manager his identification and his right-to-recover papers for Emilio Gardi.

  “We have reason to believe he stayed in this hotel,” Ranger said.

  “The FBI have already asked about him,” the manager said. “They were here yesterday.”

  “This is a different issue,” Ranger said. “I represent his family and his bondsman.”

  “I don’t have much information on him. He stayed here for one night last week. His room was prepaid in cash. There were no additional charges. No credit card on file.”

  “Do you have the name or phone number of the person who made the reservation?” Ranger asked.

  “There’s nothing on record, but one of the young men on the front desk remembered the transaction. The man making the reservation did it in person two days in advance and prepaid in full. He stood out because he had a slight British accent and an odd tattoo on his neck. A skull and a flower.”

  The hotel had a lounge off the lobby. We sat at a high-top table and ordered sandwiches from the bar menu.

  “Is Vlatko British?” I asked Ranger.

  “He’s Russian, but he speaks fluent English that’s more British than American.”

  “Do you speak Russian?”

  “I understand some Russian, but I speak very little.”

  “There has to be a reason why he chose this hotel.”

  “There’s a large Russian community here on the West Side,” Ranger said. “I’m guessing he has ties to something nearby. A relative. A friend. A job. A woman.”

  We finished our lunch, and Ranger returned to the manager.

  “Do you have many Russians staying here?” he asked.

  “A fair amount,” the manager said. “There’s a satellite arm of the consulate one block south on Seventy-fifth Street. They host trade shows and small VIP parties, and they sometimes recommend us to visitors.”

  I followed Ranger out of the hotel and we walked one block to Seventy-fifth. We looked up and down the street but saw no Russian flags displayed. We walked east and studied the buildings we passed. We found the consulate on the second block. It was identified by a gold plaque fixed to the building. Writing was in Russian and English. The door was locked. There was a call box beside the gold plaque.

  We crossed the street to get a better look. Five stories. Black wrought iron filigree on the lower-level windows. The windows on the upper floors were tinted and most likely impact glass. Security cameras scanned the street from the roof.

  Ranger called Tank, gave him the consulate’s address, and told him to research the week’s events. Minutes later, Tank texted Ranger the consulate’s schedule.

  “There’s a trade show going on this week for Russian vodka,” Ranger said. “This consulate will be hosting a meet-and-greet party at five o’clock. That would be a good time for us to slip in.”

  We had some time to kill, so we went back to our high-top
table at the Gatewell Hotel. We ordered drinks and received our complimentary bowl of bar nuts. We didn’t touch any of this. We watched the room. There were four men at the bar. Two of them looked like cartoon versions of Russian vodka salesmen. Large red noses, too much flesh, laughing too loud, drinking vodka. And they were speaking Russian.

  “You need to introduce yourself to those men,” Ranger said. “It would help break the ice if you gave them more to look at. Something that would compensate for the fact that you don’t speak Russian.”

  “What if they don’t speak English?”

  “They probably speak enough to get by.”

  I went to the ladies’ room and looked at myself in the mirror. I was wearing a black business suit with a silky white shirt under it. My hair was pulled into a ponytail, and I was wearing heels. It was appropriately sexy for a funeral, but not so much for Russian vodka salesmen.

  I opened enough buttons on the shirt that I was showing some cleavage. I wasn’t sure if it was enough cleavage to compensate for my lack of Russian, so I stuffed some toilet paper into my bra. The cleavage got better, but I still wasn’t anywhere near Lula cleavage. I walked around a little to make sure the toilet paper didn’t rustle or shift in place, and then I shoved in some more. I was now bulging out of my bra, straining the fabric on my silky shirt, and there was no way I could button my jacket.

  I jumped up and down to make sure I wouldn’t unexpectedly have a wardrobe malfunction. I jiggled a little, and my nipples didn’t pop out of my bra, so I figured I was good to go. I gunked up my eyes with a lot more mascara, added some eyeliner, and applied a fresh coat of blood red lipstick. I looked at myself in the full-length ladies’ room mirror and worried that I still might not be compensating enough for my lack of language skills, so I pulled the scrunchie off my ponytail. Whoosh, my hair instantly expanded. I worked at it with water and hairspray until the natural curls were back. I now had a lot of hair, and a lot of it was frizz. This is why I usually wear a ponytail. Still, I thought it might be sexy, if you like the big frizzy-hair look. I mean, you see it in Vogue all the time, right?

  I went back to the full-length mirror and took another look. Yikes! Good thing my mother wasn’t here or I’d be grounded. I might have overdone the toilet-paper thing.

  Ranger called my cellphone. “Babe,” he said, “you’ve been in there a long time. Is everything okay?”

  “Yep. It’s peachy.”

  I hurried out of the ladies’ room, took a deep breath, and set out across the room with what I hoped was a confident stride. Stephanie Plum, cunning sexpot, about to embark on a dangerous mission.

  “What do you think?” I asked Ranger when I reached the high-top.

  “Babe, you don’t want to know what I’m thinking.”

  I actually had a pretty good idea what he was thinking, since his pupils were totally dilated. Like maybe we should forget about the two Russians at the bar and get a room. And now that I was slutted up and getting into the role, I was having similar thoughts. Problem was, undressing was going to be awkward.

  “You do realize that I have half a roll of toilet paper stuffed into my bra?”

  “I wouldn’t share that with the men at the bar,” Ranger said. He gave me a tiny earbud. “You can stay connected to me with this.”

  “Will you be able to hear what I’m saying?”

  “Yes.”

  I stuck the earbud in my ear and sashayed over to the bar. I took the barstool next to one of the Russians and crossed my legs, letting my skirt ride up to a couple inches below my doo-dah, and asked the bartender for a champagne cocktail.

  Conversation stopped, and both men looked my way. The man next to me smiled wide, displaying a gold-capped molar. He said something in Russian, and I did a palms-up display of I no speak that language. I accompanied the palms-up with a giggle, and I jiggled around a little. It was like airhead bimbo–meets–ADHD Pomeranian.

  “My name Leo Stolchi,” he said. Heavy accent. “I sees you do not speak Russian.”

  “Honey, I have enough problems with English.”

  This got a big laugh, and his eyes tracked down to my boobs and from there went on to my crotch, which was demurely hidden by a small amount of black skirt fabric.

  “You are very pretty,” he said.

  “Well, thank you,” I said. “Aren’t you sweet.”

  My drink arrived, and Leo told the bartender to put it on his bill.

  “And generous,” I said.

  Leo looked unsure of “generous.”

  “What is ‘generous’?” he asked.

  “It’s like … rich. You must be rich.”

  The smile was back. “Yes! Very, very rich.”

  “How did you make all your money?”

  “Vodka,” he said. “I makes the best.”

  I glanced over at Ranger and smiled. Jackpot.

  “Do you know that man?” Leo asked.

  “He’s a friend of the family,” I said.

  “He look like a bad man.”

  “He has his moments.”

  No sound came over the earbud from Ranger, but I thought I sensed him smile.

  “Are you staying at this hotel?” I asked Leo.

  “Yes. It close to the consulate building where will take place the meetings. There is party soon.”

  “I love parties,” I said.

  “This a good one. They serving my vodka.” He looked at his watch. “I should be going.”

  Damn! I was losing him. I put my hand on his leg. “That’s too bad. We were just getting to know each other.”

  “It no will be long,” he said. “Two hours.”

  My hand moved an inch closer to a place I really didn’t want to go, and I leaned forward to give him a better look at the girls. “My friend has to leave, and I would be here all alone.”

  “I would stay but this important party.”

  Good grief, this guy was dense! “I could go with you,” I said. “And then we can have our own private party when we come back to the hotel.”

  His eyes opened wide. “Yes! That is perfect plan.”

  “Last week I met a Russian named Vlatko,” I said. “Do you know any men named Vlatko?”

  “Vlatko is much common name in Russia.”

  “This man had an unusual tattoo on his neck. And he might only have one eye.”

  “I know a Vlatko what has his initials tattooed on forehead,” Leo said. “This must be different Vlatko.”

  “Have you been inside the consulate building already?”

  “Only for the short times yesterday. I went to register.” He signed the tab over to his room and got off the barstool. “What about family friend?”

  “Maybe he could come to the party with us. He loves vodka.”

  “I guesses that would be okay. He isn’t going to have the party with us after, is he?”

  “Not unless you want him to. He’s gay, you know.”

  “He doesn’t look gay.”

  “Of course he does. His skin is flawless and his haircut is perfect. And look at his slacks. Not a single wrinkle.”

  “How does he do that?” Leo asked. “I always get the wrinkles.”

  We stopped at Ranger’s table and invited him to join us at the party. He dropped some money on the table and stood.

  Leo stared at Ranger’s slacks and gave me a sideways glance of acknowledgment. No wrinkles.

  SEVENTEEN

  THE MAN AT the consulate door checked Leo’s invitation, and there was a brief conversation.

  “No problems,” Leo said to me. “You and your friend comes in. I very important vodka magnate.”

  The party was being held in a large room on the ground floor. The room was decorated in reds and golds. Oriental rugs. Antique-looking furniture in dark woods and brocaded fabrics. Very formal. Waiters in white shirts and black slacks were passing appetizers. A bar with two bartenders was set up at the far side of the room.

  People were pouring in from the street. The men were in suit
s, and the women were in cocktail dresses. Average age for the men was fifty. More difficult to assess the women. It looked to me like a lot of the women were mid-level to high-end hookers. I figured I fit into the mid-level range.

  Leo tugged me over to the bar. “You see bottle with red label? That is my vodka. You must drink some.”

  Ranger had already wandered off on his own to snoop through the five floors. I was left with the vodka king.

  “It’s a pretty bottle,” I said.

  “It made in China. They makes the best bottles. They add lead to make sparkle.” He took two glasses of vodka from the bartender and passed one to me. He chugged his, and I sipped at mine. It burned all the way down, and I felt like my sinus cavities were on fire.

  “Smooth,” I said.

  His eyes fixed on my bulging breasts. “Like mother’s milk.”

  “Yep, that’s what I was thinking.” I looked around. “Do you know any of these people?”

  His eyes were still focused on my chest. “I knows some of them. It is small world where is Russian vodka makers.”

  “If you’d like to talk to some of the people here, I’ll be fine on my own. I’ll just stay here and drink vodka.”

  “I should do this,” he said. “Do not go away. I haves big plans. Leo that kind of guy. I much known to be big.”

  “Good to know.”

  He stepped away, and I checked in with Ranger. “Where are you?” I asked him.

  “Third floor. Checking my email. Don’t drink too much vodka.”

  “Just trying to increase my lead consumption. Over and out.”

  I had the bartender swap out my vodka for water, and I drifted around the room, eavesdropping. No one seemed especially interested in talking to me, but everyone stared at my chest. The women studied me with critical eyes. No doubt making surgical comparisons. The men smiled their approval. I didn’t have the biggest breasts in the room, but I think I had the most enthusiastic. Almost everyone was speaking Russian, so I wasn’t doing great in the information gathering department. I refrained from snacking on the appetizers that were being passed, just in case Vlatko had a grudge against vodka salesmen.