Джанет Иванович - Fortune and Glory

I turned onto Hamilton Avenue and glanced at Potts in the rearview mirror. “Hopefully you won’t have to go to prison,” I said. “You were accused of a nonviolent crime, so maybe you’ll just get community service.”

“That would be awesome,” he said. “I’m all about community service.”

“Do you volunteer anywhere?”

“No, but I think about it sometimes. I wanted to volunteer at the zoo in Philadelphia, but it turned out I was allergic to giraffe dander. And they’re very big when you get up close. I’m not comfortable with animals that are bigger than me.”

“You aren’t having any allergic reactions now, are you?” I asked. “Like gluten?”

“No. I’m okay. I’m a little apprehensive, but that’s normal for me. Did I tell you I have PTSD?”

“Yes.”

“It makes me apprehensive.”

Having Potts in my car was making me apprehensive.

“Do you mind if I hum?” he asked. “Humming helps to settle my stomach.”

I checked him out in the mirror again. “You have a stomach problem?”

“It happens when I get apprehensive. I get a nervous stomach.”

I was less than ten minutes away from the courthouse and police station. If I stopped to get the shower curtain out of the back, I’d add at least three minutes. Best to drive faster and take a chance he wouldn’t spew before I pulled into the parking lot, I thought.

“Go ahead and hum,” I said.

“Sometimes my humming bothers people,” he said.

“Not me,” I told him. “Hum all you want.”

After seven minutes of listening to tuneless humming I thought letting him throw up in the car might have been a better choice. I sped into the lot across from the municipal building, slid into a parking slot, and jumped out of the car. I stood for a moment, enjoying the sound of traffic.

Court was still in session, so I took Potts directly to the judge. If the judge had the time and inclination to see him and Potts could make bail, Potts could avoid spending the night in jail.

Connie was alone when I walked into the office.

“I have a body receipt for Potts,” I said.

Connie’s eyebrows raised a little. “Didn’t he want to get bailed out again?”

“He refused to call his parents, and he had no one else he could ask.”

“There’s more,” Connie said. “I know you. You have that look.”

“What look?”

“The look like you want to poke your eye out with a sharp stick.”

I slumped into the uncomfortable plastic chair in front of her desk. “I put up his bail.”

“Excuse me?”

“It was small. I put it on my credit card. I couldn’t just leave him there. The man is a car crash. He has all these allergies and insecurities. And he has PTSD.”

“Jeez. Don’t drive past the Humane Society on your way home. You’ll go home with a box of kittens.”

“He hums,” I said to Connie. “Parts of songs. Over and over. And sometimes he hums nothing.”

Connie took my body receipt and wrote out a check for the capture. “My Uncle Big used to hum like that,” she said. “One day he was humming, and someone shot him… twelve times.”

“Because he was humming?”

“Maybe, but he was also trying to hijack a truck full of sneakers.”

“Is he still humming?”

“You don’t hum after taking twelve gunshots,” Connie said. “Not ever.”

I stuffed the check into my bag and headed out. I stopped at the door and looked back at Connie. “You haven’t, by any chance, seen a woman my age and my height, dressed in black, with freshly ironed long brown hair and perfectly applied fake eyelashes on her big brown eyes?”

“Gabriela?”

“You know her?”

“She was here earlier today. She wanted information on Charlie Shine. She knew we bonded him out.”

“Do you know her last name? Who is she?”

“She didn’t give a last name. Just Gabriela. She didn’t say much. She’s looking for Shine, and she knew we were, too.”

“What did you tell her?”

“That he was in the wind. She already had his police file. I’m guessing she’s a PI or maybe an insurance investigator. Shine probably has a bunch of people looking for him.”

I left the office wondering why Gabriela was interested in Shine. It didn’t bode well. If she found him before I did, I’d be out bond money and the chance to extract information about the treasure’s location. Even worse, what if Gabriela wasn’t actually after Shine, but the treasure? What if she was out to steal the treasure from underneath Grandma and me?

CHAPTER SEVEN

I left my apartment at nine thirty and drove to Henry Street. I was meeting Ranger in a parking lot, and I expected to take part in a burglary. I had no further information. I wasn’t sure of the dress requirements, so I went with basic black. Black sweatshirt. Black T-shirt. Dark jeans. Black sneakers.

A Rangeman SUV was already parked in the bakery lot when I arrived. There was a Rangeman driver behind the wheel, and Ranger and his tech guy, Ramone, were standing beside the SUV, waiting for me. Both men were in black fatigues without the Rangeman logo. Both men were wearing black ball caps. No logo.

Ranger was wearing a utility belt that held a Maglite, a knife, and a gun. Possibly the belt held other tools of his trade, but I couldn’t identify them. Ramone had a small backpack slung over one shoulder. I’d watched Ramone apply his skills on a couple of other occasions, and I knew he had various gizmos and probably explosives in the pack. He was a crack shot, an electronics genius, a master safecracker, and, like most of Ranger’s specialists , Ramone was comfortable on both sides of the law.

“Hey,” I said by way of greeting.

“Hey,” Ramone said.

Ranger gave a barely perceptible nod.

“What’s the plan?” I asked Ranger.

“This bakery is owned by Benny the Skootch’s cousin, Emelio. It’s mostly used to launder money, and it has no security beyond a locked door. There’s a tunnel exit in the basement. We can use it to get into the Mole Hole back room. Less complicated than going through the front or back door of the Mole Hole after hours.”

“Have you ever been in the tunnel?” I asked Ranger. “There are rats in the tunnel.”

“And?”

“ Rats! Big rats! Lots of them.”

“Babe,” Ranger said.

Depending on the tone, babe could have many different meanings with Ranger. This babe was said with the slight hint of a smile. I amused him.

“Maybe not so many rats,” Ramone said. “I understand there was a fire down there.”

Ranger moved to the bakery’s back door, inserted a slim pick, and the lock clicked open.

“Stay close behind me when we’re in the tunnel,” Ranger said. “Ramone will watch your back.”

We walked through a small storeroom filled with racks of white bakery bags and unassembled white bakery boxes, large jars of food coloring, multicolored sprinkles, granulated sugar, powdered sugar, cinnamon sugar. The storeroom led to a room with a couple of refrigerators and a workbench.

“Where do they bake things?” I asked.

“In Carteret,” Ranger said. “It all gets trucked in and they do some decorating here.”

“That’s disappointing,” I said. “I always imagined Carlotta dusted in flour, baking bread and cupcakes before the sun came up.”

“It gets worse,” Ranger said, opening a door and shining his light on a flight of stairs that led to the basement. “There’s no Carlotta. There’s just Emelio and a couple minimum-wage cannoli fillers.”

I followed Ranger down the stairs to a crude cellar that housed an ancient-looking water heater and furnace. Ranger opened another door, and we stepped into an offshoot of the Mole Hole tunnel.