Джанет Иванович - Twisted Twenty-Six

“You weren’t serious, were you? Do you really think I’ll never amount to anything?”

“You’re already more successful than I am. You’ve accomplished more.”

“What have I accomplished?”

“You’re a nice person.”

“So are you.”

Ranger shook his head. “I’m many things. Nice isn’t one of them.”

“You’re nice to me.”

“You’re an experiment. I’m trying to learn.”

“You’re full of crap,” I said.

That got a smile out of him.

“What I know about success in business is that it helps to have a passion,” Ranger said. “I feel passionate about tracking down bad people and protecting good people. It’s not a job for me . . . it’s a calling. And I’m willing to wade through some ugliness to do it.”

“Don’t you get tired of the ugliness?”

“Yes, but you deal with it. And you hope you’re helping to make things better.”

“I don’t have a passion.”

“Sometimes it takes a while to figure it out,” Ranger said.

Rex came out of his can to see what was going on in the kitchen. I gave him a piece of butter cookie, and he scurried back into his soup can with it.

“Life is easy when you’re a hamster,” I said to Ranger.

“It looks boring. I’ll take ugly over boring.”

I was going to tuck that statement away in a corner of my brain for future consideration.

“This is the part of the night where you have to make a decision,” Ranger said. “You can ask me to stay or you can tell me to leave.”

“I can’t ask you to stay.”

Not because I didn’t want him to stay, but because he was part of the problem, and I wasn’t ready to confront him with the issue.

“There’s another part to success,” Ranger said. “You have to be brave.”

I dropped four chocolate chip cookies into a plastic baggie and handed them to Ranger. “I’m working on it.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

I WOKE UP thinking about being brave. Sometimes I believe I was brave on the job. I didn’t think of it as being brave when I was doing it. It was just something that had to get done. Like taking a look at Emory Lindal’s trailer. And tackling Steven Cross when I saw him reach for his gun. Okay, so it’s not like a firefighter running into a burning building or a cop putting his life on the line every day. It’s brave in a small way.

Anyway, I don’t think that’s the kind of brave Ranger was talking about. He was talking about taking a chance on a dream. And taking a chance on a personal relationship. And I was sorely lacking in this kind of bravery.

I called Grandma to see if she knew any more about Marvina.

“Appendicitis,” Grandma said. “She’ll be home in a couple days, and we might want to make sure she hasn’t got that cookie tin sitting in her kitchen.”

—

Lula was already in the office when I arrived. She’d eaten the Boston Kreme and many more. Her short hair was in a state of natural frizz, and she was dressed entirely in pink. Pink tank top. Pink leather skirt that was obscenely short. Pink thigh-high boots.

“What happened to the boho?” I asked.

“That was yesterday. Today I’m in homage to the Pink Panther. And I’m not referring to Steven Cross, who was a total imposter.”

“Is there any news on Roman?” I asked Connie.

“Nothing, but I’d keep a close watch on Grandma. I’m hearing that the La-Z-Boys are nervous.”

“There are only three of them now,” I said. “Are they going to be able to pull off a kidnapping?”

Connie shrugged. “It would be good if you could take Shine off the streets. That would narrow it down to Lou Salgusta, who is batshit crazy, and Benny.”

“Were you ever able to get a current address for Shine?” I asked Connie.

“No. He’s not leaving any tracks. No new credit action to indicate a hotel or a rental car. My mother and my Aunt Stella haven’t heard anything. My guess is that he’s staying with someone. He has friends and relatives who would be willing to hide him. He also has Darlene.”

“Darlene is too obvious,” I said. “He might visit her, but I doubt he’s staying there.”

“If the remaining La-Z-Boys are getting ready to make a move on Grandma, they could be huddling at the Mole Hole,” Connie said.

I checked the time. It was early for the Mole Hole.

“Let’s talk to Darlene,” I said to Lula. “If we don’t learn anything from her, we can stake out the Mole Hole.”

“Sounds like a plan to me,” Lula said.

We crept through town in rush-hour traffic. Retail wasn’t open for business yet, but office buildings were filling up. Darlene’s parking lot was already half empty.

“A lot of government workers live in this building,” Lula said. “They get to work early so they can leave early and play golf.”

We took the elevator to the third floor and rang Darlene’s doorbell. There was no answer, so I knocked.

I could hear movement on the other side, and Lula put her face up to the security peephole.

“Hey, Darlene,” she said. “It’s Lula.”

The door cracked open with the chain attached, and Darlene looked out.

“I’m not up to visitors,” she said.

“Good lord,” Lula said, taking in Darlene’s swollen face. “What happened to you?”

“I can’t talk right now,” Darlene said.

“You need help,” Lula said. “Open the door. If you don’t open the door, I’ll break it down. I could do it too. I got a lot of skills since I went into law enforcement.”

Darlene slipped the chain, and we hurried in. Her eye was swollen shut. Her cheek was bruised and swollen. Her lip was split open.

“What happened?” Lula asked.

I looked around. A round end table was overturned, and a vase was smashed on the floor. The floor by the smashed vase had a blood smear.

“Are you alone?” I asked Darlene.

“Yes,” she said. “And I’m going to stay that way.”

She slowly walked toward the bedroom, holding her side. “I need to keep moving,” she said. “I need to be out of here before he returns.”

“Charlie?” Lula asked.

“Yeah. He let himself in around two o’clock. Drunk.” She put her hand to her mouth. “Sorry, I know I’m hard to understand. It’s painful to talk.”

“Honey, you need stitches,” Lula said.

“I need to get out of here first,” Darlene said.

“No problem,” Lula said. “We’re gonna help you. Do you have someplace to go?”

“I’m going to stay with my sister in Piscataway until I get a job and a place of my own.”

“Are you going back to hooking?”

“No. My sister said she might be able to get me something where she works. And I’ve been putting money aside. I have some savings.”

“We’re still looking for Charlie,” I said. “Do you have any idea where we might find him?”

“He’s staying with someone. I don’t know more than that. He goes to the Mole Hole. That’s where they all collect.” She took a stack of T-shirts from a dresser and put them into a half-filled suitcase that was on the bed. “You want to be careful,” she said. “He’s in a nasty mind. I’m lucky he didn’t kill me. He was drunk and angry. Ranting about Jimmy being an idiot. How the keys were a stupid idea, and he couldn’t leave Trenton until they were found. He said if he’d had his way, Edna would have talked by now. He blamed the delay on Julius Roman. Said he had no guts.”

“Do you think he killed Roman?” I asked.

“I’d like to pin it on him. And he’s capable of doing it. Unfortunately, he was with me when Roman was killed.”

Lula was emptying closets and stuffing clothes and shoes into large black plastic garbage bags.