Janet Evanovich - Takedown Twenty

We worked our way through the shells and moved on to dessert. I was debating the wisdom of a second piece of cake when the doorbell rang, and Grandma jumped up and ran to the door.

“There he is,” she said. “There’s my honeypot.”

Gordon Krutch was wheezing from the effort of walking into the dining room. He was wearing a collared three-button knit shirt that stretched tight across his big belly and was showing signs of sweat seeping through the material in the chest area. He had a roll of fat hanging over his belt, and his tan slacks had a lot of crotch wrinkles. The wrinkles came down almost to his knees because he had legs like a Hobbit. Gordon Krutch was 5’ 4” on a good day.

“Howdy do,” he said, smiling wide. “Looks like you’re just finishing up. Sorry, I’m a little early. I like to be punctual. It comes from being a public servant for forty-five years.”

“Gordon worked for the DMV,” Grandma said. “He made sure everyone’s form was filled out right, and he gave the eye test.”

“You’d be surprised at how many people try to cheat on the eye test,” Gordon said.

“I got perfect eyesight,” Grandma said. “Except I gotta wear my glasses for the movies.”

“Do you belong to the Senior Discount Club?” I asked Gordon.

“I sure do. It’s a wonderful thing. All the best stores participate.” He looked at Randy. “In fact, I shop at this young man’s deli.”

“Strip steak and my special meatloaf mix,” Randy said.

“That’s me,” Gordon said. “Every week like clockwork.”

“Did you know the women who were killed?” I asked him. “They were members of the Discount Club too.”

“They sure were. I knew all of them. Lovely ladies. Just a terrible shame.”

“We’re going to the movies,” Grandma said. “We’re going to see that film where everybody gets eaten by bugs.”

My father looked over at Gordon. “I’ll give you fifty bucks if you take her to Vegas and marry her.”

“Your son-in-law is a great kidder,” Gordon said to Grandma.

“He isn’t kidding,” Grandma said. “You could probably get him up to a couple hundred.”

Okay, so Gordon Krutch is short, fifty pounds overweight, and can’t breathe without an inhaler. And I can’t see him, gasping and wheezing, choking the life out of even the frailest old lady. And I’m pretty sure Grandma could beat the snot out of him. Still, he made me uncomfortable. He knew all the women, and he was icky.

“Call me on my cellphone when you get home,” I said to Grandma. “I want to hear about the movie.”

FOURTEEN

I HELPED MY mother straighten the kitchen, retrieved my jeans and T-shirt, swapped out my Taurus for the Buick, and went home. Usually I go home with a bag of leftovers, but Randy’d eaten them. The shells, the cake, the antipasto… all gone. He said anytime I wanted to butcher some meat I should give him a call. I told him he’d be the first person I’d think of if I got the urge.

I drove around the parking lot, and didn’t see any menacing cars. I parked, hustled inside, and locked myself in my apartment. It was almost nine. Too early to roust Sunny out of Rita’s bed, but not too early to call Ranger.

“Hey, sexy guy,” I said to him. “Guess who?”

“Have you been drinking?”

“Maybe a little.”

“I can get to your apartment in five minutes.”

“No, no, no. That’s not why I’m calling. I thought we could snag Sunny tonight. Maybe around ten o’clock.”

“Will you still be awake?”

“I’ll be waiting for you in the lobby.”

“Babe,” Ranger said. And he hung up.

I did some television surfing but couldn’t find anything wonderful, so I parked Rex in the slow cooker and cleaned out his cage. I was waiting in the lobby at ten o’clock. A new black Porsche Cayenne glided to a stop in front of the lobby door and blinked its lights. I was pretty sure it was Ranger, but not entirely, so I called him on his cell.

“Is this you?” I asked.

The lights blinked again.

I disconnected and got into the SUV. “A girl can’t be too careful,” I said, buckling up.

Ranger glanced over at me for a beat and moved the Porsche out of the lot. I suspected the glance was the Ranger equivalent of an eye roll.

Ten minutes later we were in front of Rita’s house. Lights were on in the front room. Drapes were drawn. No car in the driveway. Ranger and I got out and walked to the house. We looked in the dining room window and the kitchen window. We saw Rita but no Sunny. The light went out in the living room, Rita walked through the house, and the light went on in the back bedroom. We had a clear view of the room for a moment before she drew the drapes. No Sunny.

“Call him,” Ranger said. “Let’s see if we hear a phone ringing somewhere in the house.”

We didn’t hear any ringing, but Sunny picked up.

“Hey, handsome,” I said. “Do you need a date?”

“Yeah. Do you need to die?”

I disconnected.

“He knew it was me,” I said to Ranger.

“Do you have an alternate address for this guy?”

“I have several.”

Ranger drove to Sunny’s apartment building at the corner of Fifteenth and Morgan. We parked across the street, stood on the sidewalk, and looked up into Sunny’s windows. All dark.

“Either he’s asleep or he’s not home,” I said.

Ranger stepped off the curb. “Let’s find out.”

“Finding out” with Ranger is a whole different deal than finding out with Lula. Lula and I are Lucy Ricardo and Ethel Mertz. Ranger is Batman. I tagged after him into the building and up the stairs to 2B. He knocked twice, bumped the lock, and opened the door with his gun drawn. He paused for a moment, taking the measure of the room, listening for sounds of clothes rustling or a man sleeping. He quietly closed the apartment door behind him and flicked the beam from his Maglite around the room. I followed after him as he moved into the short hallway and the bedroom and looked in the closet and the bathroom. We moved on to the kitchen. He flipped the flashlight off and we exited the apartment, left the building, and returned to the Cayenne.

“He’s not spending much time there, if any,” Ranger said. “No food in the refrigerator, hardly any clothes in his closet, no razor in the bathroom.”

“He owns the entire block plus scattered properties in the area, but this was the address he listed as his residence. He rents out a three-story brownstone on Freeman next to the Chestnut Social Club. He uses the third floor as a counting room. It’s got a big safe in it. I know he spends time there, but I can’t see him making it home.”

Ranger looked down the street. “Let’s take a walk.”

We ambled along, looking in windows and doorways, listening to sounds of television and conversation that escaped from the buildings. We turned the corner, walked half a block, and entered the alley. It was dark and narrow, a place where trashcans and recycling bins were kept. Some of the houses had parking spaces, and some had outdoor backstairs. Windows overlooking the alley were small, and the lights behind them were dim.

I stopped and pointed to a redbrick building. “This is the back of the Chestnut Social Club. I broke my finger falling down these stairs.” Lights were shining from every window. “The light you see is from an interior rear stairwell.”

“Stay here in the shadows,” Ranger said. “I’ll look inside.”

“There might be an alarm,” I told him, as I moved under the outside stairs and pressed myself against the brick wall. Ranger bumped the lock on the back door, slipped inside, and the door clicked closed. No alarm rang out.

After what seemed like hours, Ranger reappeared and motioned me away from the building. “Sunny isn’t in there,” he said. “Do you have any other possibilities?”