Janet Evanovich - Takedown Twenty

“Vinnie had to go downtown to bond out Randy Berger. Turns out he was caught with a truckload of hijacked hooch.”

Randy Berger was in jail! That meant his garage was unguarded. “When did Vinnie leave?”

“A couple minutes ago.”

“Quick,” I said to Lula. “Get bolt cutters.”

Ten minutes later Lula and I were parked in the alley behind Berger’s Bits, at work with the bolt cutters on the garage padlock. The lock snapped off and we rolled the door back enough to squeeze under.

“Holy crap!” Lula said. “Will you look at this! I feel faint.”

I’d been hoping to find evidence that Randy was the old lady killer. What I found was more evidence that he was hijacking trucks. The garage was filled with boxes stacked floor to ceiling. A large percentage of the boxes contained computers. And there was a corner devoted to boxes stamped “Brahmin.”

“I died and I’m in heaven,” Lula said, caressing one of the Brahmin boxes. “I don’t even know what bag’s in here, and I love it already.”

“This is all stolen merchandise,” I told her. “You don’t need a Brahmin bag this bad.”

“It feels like I do.”

We crawled back out, and I rolled the door down and secured it as best I could.

I ran across the alley and tried the deli’s back door. It was locked, but I knew the four-digit thumb code to unlock it.

“What are we doing now?” Lula asked. “Are we going to look for Venetian blind cord in there?”

“No. I need pork chops.”

“You’re gonna rob a butcher shop of pork chops? Don’t that sound like the pot calling the kettle black when you wouldn’t let me take one of them handbags?”

“I worked two days and didn’t get paid. I’m taking my paycheck in pork chops.”

“I like your style. You got to admire a woman who takes her pay in pork chops.”

I opened the door and the alarm went off.

“Jeez Louise,” Lula said. “That’s loud.”

I rushed to the meat case, grabbed six pork chops, and stuffed them into a plastic bag. I dropped the pork chops into my messenger bag, and Lula and I ran out the back door and took off in the Firebird.

“Seems like you could have taken more than six,” Lula said.

“I only need six. I owe them to Victor at the hardware store. It would be great if you could drive me over there.”

We turned a corner and passed a cop car on its way to the deli.

“It’s your friend Carl Costanza in that cop car,” Lula said. “I bet by the time he leaves there’s gonna be no pork chops left. And he’ll probably help himself to a handbag, too.”

When we got to Victory Hardware, Lula idled at the curb while I ran in and gave Victor his pork chops.

“I’ll fry them up tonight,” Victor said. “I might even share them with my lady.”

Lula dropped me off at my parents’ house.

“Are you sure you don’t want to go out looking for Uncle Sunny one more time?” she asked me. “I got a feeling about it.”

“I’m done with Uncle Sunny. I’m going to get the key to Big Blue, and I’m going to try to get to the personal products plant before the end of the day.”

Lula motored off, and I went inside. I left my bag on the little table in the foyer and found my mother in the kitchen, ironing.

“Now what?” I asked her.

“It’s your grandmother. Honestly, the woman is turning my hair gray. I went to the store to get soup meat, and when I got back she was gone. It’s like she’s fourteen years old.” My mother pointed her finger at me. “It’s like living with you all over again. You were impossible. Your sister was an angel, but you were always sneaking out, getting into trouble. And I blame it on Joe Morelli. He was the scourge of Trenton. He was a bad influence on you.”

“He’s better now,” I said. “He’s very responsible. He’s got his own house, and a toaster.”

And he eats tongue casserole, I thought. And he hoses down his nephew, and has a grandmother that makes mine look like chopped liver. True, he’s still friggin’ sexy. And I enjoy being with him. And I like his dog. But the whole big-Italian-family-cooking-tongue thing was giving me stomach cramps.

I went to the kitchen drawer where the extra keys were kept but couldn’t find the key to the Buick.

“That’s what I’m telling you,” my mother said. “Your grandmother has the Buick.”

“She doesn’t have a license.”

“She’s a lunatic. She’s going to get arrested and sent to jail. I’ll have to visit her in prison. Do you have any idea what the neighbors will say? I won’t be able to shop at Giovichinni’s.”

“Where did she go?”

“I don’t know. She had a date. Big secret.”

“With Gordon?”

“I don’t think so. She said Gordon was a dud, and she had someone new on the hook. This morning there was a single sunflower on the doorstep, and it had your grandmother’s name on it. You mark my words, she’s fooling around with a married man. It’s that Internet. She’s on it all the time. I went upstairs and looked, and her laptop is missing from her room.”

My heart did a painful contraction and a chill ripped through me.

“I’m sure she’s fine,” I said to my mom. “I’m going to use the bathroom, and I’ll call someone for a ride.”

I didn’t need to use the bathroom. I needed to see my grandmother’s room, and I didn’t want to alarm my mother. She was already ironing. More bad news and she’d be chugging whiskey.

I went upstairs and looked through Grandma’s bedroom. My mother was right about the computer. It was missing. Grandma had a small desk in her room. I rifled the drawers but found nothing. No names or addresses scribbled anywhere. She didn’t have a cellphone. The single sunflower was in a bud vase on the desk. I looked through her dresser and under the bed. Nothing. I called Ranger and asked him to pick me up and track down the Buick.

“Who’s picking you up?” my mother asked when I came back to the kitchen.

“Ranger.”

My mother’s eyes flicked to the cabinet where she kept the whiskey.

“What?” I asked. “Now what?”

“Morelli has turned into a nice boy, but now you have this Ranger. What kind of a person only wears black?”

“It’s easy for him. Everything matches.”

“I hear things about him. It’s like he’s Batman.”

“He’s not Batman. He’s just a guy who owns a security agency.”

“Why don’t you call Joseph for a ride?”

“He’s working.”

I gave my mom a kiss on the cheek and promised I’d call if I heard from Grandma. I grabbed my messenger bag and went outside to wait for Ranger.

Five minutes later he rolled to a stop in his Porsche 911 Turbo. I slid in and thought there was some truth to what my mother had said. He was Batman without the rubber suit.

“What’s up?” he asked.

“I’m worried about Grandma. I think she might be with the Dumpster killer.”

The Buick had been left in a small parking lot attached to a 7-Eleven on Broad Street. Ranger and I got out of the Porsche and went to the car. It was unlocked. Empty inside. No bodies. No blood. No Venetian blind cord or cryptic messages.

“Where do we go from here?” I asked Ranger.

“Do you have suspects?”

“Randy Berger just got out of jail, and I helped burn down his apartment, so I think he’s off the list. Hard to believe it could be Victor, but he did say he might have a lady friend in for pork chops.”

“Then let’s visit Victor.”

“He owns Victory Hardware, but I have no idea where he lives.”

Ranger made a phone call, and moments later he had an address.

“He lives over the store,” he said. “He owns the building.”