Janet Evanovich - Takedown Twenty

We were there in a matter of minutes. The store was still open, so we stopped in there first.

“Howdy,” Snoot said to me, looking Ranger over. “I see you brought Batman with you.”

“I’m looking for Victor.”

“He’s upstairs. He’s got a big night planned.”

“How do I get upstairs?” I asked Snoot.

“There’s a door on the street, next to the store. There’s a buzzer, but it don’t always work.”

We went outside and rang the buzzer. No response.

“Okay, Batman,” I said to Ranger. “Do your thing.”

Ranger took a slim jim from a pocket in his cargo pants and opened the door. We stepped inside and I yelled for Victor.

Victor appeared at the top of the stairs. “Did you come for pork chops?”

“No. I came to ask a question.”

“Well, come on up. The missus and me are having a cocktail.”

“You have a missus?”

“Don’t everybody got a missus?”

We climbed the stairs and stepped into Victor’s living room.

“This here’s the missus,” Victor said, arm around a woman who looked like Victor with a tan. She had a cigarette hanging out of her mouth and a martini in her hand.

“Was real nice of you to give Victor those chops,” she said to me. “We got plenty if you want to join us with your fella.”

“Thanks,” I said, “but we have plans. I just wanted to stop by and say hello.”

“Okay, then,” Victor said. “Stop around anytime.”

Ranger was smiling when we got to the sidewalk.

“What’s with the smile?” I asked him. “I don’t see you smile a lot.”

“I liked them.”

Here’s the thing about the men in my life. They’re smarter than I am, and they have a profound sense of humanity that I can only see from a distance. They work in the gutter, exposed to all the insanity and violence that human beings are capable of exhibiting, but they aren’t destroyed or overwhelmed by it. They hunt down men who have done terrible things, but they see this as an aberration and not as the norm. And they recognize good people when they see them.

“Any more suspects?” Ranger asked. “Do we need to look at the man who took your grandmother to the viewing?”

“Gordon Krutch. My mom didn’t think Grandma was with him, and I think he would need an accomplice, but he’s definitely on the suspects list.”

Ranger got the address and we drove across town to an apartment building by the DMV offices. We parked and took the elevator to the third floor. The building was very Practical Pig. Sturdy construction. Neatly maintained. Nothing fancy. We rang the bell to Krutch’s apartment, and Krutch answered with his left arm in a plaster cast.

“What happened?” I asked him.

“I was picking Myra Flekman up to take her to her doctor’s visit this morning, and I tripped over the curb and broke my arm.” He stared at my nose and grimaced. “What happened to you ?”

“I fell down the stairs.” It was easier than explaining how I’d hit myself in the nose with a gun barrel. “I was looking for Grandma, but I guess you haven’t seen her today.”

“No. I spent most of the day in the emergency room.”

We returned to Ranger’s car, and Ranger called his monitoring station.

“The Buick hasn’t been moved,” he told me. “It’s still parked in the lot.”

“Grandma left in the middle of the afternoon, so she’s not going to Bingo, and she’s not going to a funeral home viewing.”

“What about her female friends? Have you called any of them?”

“My mom might have tried some close friends. I’ll go back to the house and make some calls. I don’t think there’s any more you can do. Thanks for driving me around.”

Ranger put the Porsche in gear and pulled into traffic. “I’ll continue to monitor the Buick, and I’ll have my men watch for your grandmother when they’re on patrol. And I’ll have your SUV dropped off at your parents’ house.”

TWENTY-SIX

MY FATHER WAS in his chair watching television when I walked in. My mother was setting the table for dinner. She set a place for Grandma even though Grandma wasn’t there. And she set a place for me.

“Did you call any of Grandma’s women friends?” I asked my mother.

“I called Betty Farnsworth and Loretta Best. She’s been friendly with them lately. I didn’t want to make a big deal of this and call half the Burg when for all I know your grandmother could be shopping at the mall.”

I helped my mom get the food to the table, all of us trying to maintain some normalcy, trying to push aside the feeling that something was very wrong. My mom was aided in this effort by a large tumbler of whiskey. My dad took solace in gravy. I had nothing. On the outside I think I looked pretty good, but on the inside I was panicked.

I put my napkin on my lap and went through the motions of putting food on my plate. She’s probably fine, I told myself, but in my gut I didn’t believe it. My gut told me she was in danger, and it was partially my fault. I should have caught this guy by now. I should have been smarter and worked harder.

I was staring at my food, pushing it around, when my phone rang. I didn’t recognize the number, but I recognized the voice. It was Grandma.

“Where are you?” Grandma asked. “Can you talk? I don’t want your mother to know I’m talking to you.”

“I’m at the dinner table.”

“Well, I’m in a pickle. I need a ride.”

I excused myself from the table and went to the kitchen.

“Are you okay?” I asked Grandma.

“Sure I’m okay. Why wouldn’t I be okay?”

“There’s a lunatic out there who’s killing women and throwing them in Dumpsters. We were worried about you. We didn’t know where you were.”

“I’m at Sixteenth Street. I don’t know the number, but there’s a wine shop on the ground floor and I’m on the second floor.”

“Are you alone?”

“I’m with Uncle Sunny. Only he’s dead. Don’t tell your mother. One minute he was singing ‘My Way’ and the next thing he was dead.”

“Omigod, did someone kill him?”

“I guess you might say I killed him. He was sort of in the throes of passion when he keeled over.”

I gave a gurgle of laughter, more out of horror than humor. “Did you dial 911?”

“Not yet. I was waiting for him to get normal, but I don’t think it’s going to happen.”

“Normal?”

“Yeah, let’s just say he was stiff way before rigor mortis set in.”

“Are you sure he’s… you know?”

“Got a boner?”

“No! Dead.”

“Yep. He’s dead all right.”

“Don’t move. I’ll be right there.”

“Grandma’s fine,” I said to my mother on my way through the dining room. “I’m going to pick her up.”

“Take your father,” my mother said.

“Not necessary. He hasn’t finished eating.”

My father picked his head up. “What? Did I miss something?”

I grabbed my messenger bag and ran out to the new loaner SUV that was parked at the curb.

I called Lula from the road. “I found Sunny,” I said. “He’s on Sixteenth Street. I might need help. Are you home?”

“Yeah. You want me to meet you?”

“I’ll pick you up on my way across town.”

Once a felon dies and is in the hands of the coroner, the paperwork is staggering, and it takes forever to get the bail bond released. If I could manage to get Sunny to the police station, claiming he died on the way, the whole process would be simplified.

Lula was waiting for me in front of her apartment house. “I see you got a new car,” she said, buckling herself in. “It looks like another Rangeman car. You ever wonder where all these new cars come from?”