Notorious Nineteen (2 page)

There was a moment of silence. “And?”

“I guess I could use a ride.”

“Babe,” Ranger said. And he disconnected.

“He coming for us?” Lula asked.

“Yep.”

Ranger is Latino and former Special Forces turned semi-legitimate businessman. He’s part owner of a security firm located in an inconspicuous seven-story building in the center of the city. I work for him on occasion, I’ve had one or two romantic skirmishes with him, and he has the sometimes annoying, sometimes convenient habit of installing tracking devices on my vehicles. His hair is dark brown and currently cut short. His eyes are mostly black. His body is perfect from the tip of his toes to the top of his head. He plays by his own rules, and his attitude is uncompromising. He only wears black, and he only drives black cars. He’s smart. He’s strong in every possible way. And being in his crosshairs is flat out scary.

No one came out of the little grocery store to look at the fire. No police cars or fire trucks screeched to the scene. It was as if this was business as usual and best ignored.

I looked down the street at the rooming house, wondering if Melvin Barrel was in there melting down in a pool of sweat. No air conditioners sticking out of any of the windows in the rooming house. For sure no central air.

“I bet that skinny guy you almost killed was running away from someone, and that’s why he wanted your car,” Lula said.

I leaned against the building. “It was a bad choice of cars.”

“Yeah, but he didn’t know that. All’s he saw was two women sitting in a car like a couple dummies. He probably figured if we was stupid enough to be sitting in the car, we was stupid enough to give it over to him.”

“He was wrong.”

“Not by much,” Lula said.

Fifteen minutes later Ranger eased his black Porsche Cayenne to a stop in front of Lula and me. I got into the front passenger seat, and Lula got into the back.

Ranger glanced at the charred cadaver of twisted metal and smoldering tires that used to be my car. “Yours?” he asked me.

“Yep,” I said.

“Do I need to know how this happened?”

“Nope.”

Ranger idled in front of the bonds office and Lula got out. I moved to follow Lula, and Ranger wrapped his hand around my wrist. “Stay. I want to talk to you.”

I’m not currently in a physical relationship with Ranger. Ranger has clear priorities and matrimony isn’t high on the list. In fact, it isn’t on the list
at all
. Until recently marriage hasn’t been high on my priorities list either, but my mother feels otherwise, and as much as I hate to admit it my mother is wearing me down.

“I need a date,” Ranger said.

My voice ratcheted up an octave. “You want me to get you a date?”

“No. I want you to
be
my date. I have to attend a black tie event, and I need someone watching my back.”

“Me?” I wasn’t exactly The Terminator.

“People would talk if I brought Tank.”

Tank is appropriately named. He’s Ranger’s shadow and second in command at Rangeman. And Ranger was right. Tank would make a controversial date.

“When is this?” I asked Ranger.

“Tomorrow night.”

“Tomorrow? I can’t just drop everything and do this tomorrow. You should have asked me sooner. I’m seeing Morelli. It’s Friday date night. We’re going to the movies and then . . .”

“I can give you a better
and then
,” Ranger said.

I went breathless for a beat at the thought of Ranger’s
and then
. Morelli was an amazing lover, but Ranger was magic. I pulled myself together and narrowed my eyes at Ranger, hoping I looked determined.

“You and I are done doing
and then
with each other,” I said. “There is absolutely no more
and then
. Morelli and I have an understanding.”

“Which is?”

“It’s vague.”

“Babe.”

“I’m serious this time. I might be ready to have a committed adult relationship.”

Joe Morelli is a Trenton cop working plainclothes, crimes against persons. I’ve known him forever and our relationship has progressed from downright hostile, to deliciously hot, to
maybe we could actually live with each other without complete mayhem
. He’s six feet of hard muscle and Italian libido. His hair is black and wavy. His eyes are brown and assessing. His style is casual. He wears jeans, untucked shirts, and a Glock 19, and he has a big shaggy dog named Bob.

“I’ll pay you,” Ranger said.

“Excuse me?”

“I’ll hire you for the night. You can be my bodyguard.”

At the risk of sounding mercenary, this got my attention. I was a month behind on my rent, and I wasn’t having great luck with the fugitive apprehension stuff. Vinnie had mostly low bond skips this month, and I was barely making pizza money, much less rent money. And I was pretty sure I could muster enough self-control to keep from ripping Ranger’s clothes off.

“What exactly would bodyguarding entail?” I asked him.

“The usual. You take a bullet for me if necessary, and you manage the small talk.”

“You can’t manage your own small talk?”

“Making polite conversation isn’t at the top of my skill set.”

“I’ve noticed.” Okay, so this doesn’t sound so bad, plus I’d get dinner, right? “What time will you pick me up?”

“Six o’clock. This event is in Atlantic City. Dinner is at eight.”

TWO

I LEFT RANGER
and joined Lula in the bonds office. The building was brand-new and light-years better than the old office. It had been built on the same footprint as the old office but the walls were freshly painted, the tile on the floor was unscuffed, the furniture was inexpensive but comfortable and free from food and coffee stains.

Lula had claimed her usual spot on the faux leather couch, and Connie, the office manager, was at her desk. Connie is a couple years older than me, a much better shot, and better connected. Connie’s family is old school Italian mob and far more professional than Trenton’s gangsta morons when it comes to crime-related skills such as whacking, hijacking, and money laundering. Connie looks a lot like Betty Boop with big hair and a mustache. Today she was wearing a short black pencil skirt, a wide black patent-leather belt, and a tight red sweater with a low scoop neck that showed a lot of her Betty Boopness.

I looked over at the closed door behind Connie that led to my cousin Vinnie’s private office. “Is Vinnie in?” I asked her.

Connie looked up from her computer. “No. He’s downtown bonding out Jimmy Palowski. Palowski’s neighbor caught him watering her flowers without a watering can, if you get what I mean. He got arrested for drunk and disorderly, and indecent exposure.”

I sunk into the molded plastic office chair in front of Connie’s desk. “My car got blown up.”

“I heard. Same old, same old.”

“I need money. Anything good come in?”

“Do you remember Geoffrey Cubbin?”

“Yeah. He was arrested last month for embezzling five million dollars from Cranberry Manor.”

Connie handed me a file. “The judge set a really high bond, and Vinnie signed on the dotted line. Cubbin didn’t seem like much of a risk. No prior arrests, and he was claiming he was innocent. Plus he had a wife and a cat. Men with cats are usually good risks. Very stable.”

“And?”

“He’s gone. Disappeared off the face of the earth, along with the five million. There’s an article in the paper this morning. He was at home awaiting his trial, he woke up in the middle of the night with pain and fever and went to the ER, and four hours later he was minus his appendix. That was three days ago. When his wife arrived at the hospital yesterday to take him home, he was gone. Vanished. No one saw him leave.”

“Is this our problem?”

“It’ll officially be our problem on Monday. If he doesn’t show up for court we’ll forfeit the bond. Personally, I think it sounds like he skipped. His court date was right around the corner, and he panicked. If he’d gotten convicted, he’d be looking at a good chunk of prison time. You might want to poke around before the trail gets cold.”

I took the file and leafed through it. Geoffrey Cubbin was forty-two years old. Wharton business school graduate. Managed the Cranberry Manor assisted-living facility. I studied his photo. Pleasant-looking guy. Brown hair. Glasses. No tattoos or piercings noted. His height was listed at 5'10". Average weight plus a few extra pounds. He had a wife and a cat. No kids.

The hospital was the logical place to start. It was also the closest. Cubbin lived in Hamilton Township, and Cranberry Manor was a thirty-five- to forty-minute drive when traffic was heavy in downtown Trenton.

“No,” Lula said.

“No what?” I asked her.

“No, I’m not goin’ to the hospital with you. I saw that look on your face, and I know you figured you’d start by goin’ to the hospital. And I’m not goin’ on account of I don’t like hospitals. They smell funny, and they’re filled with sick people. Last time I was in a hospital it was depressin’. And I think I might have picked up a fungus. Lucky for me I got a high resistance to that sort of thing, and it was one of them twenty-four-hour funguses.”

St. Francis Hospital is about a half mile down Hamilton Avenue from the bonds office. It’s on the opposite side of the street from the bonds office, so it’s officially in the Burg. The Burg is a close-knit, blue-collar, residential chunk of South Trenton that runs on gossip, good Catholic guilt, and pot roast at six o’clock. It’s bordered by Chambers Street, Hamilton Avenue, Broad Street, and Liberty Street. I grew up in the Burg and my parents still live there, in a small two-family house on High Street.

“Not a problem,” I said. “I can walk to St. Francis.”

“He wasn’t at St. Francis,” Connie said. “He went to Central Hospital on Joy Street.”

“You never gonna walk there,” Lula said. “That’s way off Greenwood.”

“Drive me to the hospital,” I said to Lula. “You can wait in the lobby.”

“I’ll drive you to the hospital,” Lula said, “but I’m not waiting in no lobby. I’ll wait in my car.”

Central Hospital had been built in the forties and looked more like a factory than a hospital. Dark red brick. Five floors of grim little rooms where patients were warehoused. A small drive court for the ER. A double door in the front of the building. The double door opened onto a lobby with a standard issue information desk, brown leather couches, and two fake trees. I’d never been in the OR, but I imagined it as being medieval. The hospital didn’t have a wonderful reputation.

“Hunh,” Lula said, pulling into the parking garage. “I suppose I’m gonna have to go with you. If you don’t have me watching out for shit, you’re liable to not come out. That’s how hospitals get you. You go in to visit and before you know it they got a camera stuck up your butt and they’re lookin’ to find poloponies.”

“Do you mean polyps?”

“Yeah. Isn’t that what I said? Anyway my Uncle Andy had that done, and they said he had them polyps, and next thing they took his intestines out and he had to poop in a bag. So I’m here to tell you there’s no way I’m poopin’ in a bag.”

“I’m not crazy about this conversation,” I said. “Could we move on to something else?”

Lula parked her red Firebird on the second level and cut the engine. “I’m just sayin’.”

We entered the hospital through the front door and I approached the woman at the desk.

“I’m investigating the Cubbin disappearance,” I said to the woman. “I’d like to speak to your head of security.”

“Do you have ID?” she asked.

Here’s the deal about doing fugitive apprehension for a bail bondsman. I have all sorts of rights to apprehend because the bondee has signed them over, but I’m not a police officer. Fortunately most people aren’t clear on the technicalities. And most people don’t look too closely at my ID. Truth is, I bought my badge and my laminated ID on the Internet. Seven dollars and ninety-five cents plus postage. They look pretty genuine. Not that I’m lying or anything. They say Bond Enforcement Agent, and they have my name on them. Not my problem if people confuse me with a cop, right?

I flashed her my badge and my ID, her phone rang, and she moved me along.

“First floor,” she said. “Room 117. Down the corridor to the right. If no one’s there you can page him on the intercom at the door.”

I mouthed
thank you
and Lula and I went in search of Room 117.

“I’ve only been here a minute, and already I can feel myself getting hospital cooties,” Lula said. “I itch all over. I got the hospital heebie-jeebies.”

The door to Room 117 was closed. I knocked and someone inside grunted acknowledgment. I opened the door and was surprised to find Randy Briggs in a tan and blue security guard uniform.

I’ve crossed paths with Randy Briggs on several occasions, and some have been more pleasant than others. Briggs is single, in his early forties, has a small amount of sandy blond hair and a narrow face with close-set eyes. He’s three feet tall, and he has the personality of a rabid raccoon.

“Whoa,” I said. “What’s with the uniform?”

“What’s it look like?” Briggs said. “I’m head of security.”

“You were always a tech guy,” I said. “What happened to the computer programming?”

“No jobs. The shit’s made in China and the tech support comes from Sri Lanka. The only reason I got
this
job is because they were afraid I’d pull a dwarf discrimination suit.”

“They let you have a gun?” Lula asked.

“Yeah,” Briggs said. “I’m real good at shooting guys in the nuts, being they’re at eye level.”

It was a small office furnished with a desk and some uncomfortable-looking chairs. There was a dinosaur computer, a phone, a stack of files in manila folders, and a couple walkie-talkies. There were a bunch of handwritten notes and several photographs tacked to a bulletin board behind the desk. It looked to me like one of the photographs was of Geoffrey Cubbin.

“Are those the ones who got away?” I asked Briggs.

“That’s what they tell me. I haven’t been on the job that long. I’ve only had one go south on my watch.”