Fearless Fourteen: A Stephanie Plum Novel Read online

  Zook’s hand unconsciously went to his ear with the six piercings. “Chicks dig it.”

  “Yeah,” Lula said, “they probably all want to borrow your earrings.”

  “Getting back to the problem at hand,” I said, “I need to park Mario, or Zook, or whoever the heck he is. Ranger wants to talk to me about working a job for him.”

  “Oh boy,” Lula said.

  “A real job,” I told her.

  “Sure,” Lula said. “I knew that. What kind of job?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Oh boy,” Lula said.

  CARLOS MANOSO IS my age, but his life experience is worlds away. He’s of Cuban heritage and has family in Newark and Miami. He’s dark-skinned, dark-eyed, and his hair is dark brown and currently cut too short for a ponytail but long enough to fall across his forehead when he’s sleeping or otherwise occupied in bed. He’s got a lot of muscle in all the right places and a killer smile that is rarely seen. His street name is Ranger, a leftover from his time in Special Forces.

  When I started working for Vincent Plum Bail Bonds, Ranger was doing mostly bounty hunter work and was my mentor. He’s now co-owner of a security company with branches in Boston, Atlanta, and Miami. He wears only black, he smells like Bulgari Green shower gel, he’s extremely private, and he eats healthy food. I’d be tempted to say he isn’t a lot of fun, but he has his moments. And on those rare occasions when we’ve been intimate . . . WOW.

  Rangeman Security is on a side street in center city Trenton. It’s housed in an inconspicuous seven-story brick building, the name visible only on a small plaque above the door buzzer. The seventh floor is Ranger’s private apartment. Two more floors are dedicated to housing Rangeman employees, one floor is occupied by the property manager and his wife, Ella, the fifth floor is control central, and the remaining two floors are conference rooms, first-floor reception, and private offices. There are two levels below ground and I’ve never gotten the personal tour, but I imagine dungeons and armories and Ranger’s personal tailor toiling away.

  I key-fobbed my way into the underground garage and parked next to Ranger’s black Porsche Turbo. I took the elevator to the fifth floor, waved hello to the guys at the monitoring stations, and walked across the room to Ranger’s office. The door was open, and Ranger was at his desk, talking on a headset. His eyes went to me, he wrapped up his conversation and removed the headset.

  “Babe,” he said.

  Babe covered a lot of ground with Ranger. It could be good, bad, amused, or filled with desire. Today it was hello.

  I sat in the chair across from his desk. “What’s up?”

  “I need a date,” Ranger said.

  “Is date synonymous with sex?”

  “No. It’s synonymous with business, but I could throw some sex in as a bonus if you’re interested.”

  This got a smile from me. I wasn’t interested for a bunch of complicated reasons, not the least of which was Joe Morelli. Still, it was nice to know the offer was on the table. “What’s the business?”

  “I’ve been asked to provide security for Brenda.”

  “The Brenda? The singer?”

  “Yes. She’ll be in town for three days doing a concert, some media, and a charity fund-raiser. I’m supposed to keep her dry and drug-free and out of harm’s way. If I assign one of my men to her, she’ll eat him alive and spit him out in front of the press. So I’m taking the watch, and I need someone riding shotgun.”

  “What about Tank?”

  Tank is Ranger’s next in command, and he’s the guy Ranger trusts to watch his back. Tank’s called Tank because that’s what he is. He’s seven feet of muscle packed into a six-foot, four-inch, no-neck body. Tank is also Lula’s current boyfriend.

  “Brenda’s management team has requested security be invisible at public functions, and it’s hard to hide Tank,” Ranger said. “Tank and Hal will work shifts standing guard at Brenda’s hotel. When she’s at large, we’ll take over. She can pass us off as traveling companions, and you can go into the ladies’ room with her and make sure she doesn’t test-drive mushrooms.”

  “Doesn’t she have her own bodyguard?”

  “He slipped and broke his ankle getting off the plane last night. They’ve shipped him back to California.”

  “I’m surprised you’re taking this on.”

  “I’m doing it as a favor for Lew Pepper, the concert promoter.” Ranger passed a sheet of paper to me. “This is Brenda’s public appearance schedule. We need to be at her hotel a half hour ahead. And we’re on call. If she leaves her room, we’re there.”

  I looked at the schedule and chewed on my lower lip. Morelli wasn’t going to be happy to have me spending this much time with Ranger. And Brenda was a car crash. Like Cher and Madonna, she didn’t use a last name. Just Brenda. She was sixty-one years old. She’d been married eight times. She could crack walnuts with her ass muscles. And she was rumored to be mean as a snake. I couldn’t remember her last album, but I knew she had a cabaret act going. Baby-sitting Brenda had “nightmare” written all over it.

  “Babe,” Ranger said, reading my thoughts. “I don’t ask a lot of favors.”

  I blew out a sigh, folded the paper, and put it in my jeans pocket. “Looks like the fund-raiser is tonight. Meet and greet at five-thirty. I’ll meet you in her hotel lobby at five.”

  ZOOK WAS IN the land of Minionfire when I rolled into the bonds office. Connie was working on the computer at her desk, and Lula was packing up, getting ready to leave.

  “I gotta get home and beautify,” Lula said. “Tank’s coming over tonight. This here’s the third time this week I’ll see him. I think this is getting serious. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was gonna pop the question.”

  “What question are you thinking about?” Connie asked.

  “The big question. The M question. He probably would already have asked the M question, except he’s so shy. I been thinking I might help him along with it. Make it easy on him. Maybe I need to get him liquored up first, so he’s nice and relaxed. And maybe I’ll stop at the jewelry district on the way home and get an engagement ring, so he don’t have to do a lot of shopping. You know how men hate shopping.”

  “How’re we doing with Loretta’s bond?” I asked Connie.

  Connie slid a glance at Zook, bent over his laptop, and then looked back at me. The silent communication was no luck so far. Hard to get someone to post a couple thousand dollars in bond when the last person to post bond for Loretta ended up forfeiting their money.

  Lula had her bag on her shoulder and her car keys in her hand. “What’d Ranger want with you?”

  “He’s running security for Brenda for the next three days, and he wants me to ride shotgun.”

  MORELLI LIVED HALFWAY between my apartment at the edge of Trenton proper and my parents’ house in the Burg. It was a modest two-story row house on a quiet street in a stable blue-collar neighborhood. Living room, dining room, kitchen, and powder room on the first floor. Three small bedrooms and bath upstairs. So far as I know, he’d never eaten in the dining room. Morelli ate breakfast at the small table in the kitchen, lunch at the sink, and dinner in front of the television in the living room. There was a single-car garage at the back of the property, accessible by a rutted alley, but Morelli almost always parked his SUV at the curb in front of the house. The backyard was narrow and strictly utilitarian, only used by Morelli’s dog, Bob.

  I parked and looked over at Zook. “You know Joe Morelli, right?”

  “Wrong.”

  “You’re related.”

  “That’s what I hear.” Zook studied the house. “I thought it would be bigger. It’s all my uncle talks about since he got out of prison. He said it was supposed to go to him, but Morelli swindled him out of it.”

  “Hard to believe of Morelli,” I said.

  “I thought he was supposed to be the big, bad, tough cop and lady-killer. What’s he want with this dorkopolis?”

  In the beginning, I struggle
d with that one, too. I saw Morelli in a cool condo with a big-screen television and a kick-ass sound system and maybe a pinball machine in his living room. Turns out Morelli was tired of sailing that ship. Morelli went into Rose’s house with an open mind, and the house and Morelli took stock of each other and adapted. The house gave up some of its stuffiness, and Morelli dialed down his wild side.

  I pulled the key from the ignition, got out of the car, and walked to the front door with Zook trailing after me.

  “This is so lame,” Zook said, dragging his feet. “I can’t believe my mother tried to rob a stupid booze shack.”

  I didn’t know what to say to him. I didn’t want to make out like armed robbery was okay, but at the same time, I didn’t want to be gloom and doom. “Sometimes good people do dumb things,” I said. “If you hang in there with your mom, it’ll all work out . . . eventually. Step back when I open the door, or Morelli’s dog will knock you over.”

  I unlocked the door, and there was a woof and the sound of dog feet galloping toward us from the kitchen. Bob appeared, ears flapping, tongue out, slobber flying in all directions. He hurtled past us, leaped off the small porch, went straight to the nearest tree, and lifted his leg.

  Zook went wide-eyed. “What kind of dog is he?”

  “We’re not sure, but we think he’s mostly Golden Retriever. His name is Bob.”

  Bob peed for what seemed like half an hour and trotted back into the house. I closed the door after him and checked the time. Four o’clock. Morelli’s shift ended at four. It would take him thirty minutes to drive home. I had to be dressed and at the hotel by five. The hotel was thirty minutes from my apartment at this time of night. It wasn’t going to work.

  Zook looked around Morelli’s living room. “Can I go wireless here?”

  “I don’t know. Morelli’s computer is upstairs in his office, but I’ve seen him work down here as well.”

  Zook pulled his laptop out of his backpack. “I’ll figure it out.”

  “That’s great, because I have to go. Morelli should be home any minute now. I’m going to trust you to stay here and wait for him and not get into trouble.”

  “Sure,” Zook said.

  I called Morelli on his cell. “Where are you?”

  “I just turned onto Hamilton.”

  “We’re at your house. Unfortunately, I have a job at five, and I have to go home first to change, so I’m going to leave Zook here alone for a few minutes.”

  “Who’s Zook?”

  “You’ll see. And just a suggestion, but you might want to put the Kojak light on the top of your car and step on the gas.”

  TWO

  I LIVE IN a one-bedroom, one-bath unit on the second floor of a no-frills, three-story, redbrick apartment building. There’s a small lobby with a small unreliable elevator. The front entrance looks out on a busy street filled with small businesses. The rear exit backs up to a tenant parking lot. My bedroom and living room windows look out at the parking lot. Lucky me, because this is the quiet side, except at five A.M. on Mondays and Thursdays, when the Dumpster gets emptied. I share my apartment with a hamster named Rex.

  I rocked to a stop in the lot, bolted from the car, bypassed the elevator, and took the stairs two at a time. I ran down the hall and rammed my key into my front door. I yelled hello to Rex on my way to the bedroom. No time for extended pleasantries.

  Ten minutes later, I was out the door in black heels and my little black suit with a white tank top under the jacket. I’d spruced up my makeup and fluffed out my hair, and I’d dropped my Smith & Wesson into my purse. The gun wasn’t loaded, and I didn’t have time to hunt for bullets, but if I had to whack someone in the head with my purse, it was nicely weighted.

  I took a call from Morelli while I unlocked my car.

  “I just walked into my house, and the kid is wearing a black satin cape, he only answers to the name Zook, and he seems obsessed with someone named Moondog.”

  “Order a pizza and go with it,” I told him.

  I WAS FIVE minutes late when I pulled into hotel parking. This wouldn’t be an issue if I was meeting anyone other than Ranger. Ranger has many good qualities. Patience isn’t one of them.

  I ran through the parking garage, slid to a stop when I got to the hotel lobby, adjusted my skirt, and crossed to where Ranger was standing. He was wearing black slacks, black blazer, and a black dress shirt with a black tie. The black tie had a black stripe. If GQ ran an issue on contract killers, he’d make the cover.

  “Nice,” I said to him.

  “Playing the role,” Ranger said.

  I followed him to the third floor and the only suite in the hotel. Tank was in front of the suite door, arms crossed, feet at parade rest. He was dressed in the usual Rangeman black T-shirt and cargo pants, with a gun at his hip.

  “Any problems?” Ranger asked.

  “No,” Tank replied. “She’s been inside since I came on duty.”

  “We’ll take it from here,” Ranger said.

  I watched Tank walk to the elevator and thought about Lula out shopping for an engagement ring. I could sort of see Tank and Lula engaged, but the mental image of them settling into married life went right to the top of the bizarrometer.

  Ranger rapped on Brenda’s door and waited. He rapped a second time.

  “Maybe she’s in the bathroom,” I said.

  Ranger took a pass card from his pocket, inserted it in the lock, and opened the door. “See if you can find her.”

  I tiptoed into the entrance foyer and looked into the living room area. “Hello,” I called.

  A young woman popped out of the bedroom. She was slim, and her face was pinched and had the hungry, haunted look of someone who’d recently quit smoking. Her short dark hair was pushed behind her ears in a non-style. She was wearing a skirt and a cardigan and flat shoes. She didn’t look happy. “Yes?” she asked.

  “Security,” I told her. “We’re here to escort Brenda.”

  “She’s getting dressed.”

  “Honestly,” Brenda yelled from the bedroom. “I don’t know why I have to do these things.”

  Brenda was Kentucky born and raised. Her voice was country, and her style was ballsy. From what I read in the tabloids, at sixty-one she was on a slippery slope as an aging star. And she wasn’t going down gracefully.

  “It’s a charity event,” the young woman said. “It’s a goodwill gesture. We’re trying to erase the image of you running over that cameraman last month.”

  “It was an accident.”

  “You ran over his foot, and then you put your car in reverse and knocked him down!”

  “I got confused. For crissake, get off my case. Who do you work for anyway? I want a glass of wine. Where’s my wine? I specifically requested that the cooler be stocked with New Zealand sauvignon blanc. I must have my blanc!”

  I looked at my watch. “Are you responsible for getting her there on time?” I asked Ranger.

  “I’m responsible for getting her there alive.”

  “I’m responsible for getting her there on time,” the dark-haired woman said. “I’m Nancy Kolen. I’m the press secretary assigned to this trip. I work for Brenda’s record company.”

  “I have nothing to wear,” Brenda said. “What am I supposed to wear? Honestly, why am I always surrounded by amateurs? Is it too much to ask to have a stylist here? Where’s my stylist? First no blanc, and now no stylist. How am I supposed to work under these conditions?”

  Nancy Kolen disappeared into the bedroom, and ten minutes later, Brenda swished out, followed by Nancy.

  Brenda was slim and toned and spray-tanned to something resembling orange mud. She had big boobs, lots of curly auburn hair tipped with blond, and her lips looked like they’d been inflated with an air hose.

  She was wearing a red knit strapless tube dress that could double for skin, four-inch spike-heeled shoes, and a white sheared mink jacket. She looked like Santa’s senior off-season ’ho.

  Ranger was standing pre
ssed against my back, and I could feel him smile when Brenda entered the room. I gave him an elbow to the ribs, and he exhaled on a barely audible bark of laughter.

  “Look at who we got here,” Brenda said, eyeing Ranger. “I swear, you are so hot, I could just eat you up. Sugar, I gotta get me some of you.”

  Ranger’s smile was still in place. Hard to tell if he was enjoying himself or being polite.

  “Stephanie and I are providing security,” he said.

  “Do you have a name?”

  “Ranger.”

  “Like the Long Ranger?” Brenda asked.

  There was a moment’s pause while I debated correcting Brenda, but truth is, we all knew exactly what she was asking. Finally, Ranger stepped forward and opened the suite door.

  “Like an Army Ranger,” he said.

  Brenda slithered through the door, rubbing against Ranger in the process. “I hear Army guys have big guns.”

  Nancy and I did some eye-rolling, and Ranger remained pleasantly impassive.

  I was the last to leave the room. “I’ve seen your gun,” I whispered to Ranger. “Would you like me to tell her about it?”

  “Not necessary, but we could discuss it over a glass of wine later.”

  Nancy took the lead and punched the elevator button. The doors opened, we stepped in, and Brenda moved close to Ranger. “So, Hot Cakes, are you with me for the night?”

  “Stephanie and I will be with you until you return to your hotel room,” Ranger said.

  “Sometimes I need my bodyguards to spend the entire night with me,” Brenda said to Ranger.

  This produced more eye-rolling from Nancy and me and more passive pleasantness from Ranger. The doors opened, and we moved into the crush of people in the lobby. Nancy led the way, and I followed Nancy, with Brenda sandwiched between Ranger and me. We cut a swath through the crowd to the meet-and-greet room. Once we were inside the room and the door was closed behind us, the atmosphere became much more calm. These were patrons of the charity, and they’d paid a huge amount of money to have a private audience with Brenda. She accepted a champagne flute, drained it, and reached for a second.