Look Alive Twenty-Five Read online

  “Is this your full-time job?” I asked Frick. “Can you make a living doing this?”

  “I was an accountant for forty-three years,” Frick said. “I retired two years ago, and now I do whatever I want.”

  “Playing the drums and bagging groceries?”

  “Yeah, I get to meet people, and I make some spare change. Gives me something to talk about on my Facebook page.”

  “Do you ever hang out with Victor?”

  “No. Victor isn’t exactly intellectually stimulating. I think he hangs with Ziggy sometimes. Probably it’s more like Ziggy follows Victor around when he can find him. Ziggy is needy. He’s kind of lost.”

  Lula rushed up to the checkout with her cart. “I got us some good bargains. I got a birthday cake for a dollar. It says ‘Happy Birthday, Larry, Ken, and Stanley,’ but nobody came to pick up their cake, so it was on the sale table.” She turned her attention to Frick. “This here’s the band guy?”

  “I’m on drums,” Frick said.

  “Aren’t you kind of old?” Lula asked.

  “Yeah,” Frick said. “Aren’t you kind of fat?”

  “I’m not fat,” Lula said, “I’m excessively proportioned. It goes with my extra-large personality. Do you know where we can find Victor?”

  “No.”

  “Then I’m checking out and eating my cake. I need one of them plastic forks. Hell, forks for everyone.”

  * * *

  ■ ■ ■

  We returned to the deli just before the rush-hour surge. Dalia was setting the tables, and Raymond and Stretch were working in the kitchen.

  “I’m almost done with prep,” Stretch said. “I need someone on the phone and someone on sandwiches.”

  “I’m all about the sandwiches,” Lula said. “I’m the sandwich queen. Get out of my way ’cause here comes Lula.”

  “Hal can do the phone orders,” I said.

  “Hal doesn’t fit in the kitchen,” Stretch said. “Why can’t you do the phone orders?”

  “I’m the manager. I’m going to manage.”

  Mostly I was going to look around. I now had a monitor by the register, and I could pull up three views. Two views were of the parking area and dumpster, and one was of the deli interior. It was all being recorded and fed to the Rangeman control room, but I could see it live. I wanted to be able to watch the monitor, and I wanted to watch the customers. Managers disappeared quickly. There had to be someone on the inside. Either the snatcher or someone associated with him was a regular in the deli. And I wasn’t ruling out Raymond and Stretch.

  Two men came in and went to the takeout counter. They were wearing wrinkled suits and had their dress shirts unbuttoned at the neck. Commuters fresh off the train. They looked at Hal and hesitated for a moment. Hal was in black Rangeman fatigues with a Glock at his hip.

  “Um, is everything okay here?” one of the men asked.

  “Yeah,” Hal said. “What’s up? You want a sandwich?”

  They ordered and took a step back. A woman rushed in and went to takeout. She looked at Hal, rolled her eyes, and did a small head shake. Like, what next? Hal took her order and turned to help Lula.

  Dalia seated a couple and put their order in. I stepped around to the register to look at the monitor. Nothing going on by the dumpster. So far, I didn’t recognize anyone as a repeat customer. A family came in. Mom and dad and two kids. They took a booth.

  After an hour, everyone was pretty much looking the same. Men and women in rumpled suits, lining up for takeout. Families with restless kids looking for fast food. An occasional senior couple sometimes with another senior couple on a night out. No one looked like a killer or a space alien. Not a single Klingon in the room.

  When someone complained about their sandwich, Dalia sent Hal to apologize, and that ended the sandwich dispute. Takes a special person to argue with a 250-pound guy packing a Glock.

  It was almost eight o’clock when a man sauntered in and sat in a booth. I remembered him from yesterday. He’d come in at about the same time and ordered takeout. He was built like a bulldog and had short-cropped curly red hair.

  “Who’s the big muscle man behind the counter?” the red-haired guy asked Dalia. “Is he the new manager?”

  “No,” Dalia said. “Stephanie is the new manager.”

  Red Hair looked over at me, and my heart skipped a beat. I forced a smile and gave him a little finger wave. He stared at me for a long moment before looking down at his menu.

  So, here’s the thing. I’m not actually very brave. And I’m not skilled at solving crimes. Truth is, I have no business hanging myself out like this. And yet, here I am. Stephanie Plum, manager, sitting duck, idiot.

  Dalia put her order in to the kitchen, and I pulled her aside.

  “Who is the red-haired guy?” I asked.

  “His name is Mike. I don’t know his last name. He pays with cash. Started coming in a couple months ago. He comes in late, and he always gets an extra side of slaw.”

  Mike ate his meal, put some cash on the table, and left. I followed him to the door and watched him walk down the street. He turned at the corner and was gone from view. I ran after him, but by the time I got to the corner he’d disappeared. I waited for a few minutes to see if a car drove away from the curb. When no one did I assumed Mike lived in one of the row houses that lined both sides of the street.

  I turned to go back to the deli and bumped into Wulf. He’d been standing inches behind me without my knowledge.

  I yelped in surprise and jumped away.

  “What the heck?” I said.

  The sun was setting, and the whites of Wulf’s eyes were very white in the semi-darkness. His voice was soft when he spoke.

  “Return to the deli,” he said. “Close up for the night, but don’t go out the back door.”

  “Have you been following Mike?”

  “No. I’ve been following you. We’re both on a mission, and you have a knack for unwittingly stumbling across your prey.”

  “And we’re both looking for the same man?”

  “It’s possible. It’s necessary for me to leave for a short time. Until I return you are on your own, so be very careful.”

  Wulf stepped away and swept his arm out in a wide arc. There was a flash of light, some smoke, and he was gone.

  “I hate when you do that!” I yelled after him. “It’s freaky.”

  I stayed in place for several minutes, hoping to catch another glimpse of Mike or Wulf. Neither reappeared, so I walked back to the deli.

  Raymond and Stretch were standing outside, smoking weed.

  “It is good to see you,” Raymond said to me. “You left very abruptly and didn’t return, and we thought you might have fallen victim to the manager snatcher.”

  “Why are you out here? Why aren’t you inside, working?”

  “There are no more customers,” Raymond said. “We are on a mental health break. We will clean everything perfectly when we are sufficiently relaxed.”

  I pushed through the door and found Dalia wiping down tables and Lula eating pie with Hal.

  “This is a good job,” Hal said. “We don’t get pie at Rangeman. He doesn’t want us to get fat.”

  Raymond and Stretch waltzed in, and we all got busy scrubbing down the kitchen. Almost an hour later, the kitchen was clean and Stretch had taken inventory and passed his list on to his vendors. Bags of garbage were lined up in the hall that led to the back door.

  “Someone needs to take the garbage out to the dumpster,” I said.

  “I’d do it,” Lula said, “but I don’t want to be on video being the garbage girl. It would be unflattering.”

  “And I would do it, but I cannot lose my shoe,” Raymond said. “I must wear two shoes at all times.”

  We all went to the back door. I opened the door, and we looked out. The
parking area was lit by new floods installed by Rangeman.

  Stretch picked up a garbage bag and flung it at the dumpster. It hit on the top corner and burst, spewing garbage onto the pavement. Two raccoons and a pack of rats as big as barn cats suddenly appeared and ransacked the mess. We all jumped back, and I closed and locked the back door.

  “Okay then,” I said. “Everyone takes a bag of garbage home with them.”

  “It might not make it all the way to my home,” Raymond said.

  “As long as it’s not in the deli,” I told him. “Try to get it at least a block away.”

  Lula and I set our bags of garbage in the trunk of my car, I locked the front door to the deli, and I drove Lula back to the bonds office to get her car. I made a brief stop at Giovichinni’s dumpster to deposit the garbage, and I noticed Hal was following me.

  I dropped Lula off and texted Morelli, telling him I still had both of my shoes, and I was on my way home. Maybe we could get together tomorrow. He texted me back a thumbs-up.

  Hal was still behind me when I parked in the lot attached to my apartment building. He got out of his SUV and walked me to my door. He waited until I was in and the lights were on and I told him everything was okay.

  “Thanks for keeping me safe today,” I said.

  “No problem,” he said. “I got pie.”

  I waved him off and locked my door. I said hello to Rex and gave him a couple Froot Loops.

  “The escort home was overkill,” I said to Rex. “You have nothing to worry about. We’re perfectly safe here.” Especially since there was probably a Rangeman guy sitting in a patrol car in my lot, taking over for Hal. Ranger could sometimes be obsessive.

  CHAPTER NINE

  LULA WAS AT the window when I got to the office. It was a little after nine A.M. and the single Boston Kreme donut was long gone.

  “I see you’re being followed,” Lula said. “This is the second day in a row you’ve had a Rangeman escort.”

  I blew out a sigh. “Ranger is in full-on protective mode.”

  “It doesn’t look like Hal in the car.”

  “Hal’s shift doesn’t start until the deli opens at ten.”

  “What the heck is this thing going on between you and Ranger?” Lula asked. “He gives you cars and security escorts and you get to stay in his personal Batcave when you want. I know he likes you but dang, you must be really good at something we don’t know about.”

  I thought it was just the opposite. I’m not really good at anything. I’m like an inept pet. Beloved but pretty much a disaster. And in spite of this, or maybe because of it, there’s a lot of festering sexual attraction. Mostly the attraction goes unfulfilled, which I suspect contributes to the intensity of the festering.

  “Do you notice anything different about me?” Lula asked.

  Connie looked over at her. “Is your hair a different color?”

  Lula changed her hair so often it was hard to remember from one day to the next.

  “It’s called Metallic Magenta,” Lula said. “And I had Shanika brush it out to full volume.”

  I had to admit, the hair was spectacular. It looked like her head was a brilliant sunset that had exploded.

  “I went to get it done first thing this morning so I’d be all set for going to the Snake Pit tonight,” Lula said. “I’m all about Rockin’ Armpits now that I’m a personal friend of the drummer, and the pizza guy, and what’s-his-name from the coffee shop.”

  Crap! It was Thursday. Rockin’ Armpits was at the Snake Pit tonight. I blew out another sigh. The day was going so good until I remembered this. I’d slept in. I’d had a luxurious shower. I’d had a second cup of coffee with a strawberry Pop-Tart. The sun was shining.

  Now I was back to bounty hunter reality. Thursday had arrived. I told myself that I should be happy. I needed the money, and this was my best shot at getting Victor Waggle. Problem was, I knew it was also an opportunity for epic failure. I would have to attempt a takedown at the Snake Pit. There would be a lot of people in a small space. Some of those people would be scary. Many of them would be armed. Most of them would be high. I would want to create the least possible disturbance. That meant I would need to make my capture before or after the performance. And that meant I needed to be familiar with the stage area.

  At least I had Hal. He was big, and he knew his way around the Snake Pit, and he actually had some skills. Like he probably knew how to shoot his gun and sucker punch a guy in the throat. Me, not so much.

  “Looks like it’s a good thing we’ve got the job at the deli,” Lula said to me. “Otherwise we wouldn’t have anything to do. You let Annie Gurky slip through your fingers, and you got Wayne Kulicki snatched. So now the only FTA we have left is Victor Waggle.”

  “Do we have any new cases?” I asked Connie.

  “No,” Connie said. “Maybe something will come in later today.”

  “I tell you it’s a sad day in Trenton when there’s so little crime that us bounty hunters are out of work,” Lula said. “What’s this town coming to? I think it’s all because of those damn tax cuts. People don’t have to steal and deal drugs no more.”

  “Drug dealers don’t pay taxes,” I said to Lula.

  “Say what?”

  “It’s illegal to deal drugs, so drug dealers don’t declare income.”

  “Hunh, I hadn’t thought of it like that,” Lula said.

  “Let’s go take a look at the Snake Pit before we open the deli.”

  I cut across town, turned right onto Stark, and cruised past the hookers, the gangbangers, and the stoop sitters. I reached the first block of war-zone buildings and looked for any indicators that one of them was the Snake Pit. I hit the second block and slowed when I approached Waggle’s address.

  “There’s only one building standing here,” Lula said. “This has to be where the band plays.”

  I didn’t see any activity in the area. No cars. No people. No lighting equipment. No marauding packs of feral cats.

  “I guess they set everything up last minute,” Lula said.

  I looked in my rearview mirror. The Rangeman SUV was still on my bumper. This gave me a warm, fuzzy feeling. I wasn’t on my own in no-man’s-land. I cut off Stark at the end of the block and headed for the deli.

  * * *

  ■ ■ ■

  Lula and I were the first to arrive. Hal pulled in just as I was opening the door. Stretch and Raymond wandered in minutes later. I flipped the lights on, Lula unlocked the back door for the provisions delivery, Raymond went to the fry station. The phone rang, and Hal took the first order of the day. We were settling into a work rhythm. This scared the bejeezus out of me. I didn’t want to settle into a work routine here. This wasn’t my dream job. Truth is, I didn’t have a dream job in mind. I just knew this wasn’t it. This job was even less it than my job as a bounty hunter. I thought after a couple weeks of working at this job it might be a relief to get abducted.

  Lula had decided to wear her ’ho leathers as an accompaniment to her massive magenta hair. She was stuffed into over-the-knee black stiletto-heeled boots, a tight black leather skirt that barely covered her hoo-ha, and a black leather bustier that was struggling to contain her triple-D boobs. When she stood next to Hal in his Rangeman uniform they looked like they were working the lunch shift for S&M Deli.

  A horn blared from the back lot, telling us the provisions truck had arrived. Raymond grabbed the clipboard hanging by Stretch’s station and went to check off the supplies. There were several companies that made deliveries to the deli. The main provisioner, Central GP, came daily. Twice a week we received frozen foods. Twice a week the laundry was collected and returned by Kan Klean. And twice a week a Berger’s Bits butcher shop truck delivered meat that wasn’t frozen or pre-packaged. The only fish on the menu was tuna that came from a big restaurant-sized can.

  Frankie drove the
Central GP truck that brought us paper products, condiments, canned goods, baked goods, fresh produce, packaged lunch meats, dairy, and weed. My understanding was that the more exotic controlled substances were a special order. I personally don’t do drugs. I have enough trouble making smart decisions when I’m clean and sober.

  “We have received everything we asked for,” Raymond said when the truck pulled away. “I will put all these things in their proper place.”

  “It’s Thursday,” Stretch said. “Bonus day. Did Frankie leave us anything interesting?”

  “Yes, I have some blue pills,” Raymond said.

  Stretch looked over at the bottle of pills. “What are they?”

  “Frankie didn’t know. Frankie found them in the pocket of a dead man. He was one of the line cooks for the East Street Banana Kitchen. Frankie carried a five-gallon container of rice pudding into the walk-in refrigerator and found the cook. He said even in his dead condition the man looked excessively happy, so he thinks the blue pills might be excellent.”

  “Have you tried them?”

  “No,” Raymond said. “I’m currently in an agitated state from many uppers. It would not be a good test of the happy pills if I tried them in my present condition.”

  * * *

  ■ ■ ■

  We made it through lunch with fewer than normal complaints, and several diners took selfies with Lula and Hal.

  “This is most interesting,” Raymond said. “We have become a theme deli. I have some black leather chaps in my closet for special occasions that I might wear tomorrow. They would be appropriate for the fry station because they only expose my butt cheeks. I would not be in jeopardy of getting splatter burns on my sensitive frontal private areas.”