Morelli grimaced and pushed the button.
"Nobody else hurt?"
"No. The old lady got knocked on her ass just like you. Can you corroborate her story that it was self-defense?"
"Yeah. The drug guy got a round off before she blew him up. It should be embedded in the wall . . . if the wall's still there."
We exited the downstairs lobby and crossed the street to Morelli's truck.
"Now what?" Morelli asked. "Your place? Your mother's house? My place? You're welcome to stay with me if you're feeling shaky."
"Thanks, but I need to go home. I want to take a shower and change my clothes." Then I wanted to go look for Fred. I was antsy to retrace Fred's steps. I wanted to stand in the parking lot where he'd disappeared and get psychic vibes. Not that I'd ever gotten psychic vibes from anything before, but hey, there's always a first time. "By the way, do you know a bookie named Bunchy?"
"No. What's he look like?"
"Average short Italian guy. Forty, maybe."
"Doesn't do anything for me. How do you know him?"
"He visited Mabel, and then he visited me. He claims Fred owes him money."
"Fred?"
"If Fred wanted to play the horses, why wouldn't he place his bets with his son?"
"Because he doesn't want anyone to know he's gambling?"
"Oh, yeah. I didn't think of that." Duh.
"I talked to your doctor," Morelli said. "He told me you're supposed to stay quiet for a couple days. And he said the ringing in your ears should diminish over time."
"The ringing's already a lot better."
Morelli glanced at me sideways. "You're not going to stay quiet, are you?"
"Define 'quiet.' "
"At home, reading, watching television."
"I might do some of that."
Morelli pulled into my parking lot and rolled to a stop. "When you're up to it, you need to stop in at the station and make a formal report."
I jumped out. "Okay."
"Hold it," Morelli said, "I'll go up with you."
"Not necessary. Thanks anyway. I'm fine."
Morelli was grinning again. "Afraid you might lose control in the hall and beg me to come in and make love to you?"
"In your dreams, Morelli."
When I got up to my apartment the red light on my phone machine was blinking, blinking, blinking. And Bunchy was asleep on my couch.
"What are you doing here?" I yelled at him. "Get up! Get out! This isn't the Hotel Ritz. And do you realize what you're doing is breaking and entering?"
"Boy, don't get your panties in a bunch," he said, getting to his feet. "Where have you been? I got worried about you. You didn't come home last night."
"What are you, my mother?"
"Hey, I'm concerned, that's all. You should be happy to have a friend like me." He looked around. "Do you see my shoes?"
"You are not my friend. And your shoes are under the coffee table."
He retrieved the shoes and laced them up. "So where were you?"
"I had a job. I was moonlighting."
"Must have been some job. Your mother called and said she heard you blew someone up."
"You talked to my mother?"
"She left a message on your machine." He was looking around again. "Do you see my gun?"
I turned on my heel and went in to the kitchen to play my messages.
"Stephanie, it's your mother. What's this about an explosion? Edna Gluck heard from her son, Ritchie, that you blew someone up? Is this true? Hello? Hello?"
Bunchy was right. Damn that big-mouth Ritchie.
I played the second message. Breathing. As was message number three.
"What's with the breathing?" Bunchy wanted to know, standing in the middle of my kitchen floor, hands stuck in his pockets, his rumpled, beyond-faded, plaid flannel shirt hanging loose.
"Wrong number."
"You'd tell me if you had a problem, right? Because, you know, I have a way of solving problems like that."
No doubt in my mind. He didn't look like a bookie, but I had no trouble at all believing he could solve that kind of problem. "Why are you here?"
He prowled through my cabinets, looking for food, finding nothing that interested him. Guess he wasn't crazy about hamster pellets.
"I wanted to know if you found anything," he said. "Like, do you have clues or something?"
"No. No clues. Nothing."
"I thought you were supposed to be this hotshot detective."
"I'm not a detective at all. I'm a bail enforcement agent."
"Bounty hunter."
"Yeah. Bounty hunter."
"So, that's okay. You go out and find people. That's what we want to have happen here."
"How much money did Fred owe you?"
"Enough that I want it. Not enough to make a man feel like he had to disappear. I'm a pretty nice guy, you know. It isn't like I go around breaking people's knees 'cause they don't pay up. Well, okay, so sometimes I might break a knee, but it's not like it happens every day."
I rolled my eyes.
"You know what I think you should do?" Bunchy said. "I think you should go check at his bank. See if he's taken any money out. I can't do things like that on account of I look like I might break people's knees. But you're a pretty girl. You probably got a friend works in the bank. People would want to do a favor for you."
"I'll think about it. Now go away."
Bunchy ambled to the door. He took a beat-up brown leather jacket from one of the pegs on the wall and turned to look at me. His expression was serious. "Find him."
What hung unsaid in the air was . . . or else.
I slipped the bolt behind him. First chance I had I was going to have to get a new lock. Surely someone made a lock that actually kept people out.
I called my mother back and explained to her that I hadn't blown someone up. He'd sort of blown himself up with some help from an old lady in a pink nightgown.
"You could have a good job," my mother said. "You could take lessons from that place that advertises on television and teaches you to be a computer operator."
"I have to go now."
"How about dinner. I'm making a nice pot roast with potatoes and gravy."
"I don't think so."
"Pineapple upside-down cake for dessert."
"Okay. I'll be there at six."
I erased the breathing messages and told myself they were wrong numbers. But in my heart, I knew the breather.
I double-checked all the locks on my door, and I checked to make sure my windows were secure and no one was hiding in a closet or under the bed. I took a long, hot shower, wrapped myself in a towel, stepped out of the bathroom . . . and came face-to-face with Ranger.
4
"YIKES!" I JUMPED back and clapped my hand to my chest, tightening my towel. "What are you doing here?" I yelled at Ranger.
His eyes dropped to the towel and then back to my face. "Returning your hat, Babe." He put the SEALS hat on my head and adjusted it over my damp hair. "You left it in the lobby."
"Oh. Thanks."
Ranger smiled.
"What?" I asked.
"Cute," Ranger said.
I narrowed my eyes. "Anything else?"
"You doing the shift with Tank tonight?"
"You're still policing that building?"
"It's got a big hole in it, Babe. Gotta keep the bad guys out."
"I'll pass on that one."
"No problem. I have other jobs you can try on."
"Oh, yeah? Like what?"
Ranger shrugged. "Things turn up." He reached behind him and came up with a gun. My gun. "Found this in the lobby, too." He tucked the gun under the top edge of my towel, wedging it between my breasts, his knuckles brushing against me.
My breath caught in my throat, and for a moment I thought my towel might catch fire.
Ranger smiled again. And I did more eye narrowing.
"I'll be in touch," Ranger said.
And then he was gone.
Dang. I carefully extracted the gun from the towel and put it in the cookie jar in the kitchen. Then I went back to my door to examine the locks. Worthless pieces of junk. I locked them anyway, including the bolt. I didn't know what more I could do.
I went into the bedroom, dropped the towel, and shimmied into a sports bra and jockey bikinis. This wasn't going to be one of those silk and lace days. This was going to be a no-nonsense jockey day all the way through.