“Thank God,” my mother said. “I thought she was shacked up with a man.”
My father went back to reading his paper. Just another day in the life of the Plum family.
“Did you learn anything from Choochy?” I asked Grandma. “Do you have any idea where Mooner and Dougie have gone?”
“Eddie doesn't know anything about them. He'd like to find them, too. He says Dougie's the one who started it all. He says Dougie stole his heart. I could never figure out what that heart business was about, though.”
“And you don't have any idea where you were kept?”
“He had a bag over my head when we went in and out. At first I didn't realize I was kidnapped. I thought it was some kinky sex thing. What I know i
s we did some driving around and then we went into a garage. I know because I heard the garage door open and close. And then we went into the downstairs part of a house. It was like the garage opened into the cellar except the cellar was fixed up. There was a television room and two bedrooms and a little kitchen down there. And another room with the furnace and the washer and dryer. And I couldn't see out because there were only those little basement windows and they were closed up with shutters on the outside.” Grandma yawned. “Well, I'm going to bed. I'm pooped and I've got a big day tomorrow. I've got to make the most of this kidnapping. I've got a lot of people to tell.”
“Just don't say anything about the heart,” I told Grandma. “The heart is a secret.”
“Fine by me since I don't know what to say about it, anyway.”
“Are you going to press charges?”
Grandma looked surprised. “Against Choochy? Heck no. What would people think?”
Ranger was leaning against his car, waiting for me. He was dressed in black. Black dress slacks, expensive-looking black loafers, black T-shirt, black cashmere jacket. I knew the jacket wasn't for warmth. The jacket covered the gun. Not that it made any difference. The jacket was handsome.
“Ronald is probably going to take the heart to Richmond tomorrow,” I said to Ranger. “And I'm worried they'll discover it doesn't belong to Louie D.”
“And?”
“And I'm afraid they might want to send a message by doing something terrible to Mooner or Dougie.”
“And?”
“And I think Mooner and Dougie are in Richmond. I think Louie D's wife and sister are secretly working together. And I think they have Mooner and Dougie.”
“And you'd like to rescue them.”
“Yes.”
Ranger smiled. “Might be fun.”
Ranger has an odd sense of fun.
"I got Louie D's home address from Connie. Louie D's wife has supposedly been locked up there since Louie died. Estelle Colucci, Louie's sister, is down there, too. She left for Richmond the same day Mooner disappeared. I think somehow the women kidnapped Mooner and took him to Richmond. And I bet Dougie's also in Richmond. Maybe
Estelle and Sophia got fed up with Benny and Ziggy bumbling around and decided to take matters into their own hands." Unfortunately, my theory got a lot fuzzier from there on out. One of the reasons for the fuzziness was that Estelle Colucci didn't fit the description of the crazy-eyed woman. In fact, she didn't even fit the description of the woman in the limo.
“Do you want to stop home first for anything?” Ranger asked. “Or do you want to leave now?”
I looked back at the bike. I had to stash the bike somewhere. Probably it wasn't a good idea to tell my mother I was going to Richmond with Ranger. And I didn't feel entirely comfortable just leaving the bike in my parking lot. The seniors in my building tend to run over objects smaller than a Cadillac. God knows, I didn't want to leave it with Morelli. Morelli would insist on going to Richmond. Morelli was as competent at this sort of operation as Ranger. In fact, Morelli might even be better than Ranger because Morelli wasn't as crazy. Problem was, this wasn't a police operation. This was a bounty hunter operation.
“I need to do something with the bike,” I told Ranger. “I don't want to leave it here.”
“Don't worry about it. I'll have Tank take care of it until we get back.”
“He needs the key.”
Ranger looked at me like I was a very dim bulb.
“Right,” I said. “What was I thinking?” Tank didn't need a key. Tank was one of Ranger's merry men and Ranger's merry men had better fingers than Ziggy.