I stood in the dark and listened. No more scraping sounds. My heart was pounding, and the gun was shaking in my hand. Get a grip, I told myself. It was probably a bird. An owl. They fly at night, right? Silly Stephanie, freaked out by an owl.
I crept to the window and listened again. Silence. I opened the curtain a fraction of an inch and peeked out.
Yikes!
There was a huge guy on my fire escape. I only saw him for an instant, but he looked like Benito Ramirez. How could that be? Ramirez was dead.
There was a lot of noise, and I realized I'd fired all four rounds through my window, into the guy on my fire escape.
Rats! This isn't a good thing. First off, I might have killed someone. I hate when that happens. Second, I haven't a clue if the guy had a gun, and the law frowns on shooting unarmed people. The law isn't even all that fond of citizens shooting armed people. Even worse, my window was trashed.
I ripped the curtain aside, and pressed my nose to the window pane. No one out there. I looked more closely and saw that I'd blasted a life-size cardboard cutout. It was laying flat o
n the fire escape and there were a bunch of holes in it.
I was standing there dumbfounded, breathing heavy with the gun still in my hand, when I heard the police siren whining in the distance. Good going, Stephanie. The one time I call the police, and it turns out to be an embarrassing false alarm. An evil prank. Like the snakes.
So who would do something like this? Someone who knew about Ramirez getting killed on my fire escape. I gave up a sigh. The entire state knew about Ramirez. It was in all the papers. Okay, someone who had access to a life-size cutout. There had been a lot of the cutouts floating around when Ramirez was fighting. Not many of them floating around now. One person came to mind. Eddie Abruzzi.
A blue-and-white pulled into my parking lot, lights flashing, and a uniform got out.
I opened my window and leaned out. “False alarm,” I yelled down. “Nobody here. It must have been a bird.”
He looked up at me. “A bird?”
“I think it was an owl. A real big owl. Sorry you got called out.”
He waved, got back into the car, and drove off.
I closed and locked the window, but it was an empty gesture since a lot of the glass was missing. I ran into the kitchen and ate the Chocolate Junior.
I WAS HALF-ASLEEP, contemplating the nutritional value of a Creme-filled Cupcake for breakfast, when there was a knock at my door.
It was Tank, Ranger's right-hand man. “Your car turned up at a chop shop,” he said. He handed my bag over to me. “This was on the floor in the back.”
“And my car?”
“In your parking lot.” He gave me my keys. “The car's fine except for a chain attached to the tow. We didn't know what the chain was all about.”
I closed and locked the door after Tank, stumbled into the kitchen, and ate the package of cupcakes. I told myself it was okay to eat the cupcakes because it was a celebration. I had my car back. Calories don't count if they're connected to a celebration. Everyone knows this.
Coffee would taste good, but it seemed like a lot of work this morning. I had to change the filter, add the coffee and water, and push the button. Not to mention, if I had coffee I might wake up, and I didn't think I was ready to face the day. Better to go back to bed.
I'd just crawled into bed when the doorbell rang again. I put the pillow over my head and closed my eyes. The doorbell kept ringing. “Go away,” I yelled. “Nobody's home!” Now there was knocking. And more ringing. I threw the pillow off and heaved myself out of bed. I stomped to the door, wrenched it open, and glared out. “What?”
It was Kloughn. “It's Saturday,” he said. “I brought doughnuts. I always have doughnuts on Saturday morning.” He looked more closely. “Did I wake you up? Boy, you don't look all that good when you wake up, do you? No wonder you're not married. Do you always sleep in sweats? How'd you get your hair to stick out like that?”
“How'd you like to have your nose broken a second time?” I asked.
Kloughn pushed past me, into my apartment. “I saw the car in the parking lot. Did the police find it? Do you have my handcuffs?”
“I don't have your handcuffs. And get out of my apartment. Go away.”
“You just need some coffee,” Kloughn said. “Where do you keep the filters? I'm always a cranky pants in the morning, too. And then I have my coffee, and I'm a new person.”
Why me? I thought.
Kloughn got the coffee out of the refrigerator and started the machine. “I didn't know if bounty hunters worked on Saturday,” he said. “But I thought better safe than sorry. So here I am.”