Eleven on Top (Stephanie Plum 11)

“Being on the receiving end of threatening letters isn't trivial,” Ranger said.

Everything's relative, I thought. The threatening letters weren't nearly as frightening as the prospect of spending another eight hours with Mama-the-Mole Macaroni. And the problems I was thinking about were personal.

My life had no clear direction. My goals were small and immediate. Pay the rent. Get a better car. Make a dinner decision. I didn't have a career. I didn't have a husband. I didn't have any special talents. I didn't have a consuming passion. I didn't have a hobby. Even my pet was small... a hamster. I liked Rex a lot, but he didn't exactly make a big statement.

Ranger broke into my moment. “Babe, I get the feeling you're standing on a ledge, looking down.”

“Just thinking.”

Ranger put the Porsche into gear and headed across town. We checked out Louis Lazar's house and bar. Then we went four blocks north on Stark and parked in front of Gorman's garage. The garage was dark. No sign of life inside. A CLOSED sign hung on the office door.

“Gorman's manager kept the garage going for a week on his own and then cut out,” Ranger said. “Gorman isn't married. He was living with a woman, but she has no claim to his property. He has a pack of kids, all with different mothers. The kids are too young to run the business. The rest of Gorman's relatives are in South Carolina. I did a South Carolina search, and it came back negative. From what I can tell the business was operating in the black. Gorman had a mean streak, but he wasn't stupid. He would have made arrangements to keep the garage running if he was going FTA. I can't see him just walking away. Usually I pick up a vibe from someone . . . mother, girlfriend, coworker. I'm not getting anything on this.”

We cut back two blocks and parked in front of a rundown apartment building.

“This was Gorman's last known address,” Ranger said. “His girlfriend didn't wait as long as his manager. The girlfriend had a new guy hanging his clothes in her closet on day five. If she knew Gorman's location, she'd have given him up for a pass to the multiplex.”

“No one saw him after he drove away from the garage?”

Ranger watched the building. “No. All I know is he drove north on Stark. Consistent with Lazar.”

North on Stark didn't mean much. Stark Street deteriorated as it went north. Eventually Stark got so bad even the gangs abandoned it. At the very edge of the city line Stark was a deserted war zone of fire-gutted brick buildings with boarded-up windows. It was a graveyard for stolen, stripped-down cars and used-up heroin addicts. It was a do-it-yourself garbage dump. North on Stark also led to Route 1 and Route 1 led to the entire rest of the country. Rangers pager buzzed, he checked the message, and pulled away from the curb, into the stream of traffic. Ranger is hot, but he has a few personality quirks that drive me nuts. He doesn't eat dessert, he has an overdeveloped sense of secret, and unless he's trying to seduce me or instruct me in the finer points of bounty huntering, conversation can be nonexistent.

“Hey,” I finally said, “Man of Mystery... what's with the pager?”

“Business.”

“And?”

Ranger slid a glance my way.

“It's no wonder you aren't married,” I said to him. “You have a lot to learn about social skills.”

Ranger smiled at me. Ranger thought I was amusing.

“That was my office,” Ranger said. “Elroy Dish went FTA two days ago. I've been waiting for him to show up at Blue Fish, and he just walked in.”

Vinnie's bonded out three generations of Dishes. Elroy is the youngest. His specialties are armed robbery and domestic violence, but Elroy is capable of most anything.

When Elroy's drunk or drugged he's fearless and wicked crazy. When he's clean and sober he's just plain mean.

Blue Fish is a bar on lower Stark, dead center in Dish country. No point to breaking down a door and attempting to drag a Dish out of his rat-trap apartment when you can just wait for him to waltz into Blue Fish for a cold one.

Ranger brought the Porsche to the curb two doors from Blue Fish, cut the motor and the lights. Three minutes later, a black SUV rolled down the street and parked in front of us. Tank and Hal, dressed in Rangeman black, got out of the SUV and strapped on utility belts. Tank is Ranger's shadow. He watches Ranger's back, and he's second in the line of command at Rangeman. His name is self-expl

anatory. Hal is newer to the game. He's not the sharpest tack on the corkboard, but he tries hard. He's just slightly smaller than Tank and reminds me of a big lumbering dinosaur. He's a Halosaurus.

Ranger reached behind him and grabbed a flak vest from the small backseat.

“Stay here,” he said. “This will only take a couple minutes and then I'll drive you home.”

Ranger angled out of the Porsche, nodded to Tank and Hal, and the three of them disappeared inside Blue Fish. I checked my watch, and I stared at the door to the bar. Ranger didn't waste time when he made an apprehension. He identified his quarry, clapped the cuffs on, and turned the guy over to Tank and Hal for the forced march to the SUV.

I was feeling a little left out, but I was telling myself it was much better this way. No more danger. No more mess. No more embarrassing screw-ups. I was focused on the door to the bar, not paying a lot of attention to the street, and suddenly the drivers-side door to the Porsche was wrenched open and a guy slid in next to me. He was in his twenties, wearing a ball cap sideways and about sixty pounds of gold chains around his neck. He had a diamond chip implanted into his front tooth and the two teeth next to the chip were missing. He smiled at me and pressed the barrel of a gleamingsilver-plated monster gun into my temple.

“Yo bitch,” he said. “How about you get your ass out of my car.”

In my mind I saw myself out of the car and running, but the reality of the situation was that all systems were down. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't move.