Smokin' Seventeen (Stephanie Plum 17)

I finished my cookie and my Frappuccino and was about to leave when Mooner walked in.

“Yo, dudette,” Mooner said to me.

“Is the bus done?”

“Negative. This is like a process. I mean you can’t rush an artiste like Uncle Jimmy.” He waved at the girl behind the counter. “Make me something mellow,” he said to her. “I’m feeling pumpkin.”

I hung my bag on my shoulder and gathered my trash. “Gotta go.”

“That’s cool. Where are we going?”

“I have to check some things out.”

“Excellent. Checking things out is like more than orange. It’s like one of my specialties.”

“Pumpkin up,” the counter girl shouted.

Here’s the thing about Mooner. Half the time I didn’t know what the heck he was saying, but I always knew what he was talking about. He paid for his pumpkin drink and ambled back to me, looking like he was ready to go check things out. Don’t get me wrong. I like Mooner. He’s a little eccentric, but he’s a good guy. Problem is he’s like a puppy that’s only ninety percent housebroken. There’s always the potential for piddle on the carpet. Figuratively speaking.

“I’m just going over to Stark,” I told him. “It’ll be boring.”

“Awesome.”

I blew out a sigh. Sometimes it’s best to give up and go with it. “Okay then,” I said. “Let’s roll.”

I turned up Stark and cruised past Kan Klean dry cleaners. Standard two plate-glass windows on either side of the front door. A roll-down security gate was in place. Kan Klean was closed on Sunday. A side door accessed the two floors above the dry cleaner. Connie said Alpha lived on the second floor. The third floor was a rental unit occupied by someone named Jesus Cervaz. I drove around the block and took the service road. Alpha’s building had a small parking area behind it, an enclosed area for garbage cans, and a back door that looked like it only led to the dry cleaner. A Kan Klean van and a silver Camry were parked in the lot. The second and third floor had rear access onto exterior stairs.

There were rear-facing windows in the apartments, but you’d have to be Spiderman to get to them. The rear doors were solid, without windows.

“What are we looking at?” Mooner asked.

“Real estate.”

“Are you like buying?”

“No. Breaking and entering.”

“Excellent.”

I returned to Stark and drove past Alpha’s address one more time. A man stepped out of a bar two doors down and bent his head to light a cigarette. It was Nick Alpha.

“Dude,” Mooner said. “It’s The Twizzler.”

“Twizzler?”

“That’s what we call him. The dude loves Twizzlers.”

“How do you know him?”

“He’s in my bowling league. He took Billy Silks place last month when Silky broke his thumb. Turns out it’s real hard to bowl with a broken thumb.”

“I didn’t know you bowled.”

“Every Sunday night. I got a shirt with my name on it. Walter.”

“Does Twizzler have his name on his shirt?”

“No. He hasn’t got an official shirt. He’s just a stand-in for Silky.”