Finger Lickin' Fifteen (Stephanie Plum 15)

Ranger smiled back at the woman and looked beyond her, into the room. “I’d like to speak to Cameron.”

“Cameron isn’t here.”

“You don’t mind if I look around?”

She held the shirt wide open. “Look all you want.”

“Nice,” Ranger said, “but I’m looking for Cameron.”

“I told you he’s not here.”

“Bond enforcement,” Ranger said. “Step aside.”

“Do you have a search warrant?”

There was the sound of a window getting shoved up in the back room. Ranger pushed past Gonzales and ran for the window. I turned and raced down the stairs and out the front door. I saw Manfred burst out of the alley between the buildings and cross the street. I took off after him, having no idea what I’d do if I caught him. My self-defense skills relied heavily on eye-gouging and testicle rearrangement. Beyond that, I was at a loss.

I chased Manfred to Stark and saw him turn the corner. I turned a couple beats behind him, and the sidewalk was empty in front of me. No Manfred.

The only possibility was the building on the corner. There was a pizza place on the ground floor and what looked like two floors of apartments above it. The pizza place was closed for the night. The door leading to the apartments was open, the hallway was dark. No light in the stairwell. I stood in the entry and listened for movement.

Ranger came in behind me. “Is he up there?”

“I don’t know. I lost him when he turned the corner. I wasn’t that far away. I don’t think he had time to go farther than this building. Where were you? I thought you’d be on top of him.”

“The fire escape rusted out underneath me at the second floor. It took me a minute to regroup.” He looked up the stairs. “Do you want to come with me, or do you want to keep watch here?”

“I’ll stay here.”

Ranger was immediately swallowed up by the dark. He had a flashlight, but he didn’t use it. He moved almost without sound, creeping up the stairs, pausing at the second-floor landing to listen before moving on.

I hid in the shadows, not wanting to be seen from the street. God knows who was walking the street. Probably, I should carry a gun, but guns scared the heck out of me. I had pepper spray in my purse. And a large can of hair spray, which in my experience is almost as effective as the pepper spray.

I was concentrating on listening for Ranger and keeping watch on the street, and was completely taken by surprise when a door to the rear of the ground-floor hallway opened and Manfred stepped out. He froze when he saw me, obviously just as shocked to find me standing there as I was to see him. He whirled around and retreated through the door. I yelled for Ranger and ran after Manfred.

The door opened to a flight of stairs that led to the cellar. I got to the bottom of the stairs and realized this was a storeroom for the pizza place. Stainless-steel rolling shelves marched in rows across the room. Bags of flour, cans of tomato sauce, and gallon cans of olive oil were stacked on the shelves. A dim bulb burned overhead. I didn’t see Manfred. Fine by me. Probably the only reason I wasn’t already dead was that he’d left his girl’s house in such a rush, he’d gone out unarmed.

I cautiously approached one of the shelves, and Manfred stepped out and grabbed me.

“Give me your gun,” he said.

My heart skipped a beat and went into terror tempo. Bang, bang, bang, bang, knocking against my rib cage.

“I don’t have a gun,” I said.

And then, without any help from my brain, my knee suddenly connected with Manfred’s gonads.

Manfred doubled over, and I hit him on the head with a bag of flour. He staggered forward a little, but he didn’t go down, so I hit him again. The bag broke, and flour went everywhere. I was momentarily blinded, but I reached back to the shelf, grabbed a gallon can of oil, and swung blind. I connected with something that got a grunt out of Manfred.

“Fuckin’ bitch,” Manfred said.

I hauled back to swing again, and Ranger lifted the can from my hand.

“I’m on it,” Ranger said, cuffing Manfred.

“Jail’s better than another three minutes with her,” Manfred said. “She’s a fuckin’ animal. I’m lucky if I can ever use my nuts again. Keep her away from me.”

“I didn’t see you come down the stairs,” I said to Ranger. “It was a whiteout.”