Finger Lickin' Fifteen (Stephanie Plum 15)

“Deal,” Ranger said. “When you’re done reading, I’d like you to find a way to talk to the four men who have access to the computer that holds the codes. Roger King, Martin Romeo, Chester Deuce, and Sybo Diaz. I don’t want you to interrogate them. I just want you to make a fast character assessment. Chester Deuce is on the desk until six o’clock. Sybo Diaz will take the next six-hour shift. Romeo goes on at midnight. You should be able to catch him in the kitchen early afternoon. He occupies one of the Rangeman apartments and prefers Ella’s cooking to his own.”

“Okeydokey,” I said. “I’m on it.”

It was almost four when I finished reading. Ranger’s men were a motley group, chosen for specific skills and strength of character over other more mundane attributes such as lack of a criminal record. From what I could tell, Ranger employed safecrackers, pickpockets, computer hackers, linebackers, and a bunch of vets who’d served overseas. He also had on his payroll a second-story burglar who the papers compared to Spider-Man, and a guy whose murder conviction was overturned on a technicality. I wouldn’t want to be caught in a blind alley with any of these guys, but Ranger found something in each of them that inspired his trust. At least until a couple weeks ago.

I pulled two men out of the group for a closer look. One of them was Sybo Diaz, the evening monitor for the code computer. He was with Special Forces in Afghanistan and took a job as a rent-a-cop in a mall when he got out. His wife divorced him two months later. His wife’s maiden name was Marion Manoso. She was Ranger’s cousin. I didn’t know the details of the divorce, but I thought there was the potential for some bad feelings. The other file I pulled was Vince Gomez. Vince wasn’t one of the men with code computer access, but he caught my attention. He was a slim little guy with the flexibility of a Romanian acrobat. The inside joke was that he could crawl through a keyhole. He did system installation and troubleshooting for Ranger. I flagged him because he lived beyond his means. I’d seen him around, and I knew he drove an expensive car, and when he wasn’t working he wore expensive jewelry and designer clothes. And he liked the ladies, a lot.

I left the paperwork in Ranger’s office and returned to my desk. I worked at my computer for a half hour and wandered out to the kitchen. No one there, so I stopped in at the monitoring station and smiled at Chester Deuce.

“I’ve always wondered what you guys did out here,” I said to him.

“There are always three of us on duty,” he said. “Someone monitors the cars and responds to the men off-site. Someone watches the in-house video and is responsible for maintaining building integrity. And I watch the remote locations and respond to emergency calls and alarms.”

“So if an alarm went off, what would you do?”

“I’d call the client and ask if they were okay, and then I’d ask for their password.”

“How do you know if they give you the right password?”

“I have the information in an off-line computer.”

I looked at the computer sitting to his right. “I guess it has to be off-line for security purposes.”

He shrugged. “More that there’s no reason for it to be on-line.”

I returned to my desk and packed up. I had seven messages on my phone. All were from Lula, starting at three this afternoon. All the messages were pretty much the same.

“You gotta be on time for supper at your mama’s house tonight,” Lula said. “Your granny and me got a big surprise.”

Thoughts of the big surprise had me rolling my eyes and grimacing.

Ranger appeared in my doorway. “Babe, you look like you want to jump off a bridge.”

“I’m expected for dinner at my parents’ house again. Grandma and Lula are taking another crack at barbecue.”

“Has Lula had any more contact with the Chipotle hitmen?”

“I don’t think so. She didn’t mention anything in her messages.”

“Keep your eyes open when you’re with her.”

MY FATHER WAS slouched in his chair in front of the television when I walked in.

“Hey,” I said. “How’s it going?”

He cut his eyes to me, murmured something that sounded like just shoot me now, and refocused on the screen.

My mother was alone in the kitchen, alternately pacing and chopping. Everywhere I looked there were pots of chopped-up green beans, carrots, celery, potatoes, turnips, yellow squash, and tomatoes. Usually when my mother was stressed, she ironed. Today she seeme

d to be chopping.

“Run out of ironing?” I asked her.

“I ironed everything yesterday. I have nothing left.”

“Where’s Lula and Grandma?”

“They’re out back.”