Turbo Twenty-Three (Stephanie Plum 23)

I didn’t want to ask Ranger to help again. He had his own business to run, and he was busy with Bogart. The only way I could capture Kwan before he was ready to get caught was to get him alone, without his posse. That meant surveillance.

“No problem,” I said. “Easy-peasy.” Tinker Bell was in the hood.

Lula was on her feet. “I’ll go with you. We might run into the banana man again. I’ve been thinking about him.”

Running into the banana man wasn’t in my plan, but I’d be happy to have Lula riding shotgun. Surveillance was boring at best. It was deadly when you did it alone. As soon as you went to find a ladies’ room the mark took off and you didn’t even know it.

“Where are we going?” Lula asked, settling into my car. “Are we going to sit and watch his travel office?”

“It’s a place to start.”

I drove to Stark Street and parked half a block away and across the street from Kwan’s office. Four windows ran across the front of the building on the second floor. Occasionally a shadowy figure would cross behind a window. Occasionally someone would look out. N

ot Kwan.

At five-thirty a black Mercedes sedan drove up to the travel office and parked. Kwan and three minions came out of the building and got into the car. The car drove them to Sadie’s Steak House on Liberty Street. Everyone went in and the car drove away.

“They’re having dinner and we’re sitting out here like hungry idiots,” Lula said.

“We’re less than a mile from my parents’ house,” I said. “We can hop over and get something to eat and be back here before they leave the restaurant.”

I called ahead to warn my mother that Lula and I were coming to dinner.

“I have a ham,” she said. “And macaroni and cheese. There’s plenty to go around. We’re already at the table, but I’ll put out two more settings.”

Grandma was at the door when we stepped onto the porch. “Your mother’s heating things up,” she said. “Good thing you came, or we would have been eating ham for a week.”

“Whoa, Granny,” Lula said. “Badass hair!”

“I did it for my honey,” Grandma said, “but I’m thinking of kicking him to the curb. I might not want to be tied down to just one man at my age.”

“I hear you,” Lula said.

“I don’t know if I want any man,” Grandma said.

“I’d rather have a dog,” Lula said, “but my landlady said it wasn’t allowed.”

We took our seats at the table, and my mother brought in reheated macaroni and cheese and green beans.

“This is a feast,” Lula said, forking into the ham. “This is all my favorite food. I’m all about macaroni and cheese.”

“How did the Zigler viewing and the funeral go?” I asked Grandma. “Did anything interesting happen?”

“First off, it was closed casket. A lot of people were real disappointed at that. You get dressed up and you make an effort to pay your respects, you should at least get something to look at.”

“I hear there was an overflow crowd,” Lula said. “Marjorie Bend said they were handing out numbered wristbands just to get in.”

“I was lucky. I went early. Even going early I didn’t get the best seat, but I still did pretty good. From what I saw there weren’t any Bogarts there. I think there might have been a couple people the Bogart Bar man worked with, but I didn’t know any of them. I heard the clown was there, but I didn’t see him personally.”

“Was he dressed in his clown suit?” Lula asked.

“No, but you always know the clown by his red nose. The greasepaint doesn’t come off,” Grandma said. “Everybody was talking about it. You see the clown going around in his Jolly truck, and you never think of the hardships of the job.”

So if I want to find the guy who tried to kill me, all I have to do is find a guy with a red nose. I know Stan Ducker’s shoe size was wrong, but until I find a second red nose he isn’t off my list.

We left my parents’ house a little before seven o’clock. Sadie’s Steak House had a small parking lot, but there was on-the-street parking for the overflow. I drove up and down Liberty and through the lot but didn’t see the black Mercedes. I dropped Lula off, and I circled the block while she went inside. I picked her up minutes later, and she said Kwan and his boyfriends were about to leave. I double-parked in the lot and watched the black Mercedes glide down the street, pick the men up, and glide away.

“I bet he’s going home,” Lula said. “He lives in one of them fancy high-rises. How are you going to get him once he gets in there?”