Look Alive Twenty-Five (Stephanie Plum 25)
“Playing the drums and bagging groceries?”
“Yeah, I get to meet people, and I make some spare change. Gives me something to talk about on my Facebook page.”
“Do you ever hang out with Victor?”
“No. Victor isn’t exactly intellectually stimulating. I think he hangs with Ziggy sometimes. Probably it’s more like Ziggy follows Victor around when he can find him. Ziggy is needy. He’s kind of lost.”
Lula rushed up to the checkout with her cart. “I got us some good bargains. I got a birthday cake for a dollar. It says ‘Happy Birthday, Larry, Ken, and Stanley,’ but nobody came to pick up their cake, so it was on the sale table.” She turned her attention to Frick. “This here’s the band guy?”
“I’m on drums,” Frick said.
“Aren’t you kind of old?” Lula asked.
“Yeah,” Frick said. “Aren’t you kind of fat?”
“I’m not fat,” Lula said, “I’m excessively proportioned. It goes with my extra-large personality. Do you know where we can find Victor?”
“No.”
“Then I’m checking out and eating my cake. I need one of them plastic forks. Hell, forks for everyone.”
* * *
¦ ¦ ¦
We returned to the deli just before the rush-hour surge. Dalia was setting the tables, and Raymond and Stretch were working in the kitchen.
“I’m almost done with prep,” Stretch said. “I need someone on the phone and someone on sandwiches.”
“I’m all about the sandwiches,” Lula said. “I’m the sandwich queen. Get out of my way ’cause here comes Lula.”
“Hal can do the phone orders,” I said.
“Hal doesn’t fit in the kitchen,” Stretch said. “Why can’t you do the phone orders?”
“I’m the manager. I’m going to manage.”
Mostly I was going to look around. I now had a monitor by the register, and I could pull up three views. Two views were of the parking area and dumpster, and one was of the deli interior. It was all being recorded and fed to the Rangeman control room, but I could see it live. I wanted to be able to watch the monitor, and I wanted to watch the customers. Managers disappeared quickly. There had to be someone on the inside. Either the snatcher or someone associated with him was a regular in the deli. And I wasn’t ruling out Raymond and Stretch.
Two men came in and went to the takeout counter. They were wearing wrinkled suits and had their dress shirts unbuttoned at the neck. Commuters fresh off the train. They looked at Hal and hesitated for a moment. Hal was in black Rangeman fatigues with a Glock at his hip.
“Um, is everything okay here?” one of the men asked.
“Yeah,” Hal said. “What’s up? You want a sandwich?”
They ordered and took a step back. A woman rushed in and went to takeout. She looked at Hal, rolled her eyes, and did a small head shake. Like, what next? Hal took her order and turned to help Lula.
Dalia seated a couple and put their order in. I stepped around to the register to look at the monitor. Nothing going on by the dumpster. So far, I didn’t recognize anyone as a repeat customer. A family came in. Mom and dad and two kids. They took a booth.
After an hour, everyone was pretty much looking the same. Men and women in rumpled suits, lining up for takeout. Families with restless kids looking for fast food. An occasional senior couple sometimes with another senior couple on a night out. No one looked like a killer or a space alien. Not a single Klingon in the room.
When someone complained about their sandwich, Dalia sent Hal to apologize, and that ended the sandwich dispute. Takes a special person to argue with a 250-pound guy packing a Glock.
It was almost eight o’clock when a man sauntered in and sat in a booth. I remembered him from yesterday. He’d come in at about the same time and ordered takeout. He was built like a bulldog and had short-cropped curly red hair.
“Who’s the big muscle man behind the counter?” the red-haired guy asked Dalia. “Is he the new manager?”
“No,” Dalia said. “Stephanie is the new manager.”