FIVE MONTH LATER . . .

Carol Zabo was standing on the outermost guardrail on the bridge spanning the Delaware between Trenton, New Jersey, and Morrisville, Pennsylvania. She was holding a regulation-size yellow fire brick in the palm of her right hand, with about four feet of clothesline stretched between the brick and her ankle. On the side of the bridge in big letters was the slogan "Trenton Makes and the World Takes." And Carol was apparently tired of the world taking whatever it was she was making, because she was getting ready to jump into the Delaware and let the brick do its work.

I was standing about ten feet from Carol, trying to talk her off the guardrail. Cars were rolling past us, some slowing up to gawk, and some cutting in and out of the gawkers, giving Carol the finger because she was disturbing the flow.

"Listen, Carol," I said, "it's eight-thirty in the morning, and it's starting to snow. I'm freezing my ass off. Make up your mind about jumping, because I have to tinkle, and I need a cup of coffee."

Truth is, I didn't for a minute think she'd jump. For one thing, she was wearing a four-hundred-dollar jacket from Wilson Leather. You just don't jump off a bridge in a four-hundred-dollar jacket. It isn't done. The jacket would get ruined. Carol was from the Chambersburg section of Trenton, just like me, and in the Burg you gave the jacket to your sister, then you jumped off the bridge.

"Hey, you listen, Stephanie Plum," Carol said, teeth chattering. "Nobody sent you an engraved invitation to this party."

I'd gone to high school with Carol. She'd been a cheerleader, and I'd been a baton twirler. Now she was married to Lubie Zabo and wanted to kill herself. If I was married to Lubie I'd want to kill myself too, but that wasn't Carol's reason for standing on the guardrail, holding a brick on a rope. Carol had shoplifted some crotchless bikinis from the Frederick's of Hollywood store at the mall. It wasn't that Carol couldn't afford the panties, it was that she wanted them to spice up her love life and was too embarrassed to take them to the register. In her haste to make a getaway, she'd rear-ended Brian Simon's plainclothes cop car and had left the scene. Brian had been in the car at the time, and had chased her down and thrown her into the pokey.

My cousin Vinnie, president and sole proprietor of Vincent Plum Bail Bonds, had written Carol's get-out-of-jail ticket. If Carol didn't show up for her court date, Vinnie would forfeit the walking money--unless he could retrieve Carol's body in a timely manner.

This is where I come in. I'm a bond enforcement agent, which is a fancy term for bounty hunter, and I retrieve bodies for Vinnie. Preferably live and unharmed. Vinnie had spotted Carol on his way in to work this morning and had dispatched me to rescue her--or, if rescue wasn't possible, to eyeball the precise spot where she splashed down. Vinnie was worried if he'd be out his bond money if Carol jumped into the river, and the divers and cops with grappling hooks couldn't find her water-logged corpse.

"This is really a bad way to do it," I said to Carol. "You're going to look awful when they find you. Think about it--your hair's gonna be a wreck."

She rolled her eyes up as if she could see on the top of her head. "Shit, I never thought of that," she said. "I just had it highlighted, too. I got it foiled."

The snow was coming down in big wet blobs. I was wearing hiking boots with thick Vibram soles, but the cold was seeping through to my feet all the same. Carol was more dressy in funky ankle boots, a little black dress, and the excellent jacket. Somehow the brick seemed too casual for the rest of the outfit. And the dress reminded me of a dress I had hanging in my own closet. I'd only worn the dress for a matter of minutes before it had been dropped to the floor and kicked aside . . . the opening statement in an exhaustive night with the man of my dreams. Well, one of the men, anyway. Funny how people see clothes differently. I wore the dress, hoping to get a man in my bed. And Carol chose it to jump off a bridge. Now in my opinion, jumping off a bridge in a dress is a bad decision. If I was going to jump off a bridge I'd wear slacks. Carol was going to look like an idiot with her skirt up around her ears and her pantyhose hanging out. "So what does Lubie think of the highlights?" I asked.

"Lubie likes the highlights," Carol said. "Only he wants me to grow it longer. He says long hair is the style now."

Personally, I wouldn't put a lot of stock in the fashion sense of a man who got his nickname by bragging about his sexual expertise with a grease gun. But hey, that's just me. "So tell me again why you're up here on the guardrail."

"Because I'd rather die than go to jail."

"I told you, you're not going to jail. And if you do, it won't be for very long."

"A day is too long! An hour is too long! They make you take off all your clothes, and then they make you bend over so they can look for smuggled weapons. And you have to go to the bathroom in front of everyone. There's no, you know, privacy. I saw a special on television."

Okay, so now I understood a little bit better. I'd kill myself before I'd do any of those things, too.

"Maybe you won't have to go to jail," I said. "I know Brian Simon. I could talk to him. Maybe I could get him to drop the charges."

Carol's face brightened. "Really? Would you do that for me?"

"Sure. I can't guarantee anything, but I can give it a shot."

"And if he won't drop the charges, I'll still have a chance to kill myself."

"Exactly."

I PACKED CAROL and the brick off in her car, and then I drove over to the 7-Eleven for coffee and a box of glazed chocolate doughnuts. I figured I deserved the doughnuts, since I'd done such a good job of saving Carol's life.

I took the doughnuts and coffee to Vinnie's storefront office on Hamilton Avenue. I didn't want to run the risk of eating all the doughnuts myself. And I was hoping Vinnie would have more work for me. As a bond enforcement agent I only get paid if I bring somebody in. And at the moment I was clean out of wayward bondees.

"Damn, skippy," Lula said from behind the file cabinets. "Here come doughnuts walking through the door."

At five feet five inches, weighing in at a little over two hundred pounds, Lula is something of a doughnut expert. She was in monochromatic mode this week, with hair, skin, and lip gloss all the color of cocoa. The skin color is permanent, but the hair changes weekly.

Lula does filing for Vinnie, and she helps me out when I need backup. Since I'm not the world's best bounty hunter, and Lula isn't the world's best backup, it's more often than not like the amateur-hour version of The Best of "Cops" Bloopers .

"Are those chocolate doughnuts?" Lula asked. "Connie and me were just thinking we needed some chocolate doughnuts, weren't we, Connie?"

Connie Rosolli is Vinnie's office manager. She was at her desk, in the middle of the room, examining her mustache in a mirror. "I'm thinking of having more electrolysis," she said. "What do you think?"

"I think it's a good thing," Lula told her, helping herself to a doughnut. "Because you're starting to look like Groucho Marx, again."

I sipped my coffee and fingered through some files Connie had on her desk. "Anything new come in?"

The door to Vinnie's inner office slammed open, and Vinnie stuck his head out. "Fuckin' A, we got something new . . . and it's all yours."

Lula screwed her mouth up to the side. And Connie did a nose wrinkle.

I had a bad feeling in my stomach. Usually I had to beg for jobs and here Vinnie was, having saved something for me. "What's going on?" I asked.

"It's Ranger," Connie said. "He's in the wind. Won't respond to his pager."

"The schmuck didn't show up for his court date yesterday," Vinnie said. "He's FTA."

"FTA" is bounty-hunter-speak for "failure to appear." Usually I'm happy to hear someone has failed to appear, because it means I get to earn money by coaxing them back into the system. In this case, there was no money to be had, because if Ranger didn't want to be found, he wasn't going to be found. End of discussion.

Ranger is a bounty hunter, like me. Only Ranger is good . He's close to my age, give or take a few years; he's Cuban-American; and I'm pretty sure he only kills bad guys. Two weeks ago some idiot rookie cop arrested Ranger on carrying concealed without a license. Every other cop in Trenton knows Ranger and knows he carries concealed, and they're perfectly happy to have it that way. But no one told the new guy. So Ranger was busted and scheduled to go before the judge yesterday for a slap on the wrist. In the meantime, Vinnie sprung Ranger with a nice chunk of money, and now Vinnie was feeling lonely, high off the ground, out there on a limb all by himself. First Carol. Now Ranger. Not a good way to start a Tuesday.

"There's something wrong with this picture," I said. It made my heart feel leaden in my chest, because there were people out there who wouldn't mind seeing Ranger disappear forever. And his disappearance would make a very large hole in my life.

"It's not like Ranger to ignore his court date. Or to ignore his page."

Lula and Connie exchanged glances.

"You know that big fire they had downtown on Sunday?" Connie said. "Turns out the building is owned by Alexander Ramos."

Alexander Ramos deals guns, regulating the flow of black market arms from his summer compound on the Jersey shore and his winter fortress in Athens. Two of his three adult sons live in the United States, one in Santa Barbara, the other in Hunterdon County. The third son lives in Rio. None of this is privileged information. The Ramos family has made the cover of Newsweek four times. People have speculated for years that Ranger has ties to Ramos, but the exact nature of those ties has always been unknown. Ranger is a master of keeping things unknown.

"And?" I asked.

"And when they could finally go through the building yesterday they found Ramos's youngest son, Homer, barbecued in a third-floor office. Besides being toasted, he also had a large bullet hole in his head."

"And?"

"And Ranger's wanted for questioning. The police were here just a few minutes ago, looking for him."

"Why do they want Ranger?"

Connie did a palms-up.

"Anyway, he's skipped," Vinnie said, "and you're gonna bring him in."

My voice involuntarily rose an octave. "What, are you crazy? I'm not going after Ranger!"

"That's the beauty of it," Vinnie said. "You don't have to go after him. He'll come to you. He's got a thing for you."

"No! No way. Forget it."

"Fine," Vinnie said, "you don't want the job, I'll put Joyce on it."

Joyce Barnhardt is my archenemy. Ordinarily, I'd eat dirt before I'd give anything up to Joyce. In this case, Joyce could take it. Let her spend her time spinning her wheels, looking for the invisible man.

"So what else have you got?" I asked Connie.

"Two minors and a real stinker." She passed three folders over to me. "Since Ranger isn't available I'm going to have to give the stinker to you."

I flipped the top file open. Morris Munson. Arrested for vehicular manslaughter. "Could be worse," I said. "Could be a homicidal rapist."

"You didn't read down far enough," Connie said. "After this guy ran over the victim, who just happened to be his ex-wife, he beat her with a tire iron, raped her, and tried to set her on fire. He was charged with vehicular manslaughter because according to the M. E. she was already dead when he took the tire iron to her. He had her soaked in gasoline and was trying to get his Bic to work when a blue-and-white happened to drive by."

Little black dots danced in front of my eyes. I sat down hard on the fake-leather couch and put my head between my legs.

"You okay?" Lula asked.

"Probably it's just low blood sugar," I said. Probably it's my job .

"It could be worse," Connie said. "It says here he wasn't armed. Just bring your gun along, and I'm sure you'll be fine."

"I can't believe they let him out on bail!"

"Go figure," Connie said. "Guess they didn't have any more room at the inn."

I looked up at Vinnie, who was still standing in the doorway to his private office. "You wrote bail on this maniac?"

"Hey, I'm not a judge. I'm a businessman. He didn't have any priors," Vinnie said. "And he has a good job working at the button factory. Homeowner."

"And now he's gone."

"Didn't show up for his court date," Connie said. "I called the button factory, and they said last they saw him was Wednesday."

"Have they heard from him at all? Did he call in sick?"

"No. Nothing. I called his home number and got his machine."

I glanced at the other two files. Lenny Dale, missing in action, charged with domestic violence. And Walter "Moon Man" Dunphy, wanted for drunk and disorderly and urinating in a public place.

I tucked the three folders into my shoulder bag and stood. "Page me if you hear anything on Ranger."

"Last chance," Vinnie said. "I swear I'll give his file to Joyce."

I took a doughnut from the box, gave the box over to Lula, and left. It was March and the snowstorm was having a hard time working itself up into anything serious. There was some slush on the street, and a layer of ice had accumulated on my windshield and my passenger-side windows. There was a large blurry object behind the window. I squinted through the ice. The blurry object was Joe Morelli.

Most women would have an orgasm on the spot to find Morelli sitting in their car. He had that effect. I'd known Morelli for most of my life, and I almost never had an on-the-spot orgasm, anymore. I needed at least four minutes.

He was wearing boots and jeans and a black fleece jacket. The tails of a red plaid flannel shirt hung under the jacket. Under the flannel shirt he wore a black T-shirt and a .40-caliber Glock. His eyes were the color of aged whiskey and his body was a testament to good Italian genes and hard work at the gym. He had a reputation for living fast, and the reputation was well deserved but dated. Morelli focused his energy on his job now.

I slid behind the wheel, turned the key in the ignition, and cranked up the defroster. I was driving a six-year-old blue Honda Civic that was perfectly good transportation but didn't enhance my fantasy life. Hard to be Xena, Warrior Princess in a six-year-old Civic.

"So," I said to Morelli, "what's up?"

"You going after Ranger?"

"Nope. Not me. No siree. No way."

He raised his eyebrows.

"I'm not magic," I said. Sending me after Ranger would be like sending the chicken out to hunt down the fox.

Morelli was slouched against the door. "I need to talk to him."

"Are you investigating the fire?"

"No. This is something else."

"Something else that's related to the fire? Like the hole in Homer Ramos's head?"

Morelli grinned. "You ask a lot of questions."

"Yeah, but I'm not getting any answers. Why isn't Ranger answering his page? What's his involvement here?"

"He had a late-night meeting with Ramos. They were caught on a lobby security camera. The building is locked up at night, but Ramos had a key. He arrived first, waited ten minutes for Ranger, then opened the door for him. The two of them crossed the lobby and took the elevator to the third floor. Thirty-five minutes later Ranger left alone. And ten minutes after that, the fire alarm went off. Forty-eight hours' worth of tape has been run, and according to the tape no one else was in the building with Ranger and Ramos."

"Ten minutes is a long time. Give him three more to ride the elevator or take the stairs. Why didn't the alarm go off sooner, if Ranger started the fire?"

"No smoke detector in the office where Ramos was found. The door was closed, and the smoke detector was in the hall."

"Ranger isn't stupid. He wouldn't let himself get caught on videotape if he was going to kill someone."

"It was a hidden camera." Morelli eyed my doughnut. "You going to eat that?"

I broke the doughnut in half and gave him a piece. I popped the other into my mouth. "Was an accelerant used?"

"Small amount of lighter fluid."

"You think Ranger did it?"

"Hard to say with Ranger."

"Connie said Ramos was shot."

"Nine millimeter."

"So you think Ranger is hiding from the police?"

"Allen Barnes is the primary on the homicide investigation. Everything he's got so far leads to Ranger. If he brought Ranger in for questioning, he could probably hold him for a while based on priors, like the carrying charge. No matter how you look at it, sitting in a cell isn't in Ranger's best interest right now. And if Barnes has Ranger nailed as his number one suspect, there's a good chance Alexander Ramos has reached the same conclusion. If Ramos thought Ranger blew Homer away, Ramos wouldn't wait for justice to be served by the court."

The doughnut was sitting in a big lump in my throat. "Or maybe Ramos has already gotten to Ranger . . ."

"That's a possibility, too."

Shit. Ranger is a mercenary with a strong code of ethics that doesn't necessarily always correspond to current popular thinking. He came on board as my mentor when I first started working for Vinnie, and the relationship has evolved to include friendship, which is limited by Ranger's lone-wolf lifestyle and my desire for survival. And, truth is, there's been a growing sexual attraction between us which scares the hell out of me. So my feelings for Ranger were complicated to begin with, and now I added a sense of doom to the list of unwanted emotions.

Morelli's pager beeped. He looked at the readout and sighed. "I have to go. If you run across Ranger, pass my message on to him. We really need to talk."

"It'll cost you."

"Dinner?"

"Fried chicken," I said. "Extra greasy."

I watched him angle out of the car and cross the street. I enjoyed the view until he was out of sight, and then I turned my attention back to the files. I knew Moon Man Dunphy. I'd gone to school with him. No problem there. I just had to go pry him away from his television set.

Lenny Dale lived in an apartment complex on Grand Avenue and had listed his age as eighty-two. Big groan on this one. There is no good way to apprehend an eighty-two-year-old man. No matter how you cut it, you look and feel like a creep.

Morris Munson's file was left to read, but I didn't want to go there. Best to procrastinate and hope Ranger came forward.

I decided to go after Dale first. He was only about a quarter-mile from Vinnie's office. I needed to make a U-turn on Hamilton, but the car was having none of it. The car was heading for center city and the burned-out building.

Okay, so I'm nosy. I wanted to see the crime scene. And I guess I wanted to have a psychic moment. I wanted to stand in front of the building and have a Ranger revelation.

I crossed the railroad tracks and inched my way along in the morning traffic. The building was at the corner of Adams and Third. It was redbrick and four stories high, probably about fifty years old. I parked on the opposite side of the street, got out of my car, and stared at the fire-blackened windows, some of which were boarded over. Yellow crime-scene tape stretched the width of the building, held in place by sawhorses strategically positioned on the sidewalk to prevent snoops like me from getting too close. Not that I'd let a detail like crime-scene tape stop me from taking a peek.

I crossed the street and ducked under the tape. I tried the double glass door, but found it locked. Inside, the lobby seemed relatively unscathed. Lots of grimy water and smoke-smudged walls, but no visible fire damage.

I turned and looked at the surrounding buildings. Office buildings, stores, a deli-style restaurant on the corner.

Hey, Ranger, are you out there?

Nothing. No psychic moment.

I ran back to the car, locked myself in, and hauled out my cell phone. I dialed Ranger's number and waited through two rings before his answering machine picked up. My message was brief: "Are you okay?"

I disconnected and sat there for a few minutes, feeling breathless and hollow-stomached. I didn't want Ranger to be dead. And I didn't want him to have killed Homer Ramos. Not that I cared a fig about Ramos, but whoever killed him would pay, one way or another.

Finally I put the car in gear and drove away. A half-hour later I was standing in front of Lenny Dale's door, and apparently the Dales were at it again because there was a lot of shouting going on inside the apartment. I shifted foot to foot in the third-floor hall, waiting for a lull in the racket. When it came, I knocked. This led to another shouting match, over who was going to get the door.

I knocked again. The door was flung open, and an old man stuck his head out at me. "Yeah?"

"Lenny Dale?"

"You're looking at him, sis."

He was mostly nose. The rest of his face had shrunk away from that eagle's beak, his bald dome was dotted with liver spots, and his ears were oversized on his mummified head. The woman behind him was gray-haired and doughy, with tree-trunk legs stuffed into Garfield the Cat bedroom slippers.

"What's she want?" the woman yelled. "What's she want?"

"If you'd shut up I'd find out!" he yelled back. "Yammer, yammer, yammer. That's all you do."

"I'll give you yammer, yammer," she said. And she smacked him on top of his shiny skull.

Dale wheeled around and clocked her square on the side of her head.

"Hey!" I said. "Stop that!"

"I'll give you one, too," Dale said, jumping at me, fist raised.

I put my hand out to ward him off, and he stood statue still for a moment, frozen in the raised-fist position. His mouth opened, his eyes rolled into the back of his head, and he fell over stiff as a board and crashed to the floor.

I knelt beside him. "Mr. Dale?"

His wife toed him with Garfield. "Hunh," she said. "Guess he had another one of them heart attacks."

I put my hand to his neck and couldn't find a pulse.

"Oh, jeez," I said.

"Is he dead?"

"Well, I'm no expert . . ."

"He looks dead to me."

"Call 911 and I'll try CPR." Actually I didn't know CPR, but I'd seen it done on television, and I was willing to give it a shot.

"Honey," Mrs. Dale said, "you bring that man back to life and I'll hit you with the meat mallet until your head looks like a veal patty." She bent over her husband. "Anyway, look at him. He's dead as a doorknob. A body couldn't get any deader."

I was afraid she was right. Mr. Dale didn't look good.

An elderly woman came to the open door. "What's happening? Lenny have another one of them heart attacks?" She turned and yelled down the hall. "Roger, call 911. Lenny had another heart attack."

Within seconds the room was filled with neighbors, commenting on Lenny's condition and asking questions. How did it happen? And was it fast? And did Mrs. Dale want a turkey noodle casserole for the wake?

Sure, Mrs. Dale said, a casserole would be nice. And she wondered if Tootie Greenberg could make one of those poppyseed cakes like she did for Moses Schultz.

The EMS unit arrived, looked at Lenny, and agreed with the general consensus. Lenny Dale was as dead as a doorknob.

I quietly slipped out of the apartment and did a fast shuffle to the elevator. It wasn't even noon, and already my day seemed too long and cluttered with dead people. I called Vinnie when I reached the lobby.

"Listen," I said, "I found Dale, but he's dead."

"How long's he been like that?"

"About twenty minutes."

"Were there any witnesses?"

"His wife."

"Shit," Vinnie said, "it was self-defense, right?"

"I didn't kill him!"

"Are you sure?"

"Well, it was a heart attack, and I guess I might have contributed a little . . ."

"Where is he now?"

"He's in his apartment. The EMS guys are there but there's nothing they can do. He's definitely dead."

"Christ, couldn't you have given him a heart attack after you got him to the police station? This is gonna be a big pain in the ass. You wouldn't believe the paperwork on this kind of thing. I tell you what, see if you can get the EMS boys to drive Dale over to the courthouse."

I felt my mouth drop open.

"Yeah, this'll work," Vinnie said. "Just get one of the guys at the desk to come out and take a look. Then he can give you a body receipt."

"I'm not dragging some poor dead man off to the municipal building!"

"What's the big deal? You think he's in a rush to get embalmed? Tell yourself you're doing something nice for him--you know, like a last ride."

Ugh. I disconnected. Should have kept the whole box of doughnuts for myself. This was shaping up to be an eight-doughnut day. I looked at the little green diode blinking on my cell phone. Come on, Ranger, I thought. Call me.

I left the lobby and took to the road. Moon Man Dunphy was next on my list. The Mooner lives in the Burg, a couple blocks from my parents' house. He shares a row house with two other guys who are just as crazy as Moon Man. Last I heard, he was working nights, restocking at the Shop & Bag. And at this time of the day I suspect he's at home eating Cap'n Crunch, watching reruns of Star Trek .

I turned onto Hamilton, passed the office, left-turned into the Burg at St. Francis Hospital and wound my way around to the row houses on Grant. The Burg is a residential chunk of Trenton with one side bordering on Chambersburg Street and the other side stretching to Italy. Tastykakes and olive loaf are staples in the Burg. "Sign language" refers to a stiff middle finger jabbed skyward. Houses are modest. Cars are large. Windows are clean.

I parked in the middle of the block and checked my fact sheet to make sure I had the right number. There were twenty-three attached houses all in a row. Each house sat flush to the sidewalk. Each house was two stories tall. Moon lived in number 45 Grant.

He opened the door wide and looked out at me. He was just under six feet tall, with light brown shoulder-length hair parted in the middle. He was slim and loose-jointed, wearing a black Metallica T-shirt and jeans with holes in the knees. He had a jar of peanut butter in one hand and a spoon in the other. Lunchtime. He stared out at me, looking confused, then the light went on, and he rapped himself on the head with the spoon, leaving a glob of peanut butter stuck in his hair. "Shit, dude! I forgot my court date!"

It was hard not to like Moon, and I found myself smiling in spite of my day. "Yeah, we need to get you bonded out again and rescheduled." And I'd pick him up and chauffeur him to court next time. Stephanie Plum, mother hen.

"How does the Moon do that?"

"You come with me to the station, and I'll walk you through it."

"That sucks seriously, dude. I'm in the middle of a Rocky and Bullwinkle retrospective. Can we do this some other time? Hey, I know--why don't you stay for lunch, and we can watch ol' Rocky together?"

I looked at the spoon in his hand. Probably he only had one. "I appreciate the invitation," I said, "but I promised my mom I'd have lunch with her." What is known in life as a little white lie.

"Wow, that's real nice. Having lunch with your mom. Far out."

"So how about if I go have lunch now, and then I come back for you in about an hour?"

"That'd be great. The Moon would really appreciate that, dude."

Mooching lunch from my mom wasn't a bad idea, now that I thought about it. Besides getting lunch, I'd get whatever gossip was floating around the Burg about the fire.

I left Moon to his retrospective and had my fingers wrapped around the door handle of my car when a black Lincoln pulled alongside me.

The passenger-side window rolled down and a man looked out. "You Stephanie Plum?"

"Yes."

"We'd like to have a little chat with you. Get in."

Yeah, right. I'm going to get into the Mafia staff car with two strange men, one of whom is a Pakistani with a .38 tucked into his Sans-A-Belt pants, partially hidden by the soft roll of his belly, and the other is a guy who looks like Hulk Hogan with a buzz cut. "My mother told me never to ride with strangers."

"We aren't so strange," Hulk said. "We're just your average couple of guys. Isn't that right, Habib?"

"That is just so," Habib said, inclining his head in my direction and smiling, showing a gold tooth. "We are most average in every way."

"What do you want?" I asked.

The guy in the passenger seat gave a big sigh. "You're not gonna get in the car, are you?"

"No."

"Okay, here's the deal. We're looking for a friend of yours. Only maybe he's not a friend anymore. Maybe you're looking for him, too."

"Uh-huh."

"So we thought we could work together. You know, be a team."

"I don't think so."

"Well, then, we're just gonna have to follow you around. We thought we should tell you so you don't get, you know, alarmed when you see us tailing you."

"Who are you?"

"That's Habib over there behind the wheel. And I'm Mitchell."

"No. I mean, who are you? Who do you work for?" I was pretty sure I already knew the answer, but I thought it was worth asking anyway.

"We'd rather not divulge our employer's name," Mitchell said. "It don't matter to you anyway. What you want to remember is that you don't cut us out of anything, because then we'd be annoyed."

"Yes, and it is not good when we become annoyed," Habib said, wagging his finger. "We are not to be taken lightly. Is that not so?" he asked, looking to Mitchell for approval. "In fact, if you annoy us we will spread your entrails across an entire parking space of my cousin Muhammad's 7-Eleven parking lot."

"What are you, nuts?" Mitchell said. "We don't do no entrails shit. And if we did, it wouldn't be in front of the 7-Eleven. I go there for my Sunday paper."

"Oh," Habib said. "Well, then, we could do something of a sexual nature. We could perform amusing acts of sexual perversion on her . . . many, many times. If she lived in my country she would forever be shamed in the community. She would be an outcast. Of course, since she is a decadent and immoral American she will undoubtedly be accepting of the perverse acts we will inflict upon her. And it is most possible that because we will be inflicting the perversions upon her, she will enjoy them immensely. But wait--we could also maim her to make the experience unpleasant in her eyes."

"Hey, I don't mind about the maiming, but watch it with the sexy stuff," Mitchell said to Habib. "I'm a family man. My wife catches wind of anything like that, and I'm toast."

I THREW MY hands into the air. "What the hell do you want, already?"

"We want your pal Ranger, and we know you're looking for him," Mitchell said.

"I'm not looking for Ranger. Vinnie's giving him to Joyce Barnhardt."

"I don't know Joyce Barnhardt from the Easter Bunny," Mitchell said. "I know you. And I'm telling you, you're looking for Ranger. And when you find him, you're gonna tell us. And if you don't take this to be a serious . . . responsibility, you'll be real sorry."

"Re-spons-i-bility," Habib said. "I like that. Nicely put. I teenk I will remember that."

"Think," Mitchell said. "It's pronounced 'think.' "

"Teenk."

"Think!"

"That is what I said. Teenk."

"The raghead just came over," Mitchell said to me. "He used to work for our employer in another capacity in Pakistan, but he came over with the last load of goods, and we can't get rid of him. He don't know much yet."

"I am not a raghead," Habib shouted. "Do you see a rag on this head? I am in America now, and I do not wear these things. And it is not a nice way that you say this."

"Raghead," Mitchell said.

Habib narrowed his eyes. "Filthy American dog."

"Blubber-belly."

"Son of a camel-walla."

"Go fuck yourself," Mitchell said.

"And may your testicles fall off," Habib responded.

Probably I didn't have to worry about these guys--they'd kill each other before the day was over. "I have to go now," I said. "I'm going to my parents' house for lunch."

"You must not be doing so good," Mitchell said, "you gotta mooch lunch from your parents. We could help with that, you know. You get us what we want, and we could be real generous."

"Even if I wanted to find Ranger, which I don't, I couldn't. Ranger is smoke."

"Yeah, but I hear you got special talents, if you get my drift. Besides, you're a bounty hunter . . . bring 'im back dead or alive. Always get your man."

I opened the door of the Honda and slid behind the wheel. "Tell Alexander Ramos he needs to get someone else to find Ranger."

Mitchell looked like he might hack up a hairball. "We don't work for that little turd. Pardon my French."

This had me sitting up straighter in my seat. "Then who do you work for?"

"I told you before. We can't divulge that information."

Jeez.

MY GRANDMOTHER WAS standing in the doorway when I drove up. She lived with my parents now that my grandfather was buying his lotto tickets directly from God. She had steel-gray hair cut short and permed. She ate like a horse and had skin like a soup chicken. Her elbows were sharp as razor wire. She was dressed in white tennis shoes and a magenta polyester warm-up suit, and she was sliding her uppers around in her mouth, which meant she had something on her mind.

"Isn't this nice? We were just setting lunch," she said. "Your mother got some chicken salad and little rolls from Giovicchini's Market."

I cut my eyes to the living room. My dad's chair was empty.

"He's out with the cab," Grandma said. "Whitey Blocher called and said they needed somebody to fill in."

My father is retired from the post office, but he drives a cab part-time, more to get out of the house than to pick up spare change. And driving a cab is often synonymous with playing pinochle at the Elks lodge.

I hung my jacket in the hall closet and took my place at the kitchen table. My parents' house is a narrow duplex. The living room windows look out at the street, the dining room window overlooks the driveway separating their house from the house next door, and the kitchen window and back door open to the yard, which was tidy but bleak at this time of the year.

My grandmother sat across from me. "I'm thinking about changing my hair color," she said. "Rose Kotman dyed her hair red, and she looks pretty good. And now she's got a new boyfriend." She helped herself to a roll and sliced it with the big knife. "I wouldn't mind having a boyfriend."

"Rose Kotman is thirty-five," my mother said.

"Well, I'm almost thirty-five," Grandma said. "Everyone's always saying how I don't look my age."

That was true. She looked about ninety. I loved her a lot, but gravity hadn't been kind.

"There's this man at the seniors club I've got my eye on," Grandma said. "He's a real looker. I bet if I was a redhead he'd give me a tumble."

My mother opened her mouth to say something, thought better of it, and reached for the chicken salad.

I didn't especially want to think about the details of Grandma tumbling, so I jumped right in and got to the business at hand. "Did you hear about the fire downtown?"

Grandma slathered extra mayo on her roll. "You mean that building on the corner of Adams and Third? I saw Esther Moyer at the bakery this morning, and she said her son Bucky drove the hook and ladder to that fire. She said Bucky told her it was a pip of a fire."

"Anything else?"

"Esther said when they went through the building yesterday they found a body on the third floor."

"Did Esther know who it was?"

"Homer Ramos. Esther said he was burned to a crisp. And he'd been shot. Had a big hole in his head. I looked to see if he was being laid out at Stiva's, but there wasn't anything in the paper today. Boy, wouldn't that be something? Guess Stiva couldn't do much with that. He could fill up the bullet hole with mortician's putty like he did for Moogey Bues, but he'd have his work cut out for him with the burned-to-a-crisp part. Course, if you wanted to look on the bright side, I guess the Ramos family could save some money on the funeral being that Homer was already cremated. Probably all they had to do was shovel him into a jar. Except I guess the head was left since they knew it had a hole in it. So probably they couldn't get the head in the jar. Less of course they smashed it with the shovel. I bet you give it a couple good whacks and it'd crumble up pretty good."

My mother clapped her napkin to her mouth.

"You okay?" Grandma asked my mother. "You having another one of them hot flashes?" Grandma leaned in my direction and whispered, "It's the change."

"It's not the change," my mother said.

"Do they know who shot Ramos?" I asked Grandma.

"Esther didn't say anything about that."

By one o'clock I was full of chicken salad and my mother's rice pudding. I trotted out of the house to the Civic and spotted Mitchell and Habib half a block down the street. Mitchell gave me a friendly wave when I looked his way. I got into the car without returning the wave and drove back to Moon Man.

I knocked on the door and Moon looked out at me, just as confused as he had been before. "Oh, yeah," he finally said. And then he did a stoner laugh, giggling and chuffing.

"Empty your pockets," I told him.

He turned his pants pockets inside out, and a bong dropped onto the front stoop. I picked it up and threw it into the house.

"Anything else?" I asked. "Any acid? Any weed?"

"No, dude. How about you?"

I shook my head. His brain probably looked like those clumps of dead coral you buy in the pet store to put in aquariums.

He squinted past me to the Civic. "Is that your car?"

"Yes."

He closed his eyes and put his hands out. "No energy," he said. "I don't feel any energy. This car is all wrong for you." He opened his eyes and ambled across the sidewalk, pulling up his sagging pants. "What's your sign?"

"Libra."

"You see! I knew it! You're air. And this car is earth. You can't drive this car, dude. You're a creative force, and this car's gonna bring you down."

"True," I said, "but this is all I could afford. Get in."

"I have a friend who could get you a suitable car. He's like . . . a car dealer."

"I'll keep it in mind."

Mooner folded himself into the front seat and hauled out his sunglasses. "Better, dude," he said from behind the shades. "Much better."

THE TRENTON COP shop shares a building with the court. It's a blocky redbrick, no-frills structure that gets the job done--a product of the slam-bam-thank-you-ma'am school of municipal architecture.

I parked in the lot and shepherded Moon inside. Technically, I couldn't bond him out myself, since I'm an enforcement agent and not a bonding agent. So I got the paperwork started and called Vinnie to come down and complete the process.

"Vinnie's on his way," I told Moon, settling him onto the bench by the docket lieutenant. "I have some other business in the building, so I'm going to leave you here alone for a couple minutes."

"Hey, that's cool, dude. Don't worry about me. The Mooner will be fine."

"Don't move from this spot!"

"No problemo."

I went upstairs to Violent Crimes and found Brian Simon at his desk. He'd only been promoted out of uniform a couple months earlier and still didn't have the hang of dressing himself. He was wearing a yellow-and-tan-plaid sports coat, navy suit slacks with brown penny loafers and red socks, and a tie wide enough to be a lobster bib.

"Don't they have some kind of dress code here?" I asked. "You keep dressing like this and we're going to make you go live in Connecticut."

"Maybe you should come over tomorrow morning and help me pick out my clothes."

"Jeez," I said. "Touchy. Maybe this isn't a good time."

"Good as any," he said. "What's on your mind?"

"Carol Zabo."

"That woman's a nut! She smashed right into me. And then she left the scene."

"She was nervous."

"You aren't going to lay one of those PMS excuses on me, are you?"

"Actually, it had to do with her panties."

Simon rolled his eyes. "Oh, crap."

"You see, Carol was coming out of the Frederick's of Hollywood store, and she was flustered because she'd just gotten some sexy panties."

"Is this going to be embarrassing?"

"Do you get embarrassed easily?"

"What's the point to all this, anyway?"

"I was hoping you'd drop the charges."

"No way!"

I sat down in the chair by his desk. "I'd consider it a special favor. Carol's a friend. And I had to talk her off a bridge this morning."

"Over panties?"

"Just like a man," I said, eyes narrowed. "I knew you wouldn't understand."

"Hey, I'm Mr. Sensitivity. I read The Bridges of Madison County. Twice."

I gave him a doe-eyed, hopeful look. "So you'll let her off the hook?"

"How far off the hook do I have to let her?"

"She doesn't want to go to jail. She's worried about the out-in-the-open-bathroom part."

He bent forward and thunked his head on the desk. "Why me?"

"You sound like my mother."

"I'll make sure she doesn't go to jail," he said. "But you owe me."

"I'm not going to have to come over and dress you, am I? I'm not that kind of girl."

"Live in fear."

Damn.

I left Simon and went back downstairs. Vinnie was there, but no Moon Man.

"Where is he?" Vinnie wanted to know. "I thought you said he was here at the back door."

"He was! I told him to wait on the bench by the docket lieutenant."

We both looked over at the bench. It was empty.

Andy Diller was working the desk. "Hey, Andy," I said. "Do you know what happened to my skip?"

"Sorry, I wasn't paying attention."

We canvassed the first floor, but Moon didn't turn up.

"I've gotta get back to the office," Vinnie said. "I've got stuff to do."

Talk to his bookie, play with his gun, shake hands with Mr. Stumpy.

We went out the door together and found Moon standing in the parking lot, watching my car burn. There were a bunch of cops with extinguishers working on it, but things didn't look too hopeful. A fire truck rolled down the street, lights flashing, and pulled through the chain-link gate.

"Hey, man," Moon said to me. "Real shame about your car. That's mad crazy, dude."

"What happened?"

"I was sitting there on the bench waiting for you, and I saw Reefer walk by. You know Reefer? Well, anyway, Reefer just got let out of the tank, and his brother was coming to pick him up. And Reefer said why didn't I come out to say hello to his brother. So I walked out with Reefer, and you know Reefer always has good weed, so one thing led to another, and I thought I'd just relax in your car for a minute and have a smoke. I guess a pod must have jumped, because the next thing your seat was on fire. And then it kind of spread from there. It was glorious until these gentlemen hosed it."

Glorious. Unh. I wondered if Moon would think it was glorious if I choked him until he was dead.

"I'd like to stay around and toast some marshmallows," Vinnie said, "but I need to get back to the office."

"Yeah, and I'm missing Hollywood Squares ," Moon said. "We need to conclude our business, dude."

IT WAS CLOSE to four when I made the final arrangements for the car to get towed away. I'd been able to salvage a tire iron and that was about it. I was outside in the lot, pawing through my shoulder bag for my cell phone, when the black Lincoln pulled up.

"Tough luck with the car," Mitchell said.

"I'm getting used to it. It happens to me a lot."

"We've been watching from a distance, and we figure you need a ride."

"Actually, I just called a friend, and he's going to come pick me up."

"That's a big fat lie," Mitchell said. "You been standing here for an hour and you haven't called anyone. I bet your mother wouldn't like it if she knew you were telling lies."

"Better than me getting into this car with you," I said. "That'd give her a heart attack."

Mitchell nodded. "You got a point." The tinted window slid shut, and the Lincoln rolled out of the lot. I found my phone and called Lula at the office.

"BOY, IF I had a nickel for every car you destroyed I'd be able to retire," Lula said when she picked me up.

"It wasn't my fault."

"Hell, it's never your fault. It's one of them karma things. You're a number ten on the Bad-Shit-O-Meter when it comes to cars."

"I don't suppose you've got any news on Ranger?"

"Only that Vinnie gave the file to Joyce."

"Was she happy?"

"Had an orgasm right there in the office. Connie and me had to excuse ourselves so we could go throw up."

Joyce Barnhardt is a fungus. When we were in kindergarten together she used to spit in my milk carton. When we were in high school she started rumors and took secret photos in the girls' locker room. And before the ink had even dried on my marriage certificate I found her bare-assed with my husband (now my ex-husband) on my brand-new dining room table.

Anthrax was too good for Joyce Barnhardt.

"Then a funny thing happened to Joyce's car," Lula said. "While she was in the office talking to Vinnie, someone drove a screwdriver into her tire."

I raised my eyebrows.

"Was an act of God," Lula said, putting her red Firebird in gear and punching on the sound system, which could shake the fillings out of your teeth.

She took North Clinton to Lincoln and then Chambers. When she dropped me in my lot, there was no sign of Mitchell and Habib.

"You looking for someone?" she wanted to know.

"Two guys in a black Lincoln were following me earlier today, hoping I'd find Ranger for them. I don't see them now."

"Lot of people looking for Ranger."

"Do you think he killed Homer Ramos?"

"I could see him killing Ramos, but I can't see him burning down a building. And I can't see him being stupid."

"Like getting caught on a security camera."

"Ranger had to know there were security cameras. That building's owned by Alexander Ramos. And Ramos just don't go around leaving the lid off the cookie jar. He had offices in that building. I know on account of I did a house call there once while I was working at my former profession."

Lula's former profession was being a ho', so I didn't ask for details on the house call.

I left Lula and swung through the double glass doors that led to the small lobby of my apartment building. I live on the second floor, and I had a choice of stairs or elevator. I chose the elevator today, having exhausted myself watching my car burn.

I let myself into my apartment, hung up my shoulder bag and jacket, and peeked in on my hamster, Rex. He was running on his wheel in his glass aquarium, his little feet a pink blur against the red plastic.

"Hey, Rex," I said. "How's things?"

He paused for a moment, whiskers twitching, eyes bright, waiting for food to drop from the sky. I gave him a raisin from the box in the refrigerator and told him about the car. He stuffed the raisin into his cheek and returned to his running. If it was me I'd have eaten the raisin right off and opted for a nap. I don't understand this running-for-fun stuff. The only way I could really get into running would be if I was being chased by a serial mutilator.

I checked my message machine. One message. No words. Just breathing. I hoped it was Ranger's breathing. I listened to it again. The breathing sounded normal. Not pervert breathing. Not head-cold breathing. Could have been telephone-solicitor breathing.

I had a couple hours before the chicken arrived, so I went across the hall and knocked on my neighbor's door.

"What?" Mr. Wolesky yelled, above the roar of his TV.

"I was wondering if I could borrow your paper. I had an unfortunate mishap with my car, and I thought I'd check out the used-car section of the classifieds."

"Again?"

"It wasn't my fault."

He handed me the paper. "If I was you, I'd be looking at army surplus. You should be driving a tank."

I took the paper back to my apartment and read the car ads and the funnies. I was pondering my horoscope when the phone rang.

"Is your grandmother there?" my mother wanted to know.

"No."

"She had some words with your father, and she went stomping up to her room. And then next thing I know she's outside getting into a cab!"

"She probably went to visit one of her friends."

"I tried Betty Szajak and Emma Getz but they haven't seen her."

My doorbell rang and my heart went dead in my chest. I looked out my peephole. It was Grandma Mazur.

"She's here!" I whispered to my mother.

"Thank goodness," my mother said.

"No. Not thank goodness. She has a suitcase!"

"Maybe she needs a vacation from your father."

"She's not living here!"

"Well, of course not . . . but maybe she could just visit with you for a day or two until things calm down."

"No! No, no, no."

The doorbell rang again.

"She's ringing my doorbell," I said to my mother. "What should I do?"

"For goodness' sakes, let her in."

"If I let her in, I'm doomed. It's like inviting a vampire into your house. Once you invite them in, that's it, you're as good as dead!"

"This isn't a vampire. This is your grandmother."

Grandma pounded on the door. "Hello?" she called.

I hung up and opened the door.

"Surprise," Grandma said. "I've come to live with you while I look for an apartment."

"But you live with Mom."

"Not anymore. Your father's a horse's patoot." She dragged her suitcase in and hung her coat on a wall hook. "I'm getting my own place. I'm tired of watching your father's TV shows. So I'm staying here until I find something. I knew you wouldn't mind if I moved in for a while."

"I only have one bedroom."

"I can sleep on the couch. I'm not fussy when it comes to sleeping. I could sleep standing up in a closet if I had to."

"But what about Mom? She'll be lonely. She's used to having you around." Translation: What about me? I'm used to not having anybody around.

"I suppose that's true," Grandma said. "But she's just gonna have to make her own life. I can't keep livening that house up. It's too much of a strain. Don't get me wrong, I love your mother, but she can be a real wet blanket. And I haven't got a lot of time to waste. I've probably only got about thirty more years before I start to slow down."

Thirty years would put Grandma well over a hundred--and me at sixty, if I didn't die on the job.

Someone gave a light rap on my door. Morelli was here early. I opened the door, and he got halfway through the foyer before spotting Grandma.

"Grandma Mazur," he said.

"Yep," she answered. "I'm living here now. Just moved in."

The corners of Morelli's mouth twitched up ever so slightly. Jerk.

"Was this a surprise move?" Morelli asked.

I took the bucket of chicken from him. "Grandma got into it with my father."

"Is that chicken?" Grandma asked. "I can smell it all the way over here."

"Plenty for everyone," Morelli told her. "I always get extra."

Grandma pushed past us, into the kitchen. "I'm starved. All this moving gave me an appetite." She looked into the bag. "Are those biscuits, too? And coleslaw?" She grabbed some plates from the cabinet and ran them out to the dining room table. "Boy, this is gonna be fun. I hope you've got beer. I feel like having a beer."

Morelli was still grinning.

For some time now, Morelli and I had been engaged in an off-again-on-again romance. Which is a nice way of saying we occasionally shared a bed. And Morelli wasn't going to think this was so funny when the occasional overnighter turned to no overnighters at all.

"This is going to put a crimp in our plans for the evening," I whispered to Morelli.

"We just need to change the address," he said. "We can go to my house after dinner."

"Forget your house. What would I tell Grandma? 'Sorry, I'm not sleeping here tonight, because I have to go do the deed with Joe'?"

"Something wrong with that?"

"I can't say that. It would make me feel icky."

"Icky?"

"My stomach would get squishy."

"That's silly. Your grandma Mazur wouldn't mind."

"Yes, but she'd know."

Morelh looked pained. "This is one of those woman things, isn't it?"

Grandma was back in the kitchen, getting glasses. "Where are your napkins?" she asked.

"I don't have any," I told her.

She stared at me blank-faced for a moment, unable to comprehend a house with no napkins.

"There are napkins in the bag with the biscuits," Morelli said.

Grandma peeked into the bag and beamed. "Isn't he something," she said. "He even brings the napkins."

Morelli rocked back on his heels and gave me a look that told me I was a lucky duck. "Always prepared," Morelli said.

I rolled my eyes.

"That's a cop for you," Grandma said. "Always prepared."

I sat across from her and grabbed a piece of chicken. "It's the Boy Scouts who are always prepared," I said. "Cops are always hungry."

"Now that I'm going off on my own I've been thinking I should get a job," Grandma said. "And I've been thinking maybe I'd get a job as a cop. What do you think?" she asked Morelli. "You think I'd make a good cop?"

"I think you'd make a great cop, but the department has an age limit."

Grandma pressed her lips together. "Don't that tear it. I hate those darn age limits. Well, I guess that just leaves being a bounty hunter."

I looked to Morelli for help, but he was keeping his eyes glued to his plate.

"You need to be able to drive to be a bounty hunter," I said to Grandma. "You don't have a driver's license."

"I've been planning on getting one of them anyway," she said. "First thing tomorrow I'm signing up for driving school. I've even got a car. Your uncle Sandor left me that Buick and since you aren't using it anymore I guess I'll give it a try. It's a pretty good-looking car."

Shamu with wheels.

When the chicken bucket was empty Grandma pushed back from the table. "Let's get things cleaned up," she said, "and then we can watch a movie. I stopped off at the video store on my way over."

Grandma fell asleep halfway through The Terminator, sitting on the couch ramrod straight, head dropped to her chest.

"Probably I should leave," Morelli said. "Let you two girls get things straightened out."

I walked him to the door. "Is there any word on Ranger?"

"Nothing. Not even a rumor."

Sometimes no news was good news. At least he hadn't floated in with the tide.

Morelli pulled me to him and kissed me, and I felt the usual tingle in the usual places. "You know my number," he said. "And I don't give a rat's ass what anyone thinks."

I WOKE UP on my couch with a stiff neck and feeling cranky. Someone was clanking around in my kitchen. Didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out who.

"Isn't this a terrific morning?" Grandma said. "I got pancakes started. And I got the coffee on."

Okay, maybe it wasn't so bad having Grandma here.

She stirred the pancake batter. "I thought we could get going early today, and then maybe you could take me out for a driving lesson."

Thank God my car had burned to a cinder. "I don't have a car right now," I said. "There was an accident."

"Again? What happened this time. Torched? Bombed? Flattened?"

I poured myself a cup of coffee. "Torched. But it wasn't my fault."

"You've got a pip of a life," Grandma said. "Never a dull moment. Fast cars, fast men, fast food. I wouldn't mind having a life like that."

She was right about the fast food.

"You didn't get a paper this morning," Grandma said. "I went and looked in the hall and all your neighbors got papers but you didn't get one."

"I don't have paper delivery," I told her. "If I want a paper I buy one." Or borrow one.

"Breakfast isn't gonna seem right without a paper to read," Grandma said. "I gotta read the funnies and the obits, and this morning I wanted to look for an apartment."

"I'll get you a paper," I said, not wanting to slow down the apartment search.

I was wearing a green plaid flannel nightshirt, which went well with my bloodshot blue eyes. I covered it with a short denim Levi's jacket, stuffed myself into gray sweatpants, shoved my feet into boots, which I left unlaced, clapped a Navy SEALs ball cap onto my rat's nest of shoulder-length curly brown hair, and grabbed my car keys.

"I'll be back in a minute," I yelled from the hall. "I'll just run out to the 7-Eleven."

I punched the button for the elevator. The elevator doors opened and my mind went blank. Ranger was lounging against the far wall, arms crossed over his chest, his eyes dark and assessing, the corners of his mouth hinting at a smile.

"Get in," he said.

He'd abandoned his usual outfit of black rap clothes or GI Joe cammies. He was wearing a brown leather jacket, a cream-colored Henley, faded jeans, and work boots. His hair, which had always been slicked back in a ponytail, was cut short. He had a two-day beard, making his teeth seem whiter and his Latino complexion seem darker. A wolf in Gap clothing.

"Jeez," I said, feeling a flutter of something I'd rather not admit to in the pit of my stomach. "You look different."

"Just your average guy."

Yeah, right.

He reached forward, grabbed the front of my jacket, and pulled me into the elevator. He pushed the button to close the doors and then hit Stop. "We need to talk."

RANGER HAD BEEN Special Forces, and he still had the build and the carriage. He was standing close, forcing me to tip my head back ever so slightly to look into his eyes.

"Just get out of bed?" he asked.

I glanced down. "You mean the nightshirt?"

"The nightshirt, the hair . . . the stupor."

"You're the reason for the stupor."

"Yeah," Ranger said. "I get that a lot. I cause stupor in women."

"What happened?"

"I had a meeting with Homer Ramos, and someone killed him when I left."

"The fire?"

"Not me."

"Do you know who killed Ramos?"

Ranger stared at me for a moment. "I have some ideas."

"The police think you did it. They have you on video."

"The police hope I did it. Hard to believe they'd actually think I did it. I don't have a reputation for being stupid."

"No, but you do have a reputation for . . . um, killing people."

Ranger grinned down at me. "Street talk." He looked at the keys in my hand. "Going somewhere?"

"Grandma's moved in with me for a couple days. She wanted a paper, so I was going to run out to the 7-Eleven."

The grin spread to his eyes. "You haven't got a car, babe."

Damn! "I forgot." I narrowed my eyes at him. "How did you know?"

"It's not in the lot."

Well, duh.

"What happened to it?" he asked.

"It's gone to car heaven."

He pressed the button for the third floor. The doors opened, he hit the hold, stepped out and grabbed the paper lying on the floor in front of 3C.

"That's Mr. Kline's paper," I said.

Ranger handed the paper over to me and pushed the button for the second floor. "You owe Mr. Kline a favor."

"Why did you skip on your court date?"

"Bad timing. I need to find someone, and I can't find him if I'm detained."

"Or dead."

"Yeah," Ranger said, "that, too. I didn't think a scheduled public appearance right now was in my best interest."

"I was approached by two Mob-type guys yesterday. Mitchell and Habib. Their plan is to follow me around until I lead them to you."

"They work for Arturo Stolle."

"Arturo Stolle, the carpet king? What's his connection in this?"

"You don't want to know."

"Like if you told me, you'd have to kill me?"

"If I told you, someone else might want to kill you."

"No love lost between Mitchell and Alexander Ramos."

"None at all." Ranger handed me a card with an address on it. "I want you to do some part-time surveillance for me. Hannibal Ramos. He's the firstborn son and the second in command of the Ramos empire. He lists California as his residence, but he's spending more and more time here in Jersey."

"Is he here now?"

"He's been here for three weeks. Has a condo in a complex off Route 29."

"You don't think he killed his brother, do you?"

"He's not at the top of my list," Ranger said. "I'll have one of my men drop off a car for you."

Ranger loosely employed a small army of men to help with his various enterprises. Most were ex-military and most were even crazier than Ranger.

"No! Not necessary." I have bad luck with cars. Their demise frequently results in police intervention, and Ranger's cars have unexplainable origins.

Ranger stepped back into the elevator. "Don't get too close to Ramos," he said. "He's not a nice guy." The doors closed. And he was gone.

I EMERGED FROM the bathroom, dressed in my usual uniform of jeans and boots and T-shirt, fresh out of the shower, ready to start the day. Grandma was at the dining room table, reading the paper, and Moon was across from her, eating pancakes. "Hey, dude," he said, "your granny fixed me some pancakes. You're, like, so lucky to have your granny living with you. She's totally the bomb, dude."

Grandma smiled. "Isn't he the one," she said.

"I felt real bad about yesterday," Moon said, "so I brought you a car. It's, like, a loaner. Remember I was telling you about this friend of mine who's the Dealer ? Well, he was ragged when I told him about the fire, and he said it'd be cool if you used one of his cars until you got new wheels."

"This isn't a stolen car, is it?"

"Hey, dude, what do I look like?"

"You look like a guy who'd steal a car."

"Well, yeah, but not all the time. This here's a genuine loaner."

I really did need a car. "It would only be for a couple days," I said. "Just until I get my insurance money."

Moon pushed back from his empty plate and dropped a set of keys into my hand. "Knock yourself out. It's a cosmic car, dude. I picked it out myself so it'd complement your aura."

"What kind of car is it?"

"It's a Rollswagen. A silver wind machine."

Uh-huh. "Okay, well, thanks. Can I give you a ride home?"

He ambled out into the hall. "Gonna walk. Need to convene."

"I've got my whole day lined up," Grandma said. "Driving lesson this morning. Then this afternoon Melvina is going to take me around to look at some apartments."

"Can you afford your own apartment?"

"I've got some money put aside from when I sold the house. I was saving it to go into one of them nursing homes in my old age but maybe I'll just use my gun instead."

I grimaced.

"Well, it isn't like I'm gonna eat lead tomorrow," Grandma said. "I've got a whole lot of years left. And besides, I've got it figured out. See, if you put the gun in your mouth, then you blow the back of your head off. That way Stiva don't have to work so hard to make you look good when he lays you out on account of no one sees the back of your head anyway. You just got to be careful not to jiggle the gun so you don't botch the job and take your ear off." She put the paper aside. "I'll stop at the store on the way home and get some pork chops for supper. I gotta go get ready for my driving lesson now."

And I had to go to work. Problem was, I didn't want to do any of the things that were sitting in front of me. I didn't want to snoop on Hannibal Ramos. And I definitely didn't want to meet Morris Munson. I could go back to bed, but that wouldn't get the rent money. And besides, I didn't have a bed anymore. Grandma had the bed.

Okay, might as well take a look at the Munson file. I hauled the paperwork out and thumbed through it. Aside from the beating, the rape, and the attempted cremation Munson didn't seem so bad. No priors. No swastikas carved into his forehead. He'd listed his address as Rockwell Street. I knew Rockwell. It was down by the button factory. Not the best part of town. Not the worst. Mostly small single-family bungalows and row houses. Mostly blue-collar or no-collar.

Rex was asleep in his soup can, and Grandma was in the bathroom, so I left without ceremony. When I got to the lot I searched for a silver wind machine. And sure enough, I found one. And it was a Rollswagen, too. The body of the car was an ancient Volkswagen Beetle, and the front end was vintage Rolls-Royce. It was iridescent silver with celestial blue swirls sweeping the length of it, the swirls dotted with stars.

I closed my eyes and hoped that when I opened them the car would be gone. I counted to three and opened my eyes. The car was still there.

I ran back to the apartment, got a hat and dark glasses, and returned to the car. I slid behind the wheel, slouched low in the seat, and chugged out of the lot. This is not compatible with my aura, I told myself. My aura was not half Volkswagen Beetle.

Twenty minutes later I was on Rockwell Street, reading numbers, looking for Munson's house. When I found it the house seemed normal enough. One block from the factory. Convenient if you wanted to walk to work. Not so good if you liked scenic. It was a two story row house, very much like Mooner's house. Faced in maroon asbestos shingle.

I parked at the curb and walked the short distance to the door. It wasn't likely Munson would be home; this was Wednesday morning and he was probably in Argentina. I rang the bell and was caught off guard when the door opened and Munson stuck his head out.

"Morris Munson?"

"Yeah?"

"I thought you'd be . . . at work."

"I took a couple weeks off. I've been having some problems. Who are you, anyway?"

"I represent Vincent Plum Bail Bonds. You missed your court date, and we'd like to get you rescheduled."

"Oh. Sure. Go ahead and reschedule me."

"I need to take you downtown to do that."

He looked beyond me to the wind machine. "You don't expect me to go with you in that, do you?"

"Well, yeah."

"I'd feel like an idiot. What would people think?"

"Hey listen, pal, if I can ride in it, you can ride in it."

"You women, you're all alike," he said. "Snap your fingers and expect a man to jump through the hoops."

I had my hand in my shoulder bag, scrounging for my pepper spray.

"Stay here," Munson said. "I'm gonna go get my car. It's parked out back. I don't mind rescheduling, but I'm not riding in that dopey-looking car. I'll come around the block and then follow you into town." Slam. He closed and locked the door.

Damn. I got into the car and turned the key in the ignition, waiting at idle for Munson, wondering if I'd ever see him again. I checked my watch. I'd give him five minutes. Then what? Storm the house? Break the door down and go in guns blazing? I looked in my shoulder bag. No gun. I forgot to bring my gun. Gee, guess that means I have to go home and leave Munson for some other day.

I looked straight ahead and saw a car turn the corner. It was Munson. What a nice surprise, I thought. You see, Stephanie, don't be so quick to judge. Sometimes people turn out just fine. I put the wind machine in gear and watched him come closer. Hold on here, he was speeding up instead of slowing down! I could see his face, pinched in concentration. The maniac was going to ram me! I threw the car into reverse and stomped on the gas pedal. The Rolls jumped back. Not fast enough to avoid the collision, but fast enough to avoid getting totally smashed. My head snapped on impact. No big deal for a woman born and raised in the Burg. We grow up riding bumper cars at the Jersey shore. We know how to take a hit.

Problem was, Munson was banging into me with what looked like a retired cop car, a Crown Victoria. Bigger than the Rollswagen. He came at me again, bouncing me back about fifteen feet, and the wind machine stalled. He scrambled out of his car while I was trying to restart, and ran at me with a tire iron. "You want to see me jump through hoops," he yelled. "I'll show you jump through hoops."

A pattern was emerging here. Ram somebody with your car, beat them with the tire iron. I didn't want to think about what would come after the tire iron. The Rolls engine caught, and I catapulted forward, barely missing him.

He swung the tire iron and caught my back fender. "I hate you!" he yelled. "You women are all alike!"

I went from zero to fifty m.p.h. in half a block and took the corner on two wheels. I didn't look back for a quarter of a mile, and when I did there was no one behind me. I forced myself to ease up on the gas and sucked in some deep breaths. My heart was thumping in my chest, and my hands had the wheel in a white-knuckled death grip. A McDonald's popped up in front of me, and the car automatically turned into the drive-through lane. I ordered a vanilla milkshake and asked the kid in the window if they were hiring.

"Sure," he said, "we're always hiring. You want an application?"

"Do you get held up a lot here?"

"Not a lot," he said, passing the application through with the straw. "We get a few crazies, but usually you can buy them off with extra pickles."

I parked in the far corner of the lot and drank my milkshake while I read the application. It might not be so bad, I thought. You probably get free french fries.

I got out and looked at the car. The Rolls-Royce grill was crumpled, and the left rear fender had a big dent in it, and the back light was smashed.

The black Lincoln cruised into the lot and parked alongside me. The window rolled down, and Mitchell smiled at the Rollswagen. "What the hell is that?"

I gave him my PMS look.

"You need a car? We could get you a car. Any kind of car you want," Mitchell said. "You don't need to drive this . . . embarrassment."

"I'm not looking for Ranger."

"Sure," Mitchell said, "but maybe he's looking for you. Maybe he needs to get his oil changed, and he figures you're safe. It happens, you know. A man gets these needs ."

"Do you not have oil changed at a garage in this country?" Habib asked Mitchell.

"Christ," Mitchell said. "Not that kind of oil. I'm talking about the old hide-the-salami thing."

"I do not understand this 'hiding salami,' " Habib said. "What is salami?"

"Fucking vegetarian don't know nothing," Mitchell said. He grabbed himself in the crotch and gave a hike up. "You know--the old salami."

"Ahh," Habib said. "I understand. This man Ranger hides his salami deep in this daughter of a pig."

"Daughter of a pig? Excuse me?" I said.

"Just so," Habib said. "Unclean slut."

I was going to have to start carrying my gun. I really felt like shooting these guys. Nothing serious. Just maybe take out an eye. "I have to go," I said. "I have stuff to do."

"Okay," Mitchell said, "but don't be a stranger. And think about the car offer."

"Hey," I yelled. "How did you find me?" But they were already out of the lot.

I drove around for a while, making sure no one was following me, then headed for Ramos's condo. I caught Route 29 and traveled north toward Ewing Township. Ramos lived in an affluent neighborhood with big old trees and professionally landscaped yards. Tucked away on Fenwood was a small cluster of recently constructed redbrick town houses, with attached two-car garages and brick-walled privacy yards. The houses sat behind well-tended lawns with curving walkways and dormant flower beds. Very tasteful. Very respectable. Just the place for an international black-market arms dealer.

The wind machine was going to make surveillance tough in this neighborhood. For that matter, any surveillance was going to be tough. A strange car parked too long would be noticed. Ditto a strange woman loitering on the sidewalk.

The drapes were drawn on all Ramos's windows, so it was impossible to tell if anyone was at home. Ramos was second from the end in a row of five attached houses. Trees peeked from behind the houses. The developer had left a greenbelt between condo sections.

I drove around the neighborhood, getting a feel for it, then cruised past Ramos's house again. No change. I paged Ranger and got a call back five minutes later.

"Just exactly what is it you want me to do?" I asked. "I'm in front of his house, but there's nothing to see, and I can't hang out here much longer. There's no place to hide."

"Go back tonight when it's dark. See if he gets visitors."

"What does he do all day?"

"Different things," Ranger said. "There's a family compound in Deal. When Alexander is in residence, business is conducted at the shore. Before the fire, Hannibal spent most of his time in the building downtown. He had an office on the fourth floor."

"What kind of car does he drive?"

"Dark green jag."

"Is he married?"

"When he's in Santa Barbara."

"Anything else to tell me?'

"Yeah," Ranger said. "Be careful."

Ranger disconnected, and the phone rang again.

"Is your grandmother with you?" my mother wanted to know.

"No. I'm working."

"Well, where is she? I've been calling your apartment and there's no answer."

"Grandma had a driving lesson this morning."

"Holy Mary, Mother of God."

"And then she's going out with Melvina."

"You're supposed to be keeping an eye on her. What are you thinking? That woman can't drive! She'll kill hundreds of innocent people."

"It's okay. She's with an instructor."

"An instructor. What good is an instructor with your grandmother? And what about her gun? I looked in every nook and cranny, and I can't find that gun."

Grandma has a .45 long-barrel that she keeps hidden from my mother. She got it from her friend Elsie, who picked it up at a yard sale. Probably it was in Grandma's purse. Grandma says it gives the bag some heft, in case she has to beat off a mugger. This might be true, but I think mostly Grandma likes pretending she is Clint Eastwood.

"I don't want her out on the road with a gun!" my mother said.

"Okay," I said, "I'll talk to her. But you know how she is with that gun."

"Why me?" my mother asked. "Why me?"

I didn't know the answer to that question, so I hung up. I parked the car, walked around to the end of the town houses, and picked up a macadam bike path. The path ran through the greenbelt behind Ramos's town house, and gave me a nice view of the second-story windows. Unfortunately, there was nothing to see because the shades were drawn. The brick privacy fence obscured the first-floor windows. And I'd bet dollars to doughnuts the first-floor windows were wide open. No reason to draw the drapes there. No one could look in. Unless, of course, someone rudely climbed the brick wall and sat there like Humpty Dumpty waiting for disaster to strike.

I decided disaster would be slower in coming if Humpty climbed the wall at night when it was dark and no one could see her, so I continued on down the path to the far end of the town houses, cut back to the road, and returned to my car.

LULA WAS STANDING in the doorway when I parked in front of the bail bonds office. "Okay, I give up," she said. "What is it?"

"A Rollswagen."

"It's got a few dents in it."

"Morris Munson was feeling cranky."

"He did that? Did you bring him in?"

"I decided to delay that pleasure."

Lula looked like she was giving herself a hernia trying to keep from laughing out loud. "Well, we gotta go get his ass. He got a lotta nerve denting up a Rollswagen. Hey, Connie," she yelled, "you gotta come see this car Stephanie's driving. It's a genuine Rollswagen."

"It's a loaner," I said. "Until I get my insurance check."

"What are those swirly designs on the side?"

"Wind."

"Oh, yeah," Lula said. "I should have known."

A shiny black jeep Cherokee pulled to the curb behind the wind machine, and Joyce Barnhardt got out. She was dressed in black leather pants, a black leather bustier, which barely contained her C-cup breasts, a black leather jacket, and high-heeled black boots. Her hair was a brilliant red, teased high and curled. Her eyes were ringed by black liner, and her lashes were thick with mascara. She looked like Dominatrix Barbie.

"I hear they put rat hairs in that lash-lengthening mascara," Lula said to Joyce. "Hope you read the ingredients when you bought it."

Joyce looked at the wind machine. "The circus in town? This is one of those clown cars, right?"

"It's a one-of-a-kind Rollswagen," Lula said. "You got a problem with that?"

Joyce smiled. "The only problem I've got is trying to decide how I'm going to spend Ranger's capture money."

"Oh, yeah," Lula said. "You want to waste a lot of time on that one."

"You'll see," Joyce said. "I always get my man."

And dog and goat and vegetable . . . and everybody else's man, too.

"Well, we'd love to stand here talking to you, Joyce," Lula said. "But we got better things to do. We got a big important apprehension to make. We were just on our way to go catch a high-bond motherfucker."

"Are you going in the clown car?" Joyce asked.

"We're going in my Firebird," Lula said. "We always take the Firebird when we got serious ass-kicking lined up."

"I have to see Vinnie," Joyce said. "Someone made a mistake on Ranger's bond application. I checked out the address, and it's a vacant lot."

Lula and I looked at each other and smiled.

"Gee, imagine that," Lula said.

No one knows where Ranger lives. The address on his driver's license is for a men's shelter on Post Street. Not likely for a man who owns office buildings in Boston and checks with his stockbroker daily. Every now and then Lula and I make a halfhearted effort to track him down, but we've never had any success.

"So what do you think?" Lula asked when Joyce disappeared inside the office. "You want to go do some damage on Morris Munson?"

"I don't know. He's kind of crazy."

"Hunh," Lula said. "He don't scare me. I guess I could fix his bony ass. He didn't shoot at you, did he?"

"No."

"Then he isn't as crazy as most of the people on my block."

"Are you sure you want to risk going after him in your Firebird, after what he did to the wind machine?"

"First off, assuming I'd even be able to get my full figure into the wind machine, I think you'd need to take a can opener to it to get me out. And then, being that there's two seats in this little bitty car, and we'd be sitting in them, suppose we'd have to strap Munson to the hood to bring him in. Not that it's such a bad idea, but it'd slow us down some."

Lula walked over to the file cabinets and gave the bottom right-hand drawer a kick. The drawer popped open; Lula extracted a forty-caliber Glock and dropped it into her shoulder bag.

"No shooting!" I said.

"Sure, I know that," Lula said. "This here's car insurance."

BY THE TIME we got to Rockwell Street my stomach was queasy and my heart was tap-dancing in my chest.

"You don't look too good," Lula said.

"I think I'm carsick."

"You never get carsick."

"I do when I'm after some guy who just came at me with a tire iron."

"Don't worry. He do that again, and I'll pop a cap up his ass."

"No! I told you before--no shooting."

"Well, yeah, but this here's life insurance."

I tried to give her a stern look, but I sighed instead.

"Which house is his?" Lula wanted to know.

"The one with the green door."

"Hard to tell if anybody's in there."

We drove by the house twice, and then we took the one-lane service road to the rear and stopped at Munson's garage. I got out and looked in the grimy side window. The Crown Victoria was there. Rats.

"This is the plan," I told Lula. "You go to the front door. He's never seen you. He won't be suspicious. Tell him who you are and tell him you want him to go downtown with you. Then he'll sneak out the back door to his car, and I'll catch him off guard and cuff him."

"Sounds okay to me. And if you got a problem, you just holler, and I'll come around back."

Lula cruised away in the Firebird, and I tippytoed up to Munson's back door and flattened myself against the house so he couldn't see me. I shook my pepper spray to make sure it was live and listened for Lula's knock on his door.

The knock came after a few minutes; there was some muffled conversation, and then came the sounds of scuffling at the back door and the lock being retracted. The door opened and Morris Munson stepped out.

"Hold it," I said, kicking the door shut. "Stay exactly where you are. Don't move a muscle or I'll hit you with the pepper spray."

"You! You tricked me!"

I had the pepper spray in my left hand and the cuffs in my right. "Turn around," I said. "Hands over your head, palms flat against the house."

"I hate you!" he shrieked. "You're just like my ex-wife. Sneaky, lying, bossy bitch. You even look like her. Same dopey curly brown hair."

"Dopey hair? Excuse me?"

"I had a good life until that bitch screwed it up. I had a big house and a nice car. I had Surround Sound."

"What happened?"

"She left me. Said I was boring. Boring ol' Morris. So one day she got herself a lawyer, backed a truck up to the patio door, and cleaned me out. Took every fucking stick of furniture, every goddamn piece of china, every freaking spoon." He gestured to the row house. "This is what I'm left with. This piece-of-shit row house and a used Crown Victoria with two years of payments. After fifteen years at the button factory, working my fingers to the bone, I'm eating cereal for supper in this rat trap."

"Jeez."

"Wait a minute," he said. "Let me at least lock the door. This place isn't much, but it's all I've got."

"Okay. Just don't make any sudden moves."

He turned his back to me, locked the door, whirled around, and jostled me. "Oops," he said. "Sorry. I lost my balance."

I stepped away. "What have you got in your hand?"

"It's a cigarette lighter. You've seen a cigarette lighter before, right? You know how it works?" He flicked it, and a flame shot out.

"Drop it!"

He waved it around. "Look how pretty it is. Look at the lighter. Do you know what kind of lighter this is? I bet you can't guess."

"I said, Drop it."

He held it in front of his face. "You're gonna burn. You can't stop it now."

"What are you talking about? Yikes !" I was wearing jeans and a white T-shirt, tucked in, and a green-and-black flannel shirt jacket-style over the T-shirt. I looked down and saw that my shirttail was on fire.

"Burn!" he yelled to me. "Burn in hell!"

I dropped the cuffs and the pepper spray and ripped the shirt open. I fumbled out of it, threw it to the ground, and stomped the fire out. When I was done stomping I looked around and Munson was gone. I tried his back door. Locked. There was the sound of an engine catching. I looked to the service road and saw the Crown Victoria speed away.

I picked my shirt up and put it back on. The bottom half on the right side was missing.

Lula was leaning against her car when I turned the corner.

"Where's Munson?" she asked.

"Gone."

She looked at my shirt and raised an eyebrow. "I could have sworn you started out with a whole shirt."

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Looks to me like your shirt's been barbecued. First your car, now your shirt. This could be turning into a record week for you."

"I don't have to do this, you know," I said to Lula. "There are lots of good jobs I could get."

"Such as?"

"The McDonald's on Market is hiring."

"I hear you get free french fries."

I tried Munson's front door. Locked. I looked in the street-level window. Munson had tacked a faded flowered sheet over it, but there was a gap at the side. The room beyond was shabby. Scarred wood floor. A sagging couch covered by a threadbare yellow chenille bedspread. An old television on a cheap metal TV cart. A beechwood coffee table in front of the couch, and even from this distance I could see the veneer peeling off.

"Crazy ol' Munson isn't doing too good," Lula said, looking into the room with me. "I always imagined a homicidal rapist would live better than this."

"He's divorced," I said. "His wife cleaned him out."

"See, let this be a lesson. Always make sure you're the one to back the truck up to the door first."

When we got back to the office Joyce's car was still parked in front.

"Would have thought she'd be gone by now," Lula said. "She must be in there giving Vinnie a nooner."

My upper lip involuntarily curled back across my teeth. It was rumored that Vinnie had once been in love with a duck. And Joyce was said to be fond of large dogs. But somehow, the thought of them together was even more horrible.

To my great relief, Joyce was sitting on the outer office couch when Lula and I swung through the door.

"I knew you two losers wouldn't be out long," Joyce said. "Didn't get him, did you?"

"Steph had an accident with her shirt," Lula said. "So we decided not to pursue our man."

Connie was at her desk painting her nails. "Joyce thinks you know where Ranger lives."

"Sure we do," Lula said. "Only we're not telling Joyce on account of we know how she likes a challenge."

"You better tell me," Joyce said, "or I'll tell Vinnie you're holding back."

"Boy," Lula said, "that's got me thinking twice."

"I don't know where he lives," I said. "No one knows where he lives. But I heard him talking on the phone once, and he was talking to his sister in Staten Island."

"What's her name?"

"Marie."

"Marie Manoso?"

"Don't know. She might be married. She shouldn't be too hard to find, though. She works at the coat factory on Macko Street."

"I'm outta here," Joyce said. "If you think of anything else call me on my car phone. Connie's got the number."

There was silence in the office until we saw Joyce's jeep pull away and roll down the street.

"She comes in here and I swear I can smell sulfur," Connie said. "It's like having the Antichrist sitting on the couch."

Lula cut her eyes at me. "Ranger really got a sister in Staten Island?"

"Anything's possible." But not probable. In fact, now that I thought about it, the coat factory might not even be on Macko Street.

"UH-OH," LULA said, glancing over my shoulder. "Don't look now, but here comes your granny."

My eyebrows shot up to the top of my head. "My granny?"

"Shit," Vinnie said from deep in his inner office. There was the sound of scuffling. The door to his office slammed shut, and the lock clicked into place.

Grandma walked in and looked around. "Boy, this place is a dump," she said. "Just what you'd expect from the Plum side of the family."

"Where's Melvina?" I asked.

"She's next door at the deli, getting some lunch meat. I thought as long as we were in the neighborhood I'd talk to Vinnie about a job."

We all swiveled our heads to Vinnie's closed door.

"What kind of job were you thinking about?" Connie asked.

"Bounty hunter," Grandma said. "I want to make the big bucks. I got a gun and everything."

"Hey Vinnie!" Connie yelled. "You've got a visitor."

The door opened, and Vinnie stuck his head out and gave Connie the evil eye. Then he looked at Grandma. "Edna," he said, trying to force a smile, not having much luck at it.

"Vincent," Grandma said, her smile saccharine.

Vinnie shifted his weight from one foot to the other, wanting to bolt, knowing it was futile. "What can I do for you, Edna? Need to bond someone out?"

"Nothing like that," Grandma said. "I've been thinking about getting a job, and I thought I might like to be a bounty hunter."

"Oh, bad idea," Vinnie said. "Very bad idea."

Grandma bristled. "You don't think I'm too old, do you?"

"No! Jeez, nothing like that. It's your daughter--she'd pitch a fit. I mean, not to say anything bad about Ellen, but she wouldn't like this idea."

"Ellen's a wonderful person," Grandma said, "but she has no imagination. She's like her father, rest his soul." She pressed her lips together. "He was a pain in the behind."

"Tell it like it is," Lula said.

"So what about it?" Grandma said to Vinnie. "Do I get the job?"

"No can do, Edna. Not that I wouldn't want to help you out, but being a bounty hunter takes a lot of special skills."

"I have skills," Grandma said. "I can shoot and cuss and I'm real nosy. And besides, I've got some rights. I've got a right to employment." She gave Vinnie the squinty eye. "I don't see where you got any old people working for you. That don't look like equal opportunity to me. You're discriminating against old people. I've got a mind to get the AARP after you."

"The AARP is the American Association of Retired People," Vinnie said. "The 'R' stands for 'Retired.' They don't care about old people working."

"Okay," Grandma said, "how about this? How about, if you don't give me a job I'll sit on that couch over there until I starve to death."

Lula sucked in a breath. "Whoah, hardball."

"I'll think about it," Vinnie said. "I'm not promising anything, but maybe if the right thing comes in . . ." He ducked back into his office and closed and relocked the door.

"Well, that's a start," Grandma said. "I gotta go now and see how Melvina's doing. We have a big afternoon planned. We have some apartments to look at and then we're going to stop in for Stiva's afternoon viewing. Madeline Krutchman just got laid out, and I hear she looks real good. Dolly did her hair, and she said she gave her a tint to add some color around her face. She said if I like it, she could do it for me too."

"Rock on," Lula said.

Grandma and Lula did one of those complicated handshakes, and Grandma left.

"Anything new on Ranger or Homer Ramos?" I asked Connie.

Connie opened a bottle of top coat for her nails. "Ramos was popped at close range. Some people are saying it smells like an execution."

Connie comes from a family that knows a lot about executions. Jimmy Curtains is her uncle. I don't know his real last name. All I know is if Jimmy is looking for you . . . it's curtains. I grew up hearing stories about Jimmy Curtains like other kids heard stories about Peter Pan. Jimmy Curtains is famous in my neighborhood.

"How about the police? What's their angle today?" I asked.

"They're looking for Ranger, big time."

"As a witness?"

"As far as I can tell, as an anything."

Connie and Lula looked at me.

"Well?" Lula asked.

"Well, what?"

"You know well, what."

"I'm not sure, but I don't think he's dead," I said. "Just a feeling I've got."

"Hah!" Lula said. "I knew it! Were you naked when you got this feeling?"

"No!"

"Too bad," Lula said. "I would have been naked."

"I have to go," I said. "I need to give Mooner the bad news about the wind machine."

THE GOOD THING about the Mooner is that he's almost always home. The bad thing is that, while his house is occupied, his head is frequently vacant.

"Oh, wow," he said, answering the door. "Did I forget my court date again?"

"Your court date is two weeks from tomorrow."

"Cool."

"I need to talk to you about the wind machine. It's sort of dented. And it's missing a rear light. But I'll fix it."

"Hey, don't worry about it, dude. These things happen."

"Maybe I should talk to the owner."

"The Dealer ."

"Yeah, the dealer. Where's he located?"

"He's at the end row house. He's got a garage, dude. Can you dig it? A garage." Since I'd just spent the winter scraping ice off my windshield, I could appreciate Mooner's garage excitement. I thought a garage was a pretty wondrous thing, too.

The end row house was about a quarter-mile away so we drove.

"Do you think he'll be home?" I asked Mooner when we got to the end of the block.

"The Dealer's always home. He's gotta be there to deal."

I rang the bell, and Dougie Kruper opened the door. I went to school with Dougie but hadn't seen him in years. In fact, I'd heard a rumor that he'd moved to Arkansas and died.

"Jeez, Dougie," I said, "I thought you were dead."

"Naw, I just wished I was dead. My dad got transferred to Arkansas, so I went with them, but I'm telling you, Arkansas was no place for me. No action, you know what I mean? And if you want to go to the ocean it takes days."

"Are you the dealer?"

"Yessiree. I'm the Dealer. I'm the man. You want something. I got it. We make a deal."

"Bad news, Dougie. The wind machine was in an accident."

"Girl, the wind machine is an accident. Seemed like a good idea at the time, but I can't unload it on anyone. Soon as you brought it back I was gonna push it off a bridge. Unless, of course, you want to buy it."

"It doesn't actually suit my purposes. It's too memorable. I need a car that disappears."

"A stealth car. The Dealer might have such a vehicle," Dougie said. "Come around back, and we'll take a look-see."

Around back was wall-to-wall cars. There were cars on the road, and cars in his yard, and a car in his garage.

Dougie led me to a black Ford Escort. "Now this here is a genuine disappearing car."

"How old is it?"

"I don't exactly know, but it's got a few miles on it."

"Isn't the year on the title?"

"This particular car doesn't have a title."

Hmm.

"If you need a car with a title, that would adversely effect the price," Dougie said.

"How adversely?"

"I'm sure we can come to terms. After all, I'm the Dealer."

Dougie Kruper was the big geek of my graduating class. He didn't date, and he didn't do sports, and he didn't eat like a human being. His greatest accomplishment in high school was being able to suck Jell-O into his nose through a straw.

Mooner was walking around laying his hands on the cars, divining karma. "This is it," he said, standing by a small khaki-colored jeep. "This car has protective qualities."

"You mean like a guardian angel?"

"I mean, like, it has seat belts."

"Does this car come with a title?" I asked Dougie. "Does it run?"

"I'm pretty sure it runs," Dougie said.

THIRTY MINUTES LATER I had two new pairs of jeans and a new watch, but no new car. Dougie was also willing to make a deal on a microwave, but I already had one.

It was early in the afternoon, and the weather wasn't terrible, so I walked to my parents' house and borrowed Uncle Sandor's '53 Buick. It was free, and it ran, and it had a title. I told myself it was a very cool car. A classic. Uncle Sandor had bought it new, and it was still in prime condition, which was more than could be said for Uncle Sandor, who was deep in the ground. Powder blue and white with gleaming chrome portholes and a big V-8 engine. I hoped I'd have my insurance money by the time Grandma got her license and needed the Buick. I hoped the insurance money would come through fast because I hated the car.

When I finally headed home the sun was low in the sky. The lot to my apartment building was filled and the big black Lincoln was parked next to one of the few open spaces. I pulled the Buick into the open space, and the Lincoln's passenger-side window rolled down.

"What's this?" Mitchell asked. "Another car? You wouldn't be trying to confuse us, would you?"

Ah, if only it was that simple. "I've been having some car problems."

"You don't find that Ranger guy soon and you're gonna have other problems that could be fatal."

Probably Mitchell and Habib were very tough guys, but I was having a hard time working up genuine fear. They just didn't seem to be in the same league as psycho Morris Munson.

"What happened to your shirt?" Mitchell asked.

"Someone tried to set me on fire."

He shook his head. "People are nuts. You gotta have eyes in the back of your head today."

From the guy who just threatened me with death.

I entered the lobby, keeping my eyes peeled for Ranger. The elevator doors opened, and I peeked inside. Empty. I didn't know if I was relieved or disappointed. The hall was also empty. No such luck with my apartment. Grandma popped out of the kitchen the instant I opened my front door.

"Right on time," she said. "I've got the pork chops ready to put on the table. And I made macaroni and cheese, too. Only we don't have any vegetables because I figure your mother isn't here so we can eat what we want."

The table in the dining area was set with real dishes and knives and forks and paper napkins folded into triangles.

"Wow," I said. "It's nice of you to make supper like this."

"I could have done an even better job, but you've only got one pot. What happened to that set of Revere Ware you got at your wedding shower?"

"I threw it away when I found Dickie doing . . . you know, with Joyce."

Grandma brought the macaroni and cheese to the table. "I guess I can understand that." She sat down and helped herself to a pork chop. "I gotta get a move on. Melvina and me didn't have time to go to the viewing this afternoon, so we're going tonight. You're welcome to come along."

Next to sticking myself in the eye with a fork, my favorite thing in the world is to go visit dead people. "Thanks, but I have to work tonight. I'm doing surveillance for a friend."

"Too bad," Grandma said. "It's going to be a good viewing."

AFTER GRANDMA LEFT I watched a Simpsons rerun, a Nanny rerun and a half-hour of ESPN, trying to distract myself from thinking about Ranger. There was a nasty little corner of my mind that harbored doubt of his innocence in the Ramos murder. And the rest of my head was filled with anxiety that he'd get shot or arrested before the real killer was found. And to further complicate things, I'd agreed to do surveillance for him. Ranger was Vinnie's primo bounty hunter, but Ranger also engaged in a variety of entrepreneurial activities, some of which were even legal. I'd worked for Ranger in the past, with varying degrees of success. I'd eventually taken my name off his employment roster, deciding it wasn't in anyone's best interest for us to partner up. It seemed like now was the time to make an exception. Although I wasn't sure why he wanted my help. I wasn't especially competent. On the other hand, I was loyal and lucky, and I guess I was affordable.

When it was almost dark I changed my clothes. Black spandex running shorts, black T-shirt, running shoes, a black hooded sweatshirt, and, to complete the outfit, a pocketsized pepper spray. If I got caught snooping I could claim to be out jogging. Every pervert peeper in the state used the same lame M. O., and it worked every time.

I gave Rex a piece of cheese and explained that I'd be home in a couple hours. Out in the parking lot, I looked for a Honda Civic, and then I remembered it had been toasted. Then I looked for the wind machine, but that wasn't right either. And finally, with a disheartened sigh, I picked out the Buick.

Fenwood Street was cozy at night. Lights were on in house windows, and walk lights dotted the pathways leading to the town houses. There was no activity on the street.

Hannibal Ramos still had his drapes drawn, but light peeked from behind the drapes. I drove around the block once and parked the Buick just beyond the bike path I'd walked earlier in the day.

I did some stretches and some jogging in place in case someone was watching me, wondering if I was a suspicious character. I took off at a slow jog and quickly reached the path that ran through the common ground behind the houses. Less ambient light filtered through the trees back here. I took a moment to let my eyes adjust. Each privacy fence had a back door, and I cautiously walked along, counting off doors until I figured I was behind Hannibal's house. His upper story windows were dark, but light spilled over the privacy fence from the ground-level windows in the back of the house.

I tried the door to the fence. Locked. The brick fence was seven feet tall. The brick was smooth, impossible to climb. No handholds or footholds. I looked around for something to stand on. Nothing. I eyeballed the pine growing next to the fence. Slightly mishapen from the fence pressing into some lower branches. The upper branches hanging over the yard. If I could get up in the tree, the branches would give me cover, and I could spy on Hannibal. I grabbed hold of a bottom branch and hoisted myself up. I scrabbled a couple feet higher and was rewarded with a view of Hannibal's backyard. The fence was bordered with flower beds, which were covered with mulch. An irregular stone patio backed up to the patio doors. And the rest of the yard was grass.

Just as I'd suspected, the drapes at the back of the house weren't drawn. A double window looked into the kitchen. The patio doors opened to a dining area. A small piece of another room was visible beyond the dining area. Probably the living room, but it was hard to tell. I didn't see anyone moving around.

I sat there for a while, watching nothing happen. No action in Hannibal's house. No action in either of his neighbors' houses. Very boring. No one on the bike path. No dog walkers. No joggers. Too dark. This is why I love surveillance. Nothing ever happens. Then you have to go to the bathroom and you miss a double homicide.

After an hour my butt was asleep and my legs were feeling twitchy from inactivity. Bag this, I thought. I didn't know what I was supposed to be looking for, anyway.

I turned to climb down, lost my balance, and flopped to the ground. Wump ! Flat on my back. In Hannibal's backyard.

The patio light flashed on, and Hannibal looked out at me. "What the hell?" he said.

I wiggled my fingers and moved my legs. Everything seemed to be working.

Hannibal stood over me, hands on hips, looking like he wanted an explanation.

"I fell out of the tree," I said. Pretty obvious, since there were pine needles and twigs scattered around me.

Hannibal didn't move a muscle.

I dragged myself to my feet. "I was trying to get my cat to come down. "He's been up there since this afternoon."

He looked up at the tree. "Is your cat still there?" Not sounding like he believed a word of it.

"I think he jumped when I fell."

Hannibal Ramos was California tan and couch-potato soft. I'd seen photos of him so I wasn't surprised. What I hadn't expected was the exhaustion in his face. But then, he'd just lost a brother, and that had to be taking a toll. His brown hair was thin and receding. His eyes were assessing behind tortoiseshell glasses. He was wearing gray suit slacks that were badly in need of pressing, and a white dress shirt, open at the collar, also rumpled. Mr. Average Businessman after a hard day at the office. I guessed he was in his early forties and a couple years away from a quadruple bypass.

"And I suppose he ran away?" Ramos said.

"God, I hope not. I'm tired of chasing after him." I am the best liar. Sometimes I amaze even myself.

Hannibal opened the door to the fence and gave the bike path a cursory glance. "Bad news. I don't see a cat."

I looked over Hannibal's shoulder. "Here, kitty, kitty," I called. I was feeling pretty stupid now, but there was no place to go with this but forward.

"You know what I think?" Hannibal said. "I think there's no cat. I think you were in that tree spying on me."

I gave him a look of total incredulity. Like . . . oh, duh? "Listen," I said, scooting around him to the door. "I've got to go. I need to find my cat."

"What color is it?"

"Black."

"Good luck."

I looked under a couple bushes en route to the bike path. "Here kitty, kitty."

"Maybe you should give me your name and phone number in case I find him," Hannibal said.

Our eyes locked for a couple beats, and my heart stumbled in my chest.

"No," I told him. "I don't think I want to do that." And then I left, walking in the opposite direction I came.

I exited the bike path and circled the block to get to my car. I crossed the street and stood in the shadows for a few minutes, looking at Hannibal's house, wondering about the man. If I'd seen him on the street I'd have pegged him as an insurance salesman. Or maybe middle management in corporate America. That he was the crown prince of black market arms wouldn't occur to me.

A light blinked on in an upstairs window. The crown prince was probably changing into something more comfortable. Too early for bed, and the lights were still on downstairs. I was about to leave when a car cruised down the street and turned into Hannibal's driveway.

Woman at the wheel. Couldn't see her face. The driver's door opened and a long, stocking-clad leg swung out, followed by a killer body in a dark suit. Short blond hair. Briefcase under her arm.

I copied the license number on the pad I kept in my shoulder bag, got my mini-binoculars out of the glove compartment, and scuttled around to the back of Hannibal's house. Again. Everything was quiet. Hannibal probably felt confident that he'd scared me off. I mean, what idiot would be crazy enough to try to snoop on him twice in one night?

This idiot, that's who.

I went up the tree as quietly as possible. Easier this time. I knew where I was going. I found my perch and got the binoculars out. Unfortunately, there wasn't much to see. Hannibal and his caller were in the front room. I could see a slice of Hannibal's back, but the woman was out of view. After a few minutes there was the distant sound of Hannibal's front door closing and of a car driving off.

Hannibal walked into the kitchen, got a knife from a drawer, and used it to open an envelope. He took a letter out and read it. Had no reaction. He carefully returned the letter to the envelope and put the envelope on his kitchen counter.

He looked at the kitchen window, seemingly lost in thought. Then he moved to the patio door, slid it open and stared out at the tree. I froze in place, not daring to breathe. He can't see me, I thought. It's dark in the tree. Don't move and he'll go back inside. Wrong, wrong, wrong. His hand came up from his side, a flashlight snapped on, and I was caught.

"Here kitty, kitty," I said, shielding my eyes with my hand to see past the light.

He raised his other arm, and I saw the gun.

"Get down," he said, walking toward me. "Slowly."

Yeah, right. I flew from the tree, breaking branches on the way, landing with my feet already running.

Zing. The unmistakable sound of a bullet being fired through a silencer.

I don't ordinarily think of myself as fast, but I moved down that path at the speed of light. I went straight to the car, jumped inside, and roared off.

I checked the mirror several times to make sure I wasn't being followed. Closer to my apartment I drove down Makefield, turned at the corner, cut my lights, and waited. No car in sight. I popped the lights back on and noticed my hands had almost stopped shaking. I decided that was a good sign and headed for home.

When I turned into my parking lot, I caught Morelli in my lights. He was lounging against his 4X4, arms crossed over his chest, feet crossed at the ankles. I locked the Buick and walked over to him. His expression changed from bored calm to grim curiosity.

"Back to driving the Buick?" he asked.

"For a while."

He looked me over head to toe and picked a pine sprig out of my hair. "I'm afraid to ask," he said.

"Surveillance."

"You're all sticky."

"Sap. I was in a pine tree."

He grinned. "I hear they're hiring at the button factory."

"What do you know about Hannibal Ramos?"

"Oh, man, don't tell me you're spying on Ramos. He's a real bad guy."

"He doesn't look bad. He looks ordinary." He had, until he pointed the gun at me.

"Don't underestimate him. He runs the Ramos empire."

"I thought his father did that."

"Hannibal manages the day-to-day business. Rumor has it the old man is sick. He's always been volatile, but a source tells me his behavior is increasingly erratic, and the family has hired baby-sitters to make sure he doesn't just wander away, never to be seen again."

"Alzheimer's?"

Morelli shrugged. "Don't know."

I glanced down and realized my knee was scraped and bleeding.

"You could become an accessory to something ugly by helping Ranger," Morelli said.

"Who, me?"

"Did you tell him to get in touch with me?"

"I didn't get a chance. Besides, if you're leaving messages on his pager, he's getting them. He just doesn't want to answer."Morelli pulled me flat against him. "You smell like a pine forest."

"Must be the sap."

He put his hands to my waist and kissed me at the base of my neck. "Very sexy."

Morelli thought everything was sexy.

"Why don't you come back to the house with me?" he said. "I'll kiss your skinned knee and make it all better."

Tempting. "What about Grandma?"

"She'll never notice. She's probably sound asleep."

A second-story window opened in the apartment building. My window. And Grandma stuck her head out. "Is that you, Stephanie? And who's that with you? Is that Joe Morelli?"

Joe waved at her. "Hello, Mrs. Mazur."

"What are you standing out there for?" Grandma wanted to know. "Why don't you come in and have some dessert? We stopped at the supermarket on the way home from the viewing, and I bought a layer cake."

"Thanks," Joe said, "but I have to be getting home. I have an early shift tomorrow."

"Wow," I said, "passing up layer cake!"