Disclaimer: Jamie is mine. As for the rest of them...I wish.
Connie:…Sorry about that…Just don't think about it that way. I know the time is all screwy but I ignore it.
Twelve
Ranger finished his conversation with Tank and ambled over to me. He was wearing his usual uniform of painted on black tee shirt and SWAT cargos tucked into big black combat boots. I swear, this man needs some pastels.
"What are you doing the rest of the day?" he asked.
"I need to go to the office and see if there are any skips and then I don't know what." I said.
I arrived at the office at ten thirty. Lula was already there, rare for a Saturday. Connie was at her desk, shuffling papers. There was a Dunkin Donuts box on her desk and there were six and half donuts left.
"Slow day?" I asked, helping myself to a Boston Crème.
"It's too early to be a slow day," said Lula from the couch, "It's practically the middle of the night." She looked pretty beat, and maybe even hung over. I noticed that her clothes weren't as wacko today. She was wearing tight slightly sparkly blue pants and a pink top and big yellow boots.
"Lula had a late night last night," said Connie, handing me a couple of files, "she had a hot date."
I grinned at Lula, "Oh yeah? With who?"
"He was a jackass. It was just a slam bam thank ya ma'am. He just got some and left. Can you believe it? Men suck."
Ouch.
"You want to ride shotgun? You can take your anger out on these skips."
"Really? You'd let me do that?"
"No. But you can pretend."
Ronald Anders was first up. Arrested for domestic violence. Two priors. A DUI charge and another domestic violence charge. Thirty-eight years old, six feet tall, 280 pounds. He had a big fat pot belly and a week-old beard.
Lula and I were standing on Anders's front porch, holding our noses. The house reeked of alcohol and something worse. I rapped on his door, and the door swung open.
The one story house was small and filthy. The wall to wall carpet was littered with stains and broken bottles. There was a cracked television and a rumpled couch that was covered with a ratty sheet. The kitchen was in the back of the room, the linoleum floor slick with garbage. A door was on one side of the room, probably a bedroom. There were noises coming from behind the door. Moans and squeals.
Lula wrinkled her nose, "Whoever that woman is she must need it bad to do it with this guy."
"Maybe we should come back later…when they're done." I said, backing out of the house.
Lula followed me out and we drove away in her Firebird head banging to Metallica.
"So what now?" Lula asked.
I dug through my bag and came up with another file. I opened it and froze. It was my best friend in the whole wide world, Mary Lou Molnar. She was charged for breaking into a grocery store and robbing it of diapers. It said that at three o'clock Wednesday morning, she drove to a Safeway, broke the glass doors with a rock, and proceeded to take two jumbo packages of Pampers. She was caught on surveillance cameras and was allowed to keep the diapers.
Lula and I cut into the Burg and wound our way around to Mary Lou's house.
"I've been waiting for you," said Mary Lou when she answered the door, "The only reason I skipped was because Lenny wasn't home and the kids were having a conflicting opinion." More like the kids were trying to kill each other.
"Well I need to take you to the police station to get rebonded," I said, "is there someone who could stay with the kids while you're gone?"
We got the Mary Lou's neighbor to babysit and trundled off to the pokey.
After getting Mary Lou rebonded, I dropped Lula at the office, got my 50 dollar check from Connie, and Mary Lou at home. And since I was in the Burg already, I stopped for lunch at my mother's house.
My mother was stirring soup when I sauntered into the kitchen. Grandma Mazur was at the kitchen table, looking over the obituaries.
"Find any dead bodies today?" Grandma asked when I sat down.
As a matter of fact, I hadn't found any dead bodies since the Stiva incident, which was a couple of months ago. My cop friend Eddie Gazarra said things were getting so boring lately that they'd actually thought of planting a dead body where I'd find it just to see me freak out.
"Nope," I said.
"Dang. Well, if you're having Dead-Body-Withdrawl, maybe you could take me to Stiva's tonight." After Constantine Stiva was taken care of, the funeral home went to his cousin Augustine Armolov. He changed the name to Augustine's House of Rest but people still call it Stiva's.
" Marty Balog is laid out. He was part of the Knights of Columbus. That means they'll be a lot of studmuffins there."
Oh boy. My grandmother was after a studmuffin again. The last time she brought home a studmuffin he turned out to be an escaped senior from a retirement home for people with special abilities…like throwing lightning.
I had nothing else to do tonight, so I gave in.
"Good. Pick me up here at seven thirty and we can hit the road."
I was on my way back to the office when my cell phone chirped.
"You've GOT to help me," said Jamie.
"What's up?" I asked.
"There are no donuts here and I REALLY need a donut."
"Okay fine I'll bring you some donuts."
"Hal wants a meatball sub."
"Fine."
"Lester wants a BLT."
"Anything else?"
"You have a pen?"
I took everybody's orders and brought the food to Rangeman. Jamie pounced on me and grabbed her dozen donuts. Everybody crowded around me to claim their food. I followed Jamie back to her seat. "I'm taking Grandma to Stiva's tonight, do you want to come?"
"I thought you burned that place down." Jamie said, biting into a donut.
I swear that's the only thing I'm known for anymore. "Well yeah but they rebuilt it so do you want to come?"
"Might as well. What time?"
"I'll come and get you at seven."
I stopped by the office to see if Lula wanted to try to get Ronald Anders again.
"Yeah and this time I'm gonna pop a cap up his ass." She said.
We took Lula's Firebird because she still claimed she couldn't fit into my Midget Car. We were turning onto Anders's street when suddenly there were a bunch of gunshots. I ducked down and my window shattered. Lula shrieked and swerved up onto the sidewalk. The gunshots died down but we stayed in the car.
"Now what?" I said aloud.
"I dunno but this seems like a sign that Ronald Anders shouldn't go to jail today."
On the way back to the office I called Morelli.
"Someone shot at me." I said.
Big sigh. "Where are you?"
"Well now I'm on my way back to the office but we were turning onto Cherry Street when the gunshots started."
"We?"
"Me and Lula." Who did he think?
"I justswollowed a bottle of Malox." Said Morelli.
"Do you want to come to Stiva's with me and Grandma and Jamie tonight?" I asked him, trying to change the subject.
He waited a beat before answering. "Pass."
"Good choice."
I pulled up to Rangeman at seven o'clock. The gate opened and I drove down into the garage and was just pulling into a spot when Jamie burst out of the stairway door. She was running full speed towards my car, with Tank in hot pursuit. She wrenched the door open, sat inside and slammed the door shut behind her. "GO!" she yelled.
I put the petal to the floor, turned the car around and up the ramp to the street.
"Jeez what was that?" I said, stopping for a light.
Jamie laughed, "Ah…I was just having a little fun and Tank has no sense of humor."
"What'd you do?"
"I just dumped a bottle of hot sauce into his coffee, that's all. You'd think I blew up his car or something what with the way he reacted."
"You're going to get killed one day."
"Better to die laughing than to die by murder," she said.
"So what other secrets do you know about the Merry Men?" I asked.
"Hm…Lester likes the Spice Girls."
"The Spice Girls are the shit."
"No kidding."
"What else?"
"hm…Ranger's favorite Care Bears are Grumpy Bear and Sunshine Bear."
"Ranger watches Care Bears?"
"His daughter made him watch the movie every time he came to visit."
Right as we pulled up to my parent's house my cell phone chirped.
"Babe I need your help," said Ranger.