Clarence wasn't too hard to find and I called it a day after dropping him off at the station. An easy couple hundred dollars, enough to make me feel like I had accomplished something. I spent the rest of the afternoon studying James Postolli's profile and photo. The cosmic breakthrough I had been hoping for never came.
When morning did, however, I hit the town with the list of people Elvis had performed for before he decided to hit the big time. Every single one of them was a dead end. The consensus was that he was a mediocre performer, pleasant enough guy, but never hung around after he was through with his act. He had no local following, performed every now and then at open mikes and rarely mingled with other musicians when he did. If I didn't know better I would have said he was a ghost.
I had just finished speaking to the last person on my list when my cell phone rang. It wasn't Joe, nor was it Lula or even Ranger. I wasn't sure who it was, at first.
"I hear you been looking for me."
"Mr. Postolli?" My first instinct was to lock the doors on my truck, and then I looked around me. I couldn't see anyone that matched his description or anyone suspicious looking for that matter. "My name is Stephanie Plum. I work for-"
"I know who you are. And just forget about it. Tell Vinnie he's out his money. I ain't gonna do the jailhouse rock."
"Now, Mr. Postolli, all you have to do is go to the police station and reschedule your hearing. That doesn't mean that you will be going to jail."
"No, I told ya. I ain't goin'. And if you keep looking for me, I'll show you what I can really do."
For some reason I wasn't as scared as I probably should have been. Perhaps it was because threats on my life were nearly a daily occurrence these days. Perhaps it was because I was safely locked in the truck with Bob. Either way, I felt safe enough to drive to Vinnie's.
Lula was just arriving with a big box of donuts so I knew I had timed it perfectly. I gave Connie the body receipt for Clarence and grabbed a donut from the box.
I really should have known better than to look up when I hear the door open. Lula saw them first, and her only comment was "Hubba, hubba." The fact that Connie was drooling powered doughnut down her two sizes too small hot pink sweater was another sign. What can I say; I'm a glutton for punishment – just look at my relationships with Morelli and Ranger to figure that one out. Their first comment was a yelp when Bob went to greet them, followed by a melt-you-into-a-puddle-of-mush accent.
"Will someone kindly remove the olfactory organ of this monstrosity from my personal body space?"
It was them, all seven of them. Connie was openly drooling on her desk and Lula was muttering "eny meeny miny moe" under her breath. Bob had gotten a bit too friendly with one of the shorter ones of the seven, the one who looked like he had stepped out from a GQ ad. The mustached guy and the kid were openly laughing as their friend tried to remove Bob's nose from his crotch, while blondie and the other three also looked to find it pretty amusing. I really hated to, I much rather would have stayed there drooling, but I felt that I should intervene. I grabbed the donut box and held out a donut.
"Bob," I waved the donut a few times to get his attention, though he was on his way over to me as soon as he got a whiff of it. He passed up the donut, inhaling the entire box before you could say goner. All that was left was dusting of white powder across his nose and a piece of cardboard on his lower lip. I just shrugged, and took a bite out of the donut I was still holding.
"Damn," mustache said, elbowing the younger man in the side, "that dog's got as much of a sweet tooth as Junior does."
"I don't know," the big one commented as he looked at the longhaired guy. "I've seen Vin pack away a lot of sweets; through he tends to stick to chocolate."
That was as far as I got in their conversation, for the tall black guy suddenly rounded into me. "I can't believe that you fed your dog that box of donuts. Don't you know anything about proper canine nutrit-"
Bob chose that minute to introduce himself to him, the old fashioned way – snout up the ass. He jumped - the man, not the dog - and turned to his laughing friends. I chose now to stand up for Bob and his odd eating habits. "At least he just ate the donuts and box. He usually goes for rubber plants and furniture."
"You were at Postolli's yesterday, weren't you?" Blondie was suddenly all business, his companions immediately sobered up, though the mustached guy and the kid both continued to grin.
"Yeah, he's FTA, I went to see if he's home."
"Yer a bounty hunter?" Long Hair looked me up and down, not quite sure if he really believed it.
"Yeah, gotta problem with it?"
"Nah, just not what I was expecting. I though that Frankie DeFrancis worked for Vincent Plum."
"He does, he's in West Virginia on a trace, can I help you with something?"
"Chris Larabee, ATF. I need to speak with Mr. Plum about a bond he posted for Mr. Postolli." Great, they're Feds. The last time I dealt with Feds one was constantly letting himself into my apartment and I ended up crawling around in Morelli's backyard with Mary Lou trying to find out if he was cheating on me with Terry Gilman.
"Vinnie's busy right now," Connie informed them, behind her Lula started cracking up as she pretended to file. Sure Vinnie was busy. I know what Vinnie does when he's busy.
"And when will Vinnie be available?" Blondie, er – Larabee, wasn't looking too happy now. I was contemplating that fact that he definitely looked as scary as Ranger when pissed when I noticed a heard sound from the parking lot.
KABOOM! Everyone spun around to see large fireball appear in the parking lot. I wasn't surprised, but I was happy. Bob was good luck after all, 'cause that wasn't my truck.
"Son of a bitch!" Larabee swore as they watched his rental truck burn brightly in the lot. I grabbed his arm before he headed out into the parking lot.
"Uh-uh, you don't want to go out there. It's too late to save anything and it'll take weeks for your eyebrows to grow back. Trust me, personal experience."
"You've had a car blow up before?"
"She's had a car blow up many times. The best was when the garbage truck fell over on the Porsche after it was bombed." Lula nodded her head as she spoke while moving to a window for a better view, she'd been along that time. "Just proves that the more expensive the car, the more impressive the fire. Though the time her truck was taken out with an antitank missile was pretty good, too."
"This happens to you on a regular basis?" The big, older guy asked in amazement. I nodded, pretending not to notice that they all took a step back away from me. The only car I'd kept for an extended period of time - more than three days - without it blowing up was Big Blue and I hated that Buick.
"She also barbeques other people's cars, too. You shoulda been here that time when she caught the carpet car on fire, that was a fire. These two guys were following her around, 'cause Ranger was FTA and their boss was looking for him and thought that Stephanie would find him on account of he trained her and they kinda got this 'thing' going on sometimes. Only she didn't want them following her around cause she was helping Ranger prove he didn't kill Ramos. So we did the dog shit in the paper bag thing, only it was a fried chicken bucket and when Mitchell kicked the bucket it hit the carpet on the car and it caught on fire." Lula stopped to take a breath, only to be interrupted by the longhaired man that Connie had been visibly restraining herself from jumping.
"Ranger trained you?" If he spoke with disbelief, it didn't surprise me. Ranger was the man when it came to bounty hunting and all other gray areas of the law. Me, I was more like the one of the keystone cops without a partner.
"Yeah, I did. It was Professor Higgins and Eliza Dolittle does Trenton." Ranger may have spoken softly, but everyone in the room heard him. Ranger doesn't need to talk loud; he gets his point across with just a look. Kinda like Larabee. I'd noticed the similarities earlier, but now, as two very alpha males faced off, they became much more apparent. I just hoped that Vinnie's office survived; otherwise I'd be looking for a new job. Ranger, however, apparently though he was invincible 'cause he decided to ignore Larabee. "Nice barbeque."
I rolled my eyes so far that I could see my hairline. "Wasn't my truck, they're the ones who did something to piss someone off this time."
"Really?" I hated it when he did that. That whole one eyebrow cocked 'are you so sure about that' look. The look that reminded me about the phone call I had gotten earlier. Damn. Larabee was going to kill me now.
"Weeeell," I drew out the word as long as possible, giving Ranger him the best Plum glare I could muster. While it had nothing on that glare Larabee was shelling out earlier, I could usually do some damage on some people, usually first time offenders. Saved by the bell, or rather my cell phone. I had a feeling I knew who it was and pulled it out.
"Hello." No heavy breathing, maybe I was wrong.
"Stephanie, it's your mother. What this I hear about you blowing up another car? Joey Lilinski's mother just called and told me he had just called and told her that a truck blew up in front of Vinnie's." Damn. The cops and firetrucks weren't even here yet and already the word had made it through the Burg. "Was that your car?"
"No, actually it..." Not that she bothered to give me a chance to answer.
"Are you sure? Janice Marek called and told me they're hiring at the button factory. You could get a good job at the button factory and not have this happen to you." I could feel my eyes glazing over, and saw the smirk on Ranger's face. He knew exactly who it was. "Shelly Mynkowitz's daughter works at the button factory and she never has cars blow up or people shooting at her." That was it, I was hanging up.
"Listen, I got to go." I hit the disconnect button before she could start telling me about the job openings at the make-up counter at Macy's. Glaring at Ranger, I warned him, "Not a word."
He ignored me, of course. "Job openings at the button factory? Or was it the perfume counter?"
That was it. I hadn't had a particularly bad day, besides the whole striking out on Postolli, but I had a feeling it was going to get a lot worse. Call it women's intuition. Call it a sixth sense. But the fact that Larabee's rental truck was a black Dodge like mine, only newer, probably had a lot to do with the fact that it just went kaboom. My nerves were at their limits, so I did the only rational thing I could thing of. I threw my phone at Ranger. It rang just as he caught it.
"Yo." His face was expressionless as he listened to whatever the caller had to say. I figured it wasn't Grandma Mazur, he'd be the one rolling his eyes if it was. The caller stopped talking and he looked up at me, eyes hard. "I'm calling Tank, he'll get you to a safe house."
"Excuse me?" Great, Ranger was dictating orders to me again. And our seven gorgeous visitors were alternating between watching the two of us, Long Hair grinning like a fool. Damn them, damn Ranger and damn Elvis Postolli. "Did I say I was going to a safe house?"
"Doesn't matter. James Postolli may be the one who's mad at you, but he's not smart enough to take a missile-launcher to your truck, much less get his hands on one. His cousin is. And Elvis is just dumb enough to not tell his cousin which truck is yours."
"Damn," Larabee swore. "Then Steve Postolli's here in Trenton and he has his loot." He turned to his merry men. "Ezra, start talking to your contacts in the area, find out what you can about any shipments of army surplus to the neighborhood. JD, start hacking, see if you can find Postolli's bank account, either of them. Buck, Josiah, you two start checking with your contacts back home, see if anything about Postolli is in the air. Nathan, talk to the Army, find out if they've got anything else missing and just what it is. Vin, you're with me."
Connie was drooling again, Lula was eyeing them and even Ranger looked impressed. I was inching towards the door, hoping Connie would forgive me for leaving Bob behind. I refused to go to a safehouse. If I went into a safehouse, Joyce would end up barking like a dog in Vinnie's office. And then she'd get Postolli's file and authorization to bring him in. Hell. She'll probably turn up and bark a few times and get the file regardless of if I ended up in a safehouse.