Turbo Twenty-Three (Stephanie Plum #23)(14)

“Have you talked to Lula about this?”

“No. I wanted to run it by you first. Give you first crack at it since you and Lula are so tight. And you’re not real fat, so you wouldn’t take up the whole frame.”

“You want me to be the second naked woman?”

“Yeah.”

“No.”

Briggs looked shocked. “What do you mean, no? It’s the chance of a lifetime. It could make you into a big TV star.”

“No. Not going to happen. No way. No how. Never.”

“You’re going to pass up a chance to get naked with me?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?” Briggs asked.

“You’re cranky and disgusting.”

“Okay, but besides that.”

I pointed to the open door. “Go!”

“Aren’t you going to offer me something to drink?”

“No.”

“You got a lot to learn about hospitality,” Briggs said.

I grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and handed it to him.

“No wine?” he asked.

“You do realize that I have a loaded gun in this kitchen?”

“Your gun is never loaded,” Briggs said. “You never even have any bullets. You keep the stupid thing in the cookie jar. You’d do better to throw your gun away and fill the jar with Oreos. At least you could offer your guests a cookie.”

I gave him my squinty eye. “Don’t push it.”

He returned the squinty eye and left.

The lights from Ranger’s black Porsche 911 Turbo swung into my parking lot precisely at 11:30 P.M. I was waiting in the lobby and, as always, I got a small rush when I caught sight of the car.

The car and the driver were perfectly matched. Lots of power and agility. Wicked fast. Dark. Sexy. Totally desirable and unobtainable. At least they were unobtainable for me. I couldn’t afford a Porsche, and hitching my life to Ranger would also come with a high price.

I left the building, got into the car, and Ranger silently drove out of the lot and headed for north Trenton.

“Do you have any new information on the Bogart Bar man?” I asked.

“Arnold Zigler. Forty-two years old. Divorced. No kids. A sister in Scranton. Parents are deceased. Most of his co-workers seemed to like him. He’d been with the company for ten years as head of human resources.”

“And the co-workers who didn’t like him?”

“Nothing serious. No death threats. Mostly indifference. I haven’t talked to any of them personally. This information has all come from Harry Bogart. You’ll have a chance to find out more tomorrow when you mingle.”

“I have to mingle?”

“Babe, I’m not putting you in there because you’re good at making ice cream.”

“I’m not sure I’m a good mingler.”

“How much am I paying you?”

“You don’t know?”

“It was a rhetorical question.”

It was past my bedtime, and I wasn’t in the best of moods. I wasn’t looking forward to being a snitch at the ice cream factory.

“Well, maybe I don’t even want this stupid job,” I said. “Maybe I’m doing this as a favor to you.”

Ranger stopped at a light and looked over at me.

“I don’t usually pay for favors, but if we’re going in that direction I wouldn’t mind turning this car around and taking you back to Rangeman for the night.”

Yikes. Tempting but at the same time frightening. And then there was Joe Morelli. And the Catholic Church. And my mother.

“Well?” he asked.

“I’m thinking.”

“Think faster, babe. The light just changed.”

“Ice cream factory.”

“It’s only a matter of time,” Ranger said.

I blew out a sigh. I knew this was true.





SEVEN


THE BOGART ICE Creamery was in a light industrial complex that had never developed beyond the ice cream plant. There were curbs and roads and empty lots, but no buildings other than Bogart’s. The employee parking area was deserted. Streetlamps dropped pools of white light onto the blacktop. The big two-story warehouse-type building was dark with the exception of exterior lighting on the six-bay loading dock, and lights were blazing inside the small guardhouse.

Ranger parked by the loading dock, and we left the car and approached the guardhouse. There were two men on duty. One was in a green Harry Bogart uniform, and the other was in Rangeman black fatigues. Ranger nodded to both men and continued on to the back door. He tapped a code into the door lock, we entered the factory, and Ranger threw the main light switch.

Lights flooded the building, and it looked to me like the entire manufacturing process was essentially in one huge two-story room. Conveyor belts and stainless steel tubes snaked around the room entering and exiting large stainless steel boxes that performed who-knows-what. Heavy-duty refrigerator-type double doors were built into a far wall. I imagined the doors opened to a freezer. A series of small offices lined the wall on the opposite side of the room. The offices all had large fixed-frame windows that looked out at the line workers.

“Has it been determined how Arnold Zigler got crammed into the back of the truck?” I asked Ranger.