Look Alive Twenty-Five (Stephanie Plum #25)(53)

“He thinks you’re dinner,” Morelli said. “You smell like fried Spam.”

“It was horrible. We burned the deli down.”

“On purpose?”

“No! Lula and Stretch were yelling at each other. She was squirting him with ketchup, and he was whacking her with his spatula. He whacked the ketchup bottle out of her hand, and it flew into the hot fryer. It went downhill fast after that.”

“No one was hurt?”

“No people were hurt, but I imagine some rats got toasted.” I looked down at myself. My sneakers were soaked and my clothes were sooty. “I need a shower.”

“I’ll help.”

“Thanks, but I’m exhausted.”

“That’s okay. I’ll do all the work,” Morelli said. “I’m good with soap.”





CHAPTER NINETEEN


MORELLI DRAGGED ME out of bed and handed me some clothes.

“It’s dark out,” I said. “It’s the middle of the night.”

“Technically it’s more the middle of the morning. Get dressed. I have coffee downstairs.”

“I don’t want coffee. I want to go back to bed.”

“I have an early meeting, and I need to drop you off at Rangeman.”

“I don’t need Rangeman. There’s no deli. It’s over.”

“It isn’t over. Five men are missing, and a man is dead. The dead man wasn’t on-site at the deli.”

“Leonard Skoogie and Ernie Sitz were college roommates.”

“Yes. And they were business partners.”

“Did you get prints off Skoogie’s shoe?”

“Waggle’s prints were on the shoe. I’m not supposed to be telling you any of this.”

“No problem. I’m too tired to remember.”

Twenty minutes later I stumbled into Rangeman and took the elevator to Ranger’s apartment. I shuffled to his bedroom, kicked my shoes off, and stretched out on his bed. I was instantly asleep, and when I finally opened my eyes Ranger was standing at bedside. I felt like Goldilocks in baby bear’s bed.

“I’m not a morning person,” I said.

Ranger was grinning. “You smell like fried Spam.”

“It’s in my hair. I can’t get it out.” I looked over at the window. The curtains were still drawn. “What time is it?”

“It’s almost ten o’clock. I want to make a run to the deli and check on the damage.”

I swung my legs over the side of the bed, stood, and straightened my shirt. “Morelli said Waggle’s prints were on the Skoogie shoe. Does that mean anything to you?”

“It’s another piece of information that will eventually make sense.”

I followed him out of his apartment and down to the garage. We drove to the deli and parked. A single fire truck was still in the street plus a couple cop cars. I didn’t see Morelli. There was a lot of debris on the sidewalk. Greasy runoff filled the gutters, and the air was heavy with the smell of smoke and soggy upholstery. The soot-stained building was cordoned off with crime scene tape.

“Are your men still in place?” I asked Ranger.

“No. I pulled them last night.”

I saw two forlorn figures standing in the shadow of the fire truck. Raymond and Stretch. I waved and walked over to them.

“This is a shambles,” Raymond said. “And it is a tragedy that my green card was destroyed in the fire.”

“That’s your story?”

“I will swear to it,” Raymond said.

“I guess you’ll be looking for other jobs.”

“No problem there,” Stretch said. “There are always jobs for line cooks.”

“You will have to travel to see your honey,” Raymond said to Stretch.

“There are always other honeys,” Stretch said.

“That is a good, positive attitude,” Raymond said. “It is the presence of a good purveyor that most worries me. I will first try to find employment in an establishment serviced by Frankie.”

“Freakin’ A,” Stretch said.

Vinnie’s Cadillac jerked to a stop behind the fire truck, and Vinnie lunged out of the car.

“Shit!” Vinnie said, staring at the blackened hull that used to be the deli. “Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit!”

“Who is this vulgar man?” Raymond asked. “That is a lot of shit even for Jersey.”

“He works for the guy who owns the deli,” I said. “He’s my boss.”

Vinnie spotted me and rushed over, arms waving, eyes bulging.

“You were supposed to manage,” he yelled at me. “This isn’t managing! Does this look like managing? No! This looks like Harry’s investment turned into a smoking turd. Harry’s gonna crap himself. And then he’s gonna kill me. And it’s all your fault. I put you in charge, and you burned the deli down to the ground! You’re a walking clusterfuck.”

Ranger moved into Vinnie’s range of vision and Vinnie stopped in mid-rant. Everyone knew I was under Ranger’s protection, and the possibility of angering Ranger was even more frightening than angering Harry.

“Maybe I got carried away,” Vinnie said. “I mean, we’re family, right? Anyway, you probably did me a favor. We had this pain-in-the-ass rat’s nest overinsured.”