bathroom and brushed my teeth and returned to bed.
The phone rang, and I heard the machine snap on. I sat up and listened. The caller crooned to me, half song, half whisper. “Stephanie,” he chanted. “Stephanie.”
My hand instinctively went to my mouth. It was a reflex action designed to control a scream in primal man, but the scream had been bred out of me. What was left was a quick intake of air. Part gasp, part sob.
“You shouldn’t have hung up, bitch,” he said. “You missed the best part. You gotta know what the champ can do, so you can look forward to it.”
I ran to the kitchen, but before I could disconnect the machine, the woman came on the line. She sounded young. Her words were barely audible, thick with tears and trembling with the effort of speech. “It was g-g-good,” she said. Her voice broke. “Oh God help me, I’m hurt. I’m hurt something awful.”
The connection was severed, and I immediately called the police. I explained the tape and told them it was originating with Ramirez. I gave them Ramirez’s home address. I gave them my number if they wanted to institute a call trace. I hung up and padded around the apartment, triple-checking locked doors and windows, thankful that I’d had the dead bolt installed.
The phone rang, and the machine answered. No one came on the line, but I could feel the vibrations of evil and insanity pulsing in the silence. He was out there, listening, savoring the contact, trying to get a bead on my fear. Far off, almost too faint to discern, I heard a woman softly crying. I ripped the phone plug out of the wall jack, splintering the little plastic clip, and then I threw up in the sink. Thank God for garbage disposals.
I AWOKE AT DAYBREAK, relieved to have the night behind me. The rain had stopped. It was too early for bird chatter. There were no cars traveling St. James. It was as if the world was holding its breath, waiting for the sun to burst upon the horizon.
The phone call replayed in my mind. I didn’t need the recorder to remember the message. The good, sensible Stephanie wanted to file for a restraining order. Stephanie the neophyte bounty hunter was still worried about credibility and respect. I could hardly go running to the police every time I was threatened and then expect them to accept me as an equal. I was on record for requesting help for the abused woman on my tape. I thought about it for a while, and I decided to leave it at that for now.
Later in the day I’d give Jimmy Alpha a call.
I’d intended to ask Ranger to take me to the firing range, but since he was recovering from the gunshot wound I would have to lay the burden on Eddie Gazarra. I glanced at the clock again. Gazarra should be at work. I dialed the station and left a message for a call back.
I dressed in T-shirt and shorts and laced up my running shoes. Running isn’t one of my favorite activities, but it was time to get serious about the job, and keeping in shape seemed like part of it.
“Go for it,” I said by way of a pep talk.
I trotted down the hall, the stairs, through the front door. I heaved a large sigh of resignation and pushed off on my three-mile route, mapped out with great care to avoid hills and bakeries.
I slogged through the first mile, and then it got really bad. I’m not one of those people who find their stride. My body was not designed to run. My body was designed to sit in an expensive car and drive. I was sweating and breathing hard when I turned the corner and saw my building half a block away. So near and yet so far. I sprinted the last piece as best I could. I came to a ragged stop at the door and bent at the waist, waiting for my vision to clear, feeling so fucking healthy I could hardly stand myself.
Eddie Gazarra pulled up to the curb in a patrol car. “I got your message,” he said. “Jesus, you look like shit.”
“I’ve been running.”
“Maybe you should check with a doctor.”
“It’s my fair skin. It flushes easily. Did you hear about Ranger?”
“Only every detail. You’re a real hot topic. I even know what you were wearing when you came in with Dodd. I take it your T-shirt was real wet. I mean real wet.”
“When you first started out as a cop, were you afraid of your gun?”
“I’ve been around guns most of my life. I had an air rifle when I was a kid, and I used to go hunting with my dad and my Uncle Walt. I guess guns were always just another piece of hardware to me.”
“If I decide to keep working for Vinnie, you think it’s necessary for me to carry a gun?”
“It depends what kind of cases you take. If you’re just doing skip tracing, no. If you’re going after crazies, yes. Do you have a gun?”
“Smith and Wesson .38. Ranger gave me about ten minutes of instruction on it, but I don’t feel comfortable. Would you be willing to baby-sit me while I do some target practice?”
“You’re serious about this, aren’t you?”
“There’s no other way to be.”
He nodded. “I heard about your phone call last night.”
“Anything come of it?”
“Dispatch sent someone out, but by the time they got there Ramirez was alone. Said he didn’t call you. Nothing came in from the woman, but you can register a harassment charge.”
“I’ll think about it.”
I waved him off and huffed and puffed my way up the stairs. I let myself into my apartment, dug out an auxiliary phone cord, put a new tape in the answering machine, and took a shower. It was Sunday. Vinnie had given me a week, and the week was up. I didn’t care. Vinnie could give the file to someone else, but he couldn’t stop me from dogging Morelli. If someone else bagged him before I did, that was the breaks, but until that happened I intended to keep at it.
Gazarra had agreed to meet me at the pistol range behind Sunny’s Gun Shop when he got off work at four
