“Doesn’t always play by the rules.”
“Oh.”
“Like Clint Eastwood in that Dirty Harry movie,” Connie said. “You don’t have a problem with Clint Eastwood, do you?”
She punched a number on her speed dial, connected with Manoso’s pager, and left a call-back message. “Not to worry,” she said, smiling. “This guy’ll tell you everything you need to know.”
An hour later, I sat across from Manoso in a downtown cafe. His straight black hair was slicked back in a ponytail. His biceps looked like they’d been carved out of granite and buffed up with Armour-all. He was around 5’10“ with a muscular neck and a don’t-mess-with-me body. I placed him in his late twenties.
He leaned back and grinned. “Sooooo, Connie says I’m supposed to make you into a badass fugitive apprehension agent. She says you need to get the crash course. What’s the rush?”
“You see the brown Nova at the curb?”
His eyes swiveled to the front window. “Un huh.”
“That’s my car.”
He gave an almost imperceptible nod. “So you need money. Anything else?”
“Personal reasons.”
“Bond enforcement is dangerous business. Those personal reasons better be pretty fucking good.”
“What are your reasons for doing this?”
He did a palms up gesture. “It’s what I do best.”
Good answer, I thought. More eloquent than mine. “Maybe someday I’ll be good at this too. Right now my motive is steady employment.”
“Vinnie give you a skip?”
“Joseph Morelli.”
He tipped his head back and laughed, and the sound boomed off the walls of the little sandwich shop. “Oh, man! Are you kidding me? You aren’t gonna get that dude. This isn’t some street punk you’re going after. This guy’s smart. And he’s good. You know what I’m telling you?”
“Connie says you’re good.”
“There’s me, and then there’s you, and you aren’t ever gonna be as good as me, Sweet Thing.”
At the best of times my patience was lacking, and this wasn’t nearly the best of times. “Let me make my position clear to you,” I said, leaning forward. “I’m out of work. I’ve had my car repossessed, my refrigerator is empty I’m going to get kicked out of my apartment, and my feet don’t fit in these shoes. I haven’t got a lot of energy to waste socializing. Are you going to help me or what?”
Manoso grinned. “This is gonna be fun. This here’s gonna be like Professor Higgins and Eliza Doolittle Does Trenton.”
“What do I call you?” I asked him.
“My street name. Ranger.”
He reached across the table and took the paperwork I’d brought. He scanned the bond agreement. “You do anything on this yet? You check out his apartment?”
“He wasn’t there, but I got lucky and found him in an apartment on State Street. I got there just as he was leaving.”
“And?”
“He left.”
“Shit,” Ranger said. “Didn’t anybody tell you that you were supposed to stop him?”
“I asked him to come to the police station with me, but he said he didn’t want to.”
Another bark of laughter. “I don’t suppose you’ve got a gun?”
“You think I should get one?”
“Might be a good idea,” he said, still beaming. He finished reading the bond agreement. “Morelli offed a guy named Ziggy Kulesza. Used his personal piece to put a .45 hydroshock between Ziggy’s eyes at close range.” Ranger glanced up at me. “You know anything about guns?”
“I know I don’t like them.”
“A .45 hydroshock goes in nice and neat, but when it comes out it makes a hole the size of a potato. You end up with brains all over the place. Ziggy’s head probably exploded like an egg in a microwave.”
“Gee, I’m glad you shared that with me.”
His smile lit up the room. “I figured you’d want to know.” He tipped back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest. “You know any of the background on this case?”
“According to newspaper articles Morty Beyers clipped to the bond agreement, the shooting took place late at night a little over a month ago in an apartment building on Shaw. Morelli was off duty and had gone to visit Carmen Sanchez. Morelli claimed Carmen had called him concerning a police matter, that he’d responded, and that when he got to Carmen’s apartment, Ziggy Kulesza answered the door and drew on him. Morelli claimed he shot Ziggy in self-defense.
“Carmen’s neighbors told a different story. Several of them rushed into the hall at the sound of gunfire and
