'You mean like heels and stockings?'
'I mean like a thirty-eight S and W.'
'I suppose you want me to meet you somewhere.'
'I'm in an alley at the corner of West Lincoln and Jackson.' Jackson ran for about two miles, skirting junkyards, the old abandoned Jackson Pipe factory, and a ragged assortment of bars and rooming houses. It was an area of town so intensely depressed, it was deemed unworthy even of gang graffiti. Few cars traveled the second mile, beyond the pipe factory. Streetlights had been shot out and never replaced, fires were a common occurrence, leaving more and more buildings blackened and boarded, and discarded drug paraphernalia clogged garbage-filled gutters. I gingerly took my gun out of the brown bear cookie jar and checked to make sure it was loaded. I slid it into my pocketbook, along with the KitKat, tucked my hair under my Rangers hat so I'd look androgynous, and crammed myself back into my jacket. At least I was giving up a date with Bill Murray for a good cause. Most likely Ranger had a line on either Kenny or the caskets. If Ranger needed help with the takedown on someone he was personally tracking he wouldn't call me. If you gave Ranger fifteen minutes he could assemble a team that would make the invasion of Kuwait look like a kindergarten exercise. Needless to say, I wasn't at the head of his commando-for-hire list. I wasn't even on the bottom of it.
I felt fairly safe driving down Jackson in the Buick. Anyone desperate enough to carjack Big Blue would probably be too stupid to pull it off. I figured I didn't even have to worry about a drive-by shooting. It's hard for a person to aim a gun when he's laughing. Ranger drove a black Mercedes sports car when he wasn't expecting to transport felons. When it was hunting season, he came loaded for bear in a black Ford Bronco. I spotted the Bronco in the alley, and I feared the contents of my intestines would liquefy at the possibility of snagging someone on Jackson Street. I parked directly in front of Ranger and cut my lights, watching him come forward from the shadows.
'Something happen to the Jeep?' he asked.
'Stolen.'
'Word is there's going to be a gun deal going down tonight. Military weapons with hard-toget ammo. The guy with the goods is supposed to be white.'
'Kenny!'
'Maybe. Thought we should take a look. My source tells me there's gonna be a yard sale at two-seventy Jackson. That's the house facing us with the broken front window.' I squinted at the street. A rusted Bonneville sat up on blocks two houses down from 270. The rest of the world was empty of life. All houses were dark.
'We're not interested in busting up this business deal,' Ranger said. 'We're going to stay here and be nice and quiet and try to get a look at the white guy. If it's Kenny, we'll follow him.'
'It's pretty dark to make an identification.'
Ranger handed me a pair of binoculars. 'Night scope.'
Of course.
We were heading into the second hour of waiting when a panel van cruised down Jackson. Seconds later the van reappeared and parked.
I trained the scope on the driver. 'He seems to be white,' I told Ranger, 'but he's wearing a ski mask. I can't see him.'
A BMW sedan slid into place behind the van. Four brothers got out of the BMW and walked to the van. Ranger had his window down, and the sound of the side door to the van swinging open carried across the street to the alley. Voices were muffled. Someone laughed. Minutes passed. One of the brothers shuffled between the van and the Beemer carrying a large wooden box. He popped the trunk, stored the box, returned to the van, and repeated the procedure with a second wooden box.
Suddenly the door to the house with the car on blocks crashed open and cops bolted out, yelling instructions, guns drawn, running for the Beemer. A police car barreled down the street and swerved to a stop. The four brothers scattered. Shots were fired. The van revved up and jumped away from the curb.
'Don't lose sight of the van,' Ranger shouted, sprinting back to the Bronco. 'I'll be right behind you.'
I slammed the Buick into drive and pressed my foot to the floor. I shot out of the alley as the van roared past, and realized too late that the van was being pursued by another car. There was a lot of screeching tires and cussing on my part, and the car in pursuit bounced off the Buick with a good solid whump. A little red flasher popped off the roof of the car and sailed away into the night like a shooting star. I'd hardly felt the impact, but the other car, which I assumed was a cop car, had been propelled a good fifteen feet. I saw the van's taillights disappearing down the street and debated following. Probably not a good idea, I decided. Might not look good to leave the scene after trashing one of Trenton's finest unmarked.
I was fishing in my pocketbook, looking for my driver's license, when the door was opened and I was yanked out and onto my feet by none other than Joe Morelli. We stared at each other in openmouthed astonishment for a beat, barely able to believe our eyes.
