I scooted to one side of the candy shop’s front door, pressing myself against the brick front. I had fairly good vision through the window, into the store, and I was in a good position to nab Uncle Mo if he bolted for Ferris Street.
A dog barked in the distance. It was the only sound in the sleeping neighborhood. Ranger was undoubtedly at the back door, but there was no indication of entry or capture. My stomach was clenched in anticipation. I had my lower lip caught between my teeth. Minutes passed. Suddenly the store was flooded with light. I inched to the window and looked inside. I could clearly see Ranger in the back hall. No one else was visible.
Ranger was opening doors just as I had done days ago. He was looking for Mo, and in my gut I knew he wouldn’t find him. Mo had slipped away. And it was all my fault. I should have moved sooner. I shouldn’t have waited for Ranger.
I turned at the sound of labored breathing and almost collided with Mo. His face was shadowed, but the shadows did little to hide his annoyance.
“You blocked my car,” he said. “And now your cohort is nosing around in my store. You keep this up, and you’ll ruin everything!”
“You failed to show for your court appearance. I don’t know why you decided to run, but it’s not a good idea. You should let me drive you to the police station to reschedule.”
“I’m not ready. It’s too soon. You’ll have to talk to my lawyer.”
“You have a lawyer?”
“Yes.” His eyes locked onto Ranger’s Beemer. The door was open, and the keys dangled from the ignition. “Ohhh,” he said. “This will do nicely.”
“Oh no. Not a good idea.”
His mouth tipped up at the corners into an ironic smile. “It looks like the Batmobile.”
“It’s not the Batmobile. Batman doesn’t drive a BMW. And I can’t let you go driving off in it. You’re going to have to come with me.”
Mo was carrying a plastic bag in one hand and a bear-sized can of pepper spray in the other. He narrowed his eyes and pointed the can at me. “Don’t make me use this.”
I’d seen people get sprayed. It wasn’t fun. “Bond is the one in the BMW,” I told him. “Happy driving.”
“Bond,” he repeated. “Of course.”
And then he took off.
Ranger rounded the corner at a run and stopped short in the middle of the sidewalk, watching the Beemer’s taillights disappear into the night. “Mo?”
I nodded and pulled my collar tight to my neck.
“Probably there’s a good reason why you didn’t take him down.”
“His can of pepper spray was bigger than my can of pepper spray.”
We stood there for a few more minutes, squinting into the mist, but Ranger’s car didn’t reappear.
“I’m going to have to kill him,” Ranger said, his voice matter-of-fact.
I thought Ranger might be kidding, but then again…maybe not.
I’d once asked Ranger how he could afford such expensive cars, and he said he’d made some good investments. I wasn’t sure what he meant by that. A money market account seemed a little tame for Ranger. If I had to venture a guess on the contents of Ranger’s portfolio, I’d lean toward running guns to well-connected foreign gunmongers.
“Find anything unusual in the store?” I asked Ranger. Like a dead body.
“Nothing. He must have seen you on the street. Didn’t even take the time to make sure the back door was closed. Just cleared out of there.”
I filled Ranger in on Cameron Brown and the RiverEdge while we walked back to my car. Then I told him about Jackie seeing Mo on Montgomery Street, coming out of the apartment building. I told Ranger how I’d staked the building out but hadn’t come up with anything.
Ranger looked at my bedraggled hair and at the red flannel nightgown hanging under my jacket. “Who are you supposed to be?”
“I was in a hurry.”
“You’re going to give bounty hunters a bad name you go around looking like that.”
I unlocked the passenger door for Ranger, climbed behind the wheel and cranked the engine over. “Where to?”
“Montgomery Street.”
That would have been my choice too. I’d listened to the BMW drive away. It had gone southeast, toward Montgomery.
“Nobody home,” Ranger said, after walking the underground lot.
“We could wait.”
“Babe, I don’t know how to break this to you, but we’re not exactly inconspicuous. Doing surveillance in this car is like trying to hide a whale in a jelly jar.”
Fine by me. I was cold and wet and tired. I wanted to go home and crawl into my nice warm bed and sleep until July.
