High Five

set the sensors. If there's motion under the car the alarm sounds and the red light on the dash stays lit. Unfortunately, the car doesn't know the difference between a cat, a baseball, and a bomb, so if the light is flashing you have to do some investigating. Not perfect, but better than stepping on the accelerator and being turned into confetti. Probably it's not necessary. It's unlikely someone would try to blow you up twice.' He handed the remote over to me and explained the rest of the security system.

'Just like James Bond,' I said.

'You have plans for the day?'

'I need to call Morelli and see if the guy who delayed me at RGC, Mark Stemper, turned up. Then I suppose I'll do my rounds. Visit Mabel. Check in at the office. Harass the garbage people.' Keep my eyes peeled for Ramirez. Have my head examined.

'Somebody out there's feeling real cranky because you're not dead. You might want to wear your vest.'

I watched him drive away, and before I went into the building I armed the car. I finished up the game with Briggs, took a shower, shook my head with the hopes it would style my hair, and applied mascara so people would notice my eyes and not pay too close attention to the rest of me.

I scrambled an egg and ate it with a glass of orange juice and a multivitamin. A healthy breakfast to start the day off right—just in case I lived through the morning.

I decided Ranger might have a good idea about the vest. It made me sort of flat-chested, but then, what didn't? I was wearing jeans and boots and a T-shirt with the vest Velcroed tight to my body. I buttoned a navy flannel shirt over the vest and thought it didn't look too bad.

There were no bomb alert lights flashing when I got to the car, so I slid behind the wheel feeling secure. My parents' house was first on the visitation list. I thought it wouldn't hurt to have a cup of coffee and catch up on the latest rumors.

Grandma appeared at the door the minute I swerved in to the curb. 'Boy, that's a pip of a car,' she said, watching me angle out and set the security system. 'What kind of car is it?'

'It's a BMW.'

'We just read in the paper where you had a Porsche, and it got blown up. Your mother's in the bathroom taking an aspirin.'

I ran up the porch stairs two at a time. 'It was in the paper?'

'Yeah, only they didn't have a picture of you, like usual. They just had a picture of the car. Boy, it looked flat as a pancake.'

Great. 'Did they say anything else?'

'They called you the Bombshell Bounty Hunter.'

Maybe I needed an aspirin too. I dropped my shoulder bag on a kitchen chair and reached for the paper on the table. Oh, God, it was on the front page.

'The paper said the police were pretty sure it was a bomb,' Grandma said. 'Only after the garbage truck fell on the car I guess they had a hard time figuring out what was what.'

My mother came into the kitchen. 'Whose car is that parked in front of our house?'

'That's Stephanie's new car,' Grandma said. 'Isn't it a pip?'

One of my mother's eyebrows raised in question. 'Two new cars? Where are these cars coming from?'

'Company cars,' I said.

'Oh?'

'Anal sex is not involved,' I told her.

My mother and grandmother both gasped.

'Sorry,' I said. 'It just slipped out.'

'I thought only homosexual men did anal sex,' Grandma said.

'Anybody with an anus can do it,' I told her.

'Hmm,' she said. 'I got one of them.'

I poured a cup of coffee and sat at the table. 'So what's new?'

Grandma got coffee and sat across from me. 'Harriet Mullen had a baby boy. They had to do a C-section on her at the last minute, but everything turned out okay. And Mickey Szajak died. Guess it was about time.'

'Are you hearing anything these days about Vito Grizolli?'

'I saw him at the meat market last week, and I thought he'd put on some weight.'

'How's he doing financially?'

'I hear he's making big money on that cleaning business. And I saw Vivien driving a new Buick.'

Vivien was Vito's wife. She was sixty-five, wore fake eyelashes, and dyed her hair bright red because that's the way Vito liked it. Anyone who voiced a critical opinion got fitted with cement booties and accidentally took a dive into the Delaware River.

'I don't suppose there are any rumors going around about First Trenton.'

My mother and grandmother both looked up from their coffee.

'The bank?' my mother asked. 'Why do you want to know about the bank?'