High Five

'That'd be a good story to tell at the beauty parlor.'

I was starting to wonder why I hadn't received a call from Ranger. It wasn't like him not to get back to me right away. I set my shoulder bag on my lap and pawed through the clutter, looking for my cell phone.

'What are you looking for?' Grandma asked.

'My cell phone. I've got so much junk in my bag I can never find anything.' I started pulling stuff out and setting it on the table. Can of hairspray, hairbrush, zippered makeup pouch, flashlight, minibinoculars, Ranger's license plates, bottle of nail polish, stun gun . . .

Grandma leaned over the table to take a better look. 'What's that thing?'

'Stun gun,' I said.

'What's it do?'

'It emits an electrical charge.'

My father forked in more ham, focusing his concentration on his plate.

Grandma got out of her seat and came around to examine the stun gun. 'What do you do with this?' she wanted to know, picking it up and studying it. 'How does it work?'

I was still rooting through my bag. 'You press the metal prongs against someone and push the button,' I said.

'Stephanie,' my mother said, 'take that away from your grandmother before she electrocutes herself.'

'Aha!' I said, finding my cell phone. I pulled it out and looked at it. Dead battery. No wonder Ranger hadn't called.

'Look, Frank,' my grandmother said to my father, 'did you ever see anything like this? Stephanie says you just stick it against someone and push the button . . .'

My mother and I both jumped out of our seats. 'No!'

Too late. Grandma had the prongs pressed against my father's arm. Zzzzzt.

My father's eyes glazed over, a piece of ham fell out of his mouth, and he crashed to the floor.

'He must have had a heart attack,' Grandma said, looking down at my father. 'I told him and told him, he uses too much gravy.'

'It's the stun gun!' I yelled at her. 'That's what happens when you use a stun gun on someone!'

Grandma bent down for a closer look. 'Did I kill him?'

My mother was on her knees alongside my grandmother. 'Frank?' she shouted. 'Can you hear me, Frank?'

I took his pulse. 'He's okay,' I said. 'Grandma just scrambled some brain cells. It's not permanent. He'll be good as new in a couple minutes.'

My father opened an eye and farted.

'Oops,' Grandma said. 'Someone must have stepped on a duck.'

We all backed away and fanned the air.

'I have a nice chocolate cake for dessert,' my mother said.

I used my parents' phone in the kitchen and left a new message on Ranger's machine. 'Sorry about my cell phone. The battery conked out. I'll be home in about a half-hour. I need to talk to you.' Then I called Mary Lou and asked her to give me a lift home. I didn't think it was such a good idea to ask my dad to drive so soon after getting zapped. And I didn't want my mom to take me and leave my grandmother and father alone in the house together. And first and foremost, I didn't want to be there when my father went nuts at Grandma Mazur.

'I've been dying to hear from you,' Mary Lou said when she picked me up. 'What happened with Morelli last night?'

'Not a lot. We talked about the case he's working on, and then he took me home.'

'That's it?'

'Pretty much.'

'No fooling around?'

'Nope.'

'So let me get this straight. Last night you were with the two sexiest men in the entire world, and you didn't score with either one of them?'

'There are other things in this life besides scoring with men,' I said.

'Like what?'

'I could score with myself.'

'You could go blind doing that.'

'No! I mean, I could feel good about myself. You know, like when you do a job and it turns out excellent. Or when you set a moral standard for yourself and stick to it.'

Mary Lou gave me the open-mouth, wrinkled-nose, this-is-a-load-of-bullshit look. 'What?'

'Well, okay, so I've never had any of those things happen, but they could!'