“The frigging door won’t open,” I said.
“I’ll send Hector.”
“No! I can’t understand Hector. I can’t talk to him.” And he scares the bejeezus out of me.
Twenty minutes later, I was sitting in the hall with my back to the wall, and Ranger and Hector showed up.
“What’s wrong?” Ranger asked.
“The door won’t open.”
“Probably just a programming glitch. Do you have the keypad?”
I dropped the keypad into his hand.
Ranger and Hector looked down at the keypad. They looked up at each other, exchanged raised eyebrows, and smiled.
“I think I see the problem,” Ranger said. “Someone’s shot the shit out of this keypad.”
He turned it over in his hand. “At least you were able to hit it. Nice to know the target practice paid off.”
“I’m good at close range.”
It took Hector twenty seconds to open my door and ten minutes to remove the sensors.
“Let me know if you want the system put back in,” Ranger said.
“I appreciate the thought, but I’d rather walk blindfolded into an apartment filled with alligators.”
“Do you want to try your luck with another car? We could raise the stakes. I could give you a Porsche.”
“Tempting, but no. I’m expecting an insurance check tomorrow. As soon as I get it, I’ll have Lula drive me to a dealer.”
Ranger and Hector took off, and I locked myself into my apartment. I’d worked out a lot of aggression shooting the keypad, and I felt much more mellow now. My heart was only skipping a beat once in a while, and the eye twitch was hardly noticeable. I ate the last lump of frozen cookie dough. It wasn’t a Tastykake, but it was pretty good, all the same. I zapped the television on and found a hockey game.
**********************
“UH-OH,” LULA SAID the next morning. “Was that a taxi that brought you to the office? What happened to Ranger’s car?”
“It burned up.”
“Say what?”
“And my bag was in it. I need to go shopping for a new handbag.”
“I’m the woman for the job,” Lula said. “What time is it? Are the stores open yet?”
It was ten o’clock, Monday morning. The stores were open. I’d reported my melted credit cards. I was ready to roll.
“Hold on,” Connie said. “What about the filing?”
“The filing’s just about all done,” Lula said. She took a stack of files and shoved them into a drawer. “Anyway, we aren’t gonna be long. Stephanie always gets the same boring bag. She goes straight to the Coach counter and gets one of them big-ass black leather shoulder bags, and that’s the end of that.”
“Turns out that my driver’s license burned up, too,” I said. “I was hoping you might also give me a ride to the DMV.”
Connie did a big eye roll. “Go.”
