And now wine at my apartment and beer at Shorty’s.”
“I don’t drink when I’m working. And I don’t get drunk. And the body is only a temple four days a week.”
“Wow,” I said, “you’re going to hell in a handbasket, eating pizza and boozing it up three days a week. I thought I noticed a little extra fat around the middle.”
Ranger raised an eyebrow. “A little extra fat around the middle. Anything else?”
“Maybe the beginnings of a double chin.”
Truth is, Ranger didn’t have fat anywhere. Ranger was perfect. And we both knew it. He drank some beer and studied me. “Don’t you think you’re taking a chance, baiting me, when I’m the only thing standing between you and the guy at the bar with the snake tattooed on his forehead?”
I looked at the guy with the snake. “He seems like a nice guy.” Nice for a homicidal maniac.
Ranger smiled. “He works for me.”
12
THE SUN WAS setting when we got back to the car.
“That was possibly the best pizza I’ve ever had,” I said to Ranger. “Overall, it was a frightening experience, but the pizza was great.”
“Shorty makes it himself.”
“Does Shorty work for you, too?”
“Yeah. He caters all my cocktail parties.”
More Ranger humor. At least, I was pretty sure it was humor.
**********************
RANGER REACHED HAMILTON Avenue and glanced over at me. “Where are you staying tonight?”
“My parents’ house.”
He turned into the Burg. “I’ll have Tank drop a car off for you. You can use it until you replace the CR-V. Or until you destroy it.”
“Where do you get all these cars from?”
“You don’t actually want to know, do you?”
I took a beat to think about it. “No,” I said. “I don’t suppose I do. If I knew, you’d have to kill me, right?”
“Something like that.”
He stopped in front of my parents’ house, and we both looked to the door. My mother and my grandmother were standing there, watching us.
“I’m not sure I feel comfortable about the way your grandma looks at me,” Ranger said.
“She wants to see you naked.”
“I wish you hadn’t told me that, babe.”
“Everyone I know wants to see you naked.”
“And you?”
“Never crossed my mind.” I held my breath when I said it, and I hoped God didn’t strike me down dead for lying. I hopped out of the car and ran inside.
Grandma Mazur was waiting for me in the foyer. “The darnedest thing happened this afternoon,” she said. “I was walking home from the bakery, and a car pulled up alongside me. And there was a rabbit in it. He was
