told myself. At least it was running. And today was the day it was all going to turn around. I was going after Diggery first and then Coglin. And then I was going to plow through the rest of the cases.
I took Broad and headed for Bordentown. It was just past rush hour, and traffic was heavy but moving. The cloud cover had finally lifted and the sky was as blue as it gels in Jersey. I was on Route 206, cruising along, listening to the radio, when the grinding sound coining from under the hood turned into BANG, BANG, BANG and the car coasted to a stop at the side of the road. It wasn't entirely unexpected, but it left me breathless all the same. Another example that sugar isn't pixie dust, and wish as hard as you might, it won't make you invisible.
I was sitting there trying to keep from crying, running through my options, and Ranger called.
'Babe, you're stopped on Route 206. What's up?'
I remembered the gizmo in my bag. RangeMan was monitoring me. 'My car died.'
Fifteen minutes later, I looked in my rearview mirror and saw Ranger pull in behind me. He got out of his car and into mine. Ranger didn't smile a lot, but clearly he was amused.
'I don't know how you do it,' Ranger said. 'In a matter of days, you've managed to turn a perfectly good piece-of-shit car into something so fucked up it's a work of art.'
'It's a gift.'
'The bullet hole in the rear window?'
'Joyce Barnhardt,' I told him. 'She's unhappy with me because she thinks I killed Dickie.'
'And the crud on the dash?'
'Squirrel bomb.'
He looked incredulous for a moment and then burst out laughing. In all the time I'd known Ranger, this was maybe the third time I'd seen him actually laugh out loud, so it turned out to be worth getting squirrel- bombed.
Ranger dropped back to a smile and tugged me out of the car. He kicked the door closed, slung an arm around my shoulders, and walked me back to his Porsche Cayenne. 'Where were you going?' he asked.
'I'm looking for Simon Diggery,' I said. ' I stopped by his double-wide on Tuesday, but no one was home. I thought I'd try again.'
Ranger opened the Cayenne door for me. 'I'll go with you. If we're lucky, we might get to see his snake eat a cow.'
I looked back at the Vic. 'What about my car?'
'I'll have it picked up.'
Ranger didn't bother parking out of sight of Diggery's trailer. He drove the Cayenne onto the blighted grass and pulled up between the trailer and the stand of hardwoods. We got out of the Porsche, and he gave me his gun.
'Stay here and shoot anyone who makes a run for it, including the snake.'
'How do you know I don't have my own gun?'
'Do you?'
'No.'
Ranger did another one of those almost sighing things and jogged around to Diggery's front door. I heard him rap on the door and call out. There was the sound of the rusted door opening and closing and then silence. I held my ground.
After a couple minutes, Ranger reappeared and motioned for me to join him.
'Simon is off somewhere, but the uncle is here. And stay away from the sink,' Ranger said.
I gave him his gun back, followed him into the trailer, and immediately checked out the kitchen area. The snake was sprawled on the counter, its head in the sink. I guess it was thirsty. The uncle was at the small built-in table.
The uncle wasn't much older than Simon Diggery, and the family resemblance was there, blurred over a little by hard drinking and an extra fifty pounds. He was wearing black socks and ratty bedroom slippers and huge boxer shorts.
'Give you a quarter if you pull your shirt up,' Bill Diggery said to me.
' Ill give you a quarter if you put your shirt on,' I told him.
Ranger was against the wall, watching Diggery. 'Where's Simon?' Ranger asked.
'Don't know,' Bill said.
'Think about it,' Ranger told him.
'He might be at work.'
'Where is he working?'
'Don't know.'
Ranger's eyes flicked to the snake and back to Bill. 'Has he been fed today?'
'He don't eat every day,' Bill said. 'He probably ain't hungry.'
'Steph,' Ranger said. 'Wait outside so I can talk to Bill.'
'You aren't going to feed him to the snake, are you?'
'Not all of him.'
'As long as it's not all of him,' I said. And I let myself out.
I closed the door and waited for a couple minutes. I didn't hear any screams of pain or terror. No gunshots. I hunkered down in my jacket and shoved my hands into my pockets to keep warm. A couple more minutes passed, and Ranger came out, closing the door behind him.
'Well?' I asked.
'Simon is working in the food court at Quakerbridge Mall. Bill didn't know more than that.'
'Did you feed Uncle Bill to the snake?'
'No. He was right… the snake wasn't hungry.'
'Then how did you get him to talk?'
Ranger slid an arm around me, and I felt his lips brush my ear when he spoke. 'I can be very persuasive.'
No kidding.
Quakerbridge is on Route One, northeast of Trenton. It seemed like a long way for Diggery to drive for an odd job in a food court, but what the heck, maybe Diggery was lucky to get it. And maybe he had a better car than I did. That thought brought me up to a sobering reality. Diggery for sure had a better car than I did because I had no car at all.
Ranger drove out of Diggery's neighborhood and headed north. We were on Route 206, and I was dreading the section of highway where I'd left the Vic. I didn't want to see the poor, sad, broken-down car. It was a reminder of what was wrong with my life. Crappy job, hand-to-mouth existence, no future I was willing to commit to. If it was June and the sun was shining, I might feel different, but it was cold and the clouds had returned and a mist had started to fall.
'I need macaroni and cheese,' I said to Ranger, clapping my hands over my eyes. 'I promised myself French fries, jelly doughnuts, birthday cake… and I never got them.'
'I have a better way to make you happy,' Ranger said. 'Less fattening but more addicting.'
'Pharmaceuticals?'
'Sex. And you can open your eyes. The Vic's gone.'
'Gone where?'
'Car heaven.'
Twenty minutes later, Ranger stopped at a light on Broad, and his cell buzzed. He answered on a Bluetooth earpiece and listened for a couple minutes, his mood somber, his expression not showing anything. He thanked the caller and disconnected.
'They found the accountant, Ziggy Zabar,' Ranger said. 'He washed ashore about a quarter mile south of the Ferry Street Bridge. He was identified by a credit card and a medic alert bracelet for a heart condition.'
Ranger parked behind the medical examiners truck, and we walked the distance to the crime scene. It was turning into a miserable day and the weather was holding the crowd down. Only a few hardy photographers and reporters. No gawkers. A handful of uniforms, a couple plainclothes guys. An EMS team that looked like they wanted to be somewhere else. No one I recognized. We ducked under the yellow tape and found Tank.
Tank is Rangers next in command and his shadow. No need to describe him. His name says it all. He was dressed in RangeMan black, and he looked impervious to the weather.
Tank was with Ziggy Zabar s brother, Zip, also in Range-Man black, his face stoic, his posture rigid.
