Lean Mean Thirteen

'I could swear I hear television.'

'Bob's watching a movie.'

I hung up and looked at Ranger.

'No,' Ranger said.

'You don't even know what I was going to ask.'

'You were going to ask me to fill in for Morelli at dinner.'

'Roast chicken.'

'You'll have to come up with something better than roast chicken.'

'Do you have dinner plans?'

'Are you going to nag me on this?'

'Yes.'

'What happened to the Stephanie who thought I was mysterious and scary?'

'Gone.'

Actually, that wasn't entirely true. Ranger was still mysterious and scary at times-just not today, just not compared to my mother and grandmother.

Ranger parked in the driveway behind my father's Buick. 'We need to be out of here at seven-thirty. If you tell Tank I did this, I'll chain you naked to the traffic light on Hamilton and Broad. And I'll shoot your grandmother if she grabs me.'

I was pretty sure he was kidding about the traffic light.

'Isn't this something,' Grandma said when she saw Ranger. 'What a nice surprise. Is Joe coming too?'

'Nope,' I said. 'Just Ranger.'

'Look here, Helen,' Grandma called to my mother. 'Stephanie's swapped out Joseph tonight.'

My mother stuck her head out the kitchen door. 'Where's Joseph?'

'Working,' I told her.

'I'm just spooning out the gravy,' my mother said. 'Everyone sit down.'

The doorbell rang and Grandma ran to get it. 'It's him,' she said to me. 'It's my honey.'

My father got out of his chair in the living room and took his seat at the table. 'I don't care if he craps in a bag,' he said to Ranger. 'I'll give you a hundred bucks if you can scare him into marrying her and moving her into his room at the old people's home.'

'They won't take him back,' I said to my father. 'He started a fire, and they kicked him out.'

'Guess I look like I could still scare somebody,' Ranger said to me.

'You look like you could scare anybody,' my father said to him. 'Don't you ever wear anything but black?'

'Sometimes white socks,' Ranger said.

Ranger was smiling a little, and I was thinking he was getting into it, starting to enjoy himself.

'This is my honey, Elmer,' Grandma said to everyone.

Elmer was dressed for the occasion in red plaid slacks and a white turtleneck that shoved his loose neck skin up so that it spilled over the top and looked like a turkey waddle.

'Howdy doody,' Elmer said. 'You have a peach of a home here. And just look at all these hot women I'm gonna get to have dinner with.'

'Gripes,' my father said.

My mother put the gravy boat on the table and poured herself a glass of wine.

'Elmer's taking me to the Benchley viewing tonight,' Grandma said, taking her seat. 'It's gonna be a beaut.'

Elmer sat next to Grandma. 'I read it was the pancreatic cancer that got him. He was a young guy too. Seventy-eight.' Elmer reached for the potatoes and his toupee slid over his ear.

The small smile hovered at the corners of Ranger's mouth.

We were passing the chicken, gravy, mashed potatoes, green beans, cranberry sauce, dinner rolls, and pickled vegetable dish when the doorbell chimed. Before anyone could get out of their chair, the door opened and closed and Joyce Barnhardt swept into the house. Her red hair was cut super short and spiked out punk style. Her eyes were lined in black, shadowed in metallic gray. Her lips were inflated to maximum capacity, and her lips and nails were the color of my mother's wine. Joyce removed her leather duster, revealing a black leather bustier that showed a lot of cleavage and black leather pants that displayed what had to be a painful camel toe. She draped the duster over my father's television chair on her way to the dining room.

'Hey, how's it going,' Joyce said. 'I saw the car parked in the driveway, and I said to myself, I bet that's Stephanie's car. So I thought I'd come in and see how she was doing.' Her eyes flicked to Ranger for a split second, and I was pretty sure I saw her nipples get hard behind the black leather.

My father was frozen in his chair with his fork halfway to his mouth. And Elmer looked like he'd just filled his bag.

'Give me your gun,' I whispered to Ranger.

Ranger slid his arm across the back of my chair and leaned close. 'Stay calm.'

'Nice house you've got here, Mrs. P.,' Joyce said. 'You obviously have a talent for decorating. I could tell that by the fabric choice on the slipcovers in the living room.'

Grandma beamed at Joyce. 'I've always said that. She's got a real eye for picking out just the right thing.'

'And you set an excellent table too.'

'The secret is you gotta take the olives out of the jar and put them in a little bowl,' Grandma said. 'If you notice, we put everything in a bowl. That's what makes the difference.'

' Ill try to remember that,' Joyce said. 'Put everything in a bowl.'

Grandma turned to my mom. 'Isn't it nice to see such a polite young person? Almost no one appreciates things today.'

My mother tried to refill her wineglass, but the bottle was empty. 'Darn,' my mother said.

'We cooked up two big chickens,' Grandma said to Joyce. 'You could stay for dinner if you want. We have plenty.'

Joyce wedged a chair between Grandma and Elmer so she could look across the table at Ranger. 'I wouldn't want to impose.'

'I'll get you a place setting,' Grandma said, scraping back in her chair.

'Eddie Haskell,' Ranger whispered against my ear, leaning in to me.

'What?'

'Joyce is doing Eddie Haskell from Leave It to Beaver. Eddie Haskell was the obnoxious kid who was always sucking up to the Cleavers.'

'You watched Leave It to Beaver?'

'Hard to believe, but I didn't start out at age thirty. I actually had a childhood.'

'Mind-boggling.'

'Sometimes it boggles even my mind,' Ranger said.

'What are you two whispering about?' Joyce asked. 'And where's Morelli? I thought this was his gig.'

'Joe's working,' I told her. 'Ranger volunteered to stand in.'

Joyce opened her mouth to say something, thought better of it, and forked up some chicken.

'I'm going to the kitchen to get some hot gravy,' I told everyone. 'Joyce, why don't you help me?'

I closed the kitchen door behind us, nuked the gravy boat, and turned to Joyce. 'What's going on?'

'I realized I was going about this wrong. We're both looking for Dickie, right? But you have Studman out there working with you. That gives you a real advantage over me. So instead of forcing you to butt out, I'm going to stick to you like glue. You and Studman will find Dickie for me.'

'Ranger won't turn Dickie over to you.'

'I'll worry about that when he finds him. Ranger’s a man, and I know what to do with a man. You get them undressed, and they're all basically the same. Scrotum and ego. If you stroke them, they're happy. And I don't see you doing much stroking with Ranger. Looks to me like he's open season.'

I took the gravy boat out of the microwave and carried it back to the table. Ranger's chair was empty.

'Where's Ranger?' I asked Grandma.

'He said he had business to take care of, but he left you the keys to the car. They're by your plate. He said he'd