Lean Mean Thirteen

in Trenton.

Smullen had arranged a meeting with me, but didn't show. He'd also done a no-show on his girlfriend. I had bad vibes about Smullen. I was afraid something had gone down, and it hadn't been good for Smullen.

Next up was a visit to Grandma.

Unfortunately, all RangeMan vehicles are equipped with a tracking device. Between the bug in my purse and the transmitter in the Porsche, RangeMan knew my every move. And the guys were on high Stephanie alert until Ranger returned. I wanted to take a look at the warehouse this morning, and I didn't want to attract a lot of attention. I didn't want five guys in RangeMan black hovering around the structure, wondering if they should break in SWAT-style. So I was going to leave my purse and Ranger's Porsche at my parents' house and take Uncle Sandor's Buick.

Uncle Sandor gave Grandma his '53 powder blue and white Roadmaster Buick when he went into the nursing home. It's a classic car in cherry condition, and it's eerily indestructible. Men think it's a very cool car, but if I had my choice, I'd go with a red Ferrari.

I drove the Cayenne to my parents' house and popped inside.

'I'm going to borrow the Buick,' I told Grandma. 'I'll bring it back in a couple of hours.'

'You could drive it all you want. It almost never gets used.'

I got behind the wheel of the monstrous Buick and cranked the V-eight over. I put it into reverse and backed it out of the garage and onto the street. The car rumbled under me, sucking gas and spewing toxins. I shoved it into drive and muscled it out of the Burg, took Hamilton to Broad, and cut through the center of town.

The warehouse Dickie partly owns is on Stark Street. Stark Street starts bad and gets worse. The early blocks are marginal businesses mixed with slum housing. Shady entrepreneurial private enterprise flourishes on this part of Stark. You can buy everything from shoplifted Banana Republic T-shirts to the drug of your choice to a backseat BJ. It's a long street, and the farther you travel, the more the street gives over to anger and despair. Squatters live in the graffiti-riddled, condemned buildings of middle Stark. And finally, Stark turns to scrub fields and the skeletal remains of factories that are too wasted to draw even gang interest. Beyond this moonscape ol scorched brick rubble, at the very end of Stark, just past the salvage graveyard, is a light industrial park. The rent is cheap and the access to Route One is excellent. Dickies warehouse was in this industrial park.

I turned onto Stark and had the road to myself. Sunday morning and everyone was sleeping off Saturday night. Good thing too, because I would have attracted attention in the Buick. I drove past the junkyard and into the small industrial park. It was dead quiet.

The warehouse was next to an automotive paint and body shop. No cars were parked in the warehouse lot, but there were a couple cars in the body shop lot. I docked the Buick next to one of the cars in the body shop. Just in case someone happened by, I didn't want to make it obvious I was in the warehouse.

The body shop was closed up tight, but I could hear a power tool being used inside. The diode on a security camera over a door blinked from red to green. I was being filmed. Probably worked on a motion sensor.

I was debating moving the Buick when the door opened

and a huge, tattooed, wild-haired guy stepped out.

'Now what?' he said. 'I'm clean.'

It was Randy Sklar. He'd gotten busted for possession about six months ago. Vinnie had bonded him out, and he'd failed to appear. I'd found him in a bar drunk off his ass, and Lula and I had literally dragged him back to the police station.

Only one reason for Randy Sklar to be up and working on a Sunday morning. This was a chop shop and Randy was taking a car apart. You don't let a hot car sit. You take a torch to it and in a couple of hours, the evidence is gone.

I smiled at Randy because before he passed out and I slapped the cuffs on him, he'd been fun at the bar. And I was also smiling because this was a stroke of luck. Randy wasn't going to call the police if I broke into the warehouse. He was going to keep his bay doors down and locked and hope no one wanted to talk to him.

'I'm not looking for you,' I told him. 'I heard you managed to wiggle out of the possession charge.'

'Yeah, there were some problems with police procedure. Are you looking to get rid of the Buick?'

'No. I just want to park here while I go next door.'

'Not much over there,' Randy said. 'Looked to me like they cleaned house.'

'I'm looking for the guy who owns it.'

'Don't know nothing about that. Just know trucks come in and out at night while we're working. Figured it was the mob running a hijacking op, so we stayed away. Like to keep a low profile anyway. Then, a couple days ago, there's nonstop activity, and from what I could see through the open bays, the place got emptied out. And no one's been there since. At least no trucks.'

'Cars?'

'Haven't seen any, but they could park on the side. There's a door over there. Looks like there are offices on the second door.'

'So how's life?'

'Life's okay. You should come back to the bar. I'll buy you a drink.'

'That's a deal.'

I crossed a small patch of blighted grass and circled the warehouse. Four loading docks in the back. Windows at the upper level. A locked front door. And a locked side door. If I were with Ranger this wouldn't be a problem. There was a frosted window and vent on a back corner. Bathroom. I could break the window and climb in. Probably set off a security alarm, but I'd have at least twenty minutes before anyone would respond to this location. And chances were decent no one would come at all.

I went back to the Buick and got a tire iron out of the trunk. I whacked the window with the tire iron and cleaned out the glass as best I could. I carefully crawled through the window with minimum damage. A scrape on my arm and a tear in my jeans.

I was in a bathroom that was best used in the dark. I held my breath and tiptoed out. I'd soak my shoes in Clorox when I got home. I flipped a switch, and overhead fluorescents blinked on.

Randy was right. The warehouse had been swept clean. Not a scrap of garbage anywhere… other than in the bathroom. Lots of empty shelves. A couple long folding tables. Some folding chairs neatly stacked against a wall. No hint as to the use other than a lingering odor of something chemical. Gasoline or kerosene.

There was a freight elevator and an enclosed stairwell servicing the second floor. I very quietly took the stairs.

The door at the top was closed. I opened the door and found another empty storage area. An office with a large, smudged, frosted window looked out at the storeroom. I looked more closely and realized the window was dark with soot. This got my heart to flop around a little in my chest. I tried the door. Locked. I took a deep breath and used the tire iron on the office window.

I looked inside the office, and it took a moment to figure it out. Sometimes things are so ghastly it takes time for your mind to catch up with your eyes. I was looking at a cadaver sitting in a chair behind a desk. The desk, the chair, the body, and the wall behind it were scorched black. All burned to a crisp. It was so terrible, so far removed from reality, that at first I had no emotional reaction other than disbelief. I was at the broken window, looking into the room, and the room smelled of smoke and charred flesh.

I'd like to think I am good in an emergency, but the truth is, instinct takes over, and it doesn't always lead to intelligent action. The moment I smelled the smoke, I went completely spastic. My only thought was to get as far away as possible as fast as possible. I tumbled through the door, all flailing arms and frantic legs, and slid down five stairs before getting my footing. I was about to open the ground-floor door when there was a sound like a giant pilot light igniting. Phunnnnf!

I opened the stairwell door to a wall of flame and more spastic horror. I slammed the door shut and ran back up the stairs. There were no windows in the storeroom, only windows in the torched office. I scrambled over broken glass into the office, opened a window on the outside wall, and looked down. I was at least thirty feet from the ground.

So here was a choice. I could dive headfirst and splatter like Humpty Dumpty, or I could stay in the building and burn like the guy at the desk.

Randy came running from the body shop. 'Jump!' he yelled at me.