“Not yet,” Lula said. “But I know I could be real good at it. Look at me. Don’t I look like a woman who could cook the shit out of chicken? I’m like a combination of Paula Deen and Mario Whatshisname. I’m just around the corner from bein’ the Mrs. Butterworth of barbecue sauce.”
“The cook-off is in a week,” Connie said. “Is there still time for you to enter? Do you have to qualify or something?”
“I don’t have to do nothin’ but sign up,” Lula said. “I already looked into it, and the idiot who’s runnin’ the cook-off used to be a customer of mine back when I was a ’ho. He was what you call a drive-by. He’d pick me up on my corner, and two blocks later, we’d concluded our business.”
“That’s more information than I need,” Connie said.
“Well, I’m just sayin’ so you get the picture.”
“I have to run,” I told them. “I’m late for work.”
“After we win the contest and capture the killer, none of us is gonna have to work,” Lula said. “We’re all gonna be ladies of leisure.”
IT WAS NOON, and Ranger’s men were moving around, breaking for lunch, so I left my cubicle and went to the kitchen area to mingle. Ella kept the large glass-fronted refrigerator filled with sandwiches, fruit, raw veggies, yogurt, low-fat milk, snack-size cheeses, a variety of fruit juices, plus individual cups of chicken salad and vegetable soup. Early in the morning, Ella supplemented this with a caldron of oatmeal and a chafing dish of scrambled eggs. The dinner offering was always some sort of Crock-Pot stew, plus a breadbasket.
Ranger almost always ate breakfast and dinner in his apartment. And lunch was usually a sandwich and piece of fruit from the common kitchen, taken back to his office. There were three small round tables set to one side of the kitchen. Each table held four chairs. Two men I didn’t know were eating at one of the tables. Hal and Ramon were at another. The third table was empty. I selected a sandwich and joined Hal and Ramon. I’ve known Hal for a while now. Hal isn’t the sharpest tack on the corkboard, but he tries hard. His nickname is Halosaurus, because there’s a stegosaurus resemblance.
“You’re my new favorite person,” Ramon said. “You got me out of that cubicle. I was dying in that cubicle.”
“It’s not my favorite job, either,” I said, “but I needed the money.”
I unwrapped my sandwich and examined it. Multigrain bread, pretty ruffled green lettuce, thin-sliced chicken, a slice of tomato, slices of hard-cooked egg, and salad dressing that was for sure low fat. It looked good, but it would look even better with bacon.
“No bacon,” I said, more to myself than to Hal and Ramon.
Hal grinned. “Ranger thinks bacon is the work of the devil.”
“Sometimes I walk past Ella’s apartment, and I smell bacon frying,” Ramon said. “I think she makes it for Louis.” He looked over at me. “Have you ever seen Ranger eat bacon?”
“No,” I said. “Not that I can remember.”
“I think sometimes he cheats and goes to eat with Louis,” Ramon said.
“No way,” Hal said. “Ranger’s pure.”
Both men looked at me.
“Forget it,” I said. “I’m not commenting on that one.”
Hal flushed red, and Ramon gave a bark of laughter.
I finished my sandwich and pushed back from the table. “I’m going for a walk around the building. Is there anyplace off-limits for us worker people?”
“Only the seventh floor. No one would mind if you went into the men’s locker room, but there could be a lot of wood if you stayed too long. And then Ranger would probably fire us all,” Ramon said.
“I don’t want to get anyone fired.”
“That’s good,” Hal said, “because everyone here wants to keep their job.”
“Not everyone,” Ramon said.
I cut my eyes to him.
“You were on the job last night,” he said to me. “I’m sure you know the problem. Everyone in the building knows the problem.”
“Then why isn’t the problem solved?” I asked him.
Ramon did palms-up. “Good question. If I knew, I would tell immediately. And so would Hal. And before this happened, I would say every man in the building would tell and would lay down their life for Ranger.”
“Maybe it’s not in the building,” I said to Ramon.
“I would like to believe that.”
I glanced at Hal. “What do you think?”
Hal shook his head. “I don’t know what to think. It used to be we were a team here, and now we’re all pulled up inside ourselves. It’s creepy working with people who are looking at you funny.”
I stood and gathered my trash off the table. “I’m sure Ranger has it under control. He doesn’t seem overly worried.”
“I saw Ranger jump off a bridge into the Delaware River in January once. He was going after a skip, and he didn’t seem overly worried,” Ramon said. “He handed me his gun, and he did about a sixty-foot free fall into black water.”
“Did he get the skip?” I asked him.
“Yeah. He dragged the guy out and cuffed him.”
“So he was right not to be worried.”
“Anyone else would have fuckin’ died. Excuse the language.”
I wandered out of the kitchen, walked past my cubicle and down the hall to Ranger’s office.
“Knock, knock,” I said at his open door.
He looked up from his computer. “Babe.”
“Do you have a minute?”
“I’ve got as much time as you need.”
I knew he wasn’t just talking about conversation, and there was a quality to his voice that gave me a rush. And then, for some inexplicable reason, I thought about Morelli. Morelli didn’t flirt like Ranger. Morelli would say sure and then he’d look down my shirt to try to see some boob. It was actually very playful, and it felt affectionate when Morelli did it.
Ranger relaxed back in his chair. “I’m pretty sure I lost you for a couple beats.”
“My mind wandered.”
“As long as it always comes back.”
I repeated my conversation with Hal and Ramon.
“This business runs on trust,” Ranger said. “Ninety-five percent of the time, the work is mundane. When it rolls over into the other five percent, you need total confidence that the man watching your back is on the job. Knowing there’s an unidentified weak link in the organization puts stress on everyone.”
I left Ranger and walked through the building. I couldn’t listen at doors or rifle through files, because I was always on camera. I peeked into the conference rooms and strolled halls. I stuck my head into the gym but stayed away from the locker room. The garage, the practice range, some high-security holding rooms were below ground, and I didn’t go there. The men I encountered gave me a courteous nod and returned to work. No invitations to stay and chat.
I returned to Ranger. “You have a well-oiled machine,” I told him. “Everything looks neat and clean and secure.”
He almost raised an eyebrow. “That’s it?”
“Yep.”
“How much am I paying you?”
“Not enough.”
“If you want more money, you’re going to have to perform more services,” he said.
“Are you flirting with me again?”
“No. I’m trying to bribe you.”
“I’ll think about it.”
