“What’s all that noise?” Ranger asked. “It sounds like you’re having a party.”
“It’s Hobbits,” I said. “They’re using my electric. I saw the Meagan Building this morning. There was a lot of damage. Will they have to raze the building?”
“I don’t know. They’re checking the structural integrity. The bonds office burned like it was made out of cardboard. Ten minutes after you left, the roof went down. Whoever set the fire must have used a decent amount of accelerant.”
“Do you think this is the end of it?”
“If Bluttovich destroyed both businesses to cover his tracks, it’ll end here. That would be the good business decision. If this has become a personal vendetta against Vinnie, it’s probably not over.”
“Hard to believe Vinnie is that important to Bluttovich. He doesn’t even know Vinnie.”
“From what I can tell, Bluttovich is a power-hungry maniac. If he thinks Vinnie is a threat, he’ll take him down.”
“Where do we go from here?”
“I have men working on it. I’ll get back to you in a couple hours.”
I disconnected and went to the kitchen for a soda. Mooner was watching Rex. Everyone else was in front of the televsion, except Vinnie.
“Where’s Vinnie?” I asked Mooner.
“Bathroom.”
The doorbell rang, and Mooner answered.
I looked out from the kitchen and saw two guys.
“Vincent Plum?” the one guy asked.
“No, dude,” Mooner said. “I’m, like, the Moon Man. I’m Bungo.”
“Cripes,” the guy said. “He’s stoned.”
“He’s the right height. Brown hair. Slim weasel body,” the other guy said. “Hit him.”
I saw the guy’s arm extend with the stun gun, and I ran for Mooner. I reached the door just as Mooner collapsed, and I got tagged, too.
BY THE TIME my brain unscrambled, I was tied hands and feet and had duct tape across my mouth. I was rolling around on the floor of a van, bumping into Mooner, who was also bound and taped. It was a panel van with solid sides and two doors in the rear with small windows. The driver and his partner were up front. I didn’t want to go there. I could mostly see sky through the windows. A streetlight flashed by. A tree. No way of knowing where we were going. The driver and his partner weren’t talking.
The van turned from a smooth road to a bumpy road, hooked a corner, and the road was smooth again. It came to a stop, and the rear doors opened. Mo and Eugene looked in at Mooner and me.
“What the hell’s this?” Mo asked.
The driver came around. “What do you mean? It’s Vincent Plum and some girl. She got in the way, so we took her, too. She looks like fun.”
“That’s not Vincent Plum, you moron.”
“How do you know? Have you ever seen Vincent Plum?”
“I saw him when he stuck his head out of his office. We followed him and the girl from the bonds office to the apartment. That’s how we knew where to find them. We would have snatched him then, but Larry was whining and bleeding all over the place.”
Eugene joined the group and looked in at Mooner and me. “What the fuck’s this?”
“Exactly,” Mo said.
“We took the wrong guy,” the driver said.
“No shit,” Eugene said.
“How was I to know? He’s the right height. He’s got brown hair. He’s sort of weasely.”
“Gregor is going to be pissed,” Eugene said. “We already called and told him we had Vinnie. He’s coming out to personally cut off his nuts.”
“Call him and tell him we made a mistake,” the driver said.
“What are you, crazy?” Eugene said. “Remember what happened to Ziggy when he brought Gregor the wrong Dairy Queen Blizzard?”
“Yeah,” the driver said. “Gregor hit him in the head with a hammer, and now Ziggy falls over when he takes a leak.”
“I got an idea,” Eugene said. “Why don’t we douse the van with gasoline, set it on fire, and shove it off a cliff? Then we tell Gregor there was a faulty gas pedal, and the van went out of control and crashed, and we all got out just in time, except we couldn’t rescue Vincent.”
“That might work,” Mo said.
“Wait a minute,” the driver said. “We don’t have to get all that elaborate. Has Gregor ever seen Vincent Plum?”
“Not that I know,” Eugene said.
“Then what’s the problem?” the driver said. “We tell him this is Vincent Plum. That way, Gregor gets to cut someone’s nuts off, and he won’t be disappointed that he made the trip out here.”
“Yeah, but this guy will tell Gregor he’s not Plum,” Mo said.
The driver shrugged. “We’ll leave the tape on his mouth.”
“Gregor won’t like that,” Eugene said. “He likes when people scream and beg.”
“So we wait until Gregor starts working on him,” the driver said, “and then we take the tape off when this guy’s in the screaming stage.”
Everyone thought about that for a beat.
“It could work,” Mo said.
Eugene agreed.
“Okay, so we have a plan,” Eugene said. “Let’s haul these two into the house. We’ll put them in the tower room. When Gregor gets here, we’ll take this guy to the kitchen, because it has a tile floor for easy cleanup. And then we’ll save the girl for ourselves for later.”
“Mmmrmph,” Mooner said.
“Don’t worry about it,” Eugene said to Mooner. “It only hurts in the beginning, and then you faint.”
I was dragged out of the van, and Mo put me over his shoulder like a bag of sand. This was the first chance I had to see the house and its surroundings. There was a large lawn surrounding the house. Beyond the lawn, there were dense trees. Long, paved driveway leading to the house. The house itself could hardly be called a house. It was a fortress. It was ominous gray stone and huge. It defied description. It had a tower with turrets, like a medieval castle. If I had to imagine a house for a Bulgarian maniacal mobster, this would be it.
TWENTY-SEVEN
WE WERE CARRIED inside and up to the tower room. The bindings were cut away from our ankles but left on our wrists. The tape was ripped off our mouths.
“Gregor won’t be here for a while,” Eugene said, “so make yourself comfortable.” And he closed and locked the door.
“I like my nuts,” Mooner said. “I don’t want them cut off. I’d be, like, nutless then.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “We’ll get rescued.”
“Do you think?”
“Sure.” Truth is, I didn’t have a lot of faith in a rescue. Time was too short. Ranger was good, but this would require a miracle. I looked around the tower room. Not a lot going on. Stone floor. Circular stone walls ringed by long, narrow windows without panes. Thick wood door that didn’t give when I kicked it.
I went to a window and looked out. The house was on a hill surrounded by woods. I could see the Delaware River in the distance. I was pretty sure I was in Pennsylvania. I paced the room for an hour, burning off nervous energy. Mooner was quiet, sitting on the floor, chanting softly.
“Ohmm mooon,” he said, eyes closed. “Ohmm mooon.”
