Chapter Sixteen
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I cut across town and stopped at Giovichinni’s Deli. I got turkey and Swiss on seeded wheat for myself and chicken salad for Connie, and Lula got a Cuban, fries, coleslaw, and a tub of pasta salad.
I pulled a chair up to Connie’s desk. “Anything new?” I asked her.
“Local news is all about Jug,” Connie said. “Nobody knows where he is. The latest speculation is that he’s in South America someplace. Saturday morning news interviewed a woman in Newark who said she saw Jug board a plane for Brazil.”
“Hunh,” Lula said. “Imagine that.”
“Did a helicopter really land at the rest stop and take Jug back to Long Island?” Connie asked me.
I unwrapped my sandwich. “Yep. They had him AirTagged.”
“What about the tan van?” I asked Connie. “Were you able to find anything? Mrs. Werly said sometimes a tan van would be parked in Zoran’s driveway.”
“Nothing,” Connie said. “Nothing in Zoran’s history or his parents’ or his uncle’s.”
“Could just be some worker’s van,” Lula said. “A pest control guy.”
“You saw that cockroach in his bathroom,” I said. “He’s not hiring pest control.”
“Suppose you marry Morelli?” Connie asked me. “Are you still going to have Ranger tracking you?”
Good question. I thought the answer was yes. I held an odd place in Ranger’s life. From the very beginning he’d assumed the role of protector. That role had stayed constant no matter if I was in an intimate relationship with him or with Morelli. I suspected it wouldn’t change if I married Morelli. In fact, I suspected very little of Ranger’s behavior would change if I married Morelli.
“I’m pretty sure Ranger has stopped dropping bugs into my pockets and purses without my knowledge,” I said. “He just has a GPS gizmo attached to my car sometimes. It comes in handy when I run out of gas.”
I finished my sandwich and called Eugene. No answer. Lula was still working her way through the pasta salad, so I called Ranger.
“Babe,” Ranger said.
“Do you have a minute?”
“Yeah. Maybe two.”
“I went through Zoran’s house today. I couldn’t find any evidence that he’s returned since the laundromat killing. And before the killing he wasn’t spending a lot of time there. He was sleeping there but he wasn’t living there. I think he has a pad on Stark or Freemont. Probably Stark. That’s where the blood trail ended. That’s where he got his drugs and hung out. How do I find him? Can you access any street cameras on Stark?”
“There aren’t any government cameras on Stark. They kept getting shot up, so they were removed. There might be some businesses with security cameras, but it’s not likely. I can have the control room check. For the most part, security on Stark is gang and mob controlled. We don’t have any clients on Stark. His drug supply was coming from the alley. We can try setting a camera there. I doubt anyone thinks to sweep the alley. The problem is that it will tell you what you already know. That he’s in the hood. It’s not going to help you catch him. He’ll be gone by the time you get there. The good news is that it might convince the police to put someone undercover on Stark. I’d put a man there for you, but I’m short right now. And it’s not really what we do.” He paused for a beat. “Is there anything else you need from me?”
We were no longer talking about work. This was foreplay, and he was a master at it. His voice was soft with a hint of a smile.
I smiled back. “A camera would be enough for now.”
“Babe,” he said. And he hung up.
I tried Eugene again. Still no answer. I called his mother’s cell, and she answered immediately.
“Mrs. Fleck,” I said. “It’s Stephanie Plum.”
“How nice to hear from you. Are you looking for Eugene?”
“Yes. I tried calling him, but he isn’t answering.”
“He never answers,” she said. “He turns the ringer off when he needs to concentrate.”
“Is he at home?”
“No. I believe he’s at the garage.”
“Saddle up,” I said to Lula. “Eugene’s mom thinks he’s at the garage.”
I took Hamilton to Liberty and parked around the corner from Martino Auto Body. We went to the door leading to the loft and found it unlocked. We climbed the stairs and knocked on the loft door. I knocked a second time and Eugene opened the door.
“Hey,” he said. “What’s up? Am I in trouble?”
“I have a favor to ask,” I said. “I need help with a photo. Can you do Photoshop?”
“Sure. Come on in. I was in the middle of writing software for a game. Can you give me five minutes?”
“Take all the time you need,” I said.
Lula went to the couch and opened an app on her phone. I prowled around, looking for hijacked goods. I didn’t find anything that might have been hijacked, but I found a stack of pictures of Kevin in action poses. I was paging through them when Eugene came over.
“We use them as references when we’re writing games,” he said.
“Where’s Kevin now?”
“He works in the body shop during the day. It’s a trade-off for use of this space.”
“Do you work in the body shop too?”
“No. But some mornings I work in the dog wash.”
“You have a lot of equipment here.”
Eugene looked around as if he was seeing it for the first time. “It doesn’t seem like a lot. It always feels like we’re missing something we need.”
“What exactly is the purpose for all this photo stuff?”
“We have a blog that’s seeing good growth. We started by taking selfies with our phones. That was okay, but it was limiting, and the quality wasn’t always great. We still do phone selfies but more and more we use the studio equipment.”
“And the drone?”
Eugene grinned. “It’s a toy.”
“What happens to all this when you get convicted and go to jail?”
“I can’t imagine that happening. I would love to be Robin Hoodie because he’s beloved and he’s making a fortune, but I’m not Robin Hoodie. And it’s only a matter of time before he gets caught. I’m sure he’ll get caught before I get locked up.”
“So, the blog that you do isn’t the Robin Hoodie blog?”
“No. Not even close. It’s a gaming blog. I’ll send you a link.” He took his phone out of his pocket and texted the link to me.
“You could do both. You could do the gaming blog and the Hoodie blog.”
“I suppose that’s true.”
I gave him Zach’s picture. “I need to get rid of the man watering the shrub in the background.”
He took the photo out of the envelope and looked at it. “Hah! Too bad you want to get rid of him. This is classic.”
“Can you do it?”
“Yeah, no problem. Do you want to wait for it? Or do you want to come back?”
“How long will it take?”
“Not long. Five minutes to a half hour.”
“I’ll wait.”
I joined Lula on the couch, and I used the link Eugene had just sent me to go to his blog. It was nicely done. A mixture of short personal videos and more professional, longer tutorials and snippets of games. I’m not a gamer so the tutorials were lost on me, and after ten minutes of scrolling I was having a hard time staying awake.
Lula leaned in. “What are you looking at?”
“Eugene’s blog.”
“Robin Hoodie?”
“No. Eugene swears he’s not Robin Hoodie. This is his gaming blog.”
“Is it any good?”
“It looks nice, but I’m not a gamer, so it’s like I’m trying to read a foreign language.”
“I never could see him being Robin Hoodie,” Lula said. “On my planet, Ranger would be Robin Hoodie.”
“I don’t think Ranger has time to be Robin Hoodie.”
“Just sayin’.”
Eugene came over. “This is the photoshopped one,” he said, handing the photo to me. “I think it turned out pretty good. I got rid of the leaker, and I did a little work on the woman’s face and arms. She should be happy. The original is in the envelope.”
I looked at the new photo. “This is amazing,” I said. “You would never know it was altered.” I slid the new photo into the envelope with the original. “From the beginning you’ve denied being Robin Hoodie. I’m starting to believe you. Do you have any ideas on the identity of the real Robin Hoodie?”
Eugene shook his head. “No, but he’s not a one-man show. He’s got a videographer and a studio setup that’s better than mine. Sometimes he’s got more than one camera angle. That would indicate more than one videographer.”
“He’s got Merry Men,” Lula said.
“And they aren’t homeless,” Eugene said. “They’re good at what they do, and they’re making good money.”
I tucked the envelope into my messenger bag. “What do I owe you for this?”
“Nothing,” he said. “Good luck finding the real Robin Hoodie.”
I drove back to Zach’s house and gave him the envelope.
“It’s so quiet,” I said.
“Everyone’s taking a nap. Even the dogs. It won’t last long. It’s almost time for them to get up.”
“If I take you in now, you’ll be stuck in jail until Monday,” I said. “You can’t get bonded out until you have an arraignment and a judge sets bail. And judges don’t work on the weekend. If you can get Ed to drop the charges on Monday, this will all go away.”
“I’ll do my best.”
I went back to the car and got behind the wheel.
“How’d it go?” Lula asked.
“Zach said he’s going to do his best to get the charges dropped.”
“If it was me, I’d rather go to jail than babysit those kids.”
“I thought you wanted to be an auntie.”
“Yeah, but I’m resigning if it turns out you have a poop eater.”
“Fair enough.”
“Now what?” Lula asked.
“Now we go home. I’m done for the day.”
A fruit basket and a bottle of wine had been left in front of my door. No note attached. None was necessary. The basket was now sitting on my kitchen counter. The wine was in the fridge.
I was in the kitchen, pawing through the fruit basket, reviewing my possible excuses for not sleeping with Morelli or Ranger tonight. It was Saturday. They were going to want to spend the night with me and I was going to have to beg off.
I bypassed the apples and oranges and found a packet of caramel popcorn. I opened the packet, and a text came in from Morelli. His brother had tickets to a fight at the Garden and had invited him to go along. They were on their way into the city and wouldn’t be home until late, so maybe we could get together tomorrow. What the hell! I just got dumped for a New York City prizefight. Okay, so I’d dodged a bullet, and I should have been grateful, but I didn’t feel grateful. I felt pissed off that Morelli would rather see two idiots beat the crap out of each other than get me naked.
I ate the caramel popcorn and talked myself into feeling grateful.
Ranger called. “The camera is going up tonight,” he said. “Once it’s live I’ll send you an app so you can access it. My control room will also be monitoring it. Do you need anything else?”
“No. Just the camera.”
“Are you sure?”
Loaded question. “I think the camera will be great.”
“Babe,” Ranger said.
The line went dead.
I was feeling a little pissy again. He could have tried harder. It was like he was relieved not to have to tear himself away from his stupid work. I needed a glass of wine, but there was the possible baby, so I hunted through the basket and found some cookies. I was cracking under the pressure of a potential pregnancy. I was making mountains out of molehills. I was pathetic.
A text message popped up on my phone. We met once very briefly. The next time we meet will be more enjoyable. I know you’ve been looking for me. Soon enough.
I was breathless. I literally couldn’t breathe. I put my hand out to the counter to steady myself, and I had a flashback of the woman in the laundromat, bleeding on the floor. I blinked the vision away and sucked in air. That wasn’t going to be me. I wasn’t going to be this monster’s victim. I was going to be vigilant. I was going to put bullets in my gun. First, I would have to buy some. Mental note: Buy bullets. Second mental note: Screw negative thinking. Embrace positive thinking. Shake it off. Be the woman in charge.
So, where do I go from here? I cut my eyes to the refrigerator. The woman in charge should make dinner. I went to the refrigerator and spied a package of ground meat. This was a good beginning.
I called Grandma. “I want to make meatloaf,” I said. “I made it once before, but I can’t remember the recipe.”
“I could come over and help,” she said. “Your parents are going to a pancake supper at your dad’s lodge. They could drop me off.”
“Yes! That would be amazing.”
Hooray. I had Grandma coming for dinner. I cleared my laptop and notes from the dining room table and set out placemats and place settings. I didn’t have napkins, so I folded some paper towels. I thought it looked pretty good. I used to have candles, but they melted in the fire.
Grandma showed up a half hour later.
“Look at this,” she said. “You’ve got new carpet and new paint and some new furniture. It looks real nice.” She stepped into the kitchen and fixed on the fruit basket. “You got another one of those baskets.”
“It’s from Jug.”
“Other men give out candy to get their way with little girls. Jug gives woven fruit baskets.”
“This is a good one. No pears and it’s got packets of caramel- and chocolate-covered popcorn.”
“Did you bring him in?”
“Almost.”
“That’s better than not nearly,” Grandma said, going to the refrigerator and finding the wine. “This is the most important ingredient when you make meatloaf.”
“You put wine in meatloaf?”
“No, you drink it.”
She poured herself a glass of wine and pulled a bunch of stuff out of the fridge.
“We need a big bowl,” Grandma said. “And a big wooden spoon.”
“I don’t have a big wooden spoon,” I told her. “I only have a big plastic spoon.”
“Not a problem.”
I gave her a bowl and she dumped the meat in it. She added eggs, ketchup, breadcrumbs, a bunch of seasoning, some milk, and some minced onion.
“Do you have parsley?” she asked me.
“No.”
“Not a problem.”
We got the meatloaf mixed and packed into a loaf pan. Grandma slid it into the oven and topped off her wine. I peeled potatoes, cut them into chunks, and dropped them into a pot of water.
“You’ve got a lot of potatoes and broccoli,” Grandma said. “That’s good. You’ll have leftovers for tomorrow.”
There was a knock on the door, and I froze, terrified that it might be the vampire. No, I told myself. That’s ridiculous. He wouldn’t come to my apartment and knock on the door. He would slip out of a shadow and take me by surprise. Still, wouldn’t hurt to be careful.
I went to the door and looked out through the peephole. It was Herbert. This wasn’t as horrible as having a vampire on my doorstep, but it wasn’t wonderful either.
“It’s Herbert,” I said to Grandma.
“Who’s Herbert?”
“Herbert Slovinski. I went to school with him. He’s sort of attached himself to me.”
“I know him,” Grandma said. “Everybody knows Herbert. He’s a regular at Stiva’s. He’s studying to be a funeral director. Everyone likes him. He’s such a polite young man.”
Grandma came to the door, opened it, and looked out at Herbert.
“Mrs. Mazur,” Herbert said. “Wow! What a surprise. This is my lucky day. My two favorite people in one spot. This is even better than when we’re all at the funeral home because we’re all close and personal here. Of course, I have a lot of lucky days because I have an excellent guardian angel. One of the best in the business. I hope I’m not interrupting something here. I try to be sensitive about interrupting things.”
“It’s not an interruption,” Grandma said. “We were just making meatloaf.”
“I love meatloaf,” Herbert said. “It’s one of my favorite things. My mother makes meatloaf every Wednesday. Sometimes on Thursday, but usually on Wednesday. Some people put ketchup on meatloaf, but I like to put mayonnaise on it.”
“You’re welcome to stay, if you want,” Grandma said. “We made extra broccoli and potatoes.”
“Sure,” Herbert said. “That would be awesome.”
“Was there a reason for this visit?” I asked Herbert.
“I wanted to make sure you knew how to work your new television. They can be tricky sometimes. And I brought a list of good shows just in case you wanted to watch something. I have the list in categories depending on your mood. And I brought a bottle of wine. It was my mother’s idea.”
He handed me the wine and he stepped inside and looked into the kitchen. “Is that a fruit basket? Is that from Jug? Is he back in town already?”
“I think one of his minions dropped it off.”
“Too bad. It was a shame that he was snatched away from you, but at least you got a fruit basket.”
I put the wine in the fridge, and I set an extra place at the table for Herbert.
“This has turned into a real party,” Grandma said to me. “We should set out some snacks.”
I didn’t know how to roast a chicken or make a meatloaf, but I knew about snacks. I grabbed a box of crackers from the cupboard and pulled a couple different kinds of cheese out of the fridge. I was arranging all this on a plate when the doorbell rang.
“I’ll get it,” Herbert said. “It might be more fruit.”
I heard him unlock the door and open it, and then I heard him screaming. “Eeeeeeee! Eaaaaaa!” The door slammed shut, locks clicked, and Herbert ran into the kitchen, arms waving in the air, eyes bugged out of his head, face contorted. “Eeeeeee!”
“What the Sam Hill?” Grandma said.
Herbert stopped screaming. His face went from red to white and he fainted, spread-eagle, flat on his back on the floor. Grandma soaked a kitchen towel and put it on his forehead.
He opened his eyes and took a couple beats to focus. “I think I might have wet myself.”
“Not that I could see,” Grandma said.
I went to the door and looked out the peephole and only saw an empty hall. I unlocked the door and stepped out. Definitely empty. I closed the door, relocked it, and went to Herbert.
“There’s nothing out there,” I said.
“He was there. The killer vampire,” Herbert said. “They were talking about him on the local news this morning. He killed a woman in a laundromat, and he sucked all her blood out and then he ran away. People saw him but they couldn’t stop him, and now the police can’t find him.”
“I heard about him too,” Grandma said. “Everybody was talking about him when I was at the market yesterday.”
“He had crazy eyes,” Herbert said, “and his mouth was open, and I could see his fangs. And he was holding a big knife, and his arm was raised like he was going to stab me. I started screaming and his face changed, and he got snarly. His eyes were red with flames in them.”
“Flames!” Grandma said. “That’s serious.”
“I might have imagined it,” Herbert said. “I have an advanced imagination.”
“What on earth was he doing here?” Grandma asked.
“Maybe he was lost,” I said, trying hard not to show panic. “Maybe he was going door-to-door, looking for an empty apartment where he could hang out.”
“I hate to think that he’s hanging out in your building,” Grandma said.
“Probably Herbert scared him off,” I said. “I didn’t see him in the hall.”
Ranger called. “Having a dinner party tonight?”
“Yes, but the vampire decided not to stay.”
“Can’t blame him with all that screaming.”
“Do you have a camera covering the parking lot?”
“Yes. We saw him leave but he disappeared before I could get a man on the scene. Are you okay?”
“Mostly.”
“My best to Grandma.”
I returned my phone to my pocket. “Ranger says hello,” I said to Grandma.
“Was that your fiancé?” Herbert asked me.
“Yes.”
“I thought it was Ranger on the phone,” Grandma said.
Mental head slap. “It was! Duh. Sorry, brain fog from all the drama.” I turned to Herbert. “That was Ranger. He owns Rangeman Security. The hall outside my apartment has video and audio surveillance and Rangeman monitors it.”
“My parents have a Ring doorbell,” Herbert said. “It’s awesome. It shows when people steal your delivery packages. And we keep getting notices about dogs that get lost.”
“It needs to give people notices about vampires,” Grandma said.
Herbert nodded. “I never believed in vampires before, but I believe in them now.”
“There’s lots of things we don’t know about,” Grandma said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if aliens from outer space landed here. That vampire could be one of them. Did you get a good look? Did he have pointy ears like Spock? Was his skin sort of greenish?”
“I didn’t notice any of that,” Herbert said. “I got a little flustered. I must have low blood sugar because usually, I’m a cool cucumber. I’m good in an emergency. Like if there’s a building on fire and there’s a cat inside that needs rescuing, I just go in and get it.”
“No kidding,” Grandma said. “You did that?”
“Not yet,” Herbert said. “The opportunity hasn’t come up.”
We helped Herbert get to his feet, and Grandma gave him a glass of wine.
“I’m not much of a drinker,” Herbert said. “As an entrepreneur I feel I should always be alert in case new opportunities arise.”
“This is a new opportunity to try out some wine,” Grandma said. “Did the vampire tell you his name?”
“No,” Herbert said. “He didn’t say anything, but he hissed at me. He looked surprised to see me at first and then when I started screaming, he got mad. He stuck his tongue out and made this hissing sound like a demon. It was freaky. I don’t like to think about it. Holy crap. I’m never going to be able to sleep tonight. Maybe I’ll have to sleep here.”
“No,” I said. “Not gonna happen.”
I had to give it to Herbert for his tenacity.
“The news I got was sketchy,” Grandma said. “They didn’t give out any names of the deceased or the bystanders.”
Thank you, Morelli and Jimmy. If my mother knew I’d walked in on a vampire with a fresh kill she’d have been dropping Xanax into her Big Gulp of whiskey. Bad enough that I had to live with it. And now I had Zoran at my door with a knife in his hand. My heart was doing backflips in my chest.
“Do you think we should call the police?” Herbert asked.
“No,” I said. “I think we should mash the potatoes.”
I figured this was like sex. Every now and then you run into a situation where it’s just best to fake it and move on. So, I dredged up some bravado and did my best impression of a kick-ass, cool-as-snot Jersey girl. I’ve got a raving lunatic vampire stalking me. Big deal. Bring it on. Holy shit. Who wants meatloaf?
We all went into the kitchen and at Grandma’s instruction, I took the temperature of the meatloaf.
“It’s almost there,” Grandma said, looking at the digital thermometer I was holding. “It’s hard to read the thermometer with your hand shaking like that.”
“It goes with my eye twitch,” I said. “It’s a phenomenon that happens when your cojones shrink to the size of raisins.”
“I thought women didn’t have cojones,” Herbert said.
“A common misconception,” I said. “Our cojones are out of sight, attached to our ovaries.”
“I didn’t know that,” Herbert said. “That makes sense. I have extremely large cojones. My mother always said that my cojones were too big for my britches.”
“I wish I didn’t hear that,” Grandma said.
By the time the meatloaf got to the table Grandma and Herbert were on the second bottle of wine.
“I wish I’d seen the vampire,” Grandma said. “I’ve never seen one up close. I’ve only seen vampires in movies. He must have been real scary looking.”
“Yeah,” Herbert said, “but not as scary looking as the knife.”
“I’m surprised you could get the door closed and locked,” I said to Herbert.
Herbert gave his meatloaf another glob of mayo. “He backed up when I started screaming. He didn’t try to get in.”
That was because he’d expected me to open the door, I thought. He wanted to kill me. He wasn’t interested in Herbert.
I broke out a bag of cookies for dessert, and we moved into the living room to watch a movie. Grandma had tea with her cookies and Herbert finished off the wine.
“That was excellent wine,” Herbert said. “I’ll have to get myself some next time I’m shopping. It’s happiness in a glass. And it hasn’t tarnished my mental accluety. I’m still sharp as a tack. Ask me an answer. Anything. I’ll know the question. I would go on Jeopardy! , but I haven’t the time because of my entrenuering. These cookies, on the other hand, are making me dizzy.”
He stretched out on the floor in front of the television and instantly fell asleep.
“The little tyke’s had a big night,” Grandma said. “Between the wine and the vampire, he got all tuckered out.”
My parents showed up halfway through the movie and took Grandma home. I was left with Herbert.
“Hey!” I said to Herbert. “Wake up.”
No response. I nudged him with my foot to make sure he was alive.
“Stupid cookies,” he said.
I threw a blanket over him, watched the end of the movie, and went to bed, locking my bedroom door.