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“Don't get close to him,” Ranger said. “Only use him to get to Mo. If Mo and Harp go off together, let Mo put Harp away before you go in. We think Mo might be killing drug dealers. We know Harp will kill anybody . . . even female bounty hunters.”
Cheery thought for the day.
“If it looks like you can do a takedown, but you need extra help, get me on the cell phone or the pager,” Ranger said.
“Be careful,” I said to the back of his car as he drove away. No point saying it to his face.
Lula barreled into the lot ten minutes later. “Sorry I'm late,” she said. “I got this intestinal problem, you know.” She looked around. “Where's Ranger?”
“Had business elsewhere. We're on our own.”
If I was doing a serious stakeout with another person, I'd use two cars or have one person on foot with a second car in backup. I suspected this would be more of a ride around and look for a man who didn't show up. And since I had no idea what Harp looked like, I elected to ride with Lula.
It was another gray day with a light rain beginning to fall. Temperatures were in the forties, so nothing was freezing. Lula motored the Firebird out of the lot and headed for Stark Street. We kept our eyes open for the Batmobile, Elliot Harp and bad guys in general. We worked our way down Stark, hit the end of the business district, turned and retraced our route. Lula wove her way through the projects, cruised center city and crossed over to King. When she reached Ferris she drove by Mo's. The store was padlocked and sealed with crime scene tape. We did this circuit two more times. It was raining. Not many people out on the street.
“I'm starving to death,” Lula said. “I need a burger. I need fries.”
I could see the glow of a fast-food drive-through shining red and yellow through the misting rain. I could feel the force field sucking us forward to the speaker box.
“I want a triple-decker burger,” Lula yelled at the box. “I want bacon and cheese and special sauce. I want a large fries, and I want lots of them little ketchup packets. And I want a large chocolate milkshake.” She turned to me. “You want something?”
“I'll have the same.”
“Double that order,” Lula shouted. “And don't forget about the ketchup.”
We took the bags of food and parked on Stark Street where we could watch the action. Trouble was, there wasn't much action to watch.
“You ever wonder about him?” Lula asked.
“Who?”
“Ranger.”
“What's to wonder?”
“I bet you don't know anything about him,” Lula said. “Nobody knows anything about him. I bet you don't even know where he lives.”
“I know his address.”
“Hah! That vacant lot.”
I sipped at my milkshake, and Lula finished up her fries.
“I thi
nk we should do some detecting on Ranger,” Lula said. “I think someday we should follow his ass.”
“Hmm,” I said, not feeling especially qualified to follow Ranger's ass.
“In fact, I might follow it tomorrow morning. You run with him every day?”
“Not if I can help it.”
“Well if you run with him tomorrow, you call me. I could use some exercise.”
After an hour of sitting, I was ready to move on. “This isn't working,” I said to Lula. “Just for fun, let's drive over to Montgomery.”
Lula drove the length of Stark, looped through the projects one last time and cut across town. We drove back and forth on Montgomery and parked two doors down from Sal's Cafe.
