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¦ ¦ ¦
Ranger picked me up in his sporty Porsche 911 Turbo at four o’clock. No Ella scrunched into the back seat.
“Where’s Ella?” I asked.
“Tank is bringing her over. He’s taking a shift on deli patrol tonight.”
Tank is second-in-command at Rangeman. He’s the guy who watches Ranger’s back. He’s a year younger than Ranger. He’s twice Ranger’s size. There’s good reason he’s called Tank.
“Do you think the deli patrol is necessary? Hard to believe the kidnappers would try to snatch someone after their apartment has been discovered.”
Ranger drove away from Morelli’s house and turned onto Hamilton Avenue. “There are problems with the apartment. These kidnappings are professionally executed. Very little forensic evidence is left behind. No time is wasted. Someone who meticulously planned out these crimes wouldn’t have chosen a third-floor walk-up to play a role in the abduction. If the victims are unconscious, someone has to carry them up three flights of stairs. Not easy with someone like Hal. If they’re conscious you have to walk them up the stairs at gunpoint. Too conspicuous. And then there are the shoes. Neatly piled in a corner of the otherwise empty apartment. They were purposely brought there. And there were more shoes than known kidnap victims.”
“You think they were staged.”
“The better question is why were they staged?”
This is why Ranger has his own security firm, and I’m barely able to pay my rent. He’s observant. He connects the dots. He knows how to use his unique talents. I’m sure I have unique talents, but they haven’t surfaced yet.
“Morelli said he asked you to send your tech over to check out the security cameras.”
“The apartment didn’t have an alarm system, so the cameras were strictly for surveillance. They had the ability to record and send to a separate location.”
“Do you know the location? Were you able to see what it recorded?”
“The record function wasn’t active. The cameras were sending to a location that’s since been shut down. Sometimes we can still find the location, but not in this case.”
“I had a surprise visit from Wulf this afternoon,” I said. “He told me he was doing a favor for a friend, tracking down a man who was associated with the deli. He said you were making his job more difficult with your surveillance people.”
“And he asked you to pass this on to me?”
“Yes. He said you had an adversarial history with him.”
“We’ve crossed paths,” Ranger said.
“Are you going to pull back on the surveillance?”
“No.”
“Am I taking the garbage out tonight?”
“No. I’m taking it out tonight,” Ranger said.
He pulled up to the deli. A Rangeman guy came out of the shadows and took Ranger’s place behind the wheel.
“Valet parking?” I said to Ranger.
“Sometimes it’s good to be me,” Ranger said.
It was Sunday, and the area around the train station was quiet. There was only sporadic traffic on the road in front of the deli, and no pedestrian traffic. Raymond and Stretch weren’t waiting at the door, and I had a stab of panic that they weren’t going to show up for work.
I unlocked the deli, and Ranger and I went in. The room smelled like fry grease and dill pickle and felt lonely without Raymond and Stretch.
“Do you hear that?” I asked Ranger. “There’s something making scratching sounds.”
“Mice in the walls,” Ranger said. “You can’t hear them when the fan is going over the fry station.”
“This place should be demolished.”
