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“Omigosh,” I said. “I forgot about Lula.”
“We found her in the garage,” Ranger said. “I think they put her in the trunk and forgot about her. Or maybe they didn’t want to deal with her. We heard her pounding on the trunk lid and yelling when we cleared the area. Vinnie was there too. He said you were behind him on the back stairs but when he reached the garage you weren’t with him. He couldn’t make it to the exit ramp because there were men unloading one of the trucks. Hewas hiding in a corner behind the stairwell. I had one of my men take him home.”
Connie, Lula, Benji, and Beedle came out of a back door and hurried over to us.
“What’s going on? What did I miss?” Lula asked.
“Sir Lancelot smote Luther,” I said. “It was awesome. If it wasn’t for Sir Lancelot I’d be on my way to Mexico now.”
“How bad did he smote him?”
“Chopped off three fingers,” I said. “The paramedic came and collected them.”
Everyone gave Sir Lancelot two thumbs up and somedilly dillys.
“I would have liked to smote someone,” Lula said. “I was left in the trunk of some smelly car like I was a used tire. These people got no couth.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to do some damage,” Connie said, “but at least the nightmare has ended, and I’ll get a chance to testify. And I can guarantee you that the Smulets will not make bail.”
We all went back into the building and walked to the front lobby.
“Vinnie and I never explored the first and second floors,” I said to Ranger.
“They aren’t being used. They were locked when we got here.”
“But you got them open?”
“We blasted them open. I didn’t want to waste time getting in,” he said. “I knew you were here. I didn’t know anything beyond that. I didn’t like what I saw when we went into the garage.”
We left the building and walked out into the sunlight. There were Rangeman SUVs, cop cars, fire trucks, and EMTs. A satellite news truck rolled into the small parking area. I saw Morelli pull in.
“This is going to turn into a circus,” Ranger said. “Every three-letter agency is going to have a piece of this. I’m going to pull my men out and let the feds take over.”
“Thank you,” I said. I put my hand to my necklace. “Do you want this back?”
“Keep it,” he said. “I’ll turn the tracking function off. Let me know if you want it back on.”
He was standing close enough that I could feel the heat from his body and smell the faint scent of Bulgari. Our eyes held for a long moment before he turned and walked away.
Lula was standing behind me. “Holy hell,” she said. “Holy crap. He wasn’t even talking to me, and I got all verklempt.”
“What’sverklempt?”
“I don’t know exactly. When I was a ho, I had a steady customer who got verklempt. I’d be doing my job, and he’d be saying, ‘I’m verklempt. I’m verklempt.’ I think it might be like an orgasm of the brain. Like a good aneurism, or something. I figured it was on account of I was an excellent ho. If anybody was gonna make a man go verklempt, it was Lula.”
Morelli made his way through the chaos of cops and cars and flashing lights. Bella was scuttling after him.
“I was taking Bella to Aunt Choochi’s house, and I heard the call go out for a major drug bust at this address. Dispatch said Rangeman had the building secured, and I got instant heartburn. I knew in my gut you were involved.”
“Only tangentially,” I said.
“Huh,” Bella said. “Slut knows big word.”
The guard who had taken me upstairs and locked me in my cell without bathroom privileges was cuffed and waiting with several other guards for police transport.
“Do you see the men standing by the police car?” I asked Bella. “They’re all handcuffed.”
“I see them. So?”
