The phone rang again. This time I let the machine get it. The call was from Ranger. Just reporting in, he said. Running tomorrow at seven.
I called Lula as promised and registered her for the program.
I was downstairs at seven, but I wasn't in the finest form. I hadn't slept well, and I was feeling tapped out.
“How'd it go yesterday?” Ranger asked.
I gave him the unabridged version, excluding my juvenile visit to Morelli's backyard.
Ranger's mouth tipped at the corners. “You're making this up, right?”
“Wrong. That's what happened. You asked what happened. I told you what happened.”
“Okay, let me get this straight. Elliot Harp flew off Mo's car, bounced off the Firebird onto the shoulder of Route 1. You picked Elliot up, and put him in the trunk and drove him to the police station.”
“More or less.”
Ranger gave a bark of laughter. “Bet that went over big with the boys in blue.”
A taxi pulled into the lot, not far from where we were standing, and Lula got out. She was dressed in a pink polar fleece sweatsuit and pink furry earmuffs. She looked like the Energizer rabbit on steroids.
“Lula's going running with us,” I told Ranger. “She wants to get in better shape.”
Ranger gave Lula the once-over. “You don't keep up, you get left behind.”
“Your ass,” Lula said.
We took off at a pretty good clip. I figured Ranger was testing Lula. She was breathing hard, but she was close on his heels. She managed until we got to the track, and then she found a seat on the sidelines.
“I don't run in circles,” she said.
I sat beside her. “Works for me.”
Ranger did a lap and jogged by us without acknowledgment of our presence or lack of.
“So why are you really here?” I asked Lula.
Lula's eyes never left Ranger. “I'm here 'cause he's the shit.”
“The shit?”
“Yeah, you know . . . the shit. The king. The cool.”
“Do we know anyone else who's the shit?”
“John Travolta. He's the shit, too.”
We watched Ranger some, and I could see her point about Ranger being the shit.
“I've been thinking,” Lula said. “Suppose there really were superheroes?”
“Like Batman?”
“That's it. That's what I'm saying. It'd be someone who was the shit.”
“Are you telling me you think Ranger's a superhero?”
“Think about it. We don't know where he lives. We don't know anything about him.”