“You'd tell me if you had a problem, right? Because, you know, I have a way of solving problems like that.”
No doubt in my mind. He didn't look like a bookie, but I had no trouble at all believing he could solve that kind of problem. “Why are you here?”
He prowled through my cabinets, looking for food, finding nothing that interested him. Guess he wasn't crazy about hamster pellets.
“I wanted to know if you found anything,” he said. “Like, do you have clues or something?”
“No. No clues. Nothing.”
“I thought you were supposed to be this hotshot detective.”
“I'm not a detective at all. I'm a bail enforcement agent.”
“Bounty hunter.”
“Yeah. Bounty hunter.”
“So, that's okay. You go out and find people. That's what we want to have happen here.”
“How much money did Fred owe you?”
“Enough that I want it. Not enough to make a man feel like he had to disappear. I'm a pretty nice guy, you know. It isn't like I go around breaking people's knees 'cause they don't pay up. Well, okay, so sometimes I might break a knee, but it's not like it happens every day.”
I rolled my eyes.
“You know what I think you should do?” Bunchy said. “I think you should go check at his bank. See if he's taken any money out. I can't do things like that on account of I look like I might break people's knees. But you're a pretty girl. You probably got a friend works in the bank. People would want to do a favor for you.”
“I'll think about it. Now go away.”
Bunchy ambled to the door. He took a beat-?up brown leather jacket from one of the pegs on the wall and turned to look at me. His expression was serious. “Find him.”
What hung unsaid in the air was . . . or else.
I slipped the bolt behind him. First chance I had I was going to have to get a new lock. Surely someone made a lock that actually kept people out.
I called my mother back and explained to her that I hadn't blown someone up. He'd sort of blown himself up with some help from an old lady in a pink nightgown.
“You could have a good job,” my mother said. “You could take lessons from that place that advertises on television and teaches you to be a computer operator.”
“I have to go now.”
“How about dinner. I'm making a nice pot roast with potatoes and gravy.”
“I don't think so.”
“Pineapple upside-?down cake for dessert.”
“Okay. I'll be there at six.”
I erased the breathing messages and told myself they were wrong numbers. But in my heart, I knew the breather.
I double-?checked all the locks on my door, and I checked to make sure my win
dows were secure and no one was hiding in a closet or under the bed. I took a long, hot shower, wrapped myself in a towel, stepped out of the bathroom . . . and came face-?to-?face with Ranger.
Stephanie Plum 5 - High Five
Stephanie Plum 5 - High Five