'Was he hot, or what? Did you see the size of his gun? I'm telling you, I'm getting a flash. I could have a piece of that.'
'How about a piece of this?' Rodriguez said.
'You watch your mouth,' Lula said. 'You're close to being roadkill. We could throw you out and run over you, and nobody'd know the difference.'
&
nbsp; I took Third to State and headed south on State. I went one block, stopped for a light, and when the light changed, Harold
Pancek passed me going in the opposite direction in his blue
Honda Civic.
'Holy cow,' Lula said. 'Did you see him? That was Harold
Pancek. I'd know him anywhere with his yellow square head.'
I was already in motion, making an illegal U-turn. I did some aggressive driving and got myself directly behind Pancek. Rangers guys had been caught by surprise and were struggling to catch up, two cars back. We stopped for another light, and Lula jumped out of the Porsche and ran for Pancek. She had her hand on the passenger-side door when he looked around and saw her. The light changed, and Pancek took off. Lula climbed back into the
Porsche, and I closed the gap. I was riding close on his bumper, hoping he'd get demoralized and stop. He was checking his rear mirrors, weaving around traffic, taking side streets in an attempt to lose me.
'He don't know where he's going,' Lula said. 'He's just trying to get away from you. I bet he's never been in this neighborhood before.'
That was my guess, too. We were in a poor section of Trenton, heading toward an even worse section of Trenton. Pancek drove like a bat out of hell down four blocks on Sixth Street.
I hit the brakes when Pancek crossed Lime. Comstock was one block away. Comstock was Slayerland. I wasn't following Pancek into Slayerland.
'Do we have a cell phone number for Pancek?' I asked Lula.
'Can we warn him he's in Slayerland?'
'We never got a cell for him,' Lula said. 'And anyway, it's too late.
He's turned up Comstock.'
I slowly cruised a couple blocks on Lime, hoping Pancek would pop out of Slayerland. No luck. So I turned around and pointed the
Porsche in the direction of North Clinton.
When we got to the station, I left Lula with the Cayenne, and I marched Rodriguez in through the front door. I know it was moronic, but I wanted the guys to see I could capture a man with all his clothes on.
It was close to five and Morelli was gone for the day. Thank God for small favors. I didn't know what to do about Morelli. Thanks to
Rangers stupid shower gel, face-to-face meetings with Morelli were now beyond uncomfortable. Okay, lets be honest. It was more than the shower gel. It was Ranger. The man was deadly sexy.
And he was walking around without underwear. I couldn't stop thinking about it. I gave myself a mental face slap. Get a grip, I told myself. You don't really know for sure. Just because you didn't find any underwear, doesn't mean he doesn't own any. Maybe they were all in the laundry. All right, so this was a little improbable. I was going to go with it anyway, because the thought of standing next to
Ranger when he was commando had me in a state.
Connie had closed up shop by the time I got back to the bonds office, so I dropped Lula at her car, and I returned to the RangeMan building. The black SUV followed me into the garage and parked in one of the side slots. Two of the four slots reserved for Ranger were occupied. The Mercedes and Turbo were in place. The truck was missing. I parked the Cayenne next to the Turbo, walked over to the
SUV, and knocked on the passenger-side window.
Thanks for the help,' I said.
The guy in the passenger seat nodded acknowledgment. Neither said anything. I gave them something between a smile and a grimace, and I scurried off to the elevator.
I let myself into the apartment and dropped the keys in the dish on the sideboard. The sideboard also held a bowl of fresh fruit and a silver tray filled with unopened mail.