I wasn't nearly so relaxed. I was worried that Anton Ward might have escaped. And I was worried that he might still be there. 'You aren't going to hurt him, are you?' I asked Ranger.
Ranger flicked a glance at me via the rear-view mirror. 'Babe,' he said.
'I know he probably killed a couple people,' I said. 'But I'm sort of responsible for his safety.'
'You want to explain that?'
I told Ranger how we bonded Ward out and then kidnapped him.
'Nice,' Ranger said.
Vinnie's street was totally black, not a single light burning. Ranger tucked the Porsche into the driveway, and Tank pulled the SUV in behind him.
'I can leave you in the car with Hal,' Ranger said, getting the belt from the back. 'Would you feel more comfortable with that?'
'No. I'm coming in.'
The house was quiet, but I could feel Ward's sullen presence.
He was in the bathroom, just as we left him, shackled to the toilet and sink pipe. He didn't look happy to see Ranger.
'Do you know who I am?' Ranger asked him quietly.
Ward nodded his head, checking out the belt with the gun and the Maglite. `Yeah, I know who you are.'
`i'M going to ask you some questions,' Ranger said. 'And you need to give me the right answers.'
Ward's eyes darted from me to Ranger and beyond Ranger to
Tank.
'If you don't give me the right answers, I'm going to leave you alone in the house with Tank and Hal,' Ranger said. 'Do you understand?'
'Yeah, I understand.'
'Tell me about Junkman.'
'Nothing to tell. He's from out of town. LA. Nobody even knows his name. Just Junkman.'
'Where does he live?'
'Moves around, livin' with the bitches. Always got a new bitch.
We're not exactly best friends, you know? Like I don't know his bitches.'
'What's the deal with the killing? What's the list about?'
'Hey, man, I can't talk to you about these things. I'm a brother.'
Ranger whacked Ward in the knee with the Maglite, and Ward went down like a sack of sand.
'Anybody finds out I talked to you, I'm a dead man,' Ward said, holding his knee.
'You don't talk to me and you're going to wish you were dead,'
Ranger said.
'It's about being Five Star General. Junkman was a lieutenant in the organization out in LA. He got sent here to take over on account of Trenton's had some leadership problems. Power vacuum after our