This got a smile from me. I wasn't interested for a bunch of complicated reasons, not the least of which was Joe Morelli. Still, it was nice to know the offer was on the table. “What's the business?”
“I've been asked to provide security for Brenda.”
“The Brenda? The singer?”
“Yes. She'll be in town for three days doing a concert, some media, and a charity fund-raiser. I'm supposed to keep her dry and drug-free and out of harm's way. If I assign one of my men to her, she'll eat him alive and spit him out in front of the press. So I'm taking the watch, and I need someone riding shotgun.”
“What about Tank?”
Tank is Ranger's next in command, and he's the guy Ranger trusts to watch his back. Tank's called Tank because that's what he is. He's seven feet of muscle packed into a six-foot, four-inch, no-neck body. Tank is also Lula's current boyfriend.
“Brenda's management team has requested security be invisible at public functions, and it's hard to hide Tank,” Ranger said. “Tank and Hal will work shifts standing guard at Brenda's hotel. When she's at large, we'll take over. She can pass us off as traveling companions, and you can go into the ladies' room with her and make sure she doesn't test-drive mushrooms.”
“Doesn't she have her own bodyguard?”
“He slipped and broke his ankle getting off the plane last night. They've shipped him back to California.”
“I'm surprised you're taking this on.”
“I'm doing it as a favor for Lew Pepper, the concert promoter.” Ranger passed a sheet of paper to me. “This is Brenda's public appearance schedule. We need to be at her hotel a half hour ahead. And we're on call. If she leaves her room, we're there.”
I looked at the schedule and chewed on my lower lip. Morelli wasn't going to be happy to have me spending this much time with Ranger. And Brenda was a car crash. Like Cher and Madonna, she didn't use a last name. Just Brenda. She was sixty-one years old. She'd been married eight times. She could crack walnuts with her ass muscles. And she was rumored to be mean as a snake. I couldn't remember her last album, but I knew she had a cabaret act going. Baby-sitting Brenda had “nightmare” written all over it.
“Babe,” Ranger said, reading my thoughts. “I don't ask a lot of favors.”
I blew out a sigh, folded the paper, and put it in my jeans pocket. “Looks like the fund-raiser is tonight. Meet and greet at five-thirty. I'll meet you in her hotel lobby at five.”
Zook was IN the land of Minionfire when I rolled into the bonds office. Connie was working on the computer at her desk, and Lula was packing up, getting ready to leave. “I gotta get home and beautify,” Lula said. “Tank's coming over tonight. This here's the third time this week I'll see him. I think this is getting serious. I wouldn't be surprised if he was gonna pop the question.”
“What question are you thinking about?” Connie asked.
“The big question. The M question. He probably would already have asked the M question, except he's so shy. I been thinking I might help him along with it. Make it easy on him. Maybe I need to get him liquored up first, so he's nice and relaxed. And maybe I'll stop at the jewelry district on the way home and get an engagement ring, so he don't have to do a lot of shopping. You know how men hate shopping.”
“How're we doing with Loretta's bond?” I asked Connie.
Connie slid a glance at Zook, bent over his laptop, and then looked back at me. The silent communication was no luck so far. Hard to get someone to post a couple thousand dollars in bond when the last person to post bond for Loretta ended up forfeiting their money.
Lula had her bag on her shoulder and her car keys in her hand. “What'd Ranger want with you?”
“He's running security for Brenda for the next three days, and he wants me to ride shotgun.”
Morelli lived halfway between my apartment at the edge of Trenton proper and my parents' house in the Burg. It was a modest two-story row house on a quiet street in a stable blue-collar neighborhood. Living room, dining room, kitchen, and powder room on the first floor. Three small bedrooms and bath upstairs. So far as I know, he'd never eaten in the dining room. Morelli ate breakfast at the small table in the kitchen, lunch at the sink, and dinner in front of the television in the living room. There was a single-car garage at the back of the property, accessible by a rutted alley, but Morelli almost always parked his SUV at the curb in front of the house. The backyard was narrow and strictly utilitarian, only used by Morelli's dog, Bob.
I parked and looked over at Zook. “You know Joe Morelli, right?”
“Wrong.”
“You're related.”
“That's what I hear.” Zook studied the house. “I thought it would be bigger. It's all my uncle talks about since he got out of prison. He said it was supposed to go to him, but Morelli swindled him out of it.”
“Hard to believe of Morelli,” I said.
“I thought he was supposed to be the big, bad, tough cop and lady-killer. What's he want with this dorkopolis?”
In the beginning, I struggled with that one, too. I saw Morelli in a cool condo with a big-screen television and a kick-ass sound system and maybe a pinball machine in his living room. Turns out Morelli was tired of sailing that ship. Morelli went into Rose's house with an open mind, and the house and Morelli took stock of each other and adapted. The house gave up some of its stuffiness, and Morelli dialed down his wild side.
I pulled the key from the ignition, got out of the car, and walked to the front door with Zook trailing after me.