MORELLI DRAGGED ME out of bed and handed me some clothes.

“It’s dark out,” I said. “It’s the middle of the night.”

“Technically it’s more the middle of the morning. Get dressed. I have coffee downstairs.”

“I don’t want coffee. I want to go back to bed.”

“I have an early meeting, and I need to drop you off at Rangeman.”

“I don’t need Rangeman. There’s no deli. It’s over.”

“It isn’t over. Five men are missing, and a man is dead. The dead man wasn’t on-site at the deli.”

“Leonard Skoogie and Ernie Sitz were college roommates.”

“Yes. And they were business partners.”

“Did you get prints off Skoogie’s shoe?”

“Waggle’s prints were on the shoe. I’m not supposed to be telling you any of this.”

“No problem. I’m too tired to remember.”

Twenty minutes later I stumbled into Rangeman and took the elevator to Ranger’s apartment. I shuffled to his bedroom, kicked my shoes off, and stretched out on his bed. I was instantly asleep, and when I finally opened my eyes Ranger was standing at bedside. I felt like Goldilocks in baby bear’s bed.

“I’m not a morning person,” I said.

Ranger was grinning. “You smell like fried Spam.”

“It’s in my hair. I can’t get it out.” I looked over at the window. The curtains were still drawn. “What time is it?”

“It’s almost ten o’clock. I want to make a run to the deli and check on the damage.”

I swung my legs over the side of the bed, stood, and straightened my shirt. “Morelli said Waggle’s prints were on the Skoogie shoe. Does that mean anything to you?”

“It’s another piece of information that will eventually make sense.”

I followed him out of his apartment and down to the garage. We drove to the deli and parked. A single fire truck was still in the street plus a couple cop cars. I didn’t see Morelli. There was a lot of debris on the sidewalk. Greasy runoff filled the gutters, and the air was heavy with the smell of smoke and soggy upholstery. The soot-stained building was cordoned off with crime scene tape.

“Are your men still in place?” I asked Ranger.

“No. I pulled them last night.”

I saw two forlorn figures standing in the shadow of the fire truck. Raymond and Stretch. I waved and walked over to them.

“This is a shambles,” Raymond said. “And it is a tragedy that my green card was destroyed in the fire.”

“That’s your story?”

“I will swear to it,” Raymond said.

“I guess you’ll be looking for other jobs.”

“No problem there,” Stretch said. “There are always jobs for line cooks.”

“You will have to travel to see your honey,” Raymond said to Stretch.

“There are always other honeys,” Stretch said.

“That is a good, positive attitude,” Raymond said. “It is the presence of a good purveyor that most worries me. I will first try to find employment in an establishment serviced by Frankie.”

“Freakin’ A,” Stretch said.

Vinnie’s Cadillac jerked to a stop behind the fire truck, and Vinnie lunged out of the car.

“Shit!” Vinnie said, staring at the blackened hull that used to be the deli. “Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit!”

“Who is this vulgar man?” Raymond asked. “That is a lot of shit even for Jersey.”

“He works for the guy who owns the deli,” I said. “He’s my boss.”

Vinnie spotted me and rushed over, arms waving, eyes bulging.

“You were supposed to manage,” he yelled at me. “This isn’t managing! Does this look like managing? No! This looks like Harry’s investment turned into a smoking turd. Harry’s gonna crap himself. And then he’s gonna kill me. And it’s all your fault. I put you in charge, and you burned the deli down to the ground! You’re a walking clusterfuck.”

Ranger moved into Vinnie’s range of vision and Vinnie stopped in mid-rant. Everyone knew I was under Ranger’s protection, and the possibility of angering Ranger was even more frightening than angering Harry.

“Maybe I got carried away,” Vinnie said. “I mean, we’re family, right? Anyway, you probably did me a favor. We had this pain-in-the-ass rat’s nest overinsured.”

“It was an accident,” I said. “It started with a grease fire.”

“Yeah, these things happen,” Vinnie said. “I’ll go explain it to Harry.”

We all watched him scramble back into his Cadillac and drive away.

“I think I would not like to work for him,” Raymond said. “He reminds me of my mother.”

The alleys on both sides of the deli building were clogged with chunks of roofing material and window glass, so Ranger and I walked around the block to see the rest of the damage.

The back door was covered with plywood and crisscrossed with crime scene tape. Puddles of sooty water and pieces of charred wood littered the parking area. We were standing there, taking it in, when the Central GP truck rumbled down the alley and stopped just short of us.

Frankie got out and looked at the blackened brick. “When did this happen?” he asked.

“Last night,” I said. “Grease fire.”

“How bad is it?”

“We haven’t been inside, but I don’t think there’s much left.”

“So, I’m guessing you don’t want your order?”

“Stretch and Raymond are in front. They might need oregano.”

“I’ll drive around,” Frankie said.

We watched the truck move on down the alley.

“He has a nice business going,” Ranger said.

I gestured at the deli. “Not much to see from the outside. And I suppose it’s not safe to go in.”

“We’ll get notified when it’s safe to go in.”

“I got a text from Connie. She has two new files for me. Do you have time to take me to the office?”

“I have a meeting at three o’clock. Until then I’m all yours.”

Connie was alone at her desk when Ranger and I walked in.

“Where is everyone?” I asked.

“Vinnie is talking to Harry. Lula is out foraging lunch.”

“It’s early for lunch,” I said.

“Not for Lula,” Connie said. “I’m glad you’re here. I have two new court skips. One of them is a high bond, high flight risk.”

I took the two files and flipped the first one open. Ranger was pressed against my back, reading over my shoulder. He was warm, and he smelled nice, and I was having a hard time concentrating on the file.

“I’ll take these out to the car, and we’ll get right to it,” I said to Connie.

“When you’re done, look for the FTA,” Connie said.

The first guy was a repeater. Darren Boot. Forty-two years old. Lived with his mother in a ramshackle house by the junkyard. A couple times a year they would get crazy drunk, and Darren would go off and do something stupid. This time he’d stolen a cop car and driven it through the front window of a 7-Eleven.

The second guy was a drug dealer with gang ties. He had family and “business associates” in Guatemala and an arrest record. He’d run a light and had been pulled over by police. They found a bale of cannabis in the trunk of his car, and a suitcase filled with cocaine. In the struggle to cuff the gang guy, one of the cops suffered a groin injury and the gang guy got a broken nose and lost a couple teeth.

Ranger took the file from me and read aloud.

“Walter Jesus Santiago, AKA Wally San, AKA W. J. San, AKA Jesus Santiago, AKA Tarzan. And I saved the best for last. AKA Forest Kottel.”

“I guess we should try to find Mr. Santiago,” I said to Ranger.

“He gives an address of Bartlett Street. That’s one block over from Stark. He’s a self-employed entrepreneur, so either he’s at home or else he’s at the port in Perth Amboy picking up a bale.”

Ranger cut across town and cruised down Bartlett. The first five blocks were similar to Stark, but were more residential and pervasively Hispanic. Buildings were red brick, three-and four-story, some in better shape than others. The graffiti was more colorful than the Stark Street graffiti. I attributed this to more recent writing. Signs for the grocery stores and bars were in  Spanish. A couple buildings on the fifth block were pockmarked  with gunshots, but the first four blocks seemed relatively safe.

Santiago lived on the third block. We parked, entered the building, and took the stairs to the second floor. Two apartments. Santiago lived in the rear-facing one. Ranger knocked on the door, and it opened with the security chain in place. A young man looked out at us, and I was pretty sure it was Santiago. I could only see two inches of him, but he resembled the mug shot in his bond folder.

“Walter Santiago?” Ranger asked.

“Nah,” he said. “He don’t live here.”

“Can I come in?” Ranger asked.

“Sure,” the guy said.

The door closed, and we could hear the bolt slam into place. Ranger took a step back and said, “Bond enforcement.” He gave the door a hard kick and BANG! The bolt snapped loose, and the door crashed open.

It appeared to be a two-room apartment. The main room had a small kitchen area to one side, a huge flat-screen TV on the opposite wall, a massive black leather couch, and two matching recliners facing the TV. The window looking out at the back alley was open, and I could see Santiago on the fire escape. A moment later he was gone.

“Clear the apartment,” Ranger said, crossing the room. “I’ll go after Tarzan.”

I ran to the window and watched Ranger vault over the fire escape railing. He grabbed the bottom of the railing with one hand, hung for a beat, and dropped to the ground. Tarzan had climbed down the ladder and was only a few steps in front of Ranger. Ranger closed the gap, grabbed Tarzan by the back of his shirt, and threw him to the ground. In seconds, Tarzan was cuffed and back on his feet.

I went back to the bedroom and made sure no one was in the closet, under the bed, or in the bathroom. I closed the window, and closed the door as I left the apartment. Ranger was on the sidewalk, waiting for me, when I came out.

“Nice work,” I said. “You should be the one named Tarzan.”

“It’s been a while since I chased someone down. I spend most of my time behind a desk now.”

It was obvious that he also spent time in the gym because his body was perfect, and he hadn’t broken a sweat capturing Tarzan. My body had to make do with good genes, because I hated the gym. My favored exercise was walking the length of the mall to get to Cinnabon. So far, I was holding my own, but I suspect the future might be ugly.

Ranger loaded Tarzan AKA Santiago AKA Forest Kottel into the back seat of his SUV, and we drove him to the police station. We dumped him off, I got my body receipt, and we went back to the office to turn the receipt in to Connie.

“Thanks,” I said to Ranger. “I couldn’t have captured him on my own. I’m no good at breaking down doors. I can’t jump over fire escape railings. And I probably couldn’t have caught up to him on the ground.”

“You would have done the capture your way,” Ranger said. “You would have told him you were selling Girl Scout cookies, and while he was thinking about Thin Mints and Samoas, Lula would have knocked him over and sat on him.”

“Sometimes it works,” I said.

“I have to get back to the office,” Ranger said. “You can come back with me, or I can send one of my men to follow you around.”

“Send one of your men. I want to go after Darren Boot.”

Lula was sitting on the couch when I walked into the bonds office. I gave the body receipt to Connie, and I took a piece of the pizza that was on her desk.

“I have to find Darren Boot,” I said.

“I’ll come with you,” Lula said. “Where’s this Darren Boot live?”

“By the junkyard. We’ve been there a couple times. He lives with his mother.”

“Now I remember. They’re the ones with the mushroom farm. And the mother dresses up like Minnie Mouse.”