THE DELI WAS empty by two o’clock. I suspected most of the customers would never return. I did my best, but I was at the bottom of a learning curve. I had mustard in my hair, ketchup on my shirt, my workstation was a mess, and the floor was a health hazard.
“It is a very good thing that Stretch is not here to see this disgrace,” Raymond said. “He would poop himself.”
“Let’s just clean up and move forward,” I said.
I was praying that Stretch would be able to work the dinner shift. The dinner menu included hot sandwiches that involved gravy and melted cheese. This was way beyond my culinary skills.
“The dinner customers will be easier to please,” Raymond said. “You can hide the ugliness of your sandwich making under a generous portion of gravy. They will not know what they are eating.”
“I don’t know how to make gravy,” I said.
“You do not make gravy,” Raymond said. “Gravy comes in five-gallon tubs. You might not have noticed them because the gravy tubs are very similar to the tubs of rice pudding and lard. In fact, once when Stretch was very stoned he gave a woman a dish of lard in place of the rice pudding. It was extremely funny.”
I thought this must be fry-cook humor. And I hoped he never told that story to Lula because she took her rice pudding seriously.
The kitchen was almost clean when Lula and Stretch returned. Stretch had a bandage wrapped around his finger. Lula was carrying a grocery bag.
“We would have got back sooner, but we stopped for turkey and stuff,” Lula said. “How’d lunch go?”
“Lunch was great,” I said. “Easy peasy.”
“Yes,” Raymond said. “I was a frying maniac.”
Dalia rolled her eyes and continued with her floor mopping.
“How bad is your finger?” I asked Stretch.
“It’s okay,” he said. “I just chopped the tip off. They were able to stitch it back on. I’ve done worse.”
“Once he dropped the cleaver on his toe,” Raymond said. “That was a bad time.”
“Are you able to work?” I asked him.
“Cutie pie, if I had a dollar for every time I sliced off part of a finger I’d be a rich man.”
“Okay then,” I said. “I’m going to leave for a while. I’ll be back to help with the dinner trade.”
“I’ll go with you,” Lula said.
“Me too,” Hal said.
I didn’t mind this arrangement because if I got lucky and ran across Victor Waggle, Hal would be useful. He had blond hair styled in a buzz cut, a peaches-and-cream complexion, and enough muscle to stop a freight train. Plus, he could be the wheel man, and I would get to ride in a nice clean Rangeman SUV that gobbled up gas bought by Rangeman.
“Where are we going?” Hal asked.
“The fourth block of Stark Street,” I said. “I want to talk to Martin Kammel.”
“Hey, I know that dude,” Hal said. “He’s lead guitar with Rockin’ Armpits.”
I had a moment of blank brain. Hal knew Rockin’ Armpits.
“I have one of their CDs. I got it signed,” Hal said.
“One of the Armpits, Victor Waggle, is FTA,” I said. “The only address he gave is a brick building that’s full of bullet holes and gang graffiti. It’s at the end of Stark.”
“That sounds like the Snake Pit,” Hal said. “I don’t think anyone lives there. It’s gutted inside. Only thing in it is a stage. I don’t think there’s even any plumbing.”
“Is it safe to go there?”
“I wouldn’t go there unless the band was performing. They bring in lighting, and if you pay to park no one will steal your car. That’s how they make their money . . . on the parking. And there’s a big drug market. Once in a while someone gets shot, but aside from that it’s pretty safe.”
“And you go to this?”
“I used to date a girl who was all into Rockin’ Armpits. We went to a couple Thursdays at the Pit. I haven’t been there lately.”
It never occurred to me that Hal might have a life beyond Rangeman. He was a nice guy, but he looked like he ate kale and raw meat, and his sole recreation was skinny-dipping in the ocean in January.
Hal cut across the center of the city, turned onto Stark Street, and parked on the fourth block. Kammel’s building was a narrow four-floor walkup. The stairwell was dark and smelled like urine and burrito. There were two units on the third floor. I rang the bell for 3B.
“I don’t hear no bell ringing,” Lula said. “I think his bell is broken.”
I knocked on the door. No answer. I knocked again. Nothing.
“Maybe you didn’t knock loud enough,” Lula said. “He could be hard of hearing being that he plays in a band. He might not be wearing his hearing aid.”
“Let me try,” Hal said.
Hal pounded on the door, and the door splintered around the lock and popped open.
“Oops,” Hal said. “My bad.”
A tall, skinny guy with a lot of curly black hair and a spider tattooed on his forehead looked out at us.
“Hey,” he said, “you broke my door.”
“Sorry,” Hal said. “It was an accident.”
“No big deal,” Spider Head said. “I’m just crashing here. It isn’t really my door.”
“Martin Kammel?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
I gave him my card. “I’m looking for Victor Waggle. He missed his court date and he needs to reschedule.”
“This is about pissing on the dog, right? We all told him he shouldn’t have done that.”
“He also stabbed two people,” I said.
“That was an accident. He was on a bad trip and got confused,” Kammel said. “Like, that could happen to anybody, right?”
“It wouldn’t happen to me,” Lula said. “Where can we find Waggle?”
“No one knows where to find him,” Kammel said. “He’s GhostMan. He’s in the wind.”
“Let’s break it down,” I said. “Where does GhostMan sleep?”
“I don’t know,” Kammel said. “He travels light and he moves around.”
“He’s homeless,” I said.
“Home is a state of mind,” Kammel said. “Some people carry their home with them.” He thumped his chest. “In their heart.”
“Is that where your home is?” Lula asked him.
“Naw,” he said. “I’m shacked up here with a crazy bitch.”
We left Kammel and went back to the Rangeman SUV.
“That was an unsatisfying experience,” Lula said. “We didn’t find out anything, and he didn’t even look like a rock star.”
I checked my notes. “We have one last band member. Russel Frick. He’s a lot older than the rest of the band. Works as a bagger at Food Stuff.”
“I remember Frick,” Hal said. “He’s real old. Someone told me he plays with Armpit because he’s the only guy they could find with his own drum set.”
“Food Stuff is on Brunswick Avenue,” I said. “Let’s see if Frick is bagging today.”
Hal took Pennington Avenue to Brunswick Avenue and headed north. Food Stuff was part of a strip mall just past the medical center. It was a warehouse-type supermarket that was locally loved for its double-coupon days. What it lacked in feel-good cozy it made up for in cheap. My kind of store.
We parked in the lot, and Lula grabbed a shopping cart on the way in.
“Why the cart?” I asked.
“I might see something I need. This here’s a good store. They have a bakery that sells day-old stuff that’s as good as new. And I hear they have excellent rotisserie chicken.”
“We aren’t shopping. We’re working.”
“Yeah, but this will only take a minute. You can go talk to the old guy, and I’ll scope out the store.”
I watched Lula swing her ass down an aisle, and I turned to Hal. Hal was a godsend. He knew the band. He recognized the members, and if I didn’t find Waggle by Thursday, he would go to the Snake Pit with me.
“Do you see Frick?” I asked him.
“Yep. He’s working with the next-to-last checker. He’s the guy with the long gray hair. He’s wearing the Spider-Man T-shirt.”
I approached Frick and introduced myself. “I’m looking for Victor Waggle,” I said.
“Aren’t we all,” Frick said. “He owes me money.”
“I understand you and Waggle are bandmates.”
“Rockin’ Armpits,” Frick said.
He stuffed milk and orange juice into a bag, added deli meats, cheese, and topped it off with a loaf of bread.
“You’re a good bagger,” Hal said to Frick. “You put all the heavy things in first, and you put the bread in last. I hate when baggers don’t pay attention and the bread gets smushed.”
“It’s a skill,” Frick said. “I have a good eye for fitting everything in.”
“About Victor Waggle,” I said. “Do you know where I can find him?”
Frick put the bag of groceries in a woman’s cart and set a new empty bag on the shelf in front of him. “I don’t think Victor has an address. He’s like water. He flows into the empty space. He could be hanging out in a condemned building, or he could be living the good life, playing house with a groupie. I’m sure he’ll be at the Snake Pit on Thursday. I’ve been with Armpit for a year, and Victor’s never missed a gig.”
“Is this your full-time job?” I asked Frick. “Can you make a living doing this?”
“I was an accountant for forty-three years,” Frick said. “I retired two years ago, and now I do whatever I want.”
“Playing the drums and bagging groceries?”
“Yeah, I get to meet people, and I make some spare change. Gives me something to talk about on my Facebook page.”
“Do you ever hang out with Victor?”
“No. Victor isn’t exactly intellectually stimulating. I think he hangs with Ziggy sometimes. Probably it’s more like Ziggy follows Victor around when he can find him. Ziggy is needy. He’s kind of lost.”
Lula rushed up to the checkout with her cart. “I got us some good bargains. I got a birthday cake for a dollar. It says ‘Happy Birthday, Larry, Ken, and Stanley,’ but nobody came to pick up their cake, so it was on the sale table.” She turned her attention to Frick. “This here’s the band guy?”
“I’m on drums,” Frick said.
“Aren’t you kind of old?” Lula asked.
“Yeah,” Frick said. “Aren’t you kind of fat?”
“I’m not fat,” Lula said, “I’m excessively proportioned. It goes with my extra-large personality. Do you know where we can find Victor?”
“Then I’m checking out and eating my cake. I need one of them plastic forks. Hell, forks for everyone.”
We returned to the deli just before the rush-hour surge. Dalia was setting the tables, and Raymond and Stretch were working in the kitchen.
“I’m almost done with prep,” Stretch said. “I need someone on the phone and someone on sandwiches.”
“I’m all about the sandwiches,” Lula said. “I’m the sandwich queen. Get out of my way ’cause here comes Lula.”
“Hal can do the phone orders,” I said.
“Hal doesn’t fit in the kitchen,” Stretch said. “Why can’t you do the phone orders?”
“I’m the manager. I’m going to manage.”
Mostly I was going to look around. I now had a monitor by the register, and I could pull up three views. Two views were of the parking area and dumpster, and one was of the deli interior. It was all being recorded and fed to the Rangeman control room, but I could see it live. I wanted to be able to watch the monitor, and I wanted to watch the customers. Managers disappeared quickly. There had to be someone on the inside. Either the snatcher or someone associated with him was a regular in the deli. And I wasn’t ruling out Raymond and Stretch.
Two men came in and went to the takeout counter. They were wearing wrinkled suits and had their dress shirts unbuttoned at the neck. Commuters fresh off the train. They looked at Hal and hesitated for a moment. Hal was in black Rangeman fatigues with a Glock at his hip.
“Um, is everything okay here?” one of the men asked.
“Yeah,” Hal said. “What’s up? You want a sandwich?”
They ordered and took a step back. A woman rushed in and went to takeout. She looked at Hal, rolled her eyes, and did a small head shake. Like, what next? Hal took her order and turned to help Lula.
Dalia seated a couple and put their order in. I stepped around to the register to look at the monitor. Nothing going on by the dumpster. So far, I didn’t recognize anyone as a repeat customer. A family came in. Mom and dad and two kids. They took a booth.
After an hour, everyone was pretty much looking the same. Men and women in rumpled suits, lining up for takeout. Families with restless kids looking for fast food. An occasional senior couple sometimes with another senior couple on a night out. No one looked like a killer or a space alien. Not a single Klingon in the room.
When someone complained about their sandwich, Dalia sent Hal to apologize, and that ended the sandwich dispute. Takes a special person to argue with a 250-pound guy packing a Glock.
It was almost eight o’clock when a man sauntered in and sat in a booth. I remembered him from yesterday. He’d come in at about the same time and ordered takeout. He was built like a bulldog and had short-cropped curly red hair.
“Who’s the big muscle man behind the counter?” the red-haired guy asked Dalia. “Is he the new manager?”
“No,” Dalia said. “Stephanie is the new manager.”
Red Hair looked over at me, and my heart skipped a beat. I forced a smile and gave him a little finger wave. He stared at me for a long moment before looking down at his menu.
So, here’s the thing. I’m not actually very brave. And I’m not skilled at solving crimes. Truth is, I have no business hanging myself out like this. And yet, here I am. Stephanie Plum, manager, sitting duck, idiot.
Dalia put her order in to the kitchen, and I pulled her aside.
“Who is the red-haired guy?” I asked.
“His name is Mike. I don’t know his last name. He pays with cash. Started coming in a couple months ago. He comes in late, and he always gets an extra side of slaw.”
Mike ate his meal, put some cash on the table, and left. I followed him to the door and watched him walk down the street. He turned at the corner and was gone from view. I ran after him, but by the time I got to the corner he’d disappeared. I waited for a few minutes to see if a car drove away from the curb. When no one did I assumed Mike lived in one of the row houses that lined both sides of the street.
I turned to go back to the deli and bumped into Wulf. He’d been standing inches behind me without my knowledge.
I yelped in surprise and jumped away.
“What the heck?” I said.
The sun was setting, and the whites of Wulf’s eyes were very white in the semi-darkness. His voice was soft when he spoke.
“Return to the deli,” he said. “Close up for the night, but don’t go out the back door.”
“Have you been following Mike?”
“No. I’ve been following you. We’re both on a mission, and you have a knack for unwittingly stumbling across your prey.”
“And we’re both looking for the same man?”
“It’s possible. It’s necessary for me to leave for a short time. Until I return you are on your own, so be very careful.”
Wulf stepped away and swept his arm out in a wide arc. There was a flash of light, some smoke, and he was gone.
“I hate when you do that!” I yelled after him. “It’s freaky.”
I stayed in place for several minutes, hoping to catch another glimpse of Mike or Wulf. Neither reappeared, so I walked back to the deli.
Raymond and Stretch were standing outside, smoking weed.
“It is good to see you,” Raymond said to me. “You left very abruptly and didn’t return, and we thought you might have fallen victim to the manager snatcher.”
“Why are you out here? Why aren’t you inside, working?”
“There are no more customers,” Raymond said. “We are on a mental health break. We will clean everything perfectly when we are sufficiently relaxed.”
I pushed through the door and found Dalia wiping down tables and Lula eating pie with Hal.
“This is a good job,” Hal said. “We don’t get pie at Rangeman. He doesn’t want us to get fat.”
Raymond and Stretch waltzed in, and we all got busy scrubbing down the kitchen. Almost an hour later, the kitchen was clean and Stretch had taken inventory and passed his list on to his vendors. Bags of garbage were lined up in the hall that led to the back door.
“Someone needs to take the garbage out to the dumpster,” I said.
“I’d do it,” Lula said, “but I don’t want to be on video being the garbage girl. It would be unflattering.”
“And I would do it, but I cannot lose my shoe,” Raymond said. “I must wear two shoes at all times.”
We all went to the back door. I opened the door, and we looked out. The parking area was lit by new floods installed by Rangeman.
Stretch picked up a garbage bag and flung it at the dumpster. It hit on the top corner and burst, spewing garbage onto the pavement. Two raccoons and a pack of rats as big as barn cats suddenly appeared and ransacked the mess. We all jumped back, and I closed and locked the back door.
“Okay then,” I said. “Everyone takes a bag of garbage home with them.”
“It might not make it all the way to my home,” Raymond said.
“As long as it’s not in the deli,” I told him. “Try to get it at least a block away.”
Lula and I set our bags of garbage in the trunk of my car, I locked the front door to the deli, and I drove Lula back to the bonds office to get her car. I made a brief stop at Giovichinni’s dumpster to deposit the garbage, and I noticed Hal was following me.
I dropped Lula off and texted Morelli, telling him I still had both of my shoes, and I was on my way home. Maybe we could get together tomorrow. He texted me back a thumbs-up.
Hal was still behind me when I parked in the lot attached to my apartment building. He got out of his SUV and walked me to my door. He waited until I was in and the lights were on and I told him everything was okay.
“Thanks for keeping me safe today,” I said.
“No problem,” he said. “I got pie.”
I waved him off and locked my door. I said hello to Rex and gave him a couple Froot Loops.
“The escort home was overkill,” I said to Rex. “You have nothing to worry about. We’re perfectly safe here.” Especially since there was probably a Rangeman guy sitting in a patrol car in my lot, taking over for Hal. Ranger could sometimes be obsessive.