“How late are you open?”
“Five.”
“I'll be there before you close.”
I shoveled my gear into my shoulder bag, locked my apartment behind me, and took the stairs to the lobby. I exited the building and crossed the lot to my car. I had the key in hand, ready to unlock my door, when I felt the presence of someone behind me. I turned and found myself toe-?to-?toe with Benito Ramirez.
“Hello, Stephanie,” he said. “Nice to see you again. The champ missed you while he was away. He thought about you a lot.”
The champ. Better known as Benito Ramirez, who was too crazy to talk about himself in the first person.
“What do you want?”
He smiled his sick smile. “You know what the champ wants.”
“How about you tell me.”
“He wants to be your friend. He wants to help you find Jesus.”
“If you continue to stalk me, I'll get a restraining order.”
The smile stayed on his mouth, but his eyes were cold and hard. Steel orbs floating in empty space. “Can't restrain a man of God, Stephanie.”
“Move away from my car.”
“Where are you going?” Ramirez asked. “Why don't you go with the champ? The champ'll take you for a ride.” He stroked my cheek with the back of his hand. “He'll take you to see Jesus.”
I dug down in my shoulder bag and pulled out my gun. “Get away from me.”
Ramirez laughed softly and took a step backward. “When it's your time to see God, there'll be no escape.”
I unlocked the driver's side door, slid behind the wheel, and drove away with Ramirez still standing in the lot. I stopped for a light two blocks down Hamilton and realized there were tears on my cheeks. Shit. I swiped the tears away and yelled at myself. “You are not afraid of Benito Ramirez!”
That was a stupid, empty statement, of course. Ramirez was a monster. Anyone with a grain of sense would be afraid of him. And I was beyond afraid. I was terrified to tears.
BY THE TIME I reached the office I was in pretty decent condition. My hands had stopped shaking, and my nose wasn't running. I still had some nausea, but I didn't think I'd throw up. It seemed like a weakness to be so frightened, and I wasn't crazy about the feeling. Especially since I'd chosen to work in a form of law enforcement. Hard to be effective when you're blubbering in fear. My one point of pride was that I hadn't shown my fear to Ramirez.
Connie stroked vermilion nail polish onto her thumbnail. “You calling the hospitals and the morgue about Fred?”
I placed the check facedown on the copier, closed the lid, and pushed the button. “Every morning.”
“What's next?” Lula wanted to know.
“I got a picture of Fred from Mabel. I thought I'd flash it around the strip mall and maybe go door-?to-?door on the streets behind Grand Union.” Hard to believe there wasn't someone out there who saw Fred leave the parking lot.
“Don't sound like a lot of fun to me,” Lula said.
I took the copy of the check and dropped it into my shoulder bag. Then I made a folder with Fred's name on it, dropped the original check into the folder, and filed it in the office file cabinet under Shutz. It would have been easier to put it in my desk . . . but I didn't have a desk.
“How about Randy Briggs?” Lula said. “Aren't we gonna visit him today?”
Short of burning the building down, I didn't know how to get Randy Briggs out of his apartment.
Vinnie stuck his head out of his office. “I hear somebody say something about Briggs?”
“Not me. I didn't say nothing,” Lula said.
“You have one chickenshit case,” Vinnie said to me. “Why haven't you brought this guy in?”