Stick a fork in me, I thought. Because I'm done. If Ranger didn't get here soon I was gonna be in big trouble. I was unloading everything I had, and I didn't know where to go from here. I didn't have a whole lot of experience at this sort of thing. And what I knew about group sex was zero. Which was already more than I wanted to know. “Thursday is my group sex night,” I said. “We do it every Thursday. Unless we can't find a man . . . then we just watch television.”
“How about another drink?” Perin asked.
No sooner had he gotten the words out of his mouth than he was off his bar stool, flying through the air. He crash-?landed on a table, the table collapsed, and Perin lay still as a stone, spread-?eagled on the floor, eyes wide, mouth open, like a big, dead beached fish.
I gasped and turned and was nose-?to-?nose with Benito Ramirez. “You shouldn't be whoring like this, Stephanie,” Ramirez said, soft-?voiced and crazy-?eyed. “The champ don't like when he sees you with other men. Sees them handling you. You need to save yourself for the champ.” He managed a small, sick smile. “The champ's gonna do things to you, Stephanie. Things you've never had done to you before. Did you ask Lula about the things the champ can do?”
“What are you doing here?” I shrieked. I had one eye on Perin, afraid he was going to get to his feet and run for his car. And I had one eye on Ramirez, afraid he was going to draw a knife and carve me up like a Christmas turkey.
“You can't get away from the champ,” Ramirez whispered. “The champ sees everything. He sees when you go out for candy bars late at night. What's the matter, Stephanie, having trouble sleeping? The champ could fix that. He knows how to make women sleep.”
My stomach clenched, and I broke into an instant cold sweat. I never saw him. He'd been lying in wait for me, following my every move, watching me. And I never saw him. Probably the only reason I was alive was because Ramirez loved the cat-?and-?mouse game. He loved the smell of another person's fear. Loved to torture, to prolong the pain and terror.
There'd been a black hole in the time continuum when Perin had gone airborne. Everyone in the bar, with the exception of me and Ramirez, had sat frozen in dumbfounded shock. Now everyone in the bar was on their feet.
“What the hell?” the bartender yelled, coming at Ramirez.
Ramirez turned his eyes to the bartender, and the bartender backed off.
“Hey, man,” the bartender said. “You gotta take your problems outside.”
Perin was standing wobble-?legged, glaring at Ramirez. “What are you, nuts? Are you freaking nuts?”
“The champ don't like remarks like that,” Ramirez said, his eyes shrinking in his head.
A big, no-?neck guy came to Perin's rescue. “Hey, leave the little guy alone,” he said to Ramirez.
Ramirez turned on him. “No one tells the champ what to do.”
Bam! Ramirez sucker-?punched no-?neck, and no-?neck went down like a house of cards.
Perin pulled his gun and fired one off. The shot went wide of Ramirez, and sent everyone in the bar running for the door. Everyone but Perin and Ramirez and me. The bartender was shouting into the phone for the police to get their asses in gear. And through the open door I caught a glimpse of the flatbed moving down the street with the green Jaguar on board.
“I don't like the police,” Ramirez said to the bartender. “You shouldn't have called the police.” Ramirez gave me one last look with his nobody's-?home eyes and went out the back door.
I hopped off the bar stool. “Nice meeting you,” I said to Perin. “I have to go now.”
Ranger strolled in, looked around, shook his head, and smiled at me. “You never disappoint,” he said.
Stephanie Plum 5 - High Five
Stephanie Plum 5 - High Five
Stephanie Plum 5 - High Five
11
RANGER HAD THE Mercedes double-?parked outside Mike's Place. I got in, and we took off before Perin made it through the door to the sidewalk.
Ranger glanced over at me. “Are you okay?”
“Never been better.”
This brought another appraising look from Ranger.
“Well, maybe I'm a little buzzed,” I said. “Think I shouldn't have drunk that whole drink.” I leaned closer to Ranger, as he was looking very fine, and I was finding him superior to that rat-?fink Morelli.
Ranger downshifted at a light. “Want to tell me about the gunfire?”