Page 77 of Now or Never

“Your vampire isn’t asleep at four thirty,” Ranger said. “We picked him up on camera. He was trying to buy Ecstasy, and the supplier didn’t have any. He was told to come back at five thirty,when someone named Tok would be in the alley. I’d grab him for you, but I have no authorization to arrest.”

I dragged myself out of bed. “I need coffee.”

“Get dressed,” Ranger said. “I’ll make coffee.”

I went with the abbreviated bathroom routine, omitting mascara and lip gloss. I ran a brush through my hair and pulled it into a ponytail. I dressed in my usual uniform and went to the kitchen, where my coffee was waiting in a to-go cup. Herbert was sound asleep and snoring, so I pinned a note to his shirt. It read,Herbert, go home.

Ranger was driving a fleet SUV. I took this to mean that in case of a capture he didn’t want his personal Porsche Cayenne sullied by vampire DNA.

“About Herbert,” Ranger said.

“I went to school with him. He sat behind me in algebra class. Our paths crossed last week, and I can’t get rid of him.”

“Stalker?”

“More like a harmless nerd who lives with his parents and hasn’t any friends. He just shows up and tries to do nice things for me. I came home from work one day and he’d painted my apartment.”

“How did he get in?”

“Bribed the super. Then another day he had carpet installed. And a television. It’s always all done when I’m not home.”

“He has money.”

“Apparently. He says he’s an entrepreneur. I don’t exactly know what that means. Grandma came over for dinner last night and Herbert showed up. Turned out Grandma knew him, so he got invited to stay for meatloaf.”

Ranger stopped for a light and looked over at me. “You made meatloaf?”

“Grandma made it… but I bought the meat.”

That got a smile. “Tell me about Zoran.”

I read the text message to him. “It came in at four thirty,” I said. “Herbert showed up around five thirty, and maybe ten minutes later, Zoran rang my bell. Herbert answered it, took one look at Zoran with the fangs and a knife in his hand, and started screaming like a little girl. He said Zoran backed off, and he was able to get the door shut and locked. And then he fainted. After that he chugged a bottle of wine and passed out on my living room floor.”

“Zoran expected you to answer the door.”

“Yes.”

“When you move out of this apartment and go offline, life will be dull for the men who monitor my accounts,” Ranger said. “I’ll have to fit you with a body cam, so they have something bizarre to report on once in a while.”

It was dark in the car. I had my coffee. It was quiet. The streets were empty. I was feeling a weird combination of comfy cozy because I was with Ranger, and at the same time a slow drip of adrenaline because we were on the hunt for a crazed killer. Ranger was in his zone. Alert. Outwardly relaxed. Probably had a heart rate of thirty-four. My heart rate was probably closer to a hundred and thirty-four.

“Do we have a plan?” I asked.

“I have a car in place on Freemont, and I’m going to put us on Stark. The plan is to trap Zoran in the alley. The control room will be watching and listening in, plus my man on Freemont has the camera app and I have the app and I sent the app to you, so we should all be able to see what’s going down. When I move, you move with me. Stay close. Stay behind me.”

Ranger turned onto Stark and parked behind a junker car. Thealley was a car length in front of us. We couldn’t see into the alley but we could see the alley on our app.

“If you’re going to keep working for Vinnie and you’re going to have a caseload that includes freaks like Zoran, you need to carry and you need to know some self-defense,” Ranger said.

We’d had this discussion before, and it always ended in failure. I hated guns and I was a self-defense disaster. This time might be different. I had more motivation. I was genuinely terrified of Zoran.

“We need to get you certified to carry,” Ranger said. “I have two men who are certified firearms instructors. You can work with them, get your skill level up, and they’ll complete your paperwork. In the meantime, you can do an illegal carry. There’s a loaded SIG Sauer P229 nine in the gun box under your seat. It has a slide with a red dot. It’s yours. When we’re done here, we’ll go back to Rangeman and get you started with one of my instructors.”

We sat in silence after that. Impossible to guess what Ranger was thinking. I was thinking about Cheerios. I had the camera app up on my phone. The alley was dark. It looked empty. A couple guys in gang colors entered the alley from our side. They hung close to the street and after a couple minutes a chunky dude in a tracksuit, carrying a small duffel bag, strolled down the sidewalk and joined the two gangbangers. Their voices were low, and they were speaking Spanish.

Ranger grew up one block off Calle Ocho in Miami. He speaks fluent Spanish, and he can salsa dance. I can’t do either of those things.

“They’re negotiating,” Ranger said. “The gangbangers are unhappy with the price.”

---