"Ella has dinner ready upstairs," he said. "We can eat and talk."

There was a time, not too long ago, when Ranger's address was a vacant lot. It turns out besides being a very tough guy, he's also a very smart businessman, and he now lives in an extremely upscale one-bedroom inner sanctum of civilized calm. The apartment was tastefully decorated by a professional, and is now maintained by Ella. The furniture is comfortable contemporary. Leather, chrome, dark woods, with earth-tone accents. It's clearly masculine but not overpowering. The apartment feels surprisingly warm in spite of the fact that there are no personal touches. No family photographs. No favorite books stacked at bedside. No clutter. I've spent a reasonable amount of time in Ranger's apartment, and I've always thought it was a place where he slept but didn't live. I've never been able to find the place he would call home home. Maybe it doesn't exist. Maybe he carries it inside him. Or maybe it's a place he hasn't yet discovered.

We were silent in the elevator and small foyer that preceded Ranger's apartment. He fobbed his door open, and I stepped into the hall, with its subdued lighting and plush carpet. Ranger dropped his keys onto a small silver tray on the sideboard and followed me to the kitchen. His appliances were top-of-the-line stainless. His countertops were granite. Ella kept everything immaculate. I lifted the lid to the blue Le Creuset ca.s.serole dish on the stovetop. Chicken, rice, spicy sausage, and vegetables.

"This smells wonderful," I said to Ranger. "You're lucky to have Ella."

"If I can't stop these break-ins, I'm not going to have Ella or anyone else."

"What about security cameras? Weren't any of the thefts caught on tape?"

"All the burglaries were residential with no cameras in place." Ranger poured out two gla.s.ses of wine and handed one to me. "Without going into detail, I can tell you there are a lot of safeguards in the system to prevent this from happening."

"But it happened anyway."

"Three times."

"Is there anyone you especially want me to watch?"

"Martin Beam is the newest man in the building. He's been with me for seven months. Chester Rodriguez and Victor Zullick were on deck for all three break-ins. There are four men who rotate shifts monitoring the code computer. Beyond that, I have nothing."

"You've done recent background checks?"

"So far as I can tell, none of my men are in trouble, financial or otherwise."

I ladled the stew onto plates, Ranger cut into a loaf of bread set out on a breadboard, and we took our wine and plates of food to the table, where Ella had laid out place-mats and silverware.

"Do you think this is someone needing money?" I asked Ranger. "Or do you think it's someone trying to ruin you?"

"Hard to tell, but if I had to choose, I'd go with trying to ruin me."

"That's ugly."

Ranger selected a slice of bread. "The men I hire aren't stupid. They have to know stealing the codes will end badly, and the items and cash taken can't compensate them for the risk. They'd be better off stealing from an ATM."

"Was there a pattern to the break-ins?"

Ranger refilled my winegla.s.s. "Only that they all happened at night."

I've never known Ranger to have more than one gla.s.s of wine or beer. And usually, he didn't finish his first gla.s.s. Ranger never placed himself in a position of weakness. He sat with his back to the wall, and he was always sober. I, on the other hand, from time to time slipped into dangerous waters and counted on Ranger to scoop me out.

"So," I said to him. "If I drink this second gla.s.s of wine, will you drive me home?"

"Babe, you have no alcohol tolerance. If you drink a second gla.s.s of wine, you won't want want to go home." to go home."

I blew out a sigh and pushed the gla.s.s away. He was right. "I have five open cases that need immediate attention," I told him. "You said you would help me."

"Do you have the files with you?"

I went to the kitchen and retrieved my bag from the counter, handed the five files over to Ranger, and returned to my place at the table.

Ranger paged through the files while he ate.

"You have two armed robberies, one exhibitionist, a mid-level drug dealer, and an arsonist," he said. "The dealer is a no-brainer. Kenny Hatcher. Better known as Marbles. I know where he works. He deals from the six hundred block of Stark Street."

"I've been checking. He isn't there."

"He's there. You just aren't seeing him."

I stared down at my dinner plate and winegla.s.s. Empty. d.a.m.n. "Someone drank my wine," I said to Ranger.

"That would be you."

I looked around. "Do we have dessert?"

"No."

Big surprise. Ranger never never had dessert. had dessert.

"Why can't I see my drug dealer?" I asked him.

Ranger leaned back in his chair and watched me. The lion a.s.sessing his prey. "He's using a runner," Ranger said. "If you want to find Hatcher, you have to follow the runner."

"How do I recognize the runner?"

"You pay attention."

"Okay, I'll give it another shot," I said, pushing away from the table, taking the files from Ranger. "I'm going to Stark Street."

I started to leave, and Ranger snagged me by the back of my shirt and dragged me up against him.

"Let me get this straight," he said. "You're going to Stark Street now now?"

"Yeah."

"Alone?"

"Yeah."

"I don't think so."

"Why not?"

Ranger smiled down at me. I was amusing him.

"I can think of at least a half-dozen reasons," he said. "Not the least of which is you'll be the only one on Stark Street not carrying a gun. It'll be like open season on Plum pudding."

"I can take care of myself," I told him.

"Maybe, but I can take care of you better."

No argument there.

THREE

A HALF HOUR LATER, Ranger and I were parked on the six hundred block of Stark Street. Stark Street starts down by the river, cuts through the center of the city, and runs straight to h.e.l.l. Storefronts are grimy, decorated with gang graffiti and the acc.u.mulated grit of day-today life in the breakdown lane. Hookers stake out corners, knots of kids going nowhere strut the street, men chainsmoke in doorways, and pushers work the sidewalks.

Ranger was behind the wheel of a shiny black Cadillac Escalade with tinted windows and fancy chrome wheel covers. No one could see us sitting in the SUV, and we were left unmolested as a sign of respect by the general population of Stark Street, who a.s.sumed the car belonged to contract killers, bada.s.s hip-hop gangsters, or high-level drug dealers.

The sun had set, but there was ambient light from streetlights and headlights and doors opening into bars. Enough light to determine that Marbles wasn't on the street.

"I don't see anyone who looks like a runner," I said to Ranger.

"The kid in the oversize sweatshirt, white T-shirt, and homeboy jeans."

"How do you know?"

"He's making deals."

"And?"

"And this block belongs to Marbles. The kid would be dead if he wasn't working for Marbles. Marbles isn't a charitable kind of guy."

"Maybe Marbles sold his real estate and left town."

"Not his style. He's in one of these buildings, conducting business. Besides owning drugs on the six hundred block, he also manages a couple hookers. Marbles read the memo on diversification. I ran into him two years ago, and he was operating an all-night dog-grooming and c.o.c.kfighting operation. The c.o.c.kfighting didn't involve poultry."

It took me a couple beats to figure that out. And even then, how the heck did a guy go about it? Was it like thumb wrestling? I was debating asking about the rules and regulations of c.o.c.kfighting, but just then the kid in the sweatshirt ambled into a building halfway down the block.

"He's going back to the mother ship," Ranger said.

Mostly, Stark Street is filled with narrow redbrick town houses, two to four stories tall. Small businesses in varying degrees of failure occupy ground floors, and the upper floors are given over to cramped apartments and rented rooms. At odd intervals on the street, you might find a garage or a ware house or a funeral home. The kid went into a four-story brick town house. All the windows had been painted black.

Ranger and I left the Escalade, crossed the street, and followed the kid into the building. The foyer was dimly lit by a bare bulb in an overhead fixture, the walls were entirely covered with graffiti. A door labeled HEAD MOTHERf.u.c.kER opened off the foyer.

Ranger and I exchanged glances and went directly to the Head Motherf.u.c.ker door. Ranger pushed the door open, and we looked inside at what at one time had probably been an efficiency apartment but was now a rat's nest office. The desk was piled high with papers, empty fast-food boxes, a laptop computer, a multiline phone, and two half-filled cups of coffee. There was a chair behind the desk and a two-seater leather couch against a wall. n.o.body home.

We left the office, closing the door behind us. We returned to the foyer and took the stairs to the second floor, where a dull-eyed wannabe junior gangsta sat on a plastic lawn chair. He was hooked up to an MP3 player, and he had a small wooden table beside him. There was a cigar box and a roll of tickets on the table.

"Yuh?" he said. "You want a ticket for the night or just for a run-through?"

"Run-through," Ranger said.

"Twenty bucks each. Forty each, if you want a jumpsuit."

"Just the run-through ticket," Ranger said.

"You know the rules? You collect a ticket from the dude without no mess, and you get a kewpie doll. You're gonna be on the third floor."

Ranger and I climbed the stairs to the third floor and stood in the hallway.

"Do you have any idea what he was talking about?" I asked Ranger.

"No. Knowing Marbles, it could be most anything."

There were two doors that opened off the hallway. The doors were labeled p.u.s.s.y and MOTHERf.u.c.kERS.

"I'm taking the Motherf.u.c.ker door," I said to Ranger.

"No way. That's my door."

"Well, I'm sure as h.e.l.l not taking the p.u.s.s.y door."

"It's just a door, Babe."

"Great. Then you you take it." take it."

Ranger moved to the p.u.s.s.y door and shoved it open. He walked through the front room and looked into two other rooms. "It's an apartment. Looks like it was decorated by someone on 'shrooms. No one home."

I opened the Motherf.u.c.ker door and stepped inside. The door closed behind me, neon red, green, blue, and white strobe lights activated and flickered across the front room, and hip-hop boomed from overhead speakers. I opened a door. Closet. I opened another door and a crazy-eyed, woolly-haired, scrawny guy in too-big pants and too-big shoes shouldered a gun at me from across the room.

"Gonna put a cap up your p.u.s.s.y a.s.s," he said.

And POW POW.

I felt the bullet hit my shoulder, knock me back an inch or two, and something splattered out across my chest.

"What the?" I said.

"Run, p.u.s.s.y!"

"What?"

"Run!"

And POW POW. I got shot again. POW POW. POW POW.

An arm wrapped around my waist, and I was lifted off my feet and whisked out of the room and back into the hall. Ranger kicked the door closed and set me down.