“No,” I said. “I’m good, but thank you.”
He nodded. “Chewy will see you to your car. I hope you took precautions. The neighborhood is aggressively entrepreneurial.”
“Lula is waiting downstairs,” I said. “I haven’t heard any gunshots so I assume there wasn’t an issue.” I glanced over at the Kidz Kups. “Your Kidz Kups are going to melt if you don’t get them into a freezer.”
“A very good observation,” Kwan said. “I’ll have them moved immediately.”
The three-hundred-pound gorilla behind Kwan stepped forward and motioned me to the stairs.
“Chewy?” I asked him.
“Short for ‘Chewbacca.’ ”
That made sense. I could see the hair curling out of the top of his shirt collar. We made our way to the first floor and walked past the travel associate, all of us smiling pleasantly. I reached the sidewalk and saw that Lula was out of the car and standing guard.
She looked Chewbacca up and down. “Who’s this?”
“Chewy,” I told her.
Chewy swept his hand under his suit jacket to his pocket and Lula went bug-eyed.
“Gun! Gun!” she said. “He’s got a gun!”
She jumped forward and head butted him in the midsection. They went off-balance and down to the ground. Chewy gave a grunt and flipped Lula off him. He got to his feet and brushed at his suit.
“I wasn’t going for my gun,” he said. “I was going for my banana.” He pulled a banana out of his pocket. “It’s all smushed,” he said to Lula. “You ruined my banana.”
Lula was on her feet. “Banana? Are you shitting me? Who packs a banana?”
“I like bananas,” Chewy said. “They’re high in potassium.”
I shoved Lula into the car.
“Sorry about the banana,” I said to Chewy.
“It’s okay,” he said. “I like your friend. She gives a good head butt.”
I didn’t know how to respond to that, so I smiled and nodded, got behind the wheel, and drove off.
“I swear I thought he had a gun,” Lula said.
“He did. It just wasn’t in the same place as his banana.”
“I guess Kwan didn’t feel like going to jail today.”
“He’ll get back to me.”
I dropped Lula off in front of the deli on the first block of Stark. No parking places, so I gave her my order and circled the block. I was stopped at a light when Ranger called.
“You have a single surveillance camera in the lobby of your apartment building,” Ranger said. “At six thirty-five this morning the Jolly Bogart clown walked through the back door and got into the elevator. Three minutes later he got out of the elevator, crossed the lobby, and left the building.”
“That’s really creepy.”
“We need to have a conversation with Mr. Ducker,” Ranger said.
“When do you want to do this?”
“Now.”
I looked in my rearview mirror. Ranger was behind me.
“Let Lula take your car back to the office,” Ranger said.
I double-parked in front of the deli and waited for Lula. She hustled out with two bags of food and two sodas.
I got out of my car and held the door for her. “I need to go with Ranger. I’d appreciate it if you could get the car back to the office for me.”
Lula looked back at Ranger and gave him a finger wave. “Are you gonna have a nooner with him?”
“No. This is work related.”
Lula gave me my bag of food and my soda. “Hard to believe anything you could do with that man would be work.”
Ranger was in his black Porsche Cayenne, and he was wearing perfectly pressed Rangeman black fatigues. He smelled great, and he didn’t look tired. I suspected I looked like roadkill.
He glanced at me and grinned. “Did you sleep in those clothes?”
I buckled my seatbelt and narrowed my eyes at him. “Someone woke me up at four in the morning.”
He looked at the bag. “Lunch?”
“Ham and Swiss. Would you like half?”
TWENTY-THREE
RANGER PARKED IN front of Ducker’s apartment building, and we looked for the Kia. No Kia. We went to the door and rang the bell. No answer. Ranger knocked. Nothing. He took a slim pick from his pocket and opened the door.
It was a completely unmemorable apartment. Beige carpet, beige couch, beige drapes on the windows. Television in the living room. A maple table and six chairs in the dining room. Probably the dining room table had never been used. Not ever. Shoes under the coffee table, and an open bag of chips and an empty soda can on top of it. Dirty dishes in the kitchen sink. Not a lot in the refrigerator. Bogart Kidz Kups in the freezer.
I went room by room with Ranger. We looked in the medicine chest and the closet.
“No man-sized freezer,” I said. “No Bogart locked in the bathroom.”
Ranger went through Ducker’s dresser drawers. “And no gun.”
We returned to the living room, and Ranger looked at the shoes under the coffee table.
“No chocolate on the shoe,” Ranger said. “And it’s a size eleven. We measured the print on the floor in Bogart’s office. It was a size ten.”
There was the sound of a key being inserted in the lock on the front door, and I looked at Ranger.
“Our lucky day,” Ranger said. “We don’t have to go searching for Ducker.”
Ducker opened the door, spotted Ranger and me, and went for the gun tucked into his jeans.
“Don’t even think about it,” Ranger said.
“You’re the security guy, right?” Ducker said. “What’s going on? And what’s with the minimum wager with you?”
“Stephanie works with me,” Ranger said. “Where were you at one o’clock last night?”
“I wasn’t anywhere,” Ducker said. “I was here. Like always.”
“Someone broke into Bogart’s office last night and left threatening messages. He was wearing the Jolly Bogart clown suit.”
“Big deal,” Ducker said. “Anyone can get that suit. They sell them at the party store at the mall. You can get the wig and everything. It’s real cheap too.”
“Do you have any idea who broke in last night?” I asked him.
“No, but I’d kiss him on the lips if I found out,” Ducker said. “Bogart is a real asshole.”
“So what do you think?” I asked Ranger when we were back in the Cayenne.
“This is why I’m in the security business and not investigation. I’m good at protecting people. I don’t enjoy this. Unfortunately I’ve failed to protect a new client and I feel compelled to find him.”
“And I’m along why?”
“I need some fun in my life.”
“Jeez.”
He grinned at me. “It’s more than that. I was the point person in my unit when I was in the military. I can sense danger the way a dog can sniff out a rabbit, but I’m not a detail man. You notice things that don’t show up on my radar.”
“Do you think Ducker is a killer?”
“If he is a killer it’s not because he’s gone postal from the Jolly jingle. I think there’s something more going on here.”
“For instance?”
“I don’t know. The crimes are all over the place. They start with industrial sabotage and progress to a bizarre murder, then a murder that’s premeditated but not especially creative, an explosion, and vandalism. It’s almost like they were all done by different people.”
“Don’t forget my door. Someone doesn’t like me snooping around.”
“Another threat like that and you might have to come live with me so I can protect you until the danger has passed.”
“I expect there’s an ulterior motive involved.”
“Yeah,” Ranger said. “There’s that.”
I pulled Dottie Loosey’s file out of my bag.
“I have a favor to ask. I could use some help bringing this woman in.”
Ranger flipped through the file. “Has Connie placed her at this address?”
“Yes.”
Dottie Loosey lived in a row house by the button factory. There were several blocks of the small two-story houses. They were originally built as housing for button company workers, but over the years they all went to private ownership. At least half were now rental properties. They had started out all the same, and were now all fiercely different.