Hot Six - By Janet Evanovich Page 0,76

forties, dressed in suits. They looked like they ate a lot of pasta, and probably didn't refuse dessert either.

"They need you back at the house," one of the men said.

"I'm with my lady friend," Alexander said.

"Yeah, but maybe you could see her some other time. We still can't find that cargo that's going on the boat."

One of them walked Alexander out the door, and the other stayed behind to talk to me.

"Listen," he said, "it's not nice to take advantage of an old man like this. Don't you have any friends your own age?"

"I'm not taking advantage of him. He jumped into my car."

"I know. He does that sometimes." The guy pulled a money clip out of his pocket and peeled off a hundred. "Here, this is for your inconvenience."

I took a step back. "You've got this all wrong."

"Okay, what'll it take?" He peeled off nine more hundreds, folded them together, and dropped them into my bag. "I don't want to hear nothing more from you. And you gotta promise to leave the old man alone. Understand?"

"Hold on here—"

He swept his jacket aside to show me his gun.

"Now I understand," I said.

He turned and walked out the door and got into the Town Car idling at curbside. The car took off.

"Life can be pretty strange," I said to the bartender. Then I left, too. When I was sufficiently far away from Deal to feel safe, I redialed Ranger and told him about Stolle.

"I want you to go home and lock yourself in your apartment," Ranger said. "I'm going to send Tank to pick you up."

"And then what?"

"Then I'm putting you someplace safe until I can straighten this out."

"I don't think so."

"Don't give me a hard time on this," Ranger said. "I've got enough problems."

"Well, solve your damn problems. And solve them fast!" And I disconnected. Okay, so I lost it. I'd had a stressful day.

MITCHELL AND HABIB were waiting for me when I pulled into my parking lot. I gave them a wave, but I didn't get a wave back. I didn't get a smile. No remarks, either. Not a good sign.

I took the stairs to the second floor and hurried to my door. My stomach was uneasy, and my heart felt fluttery. I stepped into my apartment and felt relief wash over me when Bob bounced over. I locked the door behind me and checked Rex to make sure he was okay, too. I had twelve messages on my machine. One was silence. It felt like Ranger's silence. Ten were for Grandma. The last one was from my mother.

"We're having fried chicken tonight," she said. "Your grandmother thought you might want to come over, since you don't have any food in your house because Bob ate your groceries while your grandmother was cleaning your cupboards. And your grandmother says you might want to walk him when you get home, because he ate two boxes of prunes she'd just bought."

I looked at Bob. His nose was running and his stomach looked like he'd swallowed a beach ball.

"Jeez, Bob," I said, "you don't look too good."

Bob burped and passed gas.

"Maybe we should go for a walk."

Bob started to pant. Drool dripped onto the floor and thunder rumbled in his stomach. He lurched forward and hunched over.

"No!" I shouted. "Not here!" I grabbed his leash and my shoulder bag and dragged him out of the apartment and down the hall. We didn't wait for the elevator. We took the stairs and ran through the lobby. I got him outside and was about to cross the lot when the Lincoln suddenly screeched to a halt in front of us. Mitchell jumped out of the car, shoved me to the ground, and grabbed Bob.

By the time I'd scrambled to my feet, the Lincoln was in motion. I shrieked and ran after it, but the car was already out of the lot, onto St. James Street. Suddenly it stopped short. The doors were thrown open and Habib and Mitchell jumped out.

"Jesus Christ!" Mitchell yelled. "Goddamn! Son of a bitch!"

Habib had his hand to his mouth. "I am going to be sick. Not even in Pakistan have I seen such a thing as this."

Bob leaped out of the car, tail wagging, and ran to me. His stomach looked nice and slim again, and he wasn't drooling and panting. "Feel better now, fella?" I said, scratching behind his ears just the way he liked it. "Good boy. Good Bob!"

Mitchell's eyes were bugged out of his head and