when I grabbed him.”
“How did you know we’d be coming over the wall?”
“I was listening to you the whole time. I didn’t trust you to hang on to the earbud, so I had a mini-microphone sewn into your shirt. It’s just under the rolled hem on the neckline.”
I glanced at it. “I thought it was just another rhinestone.”
Men were running at us from all directions. Uniformed Rangeman guys, two guys in suits and ties that I knew were FBI, a hotel security guard.
The Rangeman guys secured the perimeter a short distance from us. The two FBI agents went to the wall and looked down at Vlatko and then looked over at Ranger.
“What happened?” one of the FBI guys asked.
“He jumped,” Ranger said.
The agent nodded. “I figured. I could tell by the way he sailed out into space.”
“He released the poison,” I said. “He told me it would reach the ballroom in fifteen minutes.”
“The fire alarm emptied the entire hotel,” the FBI guy said. “The ballroom emptied in less than ten. Right now we’re waiting for the hazmat team to suit up and go into the mechanical room to retrieve the canister. We’ll know more when they get the canister out and take air quality readings in the ballroom.”
I looked down at my bloody shirt and jeans. “My face hurts all over,” I said to Ranger. “Where’s all the blood coming from?”
“You’re getting a bruise on your cheek. You have a small cut on your lower lip. You were bleeding from your nose, but that seems to have stopped. You have a puncture wound on your neck.”
“I’m a mess!”
Ranger wrapped his arms around me and held me close. “You’re beautiful. You evacuated the hotel and you delivered Vlatko.”
We stared down at the street. It was clogged with police and firemen and vodka salesmen. No one was being allowed back into the hotel.
“What’s next to us?” Ranger asked the hotel security guard.
“It’s the new hotel that’s all jungle theme. The Monkey Pod.”
Ranger told Tank to get a suite and an extra room at the Monkey Pod. And he asked him to get us new clothes and to bring a first-aid kit from one of the Rangeman cars. We took the elevator to the ground level and exited the garage from the rear, away from the crowd. Ranger’s men came with us, and the FBI went to check out Vlatko.
The Monkey Pod manager met us in the hotel lobby and escorted us upstairs. There were monkeys everywhere. Monkey wallpaper, monkey designs on hall carpets, and monkey sconces. It was worse than the birthday cake hotel. It was dark, and the monkeys didn’t look happy.
Ranger took the key cards and assured the manager that everything was wonderful. He gave one card to the two men who accompanied us, and they went next door.
The suite had the same monkey theme as the hall. Monkey lights, monkey candy dishes, monkey wallpaper. At least it was large and everything was new and clean. And it felt far away from the horrors that had just happened in the poor birthday cake hotel.
My cellphone buzzed in my pocket. Grandma.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey, yourself,” Grandma said. “I hope you’re not missing all the action at that hotel that looks like a birthday cake. First off, the fire alarm sent everybody out. And then some guy went splat on the road. Nobody knows if it was a suicide or what. Lula and I were at the Monkey Pod when it all happened, and I got out in time to see the guy before the police roped it all off. He was flat as a fried egg, and his head was burst open like a ripe melon. It was terrible … in a fascinating kind of way.”
“Poor man.”
“Yeah. One of the people there said the smushed dead guy just broke up with his girlfriend and they had a big fight in the casino. Where are you, anyway? Did you get a chance to see all the commotion?”
“I’m at the Monkey Pod. Just checked in.”
“We’re out on the boardwalk. Boy, I’d kill to see one of those rooms. Do they have the monkey theme like the casino?”
“Yep. There are monkeys everywhere.”
“I don’t suppose we could come up just to take a peek?” Grandma asked.
“Sure. Just to take a peek, but this is actually Ranger’s room and he’s working, so you can’t stay long.”
“We’ll be in and out.”
I gave her the room number and hung up.
“Grandma and Lula want to see the room,” I said