“It’s him,” Lula said. “It’s Dudley!”

They got even with our booth, and Joyce launched herself into the air and tackled Zito Dudley. Lula rushed in, pulled Joyce off Dudley, and grabbed his foot.

“He’s mine,” Lula said.

Joyce kicked Lula in the leg and wrestled Dudley away from her. Lula put a neck lock on Joyce, and they went down to the ground, kicking and clawing and cussing, taking Dudley with them. There was a gunshot, and Joyce yelped and flopped onto the ground, blood oozing from her red leather bustier.

Morelli had his gun drawn, but Dudley was on his feet, holding a gun to Lula’s head.

“Drop your gun,” Dudley said.

Connie, Grandma, Morelli, the guys next to us, and several passersby all dropped their guns.

“You won’t get anywhere,” Morelli said to Dudley. “There are police all over this park.”

“I’ve got a hostage. And I’d be real happy to have one more excuse to shoot her. I’ve been trying to shoot her all week. And I would have done it, if I wasn’t saddled with Marco the Moron.”

“I thought he was a Maniac,” Grandma said.

“I want a helicopter brought in,” Dudley said. “And I want one unarmed pilot flying it.”

“That only happens in the movies,” Morelli said. “Trenton can’t afford helicopters. We’re lucky we’re not all riding bicycles.”

“Get the traffic report helicopter then. Get one from the beach patrol. Get one from NASCAR. You don’t get me out of here in a helicopter, and I swear I’ll kill my hostage.”

Morelli went back to his cell phone. “I’ll make some calls,” he said to Dudley. “Maybe I can come up with something. Would National Guard be okay?”

Dudley looked at Joyce on the ground, bleeding.

“Get a medevac. I know you’ve got one of those.”

“You got it,” Morelli said. “I’ve got two paramedics here. I want you to allow them to treat her.”

“Sure. Get her out of the way.”

“This is confusing,” Lula said. “What happens to the reward? How am I gonna get the reward from you if you’re the one I caught?”

“It’s my brother-in-law’s reward. He’s the owner of the company. I’m just a token vice president. He’s the one who was the big Chipotle fan. Put his picture on all the sauce jars. I told him not to do it, but would he listen to me? Hell, no. Now see where that got us.”

“Where’d it get you?” Grandma wanted to know.

“It got us nowhere. Chipotle refused to sign a new contract. He was screwing my brother-in-law’s bimbo gold-digger wife. They were going to start their own company as soon as the divorce went through.” Dudley looked over at Morelli. “Where’s the helicopter?”

“It’s on its way. You should hear it any minute.”

“Some brother-in-law you’ve got,” Connie said. “What did he do, go to the Chicago Mob and hire someone to whack Chipotle? And then send you along to babysit and make sure the job got done?”

“He would have been better to let me do it myself. He had this idea to get rid of Chipotle and turn it into a media frenzy. Get free publicity by chopping his head off. Chipotle never saw it coming. He was still drunk from the night before. Unfortunately, we had a witness who would have been safe, except she entered the contest.”

Al Rochere ran over with his film crew and went in for an interview.

“Get him out of here,” Dudley said. “I’ll shoot her. Swear to God.”

“Wait a minute,” Lula said. “This could be my big break.”

There was the unmistakable wup wup wup of a helicopter, and the medevac chopper flew low over us and landed in an empty area of the field.

Dudley still had the gun to Lula’s head. “I’m taking her with me. I’ll release her when we land.”

“I don’t like this,” Lula said. “I don’t like helicopters. I’m gonna get the runs.”

“Shut up, and get walking.”

“I don’t feel so good,” Lula said. And she farted.

Dudley stepped back and fanned the air with his gun. “Jeez, lady, what have you been eating?”

“Barbecue,” Lula said. And she sucker punched him in the throat.

Dudley gagged and dropped his gun. And Morelli was on him.

“Is there still a reward?” Lula asked. “Does anybody know the ruling on that?”

A bunch of cops and security guards swarmed in, keeping the curious back. Morelli’s partner cuffed Dudley and a couple uniforms moved in to help.

“My hero,” I said to Morelli.

Morelli grinned. “Lula’s the hero. She sucker punched him.”

“And it was a pip of a fart, too,” Grandma said.

I looked over at Joyce. The paramedics had her stable and ready to medevac out.

“How is she?” I asked one of them.

“Lost some blood, but I don’t think anything critical was hit.”

“I need to go downtown with Dudley,” Morelli said to me. “Call me when you get things figured out.”

I walked to our kitchen, where Grandma, Lula, and Connie were standing, staring at the blackened ribs and ashes spread across the ground.

“I don’t suppose we’re gonna win the contest, what with the grill falling apart and the ribs burning up,” Grandma said.

“I’m tired of this whole barbecue thing, anyway,” Connie said. “I could use a calzone.”

“I’m in for a meatball sub,” Lula said.

“And spaghetti,” Grandma said. “Do you think we should stick around to see who wins the contest?”

“I don’t care who wins the contest, since it’s not me,” Lula said.

Connie had her bag hiked up on her shoulder. “We can read about it in the paper tomorrow.”

IT WAS A little after six when I pulled into the Rangeman garage. Marco the Maniac and Zito Dudley were in jail. Joyce was being treated. Lula, Grandma, and Connie were at Pino’s. I parked the cab next to the Buick and took the elevator to the seventh floor.

Ranger had called shortly after four o’clock and asked that I come in when the dust settled on the barbecue fiasco. I entered his apartment and found him in his office, at his computer.

“Come here,” he said. “I want you to see something. This came in at four o’clock.”

I looked over his shoulder at a grainy picture of a wall. A motion detector was fixed at the top of the wall, and alongside the motion detector was a small square box, the same size as the detector. A slim young man dressed in khakis and a white collared shirt came into the picture, looked around, fixed on the Rangeman camera for a moment, and left.

“Is that your break-in guy?” I asked Ranger.

“He fits the description, other than the uniform. I have Hal and Ramon watching the house, and they missed him. He drove up in a van from the client’s pest control company.”

“Was anyone home when he went in?”

“Mrs. Lazar, the homeowner. Her husband was still at work. She said she let someone in from pest control. We called the company, and they said he didn’t belong to them. He was in and out before we could get the information to Hal and Ramon.”

“So for some reason, he changed his routine. Maybe he saw Hector go into the house to install your camera.”

“Or maybe he just decided it was time for a change.”

“Now what?”

Ranger pushed back in his chair. “More of the same.”

“I’m still driving my father’s cab. Unless you have something for me to do, I’m going to run to the Starbucks on the corner, get him a couple of his favorite cookies as a thank-you, and return the cab.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Ranger said.

I took the elevator to the first floor and walked the half block to Starbucks. I ordered a coffee for myself and three cookies for my father. There were several people in line, buying a caffeine fix to get them through the night after a day in the office. Several people were hunkered down in the big leather armchairs, making use of the Internet connection. A guy sat alone at one of the small tables. He had a cup of coffee, and he was absorbed in a handheld electronic game. He was wearing loose-fitting jeans, a Cowboy Bebop T-shirt, and a baggy sweatshirt.