A handful of men were working the free weights. The ring was empty. No one was at the bags. I figured everybody must be out jumping rope or stealing cars. It was the last flip thought I entertained. Activity faltered when I entered, and if I'd been uncomfortable on the street, it hardly counted at all to what I felt here. I'd expected a champion to be surrounded by an aura of professionalism. I hadn't anticipated the atmosphere to be charged with hostility and suspicion. I was clearly a street-ignorant white woman invading a black man's gym, and if the silent rebuke had been any more forceful I'd have been hurled backward, down the stairs like a victim of a poltergeist.

I took a wide stance (more to keep myself from falling over in fright than to impress the boys) and hitched up my shoulder bag. "I'm looking for Benito Ramirez."

A hulking mountain of muscle rose from a workout bench. "I'm Ramirez."

He was over 6' tall. His voice was silky, his lips curved into a dreamy smile. The overall effect was eerie, the voice and the smile at odds to the stealthy, calculating eyes.

I crossed the room and extended my hand. "Stephanie Plum."

"Benito Ramirez."

His grasp was too gentle, too lingering. More of a caress than a handshake and unpleasantly sensual. I stared into his hooded, close-set eyes and wondered about prizefighters. Until this moment, I'd assumed boxing was a sport of skill and aggression, directed toward winning the match, not necessarily toward maiming the opponent. Ramirez looked like he'd enjoy the kill. There was something about the density of his eyes, black holes where everything gets sucked in and nothing comes out, that suggested a hiding place for evil. And the smile, a little goofy, a little sick in its sweetness, hinting of insanity. I wondered if this was a contrived image, designed to spook opponents before the bell. Contrived or not, it was creepy as hell.

I made an attempt to free my hand, and his grip tightened.

"So, Stephanie Plum," he said in his velvet voice. "What can I do for you?"

As a buyer for E.E. Martin, I'd dealt with my share of slime. I'd learned how to assert myself and still be pleasant and professional. My face and voice told Ramirez I was friendly. My words were more to the point. "You can release my hand, so I can give you my card," I said.

His smile stayed fixed in place, more amiable and inquisitive now than crazy. I gave him my card and watched him read it.

"Fugitive apprehension agent," he said, obviously amused. "That's a big title for a little girl."

I'd never thought of myself as little until I'd stood along-side Ramirez. I'm 5' 7" and rawboned from the Mazur's good Hungarian peasant stock. Perfectly constructed for laboring in the paprika fields, pulling plows, and dropping babies out like bird's eggs. I ran and periodically starved to keep the fat off, but I still weighed in at 130. Not heavy, but not dainty, either. "I'm looking for Joe Morelli. Have you seen him?"