Ranger reached over and tucked a brown curl behind my ear. “She looks a little like you, babe,” Ranger said. “You want to be careful.”

Super.

Ranger looked at my pasta dish. I’d eaten everything but one noodle. A smile twitched at the corner of his mouth.

“I don’t want to get fat,” I told him.

“And that noodle would do it?”

I narrowed my eyes. “What’s your point?”

“Do you have room for dessert?”

I sighed. I always had room for dessert.

“You’re going to have dessert at the Blue Bird luncheonette,” Ranger said. “I bet they have good pie. And while you’re eating the pie you can talk to the waitress. Maybe she knew Paressi.”

Halfway across town I rechecked the reflection in my side mirror for the fourth time. “I’m pretty sure we’re being followed by a black SUV,” I said.

“Tank.”

“Tank’s following us?”

“Tank’s following you.”

Ordinarily I’d be annoyed at the invasion of privacy, but right now I was thinking privacy was overrated and it wasn’t a bad idea to have a bodyguard.

The Blue Bird sat cheek to jowl with several small businesses on Second Avenue. This wasn’t the most prosperous part of town, but it wasn’t the worst, either. Most of the businesses were family owned and operated. The yellow brick storefronts were free of graffiti and bullet holes. Rents were reasonable and encouraged low-profit businesses: a shoe repair shop, a small hardware store, a vintage clothing store, a used book store. And the Blue Bird luncheonette.

The Blue Bird was approximately the size of a double-wide railroad car. There was a short counter with eight stools, a pastry display case and cash register. Booths stretched along the far wall. The linoleum was black-and-white checkerboard and the walls were bluebird blue.

We took a booth and looked at the menu. There was the usual fare of burgers and tuna melts and pie. I ordered lemon meringue and Ranger ordered coffee, black.

“Excuse me?” I said, palms down on the Formica tabletop. “Coffee? I thought we came here for pie.”

“I don’t eat the kind of pie they serve here.”

I felt a flash of heat go through my stomach. I knew firsthand the kind of pie Ranger liked.

The waitress stood with pencil poised over her pad. She was late fifties with bleached blond hair piled high on her head, heavily mascaraed eyes, perfectly arched crayoned-on eyebrows, and iridescent white lipstick. She had big boobs barely contained in a white T-shirt, her hips were slim in a black spandex miniskirt, and she was wearing black orthopedic shoes.

“Honey, we got all kinds of pie,” she said to Ranger.

Ranger cut his eyes to her and she took a step backward. “But then maybe not,” she said.

“I’m not usually in this neighborhood,” I told the waitress, “but my little sister knew a girl who used to work here. And she always said the food was real good. Maybe you knew my sister’s friend. Lillian Paressi.”