Ten Big Ones

  I did look pregnant. I was on the pill, but I guess there could have been a slip-up. I did a fast calculation and stifled a sigh of relief. I wasn't pregnant.

  `I'M not pregnant,' I said.

  'It's the doughnuts,' Grandma said. 'I know a doughnut butt when I see one.'

  I looked around for a knife. I was going to kill myself. 'I've been under a lot of stress,' I said.

  'You could get that fat sucked out,' Grandma said. 'I saw a show on it last night. They showed a doctor sucking a whole load of fat out of some woman right on television. I almost threw up watching it.'

  The front door crashed open, and Mary Alice galloped in.

  Valerie followed with the baby. Angie followed Valerie.

  Angie and Mary Alice immediately went to the television.

  Valerie brought the baby into the kitchen with her.

  'Look who's here,' Grandma said to Valerie. 'Stephanie came early, and she's not even going to leave right away.'

  Valerie set the diaper bag on the floor and looked at me wide-eyed.

  'Oh my gosh,' she said. 'You're pregnant!'

  That's what we thought, too,' Grandma said. Turns out she's just fat.'

  'It's stress,' I said. 'I need to relax. Maybe I'm drinking too much coffee.'

  `I'm telling you, it's the doughnuts,' Grandma said. The Plum side of the family finally caught up with you. You don't watch out you're going to look like your Aunt Stella.'

  Stella had to have someone else tie her shoes.

  'Your pants aren't buttoned,' Mary Alice said to me as she galloped through. 'Did you know that?'

  Okay. Fine. I'll never eat again. Not ever. I'll drink water. But wait a minute, suppose the Junkman finds me and I get shot. I could end up on life support, and I could need the extra fat. Maybe the extra fat is a good thing. An act of God!

  'What have we got for dessert?' I asked my mother.

  'Chocolate cake and vanilla ice cream.'

  If God had wanted me to lose weight he would have made sure there was creamed spinach for dessert.

  Albert Kloughn arrived at six o'clock sharp.

  `I'm not late, am I?' he asked. 'I was working, and I lost track of time. I'm sorry if I'm late.'

  'You're not late,' my mother said. 'You're just in time.'

  We all knew who was late. Joe. The pot roast and green beans and mashed potatoes were set on the table, and Joe's chair was empty. My father sliced up the roast and took the first piece.

  Grandma plopped a glob of potatoes onto her plate and passed right. My mother looked at her watch. No Morelli. Mary Alice made horse sounds with her tongue and galloped her fingers around her water glass.

  'Gravy,' my father said.

  Everyone jumped to attention and passed him the gravy.

  I had a plate heaped with meat and potatoes smothered in gravy.

  I had a buttered roll, four green beans, and a beer. I'd taken the food, but I hadn't yet dug in. I was having an inner dialogue with my stupid self. Eat it, the stupid self was saying. You need it to keep up your strength. And suppose you get run over by a truck tomorrow and die? What then? You'll have dieted for nothing. Eat and enjoy!

  My mother was watching. 'You're not that fat,' she said. 'I always thought you were too thin.'

  Kloughn picked his head up and looked around. 'Who's fat? Am

  I fat? I know I'm a little roly-poly. I've always been like that.'

  `You're perfect, Snuggy Uggums,' Valerie said.

  Grandma knocked back her glass of wine and poured another.

  A car door slammed shut at the curb, and everyone sat straight and still in their seat. A moment later, the front door opened, and

  Morelli walked in.

  'Sorry I'm late,' he said to my mother. 'I was stuck at work.' He moved next to me, dropped a friendly kiss on the top of my head, and took his seat.

  There was a collective sigh of relief. My family feared Morelli was my last shot at marriage. Especially now that I was fat.

  'What's new?' I asked Morelli.

  'Nothing's new.'

  I made a show of looking at my watch.

  'Don't push it,' Morelli said softly, smiling for the family. 'Are you still driving the truck? I didn't see it out front.'

  'It's in the garage.'

  'Are you really going after Ward?'

  'It's my job.'

  Our eyes locked for a moment, and I felt the handcuff clamp around my left wrist.

  'You've got to be kidding,' I said, holding my wrist up for inspection, the remaining bracelet dangling loose.

  'Private joke,' Morelli said to the rest of the table. Then he clicked the other half of the cuffs onto his right wrist.

  'Kinky,' Grandma said.

  'I can't eat like this,' I told Morelli.

  'You eat with your right hand, and I cuffed the left.'

  'I can't cut my meat. And besides, I have to go to the bathroom.'

  Morelli gave his head a single shake. 'That is so lame,' he said.

  'I do,' I said. 'It's the beer.'

  'Okay,' Morelli said. `I'll go with you.'

  Everyone sucked in some air. A piece of pot roast fell out of my father's mouth, and my mother's fork slipped from her fingers and clattered onto her plate. We weren't the sort of family who went to the bathroom together. We barely admitted to using the bathroom.

  Morelli looked around the table and gave a small defeated sigh.

  He reached into his shirt pocket, extracted the key to the cuffs, and released me.

  I popped out of my seat and ran upstairs to the bathroom. I locked the door, opened the window, and climbed out onto the roof over the back stoop. I'd used this escape route since junior high. I was good at it. I dangled myself off the roof, and I dropped to the ground.

  Morelli grabbed me, spun me around, and trapped me against the back of the house. He leaned into me and grinned. 'I knew you'd go out the window.'

  In a perverse way, I liked that Morelli had me figured out. It was reassuring to know he paid attention. 'Very clever of you.'

  'Yep.'

  'Now what?'

  'We go back to the table. And when dinner is over, we go home

  ... together.'

  'And what happens in the morning?'

  'We sleep late, read the Sunday paper, and take Bob for a walk in the park.'

  'And Monday?'

  'I go to work, and you stay home and hide.'

  I did a major head slap. 'Unh,' I said.

  His eyes narrowed. 'What?'

  To begin with, I'm afraid to hide in your house. I'm afraid to hide in my apartment or in my parents' house. I don't want to endanger anyone, and I don't want to make it easy for the bad guys to find me. And if that isn't enough, I hate when you order me around. I'm in law enforcement, too. I'm key to this mess. We should be working together.'

  'Are you crazy? What did you have in mind? I should use you for bait?'

  'Maybe not bait.'

  Morelli grabbed the front of my shirt, pulled me to him, and kissed me.

  It was a great kiss, but I didn't know what the heck it meant. It seemed to me a breaking-up kiss would have had less tongue.

  'So,' I said, 'do you want to explain that?'

  'There's no possible explanation. I am so messed up. You frustrate the shit out of me.'

  I knew the feeling. I was the mess-up queen. There was a contract on my head, and I was weirdly involved with two men. I didn't know which was more frightening.

  `I'm going to take the coward's way out and leave,' Morelli said.

  'That whole thing with the handcuffs got a little freaky. I should go back to work anyway. We have a twenty-four-hour watch on Ward's brothers house, so stay far away. I swear if I see you anywhere near there I'm going to have you arrested.'

  I did another eye roll arid returned to the house. I was doing so many eye rolls these days I was getting head pains.

  Sunday morning I took a good look at myself in the mirror in

  Ranger's bathr
oom. Not a pretty sight, I decided. The fat had to go.

  I showered and got dressed, borrowing a black T-shirt from

  Ranger. The T-shirt was nice and roomy and hid the fat roll.

  It had been easy to find the T-shirt. It was perfectly folded and stacked on a shelf, along with twenty other perfectly folded black

  T-shirts. It had been easy to find the hooded sweatshirt I'd previously borrowed. The hooded sweatshirt had been perfectly folded and stacked on a shelf, along with six other perfectly folded black hooded sweatshirts. Doubly impressive because it's damn hard to perfectly fold a hooded sweatshirt. I counted thirteen black cargo pants, thirteen black jeans, thirteen perfectly ironed long-sleeved black shirts that matched the cargo pants. Black cashmere blazer, black leather jacket, black jeans jacket, three black suits, six black silk shirts, three lightweight black cashmere sweaters.

  I started opening drawers. Black dress socks, black and dark gray sweat socks. Assorted black athletic clothes. There was a small safe and a locked drawer. I was guessing the locked drawer held guns.

  None of this especially interested me. The ugly truth is, I'd finally lost the fight for dignity, and I was searching for Ranger's underwear. Not that I was going to do anything kinky with it. I just wanted to see what he wore. Hell, I thought I'd shown a lot of restraint to have gone this long without snooping.

  I'd now searched the entire dressing room, and unless Ranger kept his underwear in his safe, it appeared to me that he went commando.

  I did one of those stupid fanning motions with my hands that women used to do in movies back in the forties to signify heat. I had no idea why I did it. It did nothing to cool me off. I was thinking about Ranger in his black cargo pants, and my face felt sunburned. I had other body parts that were pretty warm, too.

  I had one drawer left. I slowly opened the drawer and peeked inside. A single pair of black silk boxers. Just one pair. What the heck did that mean?

  I was feeling a little perverted, so I carefully closed the drawer, went into the kitchen, opened the refrigerator door, and let the cold air wash over me.

  I looked down and couldn't see my toes past my belly. Mental groan. 'No more junky breakfast cereal,' I told Rex. 'No more doughnuts, chips, pizza, ice cream, or beer.'

  Rex was in his soup can so it was hard to tell what he thought of the plan.

  I got the coffee going, fixed myself a small bowl of Rangers cereal, and added skim milk. I like this cereal, I told myself. This is delicious. And it would be even more delicious with some sugar and chocolate. I finished the cereal and poured out a mug of coffee. I took the coffee into the den, and I turned the television on.

  By noon I was bored with television, and the apartment was starting to feel claustrophobic. I hadn't heard a word from Morelli, and I took that as a bad sign both romantically and professionally.

  I dialed his cell and held my breath while it rang.

  'What?' Morelli said.

  'It's Stephanie. I'm just checking in.'

  Silence.

  'Since I haven't heard from you I'm assuming you don't have

  Ward.'

  'We've been watching the brother's house, but so far Anton's a no-show.'

  'You're watching the wrong house. You need to get to him through the girlfriend.'

  'I don't have any leverage with the girlfriend.'

  'I do. The girlfriends mother used her house as collateral on the bond. I can threaten the mother with foreclosure.'

  More silence. 'You could have told me this yesterday,' he finally said.

  1 was sulking.'

  'Good thing you're cute when you sulk. What's the plan?'

  `I'll visit the mother and apply some pressure. I'll pass whatever information I get on to you, and you can do the takedown.'

  Ten

  Anton Ward's girlfriend, Lauralene Taylor, lived at home with her mother on Hancock Street. I wanted to question the

  Taylors, and I thought it was best to do it alone. Less threatening that way, and I didn't think I'd need help. This was basically a fishing trip in a neighborhood that was hard times but not in the red zone on the danger meter.

  Houses were small, in varying degrees of disrepair, and largely multiple family. The population was ethnically mixed. The economy was a hair above desperate. Mostly the inhabitants were working poor.

  I drove past Francine Taylors house, didn't see any activity, and decided it was safe to approach. I parked the Lincoln a couple houses away, locked up, and walked back.

  The Taylor house was better than most in the neighborhood.

  The exterior was a faded lime green, halfway between bare wood and fresh paint. Shades looked inexpensive, but had been neatly raised to the same level on all windows. The small porch was covered with green indoor-outdoor carpet. Porch furnishings consisted of a rusted metal folding chair and a large glass ashtray filled with butts.

  I hesitated a moment, listening before knocking. I didn't hear any yelling behind the closed door, no gunshots, no big dog snarling. Just the muffled hum of a television. So far, so good. I rapped once and waited. I rapped a second time.

  A very pregnant kid opened the door. She was a couple inches shorter than me, dressed in pink sweats not designed for maternity.

  Her face was round and smooth with baby fat. Her hair had been straightened and bleached honey blond. Her skin was dark, but her eyes had an Asian tilt. Much too pretty for Anton Ward, and much too young to be pregnant.

  'Yeah?' she said.

  'Lauralene Taylor?'

  'You're either a cop or social services,' she said. 'And we don't want none.'

  She tried to close the door, but my foot was in the way.

  'I represent Anton's bond agent. Is Anton here?'

  'If Anton was here, you'd be dead.'

  Lauralene sounded like she thought that would be a good thing, giving me pause to rethink my opinion of her. 'Anton needs to reschedule his court date,' I said.

  'Yeah, like that's gonna happen.'

  Tour mother used this house as collateral. If Anton doesn't show up for court your mother will lose her house.'

  'Anton will take care of us.'

  Mrs Taylor came to the door, and I introduced myself.

  'I have nothing to say to you,' Francine Taylor said. 'You're talking about the father of my unborn grandchild. You need to take this up with him.'

  'You signed the bond document,' I said. 'You used your house as collateral. If Anton doesn't show up for court you'll lose this house.'

  'He won't let that happen,' Francine said. 'He has connections.'

  'He has no connections,' I said. 'If he stays in the area we'll catch him, and he'll go to jail. His only other option is to run. And if he runs, he's not going to take a pregnant woman with him. And he's not going to care if you keep this house. You'll be on the street with nothing.'

  It was the truth. And I could see that Francine knew it. She wasn't as dumb as her kid.

  'I knew I shouldn't have put the house up for him,' Francine said. 'It was just I wanted him to turn out good for Lauralene.'

  This dump isn't worth nothing anyway,' Lauralene said.

  'I work hard to make my payments on this house,' Francine said.

  'It's a roof over your head. And it's gonna be the only roof over your baby's head. And I'm not losing it for no worthless Anton Ward.'

  'It don't matter what anyone thinks,' Lauralene said. I'm not giving up Anton, and there's nothing you can do about it. He's gonna marry me. And he's gonna take me out of this hole. We got plans.'

  I gave Francine my card and asked her to call if she had information on Ward. I wished Lauralene luck with the baby, and she told me to kiss her ass. I try not to be judgmental, but it was a little frightening that Lauralene Taylor and Anton Ward were reproducing.

  I returned to the Lincoln and sat there awhile, watching the

  Taylor house. I'd had a bowl of rabbit food for breakfast and nothing for lunch. I was starving and there was no food in the br />
  Lincoln. No Krispy Kremes, no Big Mac, no supersize fries.

  I had two new skips, but I wasn't motivated to find them. And

  Harold Pancek was out there, but truth is, I didn't care much about him either. I cared about Anton Ward. I wanted to see Ward locked up. I would have preferred not to be the one doing the capture, but at the moment I felt relatively safe. So I decided to sit tight.