Four to Score

  “Where's Maxine now?” I asked.

  “She had some errands to run.”

  Lula sat down on the couch and picked up the channel changer for the TV. “Guess we'll be waiting then. You don't mind if I watch TV, do you?”

  “You can't do this,” Mrs. Nowicki said. “You can't just waltz in here and make yourself at home.”

  “ 'Course we can,” Lula said. “We're bounty hunters. We can do anything we want. We're protected by a dumb-​ass law made back in 1869 when people didn't know any better.”

  “Is that true?” Mrs. Nowicki wanted to know.

  “Well, actually the law doesn't cover control of the channel changer,” I said. “But it does give us a lot of rights when it comes to the pursuit and capture of a felon.”

  There was the sound of gravel crunching in the driveway between houses, and Margie and Mrs. Nowicki exchanged glances.

  “That's Maxine, isn't it?” I asked.

  “You're going to ruin everything for us,” Mrs. Nowicki said. “We had this all planned out, and now you're screwing it up.”

  “I'm screwing it up? Look at you two. You've been scalped and had your finger chopped off. Back in Trenton there's a dead store clerk. And you're still playing this stupid treasure hunt game.”

  “It isn't that simple,” Margie said. “We can't leave yet. They have to pay the price.”

  A car door slammed and Mrs. Nowicki gave a start. “Maxie!” she yelled.

  Lula gave Mrs. Nowicki a bump with her hip. Mrs. Nowicki lost her balance and flopped onto the couch, and Lula sat on her. “I know I'll get hollered at if I shoot you,” Lula said. “So I'll just sit on you until you be quiet.”

  “I can't breathe,” Mrs. Nowicki said. “You ever think about cutting back on the helpings?”

  Margie had a trapped animal look, like she couldn't decide whether to shout a warning or bolt for the door herself.

  “Sit,” I told her, pulling an industrial-​size can of pepper spray out of my bag, shaking the can to make sure it was active. “Don't go running around confusing things.”

  I was hidden by the door when Maxine came in, but Lula was in full view, sitting on Mrs. Nowicki.

  “Lo,” Lula said to Maxine.

  “Shit,” Maxine said. Then she did an about-​face and lunged for the door.

  I kicked the door closed and aimed the spray at her. “Stop! Don't make me use this.”

  Maxine took a step back and raised her hands.

  “Now get off me, you big load of blubber,” Mrs. Nowicki said to Lula.

  I had a pair of cuffs stuck into the waistband of my shorts. I handed the cuffs to Lula and told her to secure Maxine.

  “Sorry to have to do this,” I said to Maxine. “The charges against you are minimal. If you cooperate you might not even get jail time.”

  “It's not jail time I'm worried about,” Maxine said. “It's dead time.”

  Lula reached out to snap the cuffs, and without warning the front and back doors crashed open. Joyce Barnhardt, dressed in swat black with “bounty hunter” emblazoned on her T-​shirt, charged into the room with guns drawn. There were three other women with her, all dressed like Joyce, all armed like Rambo on rampage, all yelling “Freeze” at the top of their lungs and doing those squatting cop stances you see in the movies.

  Margie's new lamp got knocked over and crashed on the floor, and Margie and Mrs. Nowicki and Maxine started yelling and running around, trying to protect their stuff. They were yelling “Oh no!” and “Help!” and “Don't shoot!” Lula dove behind the couch and made herself as small as anyone weighing two hundred pounds could make herself. And I was yelling at everyone to stop yelling.

  There was a lot of confusion and a lot of people in that one small room, and it suddenly occurred to me that Maxine wasn't one of them. I heard gravel fly against the house and looked out the window to see Maxine gun the car out of the driveway and take off down the road.

  I didn't have a car, so there wasn't much point in my rushing out. And I sure as hell wasn't going to help Joyce catch Maxine, so I didn't say anything. I just backed off and sat down in a big, overstuffed chair and waited for things to calm down. What I really wanted to do was to wade in and beat Joyce to a bloody pulp, but I didn't want to set a bad example for Lula.

  Joyce had recruited her cousin Karen Ruzinski and Marlene Cwik to help with the takedown. I didn't know the third woman. Karen had two little kids, and I guess she was happy to get out of the house and do something different.

  “Hey Karen,” I said, “where are the kids? Day care?”

  “They're with my mother. She's got a pool in her yard. One of those big ones with the deck around it.” Karen set her gun down on the coffee table and pulled her wallet out of one of the pockets in her swat pants. “Look here,” she said. “This is Susan Elizabeth. She starts school this year.”

  Mrs. Nowicki picked up Karen's gun, squeezed a shot off, and a chunk of plaster fell out of the ceiling onto the television set. Everyone stopped dead in their tracks and stared at Mrs. Nowicki.

  Mrs. Nowicki leveled the gun at Joyce. “Party's over.”

  “You're in big trouble,” Joyce said. “You're harboring a fugitive.”

  A humorless smile slashed Mrs. Nowicki's face. “Honey, I'm not harboring anything. Look around. You see a fugitive?”

  Understanding registered in Joyce's eyes. “Where's Maxine?”

  Now I was smiling with Mrs. Nowicki. “Maxine left,” I said.

  “You deliberately let her get away!”

  “Not me,” I said. “I wouldn't do such a thing. Lula, would I do such a thing?”

  “Hell no,” Lula said. “You're a professional. Although, I gotta say, you haven't got no cool bounty hunter shirt like they do.”

  “She can't have gone far,” Joyce said. “Everybody out to the car.”

  Mrs. Nowicki searched through her pockets, found a cigarette and stuck it in her mouth. “Maxie's long gone. They'll never find her.”

  “Just out of morbid curiosity,” I said. “What's this all about?”

  “It's about money,” Mrs. Nowicki said. Then she and Margie laughed. Like that was a good joke.

  * * * * *

  MORELLI WAS SLOUCHED in front of the television when I got back to the house. He was watching Jeopardy, and there were three empty beer bottles alongside his chair.

  “Bad day?” I asked.

  “To begin with . . . you were telling the truth about your apartment. I checked. It's a big black cinder. Ditto for your car. Following along in the same vein, word has gotten out that we're living together, and my mother expects us for dinner tomorrow at six.”

  “No!”

  “Yes.”

  “Anything else?”

  “The case I've been working on for the last four months collapsed.”

  “I'm sorry.”

  Morelli made a disgusted gesture. “It happens.”

  “Have you had anything to eat?”

  An eyebrow raised, and he looked at me sideways. “What did you have in mind?”

  “Food.”

  “No. I haven't had any of that.”

  I went to the kitchen and said hello to Rex, who was sitting on a small mound of assorted dinner treats. Compliments of Morelli, Rex was feasting on a grape, a miniature marshmallow, a crouton, and a beer nut. I removed the marshmallow and ate it, so Rex wouldn't run the risk of requiring a filling in his fang.

  “So what do you want?” I asked Morelli.

  “Steak, mashed potatoes, green beans.”

  “How about a peanut butter sandwich?”

  “That would be my second choice.”

  I made two peanut butter sandwiches and brought them into the living room.

  Morelli looked at his sandwich. “What are these lumps?”

  “Olives.”

  He opened the sandwich and looked inside. “Where's the jelly?”

  “No jelly.”

  “I think I need another beer.”

 
“Just eat it!” I yelled. “What do I look like, Betty Crocker? I didn't have a great day, either, you know. Not that anybody asked me about my day!”

  Morelli grinned. “What about your day?”

  I slumped onto the couch. “Found Maxine. Lost Maxine.”

  “Happens,” Morelli said. “You'll find her again. You're the bounty hunter from hell.”

  “I'm afraid she's getting ready to bolt big time.”

  “Can't blame her. There are some scary guys out there.”

  “I asked her mother what this was all about, and she said it was about money. Then she laughed.”

  “You saw her mother?”

  I filled Morelli in on the details, and he didn't look happy when I was done.

  “Something has to be done about Barnhardt,” he said.

  “Any ideas?”

  “Nothing that wouldn't get my shield taken away.”

  There was a moment of silence between us.

  “So,” I said, “how well do you know Joyce?”

  The grin returned. “What do you mean?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “You want a full accounting of my sex life up to this moment?”

  “That would probably take days.”

  Morelli slouched a little lower in his chair, his legs stretched in front of him, his lips curved into a smile, his eyes dark and dreamy. “I don't know Joyce as well as I know you.”

  The phone rang, and we both gave a start. Morelli had the cordless on the table beside him. He answered and mouthed “Your mother.”

  I was making no, no, no signals, but Morelli continued to smile and handed the phone over to me.

  “I saw Ed Crandle this afternoon,” my mother said. “He said don't worry, he'll take care of everything. He's going to drop the forms off here.”

  Ed Crandle lived across the street from my mother, and he sold insurance. I guessed this meant that I had some. Ordinarily I could look in my desk drawer to check. That wasn't possible now that my desk drawer and everything in it was smoke.

  “And that nice superintendent, Dillon Ruddick, called and said your apartment was sealed for security right now, so you can't get in. But he said he was going to start work on it next week. Also, a woman named Sally would like you to call her back.”

  I thanked my mother and again declined dinner and the use of my room. I hung up and called Sally.

  “Shit,” Sally said, “I just heard about your apartment. Hey, I'm really sorry. Is there anything I can do? You need a place to crash?”

  I told him I was staying with Morelli.

  “I would have fucking wrestled him into the ground if I wasn't wearing heels,” Sally said.

  When I got off the phone Morelli had pulled the plug on Jeopardy and was watching a ball game. I felt gritty from sweat, the back of my neck was scratchy with sunburn, and I could see my nose glowing. Should have used sunblock.

  “I'm going to take a shower,” I said to Morelli. “It's been a long day.”

  “Is this a sexual shower?”

  “No. This is an I've-​been-​sweating-​all-​day-​at-​the-​shore shower.”

  “Just checking,” Morelli said.

  The bathroom, like the rest of the house, was faded but clean. It was smaller than my apartment bathroom, and the fixtures were older. But the era of construction was more graceful. Morelli had stacked towels on a shelf above the toilet. His toothbrush, toothpaste and razor took up the left side of the sink vanity. I'd placed my toothbrush and toothpaste on the right. His and hers. I gave myself a mental shake. Get a grip, Stephanie . . . this isn't a romance novel. This is the result of a firebombing. There was an over-​the-​sink medicine cabinet, but I couldn't bring myself to open the door. It seemed like prying, and I was sort of afraid what I might find.

  I showered and brushed my teeth and was toweling my hair dry when Morelli knocked on the door.

  “Eddie Kuntz's on the phone,” Morelli said. “You want him to call back?”

  I wrapped the big bath towel around myself, cracked the door, and stuck my hand out. “I'll take it.”

  Morelli handed me the phone, and his eyes locked on my towel. “Shit,” he whispered.

  I tried to close the door, but he was still holding on to the phone. I was holding the towel with one hand, and the phone with the other, and I was nudging the door closed with my knee. I saw his eyes darken and soften, like liquid chocolate. I knew the look. I'd seen it before, and it had never turned out well for me.

  “This isn't good,” Morelli said, his gaze now wandering the length of the three-​inch opening between door and jamb, from the towel to my legs and back to the towel.

  “Hello?” Kuntz said at the other end of the line. “Stephanie?”

  I tried to twist the phone out of Morelli's hand, but he was holding fast. My heart was going ka-​thunk, ka-​thunk in my chest, and I was starting to sweat in unusual places.

  “Tell him you'll call him back,” Morelli said.

  Stephanie Plum 4 - Four To Score

  Stephanie Plum 4 - Four To Score

  Stephanie Plum 4 - Four To Score

  9

  I CLENCHED MY TEETH. “Let go of the phone!”

  Morelli relinquished the phone but kept his foot in the doorway.

  “What?” I said to Kuntz.

  “I want a progress report.”

  “The report is that there's no progress.”

  “You'd tell me, right?”

  “Yeah, sure. And by the way, someone soaked my car with gasoline and firebombed my apartment. You wouldn't happen to know who that someone was, would you?”

  “Jeez. No. You think it was Maxine?”

  “Why would Maxine firebomb my apartment?”

  “I don't know. Because you're working for me?”

  Morelli reached in and took the phone. “Later,” he said to Kuntz. Then he disconnected and tossed the phone in the sink.

  “This isn't a good idea,” I said. But I was thinking, Why not? My legs were shaved. I didn't hardly have any clothes on so that awkward step was eliminated. And after everything I'd been through, I deserved an orgasm. I mean, it was the least I could do for myself.

  Morelli moved in and nuzzled my bare shoulder. “I know,” he said. “This is a terrible idea.” His mouth brushed just below my earlobe. We locked eyes for a heartbeat, and Morelli kissed me. His mouth was gentle, and the kiss lingered. When I was in high school my best friend, Mary Lou, told me she heard Morelli had fast hands. Actually, just the opposite was true. Morelli knew how to go slow. Morelli knew how to drive a woman crazy.

  He kissed me again, our tongues touched, and the kiss deepened. His hands were at my waist and then at my back pressing me into him, and either he had one hell of an erection or else his night stick was rammed into my stomach. I was pretty sure it was an erection, and I thought if I could just get that nice big, stiff, magical thing deep inside me all my worries would fade away.

  “I've got some,” Morelli said.

  “Some what?”

  “Some condoms. I've got a carton. Serious investment. Top of the line.”

  The way I was feeling I figured that carton wouldn't take us to Sunday.

  And then his mouth was on me again, kissing my neck, my collarbone, the swell of my breast at the top of the towel. And then the towel was gone and Morelli took his mouth to my nipple and fire flashed through me. His hands were everywhere, exploring, caressing . . . teasing. His mouth dropped lower, trailing a string of kisses to my navel, my belly, my . . . OMMIGOD!

  Mary Lou had also told me she'd heard Morelli had a tongue like a lizard, and now I knew firsthand the accuracy of that rumor. God bless the wild kingdom, I thought with a new appreciation for reptiles. I had my fingers tangled in his hair, and my bare ass pressed against the sink, and I was thinking, Oh, yum! I was on the brink. I could feel it coming . . . the delicious pressure, the heat and mind-​emptying need for release.

  And then he moved his mouth half an inch to t
he left.

  “Go back!” I gasped. “Go back. GO BACK!”

  Morelli kissed my inner thigh. “Not yet.”

  I was feeling frantic. I was so close! “What do you mean, not yet!”