“Too soon,” Morelli said.
“Are you kidding me? It's not too soon! It's been years!”
Morelli stood, scooped me up, carried me into his bedroom and dropped me onto his bed. He stripped off his T-shirt and shorts, all the while watching me with dilated eyes, all black pupil beneath the black fringe of his lashes. His hands were steady, but his breathing was ragged. And then his briefs were gone and he was naked. And I wasn't sure anymore if this was going to work. It had been a long time, and he looked awfully big. Bigger than I'd remembered. Bigger than he'd felt through his clothes. He took a condom out of the box, and I scooted up to the headboard. “On second thought . . .” I said.
Morelli grabbed me by the ankles, pulled me down flat on my back and pushed my legs apart. “No second thoughts,” he said, kissing me. And then he put his finger on me in precisely that spot. He moved the finger a little, and now I was thinking he was looking just right. Not really too big at all. Now I was thinking I had to find a way to get the damn thing inside me. It wasn't bad to look at, but it wasn't really doing all that much for me bobbing around on its own.
I grabbed hold and tried to direct it, but Morelli moved out of reach. “Not yet,” he said.
What was with this not yet all the time! “I think I'm ready.”
“Not nearly,” Morelli said, dropping lower, doing some more of the terrific tongue torture.
Well okay, if this was what he really wanted to do it was fine by me because I actually liked this a lot. In fact, I was almost there. Another thirty seconds and I was going to fly off into the great beyond, shrieking like a banshee.
And then he moved a half inch to the left . . . again.
“Bastard,” I said . . . in a loving sort of way. I reached out and stroked him, heard his breath catch at my touch. I drew my fingertip across the little slit at the top, and Morelli went very still. I had his attention. I dipped my head down and gave him a lick.
“Christ,” Morelli gasped, “don't do that. I'm not Superman!”
Had me fooled. I went on a much more extensive tasting expedition, and suddenly Morelli was galvanized into action. In an instant, I was on my back and Morelli was poised over me.
“Not yet,” I said. “It's not time.”
He snapped the condom on.
“The hell it isn't.”
Heh, heh, heh, I thought.
* * * * *
THE FOLLOWING MORNING I awoke in a tangle of damp sheets and warm Morelli. We'd made a respectable dent in the condom supply, and I was feeling very relaxed. Morelli stirred beside me, and I cuddled into him.
“Mmm,” he said.
Two hours later there were a few less condoms in the box and Morelli and I were both lying facedown and slack limbed on the bed. I was thinking that sex was an excellent thing, but I probably didn't need any more now for ten or fifteen years. I eyeballed the distance between the bed and the bathroom and wondered if I could walk that far. The phone rang, and Morelli passed it over to me.
“I was wondering what I should wear tonight,” Sally said. “Do you think I should be a man or a woman?”
“Doesn't matter to me,” I said. “Lula and I are going to be women. You want to meet us there, or you want me to pick you up?”
“I'll meet you there.”
“Okeydokey.”
I turned to Morelli. “Are you working today?”
“Half day, maybe. I need to talk to a couple people.”
“Me too.” I dragged myself off the bed. “About dinner tonight . . .”
“Don't even think about standing me up,” Morelli said. “I'll track you down and find you and make your life a living hell.”
I did a mental grimace and managed to get myself into the bathroom without hardly grunting or whimpering. The sex goddess was a trifle sore this morning, feeling a little like a human wishbone.
I took a shower, dressed and ambled down to the kitchen. I'd never seen Morelli in the morning, and I'm not sure what I'd expected, but it wasn't the half-man, half-beast that was reading the paper and drinking coffee. Morelli was wearing a misshapen T-shirt and rumpled tan shorts. He was sixteen hours beyond a five o'clock shadow, and he hadn't combed his hair, which was multiple weeks beyond needing a haircut.
It had been sexy last night. This morning it was downright frightening. I poured out coffee and a bowl of cereal and sat across from him at the small table. The back door was open, and the morning air coming through it was cool. In another hour it would turn hot and steamy. Already the cicadas were singing. I thought about my own kitchen and sad charred apartment and my throat closed over. Remember what Morelli told you, I thought. Concentrate on the positive. The apartment will be okay. Brand-new carpet and paint. Better than before. And what had he said about the fear? Concentrate on doing the job, not on the fear. Okay, I thought, I can do that. Especially when I was sitting across from the man of my dreams.
Morelli drained his coffee cup and continued to read the paper.
I found myself wanting to refill the cup. And I didn't want to stop there. I wanted to make breakfast for Morelli. Hotcakes and bacon and fresh squeezed orange juice. Then I wanted to do his laundry and put fresh sheets on the bed. I looked around. The kitchen wasn't bad, but it could be cozier. Fresh flowers, maybe. A cookie jar.
“Uh oh,” Morelli said.
“What uh oh?”
“You have that look . . . like you're redesigning my kitchen.”
“You don't have a cookie jar.”
Morelli looked at me like I was from Mars. “That's what you were thinking?”
“Well, yeah.”
Morelli considered that for a moment. “I've never actually seen the purpose for a cookie jar,” he finally said. “I open the box. I eat the cookies. I throw the box away.”
“Yes, but a cookie jar makes a kitchen homey.”
I got another one of those Mars looks.
“I keep my gun in my cookie jar,” I said by way of further explanation.
“Honey, a man can't keep his gun in a cookie jar. It just isn't done.”
“Rockford did it.”
He got up and gave me a kiss on the top of my head. “I'm gonna take a shower. If you leave before I'm out, promise me you'll be home by five.”
So much for the man of my dreams. I gave him one of my favorite Italian hand gestures, which he didn't see because he was already out of the room. “Fuck the cookie jar,” I said to Rex. “And he can do his own goddamn laundry, too.” I finished my cereal, rinsed the bowl and put it in the dishwasher. I slung my black leather tote over my shoulder and took off for the office.
* * * * *
“OMMIGOD,” CONNIE SAID WHEN I walked into the office, “you did it!”
“Excuse me?”
“How was it? I want details.”
Lula looked up from the stack of files she was sorting. “Yep,” she said, “you did the deed all right.”
I felt my eyes go wide. “How do you know?” I sniffed at myself. “Do I smell?”
“You just got that look like you've been totally fucked,” Lula said. “Sort of relaxed.”
“Yeah,” Connie said. “Satisfied.”
“It was the shower,” I said. “I took a really long relaxing shower this morning.”
“Wish I had a shower like that,” Lula said.
“Is Vinnie in?”
“Yeah, he got back late last night. Hey, Vinnie,” Connie yelled. “Stephanie's here!”
We heard him mumble “Oh Christ” from deep inside his office, and then his door opened. “What?”
“Joyce Barnhardt, that's what.”
“So I gave her a job.” Vinnie squinted at me. “Jesus, you just get laid?”
“I don't believe this,” I said, hands in the air. “I took a shower. I did my hair. I put on makeup, new clothes. I had breakfast. I brushed my goddamn teeth. How does everyone know I got laid?”
“You look different,” Vinnie said.
“Satisfied,” Conn
ie said.
“Relaxed,” Lula added.
“I don't want to talk about it,” I shouted. “I want to talk about Joyce Barnhardt. You gave her Maxine Nowicki. How could you do that? Nowicki is my case.”
“You weren't having any luck with it, so I figured what the hell, let Joyce take a shot at it, too.”
“I know how Joyce got that case,” I said. “And I'm going to tell your wife.”
“You tell my wife, and she'll tell her father, and I'll be dead. And then you know where you'll be? Unemployed.”
“He got a point there,” Lula said. “We all be unemployed.”
“I want her off the case. Lula and I had Maxine in custody, and Joyce barged in with the slut troop and screwed everything up.”
“Okay, okay,” Vinnie said. “I'll talk to her.”
“You're going to take Nowicki away from her.”
“Yeah.”
“Sally called and said he was going to the bar tonight,” I told Lula. “Do you want to come, too?”
“Sure, I don't want to miss any of the fun.”
“Need a ride?”
“Not me,” Lula said. “I got a new car.” Her eyes slid past me to the front door. “What I need now is a man to put in it. He got a name on him, too.”
Connie and I swiveled to look. It was Ranger, dressed in black, hair slicked into a ponytail, small gold hoop earring shining like the sun.
“Yo,” Ranger said. He stared at me for a moment and smiled. He raised his eyebrows. “Morelli?”
“Shit,” I said. “This is embarrassing.”
“Came by to get the papers on Thompson,” Ranger said to Connie.
Connie handed him a folder. “Good luck.”
“Who's Thompson?”
“Norvil Thompson,” Ranger said. “Stuck up a liquor store. Took four hundred dollars and change and a quart of Wild Turkey. Started celebrating in the parking lot where he parked his car, passed out and was found by a parking attendant who called the police. Didn't show up for his court date.”
“Like always,” Connie said.
“He's done this before?”
“Twice.”
Ranger signed his part of the contract, passed it back to Connie and looked over at me. “Want to help me round up this cowboy?”
“He isn't going to shoot at me, is he?”
“Ah,” Ranger said, “if only it was that simple.”
Ranger was driving a new black Range Rover. Ranger's cars were always black. They were always new. They were always expensive. And they were always of dubious origin. I never asked Ranger where he got his cars. And he never asked me my weight.
We cut through center city and turned right onto Stark Street. Ranger cruised past the auto body and the gym into a neighborhood of blighted row houses. It was midday, and welfare mothers and kids were on the stoops, looking for relief from the sweltering interiors of their airless rooms.
I leafed through the file to familiarize myself with Thompson. Black male, 5'9", 175 pounds, age sixty-four. Respiratory problems. That meant we couldn't use pepper spray.
Ranger parked in front of a three-story brick building. Gang slogans were spray-painted on the stoop and under the two firstfloor windows. Fast-food flotsam had banked against the curb and crumpled wrappers littered the sidewalk. The entire neighborhood smelled like a big bean burrito.
“This guy isn't as dangerous as he looks on the sheet,” Ranger said. “Mostly he's a pain in the ass. He's always drunk, so it doesn't do any good to threaten him with a gun. He's got asthma, so we can't spray him. And he's old, so you look like a fool if you beat him to a pulp. What we want to do is cuff him and carry him out. That's why you're along. Takes two to carry him out.”
Wonderful.
Two women were sitting two doors down. “You coming after old Norvil?” the one asked. “He run his bail again?”
Ranger raised his arm in acknowledgment. “Hey, Regina, how's it going?”
“Picking up now that you're here.” She swiveled her head to the ground-level open window. “Yo, Deborah,” she hollered. “Ranger's here. Gonna give us some entertainment.”
Ranger moved into the building and started climbing the stairs. “Third floor,” he said.
I was getting an uncomfortable feeling about this apprehension. “What did she mean . . . entertainment?”
Ranger was on the second-floor landing. “There are two tenants on the third floor. Thompson is on the left. One room and bath. Only one way out. He should be at home at this time of day. Regina would have told me if she'd seen him leave.”
“I get the feeling there's something else I should know about this guy.”
Ranger was halfway up the third flight of stairs. “Only that he's freaking nuts. And if he whips his dick out to take a leak, stand back. He tagged Hanson once, and Hanson swears he was fifteen feet away.”
Hanson was another bounty hunter. Mostly worked for Gold Star Bail Bonds on First Street. Hanson had never struck me as someone who would fabricate war stories, so I turned around and started doing double-time down the stairs. “That's it for me. I'll call Lula to come pick me up.”
My progress was halted by a hand grabbing the back of my shirt. “Guess again,” Ranger said. “We're in this together.”
“I don't want to get peed on.”
“Just keep your eyes open. If he goes for his dick we'll both jump him.”
“You know I could have lots of good jobs,” I said. “I don't need to be doing this.”
Ranger had his arm around me, encouraging me to walk up the stairs. “This isn't just a job. This is a service profession. We uphold the law, babe.”
“Is that why you do this? Because you believe in the law?”
“No. I do this for the money. And because hunting people is what I do best.”
We reached Thompson's door, and Ranger motioned me to one side while he knocked.
“Lousy fuckers,” someone called from inside the room.
Ranger smiled. “Norvil's home.” He gave another rap. “Open the door. I need to talk to you.”
“I saw you out on the sidewalk,” Norvil said, the door still closed, “and I'll open this door when hell freezes over.”
“I'm going to count to three, and then I'm going to break in,” Ranger said. “One, two . . .” He tried the doorknob, but the door was still locked. “Three.” No response from inside. “Damn, stubborn old drunk,” Ranger said. He stepped back and gave the door a solid kick just to the left of the doorknob. There was the sound of splintering wood, and the door crashed open.
“Lousy fuckers,” Norvil yelled.
Ranger cautiously stepped into the doorway, gun in hand. “It's okay,” he said to me. “He isn't armed.”
I moved into the room and stood beside Ranger. Norvil was on the far side of the room with his back against the wall. To his right was a chipped Formica table and a single wooden chair. Half the table was taken over with a cardboard box filled with food. Ritz crackers, Count Chocula cereal, a bag of marshmallows, a bottle of ketchup. A dorm-sized refrigerator was on the floor by the table. Norvil was dressed in a faded T-shirt that said “Get Gas From Bud” and a pair of baggy, soiled khakis. And he was holding a carton of eggs.
“Lousy fuckers,” he said. And before I realized what was happening . . . SPLAT. I got hit in the forehead with an egg. I jumped back, and the ketchup bottle sailed by my ear, smashed on the doorjamb and ketchup splattered everywhere. This was followed by the pickle jar and more eggs. Ranger caught an egg on his arm, and I got one square on my chest. I turned to dodge a jar of mayo and got hit in the back of the head with another egg. Norvil was in a frenzy, throwing whatever he laid hands on . . . crackers, croutons, corn chips, knives and spoons, cereal bowls and dinner plates. A bag of flour exploded in his hands, and flour flew in all directions. “Rotten pinko, commie bastards,” he shouted, searching through the box for more ammo.
“Now!” Ranger said.
We both lung
ed for Thompson, going for his arms. Ranger locked a cuff on one wrist. We struggled to secure the other. Norvil took a swing at me, catching me in the shoulder. I lost my footing in the cracker crumbs and flour and went down hard to the floor. I heard the second cuff click closed and looked up at Ranger.
Ranger was smiling. “You okay?”
“Yeah. I'm just peachy.”
“You have enough food on you to feed a family of four for a week.”