Seven Up

  “You were supposed to appear in court this morning,” I said.

  “I couldn't go. I feel sick.”

  “You should have called Vinnie.”

  “Oops. I didn't think of that.”

  I sniffed at his breath. “Have you been drinking?”

  He rocked back on his heels and a loopy grin spread across his face. “Nope.”

  “You smell like cough medicine.”

  “Cherry schnapps. Someone gave it to me for Christmas.” Oh boy. I couldn't take him in like this. “Melvin, we have to sober you up.”

  “I'm okay. Except I can't feel my feet.” He looked down. “I could feel them a minute ago.”

  I steered him out of the apartment, locked the door behind us, and went down the rickety stairs in front of him to prevent him from breaking his neck. I poured him into my CR-V and buckled him in. He hung there suspended by the shoulder harness, mouth open, eyes glazed. I drove him to my parents' house and half dragged him inside.

  “Company, how nice,” Grandma Mazur said, helping me haul Melvin into the kitchen.

  My mother was ironing and tunelessly singing.

  “I've never heard her sing like that,” I said to Grandma.

  “She's been doing it all day,” Grandma said. “I'm starting to get worried. And she's been ironing that same shirt for an hour.”

  I sat Melvin at the table and gave him some black coffee and made him a ham sandwich.

  “Mom?” I said. “Are you okay?”

  “Yes, of course. I'm just ironing, dear.”

  Melvin rolled his eyes in Grandma's direction. “Do you know what I did? I urrrrrinated on the cake at my ex-wife's wedding. Pissssssed all over the icing. In front of everyone.”

  “It could have been worse,” Grandma said. “You could have pooped on the dance floor.”

  “Do you know what happens when you pissss on icing? It gets rrrruined. Makes it all drippy.”

  “How about the little bride and groom at the top of the cake,” Grandma said. “Did you piss on them, too?”

  Melvin shook his head. “I couldn't reach them. I only got the bottom tier.” He put his head down on the table. “I can't believe I embarrassed myself like that.”

  “Maybe if you practice you could get the top tier next time,” Grandma said.

  “I'm never going to another wedding,” Melvin said. “I wish I was dead. Maybe I should just kill myself.”

  Valerie came into the kitchen carrying a laundry basket. “What's up?”

  “I pissed on the cake,” Melvin said. “I was shit-faced.” And then he passed out facedown in his sandwich.

  “I can't take him in like this,” I said.

  “He can sleep it off on the couch,” my mother said, putting the iron down. “Everybody take a body part and we'll drag him in there.”

  ZIGGY AND BENNY were in the parking lot when I got home.

  “We heard you want to make a deal,” Ziggy said.

  “Yep. Do you have Mooner?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Then it's no deal.”

  “We went all through your apartment and it wasn't there,” Ziggy said.

  “That's because it's someplace else,” I told him.

  “Where?”

  “I'm not telling until I see Mooner.”

  “We could hurt you real bad,” Ziggy said. “We could make you talk.”

  “My future grandmother-in-law wouldn't like that.”

  “You know what I think?” Ziggy said. “I think you're fibbing about having it.”

  I shrugged and turned to go into the building. “When you find Mooner, let me know and we'll deal.”

  Ever since I've had this job people have been breaking into my apartment. I buy the best locks available and it doesn't matter. Everyone gets in. The scary part is that I'm starting to get used to it.

  Not only did Ziggy and Benny leave everything as they found it . . . they improved on it. They did my dishes and wiped down my counter. The kitchen was nice and tidy.

  The phone rang and it was Eddie DeChooch.

  “I understand you've got it.”

  “Yes.”

  “Is it in good shape?”

  “Yes.”

  “I'm sending someone over to get it.”

  “Hold on. Wait a minute. What about Mooner? The deal is that I'm willing to trade Mooner for it.”

  DeChooch made a derisive sound. “Mooner. I don't know why you even care about that loser. Mooner isn't part of the deal. I'll give you money.”

  “I don't want money.”

  “Everyone wants money. Okay, how about this? How about I kidnap you and torture you until you hand it over?”

  “My future grandmother-in-law would put the eye on you.”

  “The old bat is a crackpot. I don't believe in that bunk.”

  DeChooch hung up.

  I was getting a lot of fast action on the bait scheme, but I wasn't making any progress getting Mooner back. A big sad lump was sitting in the middle of my throat. I was scared. No one seemed to have Mooner to trade. I didn't want Mooner or Dougie to be dead. Even worse, I didn't want to be like Valerie, sitting at the table blubbering with her mouth open.

  “Damn!” I yelled. “Damn, damn, damn!”

  Rex backed out of his soup can and looked up at me, whiskers whirring. I broke off a corner of a strawberry Pop-Tart and handed it to Rex. He shoved the Pop-Tart into his cheek and returned to his can. A hamster of simple pleasures.

  I called Morelli and asked him over for dinner. “Except you have to bring the dinner,” I said.

  “Fried chicken? Meatball sub? Chinese?” Morelli asked.

  “Chinese.”

  I rushed into the bathroom, took a shower, shaved any legs so the stupid voice in my head wouldn't screw things up again, and washed my hair with the shampoo that smells like root beer. I rummaged through my lingerie drawer until I found my black lace thong underpants and matching bra. I covered the undies with my usual T-shirt and jeans and swiped on some mascara and lip gloss. If I was going to get kidnapped and tortured I was going to have some fun first.

  Bob and Morelli bounded in just as I was pulling on socks.

  “I've got egg rolls, vegetable stuff, shrimp stuff, pork stuff, rice stuff, and some stuff that I think was supposed to go to somebody else but found its way into my bag,” Morelli said. “And I got beer.”

  We put everything on the coffee table and turned the television on. Morelli flipped Bob an egg roll. Bob caught it midair and ate it in one gulp.

  “We've talked about it, and Bob has agreed to be my best man,” Morelli said.

  “So there's going to be a wedding?”

  “I thought you bought a dress.”

  I scooped out some shrimp stuff. “It's on hold.”

  “What's the problem?”

  “I don't want a big wedding. It feels dopey. But my grandmother and my mother keep dragging me into one. All of a sudden I've got this dress on. And then next thing we've got a hall reserved. It's like someone sucked my mind out of my head.”

  “Maybe we should just go get married.”

  “When?”

  “Can't be tonight. The Rangers are playing. Tomorrow? Wednesday?”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Yeah. Are you going to eat that last egg roll?”

  My heart stopped dead in my chest. When it started back up again it was skipping beats. Married. Shit! I was excited, right? That's why I felt like I might throw up. It was the excitement. “Don't we need blood tests and licenses and stuff?”

  Morelli turned his attention to my T-shirt. “Pretty.”

  “The shirt?”

  He traced a line with his fingertip along the lace edge of my bra. “That, too.” His hands slid under the cotton fabric and the shirt was suddenly over my head and discarded. “Maybe you should show me your stuff,” he said. “Convince me you're worth marrying.”

  I raised a single eyebrow. “Maybe you're the one who should be doing the convin
cing.”

  Morelli slid the zipper on my jeans. “Cupcake, before the night's over you're going to be begging me to marry you.”

  I knew from past experience that this was true. Morelli knew how to make a girl wake up smiling. Tomorrow morning walking might be difficult, but smiling would be easy.

  Stephanie Plum 7 - Seven Up

  9

  MORELLI'S PAGER WENT off at 5:30 A.M. Morelli looked at the readout and sighed. “Informer.”

  I squinted into the darkness as he moved around the room. “Do you have to go?”

  “No. I just have to make a phone call.”

  He walked into the living room. There was a moment of silence. And then he reappeared in the bedroom doorway. “Did you get up in the middle of the night and put the food away?”

  “No.”

  “There's no food on the coffee table.”

  Bob.

  I dragged myself out of bed, shoved my arms into my robe, and shuffled out to see the carnage.

  “I found a couple little wire handles,” Morelli said. “Looks like Bob ate the food and the cartons.”

  Bob was pacing at the door. His stomach was distended, and he was drooling.

  Perfect. “You make your phone call and I'll walk Bob,” I told Morelli.

  I ran back to the bedroom, pulled on jeans and a sweatshirt, and rammed my feet into boots. I clipped the leash onto Bob and grabbed my car keys.

  “Car keys?” Morelli asked.

  “In case I need a doughnut.”

  Doughnut my foot. Bob was going to do a great big Chinese-food poop. And he was going to do it on Joyce's lawn. Maybe I could even get him to hurl.

  We took the elevator because I didn't want Bob moving around any more than was necessary. We rushed to the car and roared out of the lot.

  Bob had his nose pressed to the window. He was panting and belching. His stomach was swollen to bursting.

  I had the gas pedal almost to the floor. “Hold on, big fella,” I said. “We're almost there. Not long now.”

  I screeched to a stop in front of Joyce's house. I ran around to the passenger side, opened the door, and Bob flew out. He rocketed to Joyce's lawn, hunched over, and pooped what appeared to be twice his body weight. He paused for a second and horked up a mixture of cardboard box and shrimp chow mein.

  “Good boy!” I whispered.

  Bob gave himself a shake and bolted back to the car. I slammed the door after him, jumped in on my side, and we took off before the stench could catch up with us. Another job well done.

  Morelli was at the coffeemaker when I came in. “No doughnuts?” he asked.

  “I forgot.”

  “I've never known you to forget doughnuts.”

  “I had other things on my mind.”

  “Like marriage?”

  “That, too.”

  Morelli poured out two mugs of coffee and handed one to me. “Ever notice how marriage seems a lot more urgent at night than it does in the morning?”

  “Does that mean you no longer want to get married?”

  Morelli leaned against the counter and sipped his coffee. “You're not getting off the hook that easy.”

  “There are lots of things we've never talked about.”

  “Such as?”

  “Children. Suppose we have children and it turns out we don't like then?”

  “If we can like Bob, we can like anything,” Morelli said.

  Bob was in the living room licking lint off the carpet.

  EDDIE DECHOOCH CALLED ten minutes after Morelli and Bob left for work.

  “What's it gonna be?” he asked. “Do you want to make a deal?”

  “I want Mooner.”

  “How many times do I have to tell you, I haven't got him. And I don't know where he is. Nobody I know has him, either. Maybe he got scared and ran away.”

  I didn't know what to say because it was a possibility.

  “You're keeping it cold, right?” DeChooch said. “I need to get it in good shape. My ass is on the line for this.”

  “Yep. It's cold, all right. You're not going to believe what good shape it's in. Just find Mooner and you can see for yourself.” And I hung up.

  What the heck was he talking about?

  I called Connie, but she wasn't in the office yet. I left a message for her to get back to me and I took a shower. While I was in the shower I summarized my life. I was after a depressed senior citizen who was making me look like a dunce. Two of my friends were missing without a trace. I looked like I'd just gone a round with George Foreman. I had a wedding gown I didn't want to wear and a hall I didn't want to use. Morelli wanted to marry me. And Ranger wanted to . . . Hell, I didn't want to think about what Ranger wanted to do to me. Oh yeah, and there was Melvin Baylor, who, for all I knew, was still on my parents' couch.

  I got out of the shower, got dressed, put in minimum effort on my hair, and Connie called.

  “Have you heard any more from Aunt Flo or Uncle Bingo?” I asked Connie. “I need to know what went wrong in Richmond. I need to know what everyone's looking for. It's something that needs to be kept cold. Pharmaceuticals, maybe.”

  “How do you know it needs to be kept cold?”

  “DeChooch.”

  “You talked to DeChooch?”

  “He calls me.” Sometimes I can't believe my own life. I have an FTA who calls me. How weird is that?

  “I'll see what I can find out,” Connie said.

  I called Grandma next.

  “I need some information about Eddie DeChooch,” I said. “I thought you might ask around.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “He had a problem in Richmond, and now he's looking for something. I want to know what he's looking for.”

  “Leave it to me!”

  “Is Melvin Baylor still there?”

  “Nope. He went home.”

  I said good-bye to Grandma, and there was a knock on my door. I opened the door a crack and looked out. It was Valerie. She was dressed in a tailored black suit jacket and slacks with a white starched shirt and a man's black-and-red striped tie. The Meg Ryan shag was plastered back behind her ears.

  “New look,” I said. “What's the occasion?”

  “It's my first day as a lesbian.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “I'm serious. I said to myself, why wait? I'm making a fresh start here. I decided I should just jump right in. I'm going to get a job. And I'm going to get a girlfriend. No reason to sit home sulking over a failed relationship.”

  “I didn't think you were serious the other night. Have you had any . . . um, experience as a lesbian?”

  “No, but how hard can it be?”

  “I don't know if I like this,” I said. “I'm used to being the black sheep of the family. This could change my standing.”

  “Don't be silly,” Valerie said. “No one will care that I'm a lesbian.”

  Valerie was in California way too long.

  “Anyhoo,” she said, “I've got a job interview. Do I look okay? I want to be honest about my new sexual orientation, but I don't want to be overly butch.”

  “You don't want the dykes-on-bikes look.”

  “Exactly. I want the lesbian-chic look.”

  Having had limited lesbian experience I wasn't sure what lesbian chic looked like. Mostly I knew television lesbians.

  “I'm not certain about the shoes,” she said. “Shoes are always so difficult.”

  She was wearing delicate black patent sandals with a little heel. Her toes were painted bright red.

  “I guess it depends if you want men's shoes or women's shoes,” I said. “Are you a girl lesbian or a boy lesbian?”

  “There are two kinds of lesbians?”

  “I don't know. Didn't you research this?”

  “No. I just assumed lesbians were unisex.”

  If she was having trouble being a lesbian with her clothes on, I couldn't imagine what was going to happen when she took the clothes off.