Hot Six

  I went from the living room to the bathroom. And when I was in the bathroom a man stepped out of the bedroom and leveled a gun at me. He was average height and build, slimmer and younger than Hannibal Ramos, but the family resemblance was obvious. He was a good-looking man, but the good looks were ruined by lines of dissolution. A month at Betty Ford wouldn't make a dent in this man's problems.

  “Homer Ramos?”

  “In the flesh.”

  We both had guns drawn, standing about ten feet apart. “Drop the gun,” I said.

  He gave me a humorless smile. “Make me.”

  Great. “Drop the gun, or I'm going to shoot you.”

  “Okay, shoot me. Go ahead.”

  I looked down at the Glock. It was a semiautomatic, and I owned a revolver. I had no idea how to shoot a semiautomatic. I knew I was supposed to slide something back. I pushed a button, and the clip fell out onto the carpet.

  Homer Ramos burst out laughing.

  I threw the Glock at him, hitting him in the forehead, and he fired at me before I had a chance to take off. The bullet grazed my upper arm and lodged in the wall behind me. I cried out and stumbled back, holding tight to the wound.

  “That's a warning,” he said. “If you try to run I'll shoot you in the back.”

  “Why are you here? What do you want?”

  “I want the money, of course.”

  “I don't have the money.”

  “There's no other possibility, sweetie pie. The money was in the car, and before good ol' Cynthia died she told me you were in the town house when she walked in. So you're the only candidate. I've been all through Cynthia's house. And I tortured her sufficiently to be confident she was telling me everything she knew. She originally gave me this bogus story about throwing the bag away, but not even Cynthia would be that stupid. I've been through your apartment and the apartment of your fat friend. And I haven't found the money.”

  Harpoon to the brain. Habib and Mitchell weren't the ones who'd ransacked my apartment. It was Homer Ramos, looking for his money.

  “Now I want you to tell me where you put it,” Homer said. “I want you to tell me where you've hidden my money.”

  My arm stung and a bloodstain was growing on the torn material of my jacket. Little black dots were dancing in front of my eyes. “I need to sit down.”

  He waved me to the couch. “Over there.”

  Getting shot, no matter how minor the wound, is not conducive to clear thinking. Somewhere in the muck of gray matter between my ears I knew I should be forming a plan, but damned if I could do it. My mind was scurrying down blank paths in panic. There were tears pooling behind my eyes, and my nose was running.

  “Where's my money?” Ramos repeated when I was seated.

  “I gave it to Ranger.” Even I was surprised when this answer popped out. And clearly neither of us believed it.

  “You're lying. I'm going to ask you again. And if I think you're lying I'm going to shoot you in the knee.”

  He was standing with his back to the small hallway that led to my front door. I looked over his shoulder and saw Ranger move into my line of vision.

  “Okay, you got me,” I said, louder than was necessary, with just a touch of hysteria. “This is what happened. I had no idea there was money in the car. What I saw was this dead guy. And I don't know, call me crazy, maybe I've seen too many Mafia movies, but I thought to myself, Maybe there's another body in the trunk! I mean, I didn't want to miss out on any bodies, you know? So I opened the trunk and there was this gym bag. Well, I've always been nosy, so of course, I had to see inside the bag—”

  “I don't give a flying fuck about your life story,” Homer said. “I want to know what you did with the freaking money. I've only got twelve hours before my ship sails. You think you could get to the point before then?”

  And that was when Ranger yanked Homer Ramos off his feet and pressed the stun gun to his neck. Homer gave a squeak and collapsed onto the floor. Ranger reached down and took Homer's gun. He patted him down for more weapons, didn't find any, and cuffed his hands behind his back.

  He kicked Ramos aside and stood over me. “I thought I told you not to hang out with members of the Ramos family. You never listen.”

  Ranger humor.

  I gave him a weak smile. “I think I'm going to throw up.”

  He put his hand to the back of my neck and pushed my head down between my legs. “Push against my hand,” he said.

  The bells stopped clanging and my stomach sort of calmed. Ranger pulled me to my feet and took my jacket off.

  I wiped my nose on my T-shirt. “How long were you here?” I asked.

  “I came in when he shot you.”

  We both looked at the gash in my arm.

  “Flesh wound,” Ranger said. “Can't get much sympathy on this one.” He steered me into the kitchen and pressed some paper toweling to my arm. “Try to clean it up a little, and I'll go look for a Band-Aid.”

  “Band-Aid! I've been shot!”

  He came back with my first-aid kit, used Band-Aids to hold the wound together, put a gauze patch on it, and wrapped my arm with surgical gauze. He stepped back and grinned at me. “You look kind of white.”

  “I thought I was going to die. He'd have killed me for sure.”

  “But he didn't,” Ranger said.

  “Did you ever think you were going to die?”

  “Many times.”

  “And?”

  “And I didn't.” He used my phone to dial Morelli. “I'm at Steph's apartment. We've got Homer Ramos bagged and waiting for you. And we could use a blue-and-white. Stephanie caught a bullet in the arm. It just sliced through some flesh, but she should have it looked at.”

  He slid an arm around me and pulled me to him. I rested my head on his chest, and he nuzzled my hair and kissed me just above the ear. “Are you okay?” he asked.

  No way was I okay. I was as unokay as I could get. I was in a state. “Sure,” I said. “I'm fine.”

  I could feel him smile. “Liar.”

  MORELLI CAUGHT UP with me at the hospital. “Are you okay?”

  “Ranger asked me that same question fifteen minutes ago and the answer was no. But I'm feeling better now.”

  “How's the arm?”

  “I don't think it's too bad. I'm waiting to see the doctor.”

  Morelli took my hand and pressed a kiss to the palm. “I think my heart stopped twice on the way over.”

  The kiss fluttered in my stomach. “I'm fine. Really.”

  “I had to see for myself.”

  “You love me,” I said.

  His smile tightened, and he gave a small nod. “I love you.”

  Ranger loved me too, but not quite in the same way. Ranger was at a different place in his life.

  The doors to the waiting room crashed open, and Connie and Lula barged in.

  “We heard you got shot,” Lula said. “What's going on?”

  “Omigod, it's true,” Connie said. “Look at your arm! How did this happen?”

  Morelli stood. “I want to be there when they bring Ramos in. And I think I'm excess baggage now that the troops have arrived. Call me as soon as you're done with the doctor.”

  I DECIDED TO go from the hospital to my parents' house. Morelli was still busy interrogating Homer Ramos, and I didn't feel like being alone. I had Lula stop at Dougie's first so I could get a flannel shirt to wear over the T-shirt.

  Dougie and Mooner were in the living room, watching a new big-screen TV.

  “Hey, dude,” Mooner said, “check this television out. Is this excellent, or what?”

  “I thought you were done with the hijacking.”

  “That's the astonishing thing,” Mooner said. “This is a newly purchased television. We didn't even steal it, dude. I tell you, God works in mysterious ways. One minute we're thinking our future is in the crapper, and then next thing you know, we come into an inheritance.”

  “Congratulations,” I said. “Who died?”

  ?
??That's the miracle,” Mooner said. "Our inheritance isn't tainted by tragedy. It was given to us, dude. A present. Can you dig it?

  “Dougie and me had the good fortune to make a car sale on Sunday, so we took the car to the car wash to get it all spiffed up for the buyer. And while we're there this blonde comes streaking in, in a silver Porsche. And she, like, cleaned this car to within an inch of its life. We were, like, just watching. And then she took this bag out of the trunk and threw it in the garbage. It was a real genuine bag, so Dougie and me asked if she minded if we took it. And she said it was just a disgusting gym bag, and we could freaking do whatever we wanted with it. So we took the bag home and, like, forgot about it until this morning.”

  “And when you opened it up and looked inside this morning, the bag turned out to be filled with money,” I said.

  “Wow. How did you know that?”

  “Just a guess.”

  MY MOTHER WAS in the kitchen when I got to the house. She was making toltott kaposzta, which is stuffed cabbage. Not my favorite thing in the world. But then my favorite thing in the world is probably pineapple upside-down cake with lots of whipped cream, so I guess it's not a fair comparison.

  She stopped working and looked at me. “Is something wrong with your arm? You're holding it funny.”

  “I got shot, but—”

  My mother fainted. Crash, onto the floor with the big wooden spoon still in her hand.

  Shit.

  I soaked a dish towel and put it on her forehead until she came around.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  “You fainted.”

  “I never faint. You must be mistaken.” She sat up and mopped her face with the wet towel. “Oh yeah, now I remember.”

  I helped her to a kitchen chair and put the water on for tea.

  “How bad is it?” she asked.

  “It's just a nick. And the guy's in jail now, so everything's fine.”

  Except I felt a little nauseated, my heart was skipping a beat once in a while, and I didn't want to go back to my apartment. Otherwise, everything was fine.

  I put the cookie jar on the table and gave my mother a cup of tea. I sat opposite her and helped myself to a cookie. Chocolate chip. Very healthy, since she'd put some chopped walnuts in, and walnuts are filled with protein, right?

  The front door banged open and closed, and Grandma stormed into the kitchen. “I did it! I passed my driver's test!”

  My mother made the sign of the cross and put the wet towel back on her head.

  “How come your arm's all puffy under your shirt?” Grandma asked me.

  “I'm wearing a bandage. I got shot today.”

  Grandma's eyes opened wide. “Cool!” She pulled a chair out and joined us at the table. “How did it happen? Who shot you?”

  Before I could answer, the phone rang. It was Marge Dembowski reporting that her daughter Debbie, who's a nurse at the hospital, called to say I was shot. Then Julia Kruselli called to say her son, Richard, who's a cop, just gave her the scoop on Homer Ramos.

  I moved from the kitchen to the living room and fell asleep in front of the television. Morelli was there when I woke up, the house reeked of stuffed cabbage cooking on the stovetop, and my arm ached.

  Morelli had a new jacket for me, one without a bullet hole in it. “Time to go home,” he said, gingerly slipping my arm into the jacket.

  “I am home.”

  “I mean my home.”

  Morelli's home. That would be nice. Rex and Bob would be there. Even better, Morelli would be there.

  My mother put a big bag on the coffee table in front of us. “There's some stuffed cabbage and a fresh loaf of bread and some cookies.”

  Morelli took the bag. “I love stuffed cabbage,” he said.

  My mother looked pleased.

  “Do you really like stuffed cabbage?” I asked him when we were in the car.

  “I like anything I don't have to cook myself.”

  “How'd it go with Homer Ramos?”

  “Better than our wildest dreams. The man is a worm. He ratted on everyone. Alexander Ramos should have killed him at birth. And as a bonus, we picked up Habib and Mitchell and told them they were being charged with kidnapping, and they gave us Arturo Stolle.”

  “You've had a busy afternoon.”

  “I've had a very good day. Except for you getting shot.”

  “Who killed Macaroni?”

  “Homer. Stolle sent Macaroni over to get the Porsche. Guess he figured it'd pay off part of the debt. Homer caught him in the car and shot him. Then Homer panicked and ran out of the house.”

  “Forgetting to put the alarm on?”

  Morelli grinned. “Yeah. Homer had gotten into the habit of sampling the wares he carried for Stolle, and he wasn't too with the program. He'd get stoned and go out for munchies and forget to set the alarm. Ranger was able to break in. Macaroni broke in. You broke in. I don't think Hannibal realized the extent of the problem. He thought Homer was sitting tight in the town house.”

  “But Homer was a wreck.”

  “Yep. Homer was truly a wreck. After he shot Macaroni, he really freaked. In his drugged-out, deranged state I guess he thought he could hide himself better than Hannibal could, so he went back to the house to get his stash. Only his stash wasn't there.”

  “And all that time Hannibal had his men out, scouring the state, trying to find Homer.”

  “Sort of gratifying to know they were scrambling around, looking for the little jerk,” Morelli said.

  “So what about the stash?” I asked. “Anybody have any idea what happened to the gym bag filled with money?” Anybody besides me, that is.

  “One of life's great mysteries,” Morelli said. “The prevailing theory is that Homer hid it while in a drug-induced haze and forgot where he put it.”

  “That sounds logical,” I said. “I bet that's it.” What the hell, why not let Dougie and Mooner enjoy the money? If it was confiscated it would only go to the federal government, and God only knew what they'd do with it.

  Morelli parked in front of his row house on Slater Street and helped me out. He opened his front door, and Bob jumped out and smiled at me.

  “He's happy to see me,” I told Morelli. And the fact that I was holding a bag filled with stuffed cabbage didn't hurt, either. Not that it mattered. Bob gave a terrific welcome.

  Morelli had put Rex's aquarium on his kitchen counter. I tapped on the side and there was movement under a pile of bedding. Rex stuck his head out, twitched his whiskers, and blinked his black bead eyes at me.

  “Hey, Rex!” I said. “How's it going?”

  The whisker twitching stopped for a microsecond, and then Rex retreated under the bedding. It might not seem like much to the casual observer, but in terms of hamsters, that was a terrific welcome, too.

  Morelli cracked open a couple beers and set two plates on his small kitchen table. We divided the cabbage rolls between Morelli and Bob and me and dug in. Halfway through my second cabbage roll I noticed Morelli wasn't eating.

  “Not hungry?” I asked.

  Morelli sent me a tight smile. “I've missed you.”

  “I've missed you, too.”

  “How's your arm?”

  “It's okay.”

  He took my hand and kissed my fingertip. “I hope this conversation counts as foreplay, because I'm feeling a real lack of self-control.”

  Fine by me. I wasn't seeing much value in self-control at all at the moment.

  He took the fork out of my hand. “How bad do you want those cabbage rolls?”

  “I don't even like cabbage rolls.”

  He pulled me out of my chair and kissed me.

  The doorbell rang, and we both jumped apart.

  “Shit!” Morelli said. “Now what? It's always something! Grandmothers and murderers and pagers going off. I can't take it anymore.” He stormed off to the front of the house and wrenched the door open.

  It was his grandma Bella. She was a little lady, dressed
in Old Country black. Her white hair was pulled into a knot at the nape of her neck, her face was free of makeup, her thin lips were pressed tight together. Joe's mother stood to the side, larger than Bella, no less scary.

  “Well?” Bella said.

  Joe looked at her. “Well, what?”