Smokin' Seventeen

  “YOW!” Brown yelled. “What the fuck? Are you fuckin’ nuts?”

  And he fainted. Crash. Flat out on his back with his foot bleeding, and his flagpole standing at attention.

  Lula stared down at Brown’s stiffy. “He must have taken one of those pills on account of that’s just not normal.”

  “You’ve got to stop shooting people!” I said to Lula. “It’s against the law.”

  “He said I was a fat chick.”

  “That’s not a good reason to shoot someone’s toe off.”

  “Seemed like it at the time,” Lula said. “What are we gonna do now? We gonna drag his ass out to the car?”

  “If we bring him in now we’ll have to take him to the hospital first. And then we’re going to have to explain the missing toe.”

  “Yeah, and the giant boner. I don’t mind so much taking responsibility for the toe, but I don’t want nothin’ to do with the boner.”

  His cell phone was lying on the coffee table. I dialed 911, gave a phony name, reported a shooting, and gave the address.

  “Uh-oh,” Lula said. “Mr. Big got his eyes open.”

  Brown blinked up at Lula. “What happened?”

  “You fainted.”

  “My foot hurts.”

  “You must have stubbed your toe on the way down,” Lula said. “That’s why you should be wearing shoes.”

  “Now I remember,” he said. “I didn’t stub my toe. You fuckin’ shot me.”

  Lula stuffed her hands on her hips. “You said I was fat. I got a mind to shoot you again.”

  Brown catapulted himself off the floor and lunged at Lula. “Arrrrgh!”

  I grabbed Lula by the back of her shirt and yanked her to the door. “Go! Run!”

  “Outta my way,” Lula said, rushing past me. “He got crazy eyes.”

  Between the missing toe and the male enhancement issue, after the initial lunge Brown wasn’t able to move all that fast. Lula and I thundered down the stairs, chugged across the parking lot, threw ourselves into the car, and took off.

  Lula was breathing heavy. “Do you think he’ll tell the police on me?”

  “No. Brown doesn’t want to have anything to do with the police. By the time the police get to his apartment he’ll be long gone.” Good for Lula, I thought, checking the pimple out in the rearview mirror, but not so good for Vinnie.

  “You keep lookin’ at your pimple and we’re gonna have an accident,” Lula said.

  “Now that I know it’s there I can’t get it out of my mind.”

  “At least you don’t have a vampire hickey on your neck. I got a date with a hunk of lovin’ tonight. He might be Mr. Wonderful.”

  “Maybe you could put a scarf around your neck.”

  “What happens when hunk of lovin’ undresses me?”

  “Maybe you could decorate it to look like a tattoo gone bad.”

  EIGHT

  TO GET BACK to the bonds office from Merlin Brown’s apartment, I had to drive down Stark, past the junkyard, and cut through the combat zone. This was a mixture of graffiti-covered, rat-infested, three-story brick rooming houses, garbage-strewn empty lots, and sketchy businesses operating out of barred storefronts and back alleys. It was shocking to think anyone lived in this destroyed neighborhood, and even more shocking to know some of them were good, decent people. They were victims of time and circumstance, struggling not to succumb to the wreckage around them.

  It was less shocking to know that most of the residents were drugged out deadbeats, crackhead hookers, dope dealers, gangbangers, and homicidal maniacs. If I had to go after an FTA on this part of Stark, I usually asked Ranger for help.

  Ranger was a bounty hunter working for Vinnie when I first met him. He has his own security firm now, but he still does the occasional felon apprehension. He’s my mentor, my friend, and my onetime lover. He’s the guy I go to when I need professional help. I’m all in favor of women holding their own in the workplace, but I don’t have a death wish. Ranger is a far better bounty hunter than I could ever hope to be. And if I was being honest about it, sometimes I went to Ranger just because I liked working with him.

  “You going back to the office?” Lula asked.

  “Yeah. I thought I’d check in and then head home.”

  “I got a plan,” Lula said. “I’m going to the mall, and I’m gonna get a feather boa to match this new sparkly outfit I was gonna wear tonight. A feather boa will dress it up better than a scarf. And then I can get undressed all except for the boa. I could work the boa into my whole routine of seduction, and my neck’ll be covered.”

  “You have a routine of seduction?”

  “Yeah, well you know I was a professional, and I still got moves.”

  I didn’t want to think too hard about Lula and her moves. On the one hand it was way too much information. On the other hand I felt inadequate. My big move was to get out of my underpants without snagging my foot and falling on my face.

  I followed the cross street to Hamilton and turned toward the bonds office. Minutes later I parked behind Mooner’s bus. Morelli’s car was angle-parked in front of the bus, and Morelli was standing in the middle of the field.

  “That is one fine man,” Lula said, looking at Morelli. “I don’t know what your problem is. I wouldn’t have any trouble saying yes to him. I’d say yes to whatever he was askin’.”

  I had to admit, he was definitely fine.

  Lula cut her eyes to me. “So when was the last time you two got busy?”

  “A while ago.”

  “So why’s that?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  “Hunh,” Lula said.

  When Lula said hunh like that it indicated total disgust.

  “Okay,” I said, “it’s because I’m confused. I’m having commitment issues.”

  “You mean you can’t choose between Morelli and Ranger. I’m telling you, girl, you know what you gotta do. You gotta have a bake off, a throw down, a love fest. Hell, just ask them if they want to go head-to-head in the sack and see what they say. You’d be doing them a favor on account of you’d be makin’ up your mind. And then just for the heck of it, maybe you can throw in that guy Dave that your mom likes.”

  I cut my eyes to Lula. “You can’t be serious.”

  “Damn skippy I’m serious.”

  “Something to consider,” I said.

  “While you’re considering you might want to do something about Krakatoa. Like if you put a little teeny skirt on that barely covers your doodah, no one’s ever gonna look at your face. And on top of that it gives a man incentive to be real nice to you.”

  “Words of wisdom.”

  “You bet your ass,” Lula said. “I’m going into the bus now before Mr. Titty’s ghost creeps up around me.”

  I didn’t have a sense of Mr. Titty’s ghost, so I went over to say hello to Morelli.

  “What going on?” I asked him.

  “I’m trying to get a grip on this. The forensic guys think Lou was buried within twenty-four hours of his disappearance.”

  “Cause of death?”

  “Looks like broken neck.”

  “Gina Giovichinni said Lou had a big business deal go south just before he disappeared. Word was he had travel plans.”

  “I’ve heard that rumor,” Morelli said. “So far I haven’t been able to get any details.”

  “How about Mrs. Lou?”

  “Mrs. Lou would be the last to know anything,” Morelli said. “She’s been in a self-induced Xanax coma for years.”

  “Have you tried talking to her?”

  “Yeah. It was painful. And unproductive.”

  I realized Morelli was staring at my forehead.

  “It’s a pimple,” I told him.

  Morelli grinned. “I hadn’t noticed, but now that you mention it.”

  “Liar.”

  “Fortunately for you I know the perfect cure for a pimple of that magnitude. Sweaty gorilla sex. Lots of it.”

  “I got this from yo
ur crazy grandmother. She gave me the eye, and she said I was going to get boils!”

  “Cupcake, there’s no such thing as the eye. And that’s not a boil. It’s a monster pimple. It’s that time of the month, right?”

  “Wrong!”

  “Good to know,” Morelli said, slinging an arm around my shoulders, hugging me into him. “I have plans.”

  “Where are we going to eat tonight?”

  “It’s a surprise.”

  “Pino’s?” I asked him.

  “No.”

  “Campiello’s?”

  “No.”

  “Sal’s Steak House?”

  “No.”

  Morelli wasn’t a surprise kind of guy. Maybe about doggy-style sex but that was it. So I was getting a weird feeling.

  “Where are we eating tonight?” I asked him again.

  Morelli blew out a sigh. “At my mom’s house. It’s my Uncle Rocco’s birthday.”

  “No, no, no, no.”

  “Oh man, I’m begging,” Morelli said. “I hate these parties. I’ll make a deal. You go with me, and I’ll give you a back rub.”

  “No way. Your grandmother will be there, and she’ll put another curse on me.”

  “Okay, a back rub and I’ll buy you a birthday cake.”

  “No!”

  Morelli looked down at me. Serious. “What’ll it take?”

  “I’ll hook up with you after dinner. That’s the best I can offer.”

  “Better than nothing,” he said. “Can I still give you a back rub?”

  “Yes. Do I get the birthday cake?”

  “No.” He looked over at the bonds bus. “Are you going in there?”

  “Yes. I was going to take off for home, but I think I’ll touch base with Connie before I leave.”

  “Try not to inhale the fumes coming off the upholstery and don’t eat anything he’s baking.” He pulled me close, kissed me, and whispered a couple innovations he was going to add to the back rub.

  • • •

  Connie was at her computer, Lula was sitting in a club chair, and Mooner was on the couch, working his way through an app on his cell phone when I swung into the bus.

  “I can’t help thinking there was some significance to Lou Dugan getting buried on the bonds office property,” I said to Connie.

  “I’ve wondered about that,” Connie said. “But I can’t think of a connection.”

  “What about Vinnie? Did Vinnie have something going on with Dugan?”

  “Vinnie was a regular at the titty bar before Lucille hooked him up to a leash and a choke collar, but I never got the feeling Vinnie and Dugan were friends or business partners.”

  “Harry?”

  “Don’t know about Harry,” Connie said. “He’s mostly a silent partner here. He puts the money up, so his son-in-law can be gainfully employed, but he doesn’t take much interest in the business.”

  “Maybe Vinnie ran up a tab at the titty bar, and he didn’t want to pay it, so he offed Lou Dugan, and buried him in his backyard,” Lula said.

  “It would work for me,” Connie said, “except I can’t see Vinnie digging a hole big enough to plant Dugan. Not a lot of muscle going on in that weaselly body. And Vinnie wouldn’t have left the ring on Dugan’s finger.”

  “Maybe the killers were aliens, and they were following instructions from the mother ship,” Mooner said. “Like maybe they needed to do an anal probe. And you know, like, the ring might not have any value in another solar system.”

  We all stared openmouthed at Mooner for a moment.

  “You gotta cut back on the brownies,” Lula said to Mooner.

  Connie made a small grimace and dragged her attention from Mooner to me. “How’d it go with Merlin Brown?”

  “We found him but then we lost him,” I said. “No problem. I have a lead. I just need to make a couple phone calls.”

  There are two hospitals in Trenton, Helene Fuld and St. Frances. I was guessing Merlin drove himself to one of the hospitals to get his foot patched up. If that was the case he was probably either still waiting, depending on how much he was bleeding, or else he was with a doctor. I called Helene Fuld first and asked for Merlin. They didn’t have anyone checked in by that name, and they didn’t have anyone with a toe amputation.

  Connie had been listening. “Toe amputation?” she asked, eyebrows raised.

  “You don’t want to know,” I told her.

  “Hunh,” Lula said, arms crossed over her chest. “He said I was fat.”

  “You’re right,” Connie said. “I don’t want to know. Were there witnesses?”

  I shook my head. “No.”

  I called St. Frances next and asked for Jenny Christo. I went to high school with Jenny, and now she was an ER nurse.

  “Nope,” she said, “no one here named Merlin Brown. No one with a bloody foot.”

  “Well?” Lula asked when I got off the phone.

  “He wasn’t at either hospital. He must have gone to a clinic or private doctor.”

  Unfortunate because if he’d gone to either of the hospitals I could have picked him up when he checked out and left.

  The door to the motor coach opened, and Vinnie stumbled up a step. “Cripes, why don’t you turn some lights on,” he said. “I feel like a goddamn mole.”

  “All the lights are on,” Connie told him. “Did you re-bond Ziggy?”

  “Yeah. That guy is four cans short of a case. He told the judge he was a vampire.”

  “What did the judge say?”

  “He said he didn’t care if he was Winston Churchill or Mickey Mouse, he damn well better show up for his court appearance next time.”

  My phone buzzed, and my parents’ number popped up on my screen.

  “Your mother asked me to call and see if you want to come for dinner tonight being that she’s making meatloaf and rice pudding,” Grandma said. “It’s not every day she makes rice pudding.”

  I loved my mother’s rice pudding. “Sure,” I said. “Dinner would be good.” This was a much better option than Joe’s Uncle Rocco’s birthday party, and I’d still get to see Joe after dinner.

  NINE

  I SWAPPED OUT the red tank top and jeans for a deep blue stretchy knit sweater with a low scoop neck, a little black skirt, and spiky heels. The only reason Morelli wanted me to wear the red shirt was because he hadn’t seen the blue sweater. I had cleavage in the blue sweater. Okay, so I had a little help from a push-up bra, but it was cleavage all the same. I had my hair long in big loose curls and waves, and I added extra gunk to my eyelashes. I was in date-night mode. I was going to get meatloaf, rice pudding, a back rub, and then I was most likely going to get naked. Shazaam. Could life possibly get any better?

  I gave myself one last look in the bathroom mirror. Yes, in fact, life could get better. The pimple in the middle of my forehead could disappear. I’d tried makeup and that didn’t work. Only one thing left. Bangs. I sectioned off some hair, took the scissors to it, and the deed was done. A moment with the flat iron. Swiped the bangs partially to the side. Some hairspray. Good-bye pimple.

  My parents eat dinner at six o’clock. Precisely. If everyone’s ass is not in the seat promptly at six, and the dinner is delayed by five minutes, my mother declares the meal ruined. The pot roast is dry, the gravy is cold, the beans are overcooked. It all tastes perfectly fine to me, but what do I know? My major cooking accomplishment is a peanut butter and olive sandwich.

  I arrived at ten minutes to six, said hello to my dad in the living room, and paused at the dining room table on my way to the kitchen. The table was set for five people. My mom, my dad, my grandmother, me … and one other person. I immediately knew in my gut I’d been suckered in.

  “Why is there an extra place set at the table?” I asked my mother. “Who did you invite?”

  She was at the counter next to the sink, and she was bent over a steaming pot of drained potatoes, mashing them for all she was worth, her lips pressed tight together.

  “We invite
d that nice young man, Dave Brewer, who swindled all those people out of their houses,” Grandma said, pulling a meatloaf out of the oven.

  “He didn’t swindle anyone,” my mother said. “He was framed.”

  I eyeballed the pudding, sitting in a bowl on the kitchen table, and gauged the distance to the door. If I moved fast I could probably get away with the pudding before my mother tackled me.

  “There’s something different about you,” Grandma said to me. “You’ve got bangs.”

  My mother looked up from the potatoes. “You’ve never had bangs.” She studied me for a beat. “I like them. They bring out your eyes.”

  The doorbell rang and my mother and grandmother snapped to attention.

  “Someone get the door,” my father yelled.

  My father took the trash out, washed the car, and did anything associated with plumbing, but he didn’t get the door. It wasn’t on his side of the division of labor.

  “I got my hands full with the meatloaf,” Grandma said.

  I blew out a sigh. “I’ll get it.”

  If Dave Brewer was too awful I could let him in and just keep right on going, out to my car. The heck with the pudding.

  I opened the door and took a step back. Brewer was a pleasant-looking guy with a lot less hair than I remembered. The athletic body he’d had in high school had turned soft around the middle; in direct contrast to Morelli and Ranger who seemed to come into sharper focus as they aged. He was half a head taller than me. His blue eyes had some squint lines at the corners. What was left of his sandy blond hair was trimmed short. He was dressed in black slacks and a blue dress shirt that was open at the neck.

  “Stephanie?” he asked.

  “Yep.”

  “This is awkward.”

  “For the record, this wasn’t my idea. I have a boyfriend.”

  “Morelli.”

  “Yes.”

  “I wouldn’t want to tangle with him,” Brewer said.

  I felt my eyebrows go up every so slightly. “But you’re here?”

  “I’m temporarily living with my mother,” he said. “She made me come.”

  Good grief, I thought, the poor dumb schmuck was worse off than I was.