Top Secret Twenty-One

  “You didn’t have to make your one phone call,” he said.

  “No. I got in to see Gardi, and so far no one’s come after me.”

  “How is he?”

  “He looks terrible, but he was coherent. He’s been talking to the FBI, but it sounds like they don’t think the information is worth anything. Gardi doesn’t have a name. He said it was a business deal. He needed money bad, and this guy came to him and offered him the job. Gardi saw the man once. The money was paid in cash to Gardi’s business partners. The canister of poison was left in a New York hotel room for pickup. That’s it.”

  “Did he give you a description?”

  I told Ranger everything Gardi had told me, from the FBI interrogation to the guy with the scar and the tattoo.

  “Let me guess,” Ranger said. “It was a skull and a flower.”

  “Yes! Do you know him?”

  “Only as Vlatko. Our paths crossed while I was on a search and rescue mission in North Korea, and he was a Russian SVR thug. SVR is the new KGB.”

  “Did you work together?”

  “No. We were on opposite sides. He was Russian intelligence, and I was point man for a ground troops unit.”

  “And?”

  “The operation was a success, but it wasn’t clean. Troops were lost on both sides. I was captured and handed over to Vlatko for torture. His specialty was disembowelment. He put a six-inch slice into my belly before I managed to get the knife from him.”

  “I thought that scar was from an appendectomy.”

  “If the knife had gone deeper, it would have been.”

  “And what did you do to him?”

  “I stuck the knife in his eye.”

  “Wow, that’s pretty horrible. North Korea was years ago. Have you heard from Vlatko since?”

  “No. I thought he was out of my life.”

  “I guess he didn’t like losing an eye.”

  “Go figure,” Ranger said.

  “The only other thing I got from Gardi was the name of the hotel in New York. It was the Gatewell.”

  Ranger tapped the name of the hotel into his computer.

  “The Gatewell is on the West Side,” he said. “It’s a small boutique hotel. I’ll do some research on it.”

  “Would that research involve hacking into their client database?”

  “That would be illegal,” Ranger said, “and difficult from this location, but we might be able to manage it.”

  Hal drove me back to the bonds office. I loaded Briggs into my car, and picked up a couple pizzas. Morelli was just returning from a walk with Bob when I rolled in. Bob rushed over, sniffed at the pizza boxes, and growled at Briggs.

  I put the pizza boxes on the coffee table, and Morelli brought a roll of paper towels and a cold six-pack of Bud from the kitchen. He flipped the television on, and we dug in.

  “Any luck finding Poletti today?” Briggs asked Morelli.

  Morelli shook his head. “He’s out there, but he’s moving around.”

  “Big of you to let us stay here, considering the risk,” Briggs said.

  Morelli paused with a pizza slice in his hand. “Risk?”

  “The probability that you’ll get a firebomb shot through your window is really high,” Briggs said.

  Morelli looked surprised. Like he hadn’t actually thought about it.

  “If we don’t advertise that you’re here,” I said to Briggs, “no one will know and no one will shoot a rocket through Morelli’s window.”

  Briggs looked at the beer. “I don’t suppose you’ve got a Heineken?” he asked Morelli.

  “I’ve got Bud,” Morelli said.

  Briggs gave out a major sigh of disappointment and took a Bud. “Have you got a beer glass?” he asked.

  “You didn’t ask for a glass at my house,” I said.

  “My expectations are lower at your house,” Briggs said.

  Morelli got Briggs a glass. “Don’t let the curtains on the windows and the toaster in the kitchen fool you. I’m even less civilized than she is.”

  It was a nice thought, but I wasn’t sure it was true. I chugged my beer from the can and scarfed down two pieces of pizza.

  “I need to go to my parents’ house to get my laundry,” I said to Morelli. “Grandma has my black suit airing so I can wear it to the funeral tomorrow.”

  Morelli looked over at Briggs. “What about him?”

  “I was going to leave him here.”

  “You aren’t just going to take off, are you?” Morelli asked. “You’re coming back, right?”

  “Yes. I’m coming back.”

  FOURTEEN

  MY LAUNDRY WAS all neatly folded in the laundry basket. My black suit had been aired and pressed and was on a hanger. My red dress was at the cleaners. My mother and grandmother were the queens of clean and organized.

  “Did you hear about Emilio Gardi?” Grandma asked. “Marjorie Barstock called and said he just died.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Marjorie’s daughter works at the hospital, and she said there was a big to-do over it. The FBI was hoping he’d stay alive long enough for them to get more information out of him. Marjorie said her daughter thinks it was his heart that went kaput. That radiation stuff is bad. That’s why you never stand in front of the microwave.”

  “Is there any dessert?” I asked Grandma.

  “Your mother made vanilla pudding. I think there’s one left in the fridge. And there’s whipped cream to go with it.”

  I found the pudding, added a big glob of whipped cream, and ate standing in front of the sink.

  “Where do you suppose they’ll bury him?” Grandma asked. “Do they have to put him in one of them toxic-waste dumps out in Nevada?”

  It seemed unlikely to me, but I didn’t know for sure.

  “Marjorie said the youngest Poletti boy was in the emergency room today too. Her daughter said he was high as a kite, and I guess he was smoking some weed, and he set his shirt on fire, and he got some burns on his hands trying to rip his shirt off. Here’s the perfect example why weed is more dangerous than alcohol. Most of the time people don’t set themselves on fire when they’re drinking alcohol.”

  “I have to get back to Morelli,” I said. “I left Briggs there.”

  Grandma helped me carry the laundry out to the car. “If you hear anything about the burial, let me know. And we need to be at the church tomorrow at eight in the morning. I don’t need to get there early on account of I don’t care where I sit for that.”

  I drove back to Morelli’s house, parked at the curb, and lugged the laundry basket into the living room. Briggs, Morelli, and Bob were watching the ball game. No one was bleeding, so I took that as a good sign.

  “You know what I could use?” Briggs said. “Ice cream.”

  Morelli cut him a sideways glance. “I don’t have any ice cream.”

  “Somebody could go get some,” Briggs said.

  All three heads swiveled and looked at me.

  “Okay, fine,” I said. “Do you need anything besides ice cream?”

  “Cookies,” Briggs said.

  I went to the convenience store a mile away on Hamilton. I got three tubs of ice cream, two bags of cookies, and Twizzlers. I now had zero money and a maxed-out credit card. I parked in front of Morelli’s house and called Ranger.

  “I need money,” I said. “I need to catch Poletti. He wasn’t at his mother’s viewing, but he might try to attend the funeral tomorrow morning. Maybe he’ll show up in disguise or he’ll watch from a distance. I could use some help.”

  “How much help do you want?”

  “Another set of eyes.”

  “Done.”

  I fished a Twizzler out of its packaging and bit off a piece. “Gardi died.”

  “I heard,” Ranger said. “I have two men searching through data for Vlatko, but we’re not turning anything up.”

  “How hard could it be to find a one-eyed guy with a skull and a flower tattooed on his neck?”

/>   “There wasn’t anyone with that description on Facebook or Match.com,” Ranger said.

  “What’s next?”

  “Field trip to New York.”

  I disconnected with Ranger, then called Lula and asked for her help as well. I needed someone to look after Briggs while I watched for Poletti.

  Morelli gave up on the ball game at ten o’clock.

  “I have an early meeting tomorrow and my team’s losing,” he said.

  Briggs was settled in on the couch. “I’m going to stay to see the end.”

  Morelli’s house wasn’t big, but it was comfortable for a single guy. Living room, dining room, kitchen, and half bath downstairs. Three bedrooms and bath upstairs. It would also have been comfortable for a married couple or a young family. It was uncomfortable with Briggs in it.

  I was in Morelli’s bed wearing panties and a T-shirt with the covers pulled up to my chin. Morelli was naked next to me.

  “Is there a problem?” he asked.

  “Briggs.”

  “He’s downstairs watching television.”

  “I’m worried he’ll just walk in on us to ask if we have organic taro chips or to tell us he needs to borrow a credit card to rent a porno film.”

  “He’s watching the ball game.”

  “You don’t know that for sure. He’s little and sneaky. He could have crept up the stairs. Did you lock the bedroom door?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re fibbing. It doesn’t have a lock on it.”

  “Would you feel better if I pushed the dresser in front of the door?”

  “Maybe. But he could still be listening.”

  Morelli was inching my panties down.

  “Don’t you care if he’s listening?” I asked him.

  “No.” He kissed my bare shoulder and did some exploration under the T-shirt.

  “I can’t stop thinking about him,” I said.

  Although, I had to admit, Morelli had wonderful hands. And he was an amazing kisser. And I was liking what his hands were doing.

  “Do you like this?” Morelli asked, and he ran a finger across my nipple.

  “Mmmm,” I said.

  And then a vision of Briggs, listening to us on the other side of the door, popped into my head.

  “I’m having a hard time focusing,” I told Morelli.

  “As you can tell, I’m not having that problem.”

  “I noticed. And there’s a part of me that really would like to do this. And I mean really would like to do this. But I can’t shake the feeling that Briggs is out there. I mean, what if the game suddenly ends?”

  “There were two innings left.”

  “That’s true,” I said. “So maybe if we’re super fast we can get it done before the game ends.”

  “There’s no problem on my end,” Morelli said.

  There might be a problem on my end. “What if everyone gets struck out and the innings are over in record time? In fact, for all we know, they could be on the last inning now. It could be the bottom of the last inning!”

  “Okay,” Morelli said. “I was saving this for a special occasion, but maybe this is a good time to try it out.”

  He fumbled around in the nightstand drawer and brought out a neon blue and silver box. “I busted Ziggy Shestok last week. He was selling stuff out of the trunk of his Cadillac again, and I got this baby for two bucks. If you bought it on one of those shopping channels, you’d pay twenty dollars for it.”

  “Wait. You arrested Ziggy for selling hot appliances and then you bought one?”

  “No. I arrested him for selling drugs. The appliances were just a sideline for him. He had toasters too, but I already have one of those.” Morelli peeled the cellophane wrapper off the box, took the gizmo out, and held it up for inspection. “Batteries included,” he said.

  “Holy Toledo. What are all those nubby little things on it?”

  “It says on the box that they’re pleasure stimulators.”

  “Pleasure is good,” I said.

  “Damn straight.”

  Morelli turned it on. BZZZZZZZZZZZ!

  “Whoa. It sounds … powerful.”

  “It’s called the One-Second Wonder Tool.”

  He hit the go button again, the thing bzzzzed in his hand, and I felt the vibration run through his body and into the mattress.

  I jumped to the other side of the bed. “That sounds like too much pleasure.”

  Morelli pulled me back to his side, threw a leg over me, and kissed me. “Be brave,” he said. “It’s got a money-back guarantee.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut and clenched my teeth. “Do it!”

  BZZZZZZZZZZ! BZZZZZZZZZ!

  “Yow!” I yelled.

  Morelli rolled off me. “What? Are you okay?”

  “Better than okay,” I gasped. “That might have been the best second of my life.”

  BAM, BAM, BAM! “Hey,” Briggs shouted from the other side of the door, “are you all right in there? I heard this weird buzzing. It sounded like a bunch of angry bees.”

  “Power surge,” Morelli said. “It happens all the time. Go back to the game.”

  FIFTEEN

  I WAS IN the kitchen enjoying my second cup of coffee when Briggs shuffled in.

  “I couldn’t sleep,” he said. “I kept waiting for a firebomb to come through the window.”

  “A firebomb isn’t going to come through the window. No one knows you’re here.”

  “He’ll find me. It’s just a matter of time.” He helped himself to coffee. “Where’s Morelli?”

  “Early meeting. He’s already out of the house.”

  “What’s with the black suit on you? You look like you’re going to a funeral.”

  “I am. Jimmy Poletti’s mother is getting buried today.”

  “I forgot. Do you think I should go?”

  “Yes. We need to leave for the service in twenty minutes.”

  Briggs returned to the kitchen in fifteen minutes. He was showered and dressed in clothes that were wrinkled but clean and smelling only slightly of smoke. He scarfed down his coffee and a bowl of cereal, complained about the quality of the orange juice, and we were out the door and on our way to get Grandma.

  Grandma was wearing a royal blue pantsuit and black patent leather pumps, and she was carrying her large black patent leather purse. I strongly suspected she had her .45 long barrel in the purse.

  I pulled the Buick into the funeral line at the church and had a funeral flag attached to my car. Lula slid in line behind me in her red Firebird. We all got out of our cars and gathered on the sidewalk. Lula was wearing five-inch heels and a stretchy black skirt and wrap top. Her hair had been toned down for the occasion from hot pink to magenta.

  “So what’s the plan?” Lula wanted to know. “We gonna hang the little guy out and hope someone takes a potshot at him?”

  “That’s plan B,” I said. “We’ll do that tomorrow if plan A doesn’t work today.”

  “And plan A would be what?” Briggs asked.

  “We go to the church service and the funeral and hope we see Jimmy Poletti lurking somewhere,” I said. “We’ll spread out and keep in touch by phone.”

  “I’m ready to take him down,” Grandma said. “I’ve got the big boy with me.”

  “Keep the big boy in your purse, please,” I said, “and call me if you see Jimmy. I’m going to hang outside. I want you and Lula to go inside with Briggs. Don’t let anyone snatch him.”

  I crossed the street to get a better view of the church and its surroundings. I’d fibbed a little about not hanging Briggs out for a potshot. Of course I was hanging him out. Everyone knew it, including Briggs, but I didn’t think he wanted to hear me admit it.

  My phone buzzed, and I looked down at the text message:

  Babe.

  Ranger was in place … somewhere.

  Five minutes later, Grandma texted me. She, Lula, and Briggs were seated in the last row and could see the whole church, and so far they hadn’t spotted Jimm
y, but the Poletti boy was there with his hands bandaged.

  Organ music drifted out to me. The big carved oak doors closed, and there was silence.

  Another text from Ranger. Two plainclothes cops inside, and one outside standing half a block from you.

  I looked down the block and waved at the guy on the corner. He grinned but didn’t wave back. I looked around for Ranger, but couldn’t find him. No surprise there.

  I watched the passing cars and the side doors of the church. I didn’t see any unusual activity. After a while the big double doors at the front of the church opened, and people began trickling out.

  I got a text from Lula. We’re staying with the dead lady. So far no one’s wanted short stuff, but he’s gotten a bunch of dirty looks from a lot of people. He don’t seem to be real popular.

  I waited across the street until Mrs. Poletti was eased into the hearse. The cop at the corner was still in place. Grandma and Lula were on the sidewalk by the hearse with Briggs squashed between them. No Ranger in sight. Grandma and Briggs went with Lula, I got behind the wheel of the Buick, and we all played follow the leader to the cemetery.

  I parked on the road that led to the gravesite, got out of the car, and immediately got a text from Ranger.

  Looking good.

  I didn’t know if he meant me in my little black suit, or if he meant that Jimmy Poletti was here. Either way, it was a good message. I followed the people who were walking to where a tent gave shelter to a few chairs. The cemetery was old and held generations of families. Grave markers varied from simple flat stones on the ground to elaborate granite statues of angels. The terrain was for the most part open grass fields, but there were also mature trees scattered over acres of graves.

  The Poletti grave was on the side of a gently sloping hill. There were approximately fifty people at graveside. A few mourners were sitting on folding chairs, but most were standing. Lula, Grandma, and Briggs were at the outer edge of the crowd. I was a short distance away, with my back to the gravesite, watching the road.

  I felt a change in my force field, caught a hint of Bulgari Green shower gel, and knew Ranger was near.

  “You’re looking in the wrong direction,” he said, close behind me. “He’s standing off to the side, by the maple tree.”