Top Secret Twenty-One

  “I said ‘suit.’ ”

  “Sorry, my ears are ringing from the explosion. I had a suit, but it went up in flames with everything else I owned.”

  “I need you to pretend to be a lawyer tomorrow morning, and you need to look the part.”

  “My friend Nick is my size. I might be able to borrow some clothes from him. What kind of lawyer am I?”

  “Litigator.”

  “Oh man, I’m going to be a kick-ass litigator. Who are we suing? I can do this. I’ll scare the crap out of the sonsabitches. I even thought about being a lawyer when I was in college.”

  “I’m not suing anyone. This is sort of a con.”

  “A what?”

  “A con. A scam.”

  “Say again.”

  “A con,” I yelled into the phone.

  “A con. Even better!”

  “Call me if you need a ride to pick up the clothes. Otherwise I’ll come get you tomorrow at eight A.M.”

  Lula was on the couch, reading email on her smartphone, when I walked into the office.

  “This here’s from my cousin Joleen,” she said. “She’s gonna get married as soon as her boyfriend gets a parole. He’s got a hearing coming up in a couple weeks, and they’re thinking about a December wedding if everything goes right.”

  “Gee, that’s great,” I said. “What’s he in for?”

  “Armed robbery with intent to kill, but it wasn’t his fault. He was on a lot of drugs.”

  “And he’s off them now?”

  “Yeah. Drugs are expensive in prison, and he don’t have a good source of income there.”

  “I need to have another conversation with Buster,” I said. “Do you want to ride along?”

  “Sure,” Lula said. “As long as we get back by five o’clock. I got a big date tonight, and it might take me some time to get beautiful.”

  I drove past Rangeman on the way across town. The crime scene tape had been taken down, but several vans from a variety of government agencies were still in place.

  “This whole thing gives me the creeps,” Lula said. “I don’t like no radioactive shit leaking out in my neighborhood. Excuse my language, but there’s no other way to say it. It’s scary as snot.”

  I cut back to State Street, turned up Stark, and parked across the street from Buster. It was late in the day, and people were lining up for pizza.

  We crossed the street, I pushed the intercom buzzer, and Buster answered.

  “It’s me again,” I said.

  “Is the chick with the big tits with you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Come on up.”

  “That’s sweet,” Lula said. “He remembered me.”

  Buster was standing at the top of the stairs, wearing a red chef’s apron and holding a spoon.

  “What’s up?” he said. “I’m in the middle of making dinner.”

  “What are you making?” Lula asked him.

  “Red sauce. I’m having spaghetti. I got some nice parmesan and some fresh basil.”

  “We need to talk,” I said. “Someone just shot a rocket into a very expensive Porsche because Briggs was in it. Was that you?”

  “No shit,” Buster said. “Did Briggs get blown up?”

  “No, he was thrown clear.”

  “Bummer,” Buster said.

  “So?” I asked him.

  “Not me. I don’t do rockets.”

  “Who would do rockets?”

  Buster shrugged. “Could be anyone.”

  “Let’s take this from another direction. Who would want Briggs dead?”

  “Just about everyone I know. He snooped where he shouldn’t be snooping. He messed around with other people’s wives. He was damn annoying. And he can’t drive. He’s a menace on the road. He kept smashing into my Mercedes with his stupid blue RAV4. I hated that car.”

  “Omigod,” I said. “You’re the car bomber.”

  “Right now I’m the spaghetti maker,” Buster said. “Do you ladies want to stay for supper?”

  “I got a date,” Lula said, “but I’ll take a rain check. That spaghetti sauce smells good.”

  I drove Lula back to the office and continued on to Morelli’s house. Morelli wasn’t home, so I took Bob for a walk, straightened up the kitchen, fed Bob, and made myself a grilled cheese sandwich.

  Morelli rolled in at seven o’clock. He grabbed me and kissed me, and scratched Bob behind his ear. He got a beer out of the fridge, chugged it, and belched.

  “Long day,” I said.

  “No kidding. Do we have food?”

  I assembled two more grilled cheese sandwiches and set them into the fry pan. I wasn’t any kind of a cook, but I could make grilled cheese.

  “Ron Siglowski turned up today,” Morelli said. “He floated down the Delaware and washed up onto the shore by the Route 1 bridge embankment. A homeless guy found him at four o’clock. He was decomposed, but it was obvious he’d taken a bullet in the head.”

  “That leaves just two poker players.”

  Morelli looked around. “Where’s Briggs?”

  “He’s staying in my apartment while it’s under construction. I thought it was better than having him here.”

  “If I had to live with him another day, you could add me to the list of people trying to kill him.”

  I slid a grilled cheese onto a plate and added pickles and some chips. “Do you have a lead on the shooter?”

  “Nothing worth anything. Buster and Pepper are suspects only because they’re the last two men standing, but it could just as easily be someone on the outside. All these guys associated with bad people. They were all involved in human trafficking and who knows what else. They might not have been as deeply invested as Jimmy Poletti, but they all knew what was going on.”

  “It sounds like Buster was boots on the ground in Mexico. And Silvio Pepper had his trucks going in and out of Mexico.”

  “The feds are involved in that part of it. Not sure how much progress they’re making.”

  “Speaking of feds, I drove past Rangeman today. They’ve removed the crime scene tape, but there were still a bunch of vans on the street.”

  “My understanding is that the poison was pretty well contained in the one small room where Gardi was being held. If the polonium had been released directly into the ventilation system as planned, it might have done more damage, although even that’s doubtful. What I’m hearing is that because of the system Ranger uses, the poison would have had to be introduced at a more central point to actually circulate. I imagine they’ll let everyone back into the building tonight or tomorrow.”

  “Ranger has a lot of sensitive technology in that building. There are probably agents at his console checking up on their girlfriends.”

  Morelli finished his second sandwich and pushed back from the little kitchen table. “Not likely. Ranger’s had his guys in hazmat suits on all seven floors 24/7. And word is that he was able to lock down his system from offsite. I know he has a very elite clientele, and they’re willing to pay a premium for his services, but even at that, you have to wonder if there’s more going on in that building than local security.”

  “Like what?”

  Morelli shrugged. “I don’t know. All I know is that his building is more secure than it needs to be, and the technology he uses is expensive, complicated, and not readily available. I used to think he was a dangerous whackjob. Now I’m not sure what he is.”

  No need to tell Morelli I was still helping Ranger track Vlatko, right? Why cause him additional stress?

  Grandma called at eight o’clock.

  “I’m at the Rickert viewing,” she said, “and I could use a ride home. I don’t suppose you could come get me? There’s a lot of people here, and it’s going to be a big traffic mess, so you could pick me up on the side street by the driveway going to the garage area.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ll be right there.”

  Fifteen minutes later I turned onto the side street and saw Grandma crash through a h
edge that bordered the funeral home driveway and wave me down. I stopped the Buick, and she grabbed the door handle, wrenched the door open, and jumped inside.

  “Go, go, go,” she said.

  I took off and gave her a sideways glance. “What’s this all about?”

  “I didn’t feel like talking to anybody. And the cookies weren’t so good either. By the time I got to the cookies there were only Fig Newtons left, and they get under my dentures.”

  When I drove up to my parents’ house, my mother was standing on the sidewalk with her arms crossed over her chest.

  “Uh-oh,” Grandma said. “I’ve never seen your mother standing there like that.”

  “She looks mad.”

  “Yeah, I wonder what brought that on.”

  “Did you try to pry the lid open on a casket again?”

  “No way,” she said. “The lid was already up.”

  “Did you stick the dead guy with a pin to make sure he was dead?”

  “I didn’t do that either. And I only did that once, when Mabel Sheindler looked so lifelike. And I didn’t knock over any vases or set anything on fire.”

  I parked and got out of the car with Grandma.

  “What’s up?” I asked my mother.

  “I just got fourteen phone calls about someone hitting Joseph’s Grandma Bella in the face with a chocolate cream pie when she was walking out of the funeral home. They said she was going out the side door for some reason, and someone came out of nowhere and hit her with the pie.”

  “Did they know who did it?” Grandma asked.

  “Bella said it was you.”

  “That’s a fib,” Grandma said. “I bet she never even saw who did it. I bet someone lured her out through the side door and then sneaked up behind her and reached around and smushed her with the pie. Those chocolate pies are a big gooey mess. She would have had pie in her eyes when that person was running away. She just thinks it was me, because I have her spooked. She don’t know for sure.”

  “Were there witnesses?” I asked my mother.

  “I don’t know,” my mother said. “Nobody mentioned witnesses.”

  “Well, there you have it,” Grandma said. “It’s her word against mine.”

  My mother narrowed her eyes at Grandma. “I know you did it.”

  “No need to get your panties in a bunch,” Grandma said. “It was just a pie. And anyway maybe it was an accident. Maybe the pie slipped out of someone’s hand and landed in Bella’s face.”

  “Is that the story you’re going with?” my mother asked.

  “Yeah, I think I’ll stick with that one,” Grandma said.

  Morelli and Bob were watching television when I walked in.

  “My mother called,” Morelli said. “Someone got Bella with a chocolate cream pie. A full-on face job.”

  I squeezed in between Morelli and Bob. “Seems like a waste of a perfectly good pie.”

  “I wouldn’t want to be in the shoes of whoever did it,” Morelli said.

  “Do you mean because of the curse thing?”

  “I mean because of the Sicilian revenge thing.”

  He hooked a finger under the hem of my T-shirt, lifted it up, and peeked under.

  “This is going to be fun tonight,” he said. “Just you and me.”

  “Are we going to use the One-Second Wonder Tool?”

  “No. We’re going to do it the old-fashioned way. We’re going to use my wonder tool.”

  Oh boy.

  TWENTY-ONE

  I WAITED UNTIL Morelli was out of the house before I showered and dressed in my black all-purpose suit and high-neck stretchy pink shirt. I pulled my hair back into a ponytail and went with the fresh-face look. A swipe of mascara and some lip gloss. That’s as natural as I get. I stuffed my sliced-up bra and my white shirt with the gash in it into my messenger bag. I told Bob he should be a good boy and that Morelli would be home at lunchtime to let him out. And I chugged off in the Buick to get Briggs.

  Briggs was waiting for me by the back door of my apartment building. He was dressed in a tan suit that almost fit him, a light blue dress shirt, a yellow and blue striped tie, and the running shoes he always wore.

  “Sorry about the shoes,” he said, climbing onto the passenger seat. “They’re all I’ve got right now. But what do you think about the suit? It’s not bad, right?”

  “It’s great. I appreciate your help.”

  “What?”

  “I appreciate your help.”

  “No, I don’t need any help,” Briggs said. “Where are we going? Are we going to the courthouse? Do you have an office set up for the scam?”

  “We’re going to the bail bonds office to meet Ranger,” I yelled at him. “And then we’re going to New York to the Russian consulate on the Upper West Side.”

  “Are you shitting me? We’re going to scam the Ruskies? I’m there. I’m ready.”

  “That’s not exactly it. I need information on someone I believe is associated with the consulate. I only have a description of him, and I need his name, so we’re going to say I was at a party two nights ago and this guy attacked me. If I can get someone to pull his dossier, I might be able to create a diversion and steal it.”

  Briggs nodded, but I wasn’t sure he’d understood a word I’d said.

  “What about Ranger?” Briggs asked. “What’s his role?”

  “He’s driving us in and waiting outside for us. He’s security.”

  “He’s a secretary?”

  “Security. SECURITY.”

  “Cool,” Briggs said. “Security. We’re going to kick some Ruskie ass.”

  A black Rangeman SUV was already parked in front of the bail bonds office. I pulled in behind it, and Briggs and I got out and got into the SUV.

  I buckled myself in next to Ranger and we drove in silence to the Turnpike, through the tunnel, up Tenth Avenue to the Upper West Side. Ranger parked in the lot we’d used before and called the man he had in place watching the consulate.

  “Business as usual,” he said to me. “No sign of our friend. I’m going to hang back, but I’ll keep you in sight. Pretend I’m not here.” He gave me a new earbud. “If you get into trouble, feed Briggs to the dogs and run.”

  “What?” Briggs said. “What about Briggs?”

  “He has some hearing loss from the blast,” I told Ranger.

  “Babe,” Ranger said.

  I figured that pretty much covered it, so I stuck the earbud into my ear and yelled at Briggs to walk with me.

  We got to the consulate, I pushed the intercom buzzer, and I told the voice at the other end that I needed to speak to someone in charge. The door was buzzed open, and Briggs and I were in.

  A man in a suit came forward and asked if he could help me.

  “I was at a party here two nights ago,” I said, “and one of the men attacked me. I got frightened and left, but I’m back today with my lawyer.”

  The man gave Briggs a curt nod. “I’ll see if I can find someone of authority.”

  Five minutes later we were taken to a second-floor office. It was a small room dominated by a large oak desk, and a large Russian man sat behind the desk.

  “My name is Sergei Yablonovich,” he said. “Please have a seat.”

  The two seats in front of the desk were brown leather, overstuffed, and big enough for Paul Bunyan. I perched on the edge of mine, and Briggs stood looking at his. I imagined he was wondering how he was going to get in it and, more to the point, how he was going to avoid looking ridiculous. After a long moment he sacrificed dignity, climbed up onto the chair, and sat back with his legs sticking straight out in front of him.

  “Comfy chair,” he said.

  “My associate tells me you had an unfortunate experience at our consulate two nights ago,” Sergei said to me.

  “I came with one of the men who was here for the trade show. It was a nice party, but I went to the ladies’ room down the hall, and when I came out a man I had never seen before jumped out at me and held me at knif
epoint. He put his hand on my breast and said that if I didn’t cooperate he’d kill me. I tried to get away, and he slashed at me with his knife.”

  I took my bra and shirt out of my bag and made sure Sergei could see that my hands were trembling. Truth is, it wasn’t hard, because I was close to hyperventilating sitting in this guy’s office, trying to pull this off.

  “I brought my clothes to show you,” I said. “I was lucky I wasn’t badly hurt. Some people came out of the party room just as he went after me with the knife, and he ran away. I was so scared that I left the building without even saying goodbye to my date.”

  Sergei shook his head at the sliced shirt. “This is terrible. Have you gone to the police?”

  “Yes, and they said I should come to you about it. I didn’t want to come alone, so I brought my friend Randy Briggs. He’s also a lawyer, and he’s advising me on the matter. I think someone should find this man. And someone should at least pay for me to get a new blouse.”

  At the mention of his name, Briggs craned his neck up so he could look over the edge of the desk.

  “Was this man with the trade delegates or the consulate?” Sergei asked.

  “I don’t think he was with the trade delegates, because I didn’t see him at the party. He spoke English with a slight British accent. He had an odd tattoo on his neck and a patch over one eye. I would definitely know him if I saw a photo.”

  Sergei hit a speed dial button on his desk phone, and a woman answered on speakerphone.

  “I’m looking for a man with a patch over one eye who might be associated with the Russian vodka trade show or with this consulate,” Sergei said to the woman.

  “Viktor Volkov wears a patch over his eye,” she said. “He’s a representative of the Russian Ministry of Industry and Trade. He was sent here from our Miami office for the vodka trade show taking place in Atlantic City.”

  “I’d like to see his dossier.”

  He disconnected from his call and turned back to me.

  “Ordinarily I myself would have welcomed our vodka makers at that party,” Sergei said, “but we have a very important general arriving, and I had to personally see to his accommodations. He’ll be speaking at the international trade show in Atlantic City. He travels with several aides and much security, and we had to take over an entire floor of the hotel.”