Eleven on Top

  heart of the Burg on Roebling and a hardware store on the corner of Rudd and

  Liberty Street. He left behind a wife, two dogs, and three adult sons. One of the Barroni boys graduated with me, and one graduated two years earlier with Morelli.

  There aren't a lot of secrets in the Burg and according to Burg gossip Michael Barroni didn't have a girlfriend, didn't play the numbers, and didn't have mob ties. His hardware store was running in the black. He didn't suffer from depression. He didn't do a lot of drinking, and he wasn't hooked on Levitra.

  Barroni was last seen closing and locking the back door to the hardware store at the end of the day. He got into his car, drove away . . . and poof.

  No more Michael Barroni.

  “Did you ever find Barroni's car?” I asked Morelli.

  “No. No car. No body. No sign of struggle. He was alone when Sol Rosen saw him lock up and take off. Sol said he was putting out trash from his diner and he saw Barroni leave. He said Barroni looked normal. Maybe distracted. Sol said Barroni waved but didn't say anything.”

  “Do you think it's a random crime? Barroni was in the wrong place at the wrong time?”

  "No. Barroni lived four blocks from his store. Every day he went straight home from work. Four blocks through the Burg. If something had gone down on

  Barroni's usual route home someone would have heard or seen something. The

  day Barroni disappeared he went someplace else. He didn't take his usual route home."

  “Maybe he just got tired of it all. Maybe he started driving west and didn't stop until he got to Flagstaff.”

  Morelli fed his pizza crust to Bob. "I'm going to tell you something that's just between us. We've had two other guys disappear on the exact same day as Barroni. They were both from Stark Street, and a missing person on Stark Street isn't big news, so no one's paid much attention. I ran across them when I checked Barroni's missing-person status.

  “Both these guys owned their own businesses. They both locked up at the end of the day and were never seen again. One of the men was real stable. He had a wife and kids. He went to church. He ran a bar on Stark Street, but he was clean. The other guy, Benny Gorman, owned a garage. Probably a chump-change chop shop. He'd done time for armed robbery and grand theft auto. And two months ago he was charged with assault with a deadly weapon. Took a tire iron to a guy and almost killed him. He was supposed to go to trial last week but failed to appear. Ordinarily I'd say he skipped because of the charge but I'm not so sure on this one.”

  “Did Vinnie bond Gorman out?”

  “Yeah. I talked to Connie. She handed Gorman off to Ranger.”

  “And you think the three guys are connected?”

  A commercial came on and Morelli channel surfed through a bunch of stations.

  “Don't know. I just have a feeling. Its too strong a coincidence.”

  I gave Bob the last piece of pizza and snuggled closer to Morelli.

  “I have feelings about other things, too,” Morelli said, sliding an arm around my shoulders, his fingertips skimming along my neck and down my arm.

  “Would you like me to tell you about my other feelings?”

  My toes curled in my shoes and I got warm in a bunch of private places. And that was the last we saw of the game.

  Morelli is an early riser in many ways. I had a memory of him kissing my bare shoulder, whispering an obscene suggestion, and leaving the bed. He returned a short time later with his hair still damp from the shower. He kissed me again and wished me luck with my new job. And then he was gone... off on his mission to rid Trenton of bad guys.

  It was still dark in Morelli's bedroom. The bed was warm and comfy. Bob was

  sprawled on Morelli's side of the bed, snuffling into Morelli's pillow. I burrowed under the quilt, and when I reawakened the sunlight was pouring into the room through a break in the curtain. I had a moment of absolute delicious satisfaction immediately followed by panic. According to the bedside clock it was nine o'clock. I was massively late for my first day at the button factory!

  I scrambled out of bed, gathered my clothes up off the floor, and tugged them on. I didn't bother with makeup or hair. No time. I took the stairs at a run, grabbed my purse and my car keys, and bolted out of the house.

  I skirted traffic as best I could, pulled into the button factory parking lot on two wheels, parked, jumped out of the car, and hit the pavement running. The time was nine-thirty. I was an hour and a half late.

  I took the stairs to save time and I was sweating by the time I skidded to a stop in Alizzi's office.

  “You are late,” Alizzi said.

  “Yes, but...”

  He wagged his finger at me. “This is not a good thing. I told you that you must be on time. And look at you. You are in a T-shirt. If you are going to be late you should at least wear something that is revealing and shows me your breasts. You are fired. Go away.”

  “No! Give me another chance. Just one more chance. If you give me another chance I'll wear something revealing tomorrow.”

  “Will you perform a lewd act?”

  “What kind of lewd act?”

  "Something very, very, very lewd. There would have to be nakedness and body

  fluids."

  “Ick. No!”

  “Well then, you are still fired.”

  “That's horrible. I'm going to report you for sexual harassment.”

  “It will only serve to enhance my reputation.”

  Unh. Mental head slap.

  “Okay. Fine,” I said. “I didn't want this job anyway.”

  I turned on my heel and flounced out of Alizzi's office, down the stairs, through the lobby, and crossed the lot to my bashed-in, bullet-riddled, spray-painted car. I gave the door a vicious kick, wrenched it open, and slid behind the wheel. I punched Metallica into the sound system, cranked it up until the fillings in my teeth were vibrating, and motored across town.

  By the time I got to Hamilton I was feeling pretty decent. I had the whole day to myself. True, I wasn't making any money, but there was always tomorrow, right? I stopped at Tasty Pastry, bought a bag of doughnuts, and drove three blocks into the Burg to Mary Lou Stankovic's house. Mary Lou was my best friend all through school. She's married now and has a bunch of kids. We're still friends but our paths don't cross as much as they used to.

  I walked an obstacle course from my car to Mary Lou's front door, around bikes, dismembered action figures, soccer balls, remote-control cars, beheaded Barbie dolls, and plastic guns that looked frighteningly real.

  “Omigod,” Mary Lou said when she opened the door. "It's the angel of mercy.

  Are those doughnuts?"

  “Do you need some?”

  “I need a new life, but I'll make do with doughnuts.”

  I handed the doughnuts off to Mary Lou and followed her into the kitchen.

  “You have a good life. You like your life.”

  “Not today. I have three kids home sick with colds. The dog has diarrhoea. And I think there was a hole in the condom we used last night.”

  “Aren't you on the pill?”

  “Gives me water retention.”

  I could hear the kids in the living room, coughing at the television, whining at each other. Mary Lou's kids were cute when they were asleep and for the first fifteen minutes after they'd had a bath. All other times the kids were a screaming advertisement for birth control. It wasn't that they were bad kids. Okay, so they dismembered every doll that came through the door, but they hadn't yet barbecued the dog. That was a good sign, right? It was more that Mary Lou's kids had an excess of energy. Mary Lou said it came from the Stankovic side of the family. I thought it might be coming from the bakery. That's where I got my energy.

  Mary Lou opened the doughnut bag and the kids came rushing into the kitchen.

  “They can hear a bakery bag crinkle a mile away,” Mary Lou said.

  I'd brought four doughnuts so we gave one to each kid and Mary Lou and I shared a doughnut over coffee.
/>
  “What's new?” Mary Lou wanted to know.

  “I quit my job at the bonds office.”

  “Any special reason?”

  “No. My reasoning was sort of vague. I got a job at the button factory, but I spent the night with Joe to celebrate and then I overslept this morning and was late for my first day and got fired.”

  Mary Lou took a sip of coffee and waggled her eyebrows at me. “Was it worth it?”

  I took a moment to consider. “Yeah.”

  Mary Lou gave her head a small shake. “He's been making trouble worthwhile for you since you were five years old. I don't know why you don't marry him.”

  My reasoning was sort of vague on that one, too.

  It was late morning when I left Mary Lou. I cut over two blocks to High Street and parked in front of my parents' house. It was a small house on a small lot. It had three bedrooms and bath up and a living room, dining room, kitchen down. It shared a common wall with a mirror image owned by Mabel Markowitz. Mabel was old beyond imagining. Her husband had passed on and her kids were off on their own, so she lived alone in the house, baking coffee cakes and watching television. Her half of the house is painted lime green because the paint had been on clearance when she'd needed it. My parents' house is painted Gulden mustard yellow and dark brown. I'm not sure which house is worse. In the fall my mom puts pumpkins on the front porch and it all seems to work. In the spring the paint scheme is depressing as hell.

  Since it was the end of September, the pumpkins were on display and a cardboard witch on a broomstick was stuck to the front door. Halloween was just four weeks away, and the Burg is big on holidays.

  Grandma Mazur was at the front door when I set foot on the porch. Grandma moved in with my parents when my Grandpa Mazur got a hot pass to heaven compliments of more than a half century of bacon fat and butter cookies.

  “We heard you quit your job,” Grandma said. “We've been calling and calling, but you haven't been answering your phone. I need to know the details. I got a beauty parlor appointment this afternoon and I gotta get the story straight.”

  “Not much of a story,” I said, following Grandma into the hallway foyer. “I just thought it was time for a change.”

  “That's it? Time for a change? I can't tell people that story. It's boring. I need something better. How about we tell them you're pregnant? Or maybe we could say you got a rare blood disease. Or there was a big contract put on your head unless you gave up being a bounty hunter.”

  “Sorry,” I said. “None of those things are true.”

  “Yeah, but that don't matter. Everybody knows you can't believe everything you hear.”

  My mother was at the dining room table with a bunch of round pieces of paper spread out in front of her. My sister, Valerie, was getting married in a week, and my mother was still working on the seating arrangements.

  “I can't make this work,” my mother said. “These round tables don't hold the right number of people. I'm going to have to seat the Krugers at two different tables. And no one gets along with old Mrs. Kruger.”

  “You should do away with the seating chart,” Grandma said. “Just open the doors to the hall and let them fight for their seats.”

  I love my sister, but I'd deport her to Bosnia if I thought I could get away with it and it'd get me out of her wedding. I'm supposed to be her maid of honor and somehow through my lack of participation and a fabric swatch inaccuracy I've been ordered a gown that makes me look like a giant eggplant.

  “We heard you quit your job,” my mother said to me. “Thank goodness. I can finally sleep at night knowing you're not running around the worst parts of town chasing after criminals. And I understand you have a wonderful job at the button factory. Marjorie Kuzak called yesterday and told us all about it. Her daughter works in the employment office.”

  “Actually, I sort of got fired from that job,” I said.

  “Already? How could you possibly get fired on your first day?”

  “It's complicated. I don't suppose you know anybody who's hiring?”

  “What kind of job are you looking for?” Grandma asked.

  “Professional. Something with career advancement potential.”

  “I saw a sign up at the cleaners,” Grandma said. “I don't know about career advancement, but they do a lot of professional pressing. I see a lot of people taking their business suits there.”

  “I was hoping for something a little more challenging.”

  “Dry cleaning's challenging,” Grandma said. “It's not easy getting all them spots out. And you gotta have people skills. I heard them talking behind the counter about how hard it was to find someone with people skills.”

  “And no one would shoot at you,” my mother said. “No one ever robs a dry cleaner.”

  I had to admit, that part appealed to me. It would be nice not to have to worry about getting shot. Maybe working at the dry cleaners would be an okay temporary job until the right thing came along.

  I got myself a cup of coffee and poked through the refrigerator, searching for food. I settled on a piece of apple pie and carted the coffee and pie back to the dining room, where my mom was still arranging the paper tables.

  “What's going on in the Burg?” I asked her.

  “Harry Farstein died yesterday. Heart attack. He's at Stiva's.”

  “He's gonna have a viewing tonight,” Grandma said. “It's gonna be a good one, too. His lodge will be there. And Lydia Farstein is the drama queen of the Burg. She'll be carrying on something awful. If you haven't got anything better to do, you should come to the viewing with me. I could use a ride.”

  Grandma loved going to viewings. Stiva's Funeral Home was the social center of the Burg. I thought having my thumb amputated would be a preferred activity.

  “And everyone's going to be talking about the Barroni thing,” Grandma said.

  “I can't believe he hasn't turned up. It's like he was abducted by Martians.”

  Okay, now this interested me. Morelli was working on the Barroni disappearance. And Ranger was working on the Gorman disappearance, which

  might be connected to the Barroni disappearance. I was glad I wasn't working on either of those cases, but on the other hand, I felt a smidgeon left out.

  So sue me, I'm nosy.

  “Sure,” I said. “I'll pick you up at seven o'clock.”

  “Your father got gravy on his gray slacks,” my mother said. “If you're going to apply for a job at the cleaner, would you mind taking the slacks with you? It would save me a trip.”

  A half hour later, I had a job with Kan Klean. The hours were seven to three. They were open seven days a week, and I agreed to work weekends. The pay wasn't great, but I could wear jeans and a T-shirt to work, and they confirmed my mother's suspicion that they'd never been held up and that to date none of their employees had been shot while on the job. I handed over the gravy-stained slacks and agreed to show up at seven the next morning. I didn't feel quite as nauseated as I had after getting the button factory job. So I was making progress, right?

  I drove three blocks down Hamilton and stopped at the bonds office to say hello.

  “Look what the wind blew in,” Lula said when she saw me. “I heard you got the job at the button factory. How come you're not working?”

  “I spent the night with Morelli and overslept. So I was late rolling in to work.”

  “And?”

  “And I got fired.”

  “That was fast,” Lula said. “You're good. It takes most people a couple days to get fired.”

  “Maybe it all worked out for the best. I got another job already at Kan Klean.”

  “Do you get a discount?” Lula wanted to know. “I got some dry cleaning to send out. You could pick it up tomorrow here at the office on your way to work.”

  “Sure,” I said. “Why not.” I shuffled through the small stack of files on Connie's desk. “Anything fun come in?”

  “Yeah, its all fun,” Connie said. “We got a rapist. We got
a guy who beat up his girlfriend. We got a couple pushers.”

  “I'm doing the DV this afternoon,” Lula said.

  “DV?”

  “Domestic violence. My time's real valuable now that I'm a bounty hunter. I gotta use abbreviations. Like I'm doing the DV in the PM.”

  I heard Vinnie growl from his inner office. “Jesus HIM. Christmas,” he said.

  “Who would have thought my life would come to this?”

  “Hey, Vinnie,” I yelled to him. “How's it going?”