Eleven on Top

  Vinnie poked his head out his door. “I gave you a job when you needed one and now you desert me. Where's the gratitude?”

  Vinnie is a couple inches taller than me and has the slim, boneless body of a ferret. His coloring is Mediterranean. His hair looks like it's slicked back with olive oil. He wears pointy-toed shoes and a lot of gold. He's the family pervert. He's married to Harry-the-Hammer's daughter. And in spite of his personality shortcomings (or maybe because of them) he's an okay bail bondsman. Vinnie understands the criminal mind.

  “You didn't give me the job,” I said to Vinnie. “I blackmailed you into it. And I got good numbers when I was working for you. My apprehension rate was close to ninety percent.”

  “You were lucky,” Vinnie said.

  This was true.

  Lula took her big black leather purse from the bottom file drawer and stuffed it under her arm. “I'm going out. I'm gonna get that DV and I'm gonna lack his ass all the way back to jail.”

  “No!” Vinnie said. “You're not gonna kick his ass anywhere. Ass kicking is not entirely legal. You will introduce yourself and you will cuff him. And then you will escort him to the station in a civilized manner.”

  “Sure,” Lula said. “I knew that.”

  “Maybe you want to go with her,” Vinnie said to me. “Since it looks like you don't have anything better to do.”

  “I start a new job tomorrow. I got a job at Kan Klean.”

  Vinnie's eyes lit up. “Do you get a discount? I got a shitload of dry cleaning.”

  “I wouldn't mind if you rode along,” Lula said. “This guys gonna be slam barn, thank you, ma'am. And then we drop his sorry behind off at the police station and go get some burgers.”

  “I don't want to get involved,” I told her.

  "You can stay in the Firebird. It'll only take me a minute to cuff this guy and drag ... I mean, escort him out to the car.

  “Okay,” I said, “but I really don't want to get involved.”

  A half hour later we were at the public housing project on the other side of town and Lula was motoring the Firebird down Carter Street, looking for 2475A.

  “Here's the plan,” Lula said. “You just sit tight and I'll go get this guy. I got pepper spray, a stun gun, a head-bashing flashlight, two pairs of cuffs, and the BP in my purse.”

  “BP?”

  “Big Persuader. That's what I call my Glock.” She pulled to the curb and jerked her thumb at the apartment building. “This here's the building. I'll be back in a minute.”

  “Try to keep your clothes on,” I said to her.

  “Hunh,” Lula said. “Funny.”

  Lula walked to the door and knocked. The door opened. Lula disappeared inside the house and the door closed behind her. I looked at my watch and decided I'd give her ten minutes. After ten minutes I'd do something, but I wasn't sure what it would be. I could call the police. I could call Vinnie. I could run around the outside of the building yelling fire! Or I could do the least appealing of all the options - I could go in after her.

  I didn't have to make the decision because the front door opened after just two minutes. Lula tumbled out the door, rolled off the stoop, landed on a patch of hard packed dirt that would have been lawn in a more prosperous neighborhood, and the door slammed shut behind her. Lula scrambled to her feet, tugged her spandex lime green miniskirt back down over her ass, and marched up to the door.

  “Open this door!” she yelled. “You open this door right now or there's gonna be big trouble.” She tried the doorknob. She rang the bell. She kicked the door with her Via Spigas. The door didn't open. Lula turned and looked over at me. “Don't worry,” she said. "This here's just a minor setback. They don't understand the severity of the situation. I slid lower in my seat and became engrossed in the mechanics of my seat belt.

  “I'm giving you one more chance to open this door and then I'm going to take action,” Lula yelled at the house.

  The door didn't open.

  “Hunh,” Lula said. She backed off from the door and cut over to a front window. Curtains had been drawn across the window, but the flicker of a television screen could faintly be seen through the sheers. Lula stood on tiptoes and tried to open the window, but the window wouldn't budge. “I'm starting to get annoyed now,” Lula said. “You know what I think? I think this here's an accident waiting to happen.”

  Lula pulled her big Maglite out of her purse, set her purse on the ground, and smashed the window with the Maglite. She bent to retrieve her purse and what remained of the window was blown out with a shotgun blast from inside.

  If Lula hadn't bent down to get her purse, the surgeon of the day at St. Francis would have spent the rest of his afternoon picking pellets out of her.

  “What the F!” Lula said. And Lula did a fast sprint to the car. She wrenched the drivers-side door open, crammed herself behind the wheel, and there was a second shotgun blast through the apartment window. “That dumb son of a bitch shot at me!” Lula said.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I saw. I was impressed you could run like that in those heels.”

  “I wasn't expecting him to shoot at me. He had no call to do that.”

  “You broke his window.”

  “It was an accident.”

  “It wasn't an accident. I saw you do it with the Maglite.”

  “That guy's nuts,” Lula said, taking off from the curb, leaving a couple inches of rubber on the road. “He should be reported to somebody. He should be arrested.”

  “You were supposed to arrest him.”

  “I was supposed to escort him. Vinnie made that real clear. Escort him. And I could escort the hell out of him except I'm hungry. I gotta get something to eat,” Lula said. “I work better on a happy stomach. I could take that woman-beating moron in anytime I want, so what's the rush, right? Might as well get a burger first, that's what I think. And anyway, he might be more Ranger's speed. I wouldn't want to step on Rangers toes. You know how Ranger likes all that shooting stuff.”

  “I thought you liked the shooting stuff.”

  “I don't want to hog it.”

  “Considerate of you.”

  “Yeah, I'm real considerate,” Lula said, turning into a Cluck-in-a-Bucket drive-thru. “I'm seriously thinking of giving this case to Ranger.”

  “What if Ranger doesn't want it?”

  “You think he'd turn down a good case like this?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Hunh,” Lula said. “Wouldn't that be a bitch?”

  She got a Cluck Burger with cheese, a large side of fries, a chocolate shake, and an Apple Clucky Pie. I wasn't in a Cluck-in-a-Bucket mood so I passed.

  Lula finished off the last piece of the pie and looked at her watch. “I'd go back and root out that nutso loser, but it's getting late. Don't you think it's late?”

  “Almost three o'clock.”

  “Practically quitting time.”

  Especially for me, since I quit yesterday.

  Stephanie Plum 11 - Eleven On Top

  THREE

  I'm not the world's best cook, but I have some specialties, and almost all of them include peanut butter. You can't go wrong with peanut butter. Today I was having a peanut butter and olive and potato chip sandwich for dinner.

  Very efficient since it combines legumes and vegetables plus some worthless white bread carbohydrates all in one tidy package. I was standing in the kitchen, washing the sandwich down with a cold Corona, and Morelli called.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “Eating.”

  “Why aren't you eating in my house?”

  “I don't live in your house.”

  “You were living in my house last night.”

  “I was visiting your house last night. That's different from living. Living involves commitment and closet allocation.”

  “We don't seem to be all that good at commitment, but I'd be happy to give up a couple closets in exchange for wild gorilla sex at least five days out of seven.”

  “G
ood grief.”

  “Okay, four days out of seven, but that's my best offer. How's the new job at the button factory going?”

  “Got fired. And it was your fault. I was late for work on my first day.”

  I could feel Morelli smile at the other end of the line. “Am I good, or what?”

  “I got a job at Kan Klean. I start tomorrow.”

  “We should celebrate.”

  “No celebrating! That's what lost me the button factory job. Don't you want to ask me if I can get you discount cleaning?”

  “I don't clean my clothes. I wear them until they fall apart and then I throw them away.”

  I finished the sandwich and chugged the beer. “I've got to go,” I told Morelli. “I told Grandma I'd pick her up at seven. We're going to Harry Farstein's viewing at Stiva's.”

  “I can't compete with that,” Morelli said.

  Grandma was waiting at the door when I drove up. She was dressed in powder blue slacks, a matching floral-print blouse, a white cotton cardigan, and white tennis shoes. She had her big black patent-leather purse in the crook of her arm. Her gray hair was freshly set in tight little baloney curls that marched across her pink skull. Her nails were newly manicured and painted fire-engine red. Her lipstick matched her nails.

  “I'm ready to go,” she said, hurrying over to the car. “We don't get a move on, we're not gonna get a good seat. There's gonna be a crowd tonight and ever since Spiro took off, Stiva hasn't been all that good with organization. Spiro was a nasty little cockroach but he could organize a crowd like no one else.”

  Spiro was Constantine Stiva's kid. I went to school with Spiro and near the end I guess I inadvertently helped him disappear. He was a miserable excuse for a human being, involved in running guns and God knows what else. He tried to kill Grandma and me, there was a shoot-out and a spectacular fire at the funeral home, and somehow, in the confusion, Spiro vanished into thin air.

  When I got the notes saying I'm back and did you think I was dead? Spiro was one of the potential psychos who came to mind. Sad to say, he was just one name among many. And he wasn't the most likely candidate. Spiro had been a lot of things . . . dumb wasn't one of them. Plus I couldn't see Spiro being obsessed with revenge. Spiro had wanted money and power.

  The funeral home was on Hamilton, a couple blocks down from the bail bonds office. It had been rebuilt after the fire and was now a jumble of new brick construction and old Victorian mansion. The two-story front half of the house was white aluminum siding with black shutters. A large porch wrapped around the front and south side of the house. Some of the viewing rooms and all of the embalming rooms were located in the new brick addition at the rear. The preferred viewing rooms were in the front and Stiva had given them names: the Blue Salon, the Rest in Peace Salon, and the Executive Slumber Salon.

  It was a five-minute drive from my parents' house to Stiva's. I dropped Grandma at the door and found street parking half a block away. When I got to the funeral home Grandma was waiting for me at the entrance to the Executive Slumber Salon.

  “I don't know why they call this the Executive Salon,” she said. “It's not like Stiva's laying a lot of executives to rest. Think it's just a big phony-baloney name.”

  The Executive Slumber Salon was the largest of the viewing rooms and was already packed with people. Lydia Farstein was at the far end, one hand dramatically touching the open casket. She was in her seventies and looked surprisingly happy for a woman who had just lost her husband of fifty-odd years.

  “Looks like Lydia's been hitting the sauce,” Grandma said. “Last time I saw her that happy was... never. I'm going back to give her my condolences and take a look at Harry.”

  Looking at dead people wasn't high on my list of favorite activities, so I separated from Grandma and wandered to the far side of the entrance hall, where complimentary cookies had been set out.

  I scarfed down a couple sugar cookies and a couple spice cookies and I felt a prickling sensation at the back of my neck. I turned and looked across the room and saw Morelli's Grandma Bella glaring at me. Grandma Bella is a white-haired old lady who dresses in black and looks like an extra out of a Godfather flashback. She has visions, and she puts spells on people. And she scares the crap out of me.

  Bitsy Mullen was standing next to me at the cookie table. “Omigod,” Bitsy said. “I hope she's glaring at you and not me. Last week she put the eye on Francine Blainey, and Francine got a bunch of big herpes sores all over her face.”

  The eye is like Grandma Bella voodoo. She puts her finger to her eye and she mumbles something and whatever calamity happens to you after that you can pin on the eye. I guess it's a little like believing in hell. You hope it's bogus, but you never really know for sure, do you?

  “I'm betting Francine got herpes from her worthless boyfriend,” I said to Bitsy.

  “I'm not taking any chances,” Bitsy said. “I'm going to hide in the ladies' room until the viewing is over. Oh no! Omigod. Here she comes. What should I do? I can't breathe. I'm gonna faint.”

  “Probably she just wants a cookie,” I said to Bitsy. Not that I believed it.

  Grandma Bella had her beady eyes fixed on me. I'd seen the look before and it wasn't good.

  “You!” Grandma Bella said, pointing her finger at me. “You broke my Joseph's heart.”

  “No way,” I said. “Swear to God.”

  “Is there a ring on your finger?”

  “N-N-No.”

  “It's a scandal,” she said. “You've brought disgrace to my house. A respectable woman would be married and have children by now. You go to his house and tempt him with your body and then you leave. Shame on you. Shame. Shame. I should put the eye on you. Make your teeth fall out of your head. Turn your hair gray. Cause your female parts to shrink away until there's nothing left of them.”

  Grandma Mazur elbowed her way through the crush of people around the cookie table. “What's going on here?” she asked. “What'd I miss about female parts?”

  “Your granddaughter is a Jezebel,” Grandma Bella said. “Jumping in and out of my Joseph's bed.”

  “Half the women in the Burg have been in and out of his bed,” Grandma Mazur said. “Heck, half the women in the state ...”

  “Not lately,” I said. “He's different now.”

  “I'm going to put the eye on her,” Grandma Bella said. “I'm going to make her female parts turn to dust.”

  “Over my dead body,” Grandma Mazur said.

  Bella scrunched up her face. “That could be arranged.”

  “You better watch it, sister,” Grandma Mazur said. “You don't want to get me mad. I'm a holy terror when I'm mad.”

  “Hah, you don't scare me,” Bella said. “Stand back. I'm going to give the eye.”

  Grandma Mazur pulled a .45 long barrel out of her big black patent-leather purse and pointed it at Bella. “You put your finger to your eye and I'll put a hole in your head that's so big you could push a potato through it.”

  Bellas eyes rolled around in her head. “I'm having a vision. I'm having a vision.”

  I grabbed the gun from Grandma and shoved it back into her bag. “No shooting! She's just a crazy old lady.”

  Bella snapped to attention. “Crazy old lady? Crazy old lady? I'll show you crazy old lady. I'll give you a thrashing. Someone get me a stick. I'll put the eye on everyone if someone doesn't give me a stick.”

  “No one thrashes my granddaughter,” Grandma Mazur said. “And besides, look around. Do you see any sticks? It's not like you're in the woods. You know what your problem is? You gotta learn how to chill.”

  Bella grabbed Grandma Mazur by the nose. She was so fast Grandma never saw it coming. “You're a demon woman!” Bella shouted.

  Grandma Mazur clocked Bella on the side of the head with the big patent-leather purse, but Bella had a death grip on Grandma Mazur. Grandma hit her a second time and Bella hunkered in. Bella scrunched up her face and held tight to the nose.

  I was in the mix, trying to
wrestle Bella away. Grandma accidentally caught me with a roundhouse swing of the purse that knocked me off my feet.

  Bitsy Mullen was jumping around, wringing her hands and shrieking. “Help! Stop! Someone do something!”

  Mrs. Lubchek was behind Bitsy, at the cookie table, watching the whole thing. “Oh, for the love of God,” Mrs. Lubchek said with an eyeroll. And Mrs. Lubchek grabbed the pitcher of iced tea off the cookie table and dumped it on Grandma Bella and Grandma Mazur.

  Grandma Bella released Grandma Mazur's nose and looked down at herself. “I'm wet. What is this?”