14 Fearless Fourteen (17 page)

“It isn't in the front yard, either,” I told everyone. “Go
home!”

Mooner, Zook, Bob, Gary, Lula, and I left the yard and huddled
in the kitchen.

I gave everyone an ice cream sandwich, except Bob. Bob got a
slice of ham.

“How come you think the money isn't in the yard?” Lula wanted to
know.

“People wouldn't be breaking into Morelli's house if the money
was in the yard. The only people digging in the yard are idiots who
saw Brenda on television.”

Lula peeled the wrapper off her ice cream. “So you think the
money's in the house?”

“I'm not sure there is any money. I suspect it was here at one
time, but Dom was in prison for almost ten years, and there were a
lot of changes. Rose died. Morelli moved into the house. Things
were thrown away. Rooms were renovated. For all we know, Rose could
have found the money and given it to the church.”

“I don't think so,” Gary said. “I'm getting a sharp pain in my
forehead.”

“It's the ice cream,” I told him. “You're getting a brain
freeze.” I herded everyone into the living room and found some
Saturday morning cartoons on television. “I need to go out again,
but I'll be back by noon.”

I found the keys to Morelli's car and left my keys in their
place. I drove to Jelly's house and idled across the street. It was
a small two-story house that had been converted into two
apartments. There was only one front door, so I assumed the owner
had made a small foyer with two inner doors. I looked up to the
second floor. Four windows going across. The shades had been raised
on all four windows. It would be easier to snoop if Jelly lived on
the ground floor.

I drove around the block. Sometimes older neighborhoods in
Trenton have alleys intersecting the blocks. This block wasn't
divided by an alley. I parked around the corner, walked to Jelly's
house, and tried the front door.

Ordinarily, if you look like you belong somewhere, no one pays
attention.

Unknown

Unfortunately, I was blue, and I looked like I belonged in some
distant galaxy.

The front door was unlocked, so I stepped inside. Just as I'd
thought, there was a small foyer. The door to my left led to the
ground-floor apartment. The door directly in front of me led
upstairs. I rang the bell. No answer. I rang again. Nothing. I
tried the doorknob. Locked. I looked under the mat. No key. I felt
the top of the doorjamb. Eureka ... a key. I plugged the key into
the lock, the door clicked open, and I stepped inside. I closed the
door and stood listening, hearing nothing but quiet.

I crept up the stairs and cautiously peeked into the apartment.
Living room with a galley kitchen at one end. A small hall leading
to a bedroom and a bathroom. Dirty dishes in the sink. A cereal box
on the counter. A pillow on the couch in front of the small
television. An open half-empty bag of chips on the coffee table. I
moved to the bathroom. Not clean. Two toothbrushes. Two razors.
Towels on the floor. Toilet lid up. Ick. The door was open to the
bedroom. Bed unmade. Sheets looked like they'd been on there since
Christmas.

Socks and underwear on the floor. Top bureau drawer open. Big
mess.

I thought there was a good chance Dom was crashing here. I was
tempted to do a more thorough search, but I wasn't sure what it
would produce. And the longer I lingered, the better my chance of
getting caught in the act. I decided to sneak out and do a
background search on Jelly and turn the whole mess over to
Morelli.

I walked out of the bedroom into the short hallway, and I heard
the door open and close at the foot of the stairs. Instant panic! I
was trapped. I wasn't in a position where I felt I could
successfully detain Dom, and I didn't want to blow his cover and
have him run. I did a ten-second imitation of a cat on roller
skates. I pulled myself together, scurried into the bedroom, and
dove under the bed.

The reality of hiding under a bed is that it's uncomfortable,
it's terrifying, and you feel like an idiot. I inched to the
middle, so there was less chance I'd be seen, and I tried to
breathe quietly.

There were two sets of footsteps on the stairs and then there
was a moment of quiet, and I knew they were in the living
room.

“Nobody home,” a male voice said. Not Dom's.

“Yeah, but I know he was here. I can smell him.”

The second voice was also male. And again, not
Dom's.

“Look around. Maybe he left something laying out that would tell
us something.”

“He wouldn't do that. He's living with Jelly. He's not going to
let Jelly see anything.”

“Look around anyway. People are stupid. They do stupid things.
And maybe if we stay here long enough, he'll come home, and we can
persuade him to talk to us.”

“We've got his sister on ice. How much more persuading can we
do? Personally, I don't think he knows where the money
is.”

“For crissake, just look! Would it kill you to
look?”

Holy crap. Dom's partners. And I was stuck under the bed. I went
cold inside.

I could feel everything liquefying in my intestines. How does
this happen to me? How do I get myself into these situations? I
heard them rummaging through the living room and kitchen. They came
into the bedroom, and my heart rate picked up.

“These guys are such slobs,” one of them said. “It's like two
pigs living in their own slop.”

“You should talk. I've been in your apartment and it isn't that
great.”

“Wait until I get my hands on the money, and you'll see great.
I'll be out of that shit-hole apartment. I'll be cruising the
islands in my boat. Did I ever show you a picture of my
boat?”

“Only about a million times.”

They were walking around the bed, and I could see their shoes
and the bottoms of their slacks. The one guy was wearing scuffed
brown tie shoes, worn down at the heel, and tan slacks with cuffs.
The other was in jeans and beat-up CAT boots with a gash in the
toe. They went through the bureau drawers and rifled the single
drawer in the bedside chest.

“There's nothing here,” the one guy said. “What do you want to
do now?”

“I don't feel like waiting. I got stuff to do. My wife's on my
ass.”

“I wouldn't know about that.”

“Yeah, no one would marry you.”

“Lots of women would marry me.”

“Oh yeah? Who?”

“Lots of women. And I'm not paying through the nose for a woman
I'm not even getting anything from.”

They left the bedroom, and moments later, I heard them on the
stairs. The door opened and closed, and the apartment was quiet. I
didn't know what to do. I was afraid to crawl out from under the
bed. I was pretty sure they were no longer in the apartment, but
what if I was wrong?

I waited a couple minutes more and slithered to the edge, where
I had a better view. I held my breath and listened. I carefully
looked around. Now or never, I thought. I belly-crawled out, got to
my feet, and forced myself to creep down the hall to the living
room. I almost keeled over with relief when no one was there. I
hurried to the foyer at the bottom of the stairs and
hesitated.

If the two bad guys saw me leave, they might think I was coming
from the downstairs apartment. Unless they watched the evening
news. Then they'd know who I was because I was blue.

I locked the door, placed the key on the top of the door-jamb,
opened the front door a crack, and looked out. No one standing
there with a gun in his hand. No black mafia staff cars with tinted
windows lined up at the curb. I casually walked away from the
house, down the block to the corner, around the corner, and angled
myself behind the wheel of Morelli's SUV. I two-handed the key into
the ignition and pulled away from the curb with a white-knuckle
grip on the wheel. Okay, so I was a little freaked, but I hadn't
messed my pants.

That was pretty good, right?

By the time I got to Morelli's house, I'd calmed down a little
but not entirely. It was almost noon and Morelli was sitting on his
front step with Bob. I plunked myself down next to him, he put his
arm around me, and I collapsed into him.

“Either you like me a lot, or you've had a bad morning,” Morelli
said.

“It's both. I did some legwork and ended up at Jelly Kantner's
apartment.”

“At his apartment or in his apartment?”

“In.”

“Were you invited in?”

“No, but I also wasn't told to stay out.”

“Nobody home,” Morelli said.

“Mmm. Anyway, it was obvious someone was staying with Jelly, and
it wasn't a woman.”

“You think it was Dom?”

“Yes. And I wasn't the only one to reach that conclusion,
because just as I was about to leave, two guys showed
up.”

I felt Morelli tense against me and go silent for a beat. “You
told them you were the maid?”

“I didn't tell them anything. I was under the
bed.”

“This is why our relationship is stressful,” Morelli
said.

“I think they were Dom's two remaining partners. They were
looking for him because they wanted the money. And they have
Loretta. They're holding her hostage, but so far Dom hasn't come
through.”

“Did you get to see them? Do you have names?”

“No names. One is married and one isn't. One of them lives in an
apartment. One was wearing beat-up CAT boots and jeans, and the
other was wearing tan slacks with cuffs and brown shoes. I couldn't
see more than that.”

What I didn't say was that the voice on the single guy sounded
familiar. It had a slight rasp, like a smoker. And there wasn't a
lot of inflection. I couldn't associate a name or face with the
voice. I just felt like I'd heard it before.

“I'll bring Bob in and then I'll go to Jelly's and wait for
Dom,” Morelli said. “Where's Zook?”

“Zook's in the house with Lula.”

“I got back about ten minutes ago, and Lula's car was here, but
no one was in the house.”

“Did you look in the backyard?”

“Yeah,” Morelli said. “No one's in the backyard. It's
wall-to-wall mud. I think if I keep turning the hose on it no one
will dig there.”

“That's weird,” I said, “because I could swear I hear
digging-”

Morelli listened. “It doesn't sound like digging. It's more like
drilling and ... oh shit.”

“What?”

Morelli was on his feet. “That's a jackhammer.”

I followed Morelli to the kitchen and down the cellar stairs.
Mooner was wailing away at the concrete floor with a pickax, and
Lula had a jackhammer propped against her belly. She gave the
jackhammer a blast of juice, and I was afraid her breasts were
going to break loose from their moorings and knock her out. Gary
and Zook were in a corner, mesmerized by the
spectacle.

“This is my basement floor,” Morelli yelled. “You can't just go
into a man's house and jackhammer his floor!”

Lula jiggled to a stop. “Well, excuse me. It's not like we
weren't gonna share the money with you.”

“There's no sharing,” Morelli said. “The money was
stolen.”

“It was over ten years ago,” Lula said. “Isn't there some kind
of time limit and then it's finders keepers losers
weepers?”

“No,” Morelli said. “Where'd you get the
jackhammer?”

“I sort of borrowed it.”

“Oh great,” he said. “A hot jackhammer.”

“Its a Saturday. You can borrow these things on a Saturday,”
Lula said.

“This is a lot of floor to demo,” Morelli said. “And after we
demo the floor, we still don't know where to dig.”

“Guess that's why there were directions,” Lula said. “Probably
it was like a treasure map. Seven paces north and two paces west
and the treasure is buried under the piece of floor with the X
marked on it.”

“I thought you had an appointment with your lawyer,” I said to
Lula.

“Yeah, I guess I better get going.” She turned to Morelli. “You
want me to come back and jackhammer some more when I'm done with
the lawyer?”

“No,” Morelli said. “But I appreciate the offer.”

“So, like, now what?” Mooner asked Morelli. “This is majorly
disappointing. I was counting on some moola, man. Like, being a
griefer doesn't pay a lot, you know what I mean? And a man has
needs, right? Like, what happens when I have a craving for a Big Mo
candy bar or a crab puff?”

“Here's a deal,” Morelli said. “I could use some security in the
house. Suppose I pay you guys to protect the house. That means you
have to keep people from digging in my yard, pickaxing my basement,
spray-painting my dog ...”

“Whoa, cool,” Mooner said. “And how about the Zook-duder and me?
Can we do those things?”

“No,” Morelli said. “You have to protect the house from
everyone, including yourselves.”

“How much?” Zook asked.

“Five dollars a day.”

“No way,” Zook said.

“Ten.”

“Twenty,” Zook said. “Apiece.”

“Ten,” Morelli said. “Apiece.”

“Take it, dude,” Mooner said to Zook. “It's a cool
gig.”

“Me, too?” Gary asked.

“Yeah, you, too,” Morelli said.

“Should we be, like, packing heat, or something?” Mooner wanted
to know.

“No!” Morelli said. “If someone comes to the house, you politely
tell them to go away. If they won't go away, you call
me.”

“Gotcha,” Mooner said.

“Looks like we're done in the basement,” I said. “Everyone
upstairs for lunch.”

Gary had been quietly standing in his corner. “I think it might
be here,” he said.

Everyone looked at him.

“I feel like I have a vision coming, but it's still in the back
of my head. Sometimes it's like that. It's like brain
constipation.”

“Oh man, I hate when I get that,” Mooner said.

“Maybe lunch will help,” I said to Gary.

Gary didn't budge from the corner. “I think I should stay
here.”

I made sandwiches for Zook, Mooner, Morelli, Bob, and me, and I
brought Gary's sandwich down to the basement.