Two for the Dough (24 page)

Morelli pushed my shirt aside and slipped the straps of my bra over my shoulders.

I felt a shiver ripple through me and chose to believe the shiver was from the cool air … as opposed to a premonition of doom. “So you’re sure Roche will page you if he sees Kenny?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Morelli said, lowering his mouth to my breast. “Nothing to worry about.”

Nothing to worry about! He had his hand in my pants, and he was telling me I had nothing to worry about!

My eyes rolled to the top of my head again. What was my problem? I was an adult. I had needs. What was so wrong about satisfying those needs once in a while? Here I had a chance for a real quality orgasm. And it wasn’t as if I had false expectations. I wasn’t some dumb sixteen-year-old expecting a marriage proposal. All I expected was a goddamn orgasm. And I sure as hell deserved one. I hadn’t had a social orgasm since Reagan was president.

I did a fast check of the windows. Totally fogged. That was good. Okay, I said to myself. Go for it. I kicked my shoes off, and stripped of everything but my black string bikinis.

“Now you,” I said to Morelli. “I want to see you.”

It took less than ten seconds for him to get undressed, five seconds of which he used up on guns and cuffs.

I snapped my mouth closed and surreptitiously checked for drool. Morelli was even more amazing than I’d remembered. And I’d remembered him as being freaking outstanding.

He hooked a finger under my bikini string, and in one fluid movement removed my panties. He tried to mount me, and hit his head on the steering wheel. “Been a long time since I’ve done this in a car,” he said.

We scrambled to the back and fell together, Morelli in an unbuttoned washed denim shirt and white sweat socks, and me in a fresh rush of uncertainty.

“Spiro could kill the lights, and Kenny could sneak in the back door,” I said.

Morelli kissed my shoulder. “Roche would know if Kenny was in the house.”

“How would Roche know?”

Morelli sighed. “Roche would know because he’s wired the house.”

I pushed away. “You didn’t tell me! How long has the house been wired?”

“You aren’t going to make a big deal of this, are you?”

“What else haven’t you told me?”

“That’s it. I swear.”

I didn’t believe it for a second. He was wearing his cop face. I thought back to dinner, and how he’d miraculously appeared. “How did you know my mother was cooking lamb?”

“I smelled it when you opened the door.”

“Bullshit!” I grabbed my purse from the front seat and dumped the contents between us. Hairbrush, hair spray, lipstick, pepper spray, travel pack of tissues, stun gun, gum, sunglasses … black plastic transformer. Fuck.

I snatched at the bug. “You son of a bitch! You wired my pocketbook!”

“It was for your own good. I was worried about you.”

“That’s despicable! That’s an invasion of privacy! How dare you do this without asking me first!” And it was also a lie. He was afraid I’d get a bead on Kenny and not cut him in. I rolled the window down and threw the transformer out into the street.

“Shit,” Morelli said. “That thing’s worth four hundred dollars.” He opened the door and went out to retrieve it.

I pulled the door closed and locked it. Damn him any way. I should have known better than to try to work with a Morelli. I climbed over the seat and slid behind the wheel.

Morelli tried the passenger side door, but it was locked. All the doors were locked, and they were going to stay that way. He could freeze his stupid dick off for all I cared. Serve him right. I revved the engine and took off, leaving him standing in the middle of the street in his shirt and socks, with his woody hanging half-mast.

I got a block down Hamilton and reconsidered. Probably it wasn’t a good idea to leave a cop standing naked in the middle of the street. What would happen if a bad guy came along? Morelli probably couldn’t even run in his condition. Okay, I thought, I’ll help him out. I made a U-turn and retraced to the side street. Morelli was right where I’d left him. Hands on hips, looking disgusted.

… I slowed, rolled my window down, and tossed him his gun. “Just in case,” I said. Then I floored it and roared away.

I quietly crept up the stairs and breathed a long sigh of relief when I was safely locked in my bedroom. I didn’t want to explain my I’ve-been-making-out-in-a-Buick-rat’s-nest hair to my mother. Nor did I want her to glean through X-ray vision that my panties were stuffed into my jacket pocket. I undressed with the lights off, slunk into bed, and pulled the covers up to my chin.

I awoke with two regrets. The first was that I’d left the stakeout and had no idea if Kenny had been caught. The second was that I’d missed my window of opportunity to use the bathroom, and once again, I was last in line.

I lay in bed, listening to people shuffle in and out of the bathroom … first my mother, then my father, then my grandmother. When Grandma Mazur creaked down the stairs, I wrapped myself in the pink quilted robe I’d gotten for my sixteenth birthday and padded to the bathroom. The window over the tub was closed against the cold, and the air inside was thick with the scent of shaving cream and Listerine.

I took a fast shower, towel-dried my hair, and dressed in jeans and a Rutgers sweatshirt. I had no special plans for the day, other than to keep an eye on Grandma Mazur and to keep tabs on Spiro. Of course, that was working on the assumption that Kenny hadn’t gotten himself caught last night.

I followed my nose to coffee brewing in the kitchen and found Morelli eating breakfast at the kitchen table. From the look of his plate he’d just finished bacon and eggs and toast. He slouched back at the sight of me, coffee cup in hand. His expression was speculative.

“Morning,” he said, voice even, eyes not giving up any secrets.

I poured coffee into a mug. “Morning.” Noncommittal. “What’s new?”

“Nothing. Your paycheck is still out there.”

“You come by to tell me that?”

“I came by to get my wallet. I think I left it in your car last night.”

“Right.” Along with various articles of clothing.

I took a slurp of coffee and set the cup on the counter. “I’ll get your wallet.”

Morelli stood. “Thank you for breakfast,” he said to my mother. “It was wonderful.”

My mother beamed. “Any time. Always nice to have Stephanie’s friends here.”

He followed me out and waited while I unlocked the car and scooped his clothes together.

“Were you telling the truth about Kenny?” I asked. “He didn’t show up last night?”

“Spiro stayed until a little after two. Sounded like he was playing computer games. That was all Roche picked up on the bug. No phone calls. No Kenny.”

“Spiro was waiting for something that never happened.”

“Looks like it.”

The tan wreck of a cop car was parked behind my Buick. “I see you got your car back,” I said to Morelli. It had all the same dents and scrapes, and the bumper was still in the backseat. “I thought you said it was being fixed.”

“It was,” Morelli said. “They fixed the lights.” He glanced over at the house and then back at me. “Your mother is standing at the door, watching us.”

“Yep.”

“If she wasn’t standing there, I’d grab you and shake you until the fillings fell out of your teeth.”

“Police brutality.”

“It has nothing to do with being a cop. It has to do with being Italian.”

I handed him his shoes. “I’d really like to be in on the takedown.”

“I’ll do the best I can to include you.”

We locked eyes. Did I believe him? No.

Morelli fished car keys out of his pocket. “You’d better think of a good story to tell your mother. She’s going to want to know why my clothes were in your car.”

“She won’t think anything of it. I’ve got men’s clothes in my car all the time.”

Morelli grinned.

“What were those clothes?” my mother asked when I came into the house. “Pants and shoes?”

“You don’t want to know.”

“I want to know,” Grandma Mazur said. “I bet it’s a pip of a story.”

“How’s your hand?” I asked her. “Does it hurt?”

“Only hurts if I make a fist, and I can’t do that with this big bandage on. I’d be in a pickle if it had been my right hand.”

“Got any plans for today?”

“Not until tonight. Joe Loosey is still laid out. I only got to see his penis, you know, so I thought I’d like to go see the rest of him at the seven o’clock viewing.”

My father was in the living room, reading his paper. “When I go, I want to be cremated,” he said. “No viewing.”

My mother turned from the stove. “Since when?”

“Since Loosey lost his Johnson. I don’t want to take any chances. I want to go right from wherever I fall to the crematorium.”

My mother set a plateful of scrambled eggs in front of me. She added a side of bacon, toast, and juice.

I ate my eggs and considered my options. I could sequester myself in the house and do my protective granddaughter thing, I could drag Grandma around with me while I did my protective granddaughter thing, or I could go about my business and hope Grandma wasn’t on Kenny’s agenda today.

“More eggs?” my mother asked. “Another piece of toast?”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re all bones. You should eat more.”

“I’m not all bones. I’m fat. I can’t button the top snap on my jeans.”

“You’re thirty years old. You have to expect to spread when you hit thirty. What are you doing still wearing jeans, anyway? A person your age shouldn’t be dressing like a kid.” She leaned forward and studied my face. “What’s wrong with your eye? It looks like it’s twitching again.”

All right, eliminate option number one.

“I need to keep some people under surveillance,” I said to Grandma Mazur. “You want to tag along?”

“I guess I could do that. You think it’ll get rough?”

“No. I think it’ll be boring.”

“Well, if I wanted to be bored I could sit home. Who are we looking for, anyway? Are we looking for that miserable Kenny Mancuso?”

Actually, I’d intended to hang tight to Morelli. In a roundabout way I suppose it amounted to the same thing. “Yeah, we’re looking for Kenny Mancuso.”

“Then I’m all for it. I have a score to settle with him.”

Half an hour later she was ready to go, wearing her jeans and ski jacket and Doc Martens.

I spotted Morelli’s car a block down from Stiva’s on Hamilton. Didn’t look like Morelli was in the car. Probably Morelli was with Roche, swapping war stories. I parked behind Morelli, being careful not to creep too close and knock out his lights, again. I could see the front and side door to the funeral home, and the front door to Roche’s building.

“I know all about how to do this stakeout stuff,” Grandma said. “They had some private eyes on television the other night, and they didn’t leave out a thing.” She stuck her head into the canvas tote bag she’d hauled along. “I got everything we need in here. I got magazines to pass the time. I got sandwiches and sodas. I even got a bottle.”

“What kind of bottle?”

“Used to have olives in it.” She showed me the bottle. “It’s so we can pee on the job. All the private eyes said they did this.”

“I can’t pee in that bottle. Only men can pee in bottles.”

“Darn,” Grandma said. “Why didn’t I think of that? I went and threw away all the olives, too.”

We read the magazine and tore out a few recipes. We ate the sandwiches and drank the sodas.

After drinking the sodas we both needed to go to the bathroom, so we went back to my parent’ house for a potty break. We returned to Hamilton, slid into the same parking place behind Morelli, and continued to wait.

“You’re right,” Grandma said after an hour. “This is boring.”

We played hangman and counted cars and verbally trashed Joyce Barnhardt. We’d just started twenty questions when I glanced out the window at oncoming traffic and recognized Kenny Mancuso. He was driving a two-tone Chevy Suburban that looked to be as big as a bus. We exchanged surprised stares for the longest heartbeat in history.

“Shit!” I shouted, fumbling with the ignition key, swiveling in my seat to keep him in sight.

“Get this car moving,” Grandma yelled. “Don’t let that son of a skunk get away!”

I wrenched the gearshift into drive and was about to pull out when I realized Kenny had U-turned at the intersection and was closing ground between us. There were no cars parked behind me. I saw the Suburban swerve to the curb and told Grandma to brace herself.

The Suburban crashed into the back of the Buick, bouncing us forward into Morelli’s car, which crashed into the car in front of him. Kenny backed the Suburban up, stepped on the gas, and rammed us again.

“Well, that takes it,” Grandma said. “I’m too old for this kind of bouncing around. I got delicate bones at my age.” She pulled a .45 long-barrel out of her tote bag, wrenched her door open, and scrambled out onto the sidewalk. “Guess this will show you something,” she said, aiming the gun at the Suburban. She pulled the trigger, fire flashed from the barrel, and the kick knocked her on her ass.

Kenny floored the Suburban in reverse all the way to the intersection and took off.

“Did I get him?” Grandma wanted to know.

“No,” I said, helping her to her feet.

“Did I come close?”

“Hard to say.”

She had her hand to her forehead. “Hit myself in the head with the dang gun. Didn’t expect that much of a kick.”

We walked around the cars, surveying the damage. The Buick was virtually unscathed. A scratch in the chrome on the big back bumper. No damage that I could find in the front.

Morelli’s car looked like an accordion. The hood and the trunk lid were crumpled, and all the lights were broken. The first car in line had been shoved a couple feet forward, but didn’t look bashed. A small dent in the back bumper, which may or may not have been the result of this accident.

I looked up the street, expecting Morelli to come running, but Morelli didn’t appear.

“Are you okay?” I asked Grandma Mazur.

“Sure,” Grandma said. “I would have got that slimeball too if it wasn’t for my injury. Had to shoot with one hand.”

“Where’d you get the forty-five?”

“My friend Elsie loaned it to me,” Grandma said. “She got it at a yard sale when she lived in Washington, D.C.” She rolled her eyes up in her head. “Am I bleeding?”

“No, but you’ve got a notch in your forehead. Maybe we should take you home to rest.”

“That might be a good idea,” she said. “My knees feel sort of rubbery. Guess I’m not so tough as them television people. Shooting off guns never seems to take anything out of them.”

I got Grandma in the car and clicked the seat belt across her chest. I took one last look at the damage and wondered about liability for the first car in line. The damage was minimal to none, but I left my business card under the windshield wiper in case he discovered the dent and wanted an explanation.

I assumed I didn’t have to do this for Morelli, since I’d be the first person who came to mind.

“Probably it’d be best if we don’t mention anything about the gun when we get home,” I told Grandma. “You know how Mom is about guns.”

“That’s okay by me,” Grandma said. “I’d just as leave forget the whole thing. Can’t believe I missed that car. Didn’t even blow out a tire.”

My mother raised her eyebrows when she saw the two of us straggle in. “Now what?” my mother asked. She squinted at Grandma. “What happened to your head?”

“Hit myself with a soda can,” Grandma said. “Freak accident.”

Half an hour later Morelli came knocking at the door. “I want to see you … outside,” he said, hooking his hand around my arm, jerking me forward.

“It wasn’t my fault,” I told him. “Grandma and I were sitting in the Buick, minding our own business, when Kenny came up behind us and knocked us into your car.”

“You want to run that by me again?”

“He was driving a two-tone Suburban. He saw Grandma and me parked on Hamilton. He made a U-turn and rammed us from behind. Twice. Then Grandma jumped out of the car and shot at him, and he drove away.”

“That’s the lamest story I’ve ever heard.”

“It’s true!”

Grandma stuck her head out the door. “What’s going on out here?”

“He thinks I made up the story about Kenny hitting us with the Suburban.”

Grandma snagged the tote bag from the hall table. She rummaged through it, came up with the .45-long barrel, and aimed it at Morelli.

“Jesus!” Morelli said, ducking out of the way, taking the gun from Grandma. “Where the hell did you get this cannon?”

“Borrowed it,” Grandma said. “And I used it on your no-good cousin, but he got away.”

Morelli studied his shoes for a beat before speaking. “I don’t suppose this gun is registered?”

“What do you mean?” Grandma asked. “Registered where?”

“Get rid of it,” Morelli said to me. “Get it out of my sight.”

I shoved Grandma back inside with the gun and closed the door. “I’ll take care of it,” I said to Morelli. “I’ll make sure it’s returned to its owner.”

“So this ridiculous story is true?”

“Where were you? Why didn’t you see any of this?”

“I was relieving Roche. I was watching the funeral home. I wasn’t watching my car.” He glanced over at the Buick. “No damage?”

“Scratched the rear bumper.”

“Does the army know about this car?”

I thought it was time to remind Morelli of my usefulness. “Did you run a check on Spiro’s guns?”