Fearless Fourteen: A Stephanie Plum Novel

by Janet Evanovich

  “What about the stage show?”

  “The stage show sucks. I’m playing Trenton, for crying out loud! All the men in the act are gay and all the women are forty years younger than me. Okay, I know I don’t look my age, but I’m busting my ass on maintenance. I don’t know how much longer I can keep this up before I need more work.”

  “What kind of work?”

  “All kinds of work. My facelift is eight years old. I’ve got two years, tops, and then the warranty runs out. The implants are shifting in my breasts, and these young guys I’m fucking are killing me. I’m going to need a vagina transplant.”

  “Maybe you should consider a man more your own age.”

  “Have you ever seen a man my age naked? It’s frightening. It’s like everything has stretched. And then you do the deed with him and it’s like fucking Rubberman. And halfway through, you’re wondering what the heck that noise is and you realize he’s fallen asleep and he’s snoring. You have to have football playing on television to keep him awake.”

  “Sometimes Joe watches football after.”

  “Joe. Is that the Italian Stallion who turned the hose on me?”

  “Yep.”

  “No offense, but I wouldn’t mind doing him.”

  “No offense taken. Almost everyone wants to do him.” I looked down at my shirt. The gravy was congealing. “I need to get home and change my shirt.”

  “Well, there you have it from Stephanie Plum,” Brenda said to the camera. “It looks like the money is still up for grabs, folks.”

  I hurried to my car, rammed myself behind the wheel, and motored off. Depressing news about sixty-one-year-old men. Probably it didn’t apply to Morelli and Ranger. I called Lula when I was half a block away.

  “Don’t let anyone shoot vegetables at me,” I told her. “I’m about to park in front of the house.”

  “Copy,” Lula said. “Cease all operations,” she yelled out.

  This wasn’t a desirable sign. I was hoping Lula would confiscate weapons, but it sounded like she’d signed on to Star Fleet.

  “Where’s my chicken?” Lula wanted to know, opening the door to me. “I don’t see no bags or buckets. All I see is you wearing dinner.”

  “It’s complicated,” I said.

  “I bet. Is that my mashed potatoes in your hair?”

  “I never got that far. I was in line and there was a riot.”

  “Yeah, but after the riot you should have tried the drive-through.”

  Mooner was holding his position at the front window.

  “He hasn’t shot anyone, has he?” I asked Lula.

  “Since you been gone? He lobbed a tomato at an old guy with a shovel. Got him in the head and it was instant salsa. That was about it.”

  The news van pulled to the curb behind my car.

  “Whoa,” Mooner said. “It’s the news. I hate the news. It’s never good.”

  “I’ll get rid of them,” Lula said. “Give me the big boy.”

  Gary ran forward and handed Lula a monster spud gun. It was made from wide bore black pipe and had to be four feet long. Lula opened the door, set the pipe on Mooner’s shoulder, Gary dropped a honeydew melon into the pipe, rammed it down, and sprayed it.

  “Fire in the hole,” Lula yelled, and turned the ignitor knob.

  POW! The melon exploded out of the pipe, Lula and Mooner were knocked off their feet, and the melon sailed over the news truck like a cannonball and took the top off a flowering crabapple tree on the other side of the street.

  “Did I hit the target?” Lula asked.

  “No, but you scared the crap out of them. They’re already in the next county.”

  “I need a sight,” Lula said to Mooner. “All us expert marksmen have sights.”

  “It would be awesome if we had monkey shit,” Mooner said.

  “Forget the monkey shit,” Lula told him. “I’m not getting you no monkey shit. I hate monkeys.”

  “This isn’t a good idea,” I said. “Someone’s going to get hurt with this stuff. I want it all put away. Put it in the cellar.”

  “Mooch and some other guy are in the cellar digging,” Lula said. “Zook accidentally beaned Mooch with a half-baked when he saw him in the yard, and we might not want to get too close to Mooch until he calms down.”

  “Then put the spud guns someplace else. Just stop using them.”

  “Yeah,” Lula said, “but what if we see people trespassing? Morelli’s paying these men good money to protect his property. You wouldn’t want them to be derelict in their duties.”

  My eye was twitching like mad. I put my finger to it and looked at Lula out of the other eye. “I’m going to take a shower. Use some common sense.”

  “Sure, I got lots of common sense,” Lula said. “You can count on me.”

  I threw my clothes into the laundry basket in Morelli’s room, wrapped myself in his robe, and ran across the hall to the bathroom to take a shower. When I came back to the bedroom with clean hair and body, I found Bob eating my clothes. Couldn’t blame him. They smelled like fried chicken and gravy.

  I wrestled what was left of the clothes away from Bob and assessed the damage. T-shirt half there. Jeans had chunks missing. Socks and underwear, gone. Not the first time Bob had eaten my underwear, so I knew the drill. Bob would be spending a lot of time in the backyard tomorrow, letting nature take its course.

  I got dressed and blasted my hair with the hair dryer. I took a close look at myself in the mirror. The blue was fading. I was now a ghoulish shade of pale. I went back to the bedroom and dialed Morelli.

  “Yep,” Morelli said.

  “Have you got a minute to talk?”

  “Thirty seconds, tops. This is a royal mess. Two kids dead. A shooter who is related to a councilman. Two more at large. And the neighborhood is in a state of siege. What’s up?”

  “You have three lunatics guarding your house, there are a bunch of fortune hunters creeping around your yard, someone sent you Loretta’s pinky toe, and Bob ate my underpants.”

  “Lucky Bob.”

  “I put the toe in your freezer.”

  “Shit,” Morelli said. “I’m out of Rolaids. Are you sure it was a toe?”

  “Either that or a giant garbonzo bean with a toenail.”

  “I’ll be home as soon as I can, but it will probably be late tonight.”

  “Should I report the toe to someone?” I asked him.

  “I’ll tell Spanner about it. I’m sure it’s all related. Gotta go.”

  I flopped onto the bed and covered my eyes with my hands. The day was grinding on, and I wasn’t making any progress. Loretta was suffering somewhere, and I couldn’t get to her.

  Let’s list all this out, I thought. What do I know about the fourth partner? I know he’s single. I know what his shoes look like. I might remember his voice. That’s it. That’s all I know.

  No it isn’t, I thought. I know more. None of it good. I know he robbed a bank and let his partner take the fall. I know he killed one or more of his partners and blew up a house. I know he has Loretta and is capable of doing most anything to her. I know for sure that he wants the nine million real bad. And either he thinks Morelli has already found the money, or he’s decided his best shot is to force Morelli to find it for him. What else do I know? I know Dom is still in the neighborhood.

  I carted my half-eaten clothes downstairs and tossed them into the garbage. I ate a bowl of cereal and a banana, and I went into the living room. Zook, Mooner, and Gary were back to the world of Minionfire. The spud guns were lined up along the wall.

  Lula was on the phone. “What do you mean he don’t want to talk to me? Of course he wants to talk to me. I’m his honey. We’re engaged to get married. Did you tell him it was Lula?” She listened for a minute, tapping her toe, looking really pissed off. “You’re a big fibber. I’ve got a mind to come over there and hit you alongside the head. How’d you like that, you little pissant?”

  I gave Lula raised eyebrows.

  “
Hunh,” Lula said. “He hung up on me.”

  “You called him a pissant.”

  “I just learned that word yesterday. It was on one of them game shows. I bet he don’t even know what it means.”

  “Who were you talking to?”

  “Some guy at Rangeman. Hal or Cal or something.”

  My cell phone rang.

  “Babe,” Ranger said. “Do something with her.”

  And he disconnected.

  I called Ranger back. “No,” I said. “And I need information on Jelly Kantner. His apartment got blown up, and I need to find him.”

  “And I should do this why?”

  “Because you like me.”

  There was a full beat of silence. “I do,” Ranger said. “I like you a lot. Sometimes I’m not sure why. Give me a couple minutes.”

  I slid my phone into my pocket and waited. Five minutes went by and finally Ranger called.

  “What do you mean you’re not sure why you like me?” I asked him.

  “Liking you doesn’t seem to be getting me where I want to go.”

  “Maybe you need to change the destination.”

  “Maybe,” Ranger said. “But not today. I have a personal information report for you on Jelly Kantner, also known as Jay Kantner.”

  “E-mail Kantner’s report to Morelli.”

  “Ten-four.”

  I moved to Morelli’s office and waited for the e-mail to come in. I printed the report and sat in his chair to read it. Kantner’s parents were deceased. He had a sister living in the Burg. She was married with two kids. Kantner had no derogatory information. His credit was good. He’d worked as a maintenance specialist for J. B. Management Associates for ten years. Probably didn’t make a lot of money, but his work history was solid. He’d never married.

  I called the sister’s number and asked for Jelly.

  “Jelly,” she shouted. “It’s a girl!”

  “Hello?” Jelly said.

  “Hey, it’s Stephanie Plum.”

  “Oh no!”

  “Don’t hang up. I just want to talk to you.”

  “Okay,” Jelly said. Tentative. Not sure if it was a smart thing.

  “I’m trying to find Dom,” I told him.

  “I don’t know where he is. He got my apartment blown up. And I haven’t seen him since.”

  “You’re friends. You must have some idea where he went.”

  “We were friends. In the past. No more. Not ever again. He took off as soon as I didn’t have an apartment. He never even said thank you or gee, I’m sorry. All he thinks about is himself. He used to be fun, but now he’s crazy. All he ever talked about was the money and how he hates Morelli. He blames Morelli for everything. He said Morelli swindled him out of his house and his future. He never said, but I figured the money had to be in that house somewhere. He was obsessed with the stupid house.”

  “Did he have a map or directions that led to the money?”

  “No. He said it was in his head.”

  “What about Victor or Benny? He used to hang with them. Would they take him in?”

  “Are you kidding? Those guys are locked down. Their wives would kick their asses if they had anything to do with Dom.”

  “Relatives?” I asked him.

  “Maybe. He’s related to half the Burg. He used to be close to his cousin Bugger, but I don’t know about now.”

  “Bugger Baronni?”

  “Yeah, there’s only one Bugger.”

  Thank heavens for that.

  SEVENTEEN

  I LEFT MOONER, Zook, and Gary home alone with detailed instructions. They were to wash my car. They were to stay close to Morelli’s house. They were not allowed to shoot anything. They were to stay away from Mooch.

  We were in Lula’s Firebird, and Lula was in a mood. “First off, I never got no chicken. And now I’m driving you to check out some guy named Bugger. I don’t even want to know how he got that name.”

  “Sixth grade,” I said. “On a class trip to a petting zoo.”

  “What’s he doing now?”

  “He’s a lawyer.”

  “Figures,” Lula said.

  Bugger lived a little north of Trenton, in an affluent neighborhood close to the river. He specialized in messy divorce cases, and the word on him was that everyone took it up the ass when he got involved. Literally and figuratively.

  I thought chances were slim that Dom was here, but no stone unturned. Bugger was a relative and sometimes that meant something. As would the possibility of getting cut in on nine million dollars. There was no Mrs. Bugger. No Mr. Bugger, either. Just Bugger and a big dog named Lover.

  Lula drove by the house and gave a low whistle. “This guy does okay.”

  The house was a redbrick colonial that looked like about ten thousand square feet under roof. It was on a large landscaped lot with a gated drive. Much of the house and yard was obscured by a privacy hedge.

  The house was impressive but felt excessively large for one person. I guess you have a big house like that, you get used to living in it, but all I could think of was keeping toilet paper in all those bathrooms.

  “What’s this guy look like?” Lula wanted to know.

  “I only met him once when I was at a party years ago, but I remember him as a slim Dom.”

  If my life wasn’t so complicated, I’d stake out the house. It was as good a place as any for Dom to hide. He’d be relatively safe behind the gates. Bugger obviously had guest rooms and probably had a couple cars. Plus, Bugger had no scruples and loved money. It was a match made in heaven.

  “I don’t suppose you’d want to do a stakeout for me?” I asked Lula.

  “Don’t suppose I would,” Lula said. “Who you want to stake out?”

  “Bugger.”

  Lula looked up and down the street. “How are you gonna do a stakeout here? Everyone parks their car in their garage. I don’t even see any cars in driveways. We’re sitting here looking like we’re planning a robbery.”

  She was right. A car parked at the side of the road was painfully obvious.

  I had my hand on the door handle. “I’m going to sneak around in the bushes and look in some windows. You can circle the block and pick me up when I’m done.”

  “Better you than me,” Lula said. “This is one of them snooty neighborhoods, and they probably got all kinds of dogs and alarms and shit like that.”

  “I’ve heard rumors about Bugger’s dog, and as long as I don’t bend over, I think I’ll be okay.”

  I was out of the car and about to cross the street when the gates to Bugger’s driveway swung open. A silver Lexus rolled from behind the hedge, through the open gate, and turned left. Only one person in the car. Dom. We locked eyes, and Dom floored it.

  I ran around and jumped into the Firebird. “Catch him!”

  He had a good head start, but in his panic he turned down a cul-de-sac. Lula angled her car across the road and blocked his exit. He swerved coming at us, jumped the curb, and took out about five thousand dollars’ worth of hedge. The house behind it looked like pictures I’ve seen of Versailles.

  The Lexus stalled in the hedge, and Dom wrenched the door open and took off for the faux chateau. I ran flat-out after him and tackled him halfway to the house. He was heavier and stronger than I was, but I was willing to fight dirty. I brought my knee up and rearranged his private parts so that they were halfway into his intestines.

  Dom grabbed himself and went into a fetal position. He was sweating and gasping for air, and for a moment I was afraid he might throw up. I removed a gun from him and stood.

  “You’re out on parole,” I told him. “You’re not allowed to carry a gun.”

  He sort of nodded. Still trying to get it together.

  “Be a shame to have to shoot you with your own gun,” I said. “So I want you to move nice and slow and not get me excited.”

  Another nod.

  “You need to listen carefully, because this is serious,” I said. “Your fourth partner has Lor
etta.”

  “I know. I’m trying to help her,” Dom said, “but I can’t get to the money. If I let Morelli in on it, he’ll turn the money back to the bank, and I’m afraid Loretta will be killed, just like Allen.”

  “And Stanley Zero.”

  Dom locked eyes with me. “What do you mean?”

  “Someone put a bullet in Zero. I found him earlier today.”

  “Do you know who did it?”

  I shook my head. “No. But I’m thinking your fourth partner.”

  “Bastard,” Dom said. “I never felt good about him.”

  “I need a name.”

  Dom was on his feet, still holding himself and a little stooped over, but starting to get color back in his face.

  “I don’t have a name,” he said. “He was the inside guy. I never even saw him. Stan brought him in. Said he had a sensitive job and no one could know who he was. I always figured he worked for the bank, because he was able to get information. He had access to files and schedules. Or maybe he was one of those computer hackers.”

  “How did you get in touch with him?”

  “Stan got in touch with him. They were buddies. Stan was friends with everyone.”

  I wanted to get Dom someplace more secure. I wanted him in cuffs and shackles so he couldn’t get away. I wanted him talking to Morelli. There was a lot at stake, and I was well aware that I wasn’t entirely competent. Problem was, he was talking, and I didn’t want to give him pause to reconsider and shut up. So I held my breath and pushed on.

  “Obviously, something is hidden in Morelli’s basement. What is it?” I asked him.

  He pulled his pants waistband out and looked down at himself. I guess making sure they were actually still there. “It’s two keys on a keychain. I knew I was spotted at the bank, and I’d be locked away for a while. I saw the camera pan to me before we took it out. I wasn’t sure I trusted the guys, so I changed the plan. I was supposed to drive the van to a warehouse where we were going to keep it on ice until the money was safe to use. Instead, I drove it to a garage I knew about. Then I buried the keys to the garage and the truck in Rose’s basement. Rose was old, and she’d always promised the house to me. She always told me I was in her will.”