The bed was unmade. A navy duffel bag sat open on the floor. The bag contained socks and shorts and two black T-shirts. A flannel shirt and a pair of jeans had been tossed across the back of a chair. A shaving kit sat open in the bathroom.
“Looks to me like he’s been scared off,” Morelli said. “My guess is he spotted you.”
“Impossible. I parked in the darkest part of the lot. And how did he know it was me?”
“Sweet thing, everyone knows it’s you.”
“It’s this awful car! It’s ruining my life. It’s sabotaging my career.”
Morelli grinned. “That’s a lot to ask of a car.”
I tried to look contemptuous, but it was hard with my teeth chattering from the cold. “Now what?” I asked.
“Now I talk to the clerk and ask her to call me if Kenny returns.” He gave me a fast head-to-foot appraisal. “You look like you slept in those clothes.”
“How’d it go with Spiro and Louie Moon yesterday?”
“I don’t think Louie Moon is involved. He doesn’t have what it takes.”
“Intelligence?”
“Contacts,” Morelli said. “Whoever has the guns is selling them off. I did some checking. Moon doesn’t move in the right circles. Moon wouldn’t even know how to go about finding the right circles.”
“What about Spiro?”
“Wasn’t ready to give me a confession.” He flipped the light off. “You should go home and take a shower and get dressed for dinner.”
“Dinner?”
“Pot roast at six.”
“You aren’t serious.”
The grin was back. “I’ll pick you up at quarter to six.”
“No! I’ll drive myself.”
Morelli was wearing a brown leather bomber jacket and a red wool scarf. He took the scarf off and wrapped it around my neck. “You look frozen,” he said. “Go home and warm up.” Then he sauntered off to the motel office.
It was still drizzling. The sky was gunmetal gray, and my mood was equally grim. I’d had a good line on Kenny Mancuso, and I’d blown it. I smacked the heel of my hand against my forehead. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I’d sat out there in this big dumb Buick. What was I thinking?
The motel was twelve miles from my apartment building, and I berated myself all the way home. I made a quick stop at the supermarket, fed Big Blue more gas, and by the time I pulled into my lot, I was thoroughly disgusted and demoralized. I’d had three chances to nail Kenny: at Julia’s house, at the mall, and now at the motel, and I’d screwed up every time.
Probably at this stage in my career I should stick to the low-level criminals, like shoplifters and drunk drivers. Unfortunately, the payout on those criminals wasn’t sufficient to keep me afloat.
I did more self-flagellation while I rode the elevator and made my way down the hall. A sticky note from Dillon was taped to my door. Got a package for you, the note said.
I went back to the elevator and hit the button for basement. The elevator opened to a small vestibule with four closed, locked doors freshly painted battleship gray. One door led to storage cages for the use of the residents, the second door opened into the boiler room with its ominous rumblings and gurglings, the third door gave way to a long corridor and rooms dedicated to building maintenance, and Dillon lived in rent-free contentment behind the fourth door.
I always felt claustrophobic when I came down here, but Dillon said that it suited him fine and that he found the boiler noises soothing. He’d stuck a note to his door, saying that he’d be home at five.
I returned to my apartment, gave Rex some raisins and a corn chip, and took a long, hot shower. I staggered out red as a boiled lobster and foggy-brained from the chlorine gas. I flopped on the bed and contemplated my future. It was a short contemplation. When I woke up it was quarter to six, and someone was pounding on my door.
I wrapped myself in a robe and padded into the foyer. I put my eye to the peephole. It was Joe Morelli. I cracked the door and looked at him over the security chain. “I just got out of the shower.”
“I’d appreciate it if you’d let me in before Mr. Wolesky comes out and gives me the third degree.”
I slipped the chain and opened the door.
Morelli stepped into the foyer. His mouth curved at the edges. “Scary hair.”
“I sort of slept on it.”
“No wonder you have no sex life. It’d take a lot out of a man to wake up to hair like that.”
“Go sit in a chair in the living room, and don’t get up until I tell you. Don’t eat my food, and don’t scare my hamster, and don’t make any long-distance calls.”
He was watching television when I came out of my bedroom ten minutes later. I was wearing a granny dress over a white T-shirt, with ankle-high brown lace-up boots, and an oversized, loose-weave cardigan sweater. It was my Annie Hall look, and it made me feel feminine, but it always had the opposite effect on the opposite sex. Annie Hall was guaranteed to wilt the most determined dick. It was better than Mace on a blind date.
I wrapped Morelli’s red scarf around my neck and buttoned myself into my jacket. I grabbed my pocketbook and shut the lights off. “There’s going to be hell to pay if we’re late.”
Morelli followed me out the door. “I wouldn’t worry about it. Once your mother sees you in that get-up, she’ll forget about the time.”
“It’s my Annie Hall look.”
“Looks to me like you’ve put a jelly doughnut in a bag labeled bran muffin.”
I rushed down the hall and took the stairs. I got to the ground floor and remembered the package Dillon was holding. “Wait a minute,” I yelled to Morelli. “I’ll be right back.”
I scrambled down the stairs to the cellar and pounded on Dillon’s door.
Dillon peered out.
“I’m late, and I need my package,” I said.
He handed me a bulky overnight mail envelope, and I ran back up the stairs.
“Three minutes one way or the other can make or break a pot roast,” I told Morelli, grabbing him by the hand, dragging him across the lot to his truck. I hadn’t intended to go with him, but I figured if we hit traffic he could use his rooftop flasher. “You have a flasher on this truck?” I asked, climbing on board.
Morelli buckled himself in. “Yeah, I have a flasher. You don’t expect me to use it for pot roast, do you?”
I swiveled in my seat and stared out the back window.
Morelli cut his eyes to the rearview mirror. “Are you looking for Kenny?”
“I can feel him out there.”
“I don’t see anyone.”
“That doesn’t mean he isn’t there. He’s good at this sneaking around stuff. He walks into Stiva’s and chops off body parts, and nobody sees him. He came out of nowhere at the mall. He spotted me at Julia Cenetta’s house and in the motel parking lot, and I never had a clue. Now I have this creepy feeling he’s watching me, following me around.”
“Why would he be doing that?”
“For starters, Spiro told Kenny I’d kill him if he continued to harass him.”
“Oh boy.”
“Probably I’m just being paranoid.”
“Sometimes paranoia is justified.”
Morelli stopped for a light. The digital readout on his dashboard clock blinked to 5:58. I cracked my knuckles, and Morelli glanced over at me, eyebrows raised.
“Okay,” I said, “so my mother makes me nervous.”
“It’s part of her job,” Morelli said. “You shouldn’t take it personally.”
We turned off Hamilton, into the burg, and traffic disappeared. There were no car lights behind us, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that Kenny had me in his sights.
My mother and Grandma Mazur were at the door when we parked. Usually it was the differences between my mother and grandmother that caught my attention. Today it was the similarities that seemed obvious. They stood tall, with their shoulders back. It was a defiant posture, and I knew it was my posture, too. Their hands were cl
asped in front of them, their gaze was unwavering, fixed on Morelli and me. Their faces were round; their eyes were hooded. Mongol eyes. My Hungarian relatives had come from the steppes. Not a city dweller among them. My mother and grandma were small women and had grown even smaller with age. They were dainty-boned and petite, with babyfine hair. Probably they were descended from pampered, caravan-cosseted Gypsy women.
I, on the other hand, was a throwback to some plow-pulling, raw-boned wife of a barbarian farmer.
I hiked up my skirt to jump from the truck, and saw my mother and grandmother flinch at the sight.
“What’s this outfit?” my mother demanded. “Can’t you afford clothes? Are you wearing other people’s? Frank, give Stephanie some money. She needs to buy clothes.”
“I don’t need to buy clothes,” I said. “This is new. I just bought it. It’s the style.”
“How will you ever get a man when you’re dressed like this?” My mother turned to Morelli. “Am I right?”
Morelli grinned. “I think she’s kind of cute. It’s the Monty Hall look.”
I still had the package in my hand. I set it on the foyer table and took my jacket off. “Annie Hall!”
Grandma Mazur picked the envelope up and studied it. “Overnight mail. Must be something important. Feels like there’s a box in here. Return address says R. Klein from Fifth Avenue in New York. Too bad it isn’t for me. I wouldn’t mind getting some overnight mail.”
I hadn’t thought much about the package until now. I didn’t know anyone named R. Klein, and I hadn’t ordered anything from New York. I took the envelope from Grandma and peeled the flap back. There was a little cardboard box inside. It was taped closed. I took the box out, and held it in my hand. It wasn’t especially heavy.
“Smells funny,” Grandma said. “Like insecticide. Or maybe it’s one of them new perfumes.”
I ripped the tape away, opened the box, and sucked in my breath. There was a penis inside the box. The penis was neatly sliced off at the root, perfectly embalmed, and secured to a square of Styrofoam with a hat pin.
Everyone stared at the penis in dumbfounded horror.
Grandma Mazur spoke first, and when she did it was with a touch of wistfulness. “Been a long time since I’ve seen one of those,” she said.
My mother started screaming, hands in air, eyes bugging out of her head. “Get it out of my house! What’s the world coming to? What will people think?”
My father left his chair in the living room and padded out to the hall to see what the fuss was all about. “What’s going on?” he asked, sticking his head into the huddle.
“It’s a penis,” Grandma said. “Stephanie got it in the mail. It’s a pretty good one too.”
My father recoiled. “Jesus and Joseph!”
“Who would do such a thing?” my mother shouted. “What is it? Is it rubber? Is it one of those rubber penises?”
“Don’t look rubber to me,” Grandma Mazur said. “Looks to me like a real penis, except it’s kind of discolored. I don’t remember them being this color.”
“That’s crazy!” my mother said. “What person would mail his penis?”
Grandma Mazur looked at the envelope. “Says Klein on the return address. I always thought that was a Jewish name, but this doesn’t look to me like a Jewish penis.”
Everyone turned their attention to Grandma Mazur.
“Not that I’d know much about it,” Grandma said. “It’s just that I might have seen one of them Jewish ones in National Geographic.”
Morelli took the box from me and replaced the lid. We both knew the name to attach to the penis. Joseph Loosey.
“I’m going to take a raincheck on dinner,” Morelli said. “I’m afraid this is a police matter.” He snagged my pocketbook off the hall table and draped it over my shoulder. “Stephanie needs to come too, so she can make a statement.”
“It’s that bounty hunter job,” my mother said to me. “You meet all the wrong kinds of people. Why can’t you get a good job like your cousin Christine? No one ever sends Christine these things in the mail.”
“Christine works in a vitamin factory. She spends her whole day watching the cotton stuffer to make sure it doesn’t malfunction.”
“She makes good money.”
I zipped my jacket. “I make good money … sometimes.”
Morelli yanked the door to the truck open, tossed the overnight envelope onto the seat, and made an impatient gesture for me to follow. His face was composed, but I could feel the vibrations of anger radiating in waves from his body.
“Goddamn him,” Morelli said, slamming the truck into gear. “He thinks this is fucking funny. Him and his damn games. When he was a kid he used to tell me stories about the things he’d done. I never knew what was real and what was made up. I’m not sure Kenny knew. Maybe it was all real.”
“Were you serious about this being a police matter?”
“The post office frowns on the mailing of human body parts for sport purposes.”
“That was why you rushed us out of my parents’ house?”
“I rushed us out of your parents’ house because I didn’t think I could manage two hours at the dinner table with everyone focused on Joe Loosey’s joystick sitting in the refrigerator next to the applesauce.”
“I’d appreciate it if you could keep this quiet. I wouldn’t want people to get the wrong idea about me and Mr. Loosey.”
“Your secret is safe.”
“Do you think we should tell Spiro?”
“I think you should tell Spiro. Let him think the two of you are in this together. Maybe you can learn something.”
Morelli eased the truck into the Burger King drivethrough and got a couple bags of food. He rolled the window up, pulled out into traffic, and the truck immediately filled with the smell of America.
“It’s not pot roast,” Morelli said.
That was true, but with the exception of dessert, food is food. I stuck the straw into my milk shake and dug around in the bag for the french fries. “These stories Kenny used to tell you … what were they about?”
“Nothing you want to hear. Nothing I even want to remember. Very sick shit.”
He took a handful of fries. “You never told me how you happened to locate Kenny in the motel.”
“Probably I shouldn’t divulge my professional secrets.”
“Probably you should.”
Okay, public relations time. Time to appease Morelli by giving him some worthless information. With the added advantage of implicating him in an illegal activity. “I broke into Spiro’s apartment and went through his trash. I found some phone numbers, ran them down, and came up with the motel.”
Morelli stopped for a light and turned his face to me. His expression was unreadable in the dark. “You broke into Spiro’s apartment? Was this by way of an accidentally unlocked door?”
“It was by way of a window that managed to get broken by a pocketbook.”
“Shit, Stephanie, that’s breaking and entering. People get arrested for that kind of stuff. They go to jail.”
“I was careful.”
“That makes me feel a lot better.”
“I figure Spiro will think it was Kenny and not report it.”
“So Spiro knew where Kenny was staying. I’m surprised Kenny wasn’t more cautious.”
“Spiro has a caller ID device on his phone at the funeral parlor. Maybe Kenny didn’t realize he could be picked up like that.”
The light changed, Morelli moved forward, and we rode in silence for the rest of the trip. He swung into the lot, parked and cut his lights.
“Do you want to come in, or would you prefer to be left out of the loop?” he wanted to know.
“I’d rather be left out of the loop. I’ll wait here.”
He took the envelope with the penis, and he took a bag of food. “I’ll do this as fast as I can.”
I gave him the paper with the guns and ammo information from Spiro’s apartment. “I found some hardw
are in Spiro’s bedroom. You might want to check to see if it came from Braddock.” I wasn’t enamored with the idea of helping Morelli when he was still holding back on me, but I had no way of tracing the guns down on my own, and besides, if the stuff was stolen, Morelli’d owe me.
I watched him jog to the side door. The door opened, showing a fleeting rectangle of light in the otherwise dark brick facade. The door closed, and I unwrapped my cheeseburger, wondering if Morelli would have to bring someone in to identify the evidence. Louie Moon or Mrs. Loosey. I hoped he had the sense to remove the hat pin before lifting the lid for Mrs. Loosey.
I scarfed down my cheeseburger and fries and worked at the milk shake. There was no activity in the lot or on the street, and the silence in the truck was deafening. I listened to myself breathe for a while. I snooped in the glove compartment and map pockets. I found nothing interesting. According to Morelli’s dashboard clock he’d been gone for ten minutes. I finished the milk shake and crammed all the wrappers back in the bag. Now what?
It was almost seven. Visiting hours for Spiro. The perfect time to tell him about Loosey’s dick. Unfortunately, I was stuck twiddling my thumbs in Morelli’s truck. The glint of keys dangling from the ignition caught my eye. Maybe I should borrow the truck and slip over to the funeral parlor. Take care of business. After all, who knows how long it would take Morelli to do the paperwork? I could be stuck here for hours! Morelli would probably be grateful to me for getting the job done. On the other hand, if he came out and found his truck missing it could get ugly.
I dug around in my pocketbook and came up with a black Magic Marker. I couldn’t find paper, so I wrote a note on the side of the food bag. I backed the truck up a few feet, deposited the bag in the empty space, jumped back in the truck, and took off.
Lights were blazing from Stiva’s, and a crowd of people milled about on the front porch. Stiva always got a big draw on Saturdays. The lot was full and there were no parking places for two blocks down on the street, so I zoomed into the driveway reserved for “funeral cars only.” I would only be a few minutes, and besides, nobody was going to tow away a truck with a PBA shield in the back window.
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