Spiro did a double take when he saw me. The first reaction was relief; the second was reserved for my dress.
“Nice outfit,” he said. “You look like you just got off the bus from Appalachia.”
“I’ve got news for you.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve got news for you, too.” He jerked his head in the direction of the office. “In here.”
He hotfooted it across the lobby, wrenched the door to the office open, and closed it behind us with a slam.
“You’re not going to believe this,” he said. “That asshole Kenny is such a prick. You know what he did now? He broke into my apartment.”
My eyes rounded in surprise. “No!”
“Yeah. Can you believe it? Broke a goddamn window.”
“Why would he break into your apartment?”
“Because he’s fucking crazy.”
“Are you sure it was Kenny? Was anything missing?”
“Of course it was Kenny. Who the hell else could it be? Nothing was stolen. The VCR is still there. My camera, my money, my jewelry weren’t touched. It was Kenny, all right. The dumb crazy fucker.”
“Did you report this to the police?”
“What’s between me and Kenny is private. No police.”
“You might have to change that game plan.”
Spiro’s eyes contracted and dulled and focused on mine. “Oh?”
“You remember the little incident yesterday concerning Mr. Loosey’s penis?”
“Yeah?”
“Kenny mailed it to me.”
“No shit?”
“It came Express Mail.”
“Where is it now?”
“The police have it. Morelli was there when I opened the package.”
“Fuck!” He kicked his wastebasket across the room. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.”
“I don’t know why you’re so upset about all this,” I cooed. “Seems to me this is crazy Kenny’s problem. I mean, after all, you didn’t do anything wrong.” Humor the jerk, I thought. See where he runs with it.
Spiro stopped raving and looked at me, and I imagined I heard the sound of little bitty gears meshing in his head. “That’s true,” he said. “I didn’t do anything wrong. I’m the victim here. Does Morelli know the package came from Kenny? Was there a note? A return address?”
“No note. No return address. Hard to say what Morelli knows.”
“You didn’t tell him it came from Kenny?”
“I have no real proof that it came from Kenny, but the thing clearly had been embalmed, so the police will be checking funeral parlors. I imagine they’ll want to know why you didn’t report the … um, theft.”
“Maybe I should just come clean. Tell the cops about how crazy Kenny is. Tell them about the finger and about my apartment.”
“What about Con? You coming clean to him too? Is he still in the hospital?”
“Came home today. Got a week of rehab, and then he’ll be back at work part-time.”
“He’s not going to be happy when he finds out his clients have been getting parts whacked off.”
“Tell me about it. I’ve heard enough of his ‘the body is holy’ crap to last me three lifetimes. I mean, what’s the big deal? It isn’t like Loosey was gonna use his dick.”
Spiro dropped into the padded executive chair behind the desk and slid into a slouch. The mask of civility dropped from his face, and his sallow skin tightened over slanted cheekbones and pinched across spiky teeth as he morphed into Rodent Man. Furtive, foul-breathed, evil-spirited. Impossible to tell if he’d been born the rodent, or if years of schoolyard taunts had shaped his soul to suit his face.
Spiro leaned forward. “You know how old Con is? Sixty-two. Anyone else would be thinking retirement, but not Constantine Stiva. I’ll be dead from natural causes, and Stiva’ll still be kissing ass. He’s like a snake with a heart rate of twelve. Pacing himself. Sucking formaldehyde like the elixir of life. Hanging on just to piss me off.
“Should have been cancer instead of a back injury. What the hell good is a back injury? You don’t die from a damn back injury.”
“I thought you and Con got along.”
“He drives me nuts. Him and his rules and goody-goody attitude. You should see him in the embalming room. Everything just so. You’d think it was a fucking shrine down there. Constantine Stiva at the altar of the fucking dead. You know what I think of the dead? I think they stink.”
“Why do you work here?”
“There’s money to be made, chicky. And I like money.”
I held myself tight in check to keep from physically recoiling. Here was the muck and slime of Spiro’s brain, spilling out of every orifice, dribbling down his corded neck onto his pristine white undertaker’s shirt. Butthead, all dressed up with no place to go. “Have you heard from Kenny since he broke into your apartment?”
“No.” Spiro turned broody. “Used to be we were friends. Him and Moogey and me used to do everything together. Then Kenny went into the army, and he got different. Thought he was smarter than the rest of us. Had all these big ideas.”
“Like what?”
“I can’t tell you, but they were big. Not that I couldn’t come up with ideas like that, but I’m busy with other stuff.”
“He include you in these big ideas? You make any money from them?”
“Sometimes he included me. You never knew with Kenny. He was slick. He’d hold out, and you never knew. He was like that with women. They all thought he was this cool guy.” Spiro’s lips pulled back in a smile. “Used to crack us up how he’d play the faithful-till-death-do-us-part boyfriend role and all the while he’d be porking everyone in sight. He could really sucker women in. Even when he smacked them around they kept coming back for more. You had to admire the guy, you know. He had something. I’ve seen him burn women with cigarettes and stick them with pins, and they’d still suck up to him.”
The cheeseburger slid in my stomach. I didn’t know who was more disgusting … Kenny for sticking pins in women, or Spiro for admiring him. “I should be moving along,” I said. “Got things to do.” Like maybe fumigating my mind after talking to Spiro.
“Wait a minute. I wanted to talk to you about security. You’re an expert in this kind of stuff, right?”
I wasn’t an expert at anything. “Right.”
“So, what should I do about Kenny? I was thinking about a bodyguard again. Just for at night. Someone to close up with me here, and make sure I got into my apartment okay. I figure I was lucky Kenny wasn’t waiting for me in my apartment.”
“You’re afraid of Kenny?”
“He’s like smoke. You can’t put your finger on him. He’s always in a shadow somewhere. He watches people. He plans things.” Our eyes locked. “You don’t know Kenny,” Spiro said. “Sometimes he’s a real fun guy, and sometimes the things he thinks are pure evil. Believe me, I’ve seen him in action, you don’t want to be on the receiving side of the evil.”
“I told you before … I’m not interested in guarding your body.”
He took a pack of twenties from his top desk drawer and counted them out. “Hundred dollars a night. All you have to do is get me into my apartment safe and sound. I’ll take it from there.”
Suddenly I saw the value of guarding Spiro. I’d be right there on the spot if Kenny actually did show up. I’d be in a position to wheedle information. And I could legally search through Spiro’s house every night. Okay, so along with all that I was selling out for the money, but hell, it could be worse. I could have sold out for fifty. “When do I start?”
“Tonight. I close up at ten. Get here five or ten minutes ahead.”
“Why me? Why don’t you get some big tough guy?”
Spiro put the money back in the drawer. “I’d look like a fag. This way people think you’re after my ass. Better for my image. Unless you keep wearing dresses like that. Then I might reconsider.”
Wonderful.
I left his office and caught sight of Morelli slouch
ed against the wall next to the front door, hands shoved in pants pockets, clearly pissed off. He spotted me, and his expression didn’t change, but the rise and fall of his chest picked up. I plastered a phony smile on my face and breezed across the lobby to him, whisking out the door before Spiro had a chance to see us together.
“I see you got my message,” I said when we reached the truck, turning up the wattage on the smile.
“Not only did you steal my truck, but you parked it illegally.”
“You park illegally all the time.”
“Only when it’s official police business, and I have no other choice … or when it’s raining.”
“I don’t know why you’re upset. You wanted me to talk to Spiro. So that’s what I did. I came here and talked to Spiro.”
“For starters, I had to flag down a blue-and-white to get a ride over here. And more important, I don’t like you running around on your own. I want you in eyesight until we nail Mancuso.”
“I’m touched you’re worried about my safety.”
“Safety hasn’t got much to do with it, Skippy. You have an uncanny knack for running into people you’re looking for, and you’re completely inept at taking them down. I don’t want you screwing up another encounter with Kenny. I want to make sure I’m around next time you stumble across him.”
I settled onto the seat with a sigh. When you’re right, you’re right. And Morelli was right. I wasn’t totally up to speed as a bounty hunter.
We were silent for the ride back to my apartment. I knew these streets like I knew my own hand. Half the time, I drove them unconsciously, suddenly realizing I was in my parking lot, wondering how the devil I’d gotten there. Tonight I paid closer attention. If Kenny was out there, I didn’t want to miss him. Spiro had said Kenny was like smoke, that he lived in the shadows. I told myself this was a romanticized vision. Kenny was your everyday sociopath who went sneaking around thinking he was God’s second cousin.
The wind had picked up, and clouds scudded overhead, periodically obliterating the sliver of moon. Morelli parked next to the Buick and cut the engine. He reached over and toyed with the collar on my jacket. “Do you have any plans for tonight?”
I told him about the bodyguard deal.
Morelli just stared at me. “How do you do it?” he asked. “How do you walk into this stuff? If you knew what you were doing, you’d be a real threat.”
“Guess I lead a charmed life.” I looked at my watch. It was 7:30, and Morelli was still working. “You put in long hours,” I said. “I thought cops clocked on in eight-hour shifts.”
“Vice is flexible. I work when I need to.”
“You have no life.”
He shrugged. “I like my job. When I need a break I take off for a weekend at the shore or a week in the Islands.”
This was pretty interesting. I’d never thought of Morelli as being an “Islands” person. “What do you do when you go to the Islands? What’s the appeal?”
“I like to dive.”
“And what about the shore? What do you do at the Jersey shore?”
Morelli grinned. “I hide under the boardwalk and abuse myself. Old habits die hard.”
I had a tough time visualizing Morelli diving off the coast of Martinique, but the thought of him abusing himself under the boardwalk was crystal clear. I could see him as a horny little eleven-year-old, hanging outside the Seaside bars, listening to the bands, eyeballing the women in their elastic tank tops and skimpy shorts. And later, crawling under the boardwalk with his cousin Mooch, the two of them whacking off together before they had to meet up with Uncle Manny and Aunt Florence for the ride back to the bungalow in Seaside Heights. Two years later he would have substituted his cousin Sue Ann Beale for his cousin Mooch, but the basic routine would be the same.
I pushed the truck door open and lurched out into the parking lot. The wind whistled around Morelli’s antennae and whipped at my skirt. My hair flew about my face in a frenzied explosion of tangled frizz.
I made an attempt to tame it in the elevator while Morelli looked on, calmly curious about my efforts to shove the mess into an elastic band I’d found in my jacket pocket. He stepped into the hall when the doors opened. Waited while I fumbled for the key.
“How scared is Spiro?” Morelli wanted to know.
“Scared enough to hire me to protect him.”
“Maybe it’s just a ploy to get you into his apartment.”
I stepped into the entrance hall, flipped the light switch, and shrugged out of my jacket. “It’s an expensive ploy.”
Morelli went straight to the TV and buzzed in ESPN. The Rangers’ blue jerseys blinked onto the screen. The Caps were at home in white. I watched a face-off before bobbing into the kitchen to check my answering machine.
There were two messages. The first from my mother, calling to say she heard First National had openings for tellers and that I should be sure to wash my hands if I touched Mr. Loosey. The second call was from Connie. Vinnie had gotten back from North Carolina and wanted me to stop in the office tomorrow. Pass on that one. Vinnie was worried about the Mancuso money. If I stopped in to see him, he’d yank Mancuso out from under me, and give it to someone with more experience.
I pushed the off button, grabbed a bag of blue corn chips from the cupboard, and snagged a couple beers from the refrigerator. I slouched next to Morelli on the couch, setting the corn chips between us. Ma and Pa on a Saturday night.
Halfway through the first period the phone rang.
“How’s it going?” the caller asked. “You and Joe doing it doggy style? I hear he likes that. You really are something. Doing both Spiro and Joe-boy.”
“Mancuso?”
“Just thought I’d call to see if you enjoyed your surprise package.”
“It was a real kick. What’s the point?”
“No point. Just having fun. I was watching when you opened it in the hall. Nice touch bringing the old lady into it. I like old ladies. You might say they’re my specialty. You’ll have to ask Joe about the things I do to old ladies. No wait, better yet, why don’t I show you firsthand?”
“You’re sick, Mancuso. You need help.”
“It’s your granny who’s gonna need help. Maybe you, too. Wouldn’t want you to feel left out. In the beginning I was pissed off. You kept bungling around in my business. Now I’m seeing this from a new angle. Now I think I could have a good time with you and Granny Halfwit. It’s always best when you have someone watching, waiting their turn.
“Maybe I could even get you to tell me about Spiro, and how he steals from his friends.”
“How do you know it wasn’t Moogey who stole from his friends?”
“Moogey didn’t know enough to steal from his friends.”
The disconnect clicked in my ear.
Morelli was standing beside me in the kitchen, beer bottle dangling from one hand, looking casual, but his eyes were still and hard.
“That was your cousin,” I said. “He was calling to see if I enjoyed my surprise package, and then he suggested he might have some fun with me and Grandma Mazur.”
I thought I was doing a pretty good imitation of the tough-as-nails bounty hunter, but the truth is I was shaking inside. I wasn’t going to ask Morelli what Kenny Mancuso did to old women. I didn’t want to know. And whatever it was, I didn’t want it done to Grandma Mazur.
I called my parents’ house to make sure Grandma Mazur was safe at home. Yes, she was watching television, my mother said. I assured her I’d washed my hands, and begged off on coming back for dessert.
I changed out of the dress into jeans and sneakers and a flannel shirt. I retrieved my .38 from the cookie jar, made sure it was loaded, and slipped it into my pocketbook.
When I came back to the living room Morelli was hand-feeding a corn chip to Rex.
“Looks to me like you’re dressed for action,” Morelli said. “I heard you lifting the lid on the cookie jar.”
“Mancuso made threatening sounds about my g
randmother.”
Morelli pulled the power on the Rangers. “He’s getting restless and frustrated, and he’s getting stupid. It was stupid to come after you in the mall. It was stupid of him to sneak into Stiva’s. And it was stupid to call you. Every time he does something like that he risks exposure. Kenny can be cunning when he’s on top of himself. When he loses it, he’s all ego and impulse.
“He’s feeling desperate because his gun deal got screwed up. He’s looking for a scapegoat, looking for someone to punish. Either he had a buyer who paid him some front money, or else he sold off a batch of shit before the bulk of it was stolen. My money’s on the buyer theory. I think he’s in a sweat because he can’t meet his contract and the front money’s been spent.”
“He thinks Spiro has the stuff.”
“These two would eat their young if you gave them the chance.”
I had my jacket in my hand when the phone rang again. It was Louie Moon.
“He was here,” Moon said. “Kenny Mancuso. He came back, and he cut Spiro.”
“Where’s Spiro now?”
“He’s at St. Francis. I took him there, and then I came back to see to things. You know, close up and all.”
Fifteen minutes later we were at St. Francis. Two uniforms, Vince Roman and a new guy I didn’t know, stood flatfooted, weighted to the earth by their gun belts, at the emergency room desk.
“What’s the deal?” Morelli asked.
“Took a statement from Stiva’s kid. Got slashed by your cousin.” Vince cut his eyes to the door behind the desk. “Got Spiro back there, stitching him up.”
“How bad?”
“Could have been worse. Guess Kenny tried to cut Spiro’s hand off, but the blade glanced off the rodent’s big gold ID bracelet. Wait’ll you see the bracelet. Right out of the Liberace collection.”
This got a chuckle out of Vince and his partner.
“Don’t suppose anyone tagged Kenny?”
“Kenny’s the wind.”
Spiro was sitting up on a hospital bed in the ER when we found him. There were two other people in the ER, and Spiro was separated from them by a privacy curtain partially pulled closed. His right arm was heavily bandaged from hand to forearm. His white shirt was blood-splattered, open at the neck. A blood-soaked necktie and kitchen towel had been tossed onto the floor beside the bed.
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