Larry Skolnik worked in his father’s dry cleaning store on lower Hamilton. Larry was behind the counter when I walked into the store. He’d blimped up by about a hundred pounds since high school, but it wasn’t all bad news—his hands were message free. He was an okay person, but if I’d have to take a winger on his social life, I’d say he probably talked to his tie a lot.
He smiled when he saw me. “Hey.”
“Hey,” I said back.
“You got laundry here?”
“Nope. I came to see you. I wanted to ask you about Uncle Mo.”
“Moses Bedemier?” A flush crept into his cheeks. “What about him?”
Larry and I were alone in the store. No one else behind the counter. No one else in front of the counter. Just me and Larry and three hundred shirts.
I repeated the story Sue Ann had told me.
Larry fidgeted with a box of homeless shirt buttons that had been placed by the register. “I tried to tell people, but nobody believed me.”
“It’s true?”
More fidgeting. He chose a white pearl button and examined it more closely. He made a honking sound in his nose. His face flushed some more. “Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to honk.”
“That’s okay. A little stress-related honking never hurt anybody.”
“Well, I did it. The story is true,” Larry said. “And I’m proud of it. So there.”
If he said nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, I was going to smack him.
“I hung around the store a lot,” Larry said, looking down into the button box when he talked, poking at the buttons with his finger, making canals in the button collection. “And then when I was seventeen Mo gave me a job sweeping up and polishing the glass in the showcase. It was great. I mean, I was working for Uncle Mo. All the kids wanted a job working for Uncle Mo.
“The thing is, that’s how we got to sort of be buddies. And then one day he asked me to…um, you know. And I’d never done anything like that before, but I thought what the heck.”
He stopped talking and stared aimlessly at the buttons. I waited awhile but Larry just kept quietly looking at the buttons. And it occurred to me that maybe Larry wasn’t just weird. Maybe Larry wasn’t very smart.
“This is important to me,” I finally said. “I need to find Mo. I thought maybe you had some idea where he might be. I thought you might still be in touch.”
“Do you really think he killed all those people?”
“I’m not sure. I think he must have been involved.”
“I think so too,” Larry said. “And I have a theory. I don’t have it all put together. But maybe you can make something of it.” He forgot about the buttons and leaned forward on the counter. “One time I was paired up with a guy named Desmond, and we got to talking. Sort of one pro to another, if you know what I mean. And Desmond told me how Mo found him.
“See, it’s important that Mo can always be finding young guys, because that’s what Mo likes.”
By the time Larry finished telling me his theory I was just about dancing with excitement. I had a totally off-the-wall connection between Mo and the drug dealers. And I had renewed interest in the second-house idea. Mo had driven Larry to a house in the woods when he’d wanted Larry to do his thing.
There was no guarantee that Mo was still using the same house, but it was a place to start looking. Unfortunately, Larry had always gone to the house during evening hours, and even on a good day, Larry’s memory wasn’t top of the line. What he remembered was going south and then turning into a rural area.
I thanked Larry for his help and promised to come back with dry cleaning. I hopped into the truck and started it up. I wanted to talk to Vinnie, but Vinnie wouldn’t be in the office this early. That was okay. I’d visit the weak link in Mo’s chain while I waited for Vinnie.
I parked on the street, across from Lula’s apartment. All the row houses looked alike on this block, but Gail’s was easy to find. It was the one with the light on over the front stoop.
I went straight to the second floor and knocked on Gail’s door. She answered after the second series of knocks. Sleepy-eyed again. A doper.
“Yuh?” she said.
I introduced myself and asked if I could come in.
“Sure,” she said. Like who would care.
She sat on the edge of her bed. Hands folded in her lap, fingers occasionally escaping to pick at her skirt. The room was sparsely furnished. Clothes lay in heaps on the floor. A small wood table held a cache of groceries. A box of cereal, half a loaf of bread, peanut butter, a six-pack of Pepsi with two cans missing. A straight-backed chair had been pulled up to the table.
I took the chair for myself and edged it closer to Gail, so we could be friendly. “I need to talk to you about Harp.”
Gail grabbed a whole handful of skirt. “I don’t know nothin’.”
“I’m not a cop. This isn’t going to get you into trouble. This is just something I’ve got to know.”
“I already told you.”
It wouldn’t take much to wear Gail down. Life had already worn her down about as far as she could go. And if that wasn’t enough, she’d obviously gotten up early to do some pharmacological experimentation.
“What was the deal with Mo and Elliot? They did business together, didn’t they?”
“Yuh. But I didn’t have nothin’ to do with it. I wouldn’t be a party.”
It was almost noon when I got to the office.
Lula was shaking a chicken leg at Connie. “I’m telling you, you don’t know nothing about fried chicken. You Italians don’t have the right genes. You Italians only know about stuff with tomato paste on it.”
“You know what you are?” Connie said, pawing through the chicken bucket, settling on a breast. “You’re a racist bigot.”
Lula chewed off some of the leg meat. “I got a right to be. I’m a minority.”
“What? You think Italians aren’t minorities?”
“Not anymore. Italians were last year’s minorities. Time to move over, baby.”
I helped myself to a napkin and a mystery part. “Is Vinnie in?”
“Hey Vinnie,” Connie yelled. “Are you in? Stephanie’s here.”
Vinnie was immediately at the door. “This better be good news.”
“I want to know about Mo’s boyfriend. The one you saw in New Hope.”
“What about him?”
“How do you know they were lovers? Were they kissing? Were they holding hands?”
“No. They were excited. I don’t mean like they had a hard-on. I mean like they were charged. And they were looking at pictures of each other. And this other guy was as queer as a three-dollar bill.”
“Did you see the pictures?”
“No. I was across the room.”
“How do you know they were of Mo and his friend?”
“I guess I don’t, but I know they were dirty.”
“Must have been one of those psychic things,” Lula said. “Like the Great Carnac.”
“Hey,” Vinnie said. “I know dirty.”
No one would argue with that.
“Were you ever able to get a name?” I asked.
“No,” Vinnie said. “Nobody knows nothing about Mo. He must not go through the regular channels.”
“I need to talk to you in private,” I said to Vinnie, motioning him into his office, closing the door behind me. “I have a new network I want you to tap.”
Vinnie practically got drooly when I told him where I wanted him to look.
“That Mo!” he said. “Who would have thought?”
I left Vinnie to his task, and I borrowed Connie’s phone and dialed Morelli.
“What do you know from my two assailants?” I asked Morelli.
There was a pregnant pause. “We didn’t get anything from either of them. They got a lawyer, and they walked.”
I sensed there was more. “But?”
“But we did some background checks and came up with an interesting association. If I
tell you, you have to promise not to act on it.”
“Sure. I promise.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“This must be excellent.”
“I’m not telling you over the phone,” Morelli said. “Meet me at the luncheonette across from St. Francis.”
Morelli ordered a coffee and sandwich at the counter and carried it to the booth. “Been waiting long?”
“A couple minutes.”
Morelli ate some of his sandwich. “When I give you this information, you have to promise not to jump out of your seat and act on it. We have men in place. You barge in, and you’ll screw everything up.”
“If I stay away from the site will you promise to bring me in when Mo comes forward?”
“Yes.”
We locked eyes. We both knew he was lying. It wasn’t the sort of promise a cop could keep.
“If I’m not present when Mo is captured there’s no guarantee Vinnie will get his bond returned.”
“I’ll make every effort,” Morelli said. “I swear, I’ll do what I can.”
“Just so we have everything straight…I know this isn’t a gift. You wouldn’t be telling me this if I wasn’t already in line to get the information from another source.” Like Eddie Gazarra or the local paper.
“So I guess you’re not treating for dessert.”
“What have you got?”
“Both men belonged to the Montgomery Street Freedom Church.”
My first reaction was stunned silence. My second was a hoot of laughter. I clapped my hands. “The Montgomery Street Freedom Church! That’s perfect.”
Morelli ate the rest of his sandwich. “I knew you’d like it.”
“It’s a natural alliance. Mo wants to get rid of drug dealers, so he goes to the extremist Reverend Bill, and the two of them take vigilantism to a new level. Then, for reasons we aren’t sure of, Mo decides to bail out and turn evidence against the good reverend.”
Morelli finished his coffee and wiped his mouth with his napkin. “This is all speculation.”
And I could speculate one further. I could speculate that this wasn’t just about drug dealers.
“Well,” I said, “this has been nice, but I need to run. Places to go. People to see.”
Morelli wrapped his hand around my wrist and held my palm flat to the table, bringing us nose to nose. “Are you sure there isn’t something you want to tell me?”
“I heard Biggie Zaremba had a vasectomy.”
“I’m serious, Stephanie. I don’t want you messing with this.”
“Jesus, Joe, don’t you ever stop being a cop?”
“This has nothing to do with being a cop.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”
Another sigh, which sounded a lot like self-disgust. “I don’t know why I worry about you. God knows, you can take care of yourself.”
“It’s because you’re Italian. It’s chromosomal.”
“There’s no doubt in my mind,” Morelli said, releasing my wrist. “Be careful. Call me if you need help.”
“I’m going to go home and wash my hair.” I held my hand up. “I swear. Scout’s honor. Maybe I’ll go shopping.”
Morelli stood. “You’re hopeless. You were like this as a kid, too.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You were nuts. You’d do anything. You used to jump off your father’s garage, trying to fly.”
“Didn’t you ever try to fly?”
“No. Never. I knew I couldn’t fly.”
“That’s because from the day you were born, you had a one-track mind.”
Morelli grinned. “It’s true. My interests were narrow.”
“All you ever thought about was S-E-X. You tricked innocent little girls into your father’s garage, so you could look in their under-pants.”
“Life was a lot simpler back then. Now I have to get them drunk. And, let’s be truthful, you were hardly tricked. You practically knocked me over trying to get to the garage.”
“You said you were going to teach me to play choo-choo.”
The grin widened. “And I kept my word.”
The coffee shop door opened, and Vinnie cha-chaed in. Our eyes met, and Vinnie laughed his nasty little laugh and I knew he had something good for me.
CHAPTER 16
I left Morelli and pulled Vinnie outside the coffee shop, so we couldn’t be overheard.
“I got an address,” Vinnie said, still smiling, knowing his bond was close at hand, pleased to report on a fellow sexual deviant.
A rush of excitement shot from the soles of my feet clear to the roots of my hair. “Tell me!”
“I hit pay dirt with the first phone call. You were right. Moses Bedemier, everyone’s favorite uncle, makes dirty movies. Not the kind you can rent in a video store either. These are the real thing! Genuine underground, quality porn.
“He goes under the name M. Bed. And he specializes in discipline. According to my source, you want a good spanking flick, you look for an M. Bed movie.” Vinnie shook his head, grinning ear to ear. “I’m telling you the man is famous. He’s done a whole series of fraternity initiation films. He did Tits and Paddles, Gang Spank, Spanky Goes to College. Real collectors’ items. No holds barred. Lots of close-ups. Never fakes anything. That’s the difference between the commercial junk and the underground. The underground stuff is real.”
“Hold it down, Vinnie,” I said. “People are staring.”
Vinnie didn’t pay any attention. He was waving his hands, and spittle was forming in the corners of his mouth. “The guy is a genius. And his masterpiece is Bad Boy Bobby and the Schoolmarm. It’s a historical, done in period costume. It’s a classic. The best ruler-spanking scene recorded on film.”
I thought of Larry Skolnik with dropped drawers and a dunce cap and almost passed out.
“Once you set me in the right direction it was easy,” Vinnie said. “I got a friend in the business. Only he does stuff with dogs. He’s got a Great Dane that’s hung like a bull. And he’s got this dog trained to…”
I slapped my hands over my ears. “Ugh! Gross!”
“Well anyway,” Vinnie said. “I was able to find out where Mo makes his movies. This friend of mine uses some of the same actors and actresses as Mo. So he gave me this woman’s name. Bebe LaTouch. Heh, heh, heh. Says she’s the Dane’s favorite.”
I felt my upper lip involuntarily curl back and my sphincter muscle tighten.
Vinnie handed me a piece of paper with directions. “I called her up, and according to Bebe, Mo has a house south of here. Off in the woods. She didn’t know the address, but she knew how to get there.”
This corresponded with the information I’d received from Gail and Larry. Gail told me that Harp had done business with Mo at a location other than the store. She remembered the place because she’d ridden along once when Harp had delivered a “virgin actress.”
I took the directions and looked in at Morelli. He was picking at his potato chips and watching me through the door window. I gave him a finger wave and got into the pickup. I rolled the engine over and listened to the idle. Nice and even. No embarrassing backfires. No stalling.
“Thank you, Bucky,” I said. And thank God for doohickeys.
I took 206 South for several miles and cut off at White Horse, leading toward Yardville, dropping south again to Crosswicks. At Crosswicks I followed a winding two-lane road to an unmarked cross street where I stopped and checked my map. Everything seemed okay, so I continued on and after about five minutes hit Doyne. I turned right onto Doyne and checked my odometer. After two miles I started looking for a rusty black mailbox at the end of a dirt driveway. I’d passed one house when I’d first made my turn, but nothing now. It was wooded on either side of the road. If Mo was out here, he was well isolated.
At three and a half miles I saw the mailbox. I stopped and squinted through the bare trees at the clapboard bungalow at the end of the driveway. In the summer the bungalow wouldn’t be visible.
This was the winter, and I could clearly see the carport, and the house. There was a car in the carport, but I had no way of knowing if it belonged to Mo.
I eased down the road about a quarter mile and dialed Ranger’s cell phone.
Ranger answered on the fourth ring. “Yo.”
“Yo yourself,” I said. “I think I have a line on Mo. I’m staking out a bungalow south of Yardville. I need a backup for the takedown.”
“Give me directions.”
I gave the directions, tapped off on the cell phone and opened the small duffel bag I had on the seat beside me. I was wearing jeans and a turtleneck under my black leather jacket. I took the jacket off, zipped myself into a flak vest and put the jacket back on over the vest. The next item I took out of the duffel was a black nylon webbed gun belt with pouches to hold pepper spray and bludgeoning batons, not to mention my Smith & Wesson. I got out of the truck and strapped on the gun belt, filling the pouches, buckling in my gun. I adjusted the Velcro straps that held my .38 secure to my leg, tucked cuffs into the back of the belt and stuffed two spare nylon cuffs into my jacket pockets.
Now that I knew what Mo was up to I sort of wished I had rubber gloves, too.
I got back into the truck and cracked my knuckles, feeling nervous and stupid, all decked out like SWAT Princess.
I sat there until Ranger rolled to a stop behind me in the Bronco. I walked back to him and saw him smile.
“Looks like you’re serious.”
“People keep shooting at me.”
“That’s about as serious as it gets,” Ranger said.
He was already wearing his vest. He strapped on his gun belt while I explained the situation.
“This is your takedown,” he said. “Do you have a plan?”
“Drive in. Knock on the door. Arrest him.”
“You want the front or the back?”
“I want the front.”
“I’ll leave the Bronco here and circle around through the woods. Give me a couple minutes to get in place, then you do your thing.”
Plum Boxed Set 1, Books 1-3 Stephanie Plum Novels) Page 74