Plum Boxed Set 1, Books 1-3 Stephanie Plum Novels) (74 page)

“Shit,” Morelli said. “You did that on purpose.”

I smiled. Then he smiled.

It looked to me like his “gotcha” smile. Like the cat that just caught the canary. Like I’d been had…again.

Then he closed the space between us, took my face in his hands and kissed me.

The kisses got hotter, and I got hotter and Morelli got hotter. And pretty soon we were all so hot that we needed to get rid of some clothes.

We were half undressed when Morelli suggested we go upstairs.

“Hmmm,” I said with lowered eyelids. “What sort of a girl do you think I am?”

Morelli murmured his thoughts on the subject and removed my bra. His hand covered my bare breast, and his fingers played with the tip. “Do you like this?” he asked, gently rolling the nipple between thumb and forefinger.

I pressed my lips together to keep from sinking my teeth into his shoulder.

He tried another variation of the nipple roll. “How about this?”

Oh yeah. That too.

Morelli kissed me again, and next thing we were down on the linoleum floor fumbling with zippers and panty hose.

His finger traced a tiny circle on my silk-and-lace panties, directly over ground zero. My brain went numb, and my body said, YES!

Morelli moved lower and performed the same maneuver with the tip of his tongue, once again finding the perfect spot without benefit of treasure map or detailed instructions.

Now
this
was a superhero.

I was on the verge of singing the Hallelujah Chorus when something crashed outside the
kitchen window. Morelli picked his head up and listened. There were some scuffling sounds, and Morelli was on his feet, pulling his jeans on. He had his gun in his hand when he opened the back door.

I was right behind him, my shirt held together by a single button, my panty hose draped over a kitchen chair, my gun drawn. “What is it?” I asked.

He shook his head. “I don’t see anything.”

“Cats?”

“Maybe. The garbage is tipped over. Maybe it was my neighbor’s dog.”

I put a hand to the wall to steady myself. “Uh-oh,” I said.

“What uh-oh?”

“I don’t know how to break this to you, but the floor is moving. Either we’re having an earthquake, or else I’m drunk.”

“You only had three schnapps!”

“I’m not much of a drinker. And I didn’t have supper.”

My voice sounded like it was resonating from a tin can, far far away.

“Oh boy,” Morelli said. “How drunk are you?”

I blinked and squinted at him. He had four eyes. I hated when that happened. “You have four eyes.”

“That’s not a good sign.”

“Maybe I should go home now,” I said. Then I threw up.

I woke up with a blinding headache and my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. I was wearing a flannel nightshirt, which I dimly remembered crawling into. I was pretty sure I was alone at the time, although the evening was fuzzy from the third schnapps on.

What I clearly remembered was that a Morelli-induced orgasm had once again eluded me. And I was fairly certain Morelli hadn’t fared any better.

He’d done the responsible thing and had insisted I sober up some before I went home. We’d logged a couple miles in the cold air. He’d poured coffee into me, force-fed me scrambled eggs and toast, and then he’d driven me to my apartment building. He’d delivered me to my door, and I think he said good night before the nightshirt crawling-into.

I shuffled into the kitchen, got some coffee going and used it to wash down aspirin. I took a shower, drank a glass of orange juice, brushed my teeth three times. I took a peek at myself in the mirror and groaned. Black circles under bloodshot eyes, pasty hungover
skin. Not a nice picture. “Stephanie,” I said, “you’re no good at drinking.”

The headache disappeared at midmorning. By noon I was feeling almost human. I took myself into the kitchen and was standing in front of the refrigerator, staring at the crisper drawer, contemplating the creation of the universe, when the phone rang.

My first thought was that it might be Morelli. My second thought was that I definitely didn’t want to talk to him. Let the machine take the message, I decided.

“I know you’re there,” Morelli said. “You might as well answer. You’re going to have to talk to me sooner or later.”

Better later.

“I have news on Mo’s lawyer.”

I snatched at the phone. “Hello?”

“You’re going to love this one,” Morelli said.

I closed my eyes. I was having a bad premonition on the identity of the lawyer. “Don’t tell me.”

I could feel Morelli smiling at the other end of the line. “Dickie Orr.”

Dickie Orr. My ex-husband. The horse’s ass. This was a harpoon to the brain on a day when there was already impaired activity.

Dickie was a graduate of Newark Law. He
was with the firm Kreiner and Kreiner in the old Shuman Building, and what he lacked in talent, he compensated for in creative overbilling. He was acquiring a reputation for being a hotshot attorney. I was convinced this was due to his inflated pay schedule rather than his court record. People wanted to believe they got what they paid for.

“When did you learn this?”

“About ten minutes ago.”

“Is Mo turning himself in?”

“Thinking about it. Guess he’s hired himself a dealmaker.”

“He’s suspected of murdering eight men. What kind of a deal does he want? Lobster every Friday while he’s on death row?”

I got a box of Frosted Flakes from the kitchen cupboard and shoved some into my mouth.

“What are you eating?” Morelli wanted to know.

“Frosted Flakes.”

“That’s kid cereal.”

“So what does Mo want?”

“I don’t know. I’m going over to talk to Dickie. Maybe you’d like to tag along.”

I ate another fistful of cereal. “Is there a price?”

“There’s always a price. Meet you at the
coffee shop in the Shuman Building in half an hour.”

I considered the state of my hair. “I might be a few minutes late.”

“I’ll wait,” Morelli said.

I could make the Shuman Building in ten minutes if I got all the lights right. It would take at least twenty minutes to do hair and makeup. If I wore a hat I could forgo hair, and that would cut the time in half. I decided the hat was the way to go.

I hit the back door running with a few minutes to spare. I’d gone with taupe eye-liner, a bronze-tone blusher, natural lip gloss and lots of black mascara. The key ingredient to hangover makeup is green concealer for the under-eye bags, covered over with quality liquid foundation. I was wearing my Rangers ball cap, and a fringe of orange frizz framed my face. Orphan Annie, eat your heart out.

I paused for a light at Hamilton and Twelfth and noticed the Nissan was running rough at idle. Two blocks later it backfired and stalled. I coaxed it into the center of the city. Ffft, ffft, ffft, KAPOW! Ffft, ffft, ffft, KAPOW!

A Trans Am pulled up next to me at a light. The Trans Am was filled with high
school kids. One of them stuck his head out the passenger-side window.

“Hey lady,” he said. “Sounds like you got a fartmobile.”

I flipped him an Italian goodwill gesture and pulled the ball cap low on my forehead. When I found a parking space in front of the Shuman Building, I revved the engine, popped the clutch and backed into the parking slot at close to warp speed. The Nissan jumped the curb and rammed a meter. I gnashed my teeth together. Stephanie Plum, rabid woman. I got out and took a look. The meter was fine. The truck had a big dent in the rear bumper. Good. Now the back matched the front. The truck looked like someone had taken a giant pincers to it.

I stormed into the coffee shop, spotted Morelli and stomped over to him. I must have still looked rabid, because Morelli stiffened when he saw me and made one of those unconscious security gestures cops often acquire, surreptitiously feeling to see if their gun is in place.

I tossed my shoulder bag onto the floor and threw myself into the chair across from him.

“I swear I didn’t intentionally try to get you drunk,” Morelli said.

I squeezed my eyes shut. “Unh.”

“Well, okay, so I did,” he admitted. “But I didn’t mean to get you
that
drunk.”

“Take a number.”

He smiled. “You have other problems?”

“My car is possessed by the devil.”

“You should try my mechanic.”

“You have a good mechanic?”

“The best. Bucky Seidler. You remember him from high school?”

“He got suspended for letting a bunch of rats loose in the girls’ locker room.”

“Yeah. That’s Bucky.”

“He calm down any?”

“No. But he’s a hell of a mechanic.”

“I’ll think about it.”

Morelli thumbed through a stack of cards he kept in his wallet. “Here it is,” he said, passing the card over to me. “Mr. Fix It. You can keep the card.”

“Bucky Seidler, proprietor.”

“Yeah,” Morelli said. “And resident crazy man.”

I ordered a Coke and French fries. Morelli ordered a Coke and a cheeseburger.

When the waitress left I leaned my elbows on the table. “Do you think Mo could actually have something to bargain?”

“The rumor going around is that Mo is claiming he didn’t kill anybody.”

“Being an accomplice to murder is the same as pulling the trigger in Jersey.”

“If he was cooperative and had something vital to give us…” He made a palms-up “who knows” gesture with his hands.

The waitress set the plates on the Formica-topped table and returned with the drinks.

Morelli snitched one of my French fries. “What did you ever see in Dickie Orr?”

I’d asked myself that same question many times and never found a satisfactory answer. “He had a nice car,” I said.

Morelli’s mouth curved. “Seems like a sound basis for marriage.”

I poured ketchup on the fries and started working my way through them. “You ever think about getting married?”

“Sure.”

“Well?”

“It’s been my sad observation that cops don’t make wonderful husbands. In all good conscience, I’d have to marry someone I didn’t especially like, so I wouldn’t feel crummy about ruining her life.”

“So you’d marry someone like me?”

Morelli’s face creased into a broad smile.

“I hate to admit this, but I actually like you. You’re out of the race.”

“Jeez,” I said. “What a relief.”

“Tell me about Dickie.”

I drank half the Coke. “Is this the price?”

He nodded. “I’ve seen Orr in court. Don’t know him personally.”

“And what’s your opinion?”

“Gets a good haircut. Has lousy taste in ties. Big ego. Little dick.”

“You’re wrong about the dick.”

This earned me another smile.

“He cheats on everything from his taxes to his clients to his girlfriends,” I told Morelli.

“Anything else?”

“Probably doesn’t pay his parking tickets. Used to do some recreational coke. Not sure if he’s still into that. Did the deed with Mallory’s wife.”

Mallory was a uniform who was known for having a higher-than-normal incidence of accidental injuries on his arrest sheets. Uncooperative arrests had a habit of falling down entire flights of stairs while in Mallory’s care.

“You sure about Mallory’s wife?” Morelli asked.

“Heard it from Mary Lou, who heard it at the beauty parlor.”

“Then it must be true.”

“I suppose that’s the sort of stuff you were looking for?”

“It’ll do.”

Morelli finished his cheeseburger and Coke and threw a ten onto the table. “Order yourself a piece of pie. I’ll come back when I’m done with Dickie.”

I jumped from my seat. “You said you’d take me with you!”

“I lied.”

“Creep.”

“Sticks and stones…”

My indignation at being left behind had been mostly show. I hadn’t really expected to drag after Morelli when he talked to Dickie. Dickie wouldn’t have said anything in front of me.

I ordered coconut cake and decaf coffee. The room was emptying out from the lunch trade. I nursed the cake and the coffee for twenty minutes and paid the bill. There was no sign of Morelli, and I couldn’t imagine the confrontation with Dickie as being lengthy, so I thought Morelli might have left me hanging. Wouldn’t be the first time. I shrugged into my jacket, hitched my shoulder bag onto my shoulder and was going
out the door to the coffee shop when Morelli rounded the corner.

“Thought maybe I got stood up,” I said to Morelli.

“Had to wait for Dickie to get off a conference call.”

Wind gusted down the street, and we both ducked our heads against it.

“Learn anything?”

“Not much. No address or phone number for Mo. Says Mo calls him.”

“You find out what Mo has to trade?”

“Information.”

I raised my eyebrows.

“That’s all I can tell you,” Morelli said.

Morelli was screwing me over again. “Thanks for nothing.”

“It’s the best I can do.”

“Your best isn’t very good, is it?”

“Depends.” His eyes darkened. Bedroom eyes. “You thought I was pretty hot last night.”

“I was drunk.”

Morelli curled his fingers into my jacket collar and dragged me closer. “You wanted me bad.”

“It was a low point in my life.”

His lips skimmed mine. “How about now? Are you at a low point now?”

“I will never again be that low,” I said haughtily.

Morelli kissed me like he meant it and released my collar. “Got to get back to work,” he said. He crossed the street, angled into his 4x4 and drove off without looking back.

After a moment I realized my mouth was hanging open. I snapped my mouth shut, whipped out my cell phone and called Connie. I told her about Mo and Dickie, and I asked to talk to Lula.

“Hey girlfriend,” Lula said.

“Hey yourself. How’s it going?”

“It’s a little slow. It’s more than halfway through the day, and the body count is zip.”

“Got a job for you.”

“Oh boy. Here it comes.”

“Not to worry. It’s very tame. I want you to meet me at the entrance to the Shuman Building.”

“Now?”

“Now.”

Twenty minutes later we were in the elevator.

“What’s going on?” Lula wanted to know. “What are we doing here?”

I pushed the button for the third floor. “Mo’s hired himself an attorney. The attor
ney’s name is Dickie Orr, and we’re on our way to talk to him.”

“Okay, but why do you need me? Is this guy dangerous?”

“No. Dickie Orr isn’t dangerous. I’m the one who’s dangerous. Dickie Orr is my ex-husband, and your job is to keep me from strangling him.”

Lula made a low whistle. “This day’s just getting better and better.”

The offices of Kreiner and Kreiner were at the end of the hall. There were four names lettered in gold on the office door: Harvey Kreiner, Harvey Kreiner Jr., Steven Owen, Richard Orr.

“So why’d you part ways with this Dickie Orr person?” Lula asked.

“He’s a jerk.”

“Good enough for me,” she said. “I hate him already.”

When I was married to Dickie he worked for the district attorney. His career with them was only slightly longer than his career with me. Not enough money came out of either of us, I guess. And after I found him on the dining room table with Joyce Barnhardt I made enough noise to ruin whatever political aspirations he might have had. Our divorce was
everything a divorce should be…reeking of outrage, filled with loud and lurid accusations. The marriage had lasted less than a year, but the divorce would live on as legend in the burg. After the divorce, when lips loosened in my presence, I learned Dickie’s infidelity had stretched far beyond Joyce Barnhardt. During the short tenure of our marriage Dickie had managed to boff half the women in my high school yearbook.

The door with the names opened to a mini lobby with two couches and a coffee table and a modern receptionist desk, all done in pastels. California meets Trenton. The woman behind the desk was upscale help. Very sleek. Pastel dress. Ann Taylor from head to toe.

“Yes,” she said. “Can I help you?”

“I’d like to speak to Richard Orr.” Just in case the office was too swanky for a guy named Dickie. “Tell him Stephanie is here.”

The woman relayed the message and directed me to Dickie’s office. The door was open and Dickie stood at his desk when Lula and I appeared on his threshold.

His expression was mildly quizzical…which I knew as being expression number seven. Dickie used to practice expressions
in front of the mirror. How’s this? he’d ask me. Do I look sincere? Do I look appalled? Do I look surprised?

The office was a respectable size with a double window. A realtor would say it was “nicely appointed.” Which meant that Dickie had gone with baronial rather than
L.A. Law.
The carpet was a red Oriental. The desk was heavy mahogany antique. The two client chairs were burgundy leather with brass studs. Ultra masculine. The only thing missing was a wolfhound and some hunting trophies. The perfect office for a guy with a big stupid dick.

“This is Lula,” I said by way of introduction, approaching the desk. “Lula and I work together.”

Dickie inclined his head. “Lula.”

“Hunh,” Lula said.

“I have a few questions about Mo,” I said to Dickie. “For instance, when is he going to turn himself in?”

“That hasn’t been determined.”

“When it has been determined, I’d like to be informed. I’m working for Vinnie now, and Mo is in violation of his bond agreement.”

“Of course,” Dickie said. Which meant when cows fly.

I sat in one of his chairs and slouched back.

“I understand Mo is talking to the police. I’d like to know what he’s got to trade.”

“That would be privileged information,” Dickie said.

From the corner of my eye I could see Lula morphing into Rhino Woman.

“I hate secrets,” Lula said.

Dickie looked over at Lula, and then he looked back at me. “You’re kidding, right?”

I smiled. “About Mo’s deal…”

“I’m not talking about Mo’s deal. And you’re going to have to excuse me. I have a meeting in five minutes, and I need to prepare.”

“How about if I shoot him?” Lula said. “Bet if I shoot him in the foot he tells us everything.”

“Not here,” I said. “Too many people.”

Lula stuck her lower lip out in a pout. “You probably don’t want me to beat the crap out of him either.”

“Maybe later,” I said.

Lula leaned a hand on Dickie’s desk. “There’s things I can do to a man. You’d probably throw up if I told you about them.”

Dickie recoiled from Lula. “This is a joke, right?” He turned to me. “You hire her from Rent-a-thug?”

“Rent-a-thug?” Lula said, eyes big and
round. “Excuse me, you little dog turd. I’m a bounty hunter in training. I’m not no rent-a-thug. And I’m not no joke either. You’re the joke. You know the saying…go fuck yourself? I could make that a possibility for you.”

I was back on my feet, and I was smiling because Dickie had gone pale under his tanning-salon tan. “I guess we should go now,” I said. “This probably isn’t a good place to discuss business. Maybe we can get together another time and share information,” I said to Dickie.

Dickie’s expression was tight. Not one I’d seen him practice. “Are you threatening me?”

“Hell no,” Lula said. “Do we look like the kind of women who’d threaten a man? I don’t think so. I don’t think I’m the sort of woman looks like she’d threaten some pimple-ass motherfucker like you.”

I’m not sure what I’d expected to accomplish by meeting with Dickie, but I felt like I’d gotten my money’s worth.

When we were alone in the elevator I turned to Lula. “I think that went well.”

“Felt good to me,” she said. “We got any more parties to go to?”

“Nope.”

“Good deal. I got plans for the rest of the afternoon.”

I scooped my car keys out of my pocket. “Have fun. And thanks for riding shotgun.”

“See you later,” she said.

I drove one block and stopped for a light. The Nissan went into the backfire and stall routine. Stay calm, I told myself. Elevated blood pressure can lead to stroke. My aunt Eleanor’d had a stroke, and it wasn’t fun. She called everybody Tootsie and colored her hair with her lipstick.

I restarted the pickup and raced the engine. When the light changed I leaped forward on another backfire. KAPOW! I pulled Morelli’s card from my pocket and read the address. Mr. Fix It was on Eighteenth Street, just past the button factory.

“I’m giving you one last chance,” I said to the pickup. “Either you shape up, or I’m taking you to Bucky Seidler.”

A half a block later it stalled out again. I took it as a sign and made a U-turn. Morelli regularly lied to me, but never about a mechanic. Morelli took his mechanics seriously. I’d give Bucky one shot. If that didn’t work, I was going to drive the car off a bridge.

Fifteen minutes later I was chugging down Eighteenth Street, in a part of industrial Trenton that had left prosperity behind.
Bucky’s garage was a two-bay cinder block structure that sat like an island in a sea of cars. New cars, old cars, smashed cars, rusted cars, cars that had signed on for the vital organ donor program. The bay doors were open. A man in jeans and thermal undershirt stood under a car on the lift in the first bay. He looked out at me as I gasped to a stop on the macadam apron. He wiped his hands on a rag and walked over. He had a butch haircut and a keg of beer hanging over his belt. I hadn’t seen him in a while, but I was pretty sure it was Bucky. He looked like the sort of person who’d set rats loose on a bunch of women.

He peered in the window at me. “Stephanie Plum,” he said, smiling. “Haven’t seen you since high school.”

“I’m surprised you recognized me.”

“The orange hair threw me for a minute, but then I remembered you from the picture in the paper from when you burned down the funeral home.”

“I didn’t burn down the funeral home. It was a misprint.”

“Too bad,” Bucky said. “I thought it was cool. Sounds like you got a car problem.”

“It keeps stalling. Joe Morelli suggested I come here. He said you’re a good mechanic.”

“He gave you a pretty good recommendation, too. Read it on the bathroom wall of Mario’s Sub Shop over ten years ago, and I can still remember every word of it.”

“I have Mace in my shoulder bag.”

“Mostly what I care about is MasterCard.”

I sighed. “I’ve got that too.”

“Well,” Bucky said, “then let’s do business.”

I gave him the Nissan’s medical history.

Bucky had me run the engine while he looked under the hood.

“Okay,” he said. “Been here, done this.”

“Can you fix it?”

“Sure.”

“How long? How much?”

“Depends on parts.”

I’d heard this before.

He jerked his thumb at a bunch of junks lined up against a chain-link fence. “You could pick out one of those to use as a loaner if you want. I got a classic Buick that’s a beauty. A fifty-three.”

“NO!”

Rex was running on his wheel when I walked through the door. I’d stopped at the supermarket and gotten healthy food for Rex and me. Fruit, low-fat cottage cheese, potatoes and some of those already washed and
peeled thumb-sized carrots in a bag. I said howdy to Rex and gave him a grape. My message light was blinking, so I hit the button and listened while I unpacked the groceries.

Ranger called to say he’d heard about Mo and the lawyer, and that it didn’t change my job. It’s simple, Ranger said. You get hired to find a man and that’s what you do.

Message number two was from Bucky Seidler. “I was able to get the part I needed,” Bucky said into the machine. “I’ll put it in first thing in the morning. You can pick your car up anytime after ten.”

I bit into my lower lip. Lord, I hoped it wasn’t another carburetor.

The last call started out with a lot of noise. People talking, and the sort of clatter you hear at an arcade. Then a man came on the line. “I’m watching you, Stephanie,” the man said. “I’m watching you have lunch with your cop boyfriend. I was watching you last night, too. Watching you diddle on the kitchen floor. Good to see you decided to do something else besides harassing upstanding citizens. You keep concentrating on banging Morelli and maybe you’ll live to be an old lady.”

I stared at the machine, unable to breathe.
My chest was impossibly tight, and my ears were ringing. I leaned against the refrigerator and closed my eyes. Imagine you’re at the ocean, I thought. Hear the surf. Breathe with the surf, Stephanie.

When I got my heart rate under control, I rewound the tape and popped it out of the recorder. I took a blank from the junk drawer next to the refrigerator and slid it into the machine. It was a few minutes after five. I called Morelli to make sure he was home.

“’Lo,” Morelli said.

“You going to be there for a while?”

“Yeah. I just got in.”

“Don’t go away. I have something you need to hear. I’ll be right over.”

I dropped the tape into my shoulder bag, grabbed my jacket and locked up behind myself. I got down to the first floor and froze at the door. What if they were out there? Waiting for me. Spying on me. I took a few steps back and exhaled. This wasn’t good. It was okay to be afraid, but not okay to let it restrict my life. I moved away from the glass panes and checked my shoulder bag. I had the .38, and it was loaded. My cell phone was charged. My stun gun was charged. I transferred the pepper spray to my jacket pocket.
Not good enough. I took the spray out of my pocket and held it in my left hand. Car keys in my right.

I paced in the lobby for a few beats to get the fear under control. When I felt strong, I turned and walked out the door and across the lot to my car. I never broke stride. Never turned my head right or left. But I was listening. I was on the balls of my feet, and I was ready to act if I had to.

I’d chosen a green Mazda as a loaner. It was rusted and dented and reeked of cigarettes, but its performance couldn’t be faulted. I checked the interior, stuck the key in the lock, opened the door and slid behind the wheel. I locked the door, immediately cranked the engine over and rolled out of the lot.