04 Four to Score (32 page)

Lula hoisted Maxine to her feet, and when she handed her over to Joyce, Joyce made a sound like “Ulk” and crumpled to the ground.

“Oops,” Lula said. “Another one of them dizzy spells.”

Helped along by a few volts from Lula's stun gun.

There was a medium-sized duffel bag on the backseat in Joyce's car. I searched through the bag and found the keys to the cuffs. I unlocked Mrs. Nowicki's cuffs and then Margie's cuffs. I stepped away. “You're on your own,” I told them. “I'm not authorized to arrest you, but Treasury is looking for you, and you'd be smart to turn yourselves in.”

“Yeah, sure,” Mrs. Nowicki said. “I'm gonna do that.”

Lula got Maxine to her feet and dusted her off, while Mrs. Nowicki and Margie shuffled uncomfortably on the side of the road.

“What about Maxie?” Margie asked. “Can't you let Maxie go, too?”

“Sorry. Maxine has to report back to the court.”

“Don't worry about it,” Maxine said to her mother and Margie. “It'll work out okay.”

“Don't feel right to leave you like this,” Mrs. Nowicki said.

“It's no big deal,” Maxine said. “I'll meet up with you after I get this straightened out.”

Mrs. Nowicki and Margie got into the blue Honda and drove away.

Joyce was still lying on the ground, but she'd started to twitch a little, and one of her eyes was open. I didn't want Joyce to get accosted while she was coming around, so Lula and I picked Joyce up and stuffed her into the Jeep. Then we took the Jeep keys and locked Joyce in, nice and snug and safe. The little red light was still flashing on the roof of her car, so chances were good that a cop would stop to investigate. Since the little red light was illegal, it was possible that Joyce might get arrested. But then, maybe not. Joyce was good at talking cops out of tickets.

*    *    *    *    *

MAXINE WASN'T FEELING TALKATIVE on the way to the station, and I suspected she was composing her story. She looked younger than she had in her photo. Less trampy. Maybe that's what happens when you tattoo out anger. Like breathing life back into a drown victim. In goes the good air, out comes the bad air. Or maybe it was the hundred-dollar haircut and color, and the seventy-five-dollar DKNY T-shirt. Maxine didn't look like she was hurting for money.

The Trenton Police Station is on North Clinton. The building is red brick and utilitarian. The parking lot is Brooklyn south . . . about an acre of secondrate blacktop surrounded by ten-foot-high chain-link fencing. The hope is that the fencing will prevent the theft of police cars, but there's no guarantee.

We pulled into the police lot and saw there were two cruisers backed up to the drop-off behind the building. Leo Glick was helped from one of the cars. He looked our way. His gaze was piercing and angry.

“No sense making a big scene,” I said to Lula. “We'll take Maxine in through the front so she doesn't have to deal with Leo.”

Sometimes, if court was in session, I could take my apprehension directly to the judge, but court was adjourned for the day, so I walked Maxine back to the docket lieutenant. I gave him my paperwork and handed Maxine over.

“I have a message for you,” he said. “Morelli called in about five minutes ago and left this number. Wants you to call him back. You can use the phone in the squad room.”

I made the call and waited for Morelli to come on the line.

“Since you're at the station I assume you brought Maxine in,” Morelli said.

“I always get my man.”

“That's a scary thought.”

“I was speaking professionally.”

“I need a rundown on what happened at the house here.”

I skipped over the part about using Kuntz's key to get into the house and told him the rest.

“How did you get to me so fast today?” I asked.

“I was back on surveillance at the Seven-Eleven.” There was a moment of silence between us when I could hear people talking in the background. “Kuntz is being cooperative,” Morelli said. “He's so pissed off he's willing to tell us anything we want to know. He said Maxine was on her way to the airport.”

“Yeah. I got her on Route One.”

“She alone?”

“Nope. ”

“I'm waiting,” Morelli said.

“Margie and Mrs. Nowicki were with her.”

“And?”

“And I let them go. I wasn't authorized to arrest them.” And I didn't especially want to see them caught. I had a hard time believing they were involved in the counterfeiting. For that matter, I hadn't especially wanted to bring Maxine in, either. What I suspected was that they'd extorted money from Leo and were on their way to the good life. This was really terrible, but something inside me wanted them to succeed.

“You should have told me right away. You knew I wanted to talk to Maxine's mother.”

Morelli was mad. He was using his cop voice.

“Anything else?” I asked.

“That's it for now.”

I stuck out my tongue at the phone and hung up. I was feeling very mature.

*    *    *    *    *

MY FATHER was slouched in his chair, watching baseball on television. My grandmother was asleep sitting up, head back on the couch, and my mother was next to her, crocheting. This was a nightly pattern, and there was comfort in the ritual. Even the house itself seemed to fall into a satisfied stupor when the dishes were done and the only sound was the drone of the ball game.

I was outside, on my parents' steps, doing nothing. I could have been doing something deep, like thinking about my life, or Mother Teresa's life, or life in general, but I couldn't get turned on by that. What turned me on right now was the luxury of doing nothing.

After I'd handed Maxine over, I'd gone to see my apartment and had been surprised to find repairs were already underway. I'd visited with Mrs. Karwatt and Mrs. Delgado, and then I'd gone back to Morelli's house and packed up my few possessions. The threat of danger was gone, and staying with Morelli now would have smacked of relationship. What was wrong was that there was no relationship. There was great sex and some genuine affection, but the future was too far in the future to feel comfortable. And on top of that, Morelli made me nuts. Morelli pushed all my buttons without even trying. Not to mention Grandma Bella. Not to mention all those Morelli sperms swimming upstream, trying to bash their way through the end of the condom. My eye started to twitch, and I put my finger to it. You see? That's what Morelli does to me . . . gives me an eye twitch.

Better to live with my parents than Morelli. If I could just make it through a few weeks with my parents, I could move back into my own apartment, and then my life will get back to normal. And then my eye will stop twitching.

It was almost ten, and there was no activity on the street. The air was still and dense. The temperature had dropped. There were a few stars overhead, struggling to shine through Trenton's light pollution, not having much luck with it.

Someone was bouncing a basketball blocks away. Air conditioners hummed, and a lone cricket chirped in the side yard.

I heard the whine of a motorcycle, and I thought there was a slim chance I knew the biker. The sound was mesmerizing. Not the thunder of a hog. This was the sound of a crotch rocket. The bike drew closer, and finally I saw the outline under the streetlight at the end of the block. It was a Ducati. All speed and agility and Italian sexiness. The perfect bike for Morelli.

He eased the Duc to the curb and removed his helmet. He was wearing jeans and boots and a black T-shirt, and he looked like the sort of man a woman had to worry about. He kicked the stand out and strolled over to me.

“Nice night to be sitting out,” he said.

I was reminded of the time I went to Girl Scout camp and sat too close to the fire and my boots started smoking.

“Thought you'd want to know how the interrogation went.”

I leaned forward, greedy with curiosity. Of course I wanted to know!

“It was a total bitchfest,” Morelli said. “I've never seen so many people so eager to incriminate themselves. It turns out that Leo Glick has a record a mile long. He grew up in Detroit, working for the Angio family. Was an enforcer. Twenty years ago he decided he was getting too old to do muscle work, so he apprenticed himself to a printer he met in prison. The printer, Joe Costa, had a set of really good plates. Leo spent three years with Costa, learning the business, and then one day Costa got dead. Leo doesn't know how this happened.”

I rolled my eyes.

“Yeah,” Morelli said. "That's what I think, too. Anyway, Leo and Betty left Detroit and moved to Trenton, and after a couple years they set up shop.

“Leo knew Nathan Russo from Detroit. Nathan was a bag man for the Angios. Leo got Nathan to relocate and launder for him. It was all pretty clever. Nathan runs a dry-cleaning business. Betty was the go-between, and she made all the exchanges in bundles of laundry. Very sanitary.”

“That's terrible.”

Morelli grinned.

“What about Maxine?” I asked.

"Maxine was in love with Kuntz, but Kuntz is a real asshole. Slaps women around. Maxine isn't the first. Abuses them in other ways, too. Kept telling Maxine she was stupid.

“So one day they have a real bad fight and Maxine takes off with Kuntz's car. Kuntz figures he'll show her, so he presses charges and has her arrested. Maxine gets out on bail and is berserk. She goes back to Kuntz and pretends to be lovey, but what she really wants is to get even. Kuntz has been bragging about what a big gangster he is and how he has this counterfeit operation going. Maxine goads him into showing her the plates, and Eddie, with his very small brain, goes next door when Leo and Betty are at the supermarket and gets the plates and the account book and a duffel bag of twenties. Then Maxine screws his brains out, sends him into the shower to get ready for round two, and takes off with everything.”

“Maxine is the shit.”

“Yes,” Morelli said. “Maxine is definitely the shit. In the beginning it was just supposed to be a revenge game. You know, make Kuntz sweat. Send him on a treasure hunt from hell. But Leo finds out about it and sets off to find Maxine, Detroit style. He interrogates Marge and Maxine's mother, and they don't know anything about anything.”

“Even after he encourages them to talk by slicing off a body part.”

"Yeah. Leo's not too good at character analyses. He doesn't know he can't get blood from a stone. Anyway, when Maxine finds out about the finger and the scalping, she's outraged, and she decides to cut her mother and Marge in and go for the gold.

“She's gone through the account books by now, so she knows she's dealing with Leo. She calls him up and gives him the terms. A million in real money for the plates and the account book.”

“Did Leo have that kind of money?”

“Apparently. Of course, Maxine's denying the extortion part of the story.”

“Where's the million?”

Morelli looked like he really liked this part. “Nobody knows. I think it's out of the country. It's possible the only charges that'll stick against anyone is the original auto theft and the failure to appear against Maxine. There isn't actually any proof of extortion.”

“What about kidnapping Eddie Kuntz?”

“No charges pressed. If you had 'pencil dick' tattooed all over your ass would you want to go public? Besides, most of those tattoos weren't permanent. The first night Eddie was kidnapped Maxine locked him in a room with a bottle of gin. He got stinking drunk and passed out and when he woke up he was Mr. Tattoo.”

I was looking at the Duc, and I was thinking that it was very cool and that if I had a Duc I'd really be the shit.

Morelli nudged my knee with his. “Want to go for a ride?”

Of course I wanted to go for a ride. I was dying to get my legs around those 109 horses and feel them wind out.

“Do I get to drive?” I asked.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“It's my bike.”

“If I had a Ducati, I'd let you drive.”

“If you had a Ducati you probably wouldn't talk to a lowlife like me.”

“Remember when I was six and you were eight, and you conned me into playing choo-choo in your father's garage?”

Morelli's eyes narrowed. “We aren't going to go through this again, are we?”

“I never got to be the train. You were always the train. I always had to be the tunnel.”

“I had better train equipment.”

“You owe me.”

“I was eight years old!”

“What about when I was sixteen, and you seduced me behind the éclair case at the bakery?”

“What about it?”

“I never got the top. I was only the bottom.”

“This is entirely different.”

“This is no different! This is the same thing!”

“Jesus,” Morelli said. “Just get on the damn bike.”

“You're going to let me drive, right?”

“Yeah, you're going to drive.”

I ran my hand over the bike. It was sleek and smooth and red. Morelli had a second helmet strapped to the backseat. He unhooked the cord and gave me the helmet. “Seems a shame to cover up all those pretty curls.”

I buckled on the helmet. “Too late for flattery.”

It had been a while since I'd driven a bike. I settled myself onto the Duc and looked things over.

Morelli took the seat behind me. “You know how to drive this, right?”

I revved the engine. “Right.”

“And you have a license?”

“Got a bike license when I was married to Dickie. I've kept it current.”

He held me at the waist. “This is going to even the score.”

“Not nearly.”

“Entirely,” he said. “In fact, this ride's going to be so good you're going to owe me when it's done.”

Oh boy.