Top Secret Twenty-One (28 page)

It was close to nine o’clock when I walked into Morelli’s house. He was on the couch watching television with Bob, and they both looked happy to see me. Then Morelli took a closer look, and his expression changed from happy to heartburn. Good thing he hadn’t seen me before the shower and clean clothes.

I dumped my messenger bag and clothes bag on the floor and squeezed in next to Morelli. “It looks worse than it is,” I said. “The important thing is that it ended well. Vlatko is gone and will never come back. And I’m here with you and Bob.”

“You have a monkey on your shirt,” Morelli said.

“I have a monkey on my everything. What happened today? Did I miss anything good?”

“Miriam Pepper had a few too many Manhattans for breakfast, and her bathrobe caught fire while she was attempting to scramble some eggs. She managed to get herself out of the bathrobe, but in the process she set her kitchen on fire and half her house burned down.”

“Is she okay?”

“Yeah, but here’s the good part. When the fire marshal went into the basement, he found bricks of high-grade Mexican marijuana stacked up like cordwood, plus some rocket launchers and stuff to make firebombs. They started to question Pepper, and he lawyered up. When they questioned Miriam, she said the marijuana was for personal use and medicinal purposes.”

“What about the rocket launchers?”

“She said they were used for family fun outings.”

“Did she say anything about Briggs?”

“Yeah. She said Silvio hated Briggs. Briggs was driving Silvio nuts with his nitpicking all the transportation expenses. And Silvio told Miriam that Briggs hums when he works. Briggs would come in to do the books, and he’d hum.”

“Pepper was trying to blow Briggs up for humming?”

“That’s one theory.”

“So let me get this straight. No one wanted to kill Briggs because he knew about Poletti’s money stash and about the cooked books. Everyone wanted to kill Briggs because he’s annoying.”

“That’s what we’re hearing.”

“It’s a real accomplishment to be
that
annoying.”

“I don’t buy it,” Morelli said. “There has to be more.”

“What about Scootch, Siglowski, Ritt, and Poletti? Do you have a lead on the shooter? I was going with Silvio Pepper.”

“The gun wasn’t found in Pepper’s house or office.”

“Too bad. That would have tied things up nice and neat.”

Morelli was long gone by the time I rolled out of bed. I had a bruise on my face and a Band-Aid on my neck. The cut on my lip was slightly swollen but not terrible. I made myself a peanut butter sandwich and washed it down with two cups of coffee. I slung the messenger bag over my shoulder, told Bob to be good, and went to the front door. There were two black SUVs at the curb and two Rangeman guys. One SUV was an Escalade, the other was a small Mercedes. I was handed the key to the Mercedes.

“Ranger wanted you to have this,” one of the men said.

I texted
Thank you
to Ranger and got behind the wheel. I had money to get another car, but this made my life instantly better. I was spending a fortune on gas for the Buick, and sourcing out a good used SUV would take time.

First stop was my apartment, to check on Briggs. I ran into Dillan, the super, in the hall.

“We’re painting on Friday, and your carpet is supposed to get installed the following Monday,” he said.

“That’s great,” I told him. “Thanks.”

I let myself into the apartment, and the dogs rushed over to me.

“Hey, look who’s here!” Briggs said. “It’s Aunt Stephanie.”

He was dressed in the tan suit, and it looked like he’d gotten a haircut.

“What’s with the suit?” I asked him.

“I have a job interview, so Nick let me keep it a while longer. What happened with the Russian guy?”

“The problem is solved.”

“I bet.”

“Dillan said the rugs are going in next Monday, so that means I’ll be able to move back in.”

“No problem. I got my new credit cards, and I got some insurance money, and my old apartment building gave me a good chunk of money as encouragement to live someplace else. So I’ll go apartment hunting after the job interview. My cousin Bruce is going to drive me around.”

“I’m only counting eight dogs,” I said to Briggs.

“Mrs. Brodsky on the first floor took one. And Mr. Grezbek down the hall took one.”

Someone hammered on my door, and I looked out the peephole at Oswald Poletti.

I opened the door, and Oswald slouched in. “Hey,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

“This is my apartment,” I told him.

“No shit? I thought this belonged to the little turd. What are you two, a couple or something?”

“He’s an acquaintance. I let him stay here because someone firebombed his apartment.”

“Yeah, that was me,” Oswald said. “I was trying to run him out of town so he wouldn’t ruin everything for Miriam. But then he moved here, so I shot off another rocket, only I didn’t count for wind and my aim was off. Sorry about the hole in the wall.”

Briggs and I were momentarily speechless.

“What about the two cars?” Briggs asked.

“I don’t know about two cars. I just shot a rocket into one
car. A Porsche. It was awesome. Freaking awesome. I got a freaking boner over it.”

“Miriam?” I finally said. “Are you talking about Miriam Pepper?”

“Yeah, she’s a real nice lady. She makes a bad Manhattan, man. I mean, they’re so bad you could drink until you pass out. And she’s got good Mexican dope too.”

“How do you know Miriam?”

“Her old man kept all the ammo for the shooting range in the Pine Barrens. Man, those were the days. I’d cart all the shit down there for him, and then we’d all get stoned and blow the shit up. Refrigerators, televisions, you name it and we blew it up.”

“Do you see the difference between blowing up a refrigerator and sending a rocket into an apartment?”

“What do you mean?”

“You could have killed someone.”

“It was just a refrigerator. There wasn’t no one in it.”

“I mean the apartment!”

“Yeah, but I thought it was
him
in the apartment. And anyway that didn’t work so I came over here to tell him to leave Miriam alone.”

“I don’t even know Miriam,” Briggs said. “Are you high?”

“Well, yeah,” Oswald said, smiling. “Of course I’m high. Miriam said you were going to ruin everything. She said nobody trusted you, and you were going to talk to the police, and that would be the end of the Manhattans and weed. So I said, ‘Don’t
worry, Miriam, I’ll take care of him.’ ” Oswald looked around. “I’m starving, man. You have any chips, or something?”

“I ate all the chips,” Briggs said.

“Then I guess I have to kill you,” Oswald said. “So what do you have? Weed? Demerol? M&M’s?”

“How about a puppy?” Briggs said. “You could give it to Miriam.”

“Where?”

“Here,” Briggs said, pointing to the Chihuahuas sitting at his feet. “Pick one. They’re up for adoption.”

“They look like rats with big ears.”

“Watch what you say about my dogs,” Briggs said. “They’re very sensitive.”

“Sorry, man. I wasn’t thinking.”

“Miriam probably doesn’t want a dog right now,” I said. “She sort of burned her house down.”

“Yeah, she’s like living in the garage,” Oswald said. “It’s got air-conditioning and everything, but the cops took all the weed and rockets. It’s like such a bummer.”

“Jeez, this has been a terrific conversation,” Briggs said, “but I have stuff to do. And don’t worry about Miriam. I won’t bother Miriam.”

“Do you need a ride?” I asked Oswald.

“No. I got a car. I’m sort of supposed to be at work, but the kitchen’s loose, being that nobody else’ll work the fry station.”

I pointed Oswald in the direction of the elevator and closed and locked the door behind him.

“Boy,” Briggs said, “I didn’t see that one coming.”

“There’s no limit to your unpopularity.”

I called Morelli and told him to pick Oswald up in connection with the firebombings.

“I have to run,” Briggs said. “Bruce is probably already out there, and I don’t want to be late for my interview. This would be a great job. Can you lock up for me?”

“Sure. Good luck.”

I watched Briggs run down the hall and get into the elevator, and then I turned to the dogs.

“Okay,” I said, “try not to vibrate too much until Briggs gets back. You don’t want to go into a seizure or anything.”

I stepped into the hall, closed and locked the door, took five steps, and the dogs started yipping. Considering they were such small dogs, the yipping was pretty loud.

I unlocked the door and stepped inside. “You can’t make noise like that,” I said to them. “The neighbors won’t like it.”

They all settled down and calmly stared up at me with their bug eyes.

“All right, then,” I said.

I moved into the hall and closed the door, and instant yipping! I jumped back into the apartment, got the dog biscuits from the cupboard, and threw a bunch of them at the Chihuahuas.

I ran out of the apartment, got almost to the elevator, and the yipping turned into yelping.

Damn!

Five minutes later, the dogs were leashed and in the back of
the Mercedes SUV. I drove to the office and brought the dogs in with me.

“What’s with the minions?” Lula asked.

“I’m babysitting.”

“Looks like you brought the little critters in a shiny new Mercedes,” Lula said. “We should take it to lunch.”

I looked at my watch. “It’s early for lunch.”

“Then we should take it to breakfast or brunch or whatever the hell. I woke up thinking about pizza. I don’t know what it is about the pizza at the pizza place in Buster’s building. I got a real craving for it.”

I TOOK LULA
across town and parked opposite Buster’s building.

“It isn’t even eleven o’clock and already there’s a line here,” Lula said. “Ordinarily I don’t do lines, but this is different. I bet I could eat a whole pie. What kind are you going to get?”

“I’m going to skip the pizza. I just had a peanut butter sandwich. I’ll wait here with the critters.”

Lula got into line, and I relaxed in Ranger’s Mercedes. Vlatko was out of the picture. Ranger was safe. I was wearing my own underwear. Life was good.

A Camaro with tinted windows parked on the other side of the street, two doors down from Buster. The driver got out, walked to Buster’s door, unlocked the door with a key, and let himself in. The man was stocky. Black hair, dark skin. T-shirt and jeans. Hoodie over the T-shirt. Odd, since it was almost eighty degrees. My first thought was that he was hiding a gun.
My second thought was that I needed a new life because lately I thought
everybody
was packing a gun, and I was usually right.

Lula hustled out of the pizza place with a big pizza box.

“Fresh out of the oven,” Lula said. “I had to pay extra for it because they said they were in a position where they had to pay extra for the herbs. Not that I care, because you know how important herbs are in pizza.”

She opened the lid and I looked at the pizza. It was spectacular.

“Maybe just one piece,” I said.

“Help yourself.”

I took a bite and sighed. “Yum.”

“You can say that again. This here’s my favorite pizza place of all time. It’s got something special about it. It must be those herbs.”

I looked at the pizza. Basil leaves, oregano, something else.

“You see these green things?” I asked Lula. “What are they?”

“Herbs.”

“Yes, but what kind?”

“I’m not actually up on my herbs,” Lula said.

I suspected it was weed. Anything this good had to be illegal. I picked them off my piece.

The dogs were restless in the back of the SUV.

“I’m going to walk the pack,” I said.

“You need help?”

“I’ll be fine. Briggs has been working with them, and they’re much better on the leash. Stay here and enjoy the pizza.”

I walked one block toward State Street and turned the
corner. I knew there was an empty lot with some scraggly grass halfway down the block. I got to the lot and commanded the dogs to tinkle. They didn’t look immediately motivated, so I walked them around a little on the grass and got most of them emptied out. I came back to the Mercedes and found a note on Lula’s seat.