11 Eleven On Top (3 page)

Morelli drives an SUV. He used to own a 4x4 truck, but he traded it in so Bob could ride around with him and be more comfortable. This isn't normal behavior for Morelli men. Morelli men are known for being charming but worthless drunks who rarely care about the comfort of their wife and kids, much less the dog. How Joe escaped the Morelli Man syndrome is a mystery. For a while he seemed destined to follow in his fathers footsteps, but somewhere in his late twenties, Joe stopped chasing women and fighting in bars and started working at being a good cop. He inherited his house from his Aunt Rose. He adopted Bob. And he decided, after years of hit-and-run sex, he was in love with me. Go figure that. Joseph Morelli with a house, a dog, a steady job, and an SUV.

And on odd days of the month he woke up wanting to marry me. It turns out I only want to marry him on even days of the month, so to date we've been spared commitment.

When I arrived at Morelli's house his SUV was parked curbside and Morelli and Bob were sitting on Morelli's tiny front porch. Usually Bob goes gonzo when he sees me, jumping around all smiley face. Today Bob was sitting there drooling, looking sad.

“What's with Bob?” I asked Morelli.

“I don't think he feels good. He was like this when I came home.”

Bob stood and hunched. “Gak,” Bob said. And he hacked up a sock and a lot of Bob slime. He looked down at the sock. And then he looked up at me. And then he got happy. He jumped around, doing his goofy dance. I gave him a hug and he wandered off, tail wagging, into the house.

“Guess we can go in now,” Morelli said. He got to his feet, slid his arm around my shoulders, and hugged me to him for a friendly kiss. He broke from the kiss and his eyes strayed to my car. “I don't suppose you'd want to tell me about the body damage?”

“Sledgehammer.” Of course.

“You're pretty calm about all this,” I said to him.

“I'm a calm kind of guy.”

“No, you're not. You go nuts over this stuff. You always yell when people go after me with a sledgehammer.”

“Yeah, but in the past you haven't liked that. I'm thinking if I start yelling it might screw up my chances of getting you naked. And I'm desperate. I really need to get you naked. Besides, you quit the bonds office, right? Maybe your life will settle down now. How'd the interview go?”

“I got the job. I start tomorrow.”

I was wearing a T-shirt and jeans. Morelli grinned down at me and slid his hands under my T-shirt. “We should celebrate.”

His hands felt nice against my skin, but I was starving and I didn't want to encourage any further celebrating until I got my pizza. He pulled me close and kissed his way up my neck. His lips moved to my ear and my temple and by the time he got to my mouth I was thinking the pizza could wait.

And then we heard it... the pizza delivery car coming down the street, stopping at the curb.

Morelli cut his eyes to the kid getting out of the car. “Maybe if we ignore him he'll go away.”

The steaming extra-large, extra cheese, green peppers, pepperoni pizza smell oozed from the box the kid was carrying. The smell rushed over the porch and into the house. Bob's toenails clattered on the polished wood hall floor as he took off from the kitchen and galloped for all he was worth at the kid.

Morelli stepped back from me and snagged Bob by the collar just as he was about to catapult himself off the porch.

“Ulk,” Bob said, stopping abruptly, tongue out, eyes bugged, feet off the ground.

“Minor setback with the celebration plan,” Morelli said.

“No rush,” I told him. “We have all night.”

Morelli's eyes got soft and dark and dreamy. Sort of the way Bob's eyes got when he ate Tastykake Butterscotch Krimpets and then someone rubbed his belly.

“All right,” Morelli said. “I like the way that sounds.”

Two minutes later, we were on the couch in Morelli's living room, watching the pregame show, eating pizza, and drinking beer.

“I heard you were working on the Barroni case,” I said to Morelli. “Having any luck with it?”

Morelli took a second piece of pizza. “I have a lot out on it. So far nothings come in.”

Michael Barroni mysteriously disappeared eight days ago. He was sixty-two years old and in good health when he vanished. He owned a nice house in the heart of the Burg on Roebling and a hardware store on the corner of Rudd and Liberty Street. He left behind a wife, two dogs, and three adult sons. One of the Barroni boys graduated with me, and one graduated two years earlier with Morelli.

There aren't a lot of secrets in the Burg and according to Burg gossip Michael Barroni didn't have a girlfriend, didn't play the numbers, and didn't have mob ties. His hardware store was running in the black. He didn't suffer from depression. He didn't do a lot of drinking, and he wasn't hooked on Levitra.

Barroni was last seen closing and locking the back door to the hardware store at the end of the day. He got into his car, drove away... and poof. No more Michael Barroni.

“Did you ever find Barroni's car?” I asked Morelli.

“No. No car. No body. No sign of struggle. He was alone when Sol Rosen saw him lock up and take off. Sol said he was putting out trash from his diner and he saw Barroni leave. He said Barroni looked normal. Maybe distracted. Sol said Barroni waved but didn't say anything.”

“Do you think it's a random crime? Barroni was in the wrong place at the wrong time?”

“No. Barroni lived four blocks from his store. Every day he went straight home from work. Four blocks through the Burg. If something had gone down on Barroni's usual route home someone would have heard or seen something. The day Barroni disappeared he went someplace else. He didn't take his usual route home.”

“Maybe he just got tired of it all. Maybe he started driving west and didn't stop until he got to Flagstaff.”

Morelli fed his pizza crust to Bob. "I'm going to tell you something that's just between us. We've had two other guys disappear on the exact same day as Barroni. They were both from Stark Street, and a missing person on Stark Street isn't big news, so no one's paid much attention. I ran across them when I checked Barroni's missing-person status.

“Both these guys owned their own businesses. They both locked up at the end of the day and were never seen again. One of the men was real stable. He had a wife and kids. He went to church. He ran a bar on Stark Street, but he was clean. The other guy, Benny Gorman, owned a garage. Probably a chump-change chop shop. He'd done time for armed robbery and grand theft auto. And two months ago he was charged with assault with a deadly weapon. Took a tire iron to a guy and almost killed him. He was supposed to go to trial last week but failed to appear. Ordinarily I'd say he skipped because of the charge but I'm not so sure on this one.”

“Did Vinnie bond Gorman out?”

“Yeah. I talked to Connie. She handed Gorman off to Ranger.”

“And you think the three guys are connected?”

A commercial came on and Morelli channel surfed through a bunch of stations. “Don't know. I just have a feeling. Its too strong a coincidence.”

I gave Bob the last piece of pizza and snuggled closer to Morelli.

“I have feelings about other things, too,” Morelli said, sliding an arm around my shoulders, his fingertips skimming along my neck and down my arm. “Would you like me to tell you about my other feelings?”

My toes curled in my shoes and I got warm in a bunch of private places. And that was the last we saw of the game.

Morelli is an early riser in many ways. I had a memory of him kissing my bare shoulder, whispering an obscene suggestion, and leaving the bed. He returned a short time later with his hair still damp from the shower. He kissed me again and wished me luck with my new job. And then he was gone... off on his mission to rid Trenton of bad guys.

It was still dark in Morelli's bedroom. The bed was warm and comfy. Bob was sprawled on Morelli's side of the bed, snuffling into Morelli's pillow. I burrowed under the quilt, and when I reawakened the sunlight was pouring into the room through a break in the curtain. I had a moment of absolute delicious satisfaction immediately followed by panic. According to the bedside clock it was nine o'clock. I was massively late for my first day at the button factory!

I scrambled out of bed, gathered my clothes up off the floor, and tugged them on. I didn't bother with makeup or hair. No time. I took the stairs at a run, grabbed my purse and my car keys, and bolted out of the house.

I skirted traffic as best I could, pulled into the button factory parking lot on two wheels, parked, jumped out of the car, and hit the pavement running.

The time was nine-thirty. I was an hour and a half late.

I took the stairs to save time and I was sweating by the time I skidded to a stop in Alizzi's office.

“You are late,” Alizzi said.

“Yes, but...”

He wagged his finger at me. “This is not a good thing. I told you that you must be on time. And look at you. You are in a T-shirt. If you are going to be late you should at least wear something that is revealing and shows me your breasts. You are fired. Go away.”

“No! Give me another chance. Just one more chance. If you give me another chance I'll wear something revealing tomorrow.”

“Will you perform a lewd act?”

“What kind of lewd act?”

“Something very, very, very lewd. There would have to be nakedness and body fluids.”

“Ick. No!”

“Well then, you are still fired.”

“That's horrible. I'm going to report you for sexual harassment.”

“It will only serve to enhance my reputation.”

Unh. Mental head slap.

“Okay. Fine,” I said. “I didn't want this job anyway.”

I turned on my heel and flounced out of Alizzi's office, down the stairs, through the lobby, and crossed the lot to my bashed-in, bullet-riddled, spray-painted car. I gave the door a vicious kick, wrenched it open, and slid behind the wheel. I punched Metallica into the sound system, cranked it up until the fillings in my teeth were vibrating, and motored across town.

By the time I got to Hamilton I was feeling pretty decent. I had the whole day to myself. True, I wasn't making any money, but there was always tomorrow, right? I stopped at Tasty Pastry, bought a bag of doughnuts, and drove three blocks into the Burg to Mary Lou Stankovic's house. Mary Lou was my best friend all through school. She's married now and has a bunch of kids. We're still friends but our paths don't cross as much as they used to.

I walked an obstacle course from my car to Mary Lou's front door, around bikes, dismembered action figures, soccer balls, remote-control cars, beheaded Barbie dolls, and plastic guns that looked frighteningly real.

“Omigod,” Mary Lou said when she opened the door. “It's the angel of mercy. Are those doughnuts?”

“Do you need some?”

“I need a new life, but I'll make do with doughnuts.”

I handed the doughnuts off to Mary Lou and followed her into the kitchen. “You have a good life. You like your life.”

“Not today. I have three kids home sick with colds. The dog has diarrhea. And I think there was a hole in the condom we used last night.”

“Aren't you on the pill?”

“Gives me water retention.”

I could hear the kids in the living room, coughing at the television, whining at each other. Mary Lou's kids were cute when they were asleep and for the first fifteen minutes after they'd had a bath. All other times the kids were a screaming advertisement for birth control. It wasn't that they were bad kids. Okay, so they dismembered every doll that came through the door, but they hadn't yet barbecued the dog. That was a good sign, right? It was more that Mary Lou's kids had an excess of energy. Mary Lou said it came from the Stankovic side of the family. I thought it might be coming from the bakery. That's where I got my energy.

Mary Lou opened the doughnut bag and the kids came rushing into the kitchen.

“They can hear a bakery bag crinkle a mile away,” Mary Lou said.

I'd brought four doughnuts so we gave one to each kid and Mary Lou and I shared a doughnut over coffee.

“What's new?” Mary Lou wanted to know.

“I quit my job at the bonds office.”

“Any special reason?”

“No. My reasoning was sort of vague. I got a job at the button factory, but I spent the night with Joe to celebrate and then I overslept this morning and was late for my first day and got fired.”

Mary Lou took a sip of coffee and waggled her eyebrows at me. “Was it worth it?”

I took a moment to consider. “Yeah.”

Mary Lou gave her head a small shake. “He's been making trouble worthwhile for you since you were five years old. I don't know why you don't marry him.”

My reasoning was sort of vague on that one, too.

It was late morning when I left Mary Lou. I cut over two blocks to High Street and parked in front of my parents' house. It was a small house on a small lot. It had three bedrooms and bath up and a living room, dining room, kitchen down. It shared a common wall with a mirror image owned by Mabel Markowitz. Mabel was old beyond imagining. Her husband had passed on and her kids were off on their own, so she lived alone in the house, baking coffee cakes and watching television. Her half of the house is painted lime green because the paint had been on clearance when she'd needed it. My parents' house is painted Gulden mustard yellow and dark brown. I'm not sure which house is worse. In the fall my mom puts pumpkins on the front porch and it all seems to work. In the spring the paint scheme is depressing as hell.

Since it was the end of September, the pumpkins were on display and a cardboard witch on a broomstick was stuck to the front door. Halloween was just four weeks away, and the Burg is big on holidays.

Grandma Mazur was at the front door when I set foot on the porch. Grandma moved in with my parents when my Grandpa Mazur got a hot pass to heaven compliments of more than a half century of bacon fat and butter cookies.

“We heard you quit your job,” Grandma said. “We've been calling and calling, but you haven't been answering your phone. I need to know the details. I got a beauty parlor appointment this afternoon and I gotta get the story straight.”