High Five

13

MORELLI LEANED BACK against the counter and folded his arms. "Somehow it came to light that there was a discrepancy between how much money Vito Grizolli's cleaning business was taking in and how much was reported for income tax purposes."

"Gee, what a surprise."

"Yeah. Well, the Feds decided they wanted to nail him on it, so they started to do their thing, and it soon became pretty obvious that Vito, in fact, is losing money he has no knowledge of."

"Someone is skimming Vito?"

Morelli started to laugh. "Can you believe it?"

"Man, there's a lot of that going on."

"Enough to make it worthwhile for Treasury to deal with Vito so they can maybe get a bigger fish."

"Like what kind of a bigger fish?"

Morelli shrugged. "Don't know. The two brain surgeons I'm working with think it's some new crime organization."

"What do you think?"

"Until you showed me the checks, I thought it was just some guy with a death wish trying to pay off his mortgage. Now I'm not sure what I think, but a new crime organization feels far out there. I don't see any other signs of a new organization."

"Maybe it's just coincidence."

"I don't think so. There are too many things adding up. Three companies involved so far. Three accounts-receivable clerks have died. Another is missing. Fred is missing. Someone set a bomb to your car."

"How about the bank? Were Vito's missing accounts processed through First Trenton?"

"Yes. It'd be helpful to pull some records, but we'd run the risk of alerting whoever is involved that there's an investigation going on.

"It turns out, RGC had also been flagged for possible tax evasion. The RGC stands for Ruben, Grizolli, and Cotell. I knew Grizolli was part owner, but I didn't know there'd been any irregularities. My Treasury contacts didn't tell me that part."

"You're working as a team, and they didn't tell you about RGC?"

"You don't know these guys. Real hot dogs. And they don't like being coupled with local law enforcement."

I smiled at him.

"Yeah, I know," he said. "Sounds like I'm describing myself. Anyway, Bronfman, the guy you know as Bunchy, was doing surveillance at RGC, looking to see who went in and out. He was sitting in the café across the street the Friday that Fred disappeared. I guess Fred had wanted to get an early start, but he got to RGC before the office opened, so he went across the street for coffee. Bronfman and Fred got to talking and Bronfman realized Fred was one of the nonrecorded accounts. The following Tuesday, Bronfman got to thinking it might be helpful to get a canceled check from Fred, one way or another, went to talk to Fred, and discovered Fred was missing.

"When Mabel told him you were on the case, Bronfman decided he could use you to front for him. You could poke around and ask questions, and it wasn't as likely anyone would run for the hills. Didn't turn out exactly as he'd planned, because he hadn't counted on your ornery, suspicious nature."

"I didn't tell him much."

"No. His efforts got him zero. That's the good part." Morelli locked eyes with me. "Now that you know what's going on, you're going to tell me what you have, though, right?"

"Sure." Maybe.

"Christ," Morelli said.

"Hey, I might tell you something."

"I'm sorry, I didn't have enough pieces to put this together sooner."

"Part my fault," I said.

"Yeah, part your fault. You're not talking to me enough. Part my fault, too."

"What's your role with Treasury?"

"Tito wouldn't talk to them directly. Said he'd only deal with someone he knew. And I guess he feels protected when information goes through a couple of sources. Makes it easier to deny. So Vito talks to Terry, and Terry talks to me, and I talk to Frick and Frack."

"Who are you watching?"

Morelli flipped the kitchen light off. "Vito's accounts-receivable person. Harvey Tipp."

"You better be watching him close. Harvey's life expectancy might not be too good."

* * * * *

MORELLI DROPPED ME off on his way to relieve Bronfman.

"Thanks for the ride," I told Morelli.

He snagged my collar as I turned to leave. "We have an agreement," he said. "And you owe me."

"Now?"

"Later."

"How much later?"

"To be determined," Morelli said. "I just don't want you to forget."

Not much chance of that.

Briggs was working when I got upstairs. "You keep long hours," I said.

"I've got to get this project done. I lost a lot of ground when my apartment got burglarized. I was lucky I had my laptop in the closet in the bedroom, and they missed it. I had most of my work backed up on the laptop, so it wasn't a total disaster."

* * * * *

I WOKE UP at four and couldn't get back to sleep. I lay there for an hour, listening for sounds on my fire escape, planning my escape should someone toss a fire bomb through my bedroom window. Finally I gave up and tiptoed into the kitchen for a snack. I had so many things to worry about I could barely sort through them. Fred was last on the list. Morelli collecting on what was owed was closer to the top.

Briggs padded in after me. "Spooked again?"

"Yeah. Too much on my mind. I can't sleep." I looked down at him. He was wearing Winnie-the-Pooh pajamas. "Nice jammies," I said.

"I have a hard time finding things that fit. When I want to really impress the ladies I wear Spider-Man."

"Is it hard being a little person?"

"Has its ups and downs. I get a lot of perks because people think I'm cute. And I try to take advantage of my minority status."

"I noticed."

"Hey," Briggs said, "you gotta use what God gave you."

"True."

"So, you want to do something? You want to play Monopoly?"

"Okay, but I want to be the shoe."

We were still playing at seven o'clock, when the phone rang.

"I'm in your parking lot," Ranger said. "Do you want to come down, or do you want me to come up?"

"Why are you calling? You always just break in."

"I didn't want to take a chance on scaring the hell out of you and getting shot."

"Good thinking. What's the occasion?"

"Wheels, Babe."

I went to the window, pulled the curtain aside, and looked down at Ranger. He was standing alongside a black BMW.

"I'll be right down," I said to Ranger. "Give me a minute to get dressed."

I pulled on a pair of jeans, shoved my feet into ratty sneakers, and covered my flannel nightshirt with an oversized gray sweatshirt. I grabbed my keys and took off for the stairs.

"Looking a little scary, Babe," Ranger said when he saw me.

"A friend of mine suggested this look could be a new concept in birth control."

"It's not that scary."

I smoothed an imaginary wrinkle from my sweatshirt and closely examined a speck of lint on my sleeve. I looked up and found Ranger smiling.

"The ball's in your court," Ranger said. "Let me know when you're ready."

"For the car?"

He smiled.

"Are you sure you want to give me another car?"

"This one's equipped with sensors on the undercarriage." He held a small remote. "Push the green button to set the sensors. If there's motion under the car the alarm sounds and the red light on the dash stays lit. Unfortunately, the car doesn't know the difference between a cat, a baseball, and a bomb, so if the light is flashing you have to do some investigating. Not perfect, but better than stepping on the accelerator and being turned into confetti. Probably it's not necessary. It's unlikely someone would try to blow you up twice." He handed the remote over to me and explained the rest of the security system.

"Just like James Bond," I said.

"You have plans for the day?"

"I need to call Morelli and see if the guy who delayed me at RGC, Mark Stemper, turned up. Then I suppose I'll do my rounds. Visit Mabel. Check in at the office. Harass the garbage people." Keep my eyes peeled for Ramirez. Have my head examined.

"Somebody out there's feeling real cranky because you're not dead. You might want to wear your vest."

I watched him drive away, and before I went into the building I armed the car. I finished up the game with Briggs, took a shower, shook my head with the hopes it would style my hair, and applied mascara so people would notice my eyes and not pay too close attention to the rest of me.

I scrambled an egg and ate it with a glass of orange juice and a multivitamin. A healthy breakfast to start the day off right—just in case I lived through the morning.

I decided Ranger might have a good idea about the vest. It made me sort of flat-chested, but then, what didn't? I was wearing jeans and boots and a T-shirt with the vest Velcroed tight to my body. I buttoned a navy flannel shirt over the vest and thought it didn't look too bad.

There were no bomb alert lights flashing when I got to the car, so I slid behind the wheel feeling secure. My parents' house was first on the visitation list. I thought it wouldn't hurt to have a cup of coffee and catch up on the latest rumors.

Grandma appeared at the door the minute I swerved in to the curb. "Boy, that's a pip of a car," she said, watching me angle out and set the security system. "What kind of car is it?"

"It's a BMW."

"We just read in the paper where you had a Porsche, and it got blown up. Your mother's in the bathroom taking an aspirin."

I ran up the porch stairs two at a time. "It was in the paper?"

"Yeah, only they didn't have a picture of you, like usual. They just had a picture of the car. Boy, it looked flat as a pancake."

Great. "Did they say anything else?"

"They called you the Bombshell Bounty Hunter."

Maybe I needed an aspirin too. I dropped my shoulder bag on a kitchen chair and reached for the paper on the table. Oh, God, it was on the front page.

"The paper said the police were pretty sure it was a bomb," Grandma said. "Only after the garbage truck fell on the car I guess they had a hard time figuring out what was what."

My mother came into the kitchen. "Whose car is that parked in front of our house?"

"That's Stephanie's new car," Grandma said. "Isn't it a pip?"

One of my mother's eyebrows raised in question. "Two new cars? Where are these cars coming from?"

"Company cars," I said.

"Oh?"

"Anal sex is not involved," I told her.

My mother and grandmother both gasped.

"Sorry," I said. "It just slipped out."

"I thought only homosexual men did anal sex," Grandma said.

"Anybody with an anus can do it," I told her.

"Hmm," she said. "I got one of them."

I poured a cup of coffee and sat at the table. "So what's new?"

Grandma got coffee and sat across from me. "Harriet Mullen had a baby boy. They had to do a C-section on her at the last minute, but everything turned out okay. And Mickey Szajak died. Guess it was about time."

"Are you hearing anything these days about Vito Grizolli?"

"I saw him at the meat market last week, and I thought he'd put on some weight."

"How's he doing financially?"

"I hear he's making big money on that cleaning business. And I saw Vivien driving a new Buick."

Vivien was Vito's wife. She was sixty-five, wore fake eyelashes, and dyed her hair bright red because that's the way Vito liked it. Anyone who voiced a critical opinion got fitted with cement booties and accidentally took a dive into the Delaware River.

"I don't suppose there are any rumors going around about First Trenton."

My mother and grandmother both looked up from their coffee.

"The bank?" my mother asked. "Why do you want to know about the bank?"

"I don't know. Fred had an account there. I was just fishing."

Grandma stared at my chest. "You look different. Are you wearing one of them sports brassieres?" She looked more closely. "Hot dog. I know what it is. You're wearing a bulletproof vest. Ellen, look at this," she said to my mother. "Stephanie's wearing a bulletproof vest. Isn't that something?"

My mother's face had turned white. "Why me?" she said.

NEXT STOP WAS Mabel's house.

Mabel opened the door and smiled. "Stephanie, how nice to see you, dear. Would you like tea?"

"I can't stay," I said. "I just wanted to stop around and see how you were doing."

"Isn't that sweet of you. I'm doing peachy. I think I've decided on a trip to Bermuda."

I picked a brochure off the coffee table. "Singles cruises for seniors?"

"They have some very good rates."

"Anything happen that I should know about? Like, have you heard from Fred?"

"I haven't heard a word from Fred. I suppose he's dead."

Boy, don't get all broken up over it. "It's only been two weeks," I said. "He could still turn up."

Mabel slid a longing look at the brochures. "I suppose that's true."

Ten minutes later I was at the office.

"Hey, girlfriend," Lula said. "Did you see the paper this morning? You got a big spread. And not that I'm bummed or anything, but I didn't even get a mention. And I didn't get a cool name like Bombshell Bounty Hunter either. Hell, I could bombshell your ass off."

"I know that," I said. "And that's why I was wondering if you wanted to ride along with me again today?"

"I don't know. What kind of car are you driving? You back to driving that Buick?"

"Actually, I have a Beemer."

Lula rushed to the front window and looked out. "Damn skippy. Way to go."

Vinnie stuck his head out of his office doorway. "What's going on?"

"Stephanie got a new car," Lula said. "That's it at the curb."

"Anybody hear about anything funny going on at First Trenton?" I asked. "Anybody shady work there?"

"You should ask the little guy we talked to yesterday," Lula said. "I can't remember his name, but he seemed like a nice guy. You don't think he's shady, do you?"

"Hard to tell who's shady," I said to Lula. Actually, I thought shady would be a step up for Shempsky.

"Where'd you get the car?" Vinnie asked.

"It's a company car. I'm working with Ranger."

Vinnie's face creased into a big, oily smile. "Ranger gave you a car? Hah! What kind of work you doing? Gotta be good to get a car like that."

"Maybe you should ask Ranger," I said.

"Yeah, sure, when I don't want to live anymore."

"Any new FTAs come in?" I asked Connie.

"We got two in yesterday, but they're chump change. I wasn't sure you wanted to be bothered with them. Seems like you've got a lot on your plate right now."

"What's the profile?"

"A shoplifter and a wife beater."

"We'll take the wife beater," Lula said. "We don't allow no wife beaters to just walk away. We like to give the wife beaters personal attention."

I took the file from Connie and sifted through it. Kenyon Lally. Age twenty-eight. Unemployed. Long history of spousal abuse. Two DUI convictions. Living in the projects. No mention of Kenyon shooting any previous bounty hunters.

"Okay," I said, "we'll take this one."

"Oh boy," Lula said. "I'm gonna squash this guy like a roach."

"No. No, no, no, no, no roach squashing. No unnecessary force."

"Sure," Lula said. "I know that. But we could use necessary force, right?"

"Necessary force won't be necessary."

"Just don't beat the crap out of him like you did with the computer nerd," Vinnie said. "I keep telling you, kick them in the kidney where it don't show."

"Must be scary being related to him," Lula said, looking over at Vinnie.

Connie filled in my authorization to apprehend and gave the file back to me. I dropped it into my bag and hiked my bag higher on my shoulder. "Later."

"Later," Connie said. "And watch out for garbage trucks."

I beeped the alarm off, and Lula and I got in the Beemer.

"This is cushy," Lula said. "Big woman like me needs a car like this. I sure would like to know where Ranger gets all these cars. See that little silver strip with the numbers on it. That's your registration number. So theoretically this car isn't even stolen."

"Theoretically." Ranger probably had those strips made by the gross. I punched Morelli's number into the car phone and after six rings I got his answering machine. I left a message and tried his pager.

"Not that it's any of my business," Lula said, "but what's going on with you and Morelli? I thought that was over with you two when you moved out."

"It's complicated."

"Your problem is you keep getting involved with men who have lots of potential in bed and no potential at the altar."

"I'm thinking of giving men up altogether," I said. "Celibacy isn't so bad. You don't have to worry about shaving your legs."

The phone rang, and I answered it on the speakerphone.

"What number is this?" Morelli wanted to know.

"It's my new car phone number."

"In the Buick?"

"No. Ranger gave me another car."

Silence.

"What kind of car is it this time?" he finally asked.

"Beemer."

"Has it got a registration number on it?"

"Yes."

"Is it fake?"

I shrugged. "It doesn't look fake."

"That'll go far in court."

"Have you heard anything about Mark Stemper?"

"No. I think he's probably playing rummy with your uncle Fred."

"How about Laura Lipinski?"

"Disappeared off the face of the earth. Left home the Thursday before your uncle disappeared."

Perfect timing to get stuffed into a garbage bag. "Thanks. That's all I wanted. Over and out."

I pulled into the Grand Union parking lot and drove to the end of the mall where the bank was located. I parked at a safe distance from other cars, exited the BMW, and set the alarm.

"You want me to stay with the car in case someone's riding around with a bomb in his backseat looking for a place to put it?" Lula asked.

"Not necessary. Ranger says the car has sensors."

"Ranger give you a car with bomb sensors? The head of the CIA don't even have a car with bomb sensors. I hear they give him a stick with a mirror on the end of it."

"I don't think it's anything space-age. Sounds to me like they're just motion detectors mounted on the undercarriage."

"Boy, I'd like to know where he got the motion detectors. This would probably be a good night to rob the governor's mansion."

I was starting to feel like a regular customer at the bank. I said hello to the guard at the door, and I waved to Leona. I looked for Shempsky, but he wasn't visible, and his office was empty.

"He's out to lunch," the guard said. "Took it earlier than usual today."

No problem. Leona was giving me the come here! gesture, anyway.

"I read about you in the paper," she said. "They said your car was bombed!"

"Yeah. And then a garbage truck fell on it."

"It was excellent," Lula said. "It was the shit."

"Boy, nothing fun ever happens to me," Leona said. "I've never had a car bombed or anything."

"But you work at a bank," I told her. "That's pretty cool. And you have kids. Kids are the best." Okay, so I fibbed a little about the kids. I didn't want her to feel bad. I mean we can't all be lucky enough to have a hamster.

"We came to see if you had any suspicious characters working here," Lula said.

Leona looked startled by that. "In the bank?"

"Well, maybe 'suspicious' is the wrong word," I told her. "Is there anyone here who might have connections with people who might not be totally law-abiding?"

Leona rolled her eyes. "Almost everybody. Marion Beddle was a Grizolli before she was married. You know about Vito Grizolli? And then Phil Zuck in mortgages lives next door to Sy Bernstein, the lawyer who was just disbarred for illegal practices. The guard has a brother in Rahway, doing time for burglary. You want me to go on?"

"Let's take this from a different direction. Is there anyone here who looks too successful for his job? You know, has too much money? Or is there anyone here who desperately needs money? Anyone who likes to gamble? Anyone doing expensive drugs?"

"Hmm. That's a harder question. Annie Shuman has a sick kid. Some kind of bone disease. Lots of doctor bills. Couple of people who play the numbers. I'm one of them. Rose White likes to go to Atlantic City and play the slots."

"I don't get what you want to know this for anyway," Lula said to me.

"We know of three companies with extra accounts in this bank. We think there's a possibility those accounts were opened to hold illegal money. So maybe there's a good reason the accounts were opened here."

"Like someone here in the bank is involved," Lula said.

"I see where you're going," Leona said. "You're suggesting we're laundering money. The money comes into those accounts you asked me about and almost immediately goes out."

"I don't know if it's exactly laundering," I said. "Where does the money go?"

"I don't have that information," Leona said. "You'd need a bank officer for that. And probably they wouldn't tell you. I'm sure that would be confidential. You should talk to Shempsky."

We hung around for another fifteen minutes, but Shempsky didn't materialize.

"Maybe we should go get that wife beater," Lula said. "I bet he's sitting in his living room, drinking beer, being a jerk."

I looked at my watch. Noon. Chances were good that Kenyon Lally was just getting up. Unemployed drunks were usually slow risers. Might be a good time to snag him.

"Okay," I said, "we'll take a ride over."

"Gonna fit right in with the BMW," Lula said. "Everybody in the projects gonna think you're a drug dealer."

Oh, great.

"I know about the bomb sensors and all," Lula said after we'd gone about a half mile, "but I still got the heebie-jeebies sitting next to you."

I knew exactly where she was coming from. I felt like that, too. "I could take you back to the office if you're uncomfortable."

"Hell, no. I'm not that freaked out. It just makes you wonder, you know? Anyway, I felt like that when I was a 'ho, too. You never knew when you were gonna get in the car with some maniac."

"It must have been a tough job."

"Most of my customers were repeaters, so that wasn't too bad. The worst part was standing around on the corner. Don't matter if it's hot or cold or raining, you still gotta stand there. Most people think the hard part's being on your back, but the hard part is being on your feet all day and night. I got varicose veins from standing too many hours on my feet. I guess if I'd been a better 'ho I'd have been on my back more and my feet less."

I took Nottingham to Greenwood, turned right off Greenwood, and crossed the railroad tracks. Trenton subsidized housing always reminded me of a POW camp, and in many ways, that's exactly what it was. Although, in all fairness, I have to say they aren't the worst I've ever seen. And they were preferable to living on Stark Street. I suppose the original vision was of garden apartments, but the reality is cement and brick bunkers squatting on hard-packed dirt. If I had to find a single word to describe the neighborhood, I'd have to choose bleak.

"We want the next building," Lula said. "Apartment 4B."

I parked around the corner, a block away, so Lally wouldn't see us coming, got out, and studied Lally's photo.

"Nice touch with the vest," Lula said. "It'll come in handy when the Welcome Wagon shows up."

The sky was gray and the wind whipped across yards. A few cars were parked on the street, but there was no activity. No dogs, no kids, no stoop sitters. It looked like a ghost town with Hitler as architect.

Lula and I walked to 4B and rang the bell.

Kenyon Lally answered the door. He was my height and rangy, wearing low-slung jeans and a thermal T-shirt. His hair was uncombed, and his face was unshaven. And he looked like a man who smacked women around.

"Hunh," Lula said when she saw him.

"We don't need no Girl Scout cookies," Lally said. And he slammed the door shut.

"I hate when people do that," Lula said.

I rang the bell again, but there was no response.

"Hey!" Lula yelled. "Bail Enforcement Agents. Open this door!"

"Go fuck yourself," Lally yelled back.

"The hell with this bullshit," Lula said. She gave the door a kick with her foot, and the door banged open.

We were both so surprised we just stood there. Neither of us had expected the door to open.

"Government housing," Lula finally said with a shake of her head. "It makes you wonder, don't it?"

"You're gonna pay for that," Lally said.

Lula was standing with her hands in her jacket pockets. "How about you make me? Why don't you come get me, Mr. Tough Guy?"

Lally charged Lula. Lula stuck out her hand, made contact with Lally's chest, and Lally went down like a sack of sand.

"Fastest stun gun in the East," Lula said. "Oops, look at that . . . damn, I accidentally kicked the wife beater."

I cuffed Lally and checked to make sure he was breathing.

"Shoot," Lula said. "I'm so careless, I accidentally kicked him again." She bent over Lally with the stun gun still in her hand. "Want me to make him jump?"

"No!" I said. "No jumping!"