Lean Mean Thirteen

EIGHTEEN

GRANDMA MAZUR HAD Blackie under her arm when she opened the door.

"What are you doing with Blackie?" I asked her.

"I’ve been trying to find just the right place to set him out. I want him to look natural."

At the risk of being unkind, Blackie would need Frankenstein's lab to look natural.

"I have Morelli s laundry. I thought I'd throw it in the washer, and then I have to get back to Morelli," I told Grandma.

"Blackie and me will take care of it for you. We haven’t got anything better to do."

I left the laundry with Grandma and ran buck to Morelli's SUV. I thought maybe Lula was right and I didn't' do much for Morelli. It wouldn't kill me to pitch in and clean his house today. It was only a matter of time before my life would be back to normal, although I was beginning to think weird might be normal for me. The police would get the car and the clock and the money. They'd find Petiak and lock him up. And I wasn't sure what would happen to Dickie.

Morelli's house was less than a quarter of a mile from my parents' house. I drove two blocks and was T-boned by a Hummer coming out of an alley that ran behind a row of houses. The impact rammed me into a parked car and left me breathless. Before I had a chance to collect myself, my door was wrenched open, and I was yanked from behind the wheel. It was Dave with a broken nose, bandaged finger, and brace on his knee.

"Haw," Dave said, jamming the barrel of a gun into my ribs. "We figured you'd come to see your mom. We've been waiting for you."

I RECOGNIZED THE garage from Dickie's description. No windows. Room for two cars. Large charred area where Petiak had demonstrated the flamethrower.

"We finally meet," Petiak said. "I hope you brought the key."

"Here's the thing about the key. I don't have it."

"Wrong answer. That's not at all what I wanted to hear. That answer's making me angry."

"Yes, but I know where it is."

"Why can nothing ever be simple?" Petiak asked, sounding a lot like my mother.

"As Dickie probably told you, I didn't realize I had the key. He hid the key in a clock. I look the clock. I didn't know there was a key in it. I left the clock in the trunk of a car. And the car was towed to a salvage yard."

"Dickie didn't tell me any of this."

"What did he tell you?"

"He told me you had the key."

"Yes. I had the key. But technically I don't have the key anymore."

"Well, at least I can have the pleasure of killing you," Petiak said.

"You're not listening to me. I know where the key is. We just have to go get it. But here's the thing…"

"I knew there would be another thing," Petiak said.

"You have to promise not to kill me. And I want a reward. A finders fee."

"And if I don't agree?"

"I won't help you find the key. I mean, what's the incentive to finding the key if you're going to kill me no matter what?"

"How much of a reward do you want?"

"Ten thousand dollars."

"Five."

"Okay, five."

I didn't for a minute think Petiak wouldn't kill me. I was trying to make him feel more comfortable, maybe not keep me on such a short leash. I had the transmitter pen in my pocket. Ranger would wonder why I was at the salvage yard. He'd call Morelli. Morelli or Ranger would discover the car. If I stalled a little, there was a good chance I might not die a hideous flamethrower death. Plus, Morelli had called the Vic into the station. If I was lucky, the police would also show up. And if I kept thinking like this, I might not pass out and throw up from terror. Just focus, I kept saying to myself. Don't panic. Too late. Inside there was panic. A lot of it.

"Where is this salvage yard?" Petiak wanted to know.

"Its at the far end of Stark Street. Rosolli's Salvage."

We all piled into a black Beemer. Probably not the same one that was in my parking lot because this one had four doors. Dave's partner and Petiak were in front and I was in back with Dave. The flamethrower was in the trunk.

Dave didn't look happy to be sitting next to me.

"So how's it going?" I said to him.

"Shut up," Dave said.

"What's with the knee brace?"

"You fucking ran over me with your fucking car."

"Nothing personal," I said to him.

"Yeah," Dave said, "and it's not gonna be personal when we barbecue you."

THE SALVAGE YARD was surrounded by nine-foot-high steel-mesh fencing. The entrance was gated and locked. I was guessing this was necessary because so many people wanted to steal cars that were squashed until they were only two feet high and had no working parts.

The Beemer pulled up to the gate and stopped.

"How do we get in?" Petiak asked.

"I don't know," I said to him. "I've never tried to get into a salvage yard before."

"Rudy," Petiak said to Dave's partner, "take a look."

Dave's partner was named Rudy. Grade school must have been hell with a name like that.

Rudy got out and looked through the gate to the other side. "Hey!" he yelled. He turned back to us and shrugged. "Don’t see anyone."

"It's pretty big," I said. "Maybe there's another entrance."

Rudy got back behind the wheel and drove down Stark. He followed a side road that curved around the salvage yard and did a complete loop. We didn't see any other entrances.

"This is perplexing," Petiak said.

"Maybe you don't need the key," I said. I knew he needed the key. He'd gotten the codes off Dickie and now he needed the key to electronically transfer the $40 million. If he went to Holland to make a personal pickup, he couldn't pass the retinal and hand scan.

"Are you sure the key is in there?" he asked.

"Yep. This is where they took the car."

"Can you climb the fence?" Petiak asked Rudy.

"Yeah, but there's three feet of razor wire at the top. I'll get torn to shreds. I'll never get over the razor wire."

"Go back and try the gate. Maybe its open. Maybe there's a call box."

Rudy went back and rattled the gate and looked around. He returned to the car. "I don't see anything. It's locked up tight with a padlock. I could get in if I had bolt cutters."

"Home Depot," I said.

Petiak cut his eyes to me. "You know where there's a Home Depot?"

Thirty-five minutes later, we were in the Home Depot parking lot, and I was imagining an elaborate rescue scenario. Ranger had tracked us down at Home Depot, and he was organizing an army to storm the salvage yard once we returned to break in with our newly purchased bolt cutters. Petiak and Dave and I were in the car, waiting for Rudy. No one was saying anything.

Finally, Rudy appeared, striding back to the car. No bolt cutters.

"Now what?" Petiak said.

"They didn't have any bolt cutters," Rudy told him, angling himself behind the wheel.

"I know where there's a Lowe's," I said.

Twenty minutes later, we were at Lowe’s. I was loving this. More setup time for Ranger and Morelli. Probably the entire police department and the National Guard were at the salvage yard by now.

Rudy ran into Lowe's and fifteen minutes later came out. No bolt cutters.

"I'm losing patience," Petiak said. "Go back to the salvage yard."

We were now forty minutes away from the salvage yard, and I was thinking it would be good if we could resolve this hostage thing soon because before long I was going to need a bathroom. I'd had a lot of coffee with the doughnuts.

I concentrated on sending Rudy mental messages. Drive faster. Drive faster. Unfortunately, Rudy was having none of it. Rudy wasn't taking a chance on getting stopped by a cop. Rudy was obeying all the rules. After what seemed like hours, we eased up to the salvage yard gate. Still locked. Still no one in sight.

"Ram it," Petiak said.

"Excuse me?" Rudy said.

"Ram the fucker," Petiak said. "Back up and floor it and ram the gate open."

"It's pretty sturdy," Rudy said.

Dave was stoic beside me, but I could smell him sweating. Dave was nervous.

"Maybe we should all get out and let Rudy ram the gate by himself," I said. "Then we can walk in if it works."

"We're in this together," Petiak said. "Rudy, ram the gate."

Rudy backed up and idled for a moment. We all sucked in air and held our breath. And Rudy floored it and rammed the gate.

Bang! The gate flew off its hinges, and the front-seat air bags exploded. Dave hadn't been buckled in and was thrown forward, hitting the front seat with a good solid thud. Rudy and Petiak were fighting the air bags. I unbuckled my seat belt, opened my door, and took off.

I ran into the salvage yard, where I imagined I the Marines were waiting. I didn't see any Marines, so I ran as far and as fast as I could. I passed the crusher machine and took the stairs to a grid of catwalks that led to what looked like a boxcar on stilts. I forced the door and went inside and locked the door behind me. I was in the control room for the crusher machine. I looked out, and I could see Petiak and Dave and Rudy walking my way. Petiak was holding the flamethrower and Rudy and Dave had guns drawn.

My heart was beating so hard, it was knocking against my rib cage. No one was here. There weren't even distant sirens. Somehow, the system hadn't work. The pen wasn't sending a signal. Someone was asleep at the switch at RangeMan. Whatever. I was on my own. I frantically looked for a phone, but I was in the throes of blind fear, and I wasn't seeing much of anything. I was trapped in a box. No way to escape. It was only a matter of time.

They were on the stairs-Petiak first, then Rudy, and Dave bringing up the rear. I was pushing buttons and flipping switches, looking for something that would make noise, call the fire department, jettison me out of harm's way.

I was so scared, my nose was running and my eyes were brimming with tears. It was the flamethrower. I'd seen its work. I could still recall the smell of burned flesh. I could see the horrible charred cadavers.

Petiak was on a catwalk, maybe thirty feet off the ground and level with my boxcar control room. I hit a red button and the hydraulics began moving the crusher walls below me. Rudy and Dave were on the stairs approaching the catwalk, and they stopped dead in their tracks, but Petiak was relentless in his mission. I could see him coming. He reached the control room door and tried the knob. The lock held. He stepped back and gave it a blast from the flamethrower. Nothing. It was a steel fire door. For that matter, the entire control room was steel. I was looking at Petiak through a small window in the door, and I could see the rage in his face. He leveled the flamethrower at me and pumped it. Flames shot toward me, flattened on the steel door, and curled back. Black smoke clouded the window. The door wasn't sealed tight, and heat and smoke crept into the room.

I stepped back and looked out the large window facing the crusher. Dave and Rudy were off the stairs and on the ground, running to the salvage yard entrance. I couldn't see Petiak. He wasn't on the stairs. I went back to the door. Smoke was no longer seeping in. There was no more heat. I squinted through the sooty pane of glass. I didn't see Petiak. I went back to the window over the crusher and saw him.

He'd inadvertently set himself on fire, and in his confusion and horror he'd fallen off the catwalk into the crusher. I hit the red button and the crusher stopped. Not that it mattered. Petiak was clearly dead. And I suspected the crusher would have stopped before it compacted him. It was designed for cars, not maniacs.

I took a moment to get myself under control and then I looked for a phone again. I found the phone and called Morelli.

"I'm in the salvage yard," I told him.

"I thought you were doing laundry," he said.

"Just c-c-come get me, okay?"

"Where's the car?"

"Forget the car. Find some other way to get here."

Then I called Ranger.

"Where the heck are you?" I asked him.

"I'm at RangeMan. What are you doing at your mothers?"

"I'm not at my mothers. I'm at the salvage yard."

I glanced down. I was wearing Morelli's sweats. The pen was in my jeans pocket, and the jeans were getting washed. Good thing I was so dumb. If I'd thought I'd been kidnapped without the pen, I would have died of fright an hour ago.

"Babe," Ranger said.

"You'll want to see this," I told him.

I called Connie.

"I'm at your cousin Manny's salvage yard," I told her. "Where is everybody? The gate was locked and no one's here."

"Manny's mother-in-law died. They had the funeral today. I didn't go. I only knew her in passing."

"The short version is that Roland Petiak set himself on fire and fell into your cousin's squashing machine. I thought your cousin would want to know. And also, I'm looking for my Crown Vic. It's somewhere in the salvage yard."

There was a stool in the control room where the operator sat when he was working the compactor. I sat on the stool and looked out the window, eager for someone to come rescue me. I didn't want to leave the safety of the little room until Morelli or Ranger was at my door. I avoided looking down into the squashing machine. I didn't want to see Roland Petiak.

I sat there for ten minutes and everyone arrived at once.

Morelli and Dickie, Ranger, Connie and Lula and Connie’s cousin Manny. And Joyce and Smullen's girlfriend. I couldn't remember her name.

I called Morelli s cell.

"I'm in the control room by the squasher machine," I said. "I'm not coming out until someone comes up here to get me."

Everyone looked up at me, and I waved down to them and wiped my nose on my sleeve.

Morelli took the stairs two at a time and crossed the grate to get to me. I opened the door and almost collapsed. My teeth were chattering, and my legs were rubber.

"I was afraid I'd fall off the catwalk if I didn't have someone to hang on to," I told Morelli.

Morelli wrapped an arm around me and peered into the compactor at what was left of Petiak. "That's not good."

"It’s Petiak."

"Are you okay?"

"So far as I can tell." And I went down on one knee. "Whoops," I said. "Guess I'm a little wobbly."

Ranger was on the catwalk too, and between Ranger and Morelli, they were able to get me down the stairs.

"What the heck's going on here?" Lula wanted to know when I set my feet on the ground. "Nobody tells me anything."

"Yeah," Joyce said. "What the heck's going on?"

Dickie was still in the hooded sweatshirt, standing to one side, oogling Joyce and Smullen's girlfriend. "Hey Sex Monkey," Dickie said to Joyce.

"Do you have it?" Joyce said.

"What?"

"You know…it."

"Do you mean the forty million? Nope. Government's going to confiscate it."

"You are such a turd," Joyce said. "I can't believe I wasted my time with you. How could you have lost that money?"

"It was all Stephanie s fault," Dickie said.

"Asshole," Joyce said. And she turned on her heel and stormed off, with Smullen's girlfriend matching her stride for stride.

Morelli called the dispatcher and reported the death and gave a description of Dave and Rudy.

"I forgot to take the pen," I told Ranger.

"Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good," Ranger said.

"You were right about the drugs and guns and money laundering," I told Ranger. "The law firm was stealing guns, trading them for drugs, and then selling the drugs. Then they billed the drug dealers for legal services and washed the money through a legitimate business… Dickie's law firm. Dickie found out, cleaned out the firm's bank account, and transferred the money to his own account. The key to Dickie's account was in the clock."

"Aunt Tootsies clock?" Lula asked. "What are the chances?"

"I forgot about the clock and left it in the Crown Vic's trunk. The Vic broke down, and it got towed here."

"When was this?" Connie's cousin Manny asked.

"Last week. It was an old cop car with 'Pig Car' written on the side and it had a couple bullet holes in it and rodent fur on the inside," I told him.

"I know just where that is," Manny said. "I remember it coming in. A couple SWAT guys, right?"

"Right."

Ranger's cell phone buzzed, and he took a short call. "I'm heading out," he said to Morelli. "She's on your watch. Next week she's mine."

I was pretty sure he was kidding, but then, maybe not.

"Come on," Manny said. "I'll take you to the Vic."

There were mountains of wheel covers and acres of scrap metal stacked together like lasagna in the salvage yard. We wound our way through a maze of cars in various stages of mutilation and finally Manny stopped at a seven-foot-tall block of multicolored metal and pointed about a third of the way up.

"See that burgundy layer? That's the Vic."

It was twelve inches thick.

"Your Aunt Tootsies not gonna be happy about this," Lula said.

We retraced our steps, and watched the emergency vehicles pour into the salvage yard. EMS trucks, fire trucks, cop cars. A couple uniforms secured the area around the compactor with tape and the medical examiner and a crime scene photographer climbed the stairs to the catwalk. Marty Gobel followed.

"This is going to take a while to sort out," Morelli said to me. "What would you like to do? I can have someone take you to your mother's or to my house."

I didn't want to do either of those things. I was still rattled, and I wanted to be near Morelli.

"I'd rather stay here," I said. "I'll find a place to hang out until you're done, and we can go home together."

IT WAS DARK when we rolled into Morelli's house. We'd stopped for a take-out pizza, and we'd picked up the laundry. I was still in Morelli's sweats and he was still commando in his recycled jeans. I clipped Bob to the long leash in the backyard, and Morelli and I leaned against the kitchen counter and ate pizza.

"This has been a very strange day," I said. "Yeah, but it's over and Dickie is out of my house." Morelli helped himself to another piece of pizza. "Why on earth did you marry him?"

"In the beginning, before we were married, he was charming. He was probably fooling around, but I didn't see it. I was impressed with the law degree. I thought it showed intelligence and ambition. My parents loved him. They were ecstatic I wasn't marrying you."

"Those were my wild oats-sowing days."

"Dickie looked like a saint compared to you." Bob scratched at the door, and we let him in and gave him some Bob food and a couple pieces of pizza.

"What do you suppose will happen to Dickie?" I asked Morelli.

"There's the irony. Dickie could end up being a very rich guy. As far as I can tell, he's guilty of being stupid and devious, but I'm not sure he ever got around to committing a crime."

"What about the drug sales?"

"Word at the station is that the books were kept clean. Everyone knows the firm's dirty, but no one's been able to prove anything. Now that Petiak, Smullen, and Gorvich are dead, Dickie might end up being the sole owner of the real estate and the forty million. At the very least, he'll keep his fourth. I guess that's the bad news. But the good news is Joyce blew Dickie off big-time at the salvage yard. At least Joyce won't see any of the money."

"I hate to see Dickie get that money. It's so wrong."

"Justice has a way of prevailing," Morelli said. "Dickie hasn't got the money yet."

I fed Bob the last chunk of my pizza. "I'm stuffed. I want to take a hot shower and get into some clean clothes."

Morelli locked the back door and tucked the laundry basket under his arm. "I have a better idea. Let's take a hot shower and get into no clothes." He looked at the neatly folded clothes in the basket. "Although I am looking forward to test-driving my underwear. Your mother ironed everything. My boxers have a crease."

And somewhere under those boxers I had a single pair of little black panties embroidered with Ranger s name that had all the potential of the toaster bomb.

"You can test-drive them tomorrow," I said to Morelli. "I like the no clothes idea for tonight."