I squirmed under him and sunk my teeth into his shoulder.
"Yow!" he yelled. "Sonovabitch. What are you, a goddamn vampire?"
We rolled around for what seemed like hours, locked onto each other. Him trying to kill me, and me just hanging on like a tick on a dog's back, oblivious to my surroundings and the state of my skirt, afraid if I let go he'd beat me to death. I was exhausted, and I was thinking I was about at the end of the line when I was hit with a splash of ice-cold water.
We both instantly unlocked and flopped onto our backs, sputtering.
"What?" I said. "What?" I blinked my eyes and saw there were lots of people around us. Morelli and Ranger, a couple uniformed cops, and some people from the neighborhood. Plus Mrs. Ruzick was there, holding a big empty pot.
"Works every time," Mrs. Ruzick said. "Except usually I hose down cats. This neighborhood has too many cats."
Ranger grinned down at me. "Good bust, Tiger."
I got to my feet and took stock of myself. No broken bones. No bullet holes. No knife wounds. Ruined manicure. Soaking wet hair and dress. What looked like vegetable soup clinging to my skirt.
Morelli and Ranger were staring at my breasts and smiling at the wet dress that was plastered to my skin.
"So I have nipples," I snapped. "Get over it."
Morelli gave me his jacket. "What's with the vegetable soup on your skirt?"
"He hit me with a bag of garbage."
Morelli and Ranger were smiling again.
"Don't say anything," I told them. "And if you value your lives you'll stop grinning."
"Hey, man," Ranger said, grinning wider than ever. "I'm out of here. I've got to take Bluto for a ride."
"Show's over," Morelli said to the neighbors.
Sandy Polan was there. She gave Joe an appraising once-over, giggled, and left.
"What was that about?" Joe asked me.
I gave him a palms-up. "Go figure."
I traded his jacket for my sweater when we got to his truck. "Out of morbid curiosity, how long were you standing there watching me wrestle with Ruzick?"
"Not long. A minute or two."
"And Ranger?"
"The same."
"You could have jumped in and helped me."
"We were trying. We couldn't get hold of you the way you were tumbling around. Anyway, you looked like you were doing okay."
"How did you know where I was?"
"I talked to Ranger. He called your cell phone."
I looked down at my dress. It was probably wrecked. Good thing I hadn't worn the little black number.
"Where were you? I went to the men's room, and it was empty."
"Frankie needed some air." Morelli stopped for a light and glanced over at me. "Whatever possessed you to go after Alphonse like that? You were unarmed."
Charging after Alphonse wasn't what bothered me. Okay, so it hadn't been the bright thing to do. But it hadn't been as stupid as walking the streets, alone and unarmed, when Ramirez might have been stalking me.
Morelli parked the truck in the lot and walked me up to my apartment. He backed me against my door and kissed me lightly on the lips. "Do I get to come in?"
"I have coffee grounds in my hair." And Randy Briggs in my apartment.
"Yeah," Morelli said. "Makes you smell kind of homey."
"I don't know if I'm up to being romantic tonight."
"We don't have to be romantic," Morelli said. "We could just have some really dirty sex."
I rolled my eyes.
Morelli kissed me again. A good-night kiss this time. "Call me when you want some," he said.
"Some what?" As if I didn't know.
"Some anything."
I let myself into my apartment and tiptoed past Briggs, who was asleep on my couch.
* * * * *
SUNDAY MORNING I woke up to rain. It was coming down in a steady drone on my fire escape, spattering against my window. I opened the curtains and thought, ick. The world was gray. Beyond the parking lot, the world didn't exist at all. I looked at the bed. Very tempting. I could crawl into bed and stay there until the rain stopped, or the world came to an end, or until someone showed up with a bag of doughnuts.
Unfortunately, if I went back to bed I might lie there taking stock of my life. And my life had some problems. The project that was taking most of my time and mental energy wasn't going to get me lunch money. Not that it mattered, I was determined to find Fred, dead or alive. The projects Ranger gave me weren't working out. And the bounty hunter projects were a big goose egg. If I thought about my life long enough I might reach the conclusion I needed to go out and get a real job. Something that required pantyhose every day and a good attitude.
Even worse, I might get to thinking about Morelli, and that I was an idiot not to have invited him to spend the night. Or worse still, I might think about Ranger, and I didn't want to go there at all!
And then I remembered why I hadn't invited Morelli into my apartment. Briggs. I closed my eyes. Let it all be a bad dream.
Bam, bam, bam, on my door. "Hey!" Briggs yelled. "You haven't got any coffee. How am I supposed to work without coffee? Do you know what time it is, Sleeping Beauty? What, do you sleep all day? No wonder you can't afford any food in this hellhole."
I got up and got dressed and stomped out to the living room. "Listen, Shorty, who the hell do you think you are, anyway?"
"I'm the guy who's gonna sue your ass. That's who I am."
"Give me a little time, and I could really learn to hate you."
"Jeez, and just when I was thinking you were my soul mate."
I gave him my best eat-dirt-and-die look, zipped myself into my rain jacket, and grabbed my shoulder bag. "How do you like your coffee?"
"Black. Lots of it."
I sprinted through the rain to the Buick and drove to Giovichinni's. The front of the store was redbrick, sandwiched between other businesses. On either side of Giovichinni's the buildings were single story. Giovichinni's was two stories, but the second floor wasn't used for much. Storage and an office. I drove to the end of the block and took the service alley that ran behind the store. The back side of Giovichinni's was redbrick, just like the front. And the back door opened to a small yard. At the end of the yard was a dirt parking area for delivery trucks. Two doors down was a real estate office. The back wall was stuccoed over and painted beige. And the back door opened to a small asphalt parking lot.
So suppose cheapskate Fred drives his leaves to Giovichinni's in the dark of night. He parks the car and turns off his lights. Doesn't want to get caught. He unloads the leaves and hears a car coming. What would he do? Hide. Then maybe he's there hiding, and he sees someone come along and deposit a garbage bag behind the real estate office.
After that I was lost. I had to think about after that some more.
Next stop was the 7-Eleven and then home with a large coffee for me and a Big Gulp of coffee for Briggs and a box of chocolate-covered doughnuts . . . because if I had to put up with Briggs, I needed doughnuts.
I shucked my wet jacket and settled down at the dining room table with the coffee and doughnuts and a steno pad, doing my best to ignore the fact that I had a man typing away at my coffee table. I listed out all the things I knew about Fred's disappearance. No doubt now that the photographs played a large role. When I ran out of things to write in the steno pad, I locked myself in my bedroom and watched cartoons on television. This took me to lunchtime. I didn't feel like eating lamb leftovers, so I finished off the box of doughnuts.
"Cripes," Briggs said, "do you always eat like this? Don't you know about the major food groups? No wonder you have to wear those 'romantic' dresses."
I retreated to my bedroom, and while I was retreating I took a nap. I was startled awake by the phone ringing.
"Just wanted to make sure you were going to come take me to the Lipinski viewing tonight," Grandma said.
The Lipinski viewing. Ugh. Trekking out in the rain to see some dead guy wasn't high on my list of desirable things to do. "How about Harriet Schnable?" I suggested. "Maybe Harriet could take you."