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“You know anything about rugs?”
“I know they go on the floor.”
I told him Mooner's story about the million-dollar rug.
“Maybe it wasn't the rug that was worth a million dollars,” Morelli said. “Maybe there was something inside the rug.”
“Such as?”
Morelli just looked at me.
I did some out-loud questioning. “What's small enough to fit in a rug? Drugs?”
“I saw a segment of the security tape from the Ramos fire,” Morelli said. “Homer Ramos was carrying a gym bag when he walked past the hidden camera the night he met Ranger. And Ranger was carrying the bag when he left. Word on the street is that Arturo Stolle is missing a load of money and wants to talk to Ranger. What do you think?”
“I think maybe Stolle gives Ramos drugs. Ramos passes the drugs on to be cut and distributed and ends up with a gym bag filled with money, some or all of which might belong to Stolle. Something happens between Ranger and Homer Ramos, and Ranger gets the bag.”
“And if that's the way it went down, then probably this was an extracurricular activity for Homer Ramos,” Morelli said. “Drugs, extortion, and numbers go to organized crime. Guns go to the Ramos family. Alexander Ramos has always respected that.”
Except, in Trenton, it was more like disorganized crime. Trenton fell right in the middle of New York and Philadelphia. No one cared a whole lot about Trenton. Mostly Trenton had a bunch of middle-management guys who spent their days running numbers through social clubs. The numbers money helped give stability to the drug trade. And the drugs were distributed by black street gangs that had names like the Corleones. If it wasn't for the Godfather movies and PBS specials on crime, probably no one in Trenton would know how to act or what to call themselves.
So now I was getting a better picture of why Alexander Ramos might be disenchanted with his son. The question still being, Was he disenchanted enough to have him killed? And maybe I had a reason for Arturo Stolle to be looking for Ranger.
“All this is speculation,” Morelli said. “Just conversation.”
“You never share police information with me. Why are you telling me this?”
“This isn't exactly police information. This is loose change rattling around in my head. I've been watching Stolle for a long tim
e without much luck. Maybe this is the break I've been waiting for. I need to talk to Ranger, but I can't get him to call me back. So I'm passing this on to you, and you can feed it to Ranger.”
I nodded. “I'll give him the message.”
“No details on the phone.”
“Understood. How'd it go with Gilman?”
Morelli grinned. “Let me guess. Your finger accidentally hit the redial button on the phone.”
“All right, I admit it, I'm nosy.”
“Crimes R Us is having some organizational problems. I noticed an increase in traffic going in and out of the social clubs, so I expressed some concern to Vito. So Vito sent Terry to assure me the boys weren't stockpiling nuclear arms for World War III.”
“I saw Terry on Wednesday. She delivered a letter to Hannibal Ramos.”
“Crimes R Us and Guns R Us are attempting to reestablish boundaries. Homer Ramos tore down some fences, and now that he's out of the picture, the fences need to be repaired.” Morelli nudged my foot with his. “Well?”
“Well, what?”
“How about it?”
I was so tired my lips were numb, and Morelli wanted to fool around. “Sure,” I said. “Just let me rest my eyes for a minute.”
I closed my eyes, and when I woke up it was morning. Morelli was nowhere to be seen.
“I'm late,” Grandma said, trotting from the bedroom to the kitchen. “I overslept. It's all those interruptions every night. This place is like Grand Central Station. I got my last driving lesson in a half-hour. And then tomorrow I take my test. I was hoping you could take me for it. First thing in the morning.”
“Sure. I could do that.”
