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t of thing that earned gangland prestige points. Not much I can do about it now, I thought. The best I could do was to stay away from them and try to keep a low profile. With any luck, the Slayers would be busy selling drugs and shooting each other and not have time for me.
I rolled the engine over, drove the length of the block, turned at the corner, and headed for Joe's house. Security check. I wanted to see for myself that the house was still standing, that no further damage had been done. I'd moved out of the house, but there were still ties. Just as there were still ties to Morelli. Truth was, I'd broken up with him so many times it was beginning to feel like the normal thing to do. For that matter, I wasn't sure if we'd actually broken up. It felt more like a reorganization.
Morelli's street was pretty much deserted, except for a van in front of Morelli's house. The van belonged to Joe's cousin, Mooch.
Mooch was covering the graffiti, painting Joe's front door a bright red. The graffiti was still on the sidewalk, but it didn't look as if anything new had been added. I slowed but I didn't stop. Mooch didn't look around from his work, and I didn't call out.
Next stop was Carol Cantell. I wasn't obligated to check on her every day, but I'd become attached to Carol. How could you not like someone who held up a Frito-Lay truck and then ate the evidence?
I parked in front of the Cantell house and walked to the porch.
Carol's sister, Cindy, opened the door before I rang the bell.
'We were in the front room, and we saw you pull up in the truck,'
Cindy said. 'Is something wrong?'
I looked around Cindy to Carol. 'Social visit. I wanted to make sure everything was okay.'
'I'm feeling a lot better,' Carol said. 'I think I got the chips out of my system.'
Cindy leaned closer. 'Boy, you smell great,' she said to me. 'You smell like... I don't know. Not exactly perfume.'
'It's shower gel,' I said. 'I borrowed it from a guy I know.'
Carol came over and sniffed at me. Is he married?'
'No.'
'Would he like to be?'
The question stuck with me until I was well out of Cantell's neighborhood. I hadn't a clue to the answer. I worked with Ranger,
I drove his truck and I was living in his apartment, and yet I knew almost nothing about him. A few facts. He'd been married when he was very young, and he had a daughter in Florida. He'd dropped out of college to join the army. While in the army, he'd been
Special Forces. That was about it. He never shared his thoughts.
He rarely showed emotion. A smile once in a while. His apartment yielded little. He had good taste in furniture, leaning toward earth tones, and he had great taste in soap.
It was lunchtime, and I hadn't any idea what to do next, so I parked in the Shop n Bag lot and ate two of the doughnuts. I was scraping a blob of custard off my shirt when my phone rang.
'Where are you?' Morelli wanted to know.
`I'm in the Shop n Bag lot, and I'm eating lunch.'
'Have you heard the rumors?'
There are so many. Which ones are you talking about?'
Morelli gave an exasperated sigh.
'Oh,' I said. 'Those rumors. Yeah, I heard those rumors.'
'What are you going to do about them?'
'I'm sort of hiding.'
'You'd better hide really well, because I'll put you under house arrest if I find you.'
