AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Pretty much. It started out as an organized smash-and-grab and turned into a bloodbath. There were a lot of people involved. Some didn’t walk away.” He rinsed his plate off in the sink and put it in the dishwasher. “What are you doing today?”
“The bus was leaking water yesterday. I’m going to check it out. See if any real damage was done. And then I’m going to Benji’s grand opening. He bought the comic book store and renamed it Benji Land.”
“Clever,” Morelli said. “Where do you suppose Benji got enough money to buy the store?”
I shrugged. “Do you have any ideas?”
“I have one or two. How about you?”
“I have one or two.”
He kissed me and the kiss lingered.
“I’m definitely not on call tonight,” he said. “I think we should go out to a fancy dinner and then come home to my house and get naked.”
“I like it,” I said.
“And if we finish up early enough, we can catch the end of the ball game.”
“You’re such a romantic.”
Morelli grinned. “I have to go home to change clothes. I’ll take Bob with me. Thanks for letting us spend the night. Do you have anything you want me to tell the Rangeman guys parked in your lot?”
“Tell them I’ll be out in a couple minutes.”
When Morelli asked about my plans for the day, the unmentioned elephant in the room was Vinnie. Neither of us had been able to make any progress at finding Vinnie. I can’t speak for Morelli, but I was exasperated that I couldn’t go more proactive. Surely there wassomethingwe could do to find him.
The sun was shining, and the air had a chill in it. I drove to the office, parked behind Connie’s car, and walked to the school bus. The door was open, and I could hear a fan going inside.
I looked in at Connie. “Trying to dry things out?”
“It could be worse, but it’s obvious we need something better. It’ll take at least a year to rebuild, and we can’t conduct business in this.”
“What if there is no business?” I asked her. “What if there’s no Vinnie?”
“Harry will find someone else. Harry needs this business. It’s part of his corporate image.”
I didn’t want to ask about Harry’s corporate image. There are things about Harry best left unknown.
Lula stumbled in. “I don’t know how anyone can walk in sneakers. My balance is all whackadoodle. When I’m in heels my boobies and booty are compensating for each other. They’re all synchronized. There’s just nothing happening when I’m flat-footed. None of my voluptuous body parts knows which way to swing.”
I didn’t have this problem. My body parts were a lot less voluptuous than Lula’s. They didn’t swing anywhere.
“Anything new going on with the kidnappers?” Lula asked.
I shared the fingernail picture with her.
“That’s disgusting,” Lula said. “I’m not happy to see this. Okay, so he’s an annoying jerk, but that don’t mean I’m gonna stand around and let some kidnapper torture him. This is something else. If anyone tortures him, it should be us. Or at least someone we hired to torture him.”
Connie and I agreed.
“So, what are we going to do about this?” Lula asked. “I think we should entertain the possibility of raising the money.”
“It’s eleven million dollars!” I said.
“Yeah, but we might be able to getsomeof it,” she said. “We could buy a bunch of scratch lottery tickets. And we could start a GoFundMe page. You always have to start with something that gets people’s attention. We could tell people we want to save the highly endangered pointy-toed weasel.”
“I guess I could try to bargain with them next time we get a phone call,” I said.
