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“He said they were going to torture him.”
“Vinnie loves that shit,” Lula said. “He pays Madam Zaretsky good money to whip him and do God knows what else.”
“That’s true,” Connie said. “If they pull off his fingernails, he’ll get an erection.”
“Anyway, what can we do?” Lula asked. “These idiots want money we don’t have.”
The office number rang again, and Connie put it on speakerphone.
“I forgot to tell you the best part,” he said. “After twenty-fourhours, when we roast this weasel on a spit like a hot dog, we’re coming after you, sweetie pie.”
“Which sweetie pie would that be?” I asked him.
“You know which sweetie pie,” he said. And he hung up.
“Okay, that’s disturbing,” I said.
“Yeah, it would give us more incentive to do something if we knew what to do,” Lula said.
Morelli appeared in the doorway. “Knock, knock,” he said. “Is this the new office?”
“Yep,” I said.
“It’s leaking something.”
“It’s motor oil,” Lula said. “It’s okay, I got a case of it. It came with the bus.”
Morelli crooked his finger at me. “Can I see you outside?”
We walked a short distance from the bus and away from the CSI people.
“We found Vinnie’s car,” he said. “They just pulled it out of the river. Vinnie wasn’t in it.”
“That’s because the kidnappers have Vinnie,” I said. “We got the phone call a couple minutes ago.”
“Why did they take Vinnie?”
“I guess they thought we cared if he lived or died or got tortured.”
“That’s a tough one.”
“Yeah, on the surface it doesn’t seem like he’s worth saving.”
“But below the surface?”
“Ditto.”
“It’s a dilemma,” Morelli said.
“On the plus side, I delivered the bomber today.”
“I heard. Nice.” He looked over at the bus. “That has to be at least twenty years old. It’s a dumpster fire on wheels.”
“It has a refrigerator with a freezer, and it had a dead mouse, but Connie got rid of it.”
“Good to know. Where do you go from here?”
“Do you mean about the office?”
