Turbo Twenty-Three (Stephanie Plum #23)(73)

“How’s the leg?” he asked.

“It’s fine. No pain. Just inconvenience. Anything new on Kwan and his henchmen?”

“They’re going away for a long, long time. Like forever. You’ll need to testify.”

“There’s something I never understood. Why did they put Zigler in the ice cream truck? Why not just put him in the Bogart freezer? And who stole the truck in the first place?”

“One of Kwan’s guys stole the truck. It was easy. It was sitting at the loading dock, and it was taken when the security guy was in the building doing rounds. The plan was to load Zigler into the truck and then leave the truck at the Super Shopper loading dock on Route 130. They were supposed to get a big ice cream delivery for a street fair event that was going to be held in the parking lot. Kwan figured someone from Super Shopper would open the truck, Zigler would fall out, and Bogart would get a lot of negative press on it.”

“They must have been nuts when the truck got stolen.”

“Yeah, that’s an understatement.”

“And all this so they could take over his ice cream plant?”

“The ice cream plant was a convenience. They were packaging drugs in Bogart Kidz Kups and transporting them all over the northeast.”

I helped myself to a second piece of pizza. “How about Harry Bogart?”

“He’s plea-bargained. He might get a little time, but I doubt it’ll be anything major. He was an accessory after the fact, and he’s been completely cooperative. Mostly he’s guilty of being stupid.”

“Who’s going to run the factory if he goes to jail?”

“His daughter will take over, and Mo Morris is going to help. When all this went down the family pulled together.”

“Do you know why these two guys disliked each other so much when all this started?”

“Apparently they never got along. Not even as kids. Just oil and water personalities.”

“And yet these two personalities both went into the ice cream business.”

“It was originally one company. Universal Ice Cream. It was owned by a common relative who died and left half of the company to Harry and half to Mo. People tell me they almost killed each other as partners and finally divided everything up and went off on their own.”

“So maybe something good will come of all this and they’ll get along,” I said. “Maybe Kenny Morris and the Bogart girl will get together again too.”

“Not likely. I think Harry and Mo will get along just fine while Harry’s in jail. After that I’m not sure. And it turns out Kenny was a lot more enamored with the Bogart girl than she was with him. Plus she was freaked out with the whole dating-a-cousin thing. She was using her father as an excuse.”

“Too bad. Kenny seemed like an okay guy.”

“Yeah, he’s in rehab,” Morelli said. “He’ll be even more okay when he dries out.”

“Franklin Delano Roosevelt married his cousin Eleanor.”

“Go figure.” Morelli looked down at my cast. “I remember when I had a cast on my leg, it was a real pain to take a shower. You might need some help.”

“Are you volunteering?”

“I’m insisting. What until you see what I can do with a loofah.”

Am I a lucky woman, or what?