Top Secret Twenty-One: A Stephanie Plum Novel(40)

I borrowed money from Ranger for parking and tolls and drove back to Trenton. Morelli called just as I was approaching my Turnpike exit.

“I’m driving,” I said. “I’m not supposed to be talking on the phone.”

“I grilled hotdogs for dinner, and I don’t know if I should save the leftovers for you or feed them to Bob.”

“Save one for me. I’m about an hour away.”

Rush hour had come and gone, and traffic was light. I reached Morelli’s house in just under an hour and parked Ranger’s Porsche behind a bright blue RAV4.

Briggs was in the living room, holding on to his duffel bag, when I walked in.

“My cousin Eddie said I could stay with him now that no one wants to kill me,” Briggs said.

“Is that your RAV4 at the curb?”

“Yeah. I was afraid to drive it when Poletti was looking for me.”

“Do you have any job prospects?”

“No, but that’s never an issue. I just play my short card and people are afraid I’ll sue them if they don’t hire me.”

Briggs left, and I went into the kitchen in search of my hotdog. I removed my suit jacket, and I heard Morelli suck in some air. I looked down and saw that not only was my shirt slashed open, it was stained with dried blood.

“Psychopath encounter,” I said to Morelli. “I think it’s just a scratch.”

“You don’t know?”

“There was a lot going on.” I checked myself out and verified that it wasn’t serious. I added mustard, ketchup, pickles, and potato chips to my hotdog and took a bite. “I’m starving,” I said with my mouth full of hotdog.

“About this psychopath,” Morelli said.

“I went to New York with Ranger following a lead on the polonium thing. I had a run-in with this crazy guy named Vlatko who planned the poisoning, and he sort of slashed me.”

“Where was Ranger when all this was happening?”

“He was snooping around in the Russian consulate.”

Morelli was looking like his blood pressure was approaching stroke level. “Tell me you weren’t in the consulate with him.”

“It was a party. Technically I was there with a Russian vodka maker.”

“How do you know a Russian vodka maker?”

“I picked him up in a bar.”

“You’ve managed to do a lot in a short amount of time,” Morelli said.

I washed the hotdog down with a beer. “We weren’t able to catch Vlatko, but Ranger has him pinned down in the consulate.”

“I don’t suppose you brought the FBI in on this?”

“Not while I was there. It all happened too fast. I guess Ranger could have called them in after I left.”

Personally, I thought chances of that were slim to none. Ranger would want to call the shots on this, and the FBI would freeze him out.

“So how did your day go?” I asked Morelli.

“My grandmother says your grandmother is stalking her.”

“That could be true. Grandma made a bucket list, and getting your grandmother is on it.”

“Did she say how she was going to get her?”

“I don’t think she’s decided.”

“She wouldn’t do anything crazy like shoot her or beat her silly with a baseball bat, would she? I don’t want to have to arrest your grandmother.”

“I’ll talk to her.”





EIGHTEEN


WHEN I WALKED in, Grandma was in the kitchen, chopping vegetables for soup.

“Help yourself to coffee,” she said. “Would you like me to make you some eggs? Your mother is at mass.”

“I already ate breakfast,” I said, “but coffee would be great.”

“I guess you’re happy now that Jimmy Poletti’s behind bars,” Grandma said.

“Yep. Briggs is out of my life, and I can afford to get a car of my own. Thanks for helping with the takedown.”

“I got a good start on my bucket list,” Grandma said. “Not that I’m planning on getting planted anytime soon, but I figure why not get all that stuff out of the way, right?”

“There’ve been some rumors that you’re stalking Joe’s Grandma Bella.”

“You bet I’m stalking her. I’m freaking her out. She tried to put the whammy on me a couple times, but I just whammied her back.”

“You know how to do that?”

“I Googled it. I’m pretty sure I got it right.”

Joe’s Grandma Bella is the scourge of the Burg. She looks like an extra from a Godfather movie. Steel gray hair pulled back into a bun. No makeup. Ferocious black eyebrows. Eyes like a fish hawk. Five long black chin hairs. She’s short and stooped and wears black shirtwaist dresses and flat black shoes. The longer she’s lived in this country, the stronger her Sicilian accent has become. And she is feared for her ability to give people the eye. The eye is some weird Sicilian curse that makes your hair fall out, your face break out in warts, your teeth rot in your mouth, and your private parts shrivel. Intelligent people cross the street rather than pass too close to Bella. Grandma prefers to pass as close as possible and double-dare Bella to look at her cross-eyed. And Bella is happy to comply. The result is sometimes an ugly display of old lady bitch slapping. And God forbid they should simultaneously get to the cookie table at the funeral home with just one cookie remaining.