Stephanie Plum - Seven Up Part 3

I'd gone to high school with Walter "MoonMan" Dunphy and Dougie "The Dealer" Kruper.

Mooner lives with two other guys in a narrow row house on Grant Street. Together they form the Legion of Losers. They're all potheads and misfits, floating from one menial job to the next, living hand-to-mouth. They're also gentle and harmless and utterly adoptable. I don't exactly hang with Mooner. It's more that we keep in touch, and when our paths cross he tends to generate maternal feelings in me. Mooner is like a goofy stray kitten that shows up for a bowl of kibble once in a while.

Dougie lives several units down in the same row of attached houses. In high school Dougie was the kid who wore the dorky b.u.t.ton-down s.h.i.+rt when all the other kids wore T-s.h.i.+rts. Dougie didn't get great grades, didn't do sports, didn't play a musical instrument, and didn't have a cool car. Dougie's solitary accomplishment was his ability to suck Jell-O into his nose through a straw.

After graduation it was rumored that Dougie had moved to Arkansas and died. And then several months ago Dougie surfaced in the Burg, alive and well. And last month Dougie got nailed for fencing stolen goods out of his house. At the time of his arrest his dealing had seemed more community service than crime since he'd become the definitive source for cut-rate Metamucil, and for the first time in years Burg seniors were regular.

"I thought Dougie shut down his dealers.h.i.+p," I said to Mooner.

"No, man, I mean we really found found these suits. They were like in a box in the attic. We were cleaning the house out and we came across them." these suits. They were like in a box in the attic. We were cleaning the house out and we came across them."

I was pretty sure I believed him.

"So what do you think?" he asked. "Cool, huh?"

The suit was lightweight Lycra, fitting his gangly frame perfectly without a wrinkle . . . and that included his doodle area. Not much left to the imagination. If the suit was on Ranger I wouldn't complain, but this was more than I wanted to see of the Mooner.

"The suit is terrific."

"Since Dougie and me have these cool suits, we decided we'd be crime-fighters . . . like Batman."

Batman seemed like a nice change. Usually Mooner and Dougie were Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock.

Mooner pushed the Lycra cap back off his head, and his long brown hair spilled out. "We were going to start fighting crime tonight. Only problem is, Dougie's gone."

"Gone? What do you mean gone?"

"Like he just disappeared, dude. He called me on Tuesday and told me he had some stuff to do, but I should come over to watch wrestling last night. We were gonna watch it on Dougie's big screen. It was like an awesome event, dude. Anyway, Dougie never showed up. He wouldn't have missed wrestling unless something awful happened. He wears like four pagers on him and he's not answering any of them. I don't know what to think."

"Did you go out looking for him? Could he be at a friend's house?"

"I'm telling you, it's not like him to miss wrestling," Mooner said. "Like n.o.body n.o.body misses wrestling, dude. He was all excited about it. I think something bad's happened." misses wrestling, dude. He was all excited about it. I think something bad's happened."

"Like what?"

"I don't know. I just have this bad feeling."

We both sucked in a breath when the phone rang, as if our suspecting disaster would make it happen.

"He's here," Grandma said at the other end of the line.

"Who? Who's where?"

"Eddie DeChooch! Mabel picked me up after you left so we could pay our respects to Anthony Varga. He's laid out at Stiva's and Stiva did a real good job. I don't know how Stiva does it. Anthony Varga hasn't looked this good for twenty-five years. He should have come to Stiva when he was alive. Anyway, we're still here, and Eddie DeChooch just walked into the funeral parlor."

"I'll be right there."

No matter if you're suffering depression or wanted for murder, you still pay your respects in the Burg.

I grabbed my shoulder bag off the kitchen counter and shoved Mooner out the door. "I have to run. I'll make some phone calls and I'll get back to you. In the meantime, you should go home and maybe Dougie will show up."

"Which home should I go to, dude? Should I go to Dougie's home or my home?"

"Your home. And check on Dougie's home once in a while."

Having Mooner worry about Dougie made me uneasy, but it didn't feel critical. Then again, Dougie'd missed wrestling. And Mooner was right . . . n.o.body n.o.body misses wrestling. At least n.o.body in Jersey. misses wrestling. At least n.o.body in Jersey.

I ran down the hall and down the stairs. I bolted through the lobby, out the door, and into my car. Stiva's was a couple miles down Hamilton Avenue. I did a mental equipment inventory. Pepper spray and cuffs in my purse. The stun gun was probably in there, too, but it might not be charged. My .38 was home in the cookie jar. And I had a nail file in case things got physical.

Stiva's Funeral Parlor is housed in a white frame structure that was once a private residence. Garages for the various funeral-type vehicles and viewing rooms for the various dead have been added to accommodate business. There's a small parking lot. Black shutters frame the windows, and the wide front porch is covered in green indoor-outdoor carpet.

I parked in the lot and power-walked to the front entrance. Men stood in a knot on the porch, smoking and swapping stories. They were working-cla.s.s men, dressed in unmemorable suits, their waists and hairlines showing the years. I moved past them to the foyer. Anthony Varga was in Slumber Room number one. And Caroline Borchek was in Slumber Room number two. Grandma Mazur was hiding behind a fake ficus tree in the lobby.

"He's in with Anthony," Grandma said. "He's talking to the widow. Probably sizing her up, looking for a new woman to shoot and stash in his shed."

There were about twenty people in the Varga viewing room. Most of them were seated. A few stood at the casket. Eddie DeChooch was among those at the casket. I could go in and quietly maneuver myself to his side and clap on the cuffs. Probably the easiest way to get the job done. Unfortunately, it would also create a scene and upset people who were grieving. More to the point, Mrs. Varga would call my mother and relay the whole gruesome incident. My other choices were that I could approach him at the casket and ask him to come outside with me. Or I could wait until he left and nab him in the parking lot or on the front porch.

"What do we do now?" Grandma wanted to know. "Are we just gonna go in and grab him, or what?"

I heard someone suck in some air behind me. It was Loretta Ricci's sister, Madeline. She'd just come in and spotted DeChooch.

"Murderer!" she shouted at him. "You murdered my sister."

DeChooch went white-faced and stumbled backward, losing his footing, knocking into Mrs. Varga. Both DeChooch and Mrs. Varga grabbed the casket for support, the casket tipped precariously on its skirted trolley, and there was a collective gasp as Anthony Varga lurched to one side, bas.h.i.+ng his head against the satin padding.

Madeline shoved her hand into her purse, someone yelled that Madeline was going for a gun, and everyone scrambled. Some went flat to the floor, and some surged up the aisle to the lobby.

Stiva's a.s.sistant, Harold Barrone, lunged at Madeline, catching her at the knees, throwing Madeline into Grandma and me, taking us all down in a heap.

"Don't shoot," Harold yelled to Madeline. "Control yourself!"

"I was just getting a tissue, you moron," Madeline said. "Get off me."

"Yeah, and get off me me," Grandma said. "I'm old. My bones could snap like a twig."

I pulled myself to my feet and looked around. No Eddie DeChooch. I ran out to the porch where the men were standing. "Have any of you seen Eddie DeChooch?"

"Yep," one of the men said. "Eddie just left."

"Which way did he go?"

"He went to the parking lot."

I flew down the stairs and got to the lot just as DeChooch was pulling away in a white Cadillac. I said a few comforting cuss words and took off after DeChooch. He was about a block ahead of me, driving on the white line and running stoplights. He turned into the Burg, and I wondered if he was going home. I followed him down Roebling Avenue, past the street that would have taken him to his house. We were the only traffic on Roebling, and I knew I'd been made. DeChooch wasn't so blind that he couldn't see lights in his rearview mirror.

He continued to wind his way through the Burg, taking Was.h.i.+ngton and Liberty streets and then going back up Division. I had visions of myself following DeChooch until one of us ran out of gas. And what then? I didn't have a gun or a vest. And I didn't have backup. I'd have to rely on my powers of persuasion.

DeChooch stopped at the corner of Division and Emory, and I stopped about twenty feet behind him. It was a dark corner without a streetlight, but DeChooch's car was clear in my lights. DeChooch opened his door and got out all creaky-kneed and stooped. He looked at me for a moment, s.h.i.+elding his eyes against my brights. Then he matter-of-factly raised his arm and fired off three shots. Pow Pow. Pow Pow. Pow Pow. Two hit the pavement beside my car and one zinged off my front b.u.mper.

Yikes. So much for persuasion. I threw the CR-V into reverse and floored it. I wheeled around Morris Street, screeched to a stop, rammed the car into drive, and rocketed out of the Burg.

I'd pretty much stopped shaking by the time I parked in my lot and I'd ascertained that I hadn't wet my pants, so all in all, I was sort of proud of myself. There was a nasty gash in my b.u.mper. Could have been worse, I told myself. Could have been a gash in my head. I was trying to cut Eddie DeChooch some slack because he was old and depressed, but truth is, I was starting to dislike him.

Mooner's clothes were still in the hall when I got out of the elevator, so I gathered them up on my way to my apartment. I paused at my door and listened. The television was on. Sounded like boxing. I was almost certain I'd shut the television off. I rested my forehead on the door. Now what?

I was still standing there with my forehead pressed to the door when the door opened and Morelli grinned out at me.

"One of those days, huh?"

I looked around. "Are you alone?"

"Who'd you expect to be here?"

"Batman, the Ghost of Christmas past, Jack the Ripper." I dumped Mooner's clothes on the foyer floor. "I'm a little freaked. I just had a shoot-out with DeChooch. Except he was the only one with a gun."

I gave Morelli the lurid details, and when I got to the part about not wetting my pants, the phone rang.

"Are you all right?" my mother wanted to know. "Your grandmother just got home and said you took off after Eddie DeChooch."

"I'm fine, but I lost DeChooch."

"Myra Szilagy told me they're hiring at the b.u.t.ton factory. And they give benefits. You could probably get a good job on the line. Or maybe even in the office."

Morelli was slouched on the couch, back to watching boxing, when I got off the phone. He was wearing a black T-s.h.i.+rt and a cream cable-knit sweater over jeans. He was lean and hard-muscled and darkly Mediterranean. He was a good cop. He could make my nipples tingle with a single look. And he was a New York Rangers fan. This made him just about perfect . . . except for the cop part.

Bob the Dog was on the couch beside Morelli. Bob is a cross between a golden retriever and Chewbacca. He'd originally come to live with me but then decided he liked Morelli's house better. One of those guy things, I guess. So now Bob mostly lives with Morelli. It's okay with me since Bob eats everything everything. Left to his own devices Bob could reduce a house to nothing more than a few nails and some pieces of tile. And because Bob frequently takes in large quant.i.ties of roughage such as furniture, shoes, and houseplants, Bob frequently expels mountains of dog doody.

Bob smiled and wagged his tail at me, and then Bob went back to watching television.

"I'm a.s.suming you know the guy who took his clothes off in your hall," Morelli said.

"Mooner. He wanted to show me his underwear."

"Makes perfect sense to me."

"He said Dougie's gone missing. He said Dougie went out yesterday morning and never came back."

Morelli dragged himself away from the boxing. "Isn't Dougie coming up to trial?"

"Yes, but Mooner doesn't think Dougie skipped. Mooner thinks something's wrong."

"Mooner's brain probably looks like a fried egg. I wouldn't put a lot of stock in what Mooner thinks."

I handed Morelli the phone. "Maybe you could make a few phone calls. You know, check the hospitals." And the morgue. As a cop, Morelli had better access than I did.

Fifteen minutes later Morelli had run through the list. No one meeting Dougie's description had checked into St. Francis, Helen Fuld, or the morgue. I called Mooner and told him our findings.

"Hey man," Mooner said, "it's getting scary. It's not just Dougie. Now my clothes are gone."

"Don't worry about your clothes. I've got your clothes."

"Boy, you're good," Mooner said. "You're really good."

I did some mental eye rolling and hung up.

Morelli patted the seat next to him. "Sit down and let's talk about Eddie DeChooch."

"What about DeChooch?"

"He's not a nice guy."

A sigh inadvertently escaped from my lips.

Morelli ignored the sigh. "Costanza said you got to talk to DeChooch before he took off."

"DeChooch is depressed."

"I don't suppose he mentioned Loretta Ricci?"

"Nope, not a word about Loretta. I found Loretta all by myself."

"Tom Bell's primary on the case. I ran into him after work, and he said Ricci was already dead when she was shot."

"What?"

"He won't know the cause of death until after the autopsy."

"Why would someone shoot a dead person?"

Morelli did a palms-up.

Great. "Do you have anything else to give me?"

Morelli looked at me and grinned.

"Besides that," I said.

I WAS ASLEEP, and in my sleep I was suffocating. There was a terrible weight on my chest and I couldn't breathe. Usually I don't have dreams about suffocating. I have dreams about elevators shooting out the tops of buildings with me trapped inside. I have dreams of bulls stampeding down the street after me. And I have dreams of forgetting to get dressed and going to a shopping center naked. But I never have dreams of suffocating. Until now. I dragged myself awake and opened my eyes. Bob was sleeping next to me with his big dog head and front paws on my chest. The rest of the bed was empty. Morelli was gone. He'd tippy-toed out at the crack of dawn, and he'd left Bob with me.

"Okay, big guy," I said, "if you get off me I'll feed you."

Bob might not understand all the words, but Bob almost never missed the intent when it came to food. His ears perked up and his eyes got bright and he was off the bed in an instant, dancing around all happy-faced.