Eleven on Top (Stephanie Plum 11)

ood grief.”

“Okay, four days out of seven, but that's my best offer. How's the new job at the button factory going?”

“Got fired. And it was your fault. I was late for work on my first day.”

I could feel Morelli smile at the other end of the line. “Am I good, or what?”

“I got a job at Kan Klean. I start tomorrow.”

“We should celebrate.”

“No celebrating! That's what lost me the button factory job. Don't you want to ask me if I can get you discount cleaning?”

“I don't clean my clothes. I wear them until they fall apart and then I throw them away.”

I finished the sandwich and chugged the beer. “I've got to go,” I told Morelli. “I told Grandma I'd pick her up at seven. We're going to Harry Farstein's viewing at Stiva's.”

“I can't compete with that,” Morelli said.

Grandma was waiting at the door when I drove up. She was dressed in powder blue slacks, a matching floral-print blouse, a white cotton cardigan, and white tennis shoes. She had her big black patent-leather purse in the crook of her arm. Her gray hair was freshly set in tight little baloney curls that marched across her pink skull. Her nails were newly manicured and painted fire-engine red. Her lipstick matched her nails.

“I'm ready to go,” she said, hurrying over to the car. “We don't get a move on, we're not gonna get a good seat. There's gonna be a crowd tonight and ever since Spiro took off, Stiva hasn't been all that good with organization. Spiro was a nasty little cockroach but he could organize a crowd like no one else.”

Spiro was Constantine Stiva's kid. I went to school with Spiro and near the end I guess I inadvertently helped him disappear. He was a miserable excuse for a human being, involved in running guns and God knows what else. He tried to kill Grandma and me, there was a shoot-out and a spectacular fire at the funeral home, and somehow, in the confusion, Spiro vanished into thin air.

When I got the notes saying I'm back and did you think I was dead? Spiro was one of the potential psychos who came to mind. Sad to say, he was just one name among many. And he wasn't the most likely candidate. Spiro had been a lot of things . . . dumb wasn't one of them. Plus I couldn't see Spiro being obsessed with revenge. Spiro had wanted money and power.

The funeral home was on Hamilton, a couple blocks down from the bail bonds office. It had been rebuilt after the fire and was now a jumble of new brick construction and old Victorian mansion. The two-story front half of the house was white aluminum siding with black shutters. A large porch wrapped around the front and south side of the house. Some of the viewing rooms and all of the embalming rooms were located in the new brick addition at the rear. The preferred viewing rooms were in the front and Stiva had given them names: the Blue Salon, the Rest in Peace Salon, and the Executive Slumber Salon.

It was a five-minute drive from my parents' house to Stiva's. I dropped Grandma at the door and found street parking half a block away. When I got to the funeral home Grandma was waiting for me at the entrance to the Executive Slumber Salon.

“I don't know why they call this the Executive Salon,” she said. “It's not like Stiva's laying a lot of executives to rest. Think it's just a big phony-baloney name.”

The Executive Slumber Salon was the largest of the viewing rooms and was already packed with people. Lydia Farstein was at the far end, one hand dramatically touching the open casket. She was in her seventies and looked surprisingly happy for a woman who had just lost her husband of fifty-odd years.

“Looks like Lydia's been hitting the sauce,” Grandma said. “Last time I saw her that happy was... never. I'm going back to give her my condolences and take a look at Harry.”

Looking at dead people wasn't high on my list of favorite activities, so I separated from Grandma and wandered to the far side of the entrance hall, where complimentary cookies had been set out.

I scarfed down a couple sugar cookies and a couple spice cookies and I felt a prickling sensation at the back of my neck. I turned and looked across the room and saw Morelli's Grandma Bella glaring at me. Grandma Bella is a white-haired old lady who dresses in black and looks like an extra out of a Godfather flashback. She has visions, and she puts spells on people. And she scares the crap out of me.

Bitsy Mullen was standing next to me at the cookie table. “Omigod,” Bitsy said. “I hope she's glaring at you and not me. Last week she put the eye on Francine Blainey, and Francine got a bunch of big herpes sores all over her face.”

The eye is like Grandma Bella voodoo. She puts her finger to her eye and she mumbles something and whatever calamity happens to you after that you can pin on the eye. I guess it's a little like believing in hell. You hope it's bogus, but you never really know for sure, do you?

“I'm betting Francine got herpes from her worthless boyfriend,” I said to Bitsy.

“I'm not taking any chances,” Bitsy said. “I'm going to hide in the ladies' room until the viewing is over. Oh no! Omigod. Here she comes. What should I do? I can't breathe. I'm gonna faint.”

“Probably she just wants a cookie,” I said to Bitsy. Not that I believed it.

Grandma Bella had her beady eyes fixed on me. I'd seen the look before and it wasn't good.

“You!” Grandma Bella said, pointing her finger at me. “You broke my Joseph's heart.”

“No way,” I said. “Swear to God.”

“Is there a ring on your finger?”