Lean Mean Thirteen (Stephanie Plum 13)

“You still could have fled,” I said to him. “Why did you hang around?”

"To begin with, I didn't have a passport. It was in my house, and my house was filled with cops. And then when I went back to my house, my passport was missing. I know there are ways to get a fake passport, but I'm not James Bond. I don't know how to go about getting a fake passport, and the thought of using one scares the crap out of me. I get nervous when I have to take my shoes off at the airport. I'm innocent and I feel guilty. What am I going to do when I'm actually guilty?

"So I put myself in a cheap motel in Bordentown until I could come up with a plan. I'm not talking to anyone. Not even Joyce. Okay, maybe phone sex, but that was it. And then I'm watching television, and the local news comes on, and they're talking about how Zabar, the accountant, washed up on the banks of the Delaware. Now I know Petiak killed Zabar. This is serious shit. This isn't just income tax evasion, this is also murder.

"Time to get out of Dodge, I tell myself. If I can't go to an island and lose myself, I can at least go to Scottsdale. Unfortunately, it turns out I can't get to the money. Now I'm really in a bind. I have no more cash in my pocket, and I'm afraid to use a credit card and have it traced. I get to thinking about the warehouse and the apartment building the firm owns, and I wonder if I can hang out there for just a couple days until I can locate the money. I go to the apartment building, and it's in use. Full. No empty apartments. Then I go to the warehouse, and I see Gorvich in the parking lot talking to Eddie Aurelib. Two of Aurelio's soldiers are standing watch at parade rest by Aurelio's Lincoln. It's like a scene out of The Godfather. I don't know a whole lot about the Trenton drug scene, but I know Aurelio is big-time mob.

“I drove past the warehouse and got on Route One and kept going until Princeton. I stopped at a Starbucks and tried to get my heart rate down over a latte. Decaf. I didn't know what the hell was going on, but I was running out of options until I could get the money. So I called the police and told them about Gorvich and Aurelio and Gorvich's client list, and about Smullen and Petiak taking care of Zabar the accountant. I told them I'd testify to all this, but they had to put me someplace safe. And I told them I only trusted Morelli. So here I am.”

“Why Morelli?”

“Because you have the key,” Morelli said to me. “He needed to be close to the key. He knew we were seeing each other, and he thought he might catch some stray information. He's been sitting here waiting for another opportunity to retrieve the key. What he didn't realize was that Petiak was staking out your apartment for entirely different reasons.”

“Petiak is doing cleanup,” Dickie said. “He's getting rid of anyone who looks like a threat. At least, that's the way he tells it. After spending some very scary time with him, my feeling is he's gone gonzo. I think Stephanie popped up on his radar screen and he just wanted to enjoy the experience of taking his flamethrower to her.”

“And you gave him more reason, didn't you?” Morelli said.

"He hit me! First that RangeMan gorilla attacked me in the apartment, and then I got kidnapped on the way out of the building. It was traumatic. I was handcuffed, and they rammed me down onto the floor of the car so I couldn't see anything. And then when they dragged me out, I still didn't know where we were. I only knew I was in a two-car garage. No windows. No other cars. There was just

the light from the garage-door opener.

“Petiak was there with his spooky eyes. He didn't say anything to me. I still had my hands locked behind my back, and he hit me in the face. Just like that… bam! 'What the fuck was that?' I said to him. That was to let you know I'm serious,' he said. Then he asked me where the forty million was and I said I didn't know. So he hit me again, except that time it wasn't in the face, and I decided to tell him whatever he wanted to know.”

“You told him Stephanie had the key.”

“I told you. He to me!”

I saw Morelli's eyes turn black, and I felt the air pressure change in the room. I stepped between Morelli and Dickie and put a hand to Morelli's chest.

“You don't want to kill him,” I said to Morelli.

“Get out of my way.”

“This is complicated enough. And we might need him for something. And you'd have to go before a review board if you kill him.”

“I don't get it,” Dickie said to Morelli. “What's the big deal here? He already wanted to kill her. It's not like he could kill her twice. Man, you two are a pair. You have anger-management issues. I hope you're not planning on reproducing. Hate to see a kid with her hair anyway.”

I turned to Dickie. 'What's wrong with my hair?"

“It's always a mess. You should get Joyce to help you with it. She has great hair. If you'd been more like Joyce, things might have worked out differently.”

After that, things happened pretty fast, and when Morelli pulled me off Dickie, his nose was bleeding again. Someone had knocked Dickie off his chair and gone after him like Wild Woman. I guess that was me. Morelli had me at the waist with my feet two inches off the floor.

“I don't know why I always feel like I have to take care of you,” Morelli said to me. "You do such a good job of it all by yourself/'

There was blood splattered across the floor, soaking into Dickie s shirt.

“Crap,” I said. “Am I responsible for all that blood?”

“No, he cracked his nose on the table when he panicked and tried to get away from you. If I put you down, do you promise not to go after him again?”

“Forever?”

“No. Just in the next ten minutes.”

“Sure.”

Morelli got some ice out of the freezer, wrapped it in a towel, and handed it to Dickie. “Do you suppose you could try being a little less obnoxious?” he asked him.