Morelli jogged down the stairs and looked at Anthony’s backside. Blood was seeping through his jeans.
“Shit,” Morelli said. “Why’d she shoot you?”
“I don’t know,” Anthony said. “Something about a gravy ladle.”
I ran to the kitchen and got a couple towels. By the time I got back to the living room, Morelli was dragging Anthony out the door to the car.
Morelli owns an SUV, so Bob has a safe, comfy place to ride, but he keeps a Ducati in his garage for times when he needs to take his wild side for a drive. We loaded Anthony into the back of Morelli’s SUV and Morelli drove the short distance to St. Francis Hospital. The pain was setting in when we off-?loaded Anthony. He was white-?faced and sweating, and he was swearing in two languages. Morelli dragged him into the emergency entrance, and I parked the car in the parking garage.
Okay, so I felt a little bad, but how was I to know Char-?lene would shoot Anthony over the gravy ladle? I mean, who would even believe it? A gravy ladle, for crying out loud. I had no idea where gravy ladle had come from. Baseball bat and tennis racket had horrified me, and then gravy ladle popped into my head. Maybe I was hungry.
Morelli was slouched in a chair in the waiting room when I walked in. I took the seat beside him and sat with my bag hugged to my chest.
“Will he be okay?” I asked Morelli.
“That’s a complicated question. There’s a lot more wrong with him than a nail in the ass.”
An hour later, Anthony got wheeled out facedown on a gurney ready to go home. He was wearing baggy hospital pajamas, and one side of his butt had a big bulge where he was ban daged.
“He’s full of local anesthesia and happy juice,” the nurse told Morelli, “so he should be okay for the ride home. And he’s got a prescription for painkiller and antibiotic. And he’s got directions for changing the dressing once a day. Bring him back in ten days to get the sutures removed.” She handed Morelli a little bag. “Here’s his nails in case he wants to frame them.”
I ran for the SUV and hustled it around to the emergency entrance. Morelli and a male nurse loaded Anthony into the back, and I drove us to Morelli’s house. Morelli dragged Anthony into the house and got him facedown on the couch.
“Women,” Anthony said. “Can’t live with them, can’t live without them.”
Bob sniffed Anthony and ran away. I was in pretty much the same frame of mind as Bob.
“Gotta go,” I said. “Things to do.”
Morelli walked me to my Jeep. He wrapped his arms around me and kissed me with a lot of tongue and desperation.
“You’re leaving a sinking ship,” he said.
“Think of this as a bonding time. And keep him tranqued.”
Stephanie Plum 14.5 - Plum Spooky
ELEVEN
DIESEL WAS AT the dining room table working on my computer when I walked in. “What’s the word on the naked woman?” he asked.
“I managed to get her out of Morelli’s bed, but she came back and shot his brother in the ass with a nail gun.”
Diesel pushed back in his chair and smiled wide. “I’d ask for details, but they might be disappointing compared to what I’m thinking.”
“It was a fiasco.” I got a beer out of the fridge and chugged half of it. “What are you doing?”
“Prowling around on the Net. Trying to learn something about electromagnetic fields. Munch’s doctoral thesis was specific to atmospheric ionization, a subject about which I know zip.”
I couldn’t see Carl, but I could hear Super Mario Bros. coming from the couch.
“Has he been playing that all night?” I asked Diesel.
Diesel stood and stretched. “Yep.”
“And you’re okay with it?”
“Yep.”