“And all that time Hannibal had his men out, scouring the state, trying to find Homer.”
“Sort of gratifying to know they were scrambling around, looking for the little jerk,” Morelli said.
“So what about the stash?” I asked. “Anybody have any idea what happened to the gym bag filled with money?” Anybody besides me, that is.
“One of life's great mysteries,” Morelli said. “The prevailing theory is that Homer hid it while in a drug-induced haze and forgot where he put it.”
“That sounds logical,” I said. “I bet that's it.” What the hell, why not let Dougie and Mooner enjoy the money? If it was confiscated it would only go to the federal government, and God only knew what they'd do with it.
Morelli parked in front of his row house on Slater Street and helped me out. He opened his front door, and Bob jumped out and smiled at me.
“He's happy to see me,” I told Morelli. And the fact that I was holding a bag filled with stuffed cabbage didn't hurt, either. Not that it mattered. Bob gave a terrific welcome.
Morelli had put Rex's aquarium on his kitchen counter. I tapped on the side and there was movement under a pile of bedding. Rex stuck his head out, twitched his whiskers, and blinked his black bead eyes at me.
“Hey, Rex!” I said. “How's it going?”
The whisker twitching stopped for a microsecond, and then Rex retreated under the bedding. It might not seem like much to the casual observer, but in terms of hamsters, that was a terrific welcome, too.
Morelli cracked open a couple beers and set two plates on his small kitchen table. We divided the cabbage rolls between Morelli and Bob and me and dug in. Halfway through my second cabbage roll I noticed Morelli wasn't eating.
“Not hungry?” I asked.
Morelli sent me a tight smile. “I've missed you.”
“I've missed you, too.”
“How's your arm?”
“It's okay.”
He took my hand and kissed my fingertip. “I hope this conversation counts as foreplay, because I'm feeling a real lack of self-control.”
Fine by me. I wasn't seeing much value in self-control at all at the moment.
He took the fork out of my hand. “How bad do you want those cabbage rolls?”
“I don't even like cabbage rolls.”
He pulled me out of my chair and kissed me.
The doorbell rang, and we both jumped apart.
“Shit!” Morelli said. “Now what? It's always something! Grandmothers and murderers and pagers going off. I can't take it anymore.” He stormed off to the front of the house and wrenched the door open.
It was his grandma Bella. She was a little lady, dressed
in Old Country black. Her white hair was pulled into a knot at the nape of her neck, her face was free of makeup, her thin lips were pressed tight together. Joe's mother stood to the side, larger than Bella, no less scary.
“Well?” Bella said.
Joe looked at her. “Well, what?”
“Aren't you going to invite us in?”
“No.”
Bella stiffened. “If you weren't my favorite grandson I'd put the eye on you.”