Janet Evanovich - Plum Spooky

“He’s married! And he has five kids.”

“Yeah, but she kicked him out.”

I had the feeling this was going nowhere. Time to improvise.

“Truth is, his wife would be better off if you took him off her hands,” I told her. “He comes home drunk all the time and beats her and the kids with a gravy ladle.”

“Jeez,” she said. “That’s awful.”

“And he can’t keep a job, so his wife has to work nights at the button factory,” I said.

“I didn’t know they made buttons at night.”

“She cleans up. Washes floors and toilets and stuff.”

“Ick. That’s even worse than my job.”

“What do you do?”

“I work for a construction company. They’re all a bunch of assholes.”

“You didn’t give him any money did you?”

“I gave him money for the pizza and more beer,” she said.

“Bad move. He probably bought a hooker with the money.”

“I don’t know. He didn’t look all that lively when I was done with him.”

“Yeah, but he’s a sex addict. Got a bunch of diseases. He wore a condom, right? I mean, you didn’t touch him or anything, did you?”

That got her out of bed, hunting for her clothes. “I do not need any more diseases,” she said. She yanked black stretch pants over her ass and tugged a sweater over her head. “That prick had a lot of nerve misrepresenting himself. The more I’m thinking about it, the more steamed I’m getting.” She rammed her feet into four-inch stilettos and grabbed her purse off the dresser. “He hasn’t heard the last of it from me, either.”

She stormed out of the bedroom, stomped down the stairs, swept past Morelli and out the front door.

“I’m impressed,” Morelli said to me. “How did you do it?”

“We just had a heart-to-heart. You know, girl talk.”

“Do I get to be nice to you now?”

“No. Now you put on a pair of rubber gloves and take all the sheets off your bed and throw them away.”

Morelli went upstairs with a new garbage bag, and I continued to pick up the downstairs.

“Where’s Bob?” I called up to Morelli.

“He’s tied out back. I had him at work with me, and I didn’t want him snarfing around in the living room until I cleaned up.”

Bob is Morelli’s dog. He’s mostly golden retriever, with a touch of Sasquatch. He’s big and goofy, entirely lovable, and he eats everything… chairs, table legs, whole hams stolen from the table.

I let Bob in, and Bob rushed through the house, excited to be home, jumping around me like a rabbit. I filled his bowl with fresh water, and another bowl with dog crunchies, and Bob dug in. I tied off my garbage bag and set it by the back door. I was starting up the stairs to help Morelli when Anthony walked in.

“Hey, beautiful,” Anthony said to me. “Haven’t seen you in too long.”

Anthony, for all his faults, can be charming and hideously likable. He was carry ing a large pizza box and had his fingers hooked around a six-pack of Bud.

“Charlene,” he yelled up the stairs. “Come get your pizza.”

“Jeez,” I said. “Bad news. Charlene took off.”

“No big deal,” Anthony said, not missing a beat. “More pizza for us, right? Where’s Joe?”

“Upstairs.”

The front door banged open, and Charlene stormed in and pointed a nail gun at Anthony. Anthony partially turned to look at her, and she shot him in the ass. Bang, bang, bang.

“That’s for the gravy ladle,” she said. “You should be ashamed of yourself.” And she left, slamming the door shut behind her.

Anthony and I were momentarily stunned, mouths open, bug-eyed.

“Fuck,” Anthony finally said. He dropped the pizza, and Bob galloped in and ate it.

Morelli appeared at the head of the stairs. “Were those gunshots?”

“Charlene came back and shot Anthony in the ass with a nail gun. She works for a construction company.”

“Where is she now?” Morelli asked.

“Gone.”

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.”

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.”

“Boy I’m impressed. That’s so mellow.”