“Good. Then you’ll be careful.” He opened my refrigerator door, pulled out the leftovers my mom had sent home with me, and ate them cold. “You need to be careful when you talk to Dorsey. If he finds out you’ve been working with me, he could charge you with aiding and abetting.”
“I have this very disturbing suspicion that I’ve been talked into an alliance that’s not in my best interest.”
He cracked a beer open. “The only way you’re going to collect that $10,000 is if I allow you to bring me in. And I’m not going to allow you to bring me in if I can’t prove myself innocent. Any time you want to call the deal off, just let me know, but you can kiss your money good-by.”
“That’s a rotten attitude.”
He shook his head. “Realistic.”
“I could have gassed you any number of times.”
“I don’t think so.”
I whipped the spray out, but before I could aim he’d knocked the canister from my hand and sent it flying across the room.
“Doesn’t count,” I said. “You were expecting it.”
He finished his sandwich and slid his dish into the dishwasher. “I’m always expecting it.”
“Where do we go from here?”
“We keep doing more of the same. Obviously we’re hitting a nerve.”
“I don’t like being a target.”
“You aren’t going to whine about this, are you?” He settled himself in front of the television and starting working the channel changer. He looked tired, sitting with his back against the wall, one leg bent at the knee. He locked in a late night show and closed his eyes. His breathing grew deep and even and his head slumped to his chest.
“I could gas you now,” I whispered.
He raised his head, but he didn’t open his eyes. A smile played at the corners of his mouth. “It’s not your style, Cupcake.”
HE WAS STILL SLEEPING ON THE FLOOR in front of the television when I got up at eight. I tiptoed past him and went out to run. He was reading the paper and drinking coffee when I returned.
“Anything in there about the bombing” I asked.
“Story and pictures on page three. They’re calling it an unexplained explosion. Nothing especially interesting.” He looked over the top of the paper at me. “Dorsey left another message on your machine. Maybe you should see what he wants.”
I took a fast shower, dressed in clean clothes, slathered some aloe cream on my blistered face, and followed my scaly nose to the coffeepot. I drank half a cup while I read the funnies, and then I called Dorsey.
“We’ve got the analysis back from the lab,” he said. “It was definitely a bomb. Professional job. Of course, you can get a book out of any library that will tell you how to do a professional bombing. You could build a fucking nuke if you wanted to. Anyway, I thought you’d want to know.”
“I suspected as much.”
“You have any ideas who would do such a thing?”
“No names.”
“How about Morelli?”
“That’s a possibility.”
“I missed you at the station yesterday.”
He was fishing. He knew there was something screwy about all of this. He just hadn’t figured it out yet. Welcome to the club, Dorsey. “I’ll try to get there today.”
“Try real hard.”
I hung up and topped off my coffee. “Dorsey wants me to come in.”
“Are you going?”
“No. He’s going to ask questions I can’t answer.”
“You should put in some time on Stark Street this morning.”
“Not this morning. I have things to do.”
“What things?”
“Personal things.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“I have some loose ends to tie up… just in case,” I said.
“Just in case what?”
I made an exasperated gesture. “Just in case something happens to me. For the past ten days I’ve been stalked by a professional sadist, and now I’m on the happy bomber’s hit list. I feel a little insecure, okay? Give me a break, Morelli. I need to see some people. I have a few personal errands to run.”
He gently peeled a strip of loose skin off my nose. “You’re going to be okay,” he said softly. “I understand that you’re scared. I get scared too. But we’re the good guys, and the good guys always win.”
