'At the time, I didn't care. I didn't have the resources to make a success on my own, so I was willing to do some denial to get a partnership.'
'Why didn't you go to the police when they killed Ziggy Zabar?'
'I didn't know they killed Zabar. Petiak said he took care of him. That could have meant anything. Later in the week, the police came asking if Zabar had attended the meeting, but even then I still thought he was just missing. Petiak could have paid him off, and Zabar could have gone to Rio. Anyway, have you seen Petiak? He's not a guy you could walk up to and ask if he killed your accountant.' Dickie pushed back in his chair. 'You need a television in here. How can you have a kitchen without a television?'
'I manage,' Morelli said. 'So what I'm supposed to believe is that you heard a phone conversation suggesting your partners were going to take your money and run and you didn't do anything?'
'I didn't confront them, if that's what you mean. These are guys who have professional hit men on their client list. I represent Norman Wolecky. I backed out of the hall without making a sound, and when the building emptied out for the night, I went through all the financial records, and I found out how much money we had at Smith Barney. I knew from the phone conversation that something illegal had gone down, but I couldn't figure out what it was. I thought it was probably something like tax evasion. If it was tax evasion, I knew I was fucked. I signed the returns just like everybody else. What was pissing me off was that they were going to take the money and leave me behind to take the fall. I was sitting on this information, waiting for someone to come to me, and no one did. So Friday afternoon, I went to Joyce’s house so no one would hear me, and I cleaned out the Smith Barney account. It was easy. All four of us have our own password to access the account. My plan was to wait for the Monday meeting. If they didn't say anything to me at the Monday meeting, I was going to leave the country and enjoy my forty million. Screw Smullen, Gorvich, and Petiak. My mistake was that I didn't leave soon enough. Smullen found out about the withdrawal and sent the goon patrol to my house Monday night.'
'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 Aurelio. 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 ears. 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 hit 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 Dickies 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.
'What'd I do? I'm sitting here minding my own business, trying to be cooperative. Talk to Bitchzilla over there.'
I looked at my watch. 'Nine minutes,' I said to Morelli.
'I've got blood all over my shirt,' Dickie said.
Morelli mopped the blood up off the floor with some wadded paper towels. 'First of all, it's my shirt. And second, it's still the cleanest shirt we've got until we do laundry.'
'Well, for cripes sakes, do the laundry,' Dickie said.
'I don't have a washer or dryer, and I can't leave you in the house alone.'
