Lula finished off the last piece of the pie and looked at her watch. 'I'd go back and root out that nutso loser, but it's getting late. Don't you think it's late?'
'Almost three o'clock.'
'Practically quitting time.'
Especially for me, since I quit yesterday.
THREE
I'm not the world's best cook, but I have some specialties, and almost all of them include peanut butter. You can't go wrong with peanut butter. Today I was having a peanut butter and olive and potato chip sandwich for dinner.
Very efficient since it combines legumes and vegetables plus some worthless white bread carbohydrates all in one tidy package. I was standing in the kitchen, washing the sandwich down with a cold Corona, and Morelli called.
'What are you doing?' he asked.
'Eating.'
'Why aren't you eating in my house?'
'I don't live in your house.'
'You were living in my house last night.'
'I was visiting your house last night. That's different from living. Living involves commitment and closet allocation.'
'We don't seem to be all that good at commitment, but I'd be happy to give up a couple closets in exchange for wild gorilla sex at least five days out of seven.'
'Good grief.'
'Okay, four days out of seven, but that's my best offer. How's the new job at the button factory going?'
'Got fired. And it was your fault. I was late for work on my first day.'
I could feel Morelli smile at the other end of the line. 'Am I good, or what?'
'I got a job at Kan Klean. I start tomorrow.'
'We should celebrate.'
'No celebrating! That's what lost me the button factory job. Don't you want to ask me if I can get you discount cleaning?'
'I don't clean my clothes. I wear them until they fall apart and then I throw them away.'
I finished the sandwich and chugged the beer. 'I've got to go,' I told Morelli. 'I told Grandma I'd pick her up at seven. We're going to Harry Farstein's viewing at Stiva's.'
'I can't compete with that,' Morelli said.
Grandma was waiting at the door when I drove up. She was dressed in powder blue slacks, a matching floral- print blouse, a white cotton cardigan, and white tennis shoes. She had her big black patent-leather purse in the crook of her arm. Her gray hair was freshly set in tight little baloney curls that marched across her pink skull. Her nails were newly manicured and painted fire-engine red. Her lipstick matched her nails.
'I'm ready to go,' she said, hurrying over to the car. 'We don't get a move on, we're not gonna get a good seat. There's gonna be a crowd tonight and ever since Spiro took off, Stiva hasn't been all that good with organization. Spiro was a nasty little cockroach but he could organize a crowd like no one else.'
Spiro was Constantine Stiva's kid. I went to school with Spiro and near the end I guess I inadvertently helped him disappear. He was a miserable excuse for a human being, involved in running guns and God knows what else. He tried to kill Grandma and me, there was a shoot-out and a spectacular fire at the funeral home, and somehow, in the confusion, Spiro vanished into thin air.
When I got the notes saying I'm back and did you think I was dead? Spiro was one of the potential psychos who came to mind. Sad to say, he was just one name among many. And he wasn't the most likely candidate. Spiro had been a lot of things . . . dumb wasn't one of them. Plus I couldn't see Spiro being obsessed with revenge. Spiro had wanted money and power.
The funeral home was on Hamilton, a couple blocks down from the bail bonds office. It had been rebuilt after the fire and was now a jumble of new brick construction and old Victorian mansion. The two-story front half of the house was white aluminum siding with black shutters. A large porch wrapped around the front and south side of the house. Some of the viewing rooms and all of the embalming rooms were located in the new brick addition at the rear. The preferred viewing rooms were in the front and Stiva had given them names: the Blue Salon, the Rest in Peace Salon, and the Executive Slumber Salon.
It was a five-minute drive from my parents' house to Stiva's. I dropped Grandma at the door and found street parking half a block away. When I got to the funeral home Grandma was waiting for me at the entrance to the Executive Slumber Salon.
'I don't know why they call this the Executive Salon,' she said. 'It's not like Stiva's laying a lot of executives to rest. Think it's just a big phony-baloney name.'
The Executive Slumber Salon was the largest of the viewing rooms and was already packed with people. Lydia Farstein was at the far end, one hand dramatically touching the open casket. She was in her seventies and looked surprisingly happy for a woman who had just lost her husband of fifty-odd years.
'Looks like Lydia's been hitting the sauce,' Grandma said. 'Last time I saw her that happy was... never. I'm going back to give her my condolences and take a look at Harry.'
Looking at dead people wasn't high on my list of favorite activities, so I separated from Grandma and wandered to the far side of the entrance hall, where complimentary cookies had been set out.
