Four to Score - By Janet Evanovich Page 0,102

about. He kicked the stand out and strolled over to me.

"Nice night to be sitting out," he said.

I was reminded of the time I went to Girl Scout camp and sat too close to the fire and my boots started smoking.

"Thought you'd want to know how the interrogation went."

I leaned forward, greedy with curiosity. Of course I wanted to know!

"It was a total bitchfest," Morelli said. "I've never seen so many people so eager to incriminate themselves. It turns out that Leo Glick has a record a mile long. He grew up in Detroit, working for the Angio family. Was an enforcer. Twenty years ago he decided he was getting too old to do muscle work, so he apprenticed himself to a printer he met in prison. The printer, Joe Costa, had a set of really good plates. Leo spent three years with Costa, learning the business, and then one day Costa got dead. Leo doesn't know how this happened."

I rolled my eyes.

"Yeah," Morelli said. "That's what I think, too. Anyway, Leo and Betty left Detroit and moved to Trenton, and after a couple years they set up shop.

"Leo knew Nathan Russo from Detroit. Nathan was a bag man for the Angios. Leo got Nathan to relocate and launder for him. It was all pretty clever. Nathan runs a dry-cleaning business. Betty was the go-between, and she made all the exchanges in bundles of laundry. Very sanitary."

"That's terrible."

Morelli grinned.

"What about Maxine?" I asked.

"Maxine was in love with Kuntz, but Kuntz is a real asshole. Slaps women around. Maxine isn't the first. Abuses them in other ways, too. Kept telling Maxine she was stupid.

"So one day they have a real bad fight and Maxine takes off with Kuntz's car. Kuntz figures he'll show her, so he presses charges and has her arrested. Maxine gets out on bail and is berserk. She goes back to Kuntz and pretends to be lovey, but what she really wants is to get even. Kuntz has been bragging about what a big gangster he is and how he has this counterfeit operation going. Maxine goads him into showing her the plates, and Eddie, with his very small brain, goes next door when Leo and Betty are at the supermarket and gets the plates and the account book and a duffel bag of twenties. Then Maxine screws his brains out, sends him into the shower to get ready for round two, and takes off with everything."

"Maxine is the shit."

"Yes," Morelli said. "Maxine is definitely the shit. In the beginning it was just supposed to be a revenge game. You know, make Kuntz sweat. Send him on a treasure hunt from hell. But Leo finds out about it and sets off to find Maxine, Detroit style. He interrogates Marge and Maxine's mother, and they don't know anything about anything."

"Even after he encourages them to talk by slicing off a body part."

"Yeah. Leo's not too good at character analyses. He doesn't know he can't get blood from a stone. Anyway, when Maxine finds out about the finger and the scalping, she's outraged, and she decides to cut her mother and Marge in and go for the gold.

"She's gone through the account books by now, so she knows she's dealing with Leo. She calls him up and gives him the terms. A million in real money for the plates and the account book."

"Did Leo have that kind of money?"

"Apparently. Of course, Maxine's denying the extortion part of the story."

"Where's the million?"

Morelli looked like he really liked this part. "Nobody knows. I think it's out of the country. It's possible the only charges that'll stick against anyone is the original auto theft and the failure to appear against Maxine. There isn't actually any proof of extortion."

"What about kidnapping Eddie Kuntz?"

"No charges pressed. If you had 'pencil dick' tattooed all over your ass would you want to go public? Besides, most of those tattoos weren't permanent. The first night Eddie was kidnapped Maxine locked him in a room with a bottle of gin. He got stinking drunk and passed out and when he woke up he was Mr. Tattoo."

I was looking at the Duc, and I was thinking that it was very cool and that if I had a Duc I'd really be the shit.

Morelli nudged my knee with his. "Want to go for a ride?"

Of course I wanted to go for a ride. I was dying to get my legs around those 109 horses and feel them wind out.

"Do I get to drive?" I asked.

"No."

"Why not?"

"It's my bike."

"If I had a Ducati, I'd let you drive."

"If you had a Ducati you probably wouldn't talk to a lowlife like me."

"Remember when I was six and you were eight, and you conned me into playing choo-choo in your father's garage?"

Morelli's eyes narrowed. "We aren't going to go through this again, are we?"

"I never got to be the train. You were always the train. I always had to be the tunnel."

"I had better train equipment."

"You owe me."

"I was eight years old!"

"What about when I was sixteen, and you seduced me behind the 茅clair case at the bakery?"

"What about it?"

"I never got the top. I was only the bottom."

"This is entirely different."

"This is no different! This is the same thing!"

"Jesus," Morelli said. "Just get on the damn bike."

"You're going to let me drive, right?"

"Yeah, you're going to drive."

I ran my hand over the bike. It was sleek and smooth and red. Morelli had a second helmet strapped to the backseat. He unhooked the cord and gave me the helmet. "Seems a shame to cover up all those pretty curls."

I buckled on the helmet. "Too late for flattery."

It had been a while since I'd driven a bike. I settled myself onto the Duc and looked things over.

Morelli took the seat behind me. "You know how to drive this, right?"

I revved the engine. "Right."

"And you have a license?"

"Got a bike license when I was married to Dickie. I've kept it current."

He held me at the waist. "This is going to even the score."

"Not nearly."

"Entirely," he said. "In fact, this ride's going to be so good you're going to owe me when it's done."

Oh boy.