hard when I turned the corner and saw my building half a block away. So near and yet so far. I sprinted the last piece as best I could. I came to a ragged stop at the door and bent at the waist, waiting for my vision to clear, feeling so fucking healthy I could hardly stand myself.
Eddie Gazarra pulled up to the curb in a patrol car. "I got your message," he said. "Jesus, you look like shit."
"I've been running."
"Maybe you should check with a doctor."
"It's my fair skin. It flushes easily. Did you hear about Ranger?"
"Only every detail. You're a real hot topic. I even know what you were wearing when you came in with Dodd. I take it your T-shirt was real wet. I mean real wet."
"When you first started out as a cop, were you afraid of your gun?"
"I've been around guns most of my life. I had an air rifle when I was a kid, and I used to go hunting with my dad and my Uncle Walt. I guess guns were always just another piece of hardware to me."
"If I decide to keep working for Vinnie, you think it's necessary for me to carry a gun?"
"It depends what kind of cases you take. If you're just doing skip tracing, no. If you're going after crazies, yes. Do you have a gun?"
"Smith and Wesson .38. Ranger gave me about ten minutes of instruction on it, but I don't feel comfortable. Would you be willing to baby-sit me while I do some target practice?"
"You're serious about this, aren't you?"
"There's no other way to be."
He nodded. "I heard about your phone call last night."
"Anything come of it?"
"Dispatch sent someone out, but by the time they got there Ramirez was alone. Said he didn't call you. Nothing came in from the woman, but you can register a harassment charge."
"I'll think about it."
I waved him off and huffed and puffed my way up the stairs. I let myself into my apartment, dug out an auxiliary phone cord, put a new tape in the answering machine, and took a shower. It was Sunday. Vinnie had given me a week, and the week was up. I didn't care. Vinnie could give the file to someone else, but he couldn't stop me from dogging Morelli. If someone else bagged him before I did, that was the breaks, but until that happened I intended to keep at it.
Gazarra had agreed to meet me at the pistol range behind Sunny's Gun Shop when he got off work at four o'clock. That left me with a whole day of snooping. I started out by driving past Morelli's mother's house, his cousin's house, and various other relatives' houses. I circled the parking lot to his apartment, noting that the Nova was still where I'd left it. I cruised up and down Stark Street and Polk. I didn't see the van or anything else that might indicate Morelli's presence.
I drove by the front of Carmen's building, and then I went around back. The service road cutting the block was narrow and badly maintained, pocked with holes. There was no tenant parking back here. The single rear door opened onto the service road. Across the way, asphalt-shingled row houses also butted up to the road.
I parked as close to the apartment building as possible, leaving barely enough room for a car to squeeze by me. I got out and looked up, trying to place Carmen's second-floor apartment, surprised to see two boarded and fire blackened windows. The windows belonged to the Santiago apartment.
The street-level back door was propped open, and the acrid odor of smoke and charred wood hung in the air. I heard the sweep of a broom and realized someone was working in the narrow corridor that led to the front foyer.
A trickle of sooty water tumbled over the sill, and a darkskinned, mustached man looked out at me. He cut his eyes to my car, and jerked his head in the direction of the road. "No parking here."
I gave him my card. "I'm looking for Joe Morelli. He's in violation of his bond agreement."
"Last I saw him he was flat on his back, out cold."
"Did you see him get hit?"
"No. I didn't get there until after the police. My apartment's in the cellar. Sound doesn't carry good."
I looked up at the damaged windows. "What happened?"
"Fire in the Santiago apartment. Happened on Friday. I guess if you wanted to be picky you'd say it happened Saturday.