Seven Up - By Janet Evanovich Page 0,11

much for persuasion. I threw the CR-V into reverse and floored it. I wheeled around Morris Street, screeched to a stop, rammed the car into drive, and rocketed out of the Burg.

I'd pretty much stopped shaking by the time I parked in my lot and I'd ascertained that I hadn't wet my pants, so all in all, I was sort of proud of myself. There was a nasty gash in my bumper. Could have been worse, I told myself. Could have been a gash in my head. I was trying to cut Eddie DeChooch some slack because he was old and depressed, but truth is, I was starting to dislike him.

Mooner's clothes were still in the hall when I got out of the elevator, so I gathered them up on my way to my apartment. I paused at my door and listened. The television was on. Sounded like boxing. I was almost certain I'd shut the television off. I rested my forehead on the door. Now what?

I was still standing there with my forehead pressed to the door when the door opened and Morelli grinned out at me.

"One of those days, huh?"

I looked around. "Are you alone?"

"Who'd you expect to be here?"

"Batman, the Ghost of Christmas past, Jack the Ripper." I dumped Mooner's clothes on the foyer floor. "I'm a little freaked. I just had a shoot-out with DeChooch. Except he was the only one with a gun."

I gave Morelli the lurid details, and when I got to the part about not wetting my pants, the phone rang.

"Are you all right?" my mother wanted to know. "Your grandmother just got home and said you took off after Eddie DeChooch."

"I'm fine, but I lost DeChooch."

"Myra Szilagy told me they're hiring at the button factory. And they give benefits. You could probably get a good job on the line. Or maybe even in the office."

Morelli was slouched on the couch, back to watching boxing, when I got off the phone. He was wearing a black T-shirt and a cream cable-knit sweater over jeans. He was lean and hard-muscled and darkly Mediterranean. He was a good cop. He could make my nipples tingle with a single look. And he was a New York Rangers fan. This made him just about perfect . . . except for the cop part.

Bob the Dog was on the couch beside Morelli. Bob is a cross between a golden retriever and Chewbacca. He'd originally come to live with me but then decided he liked Morelli's house better. One of those guy things, I guess. So now Bob mostly lives with Morelli. It's okay with me since Bob eats everything. Left to his own devices Bob could reduce a house to nothing more than a few nails and some pieces of tile. And because Bob frequently takes in large quantities of roughage such as furniture, shoes, and houseplants, Bob frequently expels mountains of dog doody.

Bob smiled and wagged his tail at me, and then Bob went back to watching television.

"I'm assuming you know the guy who took his clothes off in your hall," Morelli said.

"Mooner. He wanted to show me his underwear."

"Makes perfect sense to me."

"He said Dougie's gone missing. He said Dougie went out yesterday morning and never came back."

Morelli dragged himself away from the boxing. "Isn't Dougie coming up to trial?"

"Yes, but Mooner doesn't think Dougie skipped. Mooner thinks something's wrong."

"Mooner's brain probably looks like a fried egg. I wouldn't put a lot of stock in what Mooner thinks."

I handed Morelli the phone. "Maybe you could make a few phone calls. You know, check the hospitals." And the morgue. As a cop, Morelli had better access than I did.

Fifteen minutes later Morelli had run through the list. No one meeting Dougie's description had checked into St. Francis, Helen Fuld, or the morgue. I called Mooner and told him our findings.

"Hey man," Mooner said, "it's getting scary. It's not just Dougie. Now my clothes are gone."

"Don't worry about your clothes. I've got your clothes."

"Boy, you're good," Mooner said. "You're really good."

I did some mental eye rolling and hung up.

Morelli patted the seat next to him. "Sit down and let's talk about Eddie DeChooch."

"What about DeChooch?"

"He's not a nice guy."

A sigh inadvertently escaped from my lips.

Morelli ignored the sigh. "Costanza said you got to talk to DeChooch before he took off."

"DeChooch is depressed."

"I don't suppose he mentioned Loretta Ricci?"

"Nope, not a word about Loretta. I found Loretta all by myself."

"Tom Bell's primary on the case. I ran into him