Seven Up - By Janet Evanovich Page 0,37

the bedroom for a couple minutes. He can't have gone far. I'll go look for him."

I crossed the room to the window and looked down into the parking lot. A car was leaving. It was hard to see the car in the rain, but it looked like Ziggy and Benny. Dark, American-made midsize. I grabbed my bag, locked my door, and ran the length of the hall. I caught up with Morelli in the lobby. We pushed through the doors to the lot and stopped. No Mooner in sight. The dark sedan no longer in view.

"I think it's possible he's with Ziggy and Benny," I said. "I think we should try their social club." I couldn't imagine where else they'd take Mooner. I didn't think they'd take him home with them.

"Ziggy and Benny and Chooch belong to Domino on Mulberry Street," Morelli said, both of us climbing into his truck. "Why do you think Mooner's with Benny and Ziggy?"

"I thought I saw their car pull out of the lot. And I have a feeling Dougie and DeChooch and Benny and Ziggy are all mixed up in something that started with the cigarette deal."

We wound our way through the Burg to Mulberry and sure enough, Benny's dark blue sedan was parked in front of the Domino Social Club. I got out and felt the hood. Warm.

"How do you want to play this?" Morelli asked. "Do you want me to wait in the truck? Or do you want me to muscle you in?"

"Just because I'm a liberated woman doesn't mean I'm a moron. Muscle me in."

Morelli knocked on the door, and an old man opened the door with the security chain attached.

"I'd like to talk to Benny," Morelli said.

"Benny's busy."

"Tell him it's Joe Morelli."

"He's still gonna be busy."

"Tell him if he doesn't come to the door right now I'm going to set his car on fire."

The old guy disappeared and returned in less than a minute. "Benny says if you set his car on fire he's gonna hafta kill you. And he'll tell your grandmother on you, too."

"Tell Benny he better not have Walter Dunphy in there because Dunphy is under my grandmother's protection. Anything happens to Dunphy and Benny gets the eye."

Two minutes later the door opened for a third time and Mooner got pitched out.

"Dang," I said to Morelli. "I'm impressed."

"Dude," Morelli said.

We put Mooner in the truck and drove him back to my apartment. He got the giggles halfway there, and Morelli and I knew what kind of bait Benny had used on Mooner.

"How lucky was that," Mooner said, smiling and awestruck. "I stepped out for a minute to find some shit, and the two dudes were right there in the lot. And now they like me."

FOR AS LONG as I can remember my mother and grandmother have gone to church on Sunday morning. And on the way home from church, my mother and grandmother stop at the bakery and buy a bag of jelly doughnuts for my father, the sinner. If Mooner and I timed it right we'd arrive a minute or two behind the doughnuts. My mother would be happy because I'd come to visit. Mooner would be happy because he'd get a doughnut. And I'd be happy because my grandmother would have gotten the very latest gossip relating to everybody and everything, including Eddie DeChooch.

"I've got big news," Grandma said when she came to the door. "Stiva got hold of Loretta Ricci yesterday and the first viewing's going to be tonight at seven. It'll be one of those closed-casket ones, but it should be worth something, anyway. Maybe Eddie will even show up. I'm going to wear my new red dress. There'll be a packed house tonight. Everybody'll be there."

Angie and Mary Alice were in the living room in front of the television with the sound turned up so loud the windows were vibrating. My father was in the living room, too, staked out in his favorite chair, reading the paper, his knuckles white with the effort.

"Your sister's in bed with a migraine," Grandma said. "Guess the cheerful thing was too much of a strain. And your mother's making cabbage rolls. We've got doughnuts in the kitchen and if that don't do it for you, I've got a bottle in my bedroom. This place is bedlam."

Mooner took a doughnut and drifted into the living room to watch television with the kids. I helped myself to coffee and sat at the kitchen table with my doughnut.

Grandma sat