Seven Up - By Janet Evanovich Page 0,94

you?"

I smiled at him. "I'm easy to talk to." And also, he had hundred-proof breath. DeChooch was doing a lot of drinking. "While we're talking, why don't you tell me about Loretta Ricci?"

"Cripes, she was a hot one. She came to bring me one of them Meals-on-Wheels and she was all over me. I kept telling her I wasn't any good for that anymore, but she wouldn't listen. She said she could get anyone to . . . you know, do it. So I figured, what the hell, what have I got to lose, right? Next thing I know she's down there and she's having some luck with it. And then just when I'm thinking it's going to happen she keels over and dies. I guess she gave herself a heart attack from working so hard. I tried to revive her, but she was goddamn dead. I was so pissed off I shot her."

"You could use some anger-management skills," I said.

"Yeah, people tell me that."

"There wasn't any blood anywhere. No bullet holes."

"What do I look like, an amateur?" His face crinkled and a tear slid down his cheek. "I'm real depressed," he said.

"I bet I know something that'll cheer you up."

He looked like he didn't believe it.

"You know Louie D's heart?"

"Yeah."

"It wasn't his heart."

"Are you kidding me?"

"Swear to God."

"Whose heart was it?"

"It was a pig heart. I bought it at a butcher shop."

DeChooch smiled. "They put a pig heart back into Louie D and buried him?"

I nodded my head yes.

He started to chuckle. "Then where's Louie D's real heart?"

"A dog ate it."

DeChooch burst out laughing. He laughed until he had a coughing fit. When he got himself under control and he stopped coughing and laughing, he looked down at himself. "Jeezus, I've got an erection."

Men get erections at the strangest times.

"Look at it," he said. "Look at it! It's a beauty. It's hard as a rock."

I looked over at it. It was a pretty decent erection.

"Who would have thought," I said. "Go figure."

DeChooch was beaming. "Guess I'm not so old after all."

He's going to jail. He can't see. He can't hear. He can't take a leak that lasts under fifteen minutes. But he has an erection and all the other problems are small change. Next time around I'm coming back as a man. Priorities are so clearly defined. Life is so simple.

DeChooch's refrigerator caught my eye. "Did you by any chance take a pot roast out of Dougie's freezer?"

"Yeah. At first I thought it was the heart. It was all wrapped up in plastic wrap and it was dark in the kitchen. But then I realized it was too big, and when I took a closer look I saw it was a pot roast. I figured they'd never miss it, and it might be nice to have a pot roast. Only I never got to cook it."

"I hate to bring this up," I said to DeChooch, "but you should let me bring you in."

"I can't do that," DeChooch said. "Think about it. How's it going to look . . . Eddie DeChooch brought in by a girl."

"It happens all the time."

"Not in my profession. I'd never live it down. I'd be disgraced. I'm a man. I need to be brought in by somebody tough, like Ranger."

"No. Not Ranger. He's not available. He's not feeling good."

"Well, that's what I want. I want Ranger. I'm not going if it's not Ranger."

"I liked you better before you had an erection."

DeChooch smiled. "Yeah, I'm back in the saddle, chickie."

"How about if you turn yourself in?"

"Guys like me don't turn themselves in. Maybe the young guys do. But my generation has rules. We have a code." His gun had been lying on the table in front of him. He picked the gun up and chambered a round. "Do you want to be responsible for my suicide?"

Oh brother.

There was a table lamp lit in the living room, and the overhead light had been switched on in the kitchen. The rest of the house was dark. DeChooch sat with his back to a doorway leading to the dark dining room. Like a ghost from horrors past, with only a slight rustle of clothing, Sophia appeared in the doorway. She stood there for a moment, swaying slightly, and I thought she might truly be an apparition, a figment of my overactive imagination. She held a gun at waist level. She stared straight at me, aimed, and before I could react, she fired. POW!

DeChooch's gun flew from his hand,