Hot Six - By Janet Evanovich Page 0,63

laying there behind the rugs, I heard Homer come in. He went into the back room, got a rug, and left. And the rug dude, you know, the owner guy, and Homer were talking about how the rug was worth a million dollars, and Homer should be real careful with it. Far out, huh?"

A million-dollar rug! Arturo Stolle had handed a million dollar rug over to Homer Ramos just before Ramos was killed. And now Stolle was looking for Ranger, the last person to see Ramos alive . . . with the exception of the guy who killed him. And Stolle was thinking Ranger had something that belonged to him. Could this Stolle business be over a rug? Hard to believe. Must be a hell of a rug.

"I'm pretty sure I wasn't, like, hallucinating," Mooner said.

"That would be a strange hallucination," I said.

"Not as strange as the time I thought I'd turned into a giant blob of bubble gum. That was scary, dude. I had these little hands and feet, and everything else was bubble gum. I didn't even have a face. And I was like, all chewed, you know." Mooner gave an involuntary shiver. "It was a bad trip, dude."

The front door opened, and Morelli walked in. He looked at Mooner and Dougie, and then he looked at his watch and raised his eyebrows.

"Hey, man," Mooner said. "Long time no see. How's it going, dude?"

"Can't complain," Morelli said.

Dougie, not being nearly as mellow as Mooner, jumped to his feet at the sight of Morelli and accidentally stepped on Bob. Bob yelped in surprise, sank his teeth into Dougie's pants leg and ripped off a chunk of material.

Grandma Mazur opened the bedroom door and looked out. "What's going on?" she asked. "Am I missing something?"

The Dougster was fidgeting on the balls of his feet, ready to sprint for the door at the earliest opportunity. The Dougster didn't feel comfortable being in the presence of a vice cop. The Dougster was lacking many of the talents necessary for success as a criminal.

Morelli raised his hands in a symbol of surrender. "I give up," he said. He gave me a perfunctory kiss on the lips and turned to leave.

"Hey, wait," I said. "I need to talk to you." I looked at Mooner. "Alone."

"Sure," Mooner said. "No problemo. We appreciate the sage advice on the pharmaceutical issue. Me and the Dougster will have to research other avenues of employment for him."

"I'm going back to bed," Grandma said when Mooner and Dougie left. "This doesn't look too interesting. I liked it better the other night when you were on the floor with the bounty hunter."

Morelli gave me the same kind of look Desi always gave Lucy when she'd just done something incredibly stupid."It's a long story," I said.

"I bet."

"You probably don't want to hear the whole, boring story right now," I said.

"I think it sounds like it might be entertaining. Is that how your security chain got destroyed?"

"No, Morris Munson did that."

"Busy night."

I gave a sigh and sank back down onto the couch.

Morelli slouched into a chair across from me. "Well?"

"You know anything about rugs?"

"I know they go on the floor."

I told him Mooner's story about the million-dollar rug.

"Maybe it wasn't the rug that was worth a million dollars," Morelli said. "Maybe there was something inside the rug."

"Such as?"

Morelli just looked at me.

I did some out-loud questioning. "What's small enough to fit in a rug? Drugs?"

"I saw a segment of the security tape from the Ramos fire," Morelli said. "Homer Ramos was carrying a gym bag when he walked past the hidden camera the night he met Ranger. And Ranger was carrying the bag when he left. Word on the street is that Arturo Stolle is missing a load of money and wants to talk to Ranger. What do you think?"

"I think maybe Stolle gives Ramos drugs. Ramos passes the drugs on to be cut and distributed and ends up with a gym bag filled with money, some or all of which might belong to Stolle. Something happens between Ranger and Homer Ramos, and Ranger gets the bag."

"And if that's the way it went down, then probably this was an extracurricular activity for Homer Ramos," Morelli said. "Drugs, extortion, and numbers go to organized crime. Guns go to the Ramos family. Alexander Ramos has always respected that."

Except, in Trenton, it was more like disorganized crime. Trenton fell right in the middle of New York and Philadelphia. No one cared a whole lot about Trenton.