Stephanie Plum - 07 - Seven Up by Janet Evanovich

Author:Janet Evanovich
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Mystery
ISBN: 9780755329069
Publisher: HEADLINE REVIEW
Published: 2005-06-06T06:53:35+00:00

MORELLI CALLED A half hour after Ranger dropped me off. "You're what?" Morelli yelled.

"Bait."

"Jesus."

"It's a good idea," I said. "We're going to let people think I have whatever it is that they're after . . ."

"We?"

"Ranger and me."

"Ranger."

I had a mental picture of Morelli clenching his teeth.

"I don't want you working with Ranger."

"It's my job. We're bounty hunters."

"I don't want you doing that job, either."

"Well, guess what? I'm not crazy about you being a cop."

"At least my job is legitimate," Morelli said.

"My job is just as legitimate as yours."

"Not when you work with Ranger," Morelli said. "He's a nut case. And I don't like the way he looks at you."

"How does he look at me?"

"The same way I do."

I could feel myself hyperventilating. Breathe slow, I told myself. Don't panic.

I got rid of Morelli, made myself a peanut butter and olive sandwich, and called my sister.

"I'm worried about this marriage thing," I said. "If you couldn't stay married, what are my chances?"

"Men don't think right," Valerie said. "I did everything I was supposed to do and it was wrong. How can that be?"

"Do you still love him?"

"I don't think so. Mostly I'd like to punch him in the face."

"Okay," I said. "I have to go now." And I hung up.

Next, I paged through the phone book, but there was no Mary Maggie Mason listed. No surprise there. I called Connie and asked her to get me the number. Connie had sources for unlisted phones.

"While you're on the line, I've got a quickie for you," Connie said. "Melvin Baylor. He didn't show up for court this morning."

Melvin Baylor lives two blocks from my parents. He's a perfectly nice forty-year-old guy who got taken to the cleaners in a divorce settlement that stripped him of everything but his underwear. To add insult to injury, two weeks after the settlement his ex-wife Lois announced her engagement to their unemployed next-door neighbor.

Last week the ex and the neighbor got married. The neighbor is still unemployed but now driving a new BMW and watching his game shows on a big-screen TV. Melvin, meanwhile, lives in a one-room apartment over Virgil Selig's garage and drives a ten-year-old brown Nova. On the night of his ex's wedding Melvin gulped down his usual dinner of cold cereal and skim milk and in profound depression drove his sputtering Nova to Casey's Bar. Not being any kind of a drinker, Melvin got properly snockered after two martinis. He then got into his wreck of a car, and for the first time in his life showed some backbone by crashing his ex-wife's wedding reception and relieving himself on the cake in front of two hundred people. He was roundly applauded by every man in the room.

Lois's mother, having paid eighty-five dollars for the three-tiered extravaganza, had Melvin arrested for indecent exposure, lewd conduct, trespass on a private party, and destruction of private property.

"I'll be right there," I said. "Have the paperwork ready for me. And I'll get Mason's number when I come in.

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