Notorious Nineteen(10)

I looked under the covers. I was naked. “Did we have sex this morning?”

“Yeah. You thanked me after and said it was great.”

“You’re fibbing. I never thank you.”

I got out of bed and dropped one of Morelli’s T-shirts over my head. I shuffled after him, down the stairs and into the kitchen.

Morelli’s kitchen is small but cozy. He’s laid new tile on the floor, put in a new countertop, and repainted the cabinets and walls. His appliances aren’t new but they’re newer than mine. His refrigerator is usually filled with food. His cereal doesn’t have bugs in it. And he has a toaster. This all puts him light-years ahead of me in the domestic goddess race.

A door opens off the kitchen onto Morelli’s narrow backyard. He’s had it fenced in for Bob, and Bob was impatiently waiting to get let out to tinkle. Morelli opened the door, and Bob bolted out into the darkness.

“You never get up this early,” Morelli said, closing the door, pushing the BREW button on the coffeemaker. “What’s going on?”

“I was hoping you knew something about Geoffrey Cubbin.”

“The guy who disappeared from Central Hospital? I don’t know much. It’s not my case.”

“How could someone just walk away in the middle of the night without anyone seeing him?”

“I’m told it happens,” Morelli said. “And he had good reason to want to walk away. He didn’t have a promising future.”

“Who has the case?”

“Lenny Schmidt.”

“Did he check to see if Cubbin called a cab?”

Morelli did a palms-up. He didn’t know. “I assume you’re looking for Cubbin because Vinnie wrote the bond.”

I dropped two slices of bread into the toaster. “It’s a high bond, and I could use the money. I need a new car.”

“You always need a new car. What you really need is a new job.”

I got two mugs out of his over-the-counter cabinet and put them on the little kitchen dining table. “Which brings me to the other issue. I’m going to have to cancel our date tonight. I told Ranger I’d do security for him at a party. He needed a woman.”

“I bet,” Morelli said.

“It’s security at a party.”

“I don’t like you working with him. He’s not normal. And he looks at you like you’re lunch.”

“You look at me like that too.”

“Cupcake, you are my lunch.” Morelli filled the mugs with coffee and spread strawberry jelly on his piece of toast. “Call me if you get done with the party early. If I run into Schmidt I’ll ask about the cab, but I doubt Schmidt’s done much to find Cubbin. Schmidt’s got a full caseload, and at this point Cubbin is more your problem than his.” He looked at the black T-shirt I was wearing. It hung about six inches below my doo-dah. “Do you have anything under that shirt?”

“You could peek and find out.”

“Tempting, but I’m late for my morning meeting.”

“Then I guess you’ll never know.”

Morelli lifted the hem of the shirt, looked under, and smiled. “I’m in love.”

“What about your meeting?”

“I might make some of it if I use my flashers and run the lights.”

Connie and Lula were already at the office when I rolled in. The door to Vinnie’s lair was open, and I could smell cigar smoke.

“Is that her?” Vinnie yelled.

There was the sound of a chair scraping back, and Vinnie charged out, the cigar clamped between his teeth. Vinnie is slightly taller than me and looks like a weasel. His dark hair is slicked back, his eyes are crafty, his pants are too tight, and his shoes are too pointy. He has an affinity for pain inflicted by women wielding cuffs and paddles, and he’s been rumored to enjoy intimate relationships with barnyard animals. He’s married to a perfectly nice woman named Lucille, who for reasons I’ll never understand has chosen to endure the marriage. And last but not least, probably because he’s such a loser himself, Vincent Plum has a good understanding of the criminal mind, and that makes him an excellent bail bondsman.

“Where is he?” Vinnie asked me.

“Where’s who?”

“That asshole Cubbin. Who else? You got him nailed down, right?”

“Not exactly.”

Vinnie had his hands in the air. “What not exactly? What does that mean?”

“It means I don’t know where he is.”

“You’re killing me,” Vinnie said. “If this agency tanks, it’s all your fault. It’s on your head. Fatso over there will have to go back to the streets. And Connie’ll be doing wet work.”