I put Rex in the bathtub while I cleaned his cage. Then I cleaned the tub. Then I cleaned the rest of the bathroom. I ran the vacuum. I damp-mopped the kitchen floor. I scoured some of the crud off the top of the stove. Just incase I was arrested, I didn't want my mother coming in to my apartment and finding it dirty.
At three o'clock I gave up with the cleaning and tried another call to my mother. No luck.
I called Sue Ann to get the scoop on myself and to set the record straight. You could always get Sue Ann. Sue Ann had call waiting.
“You ever hear anything about Uncle Mo being . . . odd?” I asked Sue Ann.
“Odd?”
“Romantically.”
“You know something!” Sue Ann shouted into the phone. “What is it? What is it? What's the dirt on Uncle Mo? He's having an affair, right?”
“I don't know. I was just wondering. Probably you should forget I said anything.”
I disconnected and tried my mother again. Her line was still busy. It was close to four o'clock, and the light was fading. I went to the window and peered down at the parking lot. No sign of Morelli.
“So what do you think?” I asked Rex. “Should I keep trying the phone or should I just take a ride over?”
Rex telepathically suggested that communicating with my mother in person would have the added advantage of being able to scrounge dinner.
I thought this was pretty clever considering Rex had a brain the size of a dried pea.
I grabbed my shoulder bag and my jacket and squinted into the security peephole on my front door. No one in view. I cracked the door and looked out at the hall. Clear. I took the stairs, crossed the small lobby and exited through the rear door to the lot.
The seniors always snapped up all the good slots close to the back entrance, so my Buick was parked at the outer edge, next to the Dumpster.
I could hear a steady drone of cars on St. James, and streetlights had just blinked on. I had almost reached the Buick when a black Jeep Cherokee suddenly wheeled into the lot and rolled to a stop.
The tinted driver's side window slid down and a man wearing a ski mask looked out at me, leveled a .45 and squeezed off two rounds that zinged into the blacktop about six inches from my foot. I stood rooted to the spot, paralyzed by fear and astonishment.
“This is a warning,” the man said. “Stop looking for Mo. Next time these bullets will be in your brain.” He discharged three rounds into the heavy iron side of the Dumpster. I dove for cover. A fourth round whistled overhead.
The window rolled up, and the car sped out of the lot.
Stephanie Plum 3 - Three To Get Deadly
6
When my heart resumed beating I got to my feet and cautiously looked over the edge of the Dumpster. Mrs. Karwatt was coming toward me, halfway across the lot, picking her way around icy spots on the macadam, clutching a small plastic bag of garbage to her chest.
“Did you see that?” I asked, my voice approaching a level audible only to canines.
“What?”
“That man in the car. He shot at me!”
“No!”
“Didn't you hear it?”
“For goodness' sakes,” she said. “Isn't that terrible. I thought it was a backfire. I had my eyes fixed on the ice. Gotta be careful, you know. My sister slipped and broke her hip last winter. Had to put her in a home. Never did recover right. It's not so bad, though. She gets green Jell-O for dessert twice a week at lunchtime.”
I ran a shaky finger over the holes in the Dumpster where the bullets had impacted. “This is the second time today someone's shot at me!”
“Getting so a body can't go out of the house,” Mrs. Karwatt said. “What with the ice and the shooting. Ever since we put a man on the moon the whole planet's gone to heck in a handbasket.”
I was looking for someone to nail for my sorry life, but I didn't think it was fair to lay it all on Neil Armstrong.