I hung up and turned down Southard, trying to decide on a reasonable advance. I needed enough money to get me through two weeks, and if I was going to use the car to catch Morelli I might want to invest in an alarm system. I couldn't watch the car around the clock, and I didn't want Morelli sneaking it out from under me while I slept, or took a pee, or went to the market.
I was pondering an appropriate figure when the phone rang, the soft “brrrrp” almost causing me to run up onto the curb. It was a weird sensation. Like getting caught eavesdropping, or lying, or sitting on the toilet and having the bathroom walls suddenly drop away. I had an irrational urge to pull off the road and run shrieking from the car.
I gingerly put the handset to my ear. “Hello?”
There was a pause and a woman's voice came on the line. “I want to talk to Joseph Morelli.”
Holy cow. It was Momma Morelli. As if I wasn't in deep enough do-do. “Joe isn't here right now.”
“Who's this?”
“I'm a friend of Joe's. He asked me to run his car once in a while for him.”
“That's a lie,” she said. “I know who I'm talking to. I'm talking to Stephanie Plum. I know your voice when I hear it. What are you doing in my Joseph's car?”
No one can show disdain like Momma Morelli. If it had been an ordinary mother on the phone I might have explained or apologized, but Morelli's mother scared the hell out of me.
“What?” I shouted. “I can't hear you. What? What?”
I slammed the receiver down and flipped the off switch on the phone. “Good going,” I said to myself. “Very adult. Very professional. Really quick thinking.”
I parked on Hamilton and power walked half a block to Vinnie's. I was pumping myself up for the confrontation, getting my adrenaline going, raising my energy level. I barreled through the door like Wonder Woman, gave Connie a thumbs up, and went straight to Vinnie's office. The door was open. Vinnie was behind his desk, hunched over a racing sheet.
“Hey,” I said. “How's it going?”
“Oh shit,” Vinnie said. “Now what?”
That's what I like about my family. We're so close, so warm, so polite to each other. “I want an advance on my fee. I have expenses associated with the job.”
“An advance? Are you kidding me? You're joking, right?”
“I'm not joking. I'm going to get $10,000 when I bring Morelli in. I want a $2,000 advance.”
“When hell freezes over. And don't think you can pull more of that blackmail crap on me. You blab to my wife, and I'll be as good as dead. See if you can squeeze a job out of a dead man, smartass.”
He had a point. “Okay, so blackmail won't work. How about greed? You give me the $2,000 now, and I won't take my full 10 percent.”
“What if you don't get Morelli? You ever think of that?”
Only every waking minute of my life. “I'll get Morelli.”
“Un huh. Excuse me if I don't share your positive attitude. And remember I only agreed to this lunacy for a week. You've got four days left. If you haven't brought Morelli in by next Monday, I'm giving him to somebody else.”
Connie came into the office. “What's the problem here? Stephanie needs money? Why don't you give her Clarence Sampson?”
“Who's Clarence Sampson?” I asked.
“He's one of our family of drunks. Usually, he's perfectly peaceful. Every now and then he does something stupid.”
“Such as?”
“Such as try to drive with a 150-proof blood alcohol level. On this particular occasion he had the misfortune to total a police cruiser.”
“He ran into a cruiser?”
“Not exactly,” Connie said. “He was attempting to drive the cruiser. He ran into a liquor store on State Street.”
“Do you have a picture of this guy?”