Morelli grinned. “I think she's kind of cute. It's the Monty Hall look.”
I still had the package in my hand. I set it on the foyer table and took my jacket off. “Annie Hall!”
Grandma Mazur picked the envelope up and studied it. “Overnight mail. Must be something important. Feels like there's a box in here. Return address says R. Klein from Fifth Avenue in New York. Too bad it isn't for me. I wouldn't mind getting some overnight mail.”
I hadn't thought much about the package until now. I didn't know anyone named R. Klein, and I hadn't ordered anything from New York. I took the envelope from Grandma and peeled the flap back.
There was a little cardboard box inside. It was taped closed. I took the box out, and held it in my hand. It wasn't especially heavy.
“Smells funny,” Grandma said. “Like insecticide. Or maybe it's one of them new perfumes.”
I ripped the tape away, opened the box, and sucked in my breath. There was a penis inside the box. The penis was neatly sliced off at the root, perfectly embalmed, and secured to a square of Styrofoam with a hat pin.
Everyone stared at the penis in dumbfounded horror.
Grandma Mazur spoke first, and when she did it was with a touch of wistfulness. “Been a long time since I've seen one of those,” she said.
My mother started screaming, hands in air, eyes bugging out of her head. “Get it out of my house! What's the world coming to? What will people think?”
My father left his chair in the living room and padded out to the hall to see what the fuss was all about. “What's going on?” he asked, sticking his head into the huddle.
“It's a penis,” Grandma said. “Stephanie got it in the mail. It's a pretty good one too.”
My father recoiled. “Jesus and Joseph!”
“Who would do such a thing?” my mother shouted. “What is it? Is it rubber? Is it one of those rubber penises?”
“Don't look rubber to me,” Grandma Mazur said. “Looks to me like a real penis, except it's kind of discolored. I don't remember them being this color.”
“That's crazy!” my mother said. “What person would mail his penis?”
Grandma Mazur looked at the envelope. “Says Klein on the return address. I always thought that was a Jewish name, but this doesn't look to me like a Jewish penis.”
Everyone turned their attention to Grandma Mazur.
“Not that I'd know much about it,” Grandma said. “It's just that I might have seen one of them Jewish ones in National Geographic.”
Morelli took the box from me and replaced the lid. We both knew the name to attach to the penis. Joseph Loosey.
“I'm going to take a raincheck on dinner,” Morelli said. “I'm afraid this is a police matter.” He snagged my pocketbook off the hall table and draped it over my shoulder. “Stephanie needs to come too, so she can make a statement.”
“It's that bounty hunter job,” my mother said to me. “You meet all the wrong kinds of people. Why can't you get a good job like your cousin Christine? No one ever sends Christine these things in the mail.”
“Christine works in a vitamin factory. She spends her whole day watching the cotton stuffer to make sure it doesn't malfunction.”
“She makes good money.”
I zipped my jacket. “I make good money . . . sometimes.”
Stephanie Plum 2 - Two For The Dough
11
Morelli yanked the door to the truck open, tossed the overnight envelope onto the seat, and made an impatient gesture for me to follow. His face was composed, but I could feel the vibrations of anger radiating in waves from his body.
“Goddamn him,” Morelli said, slamming the truck into gear. “He thinks this is fucking funny. Him and his damn games. When he was a kid he used to tell me stories about the things he'd done. I never knew what was real and what was made up. I'm not sure Kenny knew. Maybe it was all real.”
“Were you serious about this being a police matter?”