“Oh, yeah. I didn't think of that.” Duh.
“I talked to your doctor,” Morelli said. “He told me you're supposed to stay quiet for a couple days. And he said the ringing in your ears should diminish over time.”
“The ringing's already a lot better.”
Morelli glanced at me sideways. “You're not going to stay quiet, are you?”
“Define 'quiet.' ”
“At home, reading, watching television.”
“I might do some of that.”
Morelli pulled into my parking lot and rolled to a stop. “When you're up to it, you need to stop in at the station and make a formal report.”
I jumped out. “Okay.”
“Hold it,” Morelli said, “I'll go up with you.”
“Not necessary. Thanks anyway. I'm fine.”
Morelli was grinning again. “Afraid you might lose control in the hall and beg me to come in and make love to you?”
“In your dreams, Morelli.”
When I got up to my apartment the red light on my phone machine was blinking, blinking, blinking. And Bunchy was asleep on my couch.
“What are you doing here?” I yelled at him. “Get up! Get out! This isn't the Hotel Ritz. And do you realize what you're doing is breaking and entering?”
“Boy, don't get your panties in a bunch,” he said, getting to his feet. “Where have you been? I got worried about you. You didn't come home last night.”
“What are you, my mother?”
“Hey, I'm concerned, that's all. You should be happy to have a friend like me.” He looked around. “Do you see my shoes?”
“You are not my friend. And your shoes are under the coffee table.”
He retrieved the shoes and laced them up. “So where were you?”
“I had a job. I was moonlighting.”
“Must have been some job. Your mother called and said she heard you blew someone up.”
“You talked to my mother?”
“She left a message on your machine.” He was looking around again. “Do you see my gun?”
I turned on my heel and went in to the kitchen to play my messages.
“Stephanie, it's your mother. What's this about an explosion? Edna Gluck heard from her son, Ritchie, that you blew someone up? Is this true? Hello? Hello?”
Bunchy was right. Damn that big-?mouth Ritchie.
I played the second message. Breathing. As was message number three.
“What's with the breathing?” Bunchy wanted to know, standing in the middle of my kitchen floor, hands stuck in his pockets, his rumpled, beyond-?faded, plaid flannel shirt hanging loose.
“Wrong number.”