“Part my fault,” I said.
“Yeah, part your fault. You're not talking to me enough. Part my fault, too.”
“What's your role with Treasury?”
“Tito wouldn't talk to them directly. Said he'd only deal with someone he knew. And I guess he feels protected when information goes through a couple of sources. Makes it easier to deny. So Vito talks to Terry, and Terry talks to me, and I talk to Frick and Frack.”
“Who are you watching?”
Morelli flipped the kitchen light off. “Vito's accounts-?receivable person. Harvey Tipp.”
“You better be watching him close. Harvey's life expectancy might not be too good.”
MORELLI DROPPED ME off on his way to relieve Bronfman.
“Thanks for the ride,” I told Morelli.
He snagged my collar as I turned to leave. “We have an agreement,” he said. “And you owe me.”
“Now?”
“Later.”
“How much later?”
“To be determined,” Morelli said. “I just don't want you to forget.”
Not much chance of that.
Briggs was working when I got upstairs. “You keep long hours,” I said.
“I've got to get this project done. I lost a lot of ground when my apartment got burglarized. I was lucky I had my laptop in the closet in the bedroom, and they missed it. I had most of my work backed up on the laptop, so it wasn't a total disaster.”
I WOKE UP at four and couldn't get back to sleep. I lay there for an hour, listening for sounds on my fire escape, planning my escape should someone toss a fire bomb through my bedroom window. Finally I gave up and tiptoed into the kitchen for a snack. I had so many things to worry about I could barely sort through them. Fred was last on the list. Morelli collecting on what was owed was closer to the top.
Briggs padded in after me. “Spooked again?”
“Yeah. Too much on my mind. I can't sleep.” I looked down at him. He was wearing Winnie-?the-?Pooh pajamas. “Nice jammies,” I said.
“I have a hard time finding things that fit. When I want to really impress the ladies I wear Spider-?Man.”
“Is it hard being a little person?”
“Has its ups and downs. I get a lot of perks because people think I'm cute. And I try to take advantage of my minority status.”
“I noticed.”
“Hey,” Briggs said, “you gotta use what God gave you.”
“True.”
“So, you want to do something? You want to play Monopoly?”
“Okay, but I want to be the shoe.”
We were still playing at seven o'clock, when the phone rang.
“I'm in your parking lot,” Ranger said. “Do you want to come down, or do you want me to come up?”