“You might consider getting married in a dress instead of a gown,” I said. “It wouldn't even have to be white.”
“And it could be more representative of my outgoing personality,” Lula said.
“It could be animal print. You know how I'm partial to animal print.”
“And it would be practical because you could wear it even if you didn't get married.
”
“I'm psyched,” Lula said. “I'm going to the mall. You want to come?”
“No. Morelli should be getting off his shift right about now and I need to talk to him.”
I was in the kitchen, eating pizza, when Morelli rolled in. He helped himself to a piece from the box and went to the refrigerator in search of beer.
“My refrigerator is filled with potatoes,” he said, door open, face bathed in refrigerator light. “They're everywhere. I've got potatoes in the egg holder.”
“Ammo. I think the beer is behind the half-baked.”
He moved some potatoes around and grunted when he found the beer. “Zook's a terrific kid, but I feel displaced. Bad enough Mooner is always here, now we've got Gary. Once, I got up in the middle of the night to get water, and I swear I saw him sitting in a lawn chair in front of my garage.”
“Imagine that,” I said. “How odd.”
“Have you heard from the partner?”
“No. The ball's in our court.”
Morelli took a second piece of pizza. “This is bad. Either someone is leaking information or the guy is inside.”
“Or maybe he's some genius computer geek that can tap into phones and computers.”
Morelli shook his head. “That only happens in the movies. This guy knew about the van and the money. I didn't tell anyone, and Spanner swears he didn't tell anyone. I know the Fed who's running the show, and I can't see him telling anyone.”
“What about the sack of shit?”
“Larry Skid? He could leak. And there were some other people working details. Looking at it in retrospect, we should have played it tighter, but there's always all this chain-of-command crap.”
“I assume the department is investigating.”
“Yes, but there's not much to go on. Truth is, some of this op went through the bureaucracy. The van needed to be requisitioned, the storage facility had to be cleared, yada yada.”
I checked to make sure Zook wasn't listening and I lowered my voice. “He said he would cut Loretta's hand off at noon tomorrow if he doesn't have the money.”
“He's sick,” Morelli said. “He's caught up in the drama. If he was thinking sanely, he'd back off and wait. There's no way he's going to drive away with nine million dollars. It was a good plan when they executed it ten years ago, but it's not a good plan now that the police are involved.”
“I suppose he figures he can stay ahead of the game if he can force me to locate the money and drive the van to him without telling anyone.”
Morelli cut his eyes to me. “You wouldn't do that, would you?”
“Of course not,” I said. And we both knew I would.
Problem was, I had the key but I didn't know what to do with it. And I had no way to reach Dom. I suspected Dom and the fourth partner had the same dilemma.
Dom had always talked to Zero and Gratelli.
“I can practically see the wheels turning in your head,” Morelli said. “What are you thinking?”
“I'm thinking this is pathetic. There's no communication between the major players here. Dom and I have identical goals right now, but we can't get anything done because I can't get in touch with him.”