I drank the beer and ate some olives. Not bad, but not cake. I blew out a sigh of resignation. I was going to cave. I wanted the cake.

MY MOTHER AND my grandmother were at the door when I pulled to the curb in front of their house. My Grandmother Mazur moved in with my parents shortly after my Grandfather Mazur took his bucket of quarters to the big poker slot machine in the sky. Last month Grandma finally pa.s.sed her driver's test and bought herself a red Corvette. It took her exactly five days to acquire enough speeding tickets to lose her license.

"The chicken's on the table," my mother said. "We were just about to sit."

"Lucky for you the dinner got late," Grandma said, "on account of the phone wouldn't stop ringing. Loretta Ricci is big news." She took her seat and shook out her napkin. "Not that I was surprised. I said to myself a while ago that Loretta was looking for trouble. She was real hot to trot, that one. Went wild after Dominic died. Man-crazy."

My father was at the head of the table and he looked like he wanted to shoot himself.

"She'd just jump from one man to the next at the seniors' meeting," Grandma said. "And I heard she was real loosey-goosey."

The meat was always placed in front of my father so he got first pick. I guess my mother figured if my father got right down to the task of eating he wouldn't be so inclined to jump up and strangle my grandmother.

"How's the chicken?" my another wanted to know. "Do you think it's too dry?"

No, everyone said, the chicken wasn't dry. The chicken was just right.

"I saw a television show the other week about a woman like that," Grandma said. "This woman was real s.e.xy, and it turned out one of the men she was flirting with was an alien from outer s.p.a.ce. And the alien took the woman up to his s.p.a.ceship and did all kinds of things to her."

My father hunkered lower over his plateful of food and mumbled something indiscernible except for the words . . . crazy old bat crazy old bat.

"What about Loretta and Eddie DeChooch?" I asked. "Do you suppose they were seeing each other?"

"Not that I know of," Grandma said. "From what I know, Loretta liked her men hot, and Eddie DeChooch couldn't get it up. I went out with him a couple times, and that thing of his was dead as a doork.n.o.b. No matter what I did I couldn't get nothing to happen."

My father looked up at Grandma, and a piece of meat fell out of his mouth.

My mother was red-faced at the other end of the table. She sucked in some air and made the sign of the cross. "Mother of G.o.d," she said.

I fiddled with my fork. "If I left now I probably wouldn't get any pineapple upside-down cake, right?"

"Not for the rest of your life," my mother said.

"So how did she look?" Grandma wanted to know. "What was Loretta wearing? And how was her hair done? Doris Szuch said she saw Loretta at the food store yesterday afternoon, so I'm guessing Loretta wasn't all rotted and wormy yet."

My father reached for the carving knife, and my mother cut him down with a steel-eyed look that said don't even think about it don't even think about it.

My father's retired from the post office. He drives a cab part-time, only buys American cars, and smokes cigars out behind the garage: when my mother isn't home. I don't think my dad would actually stab Grandma Mazur with the carving knife. Still, if she choked on a chicken bone I'm not sure he'd be all that unhappy.

"I'm looking for Eddie DeChooch," I said to Grandma. "He's FTA. Do you have any ideas about where he might be hiding?"

"He's friends with Ziggy Garvey and Benny Colucci. And there's his nephew Ronald."

"Do you think he'd leave the country?"

"You mean because he might have put those holes in Loretta? I don't think so. He's been accused of killing people before and he never left the country. At least not that I know of."

"I hate this," my mother said. "I hate having a daughter who goes out after killers. What's the matter with Vinnie for giving this case to you?" She glared at my father. "Frank, he's your your side of the family. You need to talk to him. And why can't you be more like your sister, Valerie?" my mother asked me. "She's happily married with two beautiful children. She doesn't go around chasing after killers, finding dead bodies." side of the family. You need to talk to him. And why can't you be more like your sister, Valerie?" my mother asked me. "She's happily married with two beautiful children. She doesn't go around chasing after killers, finding dead bodies."

"Stephanie's almost almost happily married," Grandma said. "She got engaged last month." happily married," Grandma said. "She got engaged last month."

"Do you see a ring on her finger?" my mother asked.

Everyone looked at my naked finger.

"I don't want to talk about it," I said.

"I think Stephanie's got the hots for someone else," Grandma said. "I think she's sweet on that Ranger fella."

My father paused with his fork plunged into a mound of potatoes. "The bounty hunter? The black guy?"

My father was an equal opportunity bigot. He didn't go around painting swastikas on churches, and he didn't discriminate against minorities. It was just that with the possible exception of my mother, if you weren't Italian you weren't quite up to standards.

"He's Cuban-American," I said.

My mother did another sign of the cross.

IT WAS DARK when I left my parents. I didn't expect Eddie DeChooch to be home, but I drove past his house anyway. Lights were blazing in the Marguchi half. The DeChooch half was lifeless. I caught a glimpse of yellow crime-scene tape still stretched across the backyard.

There were questions I wanted to ask Mrs. Marguchi, but they'd keep. I didn't want to disturb her tonight. Her day had been bad enough. I'd catch her tomorrow, and on the way I'd stop at the office and get an address for Garvey and Colucci.

I cruised around the block and headed for Hamilton Avenue. My apartment building is located a couple miles from the Burg. It's a st.u.r.dy, three-story chunk of brick and mortar built in the seventies with economy in mind. It doesn't come with a lot of amenities, but it has a decent super who'll do anything for a six-pack of beer, the elevator almost always works, and the rent is reasonable.

I parked in the lot and looked up at my apartment. The lights were on. Someone was home and it wasn't me. It was probably Morelli. He had a key. I felt a rush of excitement at the thought of seeing him, quickly followed by a sinking sensation in the pit of my stomach. Morelli and I have known each other since we were kids, and life has never been simple between us.

I took the stairs, trying out emotions, settling on conditionally happy. Truth is, Morelli and I are pretty sure we love each other. We're just not sure we can stand to live together for the rest of our lives. I don't especially want to marry a cop. Morelli doesn't want to marry a bounty hunter. And then there's Ranger.

I opened the door to my apartment and found two old guys sitting on my couch, watching a ball game on television. No Morelli in sight. They both stood and smiled when I came into the room.

"You must be Stephanie Plum," one of the men said. "Allow me to make the introductions. I'm Benny Colucci and this is my friend and colleague, Ziggy Garvey."

"How did you get into my apartment?"

"Your door was open."

"No, it wasn't."

The smile widened. "It was Ziggy. He's got the touch with a lock."

Ziggy beamed and wiggled his fingers. "I'm an old coot, but my fingers still work."

"I'm not crazy about people breaking into my apartment," I said.

Benny solemnly nodded. "I understand, but we thought in this instance it would be okay, being that we have something of a very serious nature to discuss."

"And urgent," Ziggy added. "Also of an urgent nature."

They looked at each other and agreed. It was urgent.

"And besides," Ziggy said. "You got some nosy neighbors. We were waiting for you in the hall, but there was a lady who kept opening her door and looking at us. It made us uncomfortable."

"I think she was interested in us, if you know what I mean. And we don't do anything funny like that. We're married men."

"Maybe when we were younger," Ziggy said, smiling.

"So what's this urgent business?"

"Ziggy and me happen to be very good friends of Eddie DeChooch," Benny said. "Ziggy and Eddie and me go way back. So Ziggy and me are concerned about Eddie's sudden disappearance. We're worried Eddie might be in trouble."

"You mean because he killed Loretta Ricci?"

"No, we don't think that's a big issue. People are always accusing Eddie of killing people."

Ziggy leaned forward in a conspiratorial whisper. "b.u.m raps, all of them."

Of course.

"We're concerned because we think Eddie might not be thinking right," Benny said. "He's been in this depression. We go to see him and he don't want to talk to us. He's never been like that."

"It's not normal," Ziggy said.

"Anyway, we know you're looking for him, and we don't want him to get hurt, you understand?"

"You don't want me to shoot him."

"Yeah."

"I almost never shoot people."

"Sometimes it happens, but G.o.d forbid it would be Choochy," Benny said. "We're trying to prevent it from being Choochy."

"Hey," I said, "if he gets shot it won't be my bullet."

"And then there's something else," Benny said. "We're trying to find Choochy so we can help him."

Ziggy nodded. "We think maybe he should be seeing a doctor. Maybe he needs a psychiatrist. So we figured we could work together being that you're looking for him, too."

"Sure," I said, "if I find him I'll let you know." After I delivered him up to the court and had him safely behind bars.

"And we were wondering if you have any leads?"

"Nope. None."

"Gee, we were counting on you to have some leads. We heard you were pretty good."

"Actually, I'm not all that good . . . it's more that I'm lucky."

Another exchange of glances.

"So, are you, you know, feeling lucky about this?" Benny asked.

Hard to feel lucky when I've just let a depressed senior citizen slip through my fingers, found a dead woman in his shed, and sat through dinner with my parents. "Well, it's sort of too early to tell."

There was some fumbling at the door, the door swung open, and Mooner ambled in. Mooner was wearing a head-to-toe purple spandex bodysuit with a big silver M sewn onto the chest.

"Hey dude," Mooner said. "I tried calling you, but you were never home. I wanted to show you my new Super Mooner Suit."

"Cripes," Benny said, "he looks like a flaming fruit."

"I'm a superhero, dude," the Mooner said.

"Super fruitcake fruitcake is more like it. You walk around in this suit all day?" is more like it. You walk around in this suit all day?"

"No way, dude. This is my secret suit. Ordinarily I only wear this when I'm doing super deeds, but I wanted the dudette here to get the full impact, so I changed in the hall."

"Can you fly like Superman?" Benny asked Mooner.

"No, but I can fly in my mind, dude. Like, I can soar."

"Oh boy," Benny said.

Ziggy looked at his watch. "We gotta go. If you get a line on Choochy you'll let us know, right?"

"Sure." Maybe.

I watched them leave. They were like Jack Sprat and his wife. Benny was about fifty pounds overweight with chins spilling over his collar. And Ziggy looked like a turkey carca.s.s. I a.s.sumed they both lived in the Burg and belonged to Chooch's club, but I didn't know that for certain. Another a.s.sumption was that they were on file as former Vincent Plum bondees since they hadn't felt it necessary to give me their phone numbers.

"So what do you think of the suit?" Mooner asked me when Benny and Ziggy left. "Dougie and me found a whole box of them. I think they're like for swimmers or runners or something. Dougie and me don't know any swimmers who could use them, but we thought we could turn them into Super Suits. See, you can wear them like underwear and then when you need to be a superhero you just take your clothes off. Only problem is we haven't got any capes. That's probably why the old dude didn't know I was a superhero. No cape."

"You don't really think you're a superhero, do you?"

"You mean like in real life?"

"Yeah."

Mooner looked astonished. "Superheroes are like, fiction. Didn't anyone ever tell you that?"

"Just checking."