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killer.”
    “Yeah, it’s worth throwing into the mix. He could have let himself into the apartment for whatever reason, found another dead poker player, left in a panic, and ran into you on the way out.”
    “Buster was in Atlantic City, so who else has a key?”
    Morelli signaled for the check. “Turns out lots of people had keys, including Scootch.”
    “Did you talk to Miriam Pepper?” I asked Morelli.
    “I did. She was completely hammered at one in the afternoon. And I got a better offer from her than I did from Poletti’s wife.”
    “Let me guess. She offered you a Manhattan.”
    Morelli pushed back from the table. “I was inches from taking it.”

EIGHT
    I LEFT MORELLI , drove back to my parents’ house, and retrieved Briggs.
    “I got to take a look at tonight’s cake,” he said. “It’s awesome. Chocolate cake and chocolate frosting. And the frosting is real thick.”
    “I’m surprised you didn’t carve off a chunk when no one was watching.”
    “Someone was always watching. What are we doing now?”
    “I don’t know. I’m at a dead end with Poletti.”
    “If you haven’t got anything special to do, maybe we could drive past my apartment. The last time I saw it, fire trucks were all over the place and it was still smoking.”
    I rolled out of the Burg and followed Hamilton to Grand Avenue. I parked across the street from Briggs’s building, and we looked over at it in silence. It was an ugly redbrick buildingbuilt in the fifties. Three stories. Briggs lived on the second floor, and it was clear which apartment was his. The windows had been blown out in the explosion and were now patched with plywood. Thick black soot stained the brick on the second and third floors. The building’s front door was open, and hoses snaked out and dumped grimy gray water into the gutter. Two fire restoration vans were parked at the curb.
    “Do you want to go in?” I asked him.
    He shook his head. “I just wanted to take a look at the building. No point going in. I got a call from the insurance adjuster, and he said there was nothing left. He said the explosion blew a hole in the ceiling, and the fire spread to the third floor. Lucky no one was home there, either. No one got hurt.”
    “Sorry about your apartment,” I said. “It’s hard to lose all your stuff like that.”
    “You’ve had your place blown up a couple times,” Briggs said. “It must have been bad for you too.”
    “The first time it happened was the worst. I was really rattled. Nothing like that had ever happened to me before.”
    “Hard to believe,” Briggs said. “You’re a magnet for disaster. I figured you were one of those kids who had their bike run over by the garbage truck.”
    “Only once,” I said. “But it was never blown up.”
    “Yeah, there’s something about getting your shit blown up that takes it to a whole new level.”
    “I’ve pretty much gone through my bag of tricks for tracking down Poletti,” I said. “I think it’s time to hang you out there as bait.”
    “
What?
Are you nuts? He wants to kill me.”
    “I’ll take precautions.”
    “Such as?”
    “I’ll be watching.”
    “And?”
    “And I’ll catch him before he kills you.”
    “How are you going to catch him?”
    “I’ll rush him,” I said. “And give him a faceful of pepper spray.”
    “I’m not completely comfortable with that.”
    “I’ll use my stun gun.”
    “What if you can’t get close enough to him?”
    “Okay, how about if I put bullets in my .45, and then I can shoot him?”
    Briggs nodded. “Bullets are good. That’s a good start. How’s your aim?”
    “I’m a crack shot at ten feet.”
    “You’re making me nervous. I might be getting diarrhea. I’m not well. I got IBS.”
    “This won’t be a big deal. All you have to do is walk up and down Stark Street in front of Buster’s building.”
    “What if I get diarrhea? I can feel it coming on just thinking about it.”
    “Go into the pizza place and use