“Oh Christ,” Morelli said when he saw me. And he ducked back inside.

Guys came running from either side of the building. Obviously cops, but I didn’t know any of them. Two were in FBI T-shirts. Morelli joined them. I didn’t see anything of Terry Gilman.

Morelli grabbed me by the arm and pulled me aside. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“I saw your truck.”

“And?”

“I thought I’d stop by to say hello.”

“I’m working!”

I was getting annoyed. He was just a notch below yelling at me. “How was I to know? This isn’t Trenton. You’re not driving your crappy cop car. And a couple weeks ago Lula saw you coming out of this motel with Terry Gilman.”

Morelli’s eyes narrowed. “You went around back to spy on me and Gilman?”

“Actually, Lula was going to do the spying. I didn’t want to look.”

The guy in the suit was getting dragged away in bracelets.

“Isn’t that Tommy Galucci?” I asked Morelli.

Tommy Galucci was famous in the Burg. Everyone knew he was a Mob boss, but the police had never been able to get anything to stick on him. Maybe because in the past the police never really cared all that much. Being a Mob boss in Trenton didn’t get you on America’s Most Wanted. Trenton was just a midsize pothole in the organized crime highway. And Galucci was a good citizen. He gave to the church. He kept his yard nice. He went out of town to cheat on his wife. But lately it was rumored Galucci was having a midlife crisis, wanting to make more of a name for himself, pushing his associates around.

“Yes, it’s Tommy Galucci. Some of his business partners aren’t happy with him and want to see him removed some way other than a one-way ticket to the landfill. They decided it would be a good thing for everyone if Tommy got to spend a couple years relaxing on a farm.”

“Like a federal-run farm surrounded by razor wire?”

“Yeah, something like that. The business partners decided they wanted me to run the operation. Probably that was Uncle Spud’s suggestion. And Gilman was acting as the go-between. People see me and Gilman together and the first thought isn’t sting.”

“It wasn’t my first thought. Why this motel?”

“It’s owned by Galucci’s brother-in-law. Galucci did a lot of business here. Felt safe to him.”

“Guess I screwed things up.”

“I don’t know what it is with you. You fall into a hole filled with shit and you come up smelling like a rose. Galucci wasn’t cooperating. I wasn’t getting anywhere with him. When he heard the phone he freaked, thinking he was set up. He shot the fed who was in the room with me and then he tried to escape by going out the window. The fed in the room with me just got a superficial flesh wound, but now we have Galucci on assault with a deadly weapon.”