Mrs. Zuppa was coming in from bingo just as I was leaving the building. "Looks like you're going to work," she said, leaning heavily on her cane. "What are you packin'?" "A thirty-eight." "I like a nine-millimeter myself." "A nine's good." "Easier to use a semiautomatic after you've had hip replacement and you walk with a cane," she said. One of those useful pieces of information to file away and resurrect when I turn eighty-three.

I was waiting for my body receipt when Morelli walked in. He nodded to Ranger and grinned at me in my whiteness. “I was at my desk, and Mickey told me I had to come out to take a look,” Morelli said. “It’s floor,” I told him. “I can see that. If we add some milk and eggs, we can turn you into a cake.

Truth is, I think naked men are kind of strange looking what with their doodles and ding-dong hanging loose like they do. Nevertheless, there's the curiosity thing. I guess it's another one of those car crash experiences, where you feel compelled to look even if you know you'll be horrified.

He reached out, opened the glove compartment, and took out a gun. It was a Smith & Wesson .38 five-shot special. It looked a lot like my gun. "I stopped by your apartment this morning and picked this up for you," Ranger said. "I found it in the cookie jar." "Tough guys always keep their gun in the cookie jar." "Name one." "Rockford." Ranger grinned. "I stand corrected.

Cupcake, your middle name is trouble.

I think I got a bruise from landing on you. I hear bacon is real good for healing a bruise.

Aren't you something," Grandma said. "I never saw a midget up close." "Little person," Briggs said. "And I never saw anyone as old as you up close, either.