“Gee, look at the time,” I said. “This doesn’t seem to be a big day for desperados, so I should get moving on. I need to stop in and say hello to my mom. And then there’s Larry Virgil still out there. And I might make a run to the supermarket.”
“If I was you I’d be taking a nap this afternoon so I could keep up with Ranger on your midnight rendezvous.”
“It’s not a rendezvous. It’s a workplace orientation.”
FIVE
I LEFT THE bail bonds office in Chambersburg and drove the short distance to my parents’ house. They live in a small two-story duplex that shares a wall with its mirror image. The mirror image is occupied by an elderly woman who bakes coffee cakes all day and feeds them to the birds that leave droppings all over her back stoop. My parents’ house has a postage stamp front yard, a narrow front porch spanning the width of their house, and a bare-bones unused backyard.
There are three small bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs. Downstairs has a shotgun living room, dining room, and kitchen. The rooms are crammed with comfortable, unfashionable furniture. End tables are filled with photographs, candy dishes, and assorted treasures brought back from vacations at Seaside Heights, Atlantic City, and the Poconos. The kitchen has a little wooden table with four straight-back chairs, a ten-year-old Kenmore stove that turns out perfect pineapple upside-down cake, and enough room along one wall to set up the ironing board.
My Grandma Mazur lives with my parents. She moved in when Grandpa moved into Hotel Heaven, and she never moved out. Sometimes at the dinner table my father’s knuckles turn white as he grips his fork and sneaks a look at Grandma, and we all keep a close watch on him that he doesn’t launch himself across the table at her. I like Grandma a lot. Of course, I don’t have to live with her.
I parked in front of the house, and Grandma Mazur appeared at the front door before I even got out of my car.
“I had this feeling,” she said when she let me in. “I said to myself I bet Stephanie’s going to stop by. And here you are.”
“That’s amazing,” I said.
“It’s not amazing,” my mother called from the kitchen. “She’s been standing staring out the door for hours.”
“Well, you never know,” Grandma said.
Grandma Mazur is a slightly shrunken, slack-skinned, gray-haired version of my mother. She keeps her hair short and curled. She wears bright lipstick and white tennis shoes, and she’s one of only two women in America still wearing pastel-colored polyester pantsuits. She carries a purse that is big enough to hold her .45 long-barrel S&W.
“Did you already have lunch?” Grandma asked. “We got fresh olive loaf from Giovichinni’s if you want a sandwich. And we got some cookies from the Italian bakery.”
“Cookies,” I said, hanging my messenger bag off the back of a kitchen chair. “I had lunch with Lula.”
“The phone’s been ringing all day,” Grandma said, bringing the box of cookies to the table. “And we had a photographer from the paper take a picture of the front of the house. You’re famous. I wouldn’t be surprised if you got a call from Geraldo.”
My mother was furiously ironing a shirt.
“How long has she been ironing that shirt?” I asked Grandma.
“At least an hour,” Grandma said. “She started just after the photographer showed up.”
When my mother’s blood pressure goes into the red zone she irons. Thursday morning is her usual ironing day. If you see her ironing any other time it’s not a good sign.
“You ran over Eddie Gazarra’s cop car,” my mother said. “He’s married to your cousin Shirley. You grew up with Eddie. What were you thinking?”
“It was an accident!”
My mother pressed the iron into the shirt, and a cloud of steam rose off the ironing board. “His mother called me this morning. She’s all upset. She thinks you should be locked up in jail. She said you’re one of those crazy cop-hater people.”
“I wasn’t even driving the truck,” I said. “Lula was driving the truck, and she miscalculated the brakes.”
“It was stolen,” my mother said. “You stole an ice cream truck!”
I sat down and took a cookie from the box. “Actually Larry Virgil stole it. Lula and I sort of commandeered it.”
“You should marry Joseph and have a baby,” my mother said. “What are you waiting for?”
Good question. I didn’t know the answer. I ate cookies while I thought about it. After five cookies I still didn’t have an answer. It was one of many questions without answers.
“If it was me I’d marry Ranger,” Grandma said. “I go for those dark guys.”
My mother flicked a glance at the cabinet over the sink. This was where she hid her stash of whiskey. I was sure my mother was thinking it was so close and yet so far. Too early for a drink. There were rules to be followed in the Burg. One didn’t imbibe until four o’clock unless it was at a wake. Wake drinking began early in the morning. There were times when you wanted to kill someone just so you could have a Manhattan for breakfast.
“Ranger doesn’t want to marry me,” I said. “He has issues.”
“What kind of issues?” Grandma asked.
“I don’t know exactly,” I said. “I think he’s working on his karma.”
“That’s heavy,” Grandma said.
“He’s not the right person anyway,” my mother said. “Joseph has a good job and a house.”
This was true. Morelli had inherited a house from his Aunt Rose. It was less than a mile from my parents’ house, and it was very similar. Long, narrow backyard. Small front yard. Three small bedrooms on the second floor and shotgun arrangement of rooms on the ground floor. Morelli had been working at making it his own, adding a half bath on the first floor and improving the kitchen. Aunt Rose’s curtains still hung in two of the bedrooms, but the rest of the house felt like Morelli. Big flat-screen TV and comfy couch in the living room, billiards table in the dining room, king-size bed in the master bedroom. I especially liked the king-size bed. Plus Morelli had a dog and a toaster, and his mother regularly filled his fridge with lasagna and cannoli and mac and cheese.
“I ran into that little friend of yours today,” Grandma said to me. “I was at the bakery picking out the cookies and he was buying a fruit babka. He said he was going into business with Lula.”
“Randy Briggs?”
“Yep. That’s the one. He had his hair all punked up with some kind of wax. He said he was getting ready to be a television star. I told him I wouldn’t mind being a television star, and he should call me if they need someone to fill in.”
“They’re making a demo for Naked and Afraid,” I told Grandma.
Grandma sucked on her dentures and thought about it. “I guess I could do that. I look pretty good naked,” she said.
I smelled something burning and looked over to see my mother standing open-mouthed and glassy-eyed. The iron was resting on the shirt, and I could see the shirt material smoking and turning brown around the perimeter of the iron.
I moved to the ironing board and set the iron back on its stand. The shirt had a big iron imprint on it. My mother’s mouth was still open.
“Maybe you need a drink,” I said to her.
She was still staring off into space.
“That shirt’s never gonna be the same,” Grandma said.
I got the whiskey out of the cupboard, splashed some into a juice glass, and handed the glass to my mother. She stared at the glass but didn’t make a move to drink.
“Maybe she had a aneurysm,” Grandma said. “Marie Sokolowski had one and now she calls everyone kiddo and she’ll only eat soup. They tell me if you try to get her to eat something else she pitches a fit.”
“Drink up,” I said to my mother.
“Yeah,” Grandma said, “come have a cookie. Give the ironing a rest.”
My mother tossed the whiskey back and took a cookie from the box.
“There you go,” Grandma said. “Feel better now?”
&
nbsp; My mother nodded. “You wouldn’t really go naked, would you?” she asked Grandma.
“Sure I would,” Grandma said. “I got nothing to hide. I’m in pretty good shape. Although I guess I should take a look at myself when I get undressed tonight just to make sure.”
“See,” I said to my mother. “Nothing to worry about.”
My mother held her glass out, and I poured some more hooch into it.
“Got to go,” I said. “Things to do. People to see.”
“You got an exciting life,” Grandma said. “Always something new going on.”
SIX
I LEFT THE Burg and drove through town to Stark Street. Stark Street starts at State Street and runs north. The first block is perfectly reputable. Bars, a couple small groceries, a nail salon, a hardware store, take-out pizza, fast food fried chicken, and a pawn shop at street level. Apartments on the second and third floors. The street deteriorates as the blocks progress until only nuclear rats and drugged-out crazies exist in burned and bombed buildings. Beyond the burned and bombed buildings is a half mile of neglected wasteland. And beyond the wasteland is a thriving junkyard.
Eugene Winkle lived on the fourth block of Stark. Not the worst location and not the best. If I left my car unattended on the street for more than ten minutes it would be gone with no hope of getting it back. If I wore the wrong gang colors I’d be dead or maimed for life. Since I was wearing jeans, a stretchy white T-shirt, and a gray sweatshirt I felt relatively safe. Not that it mattered, because I had no intention of stopping. I was just riding through to take a look around.
Eugene had listed a third-floor apartment as his home address. No employer was given. He listed his occupation as entrepreneur. Had to give him credit. At least he knew how to spell entrepreneur.
I drove past his building, made a U-turn, and drove past a second time. It was a three-story brownstone, decorated with gang graffiti. Third-floor windows were painted black. Trash had collected around the front stoop. There were two bullet holes in a ground-floor window, and the surrounding brick was pocked with bullet holes.
I didn’t see Eugene out and about so I drove back down Stark to State Street and headed for home. I should have gone supermarket shopping, but I stopped at Giovichinni’s Deli and Meat Market on Hamilton instead. It was more expensive but a lot easier.
I went straight to the deli counter and got sliced ham, sliced turkey, provolone cheese, a tub of broccoli slaw, a tub of homemade meatballs in red sauce, and a tub of three-bean salad. I grabbed a loaf of bread, a bag of chips, a jar of olives, peanut butter, milk, Froot Loops for snacking, granola for breakfast, mixed nuts for Rex. Hot dogs and rolls in case I needed to feed Morelli and he wanted a hot meal. Frying up a hot dog was pretty much the extent of my culinary skills. I added a large can of baked beans to my cart and went to check out.
Patty Giovichinni was at the register. She was my mother’s age, and she was married to one of the many Giovichinni brothers.
She looked over the stuff on the belt. “No Bogart Bars?” she asked.
“Not for the rest of my life,” I said, choking up a little at the thought.
“So what did the guy look like when he fell out of the truck? Was he really covered in chocolate and nuts?”
“Yeah. He was frozen.”
“Did you get a picture?”
“No.”
“Too bad. A picture would have been good.”
I agreed. I should have thought to take a picture. Then again, did I really want to immortalize the horror? Truth is, I wanted to forget it. Blot it out of my mind. Erase the memory.
Mrs. Morganstern was behind me.
“I hear you tried to kill Eddie Gazarra,” she said to me. “I think that’s terrible.”
“I didn’t try to kill him,” I said. “Lula accidentally hit his cop car. Eddie wasn’t anywhere near it.”
“Such a nice young man,” Mrs. Morganstern said. “I hope they give him another car.”
I carted my stuff back to my SUV and drove home. It was late afternoon, and the old folks who lived in my apartment building had taken all the good spots close to the back door. A lot of the spots were designated handicapped. Getting a handicapped card in Jersey is a badge of honor. You get to screw the system because you aren’t really all that handicapped and at the same time you get a good parking place.
My hamster, Rex, was asleep in his soup can when I put the grocery bags on the kitchen counter. I tapped on his cage and told him I got Froot Loops, but he didn’t come out.
“Your loss, Mister,” I said.
Rex knew it wasn’t a loss. Rex knew he’d get the Froot Loops on his terms. This was pretty much true for all the males in my life…rodents and otherwise.
I put the stuff away, and someone knocked on my door. I looked out the peephole and didn’t see anyone. More knocking. I looked down and saw Randy Briggs.
Damn.
“I know you’re in there,” Briggs yelled. “I can hear you breathing.”
I opened the door and looked out at him. “Now what?” I asked.
“You gonna let me in?”
I stepped back. “I suppose.”
“Boy, that’s generous. I come to visit you, and you got all this enthusiasm. I’m fuckin’ overwhelmed.”
“I’m sort of busy.”
“Oh yeah? Doing what?” He looked around. “I don’t see anything going on here.”
“Is there an actual reason for this visit?”
“I’m getting to it,” Briggs said. “I was just opening up the visit with some polite chitchat. How do you like the weather we’re having? Blah, blah, blah.”
I stared down at him. “And?”
“And I’m doing this project with Lula. We’re auditioning for some television shows. Shooting some reels.”
“I heard.”
“Did you also hear that they’re crap? She overacts on everything. And she’s a screen hog. All you see is Lula, Lula, Lula. And between you and me, when you get the clothes off her she’s not a pretty sight. You ever seen her naked?” He shook his head. “Not good.”
“Is this going somewhere?”
“I thought you could talk to her. Explain to her that no one wants to see her fatness all over the screen. People are going to want to see me. I’m hot. And I’m little. Everyone wants to see hot little guys.”
“I don’t.”
“And the other thing is I thought of a good angle. Every week it’s the same thing on Naked and Afraid. It’s a guy and some girl, right? So I’m thinking it would be more interesting if it was a guy and two girls. Get a little action going. Girl on girl and two girls on the guy.”
“That would be the porno version of the show.”
“Not necessarily. They always fuzzy out the private parts of the girl and the guy, so it’s not like you’d see any of the good stuff.”
“Have you talked to Lula about this?”
“No. I wanted to run it by you first. Give you first crack at it since you and Lula are so tight. And you’re not real fat, so you wouldn’t take up the whole frame.”
“You want me to be the second naked woman?”
“Yeah.”
“No.”
Briggs looked shocked. “What do you mean, no? It’s the chance of a lifetime. It could make you into a big TV star.”
“No. Not going to happen. No way. No how. Never.”
“You’re going to pass up a chance to get naked with me?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?” Briggs asked.
“You’re cranky and disgusting.”
“Okay, but besides that.”
I pointed to the open door. “Go!”
“Aren’t you going to offer me something to drink?”
“No.”
“You got a lot to learn about hospitality,” Briggs said.
I grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and handed it to him.
“No wine?” he asked.
“You do realize that I have a loaded gun i
n this kitchen?”
“Your gun is never loaded,” Briggs said. “You never even have any bullets. You keep the stupid thing in the cookie jar. You’d do better to throw your gun away and fill the jar with Oreos. At least you could offer your guests a cookie.”
I gave him my squinty eye. “Don’t push it.”
He returned the squinty eye and left.
• • •
The lights from Ranger’s black Porsche 911 Turbo swung into my parking lot precisely at 11:30 P.M. I was waiting in the lobby and, as always, I got a small rush when I caught sight of the car.
The car and the driver were perfectly matched. Lots of power and agility. Wicked fast. Dark. Sexy. Totally desirable and unobtainable. At least they were unobtainable for me. I couldn’t afford a Porsche, and hitching my life to Ranger would also come with a high price.
I left the building, got into the car, and Ranger silently drove out of the lot and headed for north Trenton.
“Do you have any new information on the Bogart Bar man?” I asked.
“Arnold Zigler. Forty-two years old. Divorced. No kids. A sister in Scranton. Parents are deceased. Most of his co-workers seemed to like him. He’d been with the company for ten years as head of human resources.”
“And the co-workers who didn’t like him?”
“Nothing serious. No death threats. Mostly indifference. I haven’t talked to any of them personally. This information has all come from Harry Bogart. You’ll have a chance to find out more tomorrow when you mingle.”
“I have to mingle?”
“Babe, I’m not putting you in there because you’re good at making ice cream.”
“I’m not sure I’m a good mingler.”
“How much am I paying you?”
“You don’t know?”
“It was a rhetorical question.”
It was past my bedtime, and I wasn’t in the best of moods. I wasn’t looking forward to being a snitch at the ice cream factory.
“Well, maybe I don’t even want this stupid job,” I said. “Maybe I’m doing this as a favor to you.”
Ranger stopped at a light and looked over at me.
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