I wasn't great in the willpower department. Even as I was standing there, I could feel the Cheez Doodles calling my name. I didn't want a whole grocery bag of doodles and chips in the car with me. I didn't want to end up looking like Carol.
"Give all the chips to Cindy," I said. "The chips should stay in the family."
Grandma looked over at Carol. "Are you gonna be okay if we give her all the chips? You aren't gonna flip out, are you?"
"I'm okay now," Carol said. "Actually, I feel kind of sick. I think I'm going to lie down for a while."
We filled the grocery bag with the remaining chips and left Carol standing at the door, the pallor of her skin looking slightly green under the orange doodle dust. Cindy drove off with the chips. And Grandma and Lula and I stuffed ourselves into the Buick.
"Hunh," Lula said, settling in. "We could have taken a few bags with us."
"I had my eye on that bag of barbecue chips," Grandma said. "It's gonna be hard for me to keep up my strength without some chips."
"Uh oh," Lula said. "Look at this, a couple of bags of chips somehow got in my big ol' purse . . . just like what happened to Carol."
"Chips are devilish like that," Grandma said.
"Yeah," Lula said. "Guess we should eat them so they don't go to waste."
"How many bags do you have?" I asked her.
"Three. You want one?"
I blew out a sigh, and Lula handed me a bag of Fritos. Not only was I going to eat them . . . I was secretly glad she snitched them.
"Now what?" Lula wanted to know. "I'm not going to have to go back to the filing, am I?"
"Sally Sweet's next up," I said.
"I'm in," Lula said.
Sally lived on the opposite side of town. By the time we got there, he'd be done with his morning bus run, and it'd be a good time to bring him in and get him rebonded.
I called Morelli on the way over to get a report on Eddie Gazarra.
"He's going to be okay," Morelli said. "He'll probably get released from the hospital tomorrow."
"Anything new going on?"
"There was another devil holdup last night. This time the firebomb worked and the store burned down."
"Anyone hurt?"
"No. It was late at night, and the store was empty. The night manager got out the back door. The word on the street is that the Comstock Street Slayers are bragging about the cop shooting."
"I didn't realize we had Slayers in Trenton."
"We've got everything in Trenton."
"If you rounded up all the Slayers, I might be able to identify the Red Devil," I said to Morelli.
"To the best of our knowledge there are twenty-eight active Slayers, and they're about as easy to round up as smoke. And probably the twenty-eight figure is low."
"Okay, suppose I rode around in their neighborhood, looking for the guy?"
"Honey, even I don't ride around in that neighborhood."
I disconnected and turned onto Fenton Street. It was easy to find Sally's house. A big yellow school bus was parked at the curb. I pulled up behind the bus, and we all trooped out.
Sally opened the door with the security chain still in place. "I've changed my mind," he said. "I don't want to go."
"You have to go," I told him. "It's the law."
"The law's bogus. I didn't do anything wrong. And now if I go with you I'm going to have to pay more money, right? Vinnie's gonna have to write another bond, right?"
"Uh . . . yeah."
"I haven't got more money. And anyway, I'm not even the one who should have been arrested. They should have arrested that jerk Marty Sklar. He's the one who started all this."
I felt my eyebrows shoot halfway up my forehead. "Marty Sklar is the guy who made a pass at you?"
"Do you know him?" Sally asked.
"I went to school with him. He was a big macho football player. And he married Barbara Jean Biabloki, the pom-pom queen." It was a perfect match. They deserved each other. Sklar was a bully, and Barbara Jean thought she could walk on water because she grew perfect breasts. Last I heard, Sklar was working in his father-in-law's Toyota dealership, and Barbara Jean had porked up to biblical proportions. "Was Sklar drunk?"
"Fuckin' A. Oh crap!" Snap, snap.
"You gotta remember about fudge," Grandma said.
Sally nodded. "Fudgin' A."
We all did a mental eeyeuuw. Fudgin' A didn't sound tasty coming out of Sally's mouth.
"Maybe fudge don't work for that one time," Grandma said.
If I could get Sklar to drop the charges against Sally, and we had a sympathetic judge, I could save Sally the expense of a second bond. "You're not going anywhere," I said to Sally. "I don't need to bring you in today. I'll talk to Sklar and see what I can do about getting the charges dropped."
"No shit!" Snap.
"You better clean up your mouth, or you're gonna lose that hand," Lula said to Sally. "You're gonna amputate yourself."
"F-f-fudge," Sally said.
Grandma looked down at her watch. "You're going to have to take me home now. I have a beauty parlor appointment this afternoon, and I don't want to be late. I got a lot of ground to cover today what with the shooting and all."
This was a good deal for me because the negotiation with Marty Sklar would go better without Grandma present. In fact, I'd prefer to do it without Lula but I didn't think that was going to happen. I pointed the Buick toward the Burg and motored across town. I dropped Grandma off in front of my parents' house. My sister's car was still in the driveway.
"They're planning the wedding," Grandma said. "Ordinarily I'd be right there, but it looks to me like this is going on for days. They spent two hours this morning talking about what kind of suit Mr. Cutie Uggums was going to wear. I don't know how your mother does it. That woman has the patience of a saint."
"Who's Mr. Cutie Uggums?" Lula wanted to know.
"Albert Kloughn. He and Valerie are getting married."
"That's scary," Lula said.
* * *
Melvin Biabloki's Toyota dealership took up half a block on South Broad Street. It wasn't the biggest or the best dealership in the state, but according to Burg gossip it made enough money to send Melvin and his wife on a cruise every February and to give a job to his son-in-law.
I parked in the area reserved for customers, and Lula and I went searching for Sklar.
"This here's a butt-ugly showroom," Lula said. "They should buy some new carpet. And what's with the nasty plastic chairs? For a minute there I thought I was back at the office."
A guy in a sports coat ambled over, and it took me a moment to realize it was Marty Sklar. He was shorter than I remembered. His hair was balding. He was wearing glasses. And his six-pack stomach had turned to a keg. Marty wasn't aging well.
"Stephanie Plum," Marty said. "I remember you. Joe Morelli used to write poems on bathroom walls about you."
"Yeah. I'm living with him now."
Sklar touched his index finger to my lip. "Then all those things he said must be true."
He'd caught me flat-footed. I wasn't expecting the touch. I slapped his hand away, but it was too late. I had Marty Sklar cooties on my lip. Yuk. I needed mouthwash. Disinfectant. I was going to rush home and take a shower. Maybe two showers.
"Hey," Lula said. "Don't you touch her. Did she say you could touch her? I don't think so. I didn't hear her give you permission. You keep your nasty-ass hands to yourself."
Sklar cut his eyes to Lula. "Who the hell are you?"
"I'm Lula. Who the hell are you?"
"I'm Marty Sklar."
"Hunh," Lula said.
I tried not to think about the lip cooties and pushed forward. "Here's the thing, Marty. I want to talk to you about Sally Sweet."
"What about him?"
"I thought you might want to drop the charges. It turns out he's hired a really good lawyer. And the lawyer's found a bunch of witnesses who've officially stated you came on to Sweet."
"He hit me with his guitar
."
"That's true, but I thought you might not want it to go public about the sex thing."
"What sex thing?"
"The witnesses said you wanted to have sex with Sally."
"That's a lie. I was just busting his balls."
"It's not going to sound like that at the trial."
"Trial?
"Well, he's got this lawyer now. And all the witnesses . . ."
"Shit."
I looked at my watch. "If you move fast and make a phone call you can stop the process before it gets out of control. Probably your father-in-law would be upset to learn that you propositioned a transvestite."
"Yeah," Lula said. "That's like a double cheat. You were gonna cheat with a guy in a dress. Father-in-laws hate that."
"What's the name of this hotshot lawyer?" Sklar asked.
"Albert Kloughn."
"And he's supposed to be good? I never heard of him."
"He's a shark," I said. "He's new to the area "
"So what's your interest in this?" Sklar asked me.
"Just being a friend, Marty. Since we went to school together and all."
And I left the showroom.
Lula and I didn't say anything until we were out of the lot.
"Girl, you can lie!" Lula yelled when I turned the Buick onto Broad. "You are the shit. I almost gave myself a hemorrhoid trying not to laugh back there. I can't believe how good you can lie. I mean I've seen you lie before, but this was like Satan lying. It was inspired lying."
FOUR
I drove two blocks up Broad and pulled into a Subway shop.
"This is a good place to eat lunch," Lula said. "They got them low-carb sandwiches. And they got them low-fat sandwiches. You could lose a lot of weight eating here. The more you eat, the more you lose."
"Actually, I chose Subway because it was next to Dunkin' Donuts."
"Friggin' A," Lula said.
We each got a sub. And then we each got six doughnuts. We sat in the car and ate the sub and the doughnuts in silence.
I crumpled my wrappers and shoved them into the doughnut bag.
"Do you know anything about the Slayers?" I asked Lula.
"I know they're bad news. There's a whole bunch of gangs in Trenton. The Comstock Street Slayers and the Bad Killer Cuts are the two big ones. Used to be you only heard about Slayers on the West Coast, but they're everywhere now. Kids join up in prison, and then they bring it back to the street. Comstock Street is gangland these days."
"I talked to Morelli a while ago. He said the Slayers are bragging about shooting Eddie Gazarra."
"Bummer. You better watch out on account of you disrespected Red Devil, and he was hanging with those guys. You don't want to get on the bad side of a Slayer. I'd be real careful of that if I was you."
"You're the one who shot up the devil guy's tire!"
"Yeah, but he didn't know it was me. He probably thought it was you. You're the big-deal bounty hunter. I'm just a file clerk."
"Speaking of file clerk, I should get you back to the office so you can do some filing."
"Yeah, but who's gonna watch out for your ass then? Who's gonna help catch the bad guys? You know what we should do? We should go take a look around Comstock Street. Maybe we could get the Red Devil."
"I don't want to get the Red Devil. He shoots at people. He's a police problem."
"Boy, what's with you? Everything's a police problem these days."
"I enforce bail bond requirements. That's the extent of my authority."
"Well, we don't have to actually get him. We could just do some investigating. You know, like we could ride around in the neighborhood. Maybe talk to a couple peopie. I bet we could find out who the devil guy is. You're the only one who knows what he looks like."
Lucky me. "To begin with, I don't know where the devil guy lives, so it would be hard to ride around in his neighborhood. And if that isn't enough, even if we found his neighborhood and went asking questions, no one would talk to me."
"Yeah, but they'd talk to me. Everyone talks to me. I got a winning personality. And I look like I belong in a gang-infested neighborhood." Lula scrounged in her big black leather purse, found her cell phone, and punched in a number.
"Hey," she said when the connection was made. "It's Lula, and I need some information." Pause. "Your ass," she said. "I'm not doing that no more." Another pause. "I'm not doing that either. And I'm especially not doing that last thing. That's disgusting. Are you gonna listen to me, or what?"
There were about three more minutes of conversation, and Lula dropped her phone back into her bag.
"Okay, I got some gang boundaries now. The Slayers are between Third and Eighth Streets on Comstock. And Comstock's one block over from Stark," Lula said. "I used to work part of that area. My corner was on Stark, but I got a lot of customers from the south side. It wasn't so bad back then. That was before the gangs moved in. I figure we just mosey on over there and take a look around."
"I don't think that's a good idea."
"How bad could it be? We're in a car. We're just driving through. It's not like we're in Baghdad, or something. And anyway, the gangs aren't out during the day. They're like vampires. They only come out at night. So during the day the streets are real safe."
"That's not true."
"Are you calling me a fibber?"
"Yeah."
"Well, okay, maybe they aren't real safe. But they're safe enough in a car. What could happen to you in a car?"
Problem was, Lula and I were sort of the Abbott and Costello of law enforcement. Things happened to us all the time. Things that weren't normal.
"Give me a break," Lula said. "I don't want to go back and file. I'd rather ride through hell than file."
"Okay," I said on a sigh. "We'll do a drive-through." Abbott and Costello weren't all that bright. They were always doing stupid things like this. And more to the point, I felt guilty about Eddie Gazarra. I felt like he got shot because I'd acted impulsively. I felt like I owed him. Anyway, Lula was probably right. It was daytime. It was probably reasonably safe. I could do a simple ride through the Slayer's neighborhood and maybe I'd get lucky. If I could find the Red Devil, the police might have a chance at getting the guy who shot Eddie.
I cut through the center of the city and turned up Stark Street. Stark Street started out bad and got worse. The gang graffiti increased with each block. By the time we were at Third the buildings were solid slogans and signs. The sidewalks were spray-painted. The street signs were spray-painted. First-floor windows were laced with iron security bars, and the bars and pawn shops were behind partially closed security gates.
I turned right at Third and drove one block to Comstock. Once off Stark there were fewer businesses and the streets narrowed. Cars were parked on both sides of Comstock, reducing the road to barely two lanes. We passed a couple guys on a corner. They were young, dressed in baggy jeans and white T-shirts. Their arms and hands were tattooed. Their expressions were sullen and watchful.
"Not a lot of people out," Lula said. "Except for the two sentries we just passed."
"It's the middle of the day. People are working."
"Not in this neighborhood," Lula said. "Most of these people don't got jobs unless you count holding up liquor stores as a profession."
I checked my rearview mirror and saw one of the corner watchers put a cell phone to his ear.
"I'm getting a bad feeling," I said.
"That's because you're a minority here."
"You mean being white?"
"No. I mean you're the only one for blocks not packin' a gun."
I cruised past Fifth and started looking for a way out. I didn't want to go deeper into the 'hood. I wanted to get back to Stark and head for city center. I turned left onto Sixth and realized the truck in front of me wasn't moving. It was double-parked. No one at the wheel. I put the Buick into reverse and inched back. I was about to pull onto Comstock when a kid appeared from out of nowhere. He was in his late teens, and he look
ed like a clone of the guys on the corner.
He approached the car and rapped on the driver-side window. "Hey," he said.
"You might want to ignore him," Lula said. "And it might not be a bad idea to back up a little faster."
"I'd like to back up faster, but there are a couple really nasty-looking guys at my bumper. If I back up I'll run over them."
"So what's your point?"
"I know you," the kid at my window said, his face inches from the glass. "You're a fucking bounty hunter. You busted my uncle. You were with some Rambo guy. And you're the one fingered Red Devil."
The car started to rock, and I realized the guys in the back were on the bumper. More faces pressed against the side windows.
"Step on the freaking gas," Lula said. "It don't matter if you run these clowns over. They've been run over lots of times. Look at them. Don't they look like they've been run over?"
"The guy at your window is saying something. What's he saying?"
"How would I know," Lula said. "It's gangsta talk shit. Something about kill the bitches. And now he's licking the glass. You're gonna have to Clorox this car if we ever get outa here."
All right, I have three options. I can call Joe and have him send the police. That would be really embarrassing, and they might not get here in time to stop the bitch killing. The second choice is that I call Ranger. Equally embarrassing. And there might be bloodshed. Not mine, probably. Or I could run over a couple of these fine, upstanding young men.
"I'm getting real nervous about this," Lula said. "I think you might have made a bad decision to come into this neighborhood."
I felt my blood pressure edge up a notch. "This was your idea."
"Well, it was a bad idea. I'm willing to admit that now."
The Buick bounced around a little, and I could hear scraping, thumping sounds overhead. The idiots were jumping up and down on the roof.
"Your grandma's not gonna like it one bit if they scratch her car," Lula said. "This here's a classic."
"Hey," I yelled to the guy with his face pressed against my window. "Back off from the car. It's a classic."
"Classic this, bitch," he said. And he pulled a gun out of his baggy pants and aimed it at me, the barrel about an inch from the window glass.
Plum 10 - Ten Big Ones Page 5