As my last effort of the day I’d decided to check Kenny’s apartment again. The super had let me in two days before when he’d been temporarily confused as to my law enforcement affiliation. I’d surreptitiously lifted a spare key while admiring the kitchen, and now I could tippy-toe around whenever I wanted. The legality of this was a tad gray, but it would only be bothersome if I got caught.
Kenny lived just off Route 1 in a large apartment complex named Oak Hill. Since there were no hills or oaks in sight I can only guess they were leveled to make way for the three-story brick bunkers advertised as affordable luxury housing.
I parked in one of the slots and squinted through the dark and the rain to the lighted front entrance. I waited a moment while a couple sprinted from their car and hurried into the building. I transferred Kenny’s keys and my defense spray from my big black leather purse to my jacket pocket, pulled my jacket hood over my damp hair, and lurched out of the Jeep. The temperature had dropped during the course of the day, and the chill seeped through my wet jeans. So much for Indian summer.
I walked through the lobby with my head down and hood still up and had the good fortune to get an empty elevator. I rode to the third floor and hurried down the corridor to 302. I listened at the door for a moment, and heard nothing. I knocked. I knocked again. No answer. I inserted the key and with hammering heart quickly stepped inside, immediately flicking the lights on. The apartment appeared to be empty. I went room to room in a cursory search and decided Kenny hadn’t returned since my last visit. I checked his answering machine. No messages.
Once again, I listened at the door. All was silent on the other side. I turned the lights out, took a deep breath, and propelled myself out into the hall, gasping with relief that the whole thing was over and I hadn’t been seen.
When I got back to the lobby I went straight to the mailboxes and checked Kenny’s. It was crammed full of stuff. Stuff that might help me find Kenny. Unfortunately, tampering with the mail is a federal offense. Stealing mail is an especially big no-no. It would be wrong, I told myself. Mail is sacred. Yes, but wait a minute. I had a key! Didn’t that give me some rights? Again, this was a gray issue since I’d sort of stolen the key. I put my nose to the grate and looked inside. A phone bill. This might give me clues. My fingers itched with the need to get at the phone bill. I was dizzy with temptation. Temporary insanity, I thought. I was in the grip of temporary insanity. All right!
I took a deep breath, rammed the key into the tiny keyhole, opened the mailbox, and shoveled the mail into my big black bag. I clicked the little mailbox door closed and left in a sweat, trying to get to the safety of my car before sanity returned and my defense was screwed.
I crammed myself behind the wheel, locked the doors, and furtively looked around to see if I’d been spotted committing a federal offense. I had my pocketbook pressed to my chest, and there were little black dots dancing in front of my eyes. Okay, so I wasn’t the coolest, baddest bounty hunter ever. What mattered was that I was going to get my man, right?
I stuck the key into the ignition, cranked the engine over, and pulled out of the lot. I slapped Aerosmith into the tape deck and punched up the volume when I hit Route 1. It was dark and raining, with bad visibility, but this was Jersey, and we don’t slow down for anything. Brake lights flashed in front of me, and I fishtailed to a stop. The traffic light turned green, and we all took off with our foot to the floor. I cut over two lanes to line up for the turnoff, beating out a Beemer. The driver flipped me the bird and blew his horn.
I responded with some derisive Italian hand gestures and commented on his mother. Being born in Trenton carries a certain responsibility in these situations.
Traffic dragged along city streets, and I was relieved to finally cross over the train tracks and feel the burg growing closer, sucking me forward. I reached Hamilton, and the tractor beam of familial guilt locked onto my car.
My mother was peering out the storm door when I parked at the curb. “You’re late,” she said.
“Two minutes!”
“I heard sirens. You weren’t in an accident, were you?”
“No. I wasn’t in an accident. I was working.”
“You should get a real job. Something steady with normal hours. Your cousin Marjorie got a nice secretarial job with J and J. I hear she makes big money.”
Grandma Mazur was standing in the hall. She lived with my parents now that Grandpa Mazur was scarfing down his normal two-eggs-and-a-half-pound-of-bacon breakfast in the hereafter.
“We better get a move on with this dinner if we’re gonna make the viewing,” Grandma Mazur said. “You know how I like to get there early, so I can get a good seat. And the Knights of Columbus will be there tonight. There’ll be a big crowd.” She smoothed the front of her dress. “What do you think of this dress?” she asked me. “You think it’s too flashy?”
Grandma Mazur was seventy-two and didn’t look a day over ninety. I loved her dearly, but when you got her down to her skivvies, she resembled a soup chicken. Tonight’s dress was a fire-engine-red shirtwaist with shiny gold buttons. “It’s perfect,” I told her. Especially for the funeral home, which would be cataract central.
My mother brought the mashed potatoes to the table. “Come and eat,” she said, “before the mashed potatoes get cold.”
“So what did you do today?” Grandma Mazur asked. “You have to rough anyone up?”
“I spent the day looking for Kenny Mancuso, but I didn’t have much luck.”
“Kenny Mancuso is a bum,” my mother said. “All those Morelli and Mancuso men are trash. You can’t trust a one of them.”
I looked over at my mother. “Have you heard any news about Kenny? Anything going through the gossip mill?”
“Just that he’s a bum,” my mother said. “Isn’t that enough?”
In the burg it is possible to be born into bumhood. The Morelli and Mancuso women are above reproach, but the men are jerks. They drink, they cuss, they slap their kids around and cheat on their wives and girlfriends.
“Sergie Morelli will be at the viewing,” Grandma Mazur said. “He’ll be there with the K of C. I could grill him for you. I’d be real sneaky about it too. He’s always been kind of sweet on me, you know.”
Sergie Morelli was eighty-one years old and had a lot of bristly gray hair coming out of ears that were half the size of his withered head. I didn’t expect Sergie knew where Kenny was hiding, but sometimes bits and pieces of seemingly benign information turned out to be useful. “How about if I come to the viewing with you, “ I said, “and we can grill Sergie together?”
“I guess that would be okay. Just don’t cramp my style.”
My father rolled his eyes and forked into his chicken.
“Do you think I should carry?” Grandma Mazur asked. “Just in case?”
“Jesus,” my father said.
We had warm homemade apple pie for desert. The apples were tart and cinnamony. The crust was flaky and crisp with a sprinkling of sugar. I ate two pieces and almost had an orgasm. “You should open a bakery,” I said to my mother. “You could make a fortune selling pies.”
She was busy stacking pie plates and gathering up silverware. “I have enough to do to take care of the house and your father. Besides, if I was to go to work, I’d want to be a nurse. I’ve always thought I’d make a good nurse.”
Everyone stared at her openmouthed. No one had ever heard her voice this aspiration. In fact, no one had ever heard her voice any aspiration that didn’t pertain to new slipcovers or draperies.
“Maybe you should think about going back to school,” I told my mother. “You could enroll in the community college. They have a nursing program.”
“I wouldn’t want to be a nurse,” Grandma Mazur said. “They gotta wear them ugly white shoes with the rubber soles, and they empty bedpans all day. If I was going to get a job, I’d want to be a movie star.”
There are five funeral homes in the burg. Betty Szajack’s brother-in-law, Danny
Gunzer, was laid out at Stiva’s Mortuary.
“When I die you make sure I’m taken to Stiva,” Grandma Mazur said on the way over. “I don’t want that no-talent Mosel laying me out. He don’t know nothing about makeup. He uses too much rouge. Nobody looks natural. And I don’t want Sokolowsky seeing me naked. I heard some funny things about Sokolowsky. Stiva is the best. If you’re anybody at all, you go to Stiva.”
Stiva’s was on Hamilton, not far from St. Francis Hospital, in a large converted Victorian sporting a wraparound porch. The house was painted white with black shutters, and in deference to the wobbly old folks, Stiva had installed green indoor-outdoor carpeting from the front door, down the stairs to the sidewalk. A driveway ran to the back, where a four-car garage housed the essential vehicles. A brick addition had been added to the side opposite the driveway. There were two viewing rooms in the addition. I had never been given the full tour, but I assumed the embalming equipment was there as well.
I parked on the street and ran around the Jeep to help Grandma Mazur get out. She’d decided she couldn’t do a good job of worming information out of Sergie Morelli in her standard-fare tennis shoes and was now precariously teetering on black patent leather heels, which she said all babes wore.
I took a firm grip on her elbow and ushered her up the stairs to the lobby, where the K of C were massing in their fancy hats and sashes. Voices were hushed, and footsteps muffled by new carpet. The aroma of cut flowers was overbearing, mingling with the pervasive odor of breath mints that didn’t do much in the way of hiding the fact that the K of C had shored themselves up with large quantities of Seagram’s.
Constantine Stiva had set up business thirty years ago and had presided over mourners every day since. Stiva was the consummate undertaker, his mouth forever fixed in Muzak mode, his high forehead pale and soothing as cold custard, his movements always unobtrusive and silent. Constantine Stiva … the stealth embalmer.
Lately Constantine’s stepson, Spiro, had begun making undertaker noises, hovering at Constantine’s side during evening viewings and assisting in morning burials. Death was clearly Constantine Stiva’s life. It seemed more a spectator sport to Spiro. His smiles of condolence were all lips and teeth and no eyes. If I had to venture a guess as to his industry pleasures I’d go with the chemistry—the tilt-top tables and the pancreatic harpoons. Mary Lou Molnar’s little sister went to grade school with Spiro and reported to Mary Lou that Spiro had saved his fingernail clippings in a glass jar.
Spiro was small and dark with hairy knuckles and a face that was dominated by nose and sloping forehead. The uncharitable truth was that he looked like a rat on steroids, and this rumor about the fingernail-saving did nothing to enhance his image in my eyes.
He’d been friends with Moogey Bues, but he hadn’t seemed especially disturbed by the shooting. I’d spoken to him briefly while working my way through Kenny’s little black book. Spiro’s response had been politely guarded. Yes, he’d hung with Moogey and Kenny in high school. And yes, they’d stayed friends. No, he couldn’t think of a motive for either shooting. No, he hadn’t seen Kenny since his arrest and hadn’t a clue as to his whereabouts.
Constantine was nowhere to be seen in the lobby, but Spiro stood directing traffic in a conservative dark suit and crisp white shirt.
Grandma looked him over as one would a cheap imitation of good jewelry. “Where’s Con?” she asked.
“In the hospital. Herniated disk. Happened last week.”
“No!” Grandma said on a sharp intake of air. “Who’s taking care of the business?”
“Me. I pretty much run the place, anyway. And then Louie’s here, of course.”
“Who’s Louie?”
“Louie Moon,” Spiro told her. “You probably don’t know him because he mostly works mornings, and sometimes he drives. He’s been with us for about six months.”
A young woman pushed through the front door and stood halfway into the foyer. She searched the room while she unbuttoned her coat. She caught Spiro’s eye, and Spiro did his official undertaker nod of greeting. The young woman nodded back.
“Looks like she’s interested in you,” Grandma said to Spiro.
Spiro smiled, showing prominent incisors and lowers crooked enough to give an orthodontist wet dreams. “A lot of women are interested in me. I’m a pretty good catch.” He spread his arms wide. “This will all be mine someday.”
“I guess I never looked at you in that light,” Grandma said. “I suppose you could support a woman in fine style.”
“I’m thinking of expanding,” he said. “Maybe franchising the name.”
“Did you hear that?” Grandma said to me. “Isn’t it nice to find a young man with ambition.”
If this went on much longer I was going to ralph on Spiro’s suit. “We’re here to see Danny Gunzer,” I told Spiro. “Nice talking to you, but we should be running along before the K of C takes up all the good seats.”
“I understand perfectly. Mr. Gunzer is in the green room.”
The green room used to be the parlor. It should have been one of the better rooms, but Stiva had painted it a bilious green and had installed overhead lighting bright enough to illuminate a football field.
“I hate that green room,” Grandma Mazur said, hustling after me. “Every wrinkle shows in that room what with all those overhead lights. This is what it comes to when you let Walter Dumbowski do the electric. Them Dumbowski brothers don’t know nothing. I tell you, if Stiva tries to lay me out in the green room you just take me home. I’d just as leave be put out on the curb for Thursday trash pickup. If you’re anybody at all, you get one of the new rooms in the back with the wood paneling. Everybody knows that.”
Betty Szajack and her sister were standing at the open casket. Mrs. Goodman, Mrs. Gennaro, old Mrs. Ciak, and her daughter were already seated. Grandma Mazur rushed forward and put her purse on a folding chair in the second row. Her place secured, she wobbled up to Betty Szajack and made her condolences while I worked the back of the room. I learned that Gail Lazar was pregnant, that Barkalowski’s deli was cited by the health department, and that Biggy Zaremba was arrested for indecent exposure. But I didn’t learn anything about Kenny Mancuso.
I meandered through the crowd, sweating under my flannel shirt and turtleneck, with visions of my damp hair steaming as it frizzed out to maximum volume. By the time I got to Grandma Mazur I was panting like a dog.
“Just look at this tie,” she said, standing over the casket, eyes glued to Gunzer. “It’s got little horse heads on it. If this don’t beat all. Almost makes me wish I was a man so I could be laid out with a tie like this.”
Bodies shuffled at the back of the room and conversation ceased as the K of C made its appearance. The men moved forward two by two, and Grandma Mazur went up on tiptoe, pivoting on her patent-leather spikes to get a good look. Her heel caught in the carpet and Grandma Mazur pitched back, her body board stiff.
She smacked into the casket before I could get to her, flailing with her arms for support, finally finding purchase on a wire stand supporting a large milk-glass vase of gladioli. The stand held, but the vase tipped out, crashing down onto Danny Gunzer, clonking him square in the forehead. Water sloshed into Gunzer’s ears and dripped off his chin, and gladioli settled onto Gunzer’s charcoal gray suit in colorful confusion. Everyone stared in speechless horror, half expecting Gunzer to jump up and shriek, but Gunzer didn’t do anything.
Grandma Mazur was the only one not frozen to the floor. She righted herself and adjusted her dress. “Well, I guess it’s a good thing he’s dead,” she said. “This way no harm’s done.”
“No harm? No harm?” Gunzer’s widow yelled, wild-eyed. “Look at his tie. His tie is ruined. I paid extra for that tie.”
I mumbled apologies to Mrs. Gunzer and offered to make good on the tie, but Mrs. Gunzer was in the middle of a fit and wasn’t hearing any of it.
She shook her fist at Grandma Mazur. “You ought to be locked up. You and your
crazy granddaughter. A bounty hunter! Who ever heard of such a thing?”
“Excuse me?” I said, slitty-eyed with fists on hips.
Mrs. Gunzer took a step back (probably afraid I was going to shoot her), and I used the space to retreat. I snagged Grandma Mazur by the elbow, gathered her belongings together, and steered her toward the door, almost knocking Spiro over in my haste.
“It was an accident,” Grandma said to Spiro. “I caught my heel on the carpet. Could have happened to anybody.”
“Of course,” Spiro said. “I’m sure Mrs. Gunzer realizes this.”
“I don’t realize nothing,” Mrs. Gunzer bellowed. “She’s a threat to normal people.”
Spiro guided us into the foyer. “Hope this incident won’t keep you from returning to Stiva’s,” he said. “We always like to see pretty women come to visit.” He leaned closer, his lips hovering at my ear in a conspiratorial whisper. “I’d like to speak to you in private about some business I need conducted.”
“What sort of business?”
“I need something found, and I hear you’re very good at finding. I asked around after you inquired about Kenny.”
“Actually I’m pretty busy right now. And, I’m not a private investigator. I’m not licensed.”
“A thousand dollars,” Spiro said. “Flat finder’s fee.”
Time stood still for several heartbeats while I went on a mental spending binge. “Of course if we kept it quiet, I don’t see any harm in helping a friend.” I lowered my voice. “What are we looking for?”
“Caskets,” Spiro whispered. “Twenty-four caskets.”
Morelli was waiting for me when I got home. He was slouched against the wall, hands stuffed into pockets, ankles crossed. He looked up expectantly when I stepped out of the elevator and smiled at the brown grocery bag I carried.
“Let me guess,” he said. “Leftovers.”
“Gee, now I know why you made detective.”
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