The other possibility, that Mo was snatched and most likely was dead somewhere, waiting to be found, was too depressing to ponder. Best to set that one aside for now, I decided.
And what about Mo’s mail? I couldn’t remember seeing a mailbox. Probably the mailman brought the mail into the store and gave it to Mo. So what was happening to the mail now?
Check the post office, I wrote on the pad.
I smelled pizza get off the elevator, and I hustled to the foyer, flipped the chain, threw the bolts back on the two Yale locks, opened the door and stared out at Joe Morelli.
“Pizza delivery,” he said.
I narrowed my eyes.
“I was at Pino’s when the order came in.”
“So this really is my pizza?”
Morelli pushed past me and set the pizza on the kitchen counter. “Cross my heart and hope to die.” He got two beers out of the refrigerator, balanced the pizza box on one hand and carted everything into the living room and set it all on the coffee table. He picked the channel changer off the sofa and punched the Knicks game on.
“Make yourself at home,” I said.
Morelli smiled.
I set two plates, a roll of paper towels and a pizza cutter next to the pizza box. Truth is, I wasn’t completely unhappy to see Morelli. He radiated body heat, which I seemed to be lacking today, and as a cop he had resources that were useful to a bounty hunter. There might be other reasons as well, having to do with ego and lust, but I didn’t feel like admitting to those reasons.
I recut the pizza and slid pieces onto plates. I handed one plate to Morelli. “You know a guy named Cameron Brown?”
“Pimp,” Morelli said. “Very oily. Deals some dope.” He looked at me over the edge of his pizza. “Why?”
“You remember Jackie? Lula’s friend?”
“Jackie the hooker.”
“Yeah. Well she came to Vinnie’s office today to see if I could find her car. Seems her boyfriend, Cameron Brown, took off with it.”
“And?”
“And, Lula and I cruised around awhile and finally found the car parked in the RiverEdge Apartments parking lot.”
Morelli stopped eating. “Keep going.”
“That’s about it. Jackie said she didn’t care about finding Cameron. She just wanted her car.”
“So what’s your problem?”
I chewed some pizza. “I don’t know. The whole thing feels…nasty. Unfinished.”
“Stay out of it.”
“Excuse me?”
“It’s Jackie’s problem,” Morelli said. “Mind your own business. You got her car back. Let it rest.”
“She’s sort of my friend.”
“She’s a doper. She’s nobody’s friend.”
I knew he was right, but I was still surprised at the harsh comment and at the emphatic tone. A little alarm sounded in my brain. Usually when Morelli felt this strongly about my not getting involved in something it was because he didn’t want me muddying waters he’d staked out for himself.
Morelli sank back into the couch with his bottle of beer. “Whatever happened to the all-out search for Mo?”
“I’m all out of ideas.” I had wolfed down two pieces of pizza and was eyeing a third. “So tell me,” I said to Morelli. “What’s going on with Jackie and her old man? Why don’t you want me getting involved?”
“Like I said, it’s none of your business.” Morelli leaned forward, raised the lid on Rex’s hamster cage and chucked a chunk of pizza crust into Rex’s little ceramic food dish.
“Tell me anyway,” I said.
“There’s not much to tell. I just think there’s a funny climate on the streets. The dealers are pulling back, getting cautious. Rumor has it some have disappeared.”
His attention was diverted to the television. “Watch this,” he said. “Watch the replay of this layup.”
“The guys in vice must be ecstatic.”
“Yeah,” Morelli said. “They’re sitting around playing cards and eating jelly doughnuts for lack of crime.”
I was still debating the third piece of pizza. My thighs really didn’t need it, but life was so short, and physical gratification was hard to come by these days. The hell with it. Eat the damn thing and get it over with, I thought.
I saw a smile twitch at the corners of Morelli’s mouth.
“What?” I yelled at him.
He held two hands in the air. “Hey, don’t yell at me just because you have no willpower.”
“I have plenty of willpower.” Man, I hated when Morelli was right. “Why are you here anyway?”
“Just being sociable.”
“And you want to see if I have anything new on Mo.”
“Yeah.”
I’d expected him to deny it, and now I was left with nothing accusatory to say.
“Why are you so interested in Mo?” I asked.
Morelli shrugged. “Everyone in the burg is interested in Mo. I spent a lot of time in that store as a kid.”
Morning dawned late under a tedious cloud cover that was the color and texture of cement curbing. I finished up the pizza for breakfast and was feeding Rex Cheerios and raisins when the phone rang.
“Man, this is one ugly morning,” Lula said. “And it’s getting uglier by the minute.”
“Are you referring to the weather?” I asked.
“That too. Mostly I’m referring to human nature. We got a situation on our hands. Jackie’s got herself staked out in the FancyAss parking lot, looking to catch her old man doin’ the deed. I told her to go home, but she don’t listen to me. I told her he probably isn’t even there. What would he be doing with a woman could afford to live in a place like that? I told her that motherfucker got capped. I told her she be better off checking the Dumpsters, but it go on deaf ears.”
“And?”
“And I thought you could talk to her. She’s gonna freeze to death. She’s been sitting there all night.”
“What makes you think she’ll listen to me?”
“You could tell her you got some surveillance going on, and she don’t need to butt in.”
“That would be a lie.”
“What, you never lied before?”
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Half an hour later, I turned the Buick into the RiverEdge Apartments parking lot. Jackie was there, all right, parked in her Chrysler. I pulled up behind her, got out and rapped on her window.
“Yeah?” Jackie said by way of greeting, not sounding all that happy.
“What are you doing here?”
“I’m waiting for that shit-ass car thief to come out, and then I’m going to put a hole in him big enough to drive a truck through.”
I don’t know a whole lot about guns, but the cannon resting on the seat next to Jackie looked like it could do the job.
“That’s a pretty good idea,” I said, “but you look cold. Why don’t you let me take over the surveillance for a while?”
“Thanks all the same, but you found him, and now I get to kill him.”
“Makes perfect sense to me. I just thought it might be better to kill him when it warms up some. After all, there isn’t any real rush. No point sitting out here, catching a cold, just to kill a guy.”
“Yeah, but I feel like killing him now. I don’t feel like waiting. Besides, I’m not gonna do any business today what with this weather. Only crazy men go out to get their oil changed on a day like this, and I don’t need any of that lunatic dick shit. Nope, I might as well sit here. Better than standing on my corner.”
She could be right.
“Okay,” I said. “Be careful.”
“Hunh,” Jackie said.
I drove over to the office and told Lula that Jackie was hunkered in for the siege.
“Hunh,” Lula said.
Vinnie popped out of his office.
“Well?” Vinnie asked.
We all looked at him. Well what?
Vinnie settled on me. “Where’s Mo? Why
don’t we have Mo in custody? How hard could it be to catch an old man who sells candy?”
“Mo’s done a disappearing act,” I said. “He’s temporarily vanished.”
“So where have you looked? You check his apartment? You check his sister? You check his boyfriend?”
The office went suddenly silent.
I found my voice first. “Boyfriend?”
Vinnie smiled. His teeth white and even in his olive complexion. “You didn’t know?”
“Oh my God,” Connie said, doing the sign of the cross. “Oh my God.”
My head was reeling. “Are you sure?” I asked Vinnie. As if I’d doubt Vinnie for a nanosecond when it came to expertise in alternative sexual behavior.
“Moses Bedemier is a flaming fruit,” Vinnie said, his face wreathed in happiness, his hands jiggling change in the deep pockets of his pleated polyester slacks. “Moses Bedemier wears ladies’ panties.”
Vincent Plum, bail bonds. Specializing in sensitivity and political correctness.
I turned to Lula. “I thought you said Mo was a customer.”
“Unh-uh. I said I knew him. Sometimes when I was on the corner he’d ride by late at night and ask directions of Jackie or me. He’d want to know where to find Freddie the Frog or Little Lionel. I figure he do some drugs.”
“Oh my God,” Connie said. “A homosexual and a drug user. Oh my God.”
“How do you know?” I asked Vinnie.
“I’d heard rumors. And then I saw him and his significant other having dinner in New Hope a couple months ago.”
“How do you know it was a significant other and not just a friend?”
“What, you want details?” Vinnie said, smiling wide, enjoying the moment.
I grimaced and shook my head, no.
Connie squeezed her eyes shut tight.
“Yo ass,” Lula said.
“Do you have a name?” I asked Vinnie. “What’s this guy look like?”
“The guy was Mo’s age. Smaller, slimmer. Soft, like Mo. Dark hair, bald on top. I don’t have a name, but I can make some phone calls.”
I didn’t give much credence to the drug buyer theory, but I wouldn’t want it to be said I’d left a stone unturned. When Lula was hooking she’d plied her trade on Stark Street, a mile-long strip of bars and crack houses and row houses converted to airless apartments and rooms to let. It’d be a waste of time for me to canvass Stark Street. No one would talk to me. That left me with two alternatives. Lula was one of them. Ranger was the other.
CHAPTER 4
I could ask Ranger to make inquiries on Mo. Or I could ask Lula. This was a dilemma, being that Ranger would be my first choice, but Lula was here in front of me, on the scent, reading my mind.
“Well?” Lula asked. Shifting her weight. Nervous. Belligerent. Rhino mode. Looking like her feelings would be hurt if I didn’t ask her to work with me. Looking like at any moment she might narrow her eyes and squash me like a bug.
So I was beginning to see the wisdom of using Lula. No point to hurting her feelings, right? And probably Lula would be cool with this. I mean, what was the big deal? All she had to do was show Mo’s picture to a few drug dealers and hookers. So she wasn’t subtle. Hey, was that a crime?
“You have a lot of contacts on Stark Street,” I said to Lula. “Maybe you could flash Mo’s picture. See if someone can give us a lead.”
Lula’s face brightened. “You bet. I could do that.”
“Yeah,” Vinnie said. “Get her out of the office for a while. She makes me nervous.”
“You should be nervous,” Lula told him. “I’m keeping my eye on your sad ass. You better not trifle with me, mister.”
Vinnie set his teeth, and I thought I saw wisps of steam curl out of his ears and evaporate off the top of his head. But maybe it was just my imagination.
“I’ll make some phone calls. I’ll see if I can get a name for Mo’s boyfriend,” Vinnie said, retreating into his private lair, slamming the door behind him.
Lula had one arm rammed into her coat. “And I’m gonna get right on this. I’m gonna detect the shit out of this case.”
With everyone else in motion, there didn’t seem to be much for me to do. I retraced my steps back to my Buick and drove home on autopilot. I pulled into the lot to my apartment building and looked up at my window. I’d left the light burning in my bedroom, and it was all cheerful and welcoming now. A rectangle of comfort floating high above the gray miasma of morning ice smog.
Mr. Kleinschmidt was in the lobby when I swung through the double glass doors.
“Ho,” Mr. Kleinschmidt said. “It’s the early bounty hunter that catches the worm. Tracking down a ruthless murderer today?”
“Nope. No murderers,” I said.
“Drug dealer? Rapist?”
“Nope. Nope.”
“Who then? What gets you up and out so early?”
“Actually, I’m looking for Moses Bedemier.”
“That’s not funny,” Mr. Kleinschmidt said. “That’s not a good joke. I know Moses Bedemier. Mo would never do anything bad. I think you should look for someone else.”
I stepped into the elevator and pushed the second-floor button. I gave Mr. Kleinschmidt a little finger-wave good-bye, but he didn’t wave back.
“Why me?” I said to the empty elevator. “Why me?”
I let myself into my apartment and looked in at Rex. He was sleeping in his soup can. Nice and quiet. That’s one of the terrific things about having a hamster as a roommate; hamsters keep their thoughts to themselves. If Rex had an opinion about Moses Bedemier, he didn’t lay it on me.
I nuked a cup of coffee and settled down to make phone calls.
I started with my cousin Jeanine, who worked at the post office. Jeanine told me Mo’s mail was being held, and that Mo hadn’t left a forwarding address, nor had he retrieved anything.
I talked to Linda Shantz, Loretta Beeber and Margaret Molinowsky. No one had much to say about Mo, but I found out my archenemy, Joyce Barnhardt, had a drug-resistant yeast infection. That cheered me up some.
At one o’clock I called Vinnie to see if he’d been able to get a name for me. The call was switched to the answering service, and I realized it was Saturday. The office was only open for a half day on Saturday.
I thought about doing something athletic, like going for a run, but when I looked out the living room window it was still January, so I trashed the physical fitness idea.
I returned to the phone and dialed up some more busybodies. I figured it would take me days to go through my list of gossips, and in the meantime I could pretend I was accomplishing something.
By three-thirty my ear felt swollen, and I wasn’t sure how much longer I could take being glued to the phone. I was contemplating a nap when someone hammered on my door.
I opened the door and Lula rolled in.
“Outta my way,” she said. “I’m so frozen I can’t walk straight. My black ass turned blue a half hour ago.”
“Do you want hot chocolate?”
“I’m way past hot chocolate. I need alcohol.”
I’m not much of a drinker. I’d long ago decided it was best not to muddy the waters of my brain with serious booze. I had a hard enough time making sense when I was sober.
“I haven’t got much in the way of alcohol,” I told Lula. “Light beer, red wine, mouth-wash.”
“Pass on that. I just wanted to tell you about Mo, anyway. Carla, the ho on Seventh and Stark, says she saw Mo two days ago. According to Carla, Mo was looking for Shorty O.”
I felt my mouth fall open. Mo was on Stark Street two days ago. Holy cow.
“How reliable is Carla?”
“Well she wasn’t shaking or nothing today, so I think she could see the picture I showed her,” Lula said. “And she wouldn’t mess with me.”
“What about Shorty O? Do you know him?”
“Everybody knows Shorty O. Shorty’s one of those influential people on Stark Street. Middle management. Do some
demolition work when there’s a need. I would have talked to him, but I couldn’t find him.”
“Do you think Mo found him?”
“Hard to say.”
“Anyone else see Mo?”
“Not that I know of. I asked lots of people, too, but with this weather, people aren’t out looking around.” Lula stamped her feet and made flapping warm-up motions with her arms. “I gotta go. I’m going home. It’s Saturday, and I got a date tonight. I gotta get my hair done. Just because I’m a natural beauty don’t mean I don’t need extra help sometime.”
I thanked Lula and saw her to the elevator. I returned to my apartment and thought about this latest development. Hard to believe Mo was on Stark Street for whatever reason. Still, I wasn’t going to totally discount anything…no matter how preposterous. Especially since this was my only lead.
I punched the speed-dial number for Ranger and left a message on his machine. If anyone could find Shorty O, it would be Ranger.
Sunday morning I got up at ten. I made hot chocolate and French toast, carried it into the living room and slid the Winnie the Pooh video into the VCR. When Winnie was done having his adventures in the Hundred Acre Wood it was almost noon, and I thought it was time to go to work. Since I didn’t have a social life, and I didn’t have an office, work time was any time I wanted.
And what I wanted today was to get stupid, spineless Stuart Baggett. Mo was cooking on the back burner, but Stuart wasn’t cooking at all.
I showered and dressed and resurrected Stuart’s file. He lived with his parents at 10 Applegate Street in Mercerville. I spread my street map on the dining room table and located Applegate. It looked to be about two miles from the mall where Stuart worked. Very convenient.
I’ve been told there are places in the country where stores close on Sunday. This would never happen in Jersey. We wouldn’t stand for it. In Jersey it’s part of our constitutional rights to shop seven days a week.
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