Notorious Nineteen

FIFTEEN

CONNIE WAS ON the phone when I walked into the office. Lula was on the couch, reading Star magazine.

“It’s the cellulite issue,” Lula said. “I love the cellulite issue.”

Connie got off the phone, typed something into her computer, and sat back. “The charges have been dropped on Dottie Luchek. The cop said he misunderstood her intentions.”

“Hah!” Lula said. “Translation is she ran into him again and gave him a free BJ.”

So my list had just gotten shorter.

“I’d like to take a look at Franz Sunshine,” I said, “but I can’t come up with an angle.”

“You could just walk up to him and come right out with it,” Lula said. “He’s a busy mogul. He might not know there’s a Yeti living in his investment property. He could be happy you brought it to his attention.”

I looked at Connie. “Do you think?”

Connie shrugged.

I hiked my bag higher onto my shoulder. “I’ll play it by ear.”

“Me too,” Lula said. “I’m going with you. I want to see what a Franz Sunshine looks like.”

FS Financials was located in a high-rise on State Street in the middle of town. I parked on the street, and Lula and I took the elevator to the fifth floor.

“This is a swanky building,” Lula said. “This Franz guy must be doing okay.”

FS Financials occupied half of the floor. The door was frosted glass with the lettering in gold. I had my hand on the doorknob, and I still had no idea what I’d say to Franz Sunshine.

“Well?” Lula asked.

“I’m thinking.”

“Honest to goodness,” Lula said. “What’s to think about? You just go in and make something up. You let me do it. I’m good at making things up. I used to make stuff up all the time when I was a ’ho. Like how you think it’s cute that their dick has a crook in it.”

“That might not be a good opener for Franz Sunshine,” I said.

“Well, I got a lot more than that,” Lula said, pushing the door open. “You just stand back.”

Lula was dressed in flaming fuchsia today with hair to match. Skin-tight short black spandex skirt, fuchsia cap-sleeve spandex top showing acres of cleavage, five-inch stiletto heels, and her fuchsia hair was frizzed out to about a two-foot diameter.

She marched into FS Financials and politely asked to see Mr. Sunshine. The woman at the desk asked if Lula had an appointment, and Lula said actually Mr. Sunshine had missed his appointment so she was here doing a house call.

“Yes, but you still need an appointment,” the woman said. “May I give him your name?”

“You certainly may,” Lula said. “It’s Lula, as in Tallulah. And you tell him that he’s gonna want to see me firsthand.”

Sixty seconds later Lula swung her ass into Sunshine’s office with me trailing behind.

“Howdy,” she said to Sunshine. “I appreciate your seeing me like this. I’m Lula and this here’s my associate Stephanie. I want to talk to you about The Clinic. What the heck does it do anyway?”

Sunshine was older than Grandma Mazur. He was a shrunken man with a wisp of hair plastered to the top of his head, and rosacea spread across his face like the map of Europe.

“It doesn’t do anything,” he said with a thick German accent. “I bought it cheap. It’s an investment.”

“Well, I’m looking for a place to start my business and someone told me you had the perfect place.”

“What kind of business are you starting?”

“I’m a ’ho,” Lula said. “And I’m looking for a ’ho house.”

“You thought The Clinic would make a good brothel?”

“Yeah. I was told it had lots of rooms, which is just what I’m looking for. I could have a wide variety of themes going on if you see what I’m saying. And it sits by itself at the end of the street so the neighbors wouldn’t be complaining about noise and such. Not that a ’ho is real noisy, but sometimes depending on what a customer wants you might get carried away fakin’ a orgasm. I drove by your property on the advice of my finance officer and it looked empty except for a car I saw go in.”

“I have a security guard.”

“This didn’t look like no security guard,” Lula said. “This was a lady with ’ho hair. So I thought maybe the building had a head start on my idea.”

“Not that I’m aware,” Sunshine said.

“You’ll have to excuse me if this is a offensive question,” Lula said. “But you got a real kraut accent, and it don’t go with the name Sunshine.”

“It’s the American equivalent to Sonnenschein. How much would you be willing to pay for my building?”

“How much do you want?” Lula asked.

“Ten million.”

“Say what? I’m a ’ho, not Donald Trump. I don’t got that kind of money. Would you be willing to hold a mortgage?”

“We should go now,” I said to Lula. “We have another appointment.”

“What appointment you talking about?” Lula asked.

“The appointment you made with your doctor for that rash you’ve got all over your . . . you-know-what.”

“Oh yeah, that appointment.”

Lula stuck her hand out to Sunshine but he waved it away. No doubt worried about the rash.

“Well, I gotta go,” Lula said to him. “I’ll be back in touch if I can get hold of ten million.”

We swished out of Sunshine’s office, down the hall, and into the elevator.

“How’d I do?” Lula asked. “I was good, right?”

“Yeah. You were great. I almost fell over when you said you wanted to turn The Clinic into a whorehouse.”

“That was genius on my part,” Lula said. “When you think about it the building’s perfect with all those rooms. And it’s even got a lab so you could do your own disease testing.”

We stepped out of the building and found a shiny black GLK-Class Mercedes SUV parked where my Buick had formerly resided. A guy dressed in Rangeman black stepped away from the car and handed me a key.

“Ranger wanted you to have this,” he said.

I looked up and down the street. “Where’s the Buick?”

“Hal took it back to Rangeman.”

Another black SUV rolled down the street and stopped by my new car. The Rangeman guy got into the SUV. And the SUV drove off.

“It’s like you got a hot fairy godfather,” Lula said.

I remoted the Mercedes doors open. “Be careful what you say in here. He’s probably got it wired for audio and video to go straight to the control room.” I looked up to the sky, half expecting to see a Rangeman chopper hovering over my head.

I got behind the wheel, pressed the keyless go button, and the phone rang.

“I have your Buick,” Ranger said. “Do you want it stored here, or do you want it taken back to your parents’ house?”

“Leave it at Rangeman. Tiki is in the backseat. Make sure nothing happens to him.”

“There’s a gun in the drawer under your seat. My recommendation is to carry it with you.”

“I have my own gun.”

“Is it loaded?”

I did a mental groan. “No. I forgot to get bullets from Connie.”

“Babe,” Ranger said. And he disconnected.

“I bet he finds you exasperating,” Lula said.

“Mostly I think I’m an amusement.”

I pulled into traffic and headed for Cranberry Manor. I now had hands-free capability so I called Grandma.

“Were you able to get a name for me at Cranberry Manor?” I asked her.

“Not exactly, but Binney Molnar’s granddaughter used to work there, and she said Bill Smoot is the only one with a car. Seems like he’d be a good place to start on account of they had to get to the hospital somehow.”

“Thanks.”

“Over and out,” Grandma said.

Lula and I entered Cranberry Manor through a side door, by-passing the reception lady, and located the lounge. A woman was sitting off to one side, reading. Two men were playing Scrabble. And people were watching television. I walked over to some cardplayers and told them I was looking for Bill Smoot.

“Figures,” one of the men said. “The chicks always want Smooty. It’s because he’s got a car.”

“Why don’t you have a car?” Lula asked.

“I used to have one but it was a pain in the keester. This place is lousy with pigeons. They crap all over everything. I got better things to do than wash pigeon crap off my car.”

“Like what?” Lula asked him.

“Like this. I got a lot riding on this game. Loser has to get tested for Alzheimer’s.”

“I guess that’s assisted-living humor,” Lula said.

“About Bill Smoot,” I said. “Where can I find him?”

“He’s probably sitting outside the dining room. He gets there early so he can get a good seat.”

Lula and I left the lounge and followed the corridor to the dining room. The dining room doors were closed, and the sign on the door stated that lunch would be served at noon. Noon was a little over an hour away but people were already lining up.

“Your granny is right,” Lula said. “It’s good living here. You get to watch television, and someone makes your food, and it’s real pretty. And everyone looks happy unless they’re talking about Cubbin. I bet they give out good pharmaceuticals.”

“What about the pigeons?”

“That would be a problem.”

There were four men sitting on a couch by the dining room door.

“Would one of you be Bill Smoot?” I asked.

“Yep, that’s me,” one of them said.

He was about 5'7" with white hair and thick glasses. I put him at late seventies, possibly early eighties. He was wearing tan slacks and a three-button white knit shirt.

“I’d like to talk to you about Geoffrey Cubbin.”

All four men leaned forward, eyes narrowed.

“Asshole,” one of them said.

“I understand you went to see him?”

They exchanged glances, and I knew I’d found the hospital contingent.

“What’s this about?” Smoot asked.

“I’m looking for Cubbin and I thought you might be helpful.”

“Why are you looking for him? Are you a cop?”

“Fugitive apprehension agent.”

“Hah!” one of them said. “Bounty hunter.”

There were smiles all around. “All right then,” Smoot said. “What do you want to know?”

“Did you go to the hospital to see him?”

“Yeah,” Smoot said. “We were gonna beat the snot out of him until he told us where he had the money stashed.”

“You’d beat up a guy who’d just had his appendix removed?”

Everyone sort of shifted in his seat.

“We didn’t have a clear-cut plan,” Smoot said. “We might have just slapped him around a little.”

“So what happened?”

“Ernie over there spent some time on that floor a couple months ago so he knew the drill,” Smoot said.

Ernie shrugged. “Gallbladder. Easy come, easy go.”

“The night nurses come on at eleven. They punch in, skim over the charts, and then they watch movies on their iPads. Central isn’t exactly an award-winning hospital,” Smoot said. “So we figured we could sneak in after visiting hours when the nurses were snarfing down vodka-laced chocolate candies and tuning in to Twilight episodes. We took the stairs and everything was going to plan except when we got to Cubbin’s room it was empty. No Cubbin.”

“So what did you do?”

“We left. We got stopped by the night guard on the way out. I guess he caught us on one of the monitors. We acted all dumb and demented and confused and he helped us get to our car. And then we went to the diner on Livingston and then we went home.”

“I know that diner,” Lula said. “They got amazing rice pudding.”

“I always get grilled cheese,” Smoot said. “It’s nice and greasy. They don’t give you a lot of grease here at the Manor.”

“Well, that’s a strike against them,” Lula said. “That and the pigeons. The bad news is adding up.”

“I don’t suppose any of you have any idea where Cubbin might be?” I asked.

“Vanished off the face of the earth,” Smoot said.

Lula and I left through the side door and got into the Mercedes.

“I’m out of ideas again,” I said.

“Not me. I got a good idea. I say we have lunch. I’m in a pizza mood.”

A half hour later we were sitting at a table in Pino’s, working our way through a basket of bread, waiting for our pizzas. Pino’s is a bar and grill on the edge of the Burg. It’s a cop hangout and it’s the go-to place for pizza. The polished wood bar is dark and smells slightly of whiskey. The tables on the fringe and in the middle of the room have red and white checked tablecloths. The light is dim even during daytime hours. The aroma of garlic and pizza dough baking hangs in the air. Sitting in Pino’s is like being in a time warp. After a few minutes you can’t remember if it’s day or night. After a couple beers you don’t care.

“I think that Sunshine dude is fishy,” Lula said, buttering a wedge of bread. “And why was the Yeti in Cubbin’s house? I bet he was gathering up some stuff for Cubbin. My theory is they got Cubbin stashed away at The Clinic and they’re waiting for the right time to get him out of the country. Cubbin’s gonna give them a bag of money, and they’re gonna send him to Denmark.”

“Why Denmark?”

“Nobody would think to look for him in Denmark. Have you ever heard of anybody hiding out in Denmark? It’s another one of my genius observations. I bet all those other people who disappeared are in Denmark too. It’s perfect.”

“The homeless guy?”

“Maybe not the homeless guy. I can’t explain the homeless guy. He could be in Carteret.”

“Okay, let’s go with your idea. I see where Sunshine would be involved. It’s his building. And I can see the Yeti. He’s muscle. I can even see Nurse Norma. She makes the contact. What I don’t get are the two doctors. Where do they fit?”

“They could have gotten rooked into something that never happened. Like this was supposed to be a medical facility and it was one of them things seemed like a good idea. And they probably don’t even know their good name could get besmirched.”

“Besmirched?”

“Yeah, that means you got a smirch on it.”

We’d ordered one pepperoni with extra cheese and one with everything they could find in the kitchen. The pizzas came to the table, and I started with a slice of the pepperoni.

“I got another good idea,” Lula said, going for the pizza with the works. “I always get inspired when I eat, and my new idea is we bag on Geoffrey Cubbin. I’m thinking we’d be better using our time to go look for some other scumbag.”

“Brody Logan is the only other live FTA right now.”

“What’s with that? We usually got a stack of skips.”

I took a second piece of pizza. “I’m sure some more will come in.”

“Yeah, if there’s one thing you can count on in Trenton, it’s crime.”

We had half a pizza left over, and I thought it would be a nice gesture to take it to Susan Cubbin. And while we were at it we could see if anything interesting was going on with Nurse Norma.