Smokin Seventeen

THIRTY-FIVE

I WENT TO THE BACK of the bus and watched Jeopardy reruns with Mooner for an hour while Connie researched crime.

“I could like do this,” Mooner said. “I could rule Jeopardy.” He sat forward. “What is Sri Lanka! Ancient Greek history for $200.”

I abandoned Jeopardy and looked in on Connie.

“I have a couple leads,” Connie said. “Alpha was sent away for running numbers and extortion. Apparently he’s back in the extortion business and there are some Stark Street businessmen who aren’t happy about it.”

“And they’re talking?”

“Not to police, but in the community.”

“Can I convince them to talk to the police?”

“Not until you get Alpha taken off the street for something else. There’s a lot of fear. He came out of prison crazy angry.”

“Is there something else?”

“Cockfighting.”

“Get out!”

“Word is he’s running cockfights somewhere Monday and Thursday nights. And cockfights are a felony. My source didn’t know where the fights were taking place, but I ran property tax records and Nick Alpha owns five Stark Street properties.” Connie handed me a note card with the addresses. “One is under his name and four as NAA LLC.”

The door to the bus opened, and Vinnie climbed the stairs and handed Connie a file. “Business is booming. I’m bonding out guys who are telling me they’re going FTA so the hooters girls will come get them.” He pointed his finger at me. “You’re gonna either need a boob job or a really serious push-up bra.”

I looked down at myself. I liked my boobs just the way they were. They weren’t too big, and they weren’t too small. They were a perfect handful for Morelli.

“You’re an idiot,” I said to Vinnie.

“Yeah,” Vinnie said. “But I’m your idiot boss. What are you doing here? Don’t you have anything better to do? Why aren’t you out chasing bad guys?”

“I caught all the bad guys.”

“What about the flyers?”

“We hung them all.”

“I’ll give you five bucks if you wash my car,” Vinnie said.

I was tempted to take it. I could use the money.

“What is Queen Elizabeth!” Mooner yelled at the television.

“Christ,” Vinnie said. “Is he watching Jeopardy again? Lock him in the can with Donkey Kong. I got work to do.”

“Do you know anything about cockfights?” I asked Vinnie.

“Like what do you want to know?”

“I want to know if there are any around?”

“Is the pope Catholic?”

“Do you know where they’re held?”

“No. They’re not my thing. I like the ponies. I imagine the cockfights move around. They’re illegal. What’s your interest? Not a lot of women into cockfighting. As your cousin I would advise you not to go alone. Even if you’re armed you don’t want to go alone. I hear it’s a rough crowd.”

There was a rap on the door, and Morelli stuck his head in. “Good morning,” he said. “I need to talk to Stephanie.”

I stepped out, and we walked away from the bus.

“It looks like we found the last poker player,” Morelli said.

“Sam Grip?”

“Probably. The body wasn’t in good shape. It was stuffed into the trunk of his car, and a ballpark guess is he was killed in the same time frame as Lou Dugan and Bobby Lucarelli. The car was found early this morning. It was parked in a scrubby section of woods in the Pine Barrens, and it attracted attention because there were about forty buzzards sitting on it and another hundred circling overhead. Apparently they’d been circling for days and someone finally investigated.”

“Ick. Was Sam addressed to me?”

“No. No note. They’re sending a helicopter out to do a flyover. I’m guessing they’ll find the rest of the cars in the same area.”

“Why did the killer hide the cars? Why didn’t he just leave them with the bodies?”

Morelli shrugged. “Don’t know.”

“Sounds like standard operating procedure for the mob. They bury people in the Pine Barrens all the time. I bet Nick Alpha’s prints are all over the car.”

“I don’t know if you can categorize Nick Alpha as mob,” Morelli said. “Most of the Trenton mob guys are in their nineties.”

“Work with me here,” I said. “I need to pin something on Alpha.”

Morelli dragged me up against him and kissed me. “Try to stay out of trouble,” he said. “I have to go.”

I watched him walk to his car, and I thought I felt a small stirring of feeling down in the dead zone. Maybe it wasn’t dead after all. Maybe it had just been resting.

I opened the door to the bus and called to Connie. “I’m taking off,” I said. “I want to check out the addresses.”

“Take someone with you,” she said. “Two of those addresses were on upper Stark.”

“I don’t have anyone. I’ll be fine.”

“Take Mooner. Please.”

I looked in at her. “You just want to get rid of him.”

“I can’t take it anymore. If he yells one more answer I’m going to rip his lungs out.”

I gave up a sigh. “I’ll take him with me.”

“This is like a new role for me,” Mooner said, buckling himself into the Shelby. “Who would think we’d be partners. It’s like fucking awesome. I’m like psyched.”

“We’re just going to ride down Stark and look at some real estate.” I gave him the card with the addresses. “When we get to Stark you can read the numbers off to me.”

“I could read them better if I had a burger.”

I hit the drive-thru at Cluckin-a-Bucket, and we got chicken burgers and fries.

“This is an excellent job,” Mooner said, eating his last fry. “This is almost as good as distributing pharmaceuticals.”

The only property in Alpha’s name was the dry cleaner, and I didn’t think that had good cockfighting potential. The second address was a slum rooming house. A three-floor walk-up on the edge of no-man’s-land. The last two were warehouses at the blighted end of Stark. One was designated as Gimple’s Moving and Storage, and the other looked unused. They were on the same block but opposite sides of the street.

I turned at the corner and took the service alley behind Gimple’s. There were two roll-up garage doors, one loading dock, and a back door. I didn’t know much about cockfighting, but I thought this looked like a possibility. I idled behind Gimple’s and called Connie.

“Is Gimple’s Moving and Storage real?” I asked her.

“It’s a legitimate business with a phone number, but it’s probably fronting for something, and I don’t know what that is.”

I drove to the other side of Stark and cruised past the warehouse that looked empty. Broken windows on the second floor in the rear. Brick exterior covered with graffiti. Four rusted, dented roll-up garage doors. One keyed exterior door.

“What do you think?” I asked Mooner.

“About what?”

“Business opportunities in these two buildings.”

“I like this one.”

“Why?”

“I could like park my bus here, dude. There’s room. No garbage cans or crapola.”

He was right. The parking area was garbage free. Not normal for Stark Street. Stark Street was like the city dump. Beer cans, whiskey bottles, food wrappers, broken televisions, fire gutted mattresses, used and reused drug paraphernalia all collected here in gutters, doorways, against sides of buildings, and in alleys. A patch of debris-free rutted blacktop meant someone was working to keep the area clear.

“Try the back door,” I said to Mooner.

Mooner ambled over and opened the door. “It’s empty, man. Totally.”

I motioned for him to get back into the car. I drove past the other warehouse one last time and left the neighborhood.

“That was bold,” Mooner said. “What’s our next adventure?”

I didn’t have any more adventures, but I knew Connie would be disappointed if I brought him back too soon.

“I think we should go to Holy Cow for ice cream,” I said.

“Cool.”

I picked Holy Cow because it was in Hamilton Township, and it would use up almost an hour. I got a single dip of Jersey mud, and Mooner couldn’t make up his mind. He stood in front of the display case, eyes glazed, lips moving as he silently read the choices.

Morelli called me, and I stepped outside to talk.

“They found three of the other cars,” Morelli said. “They’re going in on foot tomorrow to look for the fourth.”

“Were there more bodies? Did they find anything inside the cars?”

“I’m told the cars were empty.”

“Did you know Nick Alpha is running cockfights?”

“I heard about the cockfights. I didn’t know Alpha was involved.” There was a beat of silence. “You aren’t getting involved in this, are you?”

“No. Of course not. Cockfighting is disgusting.”

“Next time I fall in love it’s going to be with someone who isn’t an expert at fibbing.”

“You’re in love with me?”

“You didn’t know that?”

“I did, but it’s nice to hear.”

“Scares the hell out of me,” Morelli said. And he hung up.

I finished my ice cream and went inside. Mooner was still standing transfixed in front of the counter.

“Give him a scoop of chocolate, a scoop of strawberry, a scoop of coffee, and a scoop of butter pecan,” I said to the girl.

“Fuckin’ A,” Mooner said, smiling wide, and rocked back on his heels.

• • •

Lula was in the bus when we got back.

“I had a abscess,” she said. “That’s why I thought my tooth was growing. The dentist says it’s common to feel like that.”

“So you’re not turning into a vampire,” Connie said.

“Well, I might be, but I don’t have fangs. And I’m feeling much better now that I had the root canal. ’Course, I’m packed full of drugs, so that could have something to do with it.” Lula looked around. “This is nice. It don’t have personality like before, but it don’t feel like the sun died either.”

“Anything for me?” I asked Connie.

“No. None of the new bondees have come up to trial yet. They’ll start next week, and I imagine they won’t all show up for court. Vinnie bonded out some real losers. How did it go on Stark Street?”

“The two warehouses are possibilities.”

Lula snapped to attention. “Stark Street? Warehouses? Did I miss something?”

I filled Lula in on the cockfighting and my plan to get Nick Alpha sent back to jail so he couldn’t kill me.

“That’s a good plan,” Lula said. “He belongs in jail anyway what with doing cruelty to animals. I don’t have patience with people mistreating animals. And I like chickens.”

“Especially when they’re hacked up into pieces and fried,” Connie said.

“Yeah, but that’s a different kind of chicken,” Lula said. “Those are nasty bald, eating chickens. They’re not the Little Red Hen.”

“Eating chickens aren’t bald,” I said.

“I seen them in the supermarket,” Lula said. “And they’re bald.”

“Dude,” Mooner said from the back of the bus. “Something’s wrong with my television. I can’t get it to go on.”

“Imagine that,” Connie said. “Maybe the satellite is behind a cloud.”

“What happens next?” Lula asked. “Are the cops gonna bust up the cockfight tonight?”

“I have to pin down the location before I make the call. And I want to make sure Alpha is there. I don’t want to shut down the operation and not have Alpha involved.”

Lula nodded. “I see what you’re saying. So I’m thinking we’re going out to a cockfight tonight. I gotta put some thought to this. I don’t know if I got a cockfighting outfit at home. I might have to go shopping.”

“I’m not actually going to the cockfight. I’m going to hang around and follow Alpha when he goes out. Then when I’m sure he’s at the cockfight I’ll call Morelli.”

“I could live with that,” Lula said. “What time you want to meet up?”

“Are you sure you feel okay to do this?”

“Hell, yeah. I’m almost a hundred percent.”

This wasn’t something that filled me with confidence. When Lula and I operated at a full hundred percent we weren’t all that great. Almost a hundred percent was getting into Three Stooges territory.

“You need a different car,” Connie said. “You’ll be noticed in the Shelby. Lula’s Firebird isn’t any better.”

“I can get a car,” Lula said. “I’ll borrow my cousin Ernie’s car. He’s got a piece of crap SUV. It’ll blend right in on Stark Street.”

I got into the Shelby, drove to my apartment building, and stopped at the entrance to the lot. I was afraid to park. Regina Bugle could be there. Even worse, Dave could be there. And if they weren’t there now, they might be there when I wanted to leave, and I’d be trapped inside my apartment.

I turned around and idled on a side street, running through my options. I could drop in on Morelli, but there would be complications. I didn’t want to involve Morelli in this stage of the Nick Alpha saga. And he wouldn’t want me to go to Stark Street. There would also be complications if I dropped in on Ranger. Mostly related to vordo or the lack thereof. The bonds bus felt claustrophobic. The new décor was much better, but it was still Mooner’s bus. And I was afraid to go to the mall for fear of falling under the influence of another red dress. That left my parents’ house.

I got there early and sat in the kitchen, watching my mother assemble dinner. I always offered to help, and my mother almost always declined. She’d been doing this for a lot of years, and she had her own rhythm. My grandmother was tuned into the rhythm and pitched in as needed.

“I heard they found Sam Grip,” Grandma said.

There was no need for a newspaper or the Internet in the Burg. News traveled at the speed of light the old-fashioned way … over the back fence and in line at the deli.

I got a soda out of the refrigerator. “He was in his car in the Pine Barrens.”

“I hear Skooter Berkower is real worried. He played poker with those guys sometimes. That whole poker group is getting wiped out. Somebody don’t like poker players. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out it’s someone’s wife doing this. Probably one of those guys lost a lot of money and some wife wigged out.”

That would be a decent theory except for the two bodies addressed to me.

“Or maybe it’s Joyce Barnhardt trying to get attention,” Grandma said. “I wouldn’t put it past her. You know how she loves to be in the spotlight.”

I drank some soda and recapped the bottle. “Killing five people seems extreme, even for Joyce.”

“I suppose,” Grandma said. “This sure is a mystery.”

“That’s a lot of potatoes you’re mashing,” I said to my mother.

My mother added a big glob of butter to the potatoes. “We have a lot of people for dinner. Valerie and Albert are coming with the children.”

My sister Valerie has two children by her disastrous first marriage, and two with her second husband Albert Klaughn. I love my sister and Albert, and I especially love the kids, but it’s half a bottle of Advil when you get them all into my parents’ small house.

“We’re gonna need rubber walls if you ever get married and have kids,” Grandma said to me. “I don’t know how we could fit any more people in here, and Dave looks like the kind who’d want a big family.”

“Dave isn’t in the picture.”

“I hear different,” Grandma said. “It’s all over town about you and Dave.”

I traded my soda in for a glass of wine. If I had to deal with Valerie and the kids and talk about Dave, I was going to need alcohol.