Four to Score

12

I WAS UP early, but Joe was up earlier. He'd cleaned the glass away and was eating lasagna for breakfast when I trooped into the kitchen.

I poured coffee and gave the lasagna a wistful glance.

"Go for it," Morelli said.

If I ate the lasagna I'd have to do something physical, like jog a couple of miles. Not my favorite activity. I preferred to get my exercise by walking through a shopping mall. Okay, what the hell, I should probably go out for a run anyway. Keep in shape, and all that crap.

I sat across from him and dug in. "You back on the mystery case today."

"Surveillance."

I hated surveillance. Surveillance meant you sat in a car all by yourself until your ass fell asleep. And if you left to go to the bathroom all hell broke loose and you missed it.

Morelli pushed his empty plate away. "What are your plans?"

"Find Maxine."

"And?"

"And that's it. I have no ideas. I'm out of leads. Everyone's disappeared. Eddie Kuntz's probably dead. For all I know Mrs. Nowicki, Margie and Maxine are dead. Dead and buried."

"Boy, it's nice to see you so positive this morning."

"I like to start out right."

Morelli got up and rinsed his plate. "I have to go to work. If you were an ordinary person I'd tell you to be careful. Since you are who you are, I'll just wish you good luck. Oh, yeah, and someone's supposed to show up at nine to fix the window. Can you hang around until he's done?"

"No problem."

He kissed me on the top of the head and left.

I looked at Rex. "This feels a little strange," I said. "I'm not used to being a housewife."

Rex sat on his haunches and stared at me. At first glance you might think he was contemplating what I'd just said. More likely he wanted a grape.

For lack of something better to do I called Eddie Kuntz. No answer. "Dead," I said to Rex. I wanted to drive over and have another chat with Betty, but I had to wait for the glass to get fixed. I had a second cup of coffee. And then I had a second piece of lasagna. At nine o'clock the glazier arrived, and he was followed by yet another Italian lady bearing food. A chocolate cake this time. I ate half while I waited for the windows.

* * * * *

I DIDN'T HAVE TO KNOCK on the door to know Eddie Kuntz wasn't home. No car out front. No lights anywhere. Windows and doors closed up tight. The only thing missing was black crepe.

I knocked on Betty's door instead.

"What can I tell you?" Betty said. "He's not home. Like I told you before, last I saw him was Saturday."

She didn't look worried or confused. What she looked was pissed. Like I was bothering her.

"Does he do this a lot? Do you think we should notify the police?"

"He's on a bender," Leo said from his chair in front of the TV. "He picked up one of his trashy girlfriends, and they're shacked up somewhere. That's the end of it. He'll be home when he's home."

"You're probably right," I said. "Still, it might not hurt to do a little investigating. Maybe it would be a good idea if we checked out his apartment. You have a key?"

Leo was more adamant this time. "He's on a bender, I'm telling you. And you don't go snooping around in a man's home just because he goes on a bender. Anyway, why are you so interested in finding Eddie? I thought you were looking for Maxine Nowicki."

"Eddie's disappearance might be related."

"For the last time, I'm telling you it's not a disappearance."

Sounded like denial to me, but what do I know? I went back to the Buick and drove to Mrs. Nowicki's house. It looked even worse than it had the first time I saw it. No one was cutting the grass, and a dog had done number two right in the middle of the sidewalk. Just for the hell of it I walked around the house and looked in the windows. No sign of life.

I got back in the car and headed for Margie's house. I took New York to Olden, turned onto Olden and spotted the beat-up Fairlane Morelli uses for surveillance. He was parked across the street from the 7-Eleven where Helen Badijian had worked before her death. Morelli was working with the Feds, so I assumed it was drugs, but really it could be anything from running guns to blackmarket babies. Or maybe he'd stopped there to have lunch and take a nap.

Margie's house looked better kept than Nowicki's, but empty all the same. I looked in the windows, and I wondered what Margie had done with her cat.

The next-door neighbor stuck her head out her front door and caught me peeking in Margie's window.

"I'm looking for Margie," I said. "I work with her at the diner, and I haven't seen her for a couple days, so I got worried. She doesn't seem to be home."

"She went on vacation. She said it was too hard to work with her finger cut like that, so she took some time off. I think she went to the shore. I'm surprised you didn't know."

"I knew she wasn't working. I didn't know she went to the shore." I looked around. "Where's her cat? She take it with her?"

"No. They don't allow cats in the house she rented. I'm feeding the cat. It's no bother."

I was half a block away when it hit me. The finger! She'd have to have it looked at. She'd have to get her stitches removed. And Maxine's mother probably needed medical attention, too. She'd still had her head all wrapped up when I saw her in Point Pleasant.

I hustled to the office so I could use the by-street directory. Connie was doing her nails, and Lula had her ears plugged in to a Walkman. Lula's back was to me, and her beads were clicking around her head, and her ass was going side to side in some jive step. She caught me in her peripheral vision and turned the Walkman down.

"Uh oh," she said. "You're not getting any."

"How do you know that?" I yelled. I threw my hands into the air. "I don't believe this!"

Vinnie poked his head around the corner. "What's all the racket about?"

"Stephanie's here," Connie said.

Vinnie had a cigar in his mouth that I'm willing to bet was twice the size of his dick. "Where's Maxine? I forfeit my money in five days, for crissake. I should never have taken Barnhardt off."

"I'm closing in."

"Right," Vinnie said. "Closing in on my liver." He ducked into his office and slammed the door.

I traced Margie's address in the directory and came up with her last name. There are three hospitals in the Trenton area. Helene Fuld is a short distance from Nowicki's neighborhood. Margie's address is equal distance between Helene Fuld and St. Francis.

I went home to Joe's house, helped myself to another wedge of chocolate cake and called my cousin Evelyn, who works at Helene Fuld. I gave her the two names and asked her to nose around. Neither Margie nor Mama Nowicki was wanted by the police, so (assuming they were alive) they had no reason not to return to their doctors. Their only concern was keeping me from following them back to Maxine.

* * * * *

IT WAS three o'clock, and I was sort of hoping another Italian lady would stop around with something new for dinner. I kept looking out the window, but I didn't see any big black cars bearing food. This posed a problem because the idea of being in Morelli's kitchen, making him dinner, felt like a Doris Day movie.

Evelyn called and told me it was my lucky day. Both women had been treated at Fuld. Both women would go to their own doctors for follow-up. She gave me the names of the attending physicians and also the names listed for primary care through their medical plans. I told her I owed her. She said a detailed description of Morelli in bed would do the trick.

I called the doctors and lied my ass off to their receptionists, telling them I'd forgotten my appointment time. Both women had Wednesday appointments. Shit, I was good.

Morelli dragged in with a sweat stain the length of his gray Tshirt. He went to the refrigerator and stuck his head in the freezer. "I've gotta get air in this house."

I thought the weather was pretty good compared to yesterday. Today you could sort of see a yellow glow where the sun was behind the layer of funk air.

He pulled his head out of the freezer, tossed his gun on the counter and got a beer.

"Bad day?"

"Average."

"I saw you in north Trenton."

"You made me?"

"I recognized the car. I figured you were watching the Seven-Eleven."

"And watching, and watching, and watching."

"Drugs?"

"Funny money."

"I thought you weren't supposed to tell me."

"Fuck it. Treasury has this case so screwed up it doesn't matter. There've been bogus twenties coming out of Trenton for five years that we know of . . . probably more. Treasury has everything in place. They go in to get the guy. No plates where the plates are supposed to be. No paper. No nothing. Including no funny money traffic. We can't even make an arrest. We look like a bunch of fucking amateurs. Then all of a sudden, yesterday, a couple of the twenties get passed at the convenience store on Olden. So we start all over, looking to see who goes in that store."

"The clerk didn't know who passed them?"

"They were discovered at the bank when the teller was counting them out for deposit."

"What do you think?"

"I think we had the right guy the first time. Some fluky thing happened and the stuff wasn't there."

"I just had a weird thought. We attributed Helen Badijian's death to her connection with Maxine. Maybe it didn't have anything to do with Maxine. Maybe it had to do with the funny money."

"I thought of that, too, but the MO ties it to Maxine. Cause of death to Badijian was a blow to the head, but she also had one of her fingers chopped off."

I had an even weirder thought, but I didn't want to say it out loud and sound like a dunce.

The phone rang, and Morelli answered. "Yes, Mrs. Plum," he said.

I jumped out of my chair and started to run for the front door. I was halfway through the dining room when Morelli snagged me by the back of my shirt and stopped my progress with a sharp yank that had me pressed against his chest.

"Your mother," he said, handing me the phone.

"Stephanie," my mother said. "What is this I hear about your being pregnant?"

"I'm not pregnant. This is a living arrangement, not a marriage."

"Everybody's talking. Everybody thinks you're pregnant. What should I tell Mrs. Crandle?"

"Tell her I'm not pregnant."

"Your father wants to talk to you."

I could hear the phone being transferred and then some breathing.

"Dad?"

"Yeah," he said. "How's the Buick running? You gotta give it high test, you know."

"Don't worry. I always give it high test." I never gave it high test. It didn't deserve high test. It was ugly.

He gave the phone back to my mother, and I could hear my mother rolling her eyes at him.

"I have a nice pot roast on the stove," she said. "With peas and mashed potatoes."

"Okay," I said. "I'll come for dinner."

"And Joseph."

"No. He can't make it."

"Yes, I can," Joe said.

I gave a big sigh. "He'll come, too."

I disconnected and gave him the phone. "You'll be sorry."

* * * * *

"NOTHING LIKE BEING PREGNANT to give a woman a glow," Grandma said.

"I may be glowing, but I'm not pregnant."

Grandma looked down at my stomach. "You look pregnant."

It was all that damn Italian food. "It's cake," I said.

"You might want to get rid of that cake before the wedding," Grandma said. "Or you're going to have to buy one of them empire gowns that don't have a waist."

"I'm not getting married," I said. "There's no wedding."

Grandma sat up straighter. "What about the hall?"

"What hall?"

"We figured you'd hold your reception at the Polish National Hall. It's the best place for it, and Edna Majewski said they had a cancellation, but you'd have to act fast."

"You didn't hire a hall!"

"Well, we didn't put down no deposit," Grandma said. "We weren't sure of the date."

I looked to Joe. "You explain it."

"Stephanie's apartment got damaged in the fire, and she's renting a room from me until her apartment's repaired."

"How about sex?" Grandma asked. "Are you having sex?"

"No." Not since Saturday.

"If it was me, I'd have sex," Grandma said.

"Christ," my father said, at the head of the table.

My mother passed me the potatoes. "I have forms for you to fill out for the insurance. Ed was over at your apartment and said there was nothing left of it. He said the only thing that was left was the cookie jar. He said the cookie jar was fine."

I silently dared Morelli to say something about the cookie jar, but Morelli was busy cutting his meat. The phone rang and Grandma went to the kitchen to answer it.

"It's for you, Stephanie," Grandma yelled.

"I been calling all over, trying to track you down," Lula said. "I got some news. Joyce Barnhardt called Vinnie just before we were getting ready to leave, and Connie listened in. Joyce told Vinnie she'd make him bark like a dog if he put her back on the case and guess what?"

"I can guess."

"Yeah, so then she goes on to tell Vinnie how she's getting her leads on Maxine. And now we know the name of the little jackoff that's helping Joyce."

"Yes!"

"So I figure maybe you and me should pay him a visit."

"Now?"

"You got something better to do?"

"No. Now will be fine."

"I'll pick you up then on account of I'm not riding in that Buick."

Everyone stopped eating when I returned to the table.

"Well?" Grandma said.

"It was Lula. I'm going to have to eat and run. We have a lead on a case."

"I could go, too," Grandma said. "Like last time."

"Thanks, but I'd rather you stayed home and entertained Joe."

Grandma winked at Morelli, and Morelli looked like a snake that just swallowed a cow and got it stuck in his throat.

Ten minutes later, I heard a car pull to the curb outside. Rap music thumped through the house, the music cut off and in moments Lula was at the door.

"We got a lot of pot roast," Grandma said to Lula. "You want some?"

My mother was on her feet, setting an extra plate.

"Pot roast," Lula said. "Boy, I like pot roast." She pulled a chair up and shook out her napkin.

"I always wanted to eat with a Negro," Grandma said.

"Yeah, well, I always wanted to eat with a boney-assed old white woman," Lula said. "So I guess this works out good."

Grandma and Lula did some complicated handshake thing.

"Bitchin'," Grandma said.

* * * * *

IT WAS the first time I'd ridden in the new Firebird, and I was feeling envious.

"How can you afford a car like this working as a file clerk? And how come your insurance came through, and I'm still waiting?"

"First off, I got low overhead where I'm living. And second, I just keep leasing these suckers. You barbecue a car and they give you a new one. No sweat."

"Maybe I should look into that."

"Just don't tell them about how your cars keep getting blown up. They might think you're a risk, you know what I'm saying?" Lula had taken High to Hamilton. "This guy, Bernie, works at the supermarket on Route Thirty-three. When he's not stacking oranges he's selling wacky tobaccy, which is the common link between Barnhardt and Mama Nowicki. Nowicki talks to Bernie, then Bernie talks to Barnhardt."

"Joyce said it was a retail connection."

"Ain't that the truth."

"From what Connie got on the phone it seems he's also visually challenged."

"Blind?"

"Ugly."

She turned into the supermarket lot and rolled to a stop in a front slot. Not many people were shopping at this time of the night.

"Joyce said he was a horny little troll, so if you don't want to buy dope maybe you can promise him favors."

"As in sexual favors?"

"You don't have to deliver," Lula said. "All you gotta do is promise. I'd do it, but I think he's more your type."

"What type is that?"

"White."

"How do I find him?"

"Name's Bernie. Works in Produce. Looks like a horny little troll."

I pulled the visor mirror down, fluffed my hair and applied fresh lip gloss. "Do I look okay?"

"From what I hear, this guy won't care if you bark and chase cars."

I didn't have trouble finding him. He was stickering grapefruits with his back to me. He had a lot of curly black hair on the back and sides of his head and none on the top. The top of his head looked like a big pink egg. He was just under five feet, and built like a fireplug.

I put a sack of potatoes in my cart, and I cruised over to him. "Excuse me," I said.

He turned, tilted his head back and looked at me. His fat fish lips parted slightly, but no words came out.

"Nice apples," I said.

He made a gurgling sound, and his eyes slid down to my chest.

"So," I said, "you have any dope?"

"What are you kidding me? What do I look like?"

"A friend of mine said I could get some dope from you."

"Oh yeah? Who's your friend?"

"Joyce Barnhardt."

This got his eyes to light up in a way that told me Joyce probably hadn't paid cold cash for her marijuana.

"I know Joyce," he said. "But I'm not saying I sold her any dope."

"We have another mutual friend."

"Who's that?"

"Her name's Nowicki."

"I don't know anybody named Nowicki."

I gave him a description.

"That must be Francine," he said. "She's a pip. I just never knew her last name."

"Good customer?"

"Yeah. She buys lots of fruit."

"See her lately?"

His voice got crafty. "What's it worth to you?"

I didn't like the sound of this. "What do you want?"

Bernie made a smoochy sound.

"Gross!"

"It's because I'm short, isn't it?"

"No. Of course not. I like short men. They, um, try harder."

"Then it's the hair, right? You want a guy with hair."

"Hair doesn't matter. I could care less about hair. And besides, you have plenty of hair. It's just not on the top of your head."

"Then what?"

"You don't just go around making smoochy sounds at women! It's . . . cheap."

"I thought you said you were friends with Joyce."

"Oh yeah. I see your point."

"So how about it?"

"The truth is, I'm not actually attracted to you."

"I knew it. I could tell all along. It's my height."

Jeez, the poor schnook really had a thing about his height. I mean, it wasn't as if he could help being born short or having a head like a bowling ball. I didn't want to compound his problem, but I didn't know what to say. And then I thought of Sally! "It's not your height," I said. "It's me. I'm a lesbian."

"You're shitting me!"

"No. Really."

He looked me up and down. "Are you sure? Christ, what a waste! You don't look like a lesbian."

I guess he thought lesbians had a big L burned into their foreheads, or something. Although, since I don't know any lesbians I'm not exactly an authority.

"You have a girlfriend?" he asked.

"Yeah, sure. She's . . . waiting in the car."

"I want to see her."

"Why?"

"Because I don't believe you. I think you're just trying to be nice to me."

"Look, Bernie, I want some information on Nowicki."

"Not until I see your girlfriend."

This was ridiculous. "She's shy."

"Okay, I'll go out there."

"No! I'll go get her." Jesus!

I jogged out to the parking lot and leaned in the window at Lula. "I'm in kind of a bind here. I need you to help me out. I need a lesbian girlfriend."

"You want me to find you one? Or you want me to be one?" I explained the situation to her, and we hoofed it back to Bernie, who was rearranging his grapefruits.

"Hey, little dude," Lula said. "What's the word?"

Bernie looked up from the grapefruits and almost jumped out of his shoes. "Whoa!"

Guess Bernie hadn't expect my girlfriend to be a two-hundred-pound black woman wearing pink spandex.

"Jeez!" Bernie said. "Jeez!"

"So Stephanie tells me you know old lady Nowicki."

Bernie vigorously nodded his head. "Yeah."

"You see her lately?"

Bernie just stared at Lula.

"Earth to Bernie," Lula said.

"Unh?"

"You see old lady Nowicki lately?"

"Yesterday. She came in to get some, you know, fruit."

"How often does she like to buy fruit?"

Bernie chewed on his lower lip. "Hard to say. She's not regular."

Lula draped an arm around Bernie and almost smothered him in her right breast. "See, the thing is, Bern, we'd like to talk to Nowicki, but we're having a hard time finding her on account of she's not staying in her house. Now if you could help us out here, we'd be grateful. Real grateful."

A bead of sweat rolled down the side of Bernie's face, from his bald dome to in front of his ear. "Oh crap," he said. And I could tell from the way he said it that he wanted to help us out.

Lula gave him another squeeze. "Well?"

"I dunno. I dunno. She never says much."

"She always come in alone?"

"Yeah."

I gave him my card. "If you remember something, or if you see Nowicki, you give me a call right away."

"Sure. Don't worry."

We got to the car, and I had another one of those weird thoughts. "Wait here," I said to Lula. "I'll be right back."

Bernie had been standing in the front of the store, watching us through the glass. "Now what?" he said. "You forget something?"

"When Nowicki bought her fruit from you, did she pay you with a twenty?"

He sounded surprised at the question. "Yeah."

"You still have it?"

He stared at me blank-faced for a minute. "I guess . . ." He took his wallet from his back pocket and looked inside. "Here it is. It's the only twenty I got. It must be it."

I rooted around in my shoulder bag and found some money. I counted out two tens. "I'll trade you."

"Is that it?" he asked.

I gave him a sly smile. "For now."

"You know, I wouldn't mind just watching."

I patted him on the top of his head. "Hold that thought."

"We didn't find out much," Lula said when I got into the car.

"We know she was in Trenton yesterday."

"Not many places three women can stay in Trenton," Lula said. "Not like down the shore where there's lots of motels and lots of houses to rent. Hell, the only hotels we got charge by the hour."

That was true. It was the state capital, and it didn't actually have a hotel. This might leave people to think no one wanted to stay in Trenton, but I was sure this was a wrong assumption. Trenton is cool. Trenton has everything . . . except a hotel.

Of course, just because Nowicki was doing business with Bernie didn't mean she had to be in Trenton proper.

We took one last spin past Eddie Kuntz's house, the Nowicki house and Margie's house. All were dark and deserted.

Lula dropped me off in front of Morelli's house and shook her head. "That Morelli got one fine ass, but I don't know if I'd want to live with a cop."

My sentiments exactly.

The windows were open to bring air into the house, and Morelli's television carried out to the street. He was watching a ball game. I felt the truck hood. Warm. He'd just gotten home. His front door was open like the windows, but the screen door was locked.

"Hey!" I yelled. "Anybody home?"

Morelli padded out barefoot. "That was fast."

"Didn't seem all that fast to me."

He relocked the screen and went back to the television.

I don't mind going out to the ballpark. You could sit in the sun and drink beer and eat hot dogs, and the whole thing was an event. Baseball on television put me into a coma. I dug into my pocket, found the twenty and passed it over to Morelli. "I stopped for a soda in north Trenton and got this in change. I thought it'd be fun to check its authenticity."

Morelli looked up from the game. "Let me get this straight. You bought a soda, and you got a twenty in change. What'd you give her, a fifty?"

"Okay, so I don't want to tell you where I got it right now."

Morelli examined the bill. "Goddamn," he said. He turned it over and held it to the light. Then he patted the couch cushion next to him. "We need to talk."

I sat down with reservation. "It's phony, isn't it?"

"Yep."

"I had a hunch. Is it easy to tell?"

"Only if you know what to look for. There's a small line in the upper right corner where the plate is scratched. They tell me the paper isn't exactly right, either, but I can't see it. I only know by the scratch mark."

"Was the guy you tried to bust from north Trenton?"

"No. And I was pretty sure he was working alone. Counterfeiting like this is usually a mom-and-pop deal. Very small." He draped his arm over the back of the couch and stroked the nape of my neck with a single finger. "Now, about the twenty . . ."