Lean Mean Thirteen

^NINE

"Okay, so run this by me again," Lula said. "We're all dressed up like Handy Andy for why?"

"Dickie is part owner of an apartment building. On the odd chance that he isn't dead, I thought it might be a place he'd hole up. Or maybe a place someone would hold him hostage. It's on Jewel Street, right on the edge of public housing. I did a drive-by, and it looks like a candidate for urban renewal. There are ten units, and I'm sure they all have leaky faucets and broken toilets. I figure we go in looking like maintenance, and we won't have a problem poking around."

"I hope you realize I could be shopping right now. There's a big shoe sale at Macy's."

"Yes, but since you're with me, going on a crime-solving adventure, you get to wear this neat tool belt. It's got a hammer and a tape measure and a screwdriver."

"Where'd you get this thing anyway? It don't hardly fit a full figure woman like me."

"Borrowed it from my building super, Dillon Rudick."

I parked the Cayenne next to a Dumpster in the alley behind the building. Joyce was still following me, but I didn't care a whole lot as long as she stayed in her rental car and didn't interfere.

"We'll start at the bottom and work our way to the top," I told Lula. "It shouldn't take long."

"Just suppose we find this dickhead, then what? It's not like he committed a crime. It's not like he's FTA and we can haul his bony ass off to jail."

"I guess we sit on him and call the Trenton Times to come over with a photographer."

"I would have worn something different if I'd known that. I got a sweatshirt and baggy-ass jeans on so I look handy. This isn't gonna show me off in a photograph. And look at my hair. Do I have time to change my hair color? I photograph much better when I'm blond."

I opened the back door to the building and peered into the dark interior. It was a three-story walk-up with a central stairway. Four apartments on the first floor, four on the second, and two on the third. It was late afternoon. Coming up to dinnertime. Most tenants would be at home.

I knocked on 1A and a Hispanic woman answered. I told her we were checking toilet seals.

"Toilet don't work," the woman said. "No toilet."

"What do you mean it don't work? You gotta have a toilet," Lula said.

"Don't work."

Lula elbowed her way in. "Maybe we could fix it. Let me have a look at this toilet. Sometimes you just gotta jiggle the handle."

The apartment consisted of one large room opening off a galley kitchen, plus a single bedroom and bathroom. Seven kids and six adults were watching a small television in the living room. A big pot of something vaguely smelling like chili bubbled on the stove.

Lula wedged herself into the little bathroom and stood in front of the toilet. "This toilet looks okay to me," Lula said. "What's wrong with it?"

"Don't work."

Lula flushed the toilet. Nothing. She picked the lid up and looked inside. "There's no water in this toilet," she said. "That's your problem." Lula reached around and turned the valve on the pipe leading to the toilet. "It's gonna work just fine now," she said. She flushed the toilet again and the bowl began to fill with water.

The Hispanic woman was waving her arms and talking rapid-fire Spanish.

"What's she saying?" Lula asked me.

I shrugged. "I don't speak Spanish."

"You're with Ranger all the time. Don't he ever speak Spanish?"

"Yes, but I don't know what he says."

The toilet bowl was now entirely filled with water and the water was still running.

"Uh-oh," Lula said. "Maybe I should shut the water off." She reached behind the toilet, turned the valve, and it came off in her hand. "Hunh," she said. "This ain't good."

"Don't work," the Hispanic woman said. "Don't work. Don't work."

The water was running over the side of the toilet bowl, splashing onto the floor.

"We gotta go now," Lula said to the woman, giving her the handle to the valve. "And don't worry, we're gonna put this on our report. You'll be hearing from someone." Lula closed the apartment door behind us and we headed for the stairs. "Maybe we should skip right to the second floor," she said.

"Don't offer to fix anything this time," I said. "And let me do the talking."

"I was just trying to be helpful is all. I saw right off her problem was she didn't have the water turned on."

"She didn't have it turned on because the valve was broken."

"She didn't communicate that to me," Lula said.

I knocked on the door to 2A and my knock was answered by a little black woman with short gray hair.

"We're checking to see if there are any maintenance issues with this building," I told her.

"I don't have any problems," the woman said. "Thank you for asking."

"How about your toilet?" Lula said. "Does your toilet work okay?"

"Yes. My toilet is fine."

I thanked the woman and pushed Lula away from the door, over to 2B.

"1 know something's wrong here," Lula said, sniffing the air. "Smells like a gas leak. Good thing we're going around checking on these things."

"We're not checking on anything. We're looking for Dickie."

"Sure, I know that," Lula said. "That don't mean we can't detect a gas leak."

The door was answered by a fat guy wearing boxer shorts. "Waddaya want?" he asked.

"We been sent by the gas company," Lula said. "We smelled a leak." She stuck her head into his apartment. "Yeah, it's coming from in here all right."

"There's no gas in here," he said. "Everything's electric."

"I guess I know gas when I smell it," Lula said. "My partner and me are from the gas company. We know these things. How about the oven? Are you sure the oven isn't gas?"

"Waddaya think this is, the Hotel Ritz? The oven don't even work. The oven never worked. I gotta cook everything in the microwave."

Lula pushed past him. "Stephanie, you go walk around and make sure there's no gas leakin' out of anything."

I stepped in and gasped at the stench. I looked at the fat guy and I was pretty sure I knew what was leaking gas, but I held my breath and did a fast run through the apartment to make sure Dickie's corpse wasn't rotting in the bathtub.

"This place reeks," Lula said to the fat guy. "What are you cooking in that microwave?"

"Bean burritos. It's all it cooks. It explodes everything else."

"Guess we found the gas source," Lula said. "And you should put a shirt on. It should be illegal for you to go without a shirt."

"What about my microwave? Are you gonna fix it? It explodes everything."

"We're from the gas company," Lula said. "We don't do microwaves."

"You got a tool belt on," the guy said. "You're supposed to fix things, and I want my microwave fixed."

"Okay, okay," Lula said. "Let me take a look here."

"Careful of the door," he said. "It sticks."

"That's probably your problem. It takes you too long to get the door open, and then you cook everything too long, and it explodes." Lula gave the door a good hard yank, a couple screws flew off into space, the hinges snapped, and the door came off in her hand. "Oops," Lula said.

I didn't waste any time getting out of there. I was halfway up the stairs to the third floor when I heard Lula slam the door on 2B and come pounding after me.

"Least he won't be stinking things up eating more of them microwave burritos," Lula said.

My cell phone rang. It was Tank.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"Yep."

Tank disconnected.

"Who was that?" Lula wanted to know.

"Ranger's out of town, and Tank's in charge of my safety."

"I though I was in charge of your safety."

I rapped on 3A. "I'll tell him next time he calls."

A tall black guy with red dreads answered the door.

"Holy cow," Lula said. "It's Uncle Mickey."

"Your uncle?"

"No. Uncle Mickey's Gently Used Cars! He's famous. He does those commercials on television. 'Come to Uncle Mickey's Gently Used Cars and we'll treat you right.' Everybody knows Uncle Mickey."

"What can I do for you girls?" Uncle Mickey asked. "Are you looking for a deal on a car?"

"No, we're the Fix-It Sisters," Lula said. "We're going around fixing things."

I did a mental eye roll. We were more like the Break-It Sisters.

"What are you doing in a dump like this?" Lula asked Uncle Mickey.

"Not as much profit margin as you'd expect in used cars," Mickey said. "Uncle Mickey's fallen on some hard times. Got a lot of overhead. Had a bad run with the ponies." He peeked out into the hall. "You aren't going to tell anyone Uncle Mickey lives here, are you?"

"You living here by yourself?"

"Yeah, just Uncle Mickey all by himself in the penthouse. I don't suppose you girls would like to come in and entertain Uncle Mickey?"

"We got work to do," Lula said. "You're gonna have to entertain yourself."

Uncle Mickey disappeared behind his door, and we moved to 3B.

"That was sort of depressing," Lula said. "He looks so sincere in those commercials. You just want to rush out and buy one of his cars."

A voluptuous, dark-haired, dark-eyed woman answered my knock at 3B. She was wearing a red sweater and jeans and had an expensive watch on her wrist and a diamond cocktail ring that went knuckle to knuckle. I put her age at forty with very good genes.

"Yes?" she said.

"We're working our way through college fixing things," Lula said. "You got anything broken?"

"I know who you are," the woman said to me. "I saw your picture in the paper. You're the woman who murdered Dickie Orr."

"I didn't murder him," I said. "I have an alibi."

"Yeah, right. Everyone's always got an alibi. You're in big trouble. Orr embezzled a shitload of money from the firm, and you killed the little worm before anybody could figure out where he put it."

"How do you know that?"

"The guy I'm living with is a partner. Peter Smullen. He tells me everything. We're getting married as soon as he gets a divorce from his bitch wife. Then we can buy a house and get out of this dump."

"Peter Smullen lives here?"

"Usually. When he's not traveling. Or screwing around. He didn't come home last night, and it's going to cost him big. I've had-my eye on a bracelet at Tiffany's. I've been waiting for him too pull something like this."

"A woman's gotta plan ahead," Lula said. "Gotta take advantage of those opportunities."

"Fuckin' A," Smullen's girlfriend said.

"Okay then," I said. "Have a nice day. We'll be moving along."

Lula and I stopped on the second-floor landing to regroup.

"That was interesting," Lula said. "Do you want to try the other tenants? We missed a bunch on the first and second floors."

"I don't think Dickie is here, but we might as well finish the job we started. And for God's sake, don't offer to fix anything."

Joyce followed me to my apartment building and parked two rows back. I could be a good person and tell her I was done for the night, or I could be mean and let her sit there for a while before she figured it out. I decided to go with mean. She wouldn't believe me anyway. I took the elevator to the second floor and found a guy in Range Man black waiting in front of my door.

"I'm supposed to make sure your apartment is safe before you go in," he said.

Good grief. I guess I appreciated the concern, but this was feeling a little over the top.

I unlocked the door and waited while he did his thing, looking under beds and checking out closets.

"Sorry," he said when he was done. 'Tank made me do it. If something happens to you while Ranger's away, we're all out of a job."

"Ranger should get a grip."

"Yes, ma'am."

I closed the door and looked at him through the peephole. He was still standing there. I opened the door.

"Now what?" I said.

"I'm not allowed to leave until I hear you lock and bolt the door."

I closed the door, locked and bolted it. I looked through the peephole again. No RangeMan. I hung my coat and bag on the hook in the hall and gave Rex a cracker.

"I have a very strange life," I said to Rex.

I got a beer out of the fridge and called Morelli's cell phone.

"What?" Morelli said.

"I just wanted to say hello."

"I can't talk now. I'll call you later."

"Sure."

"He won't call," I said to Rex. "Men are like that."

I tried Ranger's cell and got his answering service. "You're a nut," I told him.

I took the envelope filled with reports into the living room and began reading through the material. There was nothing in any of the reports to link Smullen, Gorvich, and Petiak together, other than their previous addresses. And that connection was vague. They were all from different neighborhoods in Sheepshead. Ranger had checked not just Smullen, Gorvich, and Petiak, but their parents as well. All families seemed to be hardworking and clean. No criminal records anywhere. No indication of mob connections. Gorvich was Russian-born but immigrated with his parents when he was twelve. There was also nothing to link Smullen, Gorvich, and Petiak to Dickie prior to their entering into business together.