Smokin Seventeen

THIRTEEN

LULA’S CAR WAS GONE, and so was Connie’s. Probably they were at the coffee shop. The bus had stopped rocking, so I figured either the bear had eaten Vinnie or else they were napping. Either way I didn’t want to get involved.

I drove the short distance to the coffee shop and parked behind Lula’s Firebird. The coffee shop was across from the hospital and was classic Starbucks design except it wasn’t a Starbucks. Two leather couches and a coffee table had been positioned in one front window and a bunch of small bistro tables and chairs filled the other window area and ran down the side of the shop. Two women in scrubs were at the counter, ordering lattes. A curly-haired guy was at one of the tables, surfing the net on his laptop, and Lula and Connie had commandeered the couches.

“How was the ride back with the bear?” I asked Lula.

“As far as bears go, he’s pretty polite,” Lula said. “He didn’t growl at me or nothin’, but I don’t want to be around when he gotta go potty.”

“I have some new information on Merlin Brown,” Connie said. “I ran him through the system and turned up a brother-in-law. Lionel Cracker. Lives in the same housing complex as Merlin and works at a deli on upper Stark. It’s about a block down from no-man’s-land, next to Green’s Mortuary.”

“I know where that is,” Lula said. “I used to go to that deli all the time when I was a ho, and I was in the neighborhood. They got the best chili dogs ever made. I could eat those chili dogs ’til I throw up. If we go check this guy out now I could have a dog for lunch.”

• • •

I made a pass through Brown’s parking lot and looked for his car. When I couldn’t find the car I called his home phone. No answer.

“I bet he’s out for lunch,” Lula said. “I bet he’s eating with his brother-in-law.”

For the most part, if you park your car on Stark Street and you don’t keep your eye on it, at least some of it, if not all of it, will be gone when you return. If I had a black Cadillac Escalade, Mercedes SLS AMG, or a Porsche 911 Turbo no one would touch my car for fear I was high up on the gangsta’ food chain, and in that case, stealing my car was a death sentence.

Since I was driving a P.O.S. seen-better-days Ford Escort, I made sure I parked directly in front of the deli.

“I’m gettin’ a chili dog, a kraut dog, and a barbecue dog,” Lula said. “And I might get some curly cheese fries to round it out, so I get some extra vegetable and dairy. I decided I’m improving my diet by gettin’ a balance of shit in my meals. I bet I’ve just about got all the food groups in the meal I’m plannin’.”

“Cracker might not be friendly to us if he knows we shot the toe off his brother-in-law, so we need to be cool.”

“Sure. I can be cool. What do you want?”

“I want a hot dog. Any kind is fine.”

The deli was small. Take-out service only. Two gangly kids in homeboy clothes stood at the counter, waiting on their order. Two men in food-stained, sweaty Tshirts worked in the kitchen. Both cooks looked like they weighed in the vicinity of three hundred pounds. Hot dogs boiled on the stove and grease ran down the walls from the fryer.

I hung in the doorway, watching my car, and Lula stepped up to the counter. “I want a chili dog, a kraut dog, a barbecue dog, and curly fries with extra cheese. And my friend wants a chili dog. And which one of you guys is Lionel Cracker?”

One of the men scooped four dogs out of the water and looked at Lula. “Who wants to know?”

“I want to know,” Lula said. “Who the heck do you think?”

“Do I know you?”

“It’s that I know your brother-in-law Merlin. He said you work here.”

Cracker laid out four hot-dog rolls on his workstation and dropped the dogs into them. “What else did he say?”

“That’s it. I used to be friends with Merlin, and I haven’t seen him in a while, and I was wondering how he’s doing?”

“He owes you money, right? What are you, collection agency? Human services?”

“We just came in for a hot dog and I was wondering about Merlin.”

Cracker laid down a smear of yellow mustard on all the dogs. “I could tell you’re lying. I know body language, and you’re a big fat liar.”

“To begin with I’m about the best liar you ever saw. If I’m lyin’ you’re not gonna know. And on top of that, did you call me fat? ’Cause you better not have called me fat. ’Specially since you’re one big ugly tub of lard.”

“That’s mean,” Cracker said. “You can kiss these dogs goodbye. I don’t serve dogs to fat, mean, ol’ trash.”

Lula leaned over the counter to get into his face. “Fine by me on account of I don’t want your nasty dogs, but I don’t put up with no one disrespecting me.”

“Oh yeah? Well kiss my behind.”

And Cracker mooned her.

Lula grabbed the mustard dispenser and blasted Cracker in the ass with a double shot of mustard. Cracker scooped up a handful of chili and threw it at Lula. And after that it was hard to tell who was throwing what. Hot dogs, buns, coleslaw, pickles, ketchup, relish, sauerkraut were flying through the air. Lula was batting them away with her purse, and I was trying to pull her through the door.

“Let go,” Lula said to me. “I’m not done with him.”

Cracker dropped below the counter and popped up with a shotgun.

“Now I’m done,” Lula said.

We bolted through the door, jumped into the Escort, and I laid down rubber getting away from the curb.

I drove one block and turned off Stark. “You have to dial back on the fat thing,” I said to Lula. “You can’t go around shooting people because they say you’re fat.”

“I only shot one guy. The second was only mustard.” Lula swiped at some chili stuck to her shirt. “We didn’t get lunch. Where you want to go for lunch?”

“I’m going home for lunch, so I can take a shower and change my clothes. I feel like I’ve been rolled around in Giovichinni’s dumpster.”

Lula powered her window down. “One of us smells like sauerkraut. I think it’s you. You look like you got hit with a whole bowl of it. It’s stuck in your hair.”

Don’t for a moment think this is Bella’s work, I told myself. The pimple and the sauerkraut are coincidence. The eye is a bunch of baloney. Repeat after me. The eye is a bunch of baloney.