Smokin Seventeen

THREE

MOONER’D RECENTLY REDECORATED the interior of his motor home, and now the walls and ceiling were upholstered in faux black velvet. The furniture was upholstered in black velour. The floor was black shag, and the countertop was black Formica. Mooner said it was like coming home to the womb, but I thought it was more like working inside the Death Star. Vinnie had commandeered the rear bedroom as his office, and Connie had her computer on the dinette table. A heavy-duty electrical cord, serving as power source, ran like an umbilical cord from the bus to the used bookstore next to the office. Vinnie had worked out an arrangement with the owner, Maggie Mason, for electric.

Lighting was dim to nonexistent, so I felt my way to the couch and inspected it closely before sitting down. Mooner was a good guy, but housekeeping wasn’t a priority for him. Last time I was in his motor home I sat on a brownie that was camouflaged against the black velour.

“What’s new?” I asked Connie. “Any interesting cases come in?”

Connie passed two files to me. “Ziggy Glitch and Merlin Brown. Both failed to appear for court. Brown is a repeat. Armed robbery. Glitch is assault. Glitch is seventy-two years old. The police report says he’s a biter.”

Connie is a couple years older than me and a lot more voluptuous. Connie has bigger hair, bigger boobs, is a better shot, and has major cajones. She’s also related to half the mob in Trenton.

“Do you think Lou Dugan was a mob job?” I asked Connie.

“Usually there’s dinner table talk when someone’s eliminated, but I haven’t heard anything on this one,” she said. “I think most people thought Dugan was in trouble and hiding somewhere.”

I stuffed the files into my tote bag and called Lula on my cell phone.

“What?” Lula said.

“Are you coming back here?”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

“I’m headed out. I’m on the hunt for two new FTAs.”

“Well I guess I should be on the hunt with you,” Lula said. “You probably don’t even got your gun. What if you gotta shoot someone? What then?”

“We don’t shoot people,” I told her.

“The hell.”

Ten minutes later I picked Lula up in the parking lot of Cluckin-a-Bucket. She had her purse slung over her shoulder, a bucket of chicken tucked under her arm, and her hand wrapped around a liter bottle of soda.

“A girl needs breakfast,” she said, clicking the seat belt together. “Besides, I just come off a diet, and I gotta get my strength back.” She laid a paper napkin out on her lap and picked a piece of chicken out of the bucket. “Who we lookin’ for?”

“Merlin Brown.”

“Been there, done that,” Lula said. “We dragged him back to jail last year on that shoplifting charge. He was a real pain in the behind. He didn’t want to go. What’s he done now?”

“Armed robbery.”

“Good for him. Least he’s setting his sights higher. Who else you got?”

“Ziggy Glitch.” I handed her his file. “He’s seventy-two and wanted for assault. I thought we’d look for him first.”

Lula thumbed through the papers. “He lives in the Burg. Kreiner Street. And it says here he’s a biter. I hate them biters.”

The Burg is a chunk of Trenton attached to Hamilton Avenue, Liberty Street, Broad, and Chambersburg Street. Houses are small, streets are narrow, televisions are large. I was born and raised in the Burg, and my parents still live there.

I turned off Hamilton, passed St. Francis Hospital, and hit Kreiner.

“What’s Ziggy’s history?” I asked Lula.

“It says here he’s retired from working at the button factory. Never married as far as I can see. Has a sister who signed the bond agreement. She lives in New Brunswick. This looks like his first arrest. Probably he didn’t take his meds and got wacky and hit some other old geezer with his cane.” Lula leaned forward, counting off houses. “It’s the brick house with the red door. The one with black curtains hanging in all the windows. What’s with that?”

Ziggy lived in a narrow two-story house that had two feet of lawn and a small front porch. It looked like every other house on the block with the exception of the black curtains. We got out of the car, rang the doorbell and waited. No answer.

“I bet he’s in there,” Lula said. “Where else would he be? He don’t work, and there’s no bingo at this time of the morning.”

I rang the bell again, we heard some shuffling inside the house, and the door opened a crack.

“Yes?” the pale face on the other side of the crack asked.

From what I could see he fit the description of Ziggy Glitch. Thinning gray hair, bony at 5?10?.

“I represent your bail bond agent,” I said. “You missed a court date and you need to reschedule.”

“Come back after dark.” And he slammed the door shut and locked it.

“Good going,” Lula said to me. “I don’t know why you use that lame-ass line. It never works. Everybody knows you’re gonna drag their keister off to jail. And if they wanted to be in jail they would have kept their stupid court date in the first place.”

“Hey!” I yelled at Ziggy. “Come back here and open this door, or we’re going to kick it open.”

“I’m not kicking no door in my Via Spigas,” Lula said.

“Great. I’ll kick it open all by myself.”

We both knew this was baloney. Kicking down a door wasn’t on my list of skills mastered.

“I’m going to the car,” Lula said. “I got a bucket of chicken there with my name on it.”

I followed Lula to the car and drove us the short distance to my parents’ house. The Burg is a tight-knit community that runs on gossip and pot roast. Ever since my Grandpa Mazur rode the gravy train to heaven, my Grandma Mazur has lived with my mom and dad. Grandma Mazur knows everything about everyone. And I was betting she knew Ziggy Glitch.