04 Four to Score (2 page)

I rang the upstairs doorbell and the downstairs door opened and an elderly woman looked out at me.

“She isn't home.”

“Are you Mrs. Pease?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Are you sure Maxine isn't home?”

“Well, I guess I'd know. You can hear everything in this cheapskate apartment. If she was home I'd hear her TV. I'd hear her walking around. And besides, she'd stop in to tell me she was home and collect her mail.”

Ah hah! The woman was collecting Maxine's mail. Maybe she also had Maxine's key.

“Yes, but suppose she came home late one night and didn't want to wake you?” I said. “And then suppose she had a stroke?”

“I never thought of that.”

“She could be upstairs right now, gasping her last breath of air.”

The woman rolled her eyes upward, as if she could see through walls. “Hmmm.”

“Do you have a key?”

“Well, yes . . .”

“And what about her plants? Have you been watering her plants?”

“She didn't ask me to water her plants.”

“Maybe we should go take a look. Make sure everything is okay.”

“Are you a friend of Maxine's?”

I held up two fingers side by side. “Like this.”

“I suppose it wouldn't hurt to check. I'll be right back with the key. I've got it in the kitchen.”

Okay, so I fibbed a little. But it wasn't such a bad fib because it was for a good cause. And besides, she could be dead in her bed. And her plants could be dying of thirst.

“Here it is,” Mrs. Pease said, brandishing the key.

She turned the key in the lock and pushed the door open.

“Hell-oo-o,” she called in her warbling old lady's voice. “Anybody home?”

No one answered, so we crept up the stairs. We stood in the little entrance area and looked into the living room-dining room.

“Not much of a housekeeper,” Mrs. Pease said.

Housekeeping had nothing to do with it. The apartment had been trashed. It wasn't a fight because nothing was smashed. And it wasn't clutter from a last-minute scurry to leave. Cushions were pulled off the couch and flung onto the floor. Cupboard doors were open. Drawers were pulled from the hutch and turned upside down, contents spilled out. I did a quick walk-through and saw more of the same in the bedroom and bath. Someone had been looking for something. Money? Drugs? If it was robbery it had been very specific, because the TV and VCR were untouched.

“Someone has ransacked this apartment,” I said to Mrs. Pease. “I'm surprised you didn't hear the drawers being flung around.”

“If I was home I would have heard it. It must have been when I was out to bingo. I go to bingo every Wednesday and Friday. I don't get home until eleven. Do you think we should report this to the police?”

“It wouldn't serve much purpose right now.” Except to notify the police that I'd been in Maxine's apartment sort of illegally. “We don't know if anything's been taken. Probably we should wait for Maxine to come home and let her call the police.”

We didn't see any plants to water, so we tippytoed back down the stairs and locked the door.

I gave Mrs. Pease my card and asked her to call me if she should see or hear anything suspicious.

She studied the card. “A bounty hunter,” she said, her voice showing surprise.

“A woman's got to do what a woman's got to do,” I said.

She looked up and nodded in agreement. “I suppose that's true.”

I squinted into the lot. “According to my information Maxine owns an '84 Fairlane. I don't see it here.”

“She took off in it,” Mrs. Pease said. “Wasn't much of a car. Always something or other broken on it, but she loaded it up with her suitcase and took off.”

“Did she say where she was going?”

“On vacation.”

“That was it?”

“Yep,” Mrs. Pease said, “that was it. Usually Maxine's real talkative, but she wasn't saying anything this time. She was in a hurry, and she wasn't saying anything.”

*    *    *    *    *

NOWICKI'S MOTHER lived on Howser Street. She'd posted the bond and had put up her house as collateral. At first glance this seemed like a safe investment for my cousin Vinnie. Truth was, getting a person kicked out of his or her house was a chore and did nothing to endear a bail bondsman to the community.

I got out my street map and found Howser. It was in north Trenton, so I retraced my route and discovered that Mrs. Nowicki lived two blocks from Eddie Kuntz. Same neighborhood of well-kept houses. Except for the Nowicki house. The Nowicki house was single-family, and it was a wreck. Peeling paint, crumbling roof shingles, saggy front porch, front yard more dirt than grass.

I picked my way over rotting porch steps and knocked on the door. The woman who answered was faded glory in a bathrobe. It was getting to be midafternoon, but Mrs. Nowicki looked like she'd just rolled out of bed. She was a sixty-year-old woman wearing the ravages of booze and disenchantment with life. Her doughy face showed traces of makeup not removed before calling it a night. Her voice had the rasp of two packs a day, and her breath was hundred proof.

“Mrs. Nowicki?”

“Yeah,” she said.

“I'm looking for Maxine.”

“You a friend of Maxy's?”

I gave her my card. “I'm with the Plum Agency. Maxine missed her court date. I'm trying to find her so we can get her rescheduled.”

Mrs. Nowicki raised a crayoned brown eyebrow. “I wasn't born yesterday, honey. You're a bounty hunter, and you're out to get my little girl.”

“Do you know where she is?”

“Wouldn't tell you if I did. She'll get found when she wants to.”

“You put your house up as security against the bond. If Maxine doesn't come forward you could lose your house.”

“Oh yeah, that'd be a tragedy,” she said, rummaging in the pocket of her chenille robe, coming up with a pack of Kools. “Architectural Digest keeps wanting to do a spread, but I can't find the time.” She stuck a cigarette in her mouth and lit up. She sucked hard and squinted at me through the smoke haze. “I owe five years' back taxes. You want this house you're gonna hafta take a number and get in line.”

Sometimes bail jumpers are simply at home, trying to pretend their life isn't in the toilet, hoping the whole mess will go away if they ignore the order to appear in court. I'd originally thought Maxine would be one of these people. She wasn't a career criminal, and the charges weren't serious. She really had no reason to skip out.

Now I wasn't so sure. I was getting an uncomfortable feeling about Maxine. Her apartment had been trashed, and her mother had me thinking maybe Maxine didn't want to be found right now. I slunk back to my car and decided my deductive reasoning would be vastly improved if I ate a doughnut. So I cut across town to Hamilton and parked in front of Tasty Pastry Bakery.

I'd worked part-time at Tasty Pastry when I was in high school. It hadn't changed much since then. Same green-and-white linoleum floor. Same sparkling clean display cases filled with Italian cookies, chocolate chip cannoli, biscotti, napoleons, fresh bread and coffee cakes. Same happy smell of fried sweet dough and cinnamon.

Lennie Smulenski and Anthony Zuck bake the goodies in the back room in big steel ovens and troughs of hot oil. Clouds of flour and sugar sift onto table surfaces and slip under foot. And lard is transferred daily from commercial-sized vats directly to local butts.

I choose two Boston cremes and pocketed some napkins. When I came out I found Joe Morelli lounging against my car. I'd known Morelli all of my life. First when he was a lecherous little kid, then as a dangerous teen. And finally as the guy who at age eighteen, sweet-talked me out of my underwear, laid me down on the floor behind the eclair case one day after work and relieved me of my virginity. Morelli was a cop now, and the only way he'd get back into my pants would be at gunpoint. He worked Vice, and he looked like he knew a lot about it firsthand. He was wearing washed-out Levi's and a navy T-shirt. His hair needed cutting, and his body was perfect. Lean and hard-muscled with the best ass in Trenton . . . maybe the world. Buns you wanted to sink your teeth into.

Not that I intended to nibble on Morelli. He had an annoying habit of periodically popping up in my life, frustrating the hell out of me and then walking off into the sunset. I couldn't do much about the popping up or the walking off. I could do something about the frustrating. From here on out, Morelli was erotica non grata. Look but Don't Touch, that was my motto. And he could keep his tongue to himself, thank you.

Morelli grinned by way of hello. “You're not going to eat both those doughnuts all by yourself, are you?”

“That was the plan. What are you doing here?”

“Drove by. Saw your car. Thought you'd need some help with those Boston cremes.”

“How do you know they're Boston cremes?”

“You always get Boston cremes.”

Last time I saw Morelli was back in February. One minute we were in a clinch on my couch with his hand halfway up my thigh, and then next thing I knew, his pager went off and he was gone. Not to be seen for five months. And now here he was . . . sniffing at my doughnuts.

“Long time, no see,” I said.

“I've been undercover.”

Yeah, right.

“Okay,” he said. “I could have called.”

“I thought maybe you were dead.”

The smile tightened. “Wishful thinking?”

“You're scum, Morelli.”

He blew out a sigh. “You're not going to share those doughnuts, are you?”

I got into my car, slammed the door, squealed out of the lot and headed for home. By the time I got to my apartment I'd eaten both the doughnuts, and I was feeling much better. And I was thinking about Nowicki. She was five years older than Kuntz. High school graduate. Twice married. No children. Her file photo showed me a blowzy blonde with big Jersey hair, lots of makeup and a slim frame. She was squinting into the sun and smiling, wearing four-inch heels, tight black stretch pants and a loose flowing sweater with sleeves pushed up to her elbows and a V neck deep enough to show cleavage. I half expected to find writing on the back of the picture . . . “If you want a good time, call Maxine Nowicki.”

Probably she'd done exactly what she'd said. Probably she'd stressed out and gone on vacation. Probably I shouldn't exert myself because she'd come home any day now.

And what about her apartment? The apartment was bothersome. The apartment told me Maxine had bigger problems than a simple auto theft charge. Best not to think about the apartment. The apartment only muddied the waters and had nothing to do with my job. My job was simple. Find Maxine. Bring her in.

I locked the CRX and crossed the lot. Mr. Landowsky stepped out the building's back door as I approached. Mr. Landowsky was eighty-two and somehow his chest had shrunk over the years, and now he was forced to hike his pants up under his armpits.

“Oi,” he said. “This heat! I can't breathe. Somebody should do something.”

I assumed he was talking about God.

“That weatherman on the morning news. He should be shot. How can I go out in weather like this? And then when it gets so hot they keep the supermarkets too cold. Hot, cold. Hot, cold. It gives me the runs.”

I was glad I owned a gun, because when I got as old as Mr. Landowsky I was going to eat a bullet. The first time I got the runs in the supermarket, that was it. BANG! It would all be over.

I took the elevator to the second floor and let myself into my apartment. One bedroom, one bath, living room-dining room, uninspired but adequate kitchen, small foyer with a strip of pegs for hanging coats and hats and gun belts.

My hamster, Rex, was running on his wheel when I came in. I told him about my day and apologized for not saving him some doughnut. He looked disappointed at the doughnut part so I rooted around in my refrigerator and came up with a few grapes. Rex took the grapes and disappeared into his soup can. Life is pretty simple when you're a hamster.

I moseyed back into the kitchen and checked my phone messages.

“Stephanie, this is your mother. Don't forget about dinner. I have a nice roast chicken.”

Saturday night and I was having chicken dinner with my parents. And it wasn't the first time. It was a weekly occurrence. I had no life.

I dragged myself into the bedroom, flopped onto the bed and watched the minute hand creep around the dial on my wristwatch until it was time to go to my parents'. My parents eat dinner at six o'clock. Not a minute sooner or later. That's the way it is. Dinner at six or your life is ruined.

*    *    *    *    *

MY PARENTS live in a narrow duplex on a narrow lot on a narrow street in a residential part of Trenton called the burg. When I arrived my mother was waiting at the door.

“What is this outfit you're wearing?” she asked. “You have no clothes on. How is this to dress?”

“This is a Thunders baseball jersey,” I told her. “I'm supporting local sports.”

My Grandma Mazur peeked from behind my mother. Grandma Mazur moved in with my parents shortly after my grandfather went heavenward to dine with Elvis. Grandma figures she's of an age to be beyond convention. My father thinks she's of an age to be beyond life.

“I need one of those jerseys,” Grandma said. “Bet I'd have men following me down the block if I was dressed up like that.”

“Stiva, the undertaker,” my father murmured from the living room, head buried in the paper. “With his tape measure.”

Grandma linked her arm in mine. “I've got a treat for you today. Just wait till you see what I've cooked up.”

In the living room the paper was lowered, and my father's eyebrows raised.

My mother made the sign of the cross.

“Maybe you should tell me,” I said to Grandma.

“I was gonna keep it as a surprise, but I suppose I could let you in on it. Being that he'll be here any minute now.”

There was dead silence in the house.

“I invited your boyfriend over for dinner,” Grandma said.

“I don't have a boyfriend!”

“Well, you do now. I arranged everything.”

I spun on my heel and headed for the door. “I'm leaving.”

“You can't do that!” Grandma yelled. “He'll be real disappointed. We had a nice long talk. And he said he didn't mind that you shoot people for a living.”