Two for the Dough (10 page)

Morelli selected a rib and did his lion-on-the-Serengeti imitation. “The stuff was stolen from Braddock.”

“While Kenny was stationed there?”

“Possibly.”

“I bet the little devil had access too.”

“So far all we have is coincidence,” Morelli said. “It’d be nice if we could get a line on the distribution.”

Ranger did a scan on the room and focused his attention back to Morelli. “Been quiet here. I can ask in Philly.”

My pager beeped deep in my pocketbook. I stuck my head in and rummaged around, finally resorting to extracting the contents one by one—cuffs, flashlight, Mace, stun gun, hairspray, hairbrush, wallet, sports Walkman, Swiss army knife, pager.

Ranger and Morelli watched in grim fascination.

I glanced at the digital readout. “Roberta.”

Morelli brought his head up from his ribs. “Are you a betting person?”

“Not with you.”

Jim had a public phone in the narrow hallway leading to the restrooms. I dialed Roberta’s number and leaned a hip against the wall while I waited. Roberta picked up after several rings. I was hoping she’d found the caskets, but no such luck. She’d checked every locker and found nothing unusual, but she’d remembered a truck that had made several trips to a locker in the vicinity of number 16.

“At the end of the month,” she said. “I remember because I was doing the monthly billing, and this truck went in and out a couple times.”

“Can you describe it?”

“It was fairly large. Like a small moving van. Not an eighteen-wheeler or anything. More that it could hold a couple rooms of furniture. And it wasn’t a rental. It was white with black lettering on the door, but it was too far to read from the office.”

“Did you see the driver?”

“Sorry, I didn’t pay that close attention. I was doing the billing.”

I thanked her and hung up. Hard to say if the truck information was worth anything. There had to be a hundred trucks in the Trenton area to fit that description.

Morelli looked at me expectantly when I got back to the table. “Well?”

“She didn’t find anything, but she remembered seeing a white truck with black lettering on the door make several passes at the end of the month.”

“That narrows it down.”

Ranger’d picked his ribs clean. He looked at his watch and pushed back. “Gotta see a man.”

He and Morelli did some ritualistic hand thing, and Ranger left.

Morelli and I ate in silence for a while. Eating was one of the few body functions we felt comfortable sharing. When the last of the greens had been consumed we gave a collective sigh of satisfaction and signaled for the check.

Big Jim’s didn’t have five-star prices, but there wasn’t much left in my wallet after I anted up my share. Probably it would be wise to visit Connie and see if she had any more easy pickups for me.

Morelli had parked on the street, and I’d opted to leave the blimp in a public lot two blocks down on Maple. I left Morelli at the door and marched off, telling myself a car was a car. And what did it matter if people saw me driving a 1953 Buick? It was transportation, right? Sure. That’s why I’d parked a quarter mile away in an underground garage.

I retrieved the car and motored down Hamilton, past Delio’s Exxon and Perry Sandeman, and found an empty parking space in front of the bond office. I squinted at the slope of the baby blue hood and wondered exactly where the car came to an end. I eased forward, rolled up on the curb, and nudged the parking meter. I decided this was close enough, cut the engine, and locked up behind myself.

Connie was at her desk, looking even meaner than usual, with her thick black eyebrows drawn low and menacing, and her mouth held in a tight slash of blood red lipstick. Unfiled files were stacked on the tops of the cabinets, and her desk was a jumble of loose papers and empty coffee cups.

“So,” I said, “how’s it going?”

“Don’t ask.”

“Hire anyone yet?”

“She starts tomorrow. In the meantime I can’t find a goddamn thing because nothing’s in order.”

“You should make Vinnie help.”

“Vinnie isn’t here. Vinnie went to North Carolina with Mo Barnes to pick up a Failure to Appear.”

I took a wad of folders and started alphabetizing. “I’m at a temporary impasse with Kenny Mancuso. Anything new come in that looks like a fast bust?”

She handed me several forms stapled together. “Eugene Petras missed his court appearance yesterday. Probably at home, drunk as a skunk, and doesn’t know what day it is.”

I glanced at the bond agreement. Eugene Petras showed a burg address. The charge was spousal batterment. “Should I know this guy?”

“You might know his wife, Kitty. Maiden name was Lukach. I think she was a couple years behind you in school.”

“Is this his first arrest?”

Connie shook her head. “Got a long history. A real asshole. Everytime he gets a couple beers in him he knocks Kitty around. Sometimes he goes too far and puts her in the hospital. Sometimes she files charges, but eventually she always backs off. Scared, I guess.”

“Lovely. What’s his bond worth?”

“He’s out on two thousand dollars. Domestic violence doesn’t count for much of a threat.”

I tucked the paperwork under my arm. “I’ll be back.”

Kitty and Eugene lived in a narrow row house at the corner of Baker and Rose, across from the old Milped Button Factory. The front door sat flush to the sidewalk without benefit of yard or porch. The exterior was maroon asphalt shingle with weathered white trim. Curtains were drawn in the front room. Upstairs windows were dark.

I had the pepper spray easily accessible in my jacket pocket, and my cuffs and stun gun stuck into my Levis. I knocked on the door and heard scrambling going on inside. I knocked again, and a man’s voice shouted something incoherent. Again, more shuffling sounds, and then the door opened.

A young woman peered out at me from behind a security chain. “Yes?”

“Are you Kitty Petras?”

“What do you want?”

“I’m looking for your husband, Eugene. Is he at home?”

“No.”

“I heard a man’s voice in there. I thought it sounded like Eugene.”

Kitty Petras was rail thin with a pinched face and large brown eyes. She wore no makeup. Her brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail at the nape of her neck. She wasn’t pretty, but she wasn’t unattractive, either. Mostly, she was nothing. She had the forgettable features that abused women get after years of trying to make themselves invisible.

She gave me a wary look. “You know Eugene?”

“I work for his bonding agent. Eugene missed his court date yesterday, and we’d like him to reschedule.” Not so much a lie as a half-truth. First we’d reschedule him, and then we’d lock him up in a dingy, smelly cell until his new date came around.

“I don’t know …”

Eugene reeled into my line of sight through the crack in the door. “What’s going on?”

Kitty stepped away. “This woman would like you to reschedule your court date.”

Eugene shoved his face up close. All nose and chin and squinty red eyes and 100-proof breath. “What?”

I repeated the baloney about rescheduling and moved to the side so he would be forced to open the door if he wanted to see me.

The chain slid free and clanked against the jamb. “You’re shitting me, right?” Eugene said.

I positioned myself halfway into the door, adjusted my pocketbook on my shoulder, and lied my little heart out. “This will only take a few minutes. We need you to stop in at the courthouse and register for a new date.”

“Yeah, well, you know what I have to say to that?” He turned his back to me, dropped his pants and bent over. “Kiss my hairy white ass.”

He was facing in the wrong direction to give him a snootful of pepper spray, so I reached into my Levi’s and pulled out the stun gun. I’d never used it, but it didn’t seem complicated. I leaned forward, firmly pressed the gadget against Eugene’s butt, and hit the go button. Eugene gave a short squeak and crumpled to the floor like a sack of flour.

“My God,” Kitty cried, “what have you done?”

I looked down at Eugene, who was lying motionless, eyes glazed, drawers at his knees. He was breathing a little shallowly, but I thought that was to be expected from a man who’d just taken enough juice to light up a small room. His color was pasty white, so nothing had changed there. “Stun gun,” I said. “According to the brochure it leaves no lasting damage.”

“Too bad. I was hoping you’d killed him.”

“Maybe you should fix his pants,” I said to Kitty. There was already too much ugliness in this world without my having to look at Eugene’s Mr. Droopy.

When she had him zipped up I prodded him with the toe of my shoe and got minimal response. “Probably it’d be best if we get him out to my car before he comes around.”

“How’re we gonna do that?” she asked.

“Guess we’ll have to drag him.”

“No way. I don’t want no part of this. Lordy, this is terrible. He’ll beat the daylights out of me for this.”

“He can’t beat you if he’s in jail.”

“He’ll beat me when he gets out.”

“If you’re still here.”

Eugene made a feeble attempt to move his mouth, and Kitty yelped. “He’s gonna get up! Do something!”

I didn’t really want to give him any more volts. Didn’t think it would look good if I hauled him into court with his hair curled. So I grabbed him by the ankles and tugged toward the door.

Kitty raced upstairs and I assumed, from the sounds of drawers being wrenched open, she was packing.

I managed to get Eugene out of the house and onto the sidewalk next to the Buick, but there was no way I was going to get Eugene into the car without some help.

I could see Kitty assembling suitcases and tote bags in the front room. “Hey, Kitty,” I yelled, “I need a hand here.”

She peeked out the open door. “What’s the problem?”

“Can’t get him into the car.”

She chewed on her lower lip. “Is he awake?”

“There are all kinds of awake. This kind of awake isn’t nearly so awake as some other kinds.”

She inched forward. “His eyes are open.”

“True, but the pupils are mostly rolled up behind his lids. I don’t imagine he can see much like that.”

In response to our conversation, Eugene had begun ineffectually flailing his legs.

Kitty and I each took an arm and hoisted him to shoulder level.

“This would be easier if you’d parked closer,” Kitty said, breathing heavily. “You practically parked in the middle of the street.”

I steadied myself under the burden. “I can only park on the curb when there’s a parking meter to aim for.”

We gave a joint heave and slammed up against the rear quarter panel with rubber-limbed Eugene. We shoved him into the backseat and cuffed him to the sissy bar, where he hung like a sandbag.

“What will you do?” I asked Kitty. “Do you have someplace to go?”

“I have a girlfriend in New Brunswick. I can stay with her for a while.”

“Make sure you keep the court informed of your address.”

She nodded her head and scuttled back into her house. I hopped behind the wheel and threaded my way through the burg to Hamilton. Eugene’s head snapped around some on the curves, but aside from that the trip to the police station was uneventful.

I drove to the rear of the building, climbed out of the Buick, hit the attention button on the locked door, which led to the docket desk, and stepped away to wave at the security camera.

Almost instantly the door opened and Crazy Carl Costanza poked his head out at me. “Yeah?”

“Pizza delivery.”

“It’s against the law to lie to a cop.”

“Help me get this guy out of my car.”

Carl rocked back on his heels and smiled. “This is your car?”

I narrowed my eyes. “You want to make something of it?”

“Hell no. I’m fucking politically correct. I don’t make cracks about women’s big cars.”

“She electrocuted me,” Eugene said. “I want to talk to a lawyer.”

Carl and I exchanged looks.

“It’s terrible what drink can do to a man,” I said, unlocking the cuffs. “The craziest things come out of their mouths.”

“You didn’t really electrocute him, did you?”

“Of course not!”

“Scrambled his neurons?”

“Buzzed him on the ass.”

By the time I got my body receipt it was after six. Too late to stop by the office and get paid. I idled in the parking lot for a few moments, staring beyond the wire fence at the odd assortment of businesses across the street. The Tabernacle Church, Lydia’s Hat Designs, a used-furniture store, and a corner grocery. I’d never seen any customers in any of the stores, and I wondered how the owners survived. I imagined it was marginal, although the businesses seemed stable, their facades never changing. Of course, petrified wood looks the same year after year, too.

I was worried my cholesterol level had dropped during the day, so I opted for Popeye’s spicy fried chicken and biscuits for dinner. I got it to go, and I drove me and my food to Paterson Street and parked across from Julia Cenetta’s house. I figured it was as good a place as any to eat, and who knows, maybe I’d get lucky and Kenny would show up.

I finished my chicken and biscuits with a side of slaw, slurped down a Dr. Pepper, and told myself it didn’t get much better than this. No Spiro, no dishes, no aggravation.

Lights were on in Julia’s house but curtains were drawn, so I couldn’t snoop. There were two cars in the driveway. I knew one was Julia’s, and I assumed the other belonged to her mother.

A late-model car pulled up to the curb and parked. A hulking blond guy got out of the car and went to the door. Julia answered, wearing jeans and a jacket. She called something over her shoulder to someone in the house and left. The blond guy and Julia sat kissing in the car for a few minutes. The blond guy cranked the engine over and the two of them drove away. So much for Kenny.

I rumbled off to Vic’s Video and rented
Ghostbusters
, my all-time favorite inspirational movie. I picked up some microwave popcorn, a KitKat, a bag of bite-sized Reese’s peanut butter cups, and a box of instant hot chocolate with marshmallows. Do I know how to have a good time, or what?