Smokin' Seventeen Read online

  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 Cluck-in-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.

  FOUR

  I PARKED IN my parents’ driveway. “Here’s hoping Grandma knows Ziggy and can get him to cooperate.”

  Lula stowed her chicken bucket on the floor. “I love your granny. I want to be just like her when I grow up.”

  Grandma Mazur was at the front door, waiting for us, driven by some maternal instinct sensing the approach of offspring. She’s sharp-eyed and slack-skinned, and her steel gray hair is cut short and set into curls. She was wearing a silky lavender-and-white warm-up suit and white tennis shoes.

  “What a nice surprise,” she said. “I got a coffee cake on the table.”

  “I wouldn’t mind some coffee cake,” Lula said. “I was just thinking coffee cake would be real tasty.”

  My mother was in the kitchen ironing. Physically she’s a younger version of my Grandma Mazur, and physically I’m a younger version of my mother. Mentally and emotionally my mother is on her own. Lunacy seems to have skipped a generation and my mother is left to bear the burden of maintaining standards of decorum for the family. My grandmother and I are the loose cannons.

  “So why’s there ironing going on?” Lula asked.

  We all knew my mother ironed when she was upset. She ironed for days when my divorce went through.

  Grandma cut a wide swath around my mother and set the coffeepot on the table. “Margaret Gooley’s daughter got engaged, and they already got the Polish National Hall for a November wedding.”

  “And?” Lula asked.

  “I graduated high school with her,” I said.

  Lula sat at the table and cut herself a piece of coffee cake. “And?”

  My mother pressed the iron into a pair of slacks with enough force to set a seam for the rest of its days. “I don’t know why everyone else’s daughter gets married but mine!” she said. “Is it too much to ask to have a happily married daughter?”

  “I was married,” I said. “I didn’t like it.”

  Grandma slathered butter on her piece of coffee cake. “He was a horse’s patoot.”

  “You’ve been seeing Joseph Morelli for years now,” my mother said. “It’s the talk of the neighborhood. Why aren’t you at least engaged?”

  That was an excellent question, and I didn’t have an answer. At least not an answer I wanted to say out loud. Truth is Morelli wasn’t the only man in my life. I was in love with two men. How screwed up is that?

  “Yeah,” Lula said to me, “you need to make a decision about Morelli or someone else is gonna snatch him up. He’s a real hottie. And he’s got his own house and a dog and everything.”

  I liked Morelli. I really did. And Lula was right. He was hot. And I thought he’d make a good husband … probably. And there were days when I suspected he mi
ght actually consider marrying me. Problem was just when I thought marrying Morelli held some appeal, Ranger would ooze into my mind like smoke under a closed door.

  Ranger was not husband material. He was a heart-stopping handsome Latino, dark-skinned and dark-eyed. He was strong inside and out, an enigma who kept his life scars pretty much hidden.

  “I need to bring Ziggy Glitch in for a reschedule,” I said to Grandma. “I thought maybe you could call him and get him to go with me.”

  “I could do that, but you have to wait until it gets dark. He don’t go out during the day.” Grandma paused. “He’s got a condition.”

  I nibbled on a piece of coffee cake. “What kind of condition? A medical condition?”

  “Yeah, I guess it could be considered medical. He’s a vampire. If he goes out in the sun it could kill him. He could burn right up. Remember when Dorothy threw water on the wicked witch in The Wizard of Oz, and the witch shriveled up? It’s sort of like that.”

  Lula almost spit out her coffee. “Get outta here! Are you shitting me?”

  “That’s why he never married,” Grandma said. “Soon as a woman saw his fangs she wouldn’t have any more to do with him.”

  “So when the cops said he was a biter they meant he was a biter,” Lula said.

  Grandma topped off her coffee. “Yep. He’ll suck the blood right out of you. Every last drop.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” my mother said. “He’s not a vampire. He’s a man with a dental problem and a personality disorder.”

  “I guess that’s one of them politically correct points of view,” Lula said. “I don’t mind presenting things that way so long as I don’t get holes in my neck while I’m tryin’ not to offend some mother-suckin’ vampire. ’Scuse my French. And this is real good coffee cake. Is this Entenmann’s?”

  “I didn’t see any fangs when he answered the door,” I told Grandma.

  “Well, it’s daytime so maybe he was fixing to go to sleep, and he had his dentures in a cup,” Grandma said. “I don’t wear my dentures when I sleep.”

  Lula leaned back in her chair. “Hold the phone. This guy has fake fangs?”

  “They used to be real,” Grandma said, “but a couple years ago Joe’s granny, Bella, gave Ziggy the eye, and all his teeth fell out. So Ziggy went to Horace Worly—a dentist on Hamilton Avenue just down from the hospital. Anyways, Horace made Ziggy some new choppers that looked just like his old ones.”

  I looked over at my mother. “Is that true?”

  My mother sighed and continued to iron.

  “I heard they found Lou Dugan,” Grandma said. “Who would have thought he’d be planted right there on Hamilton Avenue.”

  “We saw him,” Lula said. “It was like he was trying to climb out of his grave with his hand sticking up outta the dirt.”

  Grandma sucked in air. “You saw him? What did he look like?”

  “He was all wormy and raggety.”

  “They’re gonna have to work like the devil to make him look like anything for the viewing,” Grandma said.

  “Yeah.” Lula added cream to her coffee. “We might never even have known it was him except for his ring.”

  Grandma leaned forward. “He was wearing his ring? That ring was worth money. What numbskull would bury Lou Dugan with his ring still on?”

  Lula cut a second piece of coffee cake. “That’s what I said. It would have to be someone in a panic. Some amateur.”

  Or someone sending a message, I thought. It looked to me like the grave had been fairly shallow. Maybe Lou Dugan was supposed to be discovered.

  “It sure is cozy here in the kitchen,” Lula said. “I bet if I stayed here long enough I could forget all about Lou Dugan and his wormy hand.”

  My parents’ house is small and stuffed with comfortable, slightly worn furniture. The windows are draped in white sheers. The polished mahogany end tables hold lamps and candy dishes. An orange, brown, and cream hand-crocheted afghan is precisely folded and arranged over the back of the champagne-colored couch. My father’s favorite chair has maroon and gold stripes and an impression of his ass permanently imprinted in the seat cushion. The couch and the chair face a newly purchased flat-screen television, and the television fits into a newly purchased mahogany entertainment center. Coasters and magazines are neatly arranged on the narrow coffee table. A laundry basket filled with toys has been placed against the wall in the living room. The toys belong to my sister’s kids.

  The living room leads into the dining room. The dining room table seats six, but can be enlarged to accommodate more. My mother keeps the table covered with a tablecloth. Usually rose or gold. And she places a lace cloth over the colored cloth. It’s been this way for as long as I can remember.

  The dining room is separated from the kitchen by a door that’s always open. Just as my father lives in his maroon-striped chair, my mother and grandmother live in the kitchen. When dinner is being prepared and potatoes are boiling, the kitchen is hot and humid, smelling like gravy and apple pie. This morning the kitchen smelled like freshly ironed clothes and coffee. And Lula had added a hint of fried chicken scent.

  “I hear Dave Brewer just moved back to Trenton,” my mother said to me. “Do you remember Dave? You went to school with him.”

  Dave Brewer had been a big deal football player and entirely out of my league when I was in high school. He went on to college, married, and moved to Atlanta. Last I heard he was being investigated for illegal foreclosures in the state of Georgia.

  “I thought he was going to jail for swindling people out of their houses,” I said to my mother.

  “He beat that rap,” Grandma said. “But Marion Kolakowski said he got fired and lost his big house in Atlanta. And then his wife left him and took the dog and the Mercedes.”

  My mother ironed a nonexistent wrinkle out of my father’s slacks. “Dave’s mother was at mass yesterday. She said it was all a mistake—that Dave didn’t do anything wrong.”

  Lula took a third piece of coffee cake. “He must have done something wrong if his wife took the dog and the car. That’s harsh.”

  “He comes from a good family, and he was captain of the football team and an honor student,” my mother said.

  I was starting to get a bad feeling about the direction of the conversation. It had all the signs of my mother on a mission.

  “You should call him,” my mother said to me. “He would probably like to reconnect with his classmates.”

  “We weren’t friends,” I told her. “I’m sure he wouldn’t remember me.”

  “Of course he would remember you,” my mother said. “His mother was even asking about you.”

  And there it was. The fix up.

  “Mrs. Brewer is a nice lady,” I said. “And I’m sure her son is innocent, and I’m sorry his wife took the dog, but I’m not calling him.”

  “We could have him here for dinner,” my mother said.

  “No! Not interested.” I wrapped my piece of coffee cake in a napkin and stood. “Gotta go. Got work to do.”

  “I don’t suppose you took a picture of Lou Dugan,” Grandma said to Lula.

  “That would have been a good idea,” Lula said, “but I didn’t think of it.”

  I hustled out of the house with Lula not far behind. I jumped into the car and cranked the engine over.

  “Maybe you should call that Dave guy,” Lula said when we got to the corner. “He might be the one.”

  “I thought I found the one but he turned out to be a jerk so I divorced him. And now I have two guys who might be the one but I can’t decide between them. The last thing I need is a third one.”

  “But maybe you can’t decide because neither of them’s right. Maybe Dave Whatshisname is the right one. What then?”

  “I see your point, but I have an understanding with Morelli.”

  “Which is what?”

  Truth is, the understanding was vague. It was a lot like my status as a Catholic. I carried a decent amount of guilt and fear of
eternal damnation but blind faith and total commitment were in scarce supply.

  “We say we can date other people, but we don’t do it,” I told Lula.

  “That’s stupid,” Lula said. “You got a communication issue. And anyways how are you sure he don’t be out dating other people? I mean he got permission, right? Maybe he’s dating that skank Joyce Barnhardt. What then?”

  “I’d kill him.”

  “You get ten to life for that one,” Lula said.

  I turned toward Kreiner Street. “I’m giving Ziggy another try.”

  FIVE

  I PARKED IN FRONT OF Ziggy’s house for the second time that day, got out of the car, and walked to his front door. He was dumb enough to answer his door the first time, maybe he’d be dumb enough to answer it again. I rang the bell and waited. No response. I rang again. Nothing. I tried the doorknob. Locked.

  “Stay here and bang on the door,” I said to Lula. “I’m going around back. If he cracks the door, shove it open and go in.”

  “No way,” Lula said. “He’s a vampire.”

  “He’s not a vampire. And even if he is he probably can’t do much damage if he’s got his teeth in a jar.”

  “Okay, but if he smiles at me, and he’s got fangs, I’m outta here.”

  I jogged around to the back of the house and scoped it out. Windows were covered in blackout shades just like the front. A small stoop led to the back door. I could faintly hear Lula banging on the front door. I tried the back door. Locked, just like the front. I stood on tiptoes, ran my hand over the top of the door-jamb, and found the key. I opened the door and stepped into the kitchen. Dark wood cabinets, yellow Formica counters. No dirty dishes. No containers indicating blood bank withdrawal.

  I had cuffs tucked into the waistband of my jeans and my stun gun was in my pocket. I moved through the kitchen into the dining room. I could hear the television in the living room.