Two for the Dough

  While I hated to look a gift horse in the mouth, I really didn't want Uncle Sandor's car. It was a 1953 powder blue Buick with shiny white top, whitewall tires big enough to fit a backhoe, and gleaming chrome portholes. It was the same size and shape as a beluga whale and probably got six miles to the gallon on a good day.

  “Wouldn't think of it,” I said to my mother. “Nice of you to offer, but that's Grandma Mazur's car.”

  “Grandma Mazur wants you to have it. Your father's on his way over. Drive it in health.”

  Damn. I declined her offer of dinner and disconnected. I peeked in at Rex to make sure he wasn't suffering any delayed reactions to last night's ordeal. He seemed in good spirits, so I gave him a broccoli floret and a walnut, grabbed my jacket and pocketbook, and locked the apartment behind me. I slogged down the stairs and stood outside, waiting for my father to appear.

  The far-off sound of a mammoth engine arrogantly sucking gas carried to the parking lot, and I shrank back against the building, hoping for a reprieve, praying this wasn't the Buick approaching.

  A bulbous-nosed behemoth of a car turned the corner, and I felt my heart beat in time to the pounding of pistons. It was the Buick, all right, in all its glory, not a speck of rust anywhere. Uncle Sandor had bought the car new in 1953 and had kept it in showroom condition.

  “I don't think this is a good idea,” I said to my father. “What if I scratch it?”

  “It won't get scratched,” my father said, putting the car in park, sliding over on the big bench seat. “It's a Buick.”

  “But I like little cars,” I explained.

  “That's what's wrong with this country,” my father said, “little cars. Soon as they started bringing those little cars over from Japan everything went to pot.” He thumped on the dash. “Now, this is a car. This baby is made to last. This is the kind of car a man can be proud to drive. This is a car with cojones.”

  I got in next to my father and peered over the wheel, staring openmouthed at the amount of hood. Okay, so it was big and ugly, but hell, it had cojones.

  I took a firm grip on the wheel and thumped my left foot to the floor before my brain registered “no clutch.”

  “Automatic,” my father said. “That's what America is all about.”

  I dropped my father at the house and forced a smile. “Thanks.”

  My mother was at the front stoop. “Be careful,” she yelled. “Keep your doors locked.”

  Morelli and I walked into Big Jim's together. Ranger was already there, sitting with his back to the wall at a table that afforded a good view of the room. Always the bounty hunter, and most likely feeling naked since he'd probably left most of his personal arsenal in the car in honor of Morelli.

  There was no need to look at a menu. If you knew anything at all, you ate ribs and greens at Jim's. We ordered and sat in silence until drinks were served. Ranger kicked back in his chair, arms crossed over his chest. Morelli in a less aggressive, more indolent slouch. Me on the edge of my seat, elbows on the table, ready to jump and run should they decide to have a shootout just for the hell of it.

  “So,” Ranger finally said, “what's going on here?”

  Morelli leaned forward slightly. The pitch of his voice was casual and low. “The army's lost some toys. So far they've turned up in Newark and Philadelphia and Trenton. You hear anything about this stuff being out on the street?”

  “There's always stuff out on the street.”

  “This is different stuff,” Morelli said. “Cop killers, LAWs, M-16s, new 9mm Berettas stamped 'Property of U.S. Government.' ”

  Ranger nodded. “I know about the car in Newark and the cop in Philly. What have we got in Trenton?”

  “We've got the gun Kenny used to shoot Moogey in the knee.”

  “No shit?” Ranger tipped his head back and laughed. “This gets better all the time. Kenny Mancuso accidentally shoots his best friend in the knee, is apprehended by a cop who by chance stops in to get gas even as the gun is smoking, and it turns out he's got a funny gun.”

  “What's the word?” Morelli asked. “You know anything?”

  “Nada,” Ranger said. “What's Kenny give you?”

  “Nada,” Morelli said.

  Conversation stopped while we shuffled silver and glasses to make room for the plates of ribs and bowls of greens.

  Ranger continued to stare at Morelli. “I get the feeling there's more.”

  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 engin
e, 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.”