Explosive Eighteen

  I did a cursory search, found nothing, and we were all out the door in ten minutes. Lula and Buggy left in the Firebird in search of a breakfast buffet, and I drove two blocks down and waited for the mourners to return from the cemetery.

  Lancer and Slasher parked behind me. They didn’t seem to be much of a threat for now, but I suspected that could change if their boss pressed the go button. And while I didn’t feel immediately threatened, they were a constant reminder that I had a huge, horrible, scary problem.

  It was almost noon when the cars filed by. I was sure one of the cars contained Grandma. I couldn’t see her missing Frank Korda being laid to rest. I waited for the last car to arrive, and I gave it another ten minutes before I joined the crowd. I’d done a decent job of hiding my bruise under makeup, not to mention that after ten minutes, everyone would have knocked back a drink or two and not be noticing much beyond the shrimp salad.

  I slipped into the house and located Grandma. She was sitting on the couch with Esther Philpot. They were drinking what appeared to be port wine, and they had a plate of cookies. I said hello and snitched a cookie.

  “I didn’t see you at the service,” Grandma said.

  “I couldn’t make it,” I told her. “I had a previous commitment.”

  “She’s a working girl,” Grandma said to Esther. “And she’s got a gun. It’s not as big as mine, but it’s pretty good.”

  “What do you carry?” Esther asked Grandma.

  “Forty-five long barrel,” Grandma said. “What about you?”

  “I have a little Beretta Bobcat. My grandson gave it to me for Christmas last year.”

  They looked at me.

  “What do you have, dear?” Esther asked me.

  “Glock.”

  “Get the heck out,” Grandma said. “When did you get a Glock? Can I see it?”

  “I wouldn’t mind having a Glock,” Esther said. “Maybe I’ll get one next year.”

  They leaned in and peeked into my purse at my gun.

  “It’s a beauty,” Grandma said.

  “I should mingle.” I looked around.

  Grandma sat back. “There’s little bitty cupcakes in the dining room, and the liquor’s in the kitchen. I imagine that’s where you’ll find the widow. She was already three sheets to the wind at the service. Not that I blame her. A funeral is stressful, poor thing.”

  “Poor thing, my behind,” Esther said. “She’s not upset. She’s celebrating. She was only staying with him for the house. Everybody knows that. Frank did some stepping out, if you know what I mean. There was Mitchell Menton’s wife, Cheryl. And Bitsy Durham. Her husband is on the city council. I’m sure there were others.”

  “I guess Frank was having one of those midlife crises,” Grandma said.

  “And I imagine there are advantages to having an affair with a jeweler,” Esther said.

  I wandered into the kitchen, where Pat Korda was scarfing ham roll-ups and drinking something colorless.

  “Vodka?” I asked her.

  “Fuckin’ A,” she said.

  I poured some into a tumbler. “Me, too.”

  “Here’s to you,” Pat said. “Whoever the hell you are. Looks like someone beat the crap out of you.”

  “Yeah, it’s been one of those weeks.”

  Pat rolled her eyes and listed a little to the left. “Tell me about it.”

  “Sorry about your husband.”

  “Thanks. You want some ham? It goes good with vodka, but then, hell, everything goes good with vodka.”

  “I noticed the little chest on your mantel. The one that looks like a pirate chest.”

  “That’s Miss Kitty,” Pat said. “She was our cat. Frank used to keep her in the store, but I brought her back here when he croaked.”

  “It’s an interesting chest. Is it one of a kind?”

  “Frank got it at the pet crematorium.”

  So if the Pink Panthers didn’t kill Frank Korda, and Joyce didn’t kill him … who killed him? Maybe his wife?

  “Do you ever wear pink?” I asked her.

  “No. I hate pink.” She took another slurp of vodka. “Frank was the pink guy. He had this whole pink thing. He used to tell his bimbos he was a Pink Panther. Hah! Can you imagine?”

  “You knew about it?”

  “Honey, wives know all kinds of shit. Frank had this whole routine. He got it from a Schwarzenegger movie. True Lies. Schwarzenegger was a spy, but his wife didn’t know. She thought he was, like, boring. She was all hot for this other guy who was pretending to be a spy. So the wife’s thinking of screwing the pretend spy, right? Anyway, Frank saw this movie and wigged out. He must have watched it a hundred times. Do you have a cigarette?”

  “No. Sorry, I don’t smoke.”

  “Nobody fucking smokes anymore. Just when I decide I need a cigarette, nobody smokes.”

  “About the Pink Panther Schwarzenegger routine.”

  Pat moved from the ham to the cheese. “Frank wasn’t the most exciting-looking guy. Short, bald, glasses, not a muscle anywhere in sight. But he discovered he could pretend to be a big-time jewel thief and get laid. Go figure.”

  “How did you know all this? Did he tell you?”

  “I knew he was messing around, so I hired a detective. He put it together for me.”

  “But you didn’t divorce Frank?”

  “I thought about it, but what was the point? I’m comfortable. I like my house. And I had someone to take the garbage out and shovel the snow. And the best part was I had some dumb slut taking care of Frank’s needs. I would have sent them all fruit baskets, but I didn’t want to give myself away.” She stared down into her empty glass. “Oh shit. Someone drank my vodka. Oh wait a minute, it was me!” And she did a sort of crazy-lady, semi-hysterical giggle.

  “Do you have any idea who killed Frank?” I asked her.

  “Probably one of his Pink Panther bimbos who found out the jewelry he gave her was fake. Personally, I’m not completely happy. I have to take my own garbage out now.”

  I left Pat Korda and returned to Grandma.

  “I’m going back to work,” I told her. “Do you need a ride home?”

  “No, but thanks, I’m riding with Esther here. It’s a shame you missed the graveside ceremony. That’s the nicest cemetery. The deceased was laid to rest by a patch of woods. He must feel like he’s always camping out now. I swear it smelled like campfire.”

  Esther nodded her head in agreement. “It did smell like a campfire. That’s such a cozy smell.”

  I made a mental note to check the cemetery for Magpie.

  TWENTY-ONE

  I WENT HOME to change my clothes and discovered Joyce was back.

  “That’s it,” I said to her. “I’m going to shoot you and bury your body where no one will ever find it.”

  “Relax. I just dropped in to get my chest. You went to Korda’s house this morning, right?”

  “Right. So I have some good news, and I have some bad news. The good news is the Pink Panthers aren’t trying to kill you. Probably no one’s trying to kill you. The bad news is, I found the treasure chest, but the only treasure in it was the remains of Korda’s cat, Miss Kitty.”

  Joyce went pale. “I don’t believe you.”

  “Believe it. It’s true. Ask Pat Korda. She’s got it sitting on her mantel. And just out of morbid curiosity, what did you really want with the chest?”

  Joyce pressed her lips together and took a couple beats to get it together. “This is a real pisser,” she finally said. “I actually think you’re telling the truth. You haven’t got enough imagination to invent something that hideous.”

  “About the chest?”

  “What the hell, it doesn’t matter now. Frank said he kept the safe combination in it. He said half the combination was on my key, and the other half was in the chest.”

  “You were going to rob the safe?”

  “No. I was going to sell the combination. If I robbed the safe, I’d have to find a fence, and I didn’t
think chances were good I could depend on the Pink Panthers. I tried picking the lock to the store, but I couldn’t get in. Then I thought of you. I figured you were dumb enough to get Ranger to open the door for you. Then you could get me the chest.”

  “How about the guy who bought the combination? How was he getting in?”

  “Not my problem,” Joyce said. “He could go in the front window with a bulldozer for all I cared.”

  It was comforting to know Joyce was still her old obnoxious, rotten self. Parts of my life were so beyond my control that it was nice to have consistency in others.

  “Since we have everything settled, I guess you’ll be leaving now and not coming back,” I said to Joyce.

  “Yeah, I suppose, but I need a ride. In case you forgot, my car got compacted.”

  “How did you get here?”

  “Taxi. And I’m not taking one home. My income source just evaporated.”

  • • •

  Forty-five minutes later, I dropped Joyce off at her town house.

  “You’re positive the Pink Panthers aren’t looking for me, right?” Joyce asked.

  “Positive. Korda made the whole thing up. It was a line he used to get women to sleep with him. You weren’t the only one. And if he gave you any jewelry it was probably fake.”

  “No shit. I found that out when I tried to pawn my necklace. I didn’t get crap for it.”

  I drove away half afraid if I looked in my rearview mirror I’d see Joyce running after me.

  I had a bunch of open files in my messenger bag that I should have started working my way through, earning rent money. But having resolved Lahonka, Buggy, and Joyce, I thought it was time to focus my energy on staying alive, and that meant I had to get rid of the photograph hunters. Raz was in the wind, and I had no good way to find him. Brenda was going to stick with her lame fiancée story, at least for now. That left Lancer and Slasher as the weak link. I was convinced they knew nothing beyond their instructions to follow me. I had to go farther up the food chain if I wanted real information.

  I called Berger on my way across town. “Anything new on the photograph thing?” I asked him.

  “Nothing significant.”

  “How about insignificant?”

  “Two out of three people polled agree that the second sketch looks like Ashton Kutcher.”

  “Anything on Lancelot or Larder?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “Would you tell me if you had something?”

  A moment of silence. “Absolutely.”

  I knew from the length of the pause that his answer was actually no. I disconnected and called Morelli.

  “Joyce is gone,” I said. “I have my apartment back.”

  “Is that an invitation?”

  “No. It’s a statement. Would you like an invitation?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Only maybe?”

  “I’m not in good shape here. We’re getting ready to make an arrest in the Korda case.”

  “Really? Who?”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “You’re teasing me.”

  “Cupcake, you’re breathing shallow and begging for more when I tease you.”

  “That wouldn’t be now,” I said to him. “Right now, I’m grinding my teeth and my eyes are squinty.”

  “I have to go,” Morelli said.

  “No! I need a favor.”

  “I’m hoping this has to do with teasing.”

  “It has to do with the FBI and the fact that three people are possibly trying to kill me.”

  “You have my attention,” he said.

  “Berger is no help at all. I think he knows something but he’s not sharing. I thought he might talk to you.”

  “I’ll get back to you.”

  While Morelli worked it from his angle, I thought I’d come at it from a different direction. I drove a quarter mile on Broad, turned right onto a side street, made another right, and found a parking place in front of the bonds office. Connie’s car was there. No Vinnie. No Lula.

  Connie was paging through Star magazine when I walked in.

  “What’s up?” I asked. “Where is everybody?”

  “Vinnie is hiding at home. He’s afraid DeAngelo will demand a Ferrari. Lula’s off somewhere making coochy-coochy sounds at Moron Man. And I’m stuck in this hellhole. I can hear rats running overhead. Honest to God, I think they’re planning an attack.”

  “I was hoping you could do some digging for me. We did a search on Mortimer Lancelot and Sylvester Larder, and I need to go deeper. They’re working for someone. I want to know who it is. I’m guessing it’s someone they met while they were security at the casino.”

  “That narrows it down to fifty thousand people,” Connie said.

  “I’m looking for someone shady.”

  “Okay, forty-nine thousand.”

  “Any ideas?”

  “I can run another credit check, but it’s not going to show anything if they’re getting paid in cash. You might do better if you went to the casino and talked to people.”

  “I’d like to take Lula with me, but I can’t get her away from Moron Man.”

  “She says he’s her true love,” Connie said. “Something about a love potion.”

  I get that Lula would like to find her true love. And I get that she’s giving it her best shot to turn pond scum into noodle soup. And I wasn’t entirely discounting that Buggy was her true love, because I’ve seen some of Lula’s previous boyfriends, and Buggy wasn’t so far off the mark. But true love or not, I couldn’t take much more of Buggy. Buggy had to go. If Lula could convince herself a love potion started this fiasco, she could damn well unconvince herself.

  I called Grandma. “I need to talk to Annie Hart,” I said.

  “Tonight’s bowling night,” Grandma said. “She’s gonna pick me up. I could invite her to dinner again if you want.”

  “That would be great. And tell Mom to set three extra plates besides Annie’s.”

  I called Lula next.

  “Where are you?” I asked.

  “I’m at the mall with Sugar Lumps. He needed a Dairy Queen Blizzard and a new leather jacket. And it’s not easy getting a leather jacket for him, since he needs so much leather. You gotta just about use a whole cow for his jacket. Good thing I had my credit card limit raised.”

  “Remember when you thought you were a vampire, but it turned out to be an absessed tooth?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And remember how this morning you thought you were having an allergic reaction to cat ashes, but you really were just fine?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you suppose this attraction to Buggy is another one of those imaginary episodes?”

  “I admit I’m an impressionable person, but I’m pretty sure Shrek is my true love.”

  “You mean Buggy?”

  “Yeah, what did I say?”

  “You said Shrek was your true love.”

  “Well, Buggy got a lot of Shrekness to him.”

  “Now we’re getting somewhere,” I said to Lula. “Maybe it’s actually Shrek that’s your true love.”

  “Something to think about,” Lula said.

  “I need to go to Atlantic City to do some research tonight,” I said to Lula. “Are you on board?”

  “Damn skippy. I love Atlantic City. Me and Buggy’ll research the heck out of it.”

  “I’ll meet you at my parents’ house at six o’clock. We’ll have dinner and head south.”

  • • •

  Jeans and a T-shirt are perfectly okay gear for an Atlantic City casino, unless you want to get information out of a man. If information, free drinks, or dinner is on the agenda, it doesn’t hurt to show some cleavage.

  I went home, changed into skinny designer jeans, a stretchy red sweater with a low scoop neck, and strappy heels. I added dangly earrings and a couple more swipes of mascara. I transferred my stun gun, Glock, cuffs, and all my normal girl stuff into a dressier handbag, and I was ready to
go to work.

  I arrived at my parents’ house a little before six and parked behind Annie’s car. Lancer and Slasher parked half a block down. There was no other traffic on the street. The seniors were still at the diner, finishing up the early-bird specials. Kids were home from soccer practice and piano lessons. Working moms were in the kitchen scarfing down Cheetos and wine from Costco while they frantically pulled dinner together. The men on my parents’ street were zoned out in front of the television. No foreclosure signs on the front lawns. This was a neighborhood that was here for the long haul. Hardworking survivors who didn’t care if their house was underwater. Nobody frigging bailed on the Burg.

  Grandma was at the front door, waiting for me.

  “You left the wake too early,” she said. “The widow got snockered and passed out in the chicken salad and had to be carted upstairs. You don’t see that every day.”

  “Where’s Annie?”

  “She’s in the kitchen helping your mother.”

  We went to the kitchen and I snitched a corn muffin out of the breadbasket.

  “We have a problem,” I said to Annie. “Remember the little bottle of pink stuff you gave me?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Lula drank it, and now she needs an antidote.”

  “Goodness. Did she have an allergic reaction?” Annie asked.

  “No. She fell in love with a sandbag.”

  “How unusual,” Annie said. “It was just a pocket-sized over-the-counter antacid. You were having digestive problems.”

  “Do you have any more?”

  “I have some,” Grandma said. “She gave some to me. I was saving it for when I saw my true love and needed it.”

  “Do you have a true love?” Annie asked Grandma.

  “I’m hot for George Clooney,” Grandma said, “but I think he mostly stays in Hollywood.”

  “My idea is to give more of the pink stuff to Lula, and tell her it’s an antidote to the love potion she took,” I said.

  “That’s a little deceptive,” Annie said. “I don’t feel comfortable with that. Suppose he really is her true love?”

  “Yeah,” Grandma said. “It would be like those time-travelers when they aren’t supposed to mess around with history.”