Four to Score

  “Just this second,” Lula said. “Saw her just leave the lot.”

  I looked out to St. James, and an unsettling thought flashed into my head. “You don't suppose she did this on purpose, do you?”

  “Blew up both our cars so we couldn't go off looking for her daughter? You think she's smart enough to think of something like that?”

  * * * * *

  THE FIRE TRUCKS left first, then the police, then the tow trucks. And now all that was left was a charred, sanded spot on the blacktop.

  “Oh well,” Lula said. “Easy come, easy go.”

  “You don't seem very upset. I thought you loved that car.”

  “Well the radio wasn't working right, and it got a ding on the side of the door at the supermarket. I can go out and get a new one now. Soon as I get the paperwork done I'm going car shopping. Nothing I like better than car shopping.”

  Nothing I hated more than car shopping. I'd rather have a mammogram than go car shopping. I never had enough money to get a car I really liked. And then there were the car salesmen . . . second only to dentists in their ability to inflict pain. Ick. An involuntary shiver gripped my spine.

  “See, I'm one of those positive type people,” Lula went on. “My glass isn't half empty. Nuh uh. My glass is always half full. That's why I'm making something of myself. And anyway, there's people lots worse off than me. I didn't spend my afternoon looking for a note in a box full of dog poop.”

  “Do you think Mrs. Nowicki was telling the truth about Atlantic City? She could have been trying to throw us off the trail.”

  “Only one way to find out.”

  “We need wheels.”

  We looked at each other and did a double grimace. We both knew where there was an available car. My father had a powder-​blue-​and-​white '53 Buick sitting in his garage. From time to time I'd been desperate enough to borrow the beast.

  “No, no, no,” Lula said. “I'm not going down to Atlantic City in that big blue pimpmobile.”

  “Where's your positive attitude? What about all that cup-​is-​half-​full stuff?”

  “Fuck the cup is half full. I can't be cool in that car. And I don't ride in no uncool car. I got a reputation at stake. You see a big black woman sliding across the seat in that car, and you think one thing. Twenty-​five dollars for a blow job. I'm telling you, if you aren't Jay Leno you got no business being in that car.”

  “Okay, let me get this straight. If I decide to go to Atlantic City, and the only car I can come up with is Big Blue . . . you don't want to go with me.”

  “Well, since you put it that way . . .”

  I called Lula a cab, and then I trudged up the stairs to my apartment. I let myself in and went straight to the refrigerator for a beer. “I have to tell you,” I said to Rex. “I'm getting discouraged.”

  I checked my answering machine and received a terse message from Eddie Kuntz. “I got it.”

  Kuntz didn't sound any happier when I called him back. He read the letters out to me. Fifty-​three in all. And he hung up. No inquiring as to my health. No suggestion to have a nice day.

  I dialed Sally and transferred the burden onto him. “By the way,” I said. “What kind of car do you have?”

  “Porsche.”

  Figures. “Two seater?”

  “Is there any other kind?”

  Room for me. No room for Lula. She'd understand. After all, this was business, right? And the fact that her car just got blown up, that was business too, right? “It wasn't my fault,” I said. “I wasn't the one who tossed the cigarette.”

  “I must have been beamed up for a minute there,” Sally said. “I think I just got a couple sentences from the other side.”

  I explained about the cars' catching fire and about the lead from Mrs. Nowicki.

  “Sounds like we need to go to Atlantic City,” Sally said.

  “You think we could squash Lula into the Porsche with us?”

  “Not even if we greased her.”

  I gave an internal sigh of regret and told Sally we'd go in my car and I'd pick him up at seven. No way was I going to be able to cut Lula out of this caper.

  Stephanie Plum 4 - Four To Score

  Stephanie Plum 4 - Four To Score

  Stephanie Plum 4 - Four To Score

  7

  “OTHER MOTHERS have daughters who get married and have children,” my mother said. “I have a daughter who blows up cars. How did this happen? This doesn't come from my side of the family.”

  We were at the table, eating dinner, and my father had his head bent over his plate, and his shoulders were shaking.

  “What?” my mother said to him.

  “I don't know. It just struck me funny. Some men could go a lifetime and never have their kid blow up a car, but I have a daughter who's knocked off three cars and burned down a funeral home. Maybe that's some kind of record.”

  Everyone sat in shocked silence because that was the longest speech my father had made in fifteen years.

  “Your Uncle Lou used to blow up cars,” my father said to me. “You don't know that, but it's true. When Louie was young he worked for Joey the Squid. Joey owned car lots back then, and he was in a war with the Grinaldi brothers, who also owned car lots. And Joey would pay Louie to blow up Grinaldi cars. Louie got paid by the car. Fifty dollars a car. That was big money in those days.”

  “You've been to the lodge, drinking,” my mother said to my father. “I thought you were supposed to be out with the cab?”

  My father forked in some potatoes. “Nobody wanted to take a cab. Slow day.”

  “Did Uncle Lou ever get caught?”

  “Never. Lou was good. The Grinaldi brothers never suspected Lou. They thought Joey was sending out Willy Fuchs. One day they clipped Willy, and then Lou stopped blowing up Grinaldi cars.”

  “Ommigod.”

  “Worked out okay,” my father said. “Lou went into the wholesale fruit business after that and did pretty good.”

  “Funky bracelet you got on your arm,” Grandma said. “Is it new?”

  “Actually, it's half of a pair of cuffs. I accidentally locked myself into them and then couldn't find the key. So I had to hacksaw one of them off. I need to go to a locksmith to get this half opened, but I haven't had the time.”

  “Muriel Slickowsky's son is a locksmith,” my mother said. “I could call Muriel.”

  “Maybe tomorrow. I have to go to Atlantic City tonight. I'm checking out a lead on Maxine.”

  “I should go along,” Grandma said, jumping out of her chair, heading for the stairs. “I could help. I blend right in there. Atlantic City's full of old babes like me. Let me change my dress. I'll be ready in a jiffy!”

  “Wait! I don't think . . .”

  “Wasn't nothing good on TV tonight anyway,” Grandma called from the second floor. “And don't worry, I'll come prepared.”

  That brought me out of my seat. “No guns!” I looked over at my mother. “She doesn't still have that forty-​five, does she?”

  “I looked all over in her room, and I couldn't find it.”

  “I want her strip-​searched before she gets in my car.”

  “Not enough money in the universe,” my father said. “Not under threat of death would I look at that woman naked.”

  * * * * *

  LULA, Grandma Mazur and I stood in the hall, waiting for Sally to answer his doorbell. I was wearing a short denim skirt, white T-​shirt and sandals. Grandma was wearing a red-​and-​blue print dress with white sneakers. Lula was wearing a low-​cut red knit dress that hiked up about three inches below her ass, red-​tinted hose and red satin sling-​back heels.

  And Sally opened the door in full drag. Black bitch queen wig, skin-​tight silver-​sequined sheath that stopped three inches below his ass, and strappy silver platform heels that put him at a startling 6'8" without the hair.

  Sally gave me the once-​over. “I thought we were supposed to be in disguise.”

  “I' m disguised as a f
ox,” Lula said.

  “Yeah, and I'm disguised as an old lady,” Grandma said.

  “My mother wouldn't let me go if I was disguised as somebody,” I said.

  Sally tugged at his dress. “I'm disguised as Sheba.”

  “Girlfriend,” Lula said to him, “you are the shit.”

  “Sally's a drag queen,” I explained to Grandma.

  “No kidding,” Grandma said. “I always wanted to meet a drag queen. I always wanted to know what you do with your dingdong when you wear girl's clothes.”

  “You're supposed to wear special underpants that tuck you under.”

  We all looked down at the crotch-​level bulge in the front of Sally's dress.

  “So sue me,” Sally said. “They give me a rash.”

  Lula tipped her nose in the air. “What's that smell? Mmmmmm, I smell something baking.”

  Sally rolled his eyes. “It's Sugar. He's in a fucking frenzy. He must have gone through ten pounds of flour in the last two hours.”

  Lula muscled past Sally into the kitchen. “Lord,” she said, “will you look at this . . . cakes as far as the eye could see.”

  Sugar was at the counter, kneading bread dough. He looked up when we came in and gave us an embarrassed smile. “You probably think I'm weird to be doing all this baking.”

  “Honey, I think you're cute as a button,” Lula said. “You ever want a new roommate you give me a call.”

  “I like the way it smells when you have something in the oven,” Sugar said. “Like home.”

  “We're going to Atlantic City,” I said to Sugar. “Would you like to join us?”

  “Thanks, but I have a pie ready to go in, and this dough has to rise, and then I have some ironing . . . ”

  “Damn,” Lula said, “you sound like Cinderella.”

  Sugar poked at his dough. “I'm not much of a gambler.”

  We each took a cookie from a plate on the counter and herded ourselves out of the kitchen, down the hall and into the elevator.

  “What a sad little guy,” Lula said. “He don't look like he has much fun.”

  “He's a lot more fun when he's in a dress,” Sally said. “You put him in a dress and his whole personality changes.”

  “Then why don't he always wear a dress?” Lula wanted to know.

  Sally shrugged. “I don't know. Guess that doesn't feel right, either.”

  We crossed the sleek marble lobby and walked the flower-​bordered path to the lot.

  “Over here,” I said to Sally. “The blue-​and-​white Buick.”

  Sally's mascared lashes snapped open. “The Buick? Holy shit, is this your car? It's got portholes. Fucking portholes! What's under the hood.”

  “A V-​eight.”

  “Yow! A V-​eight! A fucking V-​eight!”

  “Good thing he don't have them tuck underpants on,” Lula said. “He'd rupture himself.”

  The Buick was a man thing. Women hated it. Men loved it. I thought it must have something to do with the size of the tires. Or maybe it was the bulbous, egglike shape . . . sort of like a Porsche on steroids.

  “We'd better get going,” I said to Sally.

  He took the keys out of my hand and slid behind the wheel.

  “Excuse me,” I said. “This is my car. I get to drive.”

  “You need someone with balls to drive this car,” Sally said.

  Lula stood hip stuck out, hand on hip. “Hah! And you think we don't have balls? Look again, Tiny Tim.”

  Sally held tight to the wheel. “Okay, what'll it take? I'll give you fifty bucks if you let me drive.”

  “I don't want money,” I said. “If you want to drive the car, all you have to do is ask.”

  “Yeah, you just don't go pulling this macho shit on us,” Lula said. “We don't stand for none of that. We don't take that bus.”

  “This is gonna be great,” Sally said. “I always wanted to drive one of these.”

  Grandma and Lula piled in back, and I got in front.

  Sally pulled a slip of paper from his purse. “Before I forget, here's the latest clue.”

  I read it aloud. “ 'Last clue. Last chance. Blue Moon Bar. Saturday at nine.' ”

  Maxine was getting ready to bolt. She was setting Eddie up one last time. And what about me? I thought she might be setting me up one last time, too, by sending me on a wild-​goose chase to Atlantic City.

  * * * * *

  THE FIRST THING I always notice about Atlantic City is that it's not Las Vegas. Vegas is all splash from the outside to the inside. Atlantic City is not so much about neon lights as about good parking. The casinos are built on the boardwalk, but truth is, nobody gives a damn about the boardwalk. A.C. is not about ocean. A.C. is about letting it ride. And if you're a senior citizen, so much the better. This is the Last Chance Saloon.

  The city's slums sit butt-​flush with the casinos' back doors. Since Jersey is not about perfection this isn't a problem. For me, Jersey is about finding the brass ring and grabbing hold, and if you have to go through some slums to get to the slots . . . fuck it. Crank up your car window, lock your door and roll past the pushers and pimps to valet parking.

  It's all very exhilarating.

  And while it's not Vegas, it's also not Monte Carlo. You don't see a lot of Versace gowns in Atlantic City. There are always some guys at the craps table with slicked-​back hair and pinkie rings. And there are always some women dressed up like bar singers standing next to the oily, pinkie ring guys. But mostly what you see in Atlantic City is sixty-​five-​year-​old women wearing polyester warm-​up suits, toting buckets of quarters, heading for the poker machines.

  I could go to New York or Vegas with Lula and Sally and never be noticed. In Atlantic City it was like trying to blend in with Sigfried and Roy and five of their tigers.

  We came onto the floor, four abreast, letting the noise wash over us, taking it all in . . . the mirrored ceiling, the 3-D carpet, the flashing lights, and hustling, swirling crowds of people. We moved through the room and old men walked into walls, pit bosses turned silent, waitresses stopped in their tracks, chips were dropped on the floor and women stared with the sort of open-​mouthed curiosity usually reserved for train wrecks. As if they'd never seen a seven-​foot transvestite and a two-​hundred-​pound black woman with blond baloney curls all dressed up like Cher on a bad day.

  Do I know how to conduct an undercover operation, or what?

  “Good thing I got my Social Security check yesterday,” Grandma said, eyeing the slots. “I feel lucky.”

  “Pick your poison,” Lula said to Sally.

  “Blackjack!”

  And off they all went.

  “Keep your eyes open for Maxine,” I said to their departing backs.

  I walked the room for an hour, lost $40 shooting craps, but got a free beer for a $5 tip. I hadn't run across Maxine, but then that wasn't a surprise. I found a sectional with good visibility and settled in to watch the people.

  At eleven-​thirty Grandma appeared and sank down next to me. “Won twenty bucks on my first machine, and then it turned on me,” she said. “Bad luck all night after that.”

  “Got any money left?”

  “None. Still, it wasn't all wasted. I met a real looker. He picked me up at the two-​dollar poker machines, so you know he's no cheapskate.”

  I raised my eyebrows.

  “You should have stayed with me. I could have gotten you fixed up, too.”

  Oh boy.

  A small white-​haired man approached us. “Here's your Manhattan,” he said to Grandma, handing her a drink. “And who's this?” he asked, turning to me. “This must be your granddaughter.”

  “This here's Harry Meaker,” Grandma said to me. “Harry's from Mercerville, and he had bum luck tonight, too.”

  “I always got bum luck,” Harry said. “Had bum luck all my life. Been married two times, and both wives died. Had a double bypass last year, and now I'm clogging up again. I can feel it. And look at this. See this r
ed scaly patch on my nose? Skin cancer. Gonna have it cut out next week.”

  “Harry came down on the bus,” Grandma said.

  “Prostate problems,” Harry said. “Need a bus with a toilet on it.” He looked at his watch. “I gotta go. Bus leaves in a half hour. Don't want to miss it.”