Ranger shrugged into his jacket and set off, crossing the street with the band of merry men closing ranks behind him.
We entered the building and climbed two flights of stairs. Ranger went to 3C and listened at the door. The rest of us flattened against the wall. No one spoke. Ranger and Santos stood, guns in hand. Brown and Tank held flashlights.
I braced myself, expecting Ranger to kick the door down, but instead, he took a key from his pocket and inserted it in the lock. The door started to open but caught on a security chain. Ranger took two steps back and threw himself at the door, catching the door at chain height with his shoulder. The door popped open, and Ranger was in first. Then everyone was in except me. Lights flashed on. Ranger shouted, “Security!” and everything was chaos. Half-naked people were scrambling off floor mattresses. Women were shrieking. Men were swearing.
Ranger's team went room by room, cuffing people, lining them up against the living room wall. Six people in all.
One of the men was berserk, waving his arms to avoid getting cuffed. “You can't do this, you fuckers,” he was yelling. “This is my apartment. This is private property. Somebody call the fucking police.” He pulled a knife from his pants pocket and flicked it open.
Tank grabbed the guy by the back of his shirt, lifted him off his feet, and threw him out the window.
Everyone went still, staring dumbstruck at the shattered glass. My mouth was open and my heart had gone dead in my chest.
Ranger didn't look all that disturbed. “Have to replace that window,” he said.
I heard a groan and some scraping sounds. I crossed the room to the window and looked out. The guy with the knife was spreadeagle on the fire escape, making feeble attempts to right himself.
I clapped a hand to my heart, relieved to find it had started beating again. “He's on the fire escape! God, for a minute there I thought you dumped him three stories.”
Tank looked out the window with me. “You're right. He's on the fire escape. Sonovagun.”
It was a small apartment. One small bedroom, one small bath, small kitchen, small living room. Kitchen counters were littered with fast-food wrappers and bags, empty soda cans, food-encrusted plates, and cheap, dented pots. The Formica was scarred with burn marks from cigarettes and crack cookers. Used syringes, half-eaten bagels, filthy dish towels, and unidentifiable garbage clogged the sink. Two stained and torn mattresses had been pushed against the wall in the living room. No lamps, no tables, no chairs, no sign that civilized man occupied the apartment. Just filth and clutter. The same refuse that banked against gutters outside filled the rooms of 3C. The air was stale with the odors of urine and pot and unwashed bodies and something nastier.
Santos and Brown herded the bedraggled occupants into the hall and down the stairs.
“What happens to them now?” I asked Ranger.
“Bobby'll drive them over to the meth clinic and drop them off. They're on their own from there.”
“No arrests?”
“We don't do arrests. Not unless someone's FTA.”
Tank returned from the car with a cardboard box filled with interior decorating supplies, which in this case consisted of disposable gloves, trash bags, and a coffee can for syringes.
“This is the deal,” Ranger said to me. “We strip the apartment of everything not nailed down. Tomorrow the landlord will bring someone in to clean and do repairs.”
“What's to stop the tenant from returning?”
Ranger just stared at me.
“Right,” I said. “Stupid question.”
IT WAS MIDMORNING when we went through with the broom. Santos and Brown had positioned themselves on folding chairs in the small vestibule downstairs. They were to take the first security shift. Tank was on his way to the landfill with the mattresses and bags of garbage. Ranger and I were left to lock up the apartment.
Ranger angled the brim of a Navy SEALS ball cap to shade his eyes. “So,” he said, “what do you think of security work? You want to be on the team? I can let you take the graveyard shift with Tank.”
“He isn't going to throw any more people out windows, is he?”
“Hard to say, Babe.”
“I don't know if I'm cut out for this.”
Ranger took his SEALS hat off and put it on me, tucking my hair behind my ears, letting his hands linger a moment too long. “You have to believe in what you're doing.”
That could be a problem. And Ranger could be a problem. I was feeling much too attracted to him. Ranger wasn't listed under potential boyfriends in my Rolodex. Ranger was listed under crazed mercenaries. An attraction to Ranger would be like chasing after the doomsday orgasm.
I took a steadying breath. “I guess I could try a shift,” I said. “See how it goes.”
I WAS STILL wearing the hat when Ranger dropped me off at my apartment. I removed the cap and held it out to him. “Don't forget your SEALS hat.”
Ranger looked at me from behind dark glasses. His eyes hidden. His thoughts unreadable. His voice soft. “Keep it. Looks good on you.”
“It's a righteous hat.”
He smiled. “Live up to it, Babe.”
I pushed through the double glass doors into the lobby. I was about to take the stairs when the elevator opened and Mrs. Bestler leaned out. “Going up,” she said. “Step to the rear of the car.”
Mrs. Bestler was eighty-three and had an apartment on the third floor. When things got boring she played elevator operator.
“Morning, Mrs. Bestler,” I said. “Second floor.”
She hit the two button and eyeballed me. “Looks like you've been working. Catch any bad guys today?”
“Helped a friend clean an apartment.”
Mrs. Bestler smiled. “What a good girl.” The elevator stopped and the doors opened. “Second floor,” Mrs. Bestler sang out. “Better dresses. Designer suits. Ladies' lounge.”
I let myself into my apartment and went straight to the phone machine and its blinking red light.
I had two messages. The first was from Morelli, and it was for dinner. Miss Popularity, that's me.
“Meet you at Pino's at six,” Morelli said.
Morelli's invitations always produced mixed emotions. The initial reaction was a sexual rush at the sound of his voice, the rush was followed by a queasy stomach while I considered his motives, and the queasy stomach eventually gave way to curiosity and anticipation. Ever the optimist.
The second message was from Mabel. “A man just came asking about Fred,” Mabel said. “Something about a business deal, and he needed to find Fred right away. I explained how I couldn't help him, but I said you were on the job, so he shouldn't worry. I thought you might want to know.”
I called Mabel back and asked who the man was and what he looked like.
“He was about my height,” she said. “And he had brown hair.”
“Caucasian?”
“Yes. And now that you mention it, he didn't give me his name.”
“What kind of business deal was he talking about?”
“I don't know. He didn't say.”
“Okay,” I said. “Let me know if he bothers you again.”
I checked in with the office to see if there were any new FTAs and was told no luck. I called my best friend, Mary Lou, but she couldn't talk because her youngest kid was sick with a cold, and the dog had eaten a sock and had just pooped it out on the living room rug.
I was contemplating Rex's soup can with new appreciation when the phone rang.
“I got it,” Grandma said. “I got a name for you. I was at the beauty parlor this morning getting a set, and Harriet Schnable was there for a perm, and she said she heard at bingo that Fred's been paying calls on Winnie Black. Harriet isn't one of those to make something of nothing.”
“Do you know Winnie Black?”
“Only through the seniors' club. She goes on the bus trip to Atlantic City sometimes. Her and her husband, Axel. I guess that's how Fred meets most of his honeys these da
ys . . . at the seniors' meetings. A lot of those women are real hot to trot, if you know what I mean. I even got Winnie's address,” Grandma said. “I called Ida Lukach. She's the club's membership chairman. She knows everything.”
I took down the address and thanked Grandma.
“Personally, I'm hoping it was aliens,” Grandma said. “But then I don't know what they'd want with an old fart like Fred.”
I settled my new hat on my brown bear cookie jar and traded my jeans for a beige suit and heels. I didn't know Winnie Black, and I thought it wouldn't hurt to look professional. Sometimes people responded better to a suit than to jeans. I grabbed my shoulder bag, locked the apartment, and joined Mrs. Bestler in the elevator.
“Did he find you?” Mrs. Bestler wanted to know.
“Did who find me?”
“There was a man looking for you. Very polite. I let him off on your floor about ten minutes ago.”
“He never knocked on my door. I would have heard him. I was in the kitchen almost the whole time.”
“Isn't that odd.” The elevator door opened to the lobby, and Mrs. Bestler smiled. “First floor. Ladies' handbags. Fine jewelry.”
“What did the man look like?” I asked Mrs. Bestler.
“Oh, dear, he was big. Very big. And dark-skinned. African-American.”
Not the man Mabel just called about. That guy was short and Caucasian.
“Did he have long hair? Maybe pulled back into a ponytail?”
“No. He almost didn't have any hair at all.”
I did a fast check of the lobby. No big guy lurking in the corners. I exited the building and looked around the lot. Nobody there either. My visitor had disappeared. Too bad, I thought. I'd love an excuse not to visit Winnie Black. I'd talk to a census taker, a vacuum-cleaner salesman, a religious zealot. All preferable to Winnie Black. It was bad enough knowing cheapskate Uncle Fred had a girlfriend. I really didn't want to see her. I didn't want to confront Winnie Black and have to imagine her in the sack with duck-footed Fred.
WINNIE LIVED IN a little bungalow on Low Street. White clapboard with blue shutters and a red door. Very patriotic. I parked, marched up to her front door, and rang the bell. I hadn't any idea what I was going to say to this woman. Probably something like, Excuse me, are you going around the block with my uncle Fred?
I was about to ring a second time when the door opened and Winnie Black peered out at me.
She had a pleasant, round face and a pleasant, round body, and she didn't look like the sort to boff someone's uncle.
I introduced myself and gave her my card. “I'm looking for Fred Shutz,” I said. “He's been missing since Friday, and I was hoping you might be able to give me some information.”
The pleasant expression froze on her face. “I'd heard he was missing, but I don't know what I can tell you.”
“When did you see him last?”
“The day he disappeared. He stopped by for some coffee and cake. He did that sometimes. It was right after lunch. And he stayed for about an hour. Axel, my husband, was out getting the tires rotated on the Chrysler.”
Axel was getting his tires rotated. Unh! Mental head slap. “Did Fred seem sick or worried? Did he give any indication that he might be going off somewhere?”
“He was . . . distracted. He said he had something big going on.”
“Did he say any more about it?”
“No. But I got the feeling it had to do with the garbage company. He was having a problem with his account. Something about the computer deleting his name from the customer list. And Fred said he had the goods on them, and he was going to make out in spades. Those were his exact words—'make out in spades.' I guess he never got to the garbage company.”
“How do you know he never got to the garbage company?” I asked Winnie.
Winnie seemed surprised at the question. “Everyone knows.”
No secrets in the Burg.
“One other thing,” I said. “I found some photographs on Fred's desk. Did Fred ever mention any photographs to you?”
“No. Not that I can think of. Were these family photographs?”
“They were pictures of a garbage bag. And in some of the pictures you could see the bag's contents.”
“No. I would have remembered something like that.”
I looked over her shoulder into the interior of her neat little house. No husband in sight. “Is Axel around?”
“He's at the park with the dog.”
I got back in the Buick and drove two blocks to the park. It was a patch of well-tended grass, two blocks long and a block wide. There were benches and flower beds and large trees, and there was a small kids' play area at one end.
It wasn't hard to spot Axel Black. He was sitting on a bench, lost in thought, with his dog at his side. The dog was a small mutt type, sitting there, eyes glazed, looking a lot like Axel. The difference was that Axel had glasses and the dog had hair.
I parked the car and approached the two. Neither moved, even when I was standing directly in front of them.
“Axel Black?” I asked.
He looked up at me. “Yes?”
I introduced myself and gave him my card. “I'm looking for Fred Shutz,” I said. “And I've been talking to some of the seniors who might have known Fred.”
“Bet they've been giving you an earful,” Axel said. “Old Fred was a real character. Cheapest man who ever walked the earth. Argued over every nickel. Never contributed to anything. And he thought he was a Romeo, too. Always cozying up to some woman.”
“Doesn't sound like you thought much of him.”
“Had no use for the man,” Axel said. “Don't wish him any harm, but don't like him much either. The truth is, he was shifty.”
“You have any idea what happened to him?”
“Think he might have paid too much attention to the wrong woman.”
I couldn't help thinking maybe he was talking about Winnie as being the wrong woman. And maybe he ran Fred over with his Chrysler, picked him up, shoved him in the trunk, and dumped him into the river.
That didn't explain the photographs, but maybe the photographs had nothing to do with Fred's disappearance.
“Well,” I said, “if you think of anything, let me know.”
“You bet,” Axel said.
Fred's sons, Ronald and Walter, were next on my list. Ronald was the line foreman at the pork roll factory. Walter and his wife, Jean, owned a convenience store on Howard Street. I thought it wouldn't hurt to talk to Walter and Ronald. Mostly because when my mother asked me what I was doing to find Uncle Fred I needed to have something to say.
Walter and Jean had named their store the One-Stop. It was across the street from a twenty-four-hour supermarket and would have been driven out of business long ago were it not for the fact that in one stop customers could purchase a loaf of bread, play the numbers, and put down twenty dollars on some nag racing at Freehold.
Walter was behind the register reading the paper when I walked into the store. It was early afternoon, and the store was empty. Walter put the paper down and got to his feet. “Did you find him?”
“No. Sorry.”
He took a deep breath. “Jesus. I thought you were coming to tell me he was dead.”
“Do you think he's dead?”
“I don't know what I think. In the beginning I figured he just wandered off. Had another stroke or something. But now I can't figure it. None of it makes sense.”
“Do you know anything about Fred having problems with his garbage company?”
“Dad had problems with everyone,” Walter said.
I said good-bye to Walter, fired up the Buick, and drove across town to the pork roll factory. I parked in a visitor slot, went inside, and asked the woman at the front desk to pass a note through to Ronald.
Ronald came out a few minutes later. “I guess this is about Dad,” he said. “Nice of you to help us look for him. I can't believe he hasn't turned up by now.”
> “Do you have any theories?”
“None I'd want to say out loud.”
“The women in his life?”
Ronald shook his head. “He was a pip. Cheap as they come and could never keep his pecker in his pants. I don't know if he can still fire up the old engine, but he's still running around. Christ, he's seventy-two years old.”
“Do you know anything about a disagreement with the garbage company?”