Ten minutes later Lula swung into the store and marched back to the meat counter.
“I can’t believe you abandoned us and now you’re working here,” she said. “I’m forced to be driving Vinnie around. My car’s gonna have a grease spot on the headrest. How am I ever gonna get that out?” She looked down at the case with the sausages and organ meats. “Holy cannoli, is that a tongue? That’s the biggest freaking tongue I ever saw. It’s like it’s all swelled up. I’m getting hot looking at it. Can you imagine what a tongue like that could do?”
“It’s a cow tongue,” I said.
“No wonder cows are so contented.”
“Did you want something?” I asked Lula. “Lunch meat? Hot wings?”
“No. I just came in to see you, and see how you’re doing.”
“My nose feels a lot better.”
“Are you going to Bingo tonight?”
“No. This job gets out late.”
“It don’t sound like such a good job to me,” Lula said. “And that apron you’re wearing is yikes. You need to go to the kitchen store and get yourself something with ruffles.”
Ranger called at noon. “What’s with the butcher shop?”
“I quit the bonds office and took a job as a butcher.”
“Babe,” Ranger said. And he hung up.
By four o’clock Randy had hacked up half a cow and gone through a lot of peach schnapps. I saw no indication that the schnapps affected him, with the possible exception of increasing the ruddiness in his cheeks. Hard to tell if the ruddiness came from the schnapps or from taking a cleaver to Ferdinand the Bull.
“Do you live close to the store?” I asked him.
“I live a quarter mile away in an apartment over the laundromat. It’s real convenient when I want to do laundry, only thing is my floor vibrates if all the dryers are going at once.”
“Is that the laundromat on King Street?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s a nice laundromat. I use it sometimes. Maybe I’ll use it tonight and come visit you.”
“You mean you’d come in to my apartment?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t get a lot of visitors.”
“You could show me how to cook something,” I told him. “A hamburger or a pork chop.”
“I was planning on steak tonight.”
“I’d love to learn how to cook steak. I won’t even go home to get my laundry. We can go straight from the store.”
“I guess that would be okay,” Randy said. “Is it a date?”
“No. It’s a cooking lesson.”
“Maybe it could turn into a date someday.”
“Sure. Anything’s possible.”
Okay, so I knew that wasn’t possible, but it was a small fib for a good cause. I wanted to look around Randy’s apartment to see if he had Venetian blind cord stashed somewhere.
I started cleaning up before the shop closed. By eight we were picking out steaks, and we were on the road by eight-thirty. I followed Randy and parked in the laundromat lot. I got out of the CR-V and looked up at the second-floor apartment. There were Venetian blinds on the windows. I cautioned myself not to get carried away. Lots of people had Venetian blinds on their windows, and most of those people weren’t killers.
We trudged up the stairs, Randy unlocked his door, and we carted our dinner inside. Randy had a grocery bag with the steaks and a loaf of sourdough bread, and I had the half-empty bottle of schnapps.
He had a brown leather couch and a matching recliner positioned in front of a large flat-screen television in his living room. He had a floor lamp and a tray table by the recliner. The floor was hardwood with a worn-out tan area rug under the furniture. No curtains.
The kitchen was almost as large as the living room. The appliances were old but obviously worked. The walls were lined with shelves holding cans of tomato paste, spices, oils, canisters of flour and sugar, steak sauce, garlic, apple juice, soy sauce, kidney beans, ketchup, and more. One section of shelving was given over to glasses and dishes. Another to pots and pans. There were two small cabinets over the counter on either side of the sink, and a small square wood table with four chairs was set into a corner of the kitchen. There were salt and pepper shakers in the middle of the table.
“This is nice,” I said. “It’s comfortable.”
“It’s okay. I don’t spend much time here. The shop is open six days a week, and I get home late. I make dinner and then I watch television.”
“What about Sundays?”
“I go to yard sales. I collect things.”
I looked around. His apartment was bare-bones. “Where do you keep the things you collect?”
“In a garage behind the deli.” He put a cast iron grill pan on the gas cooktop and turned the oven on. “Do you want a drink?”
“Sure.”
He poured out two tumblers of schnapps. “All I’ve got is schnapps,” he said. “I hope that’s okay.”
I took a sip of the schnapps and felt the burn all the way to my hoo-ha. I figured it was about a hundred proof.
“Boy, that’s good stuff,” I said, blinking back tears.
“I got started drinking it when I worked in the slaughterhouse. It keeps you warm when you’re working in the freezer all day carrying whole hogs around on your back.”
“Good to know.”
“Yeah, if you want to be a butcher, schnapps is the way to go.”
He turned the burners on, then unwrapped the steaks and put them on the grill on top of the stove. He shook salt and pepper on them and added some hot sauce.
“I like my steaks good and salty, and then I give them some kick with the hot sauce,” he said. “I start them out on the grill, so they get seared and marked, and then I turn them over. If you didn’t know better you’d swear they got done outside on a grill.”
I sipped some more schnapps and looked down at the steaks.
“Yep,” I said. “They look grilled all right.”
“We’ll let these sit here and burn a little and then we’ll finish them off in the oven. I’ll set the table and you can put the bread on a bread board and get the butter out of the refrigerator.”
The refrigerator contained a pound of butter, a quart of milk, and schnapps. No vegetables. No juice. Just bottles and bottles of schnapps.
“I guess you like your schnapps cold sometimes,” I said to Randy.
“It’s awesome cold. I keep some in the freezer too.”
I looked in the freezer. It was packed wall-to-wall with schnapps and vanilla ice cream. I was starting to like Randy. I didn’t care if he killed old ladies, I was thinking he was okay. I looked at my glass and realized it was empty. Good deal. I could try some frozen schnapps.
I set the butter and the bread on the table and opened a bottle of the frozen schnapps. I filled our glasses, and we toasted the steaks.
“They’re ready to go into the oven,” Randy said. “All you do is pop them in, grill and all. You put them in, and I’ll slice the bread.”
“I don’t see any potholders.”
“Use a towel. There are kitchen towels by the sink.”
I grabbed a towel and wrapped it around the end of the grill. I pulled the grill off the burner, slid the grill into the oven, closed the oven door, and then realized I’d caught the end of the towel in the open flame and the towel was on fire. I had a moment of panic before my schnapps-soaked brain thought to toss the towel into the sink. I tossed the towel, missed the sink, and set a roll of paper towels on fire. Randy grabbed the schnapps bottle, poured it over the flaming paper towels, hoping to douse the fire, and after that it was mayhem.
Two hours later I was in the street with Randy and a fire department investigator, explaining how the fire started. In the interest of transparency, I have to say it wasn’t the first time I’d been in this position. Grandma and I had burned down a funeral home a while ago, and it had been much more spectacular.
“I guess I should have gone for the fire extin
guisher instead of the schnapps,” Randy said. “I just grabbed the first thing I saw that was liquid.”
The glow from the schnapps was long gone, I was starving hungry, and I was finding it difficult to focus. I wanted to crawl into my bed and pretend the day had never happened. I’d called Morelli an hour ago, and he and Bob were close behind me, waiting to take me home.
The guy from the fire department closed his notebook, glanced at Morelli, and gave him one of those looks that said, You poor bastard, how did you ever get involved with this idiot woman?
“Really sorry about your apartment,” I said to Randy. “Probably I’m not cut out to be a butcher, but at least I know how to cook a steak now.”
Randy nodded, and Morelli maneuvered me across the street and into his SUV.
“Do you think he understands that I’m not going to show up for work tomorrow?” I asked Morelli.
“I don’t think it matters,” Morelli said. “The fire marshal found half a truckload of hijacked schnapps in Berger’s apartment. He had cases of it stacked up like cordwood in his bedroom. There’s a good chance Berger won’t be showing up for work either.”
Bob and Morelli and I trooped into my apartment and went straight to the kitchen. We made grilled cheese and ham sandwiches, and ate them with pickles and potato chips. Morelli had a beer, and I had a soda since I was sworn off alcohol for the rest of my life.
“I need to go back to Randy’s apartment tomorrow and get Ranger’s CR-V,” I said to Morelli.
“The black one in the laundromat lot?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m sure Ranger will just have it towed.” Morelli fed the last half of his second sandwich to Bob. “You know it got totaled by a fire truck, right?”
“What?”
“I went over to talk to some of the guys while you were giving your report to the investigator. It looked like the truck rolled right over it.”
I dialed Ranger on my cellphone.
“About your CR-V,” I said.
“I know about the CR-V. This is almost as good as the time you totaled my Porsche with a garbage truck. Are you okay?”
“Yep. I’m peachy.”
“Good to know,” Ranger said, and he disconnected.
Morelli took a tub of ice cream out of the freezer and began spooning it into three bowls. “What’s the word on Berger? Did you find Venetian blind cord stashed under his mattress?”
“I didn’t look under his mattress. I burned his apartment down before I got to see the bedroom.”
“More happy news.”
“Your Grandma Bella showed up at the shop today.”
“How’d that go?”
“Same old, same old. I’ve been cursed. Yada yada yada. I’m going to hell.” I took a bowl of ice cream from Morelli. “You don’t suppose the broken finger and nose and fire are from Bella, do you?”
“None of those things are from Bella. Let’s face it, Cupcake, you’re a klutz. And if you go to hell it will be your own doing and not Bella’s.”
Bob finished his ice cream in seconds and closely watched Morelli and me in case some ice cream should fall off a spoon and onto the floor.
“Bella bought blood sausage and tongue,” I said to Morelli.
Morelli brightened at the news. “I bet she’s going to make some up for the game.”
“You eat that stuff?”
“It’s great. You should learn how to make it. My mom and Bella cook it up with sauerkraut. The smell could peel wallpaper off a wall, but it tastes fantastic.”
A chill ran down my spine. I had a flashback to the game party with the shrieking kids, and the dog poop, and crazy Bella. And now I find out there’s cow tongue involved in the whole family thing.
“It’s cow tongue,” I said to him. “Have you ever seen one that wasn’t in a stew?”
“I thought you liked tongue,” Morelli said.
“Not cow tongue!”
Morelli grinned. “Guess it’s an acquired taste. I have to go. Early meeting tomorrow.”
I finished my ice cream, took two aspirin, and headed off to the bathroom. I washed my hair twice and stood under the water until the smell of burned steak was just a distant memory.
TWENTY-THREE
I HAD A terrible night. Weird dreams, a dull ache moving around inside my head, and night sweats. I gave up trying to sleep when the sun poured into my bedroom and the world turned into a big red fireball on the other side of my closed eyelids.
So here’s a fast assessment of my situation. I was hungover, unemployed, had no money, no car, no food left in my fridge, and I owed Victor pork chops.
I dragged myself out of bed, dressed in my usual uniform of jeans, T-shirt, and sneakers, pulled my hair into a ponytail, and called Lula.
“I need a ride,” I told her.
“Thank God,” Lula said. “This better be a call telling me you’re coming back, because I’m feeling overworked. The new issue of Star came out, and I haven’t had a chance to read it. It’s ‘Lula, do this,’ and ‘Lula, do that.’ Plus your pervert cousin is saying he’s gonna hire Joyce Barnhardt, and you know how I feel about Joyce Barnhardt. I hate Joyce Barnhardt.”
Joyce Barnhardt has double-D breast implants, a lot of dyed red hair, and a way with whips and paddles that Vinnie finds appealing. She’s also a psycho sociopath and genuinely horrible person.
“First things first,” I told Lula. “A fire truck totaled my loaner CR-V, and I don’t see a replacement in my parking lot. I was hoping you’d give me a ride over to my parents’ house so I could get the Buick.”
“Get out! Are you shitting me? A fire truck totaled Ranger’s car? That’s almost as good as when the garbage truck totaled the megabucks Porsche he loaned you. That car was only one inch thick when they finally got the garbage truck off it. I can’t wait to hear about this. My day is getting better already. I’ll be there in a couple minutes.”
I went through jacket pockets and four shelved handbags, and searched the bottom of my messenger bag for loose change. I found three tracking units from Ranger plus two dollars and seventy-five cents. I put it all in my messenger bag and took the stairs to the lobby.
I called Ranger while I waited for Lula.
“I cleaned out my closet, and I found three mini tracking units. I assume you want them back?”
“You can return them to me, or you can plant them on yourself. One of those units helped us find you on the bridge.”
“True, but sometimes being tracked twenty-four hours a day feels creepy.”
“Your call,” Ranger said. “I’m guessing you need a car?”
“I’m waiting for Lula. She’s going to take me to pick up Big Blue.”
“I have a car coming in for you, but I won’t have it until later today. I’ll find you and swap Blue out for it when it arrives.”
“How will you find me if I don’t carry one of your trackers?”
“I’ll call you on your cellphone.”
I hung up and looked through my messenger bag one more time. I didn’t believe for an instant that he wasn’t tracking me somehow. Undoubtedly he had something stuck onto the Buick, but I knew in my gut there was something else.
I looked at the phone in my hand and dialed him back.
“Have you hacked my cellphone?” I asked him.
“Babe,” Ranger said. And he disconnected.
Lula swung the Firebird into the lot to my building, stopped in front of the lobby door, and I jumped in.
“How’d you manage to get a fire truck to run over that cute little car Ranger gave you?” she asked me.
“I wanted to see if Randy Berger had any Venetian blind cord lying around, and while I was in his apartment I accidentally started a fire. And then the fire truck accidentally ran over Ranger’s car.”
“So I’m thinking you’re not working as a butcher anymore.”
“That would be good thinking.”
“You got any other places you want to look for Venetian blind cord???
?
“Randy stores things in a garage behind his deli. I wouldn’t mind taking a look in the garage.”
I had Lula drive past the front of Berger’s Bits. Lights were on inside, and the OPEN sign was in the door. Either he hadn’t been arrested, or else he was already out on bail. If he was released on bail he hadn’t used Vinnie as his agent.
Lula parked behind the pet groomer two stores down from the deli, and we walked the short distance to the garage.
“Looks sturdy,” Lula said.
Sturdy was an understatement. It was a bomb shelter. Big enough for a single car. Cinderblock construction. No windows. Metal roll-down door secured with a padlock.
“What’s he keep in here?” Lula asked. “This is like Fort Knox. Maybe he’s got gold in here.”
“I don’t suppose you have any bolt cutters with you?” I asked her.
“Darn,” Lula said. “I left them in my other purse. You want me to shoot the lock off?”
“No! I don’t want to attract attention.”
“Well, I don’t see how you’re gonna get in here. I think we need another activity. Like we could go look for Kevin.”
“Or you could drive me to the personal products plant and I could apply for a job there.”
“No way. I’m not taking you there. That’s a terrible idea. What kind of job you looking for?”
“The line. I could run the boxing machine for the sanitary napkins.”
“You’ll rip your arm off. You’re not good with machines. You’ll get your shirt caught in some moving part, and next thing you won’t have one of your arms. And besides, you gotta come back to the bonds office so I don’t have to work with Joyce Barnhardt. If I have to work with Barnhardt, I’ll have to kill her, and then I might go to jail, and a orange jumpsuit isn’t a good look for me.”
“I need a job. I’m down to two dollars and seventy-five cents.”
“That’s enough for a value meal at Cluck-in-a-Bucket. You could get a Clucky Burger and a Coke for that. I bet you didn’t have no breakfast, and that’s why you got that pale desperate look to you.”
“I have that pale desperate look because I have a hangover, and I’m broke, and unemployed.”