Crap!
“Feet don’t fail me,” Lula said, and she took off running.
I turned and took off at the same time. We reached the end of the block, and ducked behind a parked car a beat before Butchy came out his front door. He looked up and down the street, walked out to the sidewalk, and looked up and down again. He wheeled around and went back inside his house.
Lula and I scurried across the street and jumped into my car. I made a U-turn and took off.
“You’ll notice how I used restraint and didn’t shoot him or nothing,” Lula said. “Only reason I ran was because I knew that’s what you wanted. Ordinarily I wouldn’t run.”
“Running was the right thing to do,” I said.
“I bet he’s the killer,” Lula said. “He’s got a freezer and a gun.”
I turned onto Broad Street. “He’s on the list.”
“Do you think he saw us?”
“He saw something, but I don’t think he recognized us. It was pitch-black, and we were against the house.”
I dropped Lula off and drove home on autopilot. My cellphone rang when I pulled into my parking lot.
“Babe,” Ranger said. “Your car has been in Pennsylvania all afternoon, but your messenger bag has been all over the place.”
“I got a new car. The old one was leaking stuff.”
“Who were you visiting in the Burg?”
“Butchy from the loading dock. Turns out he’s got a large chest freezer and a collection of what I suspect are hijacked shoes, toaster ovens, and microwaves in his garage. And he’s got a gun in his kitchen drawer.”
“And the bar in north Trenton?”
“I was socializing with Kenny Morris. He’s very angry.”
“Does he have a gun and a freezer?”
“Don’t know. It didn’t come up in conversation. I suspect he has a freezer because he lives at home, and his father owns an ice cream factory. Do I have an assignment for Monday?”
“I’d like you at the Bogart factory. It’ll be your last day there. I have technicians working today, and on Tuesday I’ll have the cameras up and running.”
“There’s no way I’m getting back into the clown suit.”
“I’ll work around it.”
I said good night to Ranger and trudged into my apartment building and up the stairs to my apartment. Morelli was asleep on my couch. Bob was asleep on the floor beside him. Bob opened an eye and looked at me and went back to sleep. Morelli woke up and took a couple beats to focus.
“And?” he asked.
“Butchy from the loading dock has a gun.”
“Cupcake, everyone you know has a gun.” He sat up and squinted at me. “Your nose is red.”
TWENTY
MONDAY MORNING I presented myself at the ice cream factory and was assigned to the floor. I was back at the cup dropper and filler machine. I felt comfortable doing this since it had a big red button.
Three Rangeman techs were on the floor adjusting and programming the newly installed cameras. Their purpose was to keep everyone safe, but I suspected their presence was a constant reminder of danger.
I was relieved at ten-thirty, and I went to the break room for coffee. Three women were at one table, and two were at another. I didn’t know any of them. No one looked up and invited me to join them. The atmosphere in the room was subdued. Two murders and an explosion were taking a toll. Things were no longer so jolly. I got coffee and a candy bar and sat by myself. I didn’t want to intrude on the women, and I didn’t think they would tell me anything useful.
Bogart’s assistant, Kathy, found me and told me I was being reassigned to the loading dock. A truck needed loading and they were short a man.
I stripped off my yellow floor outfit and stuffed it into my locker, checked my email, grabbed my sweatshirt, and made my way to the loading dock.
Butchy was packing a small truck with shrink-wrapped orders of assorted ice cream. He stopped packing and ambled over when he saw me.
“I’m guessing you’re my helper,” he said. “Play your cards right and you might get to be foreman, being that I don’t want this job.”
“Why don’t you want the job?”
“Too much work. I’m an easygoing guy. I’m a responsibility shirker.”
“But for now you’re the foreman?”
“Looks that way. I got Noodles helping me load this truck, and when it gets loaded there’s a big rig coming in. Meantime, I need someone to load the Jolly junker over there by the guardhouse.”
I looked toward the guardhouse and saw the old, rust-riddled, faded-glory Jolly Bogart truck.
“We pulled her out of retirement,” Butchy said. “Bogart had her sitting on a hill looking out at Route 1 for the past ten years. Like an antique billboard. We put a new battery in her, and damned if she doesn’t still run. There were some squirrels living in her, but we cleaned it all up except for the one seat that’s a little chewed.”
“Who’s driving it?”
“Stan’s driving it.”
“Does he know this?”
“I didn’t talk to him personally, but someone told him to come to work, so I guess he got it figured out.”
Oh boy.
“Anyway,” Butchy said. “We gotta get the old girl filled with Kidz Kups and Bogart Bars.”
“I’m not going to get locked in the freezer, am I?”
“Hard to tell around here what’s gonna happen next.”
I grabbed the hand truck and pushed it down the hall to the freezer. I punched the code in, and propped the door open with the hand truck. A lot of frigid air was rushing out of the freezer, but I didn’t care. I was taking precautions. I loaded the hand truck and exited the freezer. The door closed with a click behind me, and I gave an involuntary shudder.
I had the Jolly truck almost filled when Stan burst out of the loading dock door. He wasn’t in his clown suit, but his nose was bright red and his hair was every which way. He was waving his arms, and his eyes were bugged out of his head.
“Are you freaking kidding me?” he yelled. “Goddamn, motherfucker, holy shit, and fuck me. Where is it? Where’s the piece-of-shit truck they dragged out of hell to make my life an even worse misery?”
“By the guardhouse,” Butchy said. “How come you’re not in your clown suit?”
“I’ve been reasonable about this,” Stan said. “I went out and did my job while I patiently waited. Well, no more. The gloves are off. No more jolly, jolly, jolly. You want to see jolly? Jolly fucking this!”
He pulled a gun, I ducked behind the guardhouse, and he fired off about fifteen rounds at the truck.
“That’s whack-a-doodle,” Butchy said to Stan when he stopped shooting.
“I hate this plant,” Stan said. “I hate this second-rate ice cream. I hate every shitty Bogart Bar that was ever made. And I especially hate Harry fucking Bogart.”
“I hear you,” Butchy said, “but you should chill. You want a joint?”
“I need more than a joint,” Stan said.
“I got some of that too,” Butchy said.
Stan wheeled around and marched back into the building.
“Someone should go after him and make sure he doesn’t do more shooting,” I said.
“He’ll be okay,” Butchy said. “He just had to do some venting. And besides, he emptied his clip.” Butchy lit up. “I guess you gotta take the truck out,” he said to me.
“No way.”
“Somebody’s gotta do it.”
“Not going to be me,” I said. “I’m not getting into the clown suit. I’m not smearing the greasepaint on my nose. I’m not driving the truck. Suppose he decides to shoot up the truck again with me in it? And anyway last time I went out in a Jolly Bogart truck it got blown up.”
“Yeah, but you weren’t in it, so it’s all good, right?”
“You take the truck out.”
“I can’t. I’m the foreman. I gotta stay here.”
“I’ll be the foreman.”
&
nbsp; “It don’t work that way. Mr. Bogart gotta make you the foreman. And anyway you’d be the foregirl. Haw! Foregirl. Who ever heard of a foregirl?”
“Okay. Fine. I’ll take the stupid truck out, but I’m not wearing the clown suit.”
“I don’t give a fig about the clown suit,” Butchy said. “Personally it always scared the holy whatever out of me.”
I tossed the remaining ice cream into the truck, got my messenger bag out of my locker, stomped back to the loading dock, and climbed behind the wheel. I turned the key, and the engine sputtered and cranked over.
“I’m not happy,” I said to Butchy. “I’m totally not happy.”
I stomped on the gas, and the truck jerked forward. I drove out of the parking lot and headed for the first neighborhood. After a couple miles the truck coughed and died. I thunked my head on the steering wheel. “Why me?”
I got out and looked at the truck. It was leaking something. Déjà vu. The story of my life. I called Lula and asked her to pick me up. I ate a Bogart Bar while I waited, and I called Ranger and gave him a recap.
“They recommissioned an old Jolly Bogart truck,” I said. “Stan Ducker went nuts when he saw it. He emptied a clip into it and stormed off. I got stuck taking the truck out, and it broke down after a couple miles. Lula’s coming to get me, but someone needs to get the truck. I don’t have any numbers associated with Bogart, so I’m calling you.”
“Lucky me,” Ranger said.
I gave him the address, disconnected, and helped myself to another Bogart Bar. Ten minutes later Lula pulled up next to the truck.
“This here truck is full of bullet holes,” Lula said.
“It had a hard morning.”
“Do you got Bogart Bars?”
“I have a truck filled with them.”
“I’ll take two. It’s almost lunchtime and I don’t mind starting with dessert.”
I gave Lula the Bogart Bars, and we waited until the tow truck showed up. I handed over the keys and abandoned the Jolly Bogart truck.
“It’s sad to see a broken-down ice cream truck full of bullet holes,” Lula said. “What’s this country coming to?”
• • •
I retrieved my car from the Bogart lot and followed Lula back to the bonds office.
“I ordered pizza on my way here,” she said. “It should get delivered any minute now. I got a extra-large pie with the works, and I got a extra-large pie with extra cheese. I’m celebrating because I expect to hear from the Naked and Afraid people today. I could be catapulted to instant fame on that show. It’s a highly rated show.”
I pulled a chair up to Connie’s desk, took Stan Ducker’s file out of my bag, and read through it one more time. There was nothing to indicate he was batshit crazy. I suspected it was the Jolly jingle. A person could only take so much of the Jolly jingle. After a week of working as the Jolly Bogart clown I’d probably empty a clip into the truck too.
“Hold on,” Lula said. “I just got a email from Naked and Afraid. It says they think me and Briggs got potential, but…say what?”
Connie and I leaned forward.
“And?” Connie said.
“They regret to inform me that the film we sent wasn’t sufficiently compelling for them to go forward with the process and they wish us the best of luck.”
“Did they say anything else?” I asked.
“They thought the white pussycat was adorable.”
The pizza delivery car stopped in front of the office, and the delivery kid got out with the pizzas.
“Hurry up,” Lula yelled at him. “Can’t you see I’m in need of a pizza? You think I got all day? I received bad news and I gotta console myself. I’m one of them comfort eaters.”
She took the two pizza boxes, stuffed some money into the kid’s hand, and brought the pizza to the desk.
“I knew it was a mistake to have that cat in the film,” she said. “He was a scene stealer, and it was hard for people to tear themselves away from him so they could see me showing my mix of terror and bravery all at the same time.”
Lula took a piece of the extra-cheese pizza and sunk her teeth into it.
“Good thing I got a backup plan,” Lula said. “I thought something like this might happen on account of you never know if people got any taste. It could have been some intern who knows nothing that got my film. Or she could have had a bad day. Like she might have got up this morning and found she had a STD. That could affect the way you think all day.”
I helped myself to a piece of the extra-cheese and Connie took from the box with the works.
“I suppose you’re wanting to know what my next audition tape is going to be,” Lula said. “Remember I told you about naked bungee jumping? Only it won’t be for Naked and Afraid because it don’t fit their format. I’m thinking we send it to CNN. They got that Anthony Bourdain show, and me and Briggs would be the perfect lead-in. We could do a travelogue of naked bungee jumping all over the world. Problem is, Bourdain might look lame after people get to watching me and Briggs. Bourdain might have to up his game.”
“Why would you do it naked?” I asked.
Lula took a second slice of pizza. “That’s our thing. Like, it’s our trademark. Anybody can go bungee jumping, but how many people go naked? You see what I’m saying? We could bungee jump off that bridge in London or off some crazy rope bridge in Africa. And then I was thinking for the second season we could do naked zip-lining.”
I had a mental image of Lula zip-lining through a jungle, screaming like Tarzan. Hilariously funny and utterly awful.
“My problem is I gotta find a place to bungee jump here in Trenton,” Lula said. “After I get to be famous I imagine they’ll let me jump from anywhere, but this first film could be tricky.”
“Are you jumping at night or during the day?” Connie asked.
“Most likely at night,” Lula said. “We got the infrared camera, and I’m thinking it adds drama to the event. Plus I noticed the dimples in my ass don’t show up on infrared.”
“You have a double problem,” Connie said. “You have to find someplace they’ll let you jump, and then you have to figure out a way to do it without getting arrested for indecent exposure.”
“It pretty much rules out all the bridges,” Lula said. “And there’s some big buildings going up, but I’ve taken a look at most of them, and they don’t lend themselves to bungee jumping. Some people use them big skyhook cranes for jumping. We could do that if I could find one in the right spot.”
“What about the junkyard?” Connie said. “They have that catwalk running between the control tower and the giant magnet that picks the cars up and puts them in the crusher.”
Lula’s eyes got wide. “That’s perfect. I don’t know why I didn’t think of that. I even got a good relationship with the asshole who runs the junkyard. We go way back.”
I looked over at Connie and gave her a “What, are you nuts?” gesture.
“That’s a terrible idea,” I said to Lula. “You’re going to die. You don’t know anything about bungee jumping.”
“I Googled it,” Lula said. “I’m pretty sure I could do it. And anyways, I’m sending Briggs off first.”
• • •
I drove to Hamilton Township and found Ducker’s apartment complex, which consisted of eight two-story blocky redbrick buildings arranged around a parking lot. Entrances were flanked by fake white columns. Landscaping was minimal. I’d been here before, and I knew everyone had either a patio or a balcony in the back. Not high-end luxury but not ghetto either. More than I could afford.
Ducker’s silver Kia was parked close to his building. Probably he was in his apartment, cleaning his gun and plotting his revenge on Bogart. It didn’t seem likely that he had a massive freezer, so turning Bogart into a Bogart Bar might be difficult.
I was here because I was curious. I didn’t expect the visit would accomplish anything beyond confirming Ducker was tucked away in his apartment and not out hunting down Bogart. No
t that I cared a whole lot about Bogart. I didn’t want to see him dead, but I wasn’t liking him either. And I could feel my initial outrage about the Bogart Bar crime fading. It looked as if I was done snooping for Ranger. Good riddance to that job. My nose still glowed in the dark.
I sat in the lot, watching Ducker’s building. Not sure why. It was like a boring book that you keep reading because there’s the promise that something astonishing might happen on the next page. After an hour with nothing astonishing happening on the Ducker front, I gave it up and drove home.
TWENTY-ONE
BRIGGS WAS SITTING on the floor in the hallway, his back to my front door. I was tempted to turn and run, but he saw me exit the elevator, and he would have run after me.
“Cripes,” he said, “where were you? I’ve been here forever. You gotta help me.”
I had my keys in my hand, but I wasn’t opening my door. If I opened my door he would follow me in.
“What are you doing?” he asked. “Aren’t you gonna open your door?”
“No.”
“I swear, sometimes I think you don’t like me.”
“Sometimes?”
“I’m a nice guy.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“Maybe ‘nice’ is a stretch,” he said. “I’m definitely okay. Most of the time.”
I raised the second eyebrow.
“Some of the time,” Briggs said. “Anyway, you might as well let me in because I’m not leaving.”
I unlocked my door, and Briggs followed me into the kitchen. I dumped my messenger bag on the counter and said hello to Rex.
“What’s the problem?” I asked Briggs.
“I have this thing about heights. I get panic attacks. I get all sweaty and my heart goes nuts and I pass out.”
“And?”
“And Lula’s all set to do this bungee jumping show. I wasn’t worried about it in the beginning because I figured we’d get the Naked and Afraid gig. Now Naked and Afraid fell through, and I’m looking at bungee jumping.”