14bis Plum Spooky (4 page)

“
We
will go in to night.”

“You can‘t make me.”

“Of course I can.”

“You don‘t scare me. I know you‘d never hurt me.”

“True, but I have ways.”

“Magic?”

“Muscle,” Diesel said.

“You‘d physically force me to go with you?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“It‘s more fun when you‘re along. And you make it diffi-cult for Wulf to zero in on me.”

“Let me guess. This is about cosmic dust, right? Our dust mingles together, and Wulf gets confused.”

Carl gave me the finger.

“Carl‘s tired of hearing about cosmic dust,” Diesel said. “It‘s getting old.”

“Then maybe you want to explain the whole zeroing-in phenomenon to me.”

“It‘s not a big deal. You know how sometimes you walk into a room and get a creepy feeling that you‘re not alone? Or maybe you‘re looking for a guy, and you get this feeling that he‘s in the coat closet, so you open the door, and there he is. It‘s like that… but Wulf and I operate at a higher level.”

“Why do I make it difficult for Wulf?”

“When I‘m with you, some of my chemistry changes, and it becomes more difficult to trace my sensory imprint. At least, that‘s the theory. I‘m told it has to do with sexual attraction and expanding blood vessels. There‘s more, but the expanding blood vessels is the good part.”

I‘d never actually seen Diesel‘s blood vessels in all their expanded glory. I had a feeling it was a spectacular sight. And just the thought of it scared the bejeezus out of me.

“As long as they don‘t expand too much,” I said to Diesel.

“Your loss,” Diesel said.

“Anyway, I can‘t go with you to night because I promised my mom I‘d be over for dinner.”

“Sounds good. We‘ll eat dinner with your parents, and then we‘ll check out Scanlon‘s apartment.”

History was repeating itself. As always with Diesel, I was going down as the big loser in the power struggle.

FIVE

P
OT ROAST, SPAGHETTI
with red sauce, roast chicken, kiel-basa and sauerkraut, meat loaf, minestrone, stuffed manicotti, baked ham, pork chops with applesauce, lasagna, chicken paprikash, and stuffed cabbage stretch in a time line from my birth to this afternoon, pulling together my Hungarian and Italian genes, forever binding together food and parental love.

Dinner at my parents‘ house is always at six, it‘s always served at the dining room table, and it‘s always good. To my mother‘s dismay, my current lifestyle isn‘t nearly so civilized. Left to my own devices, I eat standing over my kitchen sink when I get hungry, and my culinary expertise relies heavily on peanut butter and white bread.

My parents live in the Chambersburg section of Trenton. Their house is small and narrow, cojoined on one side with an identical twin differing only in paint color. There‘s a minuscule front yard, a slightly longer backyard, and in between is a small foyer off the front door, living room, dining room, and kitchen, with three tiny bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs. The bath is far from luxurious, but it has a window that opens to the roof over the kitchen. This window was my escape route all through high school whenever I was grounded. And I was grounded a lot.

We were all seated at the dining room table—Diesel, Carl, my mother, my father, and my Grandma Mazur. My Grandma Mazur moved in with my parents when Grandpa Mazur bought a one-way ticket to God‘s big theme park in the sky. Grandma buys her clothes at the Gap, her sneakers at Payless, and her Metamucil at the supermarket. She has short gray hair, and more skin than she needs.

“Isn‘t this nice,” Grandma Mazur said, setting the green bean casserole in the middle of the table, taking her place opposite me. “This feels just like a party. Can‘t hardly remember the last time Diesel was here. It feels like ages. And anyway, it‘s always a treat to have a handsome man in the house.”

My father stopped shoveling slabs of pot roast onto his plate, his lips compressed, and his eyes fixed on his knife as if he was contemplating carving something other than cow. He mumbled a few unintelligible words, his color returned to normal, and he moved on to the mashed potatoes. This happened at least five times during a normal eve ning meal with my father and grandmother. He thought my grandmother was a trial.

I was sitting to my father‘s left, and Diesel was next to me. My grandmother was to my father‘s right and Carl was next to her. My mother was at the other end of the table. My father looked up in search of gravy and for the first time spotted Carl.

My sister, Valerie, has a flock of kids who regularly visit with my parents, and as it turns out, size-wise it‘s a fairly easy transition to go from kids to a monkey. Carl was sitting in my niece‘s booster chair with a white napkin tied around his neck.

“There‘s a monkey at the table,” my father said.

My mother looked at my father and looked at Carl, and then she belted back something I suspected was straight whiskey cleverly disguised as ice tea.

Grandma spooned some green beans and applesauce onto Carl‘s plate. “Stephanie‘s babysitting the little guy,” she told my father. “His name is Carl.”

Carl‘s attention was fixed on his beans. He picked one up, smelled it, and ate it.

“Do you want pot roast?” Grandma asked Carl.

Carl shrugged.

Grandma put a slice of pot roast on Carl‘s plate and added mashed potatoes. Carl‘s eyes lit up at the sight of the mashed potatoes. He grabbed a handful and shoved them into his mouth.

“We don‘t eat mashed potatoes with our hands,” Grandma said to Carl.

Carl stopped eating and looked around. Confused. He rolled his lips back and did a forced monkey smile at Grandma.

“We use our fork,” Grandma said, holding her fork for Carl to see.

Carl picked his fork up and looked at it. He smelled it and touched a prong with his boney monkey finger.

Grandma scooped some potatoes up with her fork and ate them. “Yum,” Grandma said to Carl. “Good potatoes.”

Carl stuck his fork into his potatoes, raised a glob to his mouth, and the potatoes slid off the fork onto the floor. “Eeee!” Carl said.

“Don‘t worry about it,” Grandma said to Carl. “It happens to me all the time.”

Carl took a second shot at it with the same result.

“Maybe you want to skip the potatoes,” Grandma said. Carl‘s mouth dropped open, and his eyes went wide with horror. He shook his head
no
. He wanted his potatoes. He very carefully, very deliberately raised a forkful of potatoes to his mouth and at the last minute… disaster. The potatoes dropped onto the floor. Carl threw the fork across the room, jumped onto the table, and ran off with the bowl of mashed potatoes.

There was a collective gasp from everyone but Diesel, who obviously required more than a monkey stealing potatoes to make him suck air.

Diesel scraped his chair back and stood. “I‘m on it.”

Moments later, Diesel returned with Carl and the empty potato bowl.

“Who would have thought a monkey could eat all those potatoes,” Grandma said.

Carl stuck his tongue out and gave Grandma the raspberries. “Brrrrp!” And then he gave her the finger.

My grandmother gave Carl the finger back. My mother took another belt of what ever amber-colored liquid was in her water glass. My father had his head bent over his food, but I think he was smiling.

“Carl needs a time out,” I told Diesel. “Put him in the bathroom upstairs.”

Grandma watched Diesel leave the room. “He‘s a big one,” she said. “He‘s a real looker, too. And he has a way with monkeys.”

It was almost eight when I finished helping my mom with the dishes. Diesel was in the living room with my dad, slouched in a chair, watching a ball game. Carl was still in the bathroom.

“Time to go,” I said to Diesel. “If we stay any longer, I‘ll eat more pineapple upside-down cake.”

“Will that be a bad thing?”

“It will be tomorrow when I can‘t zip my jeans.”

Diesel smiled and looked down at my jeans, and it was clear he wouldn‘t mind if I couldn‘t zip them.

“One of us has to get Carl,” I said.

Diesel hauled himself out of the chair. “I guess that would be me.”

He ambled off, and moments later, he called from upstairs. “Got a problem here.”

I found Diesel standing in the doorway to an empty bathroom.

“Where‘s Carl?” I asked.

“Don‘t know,” Diesel said, “but the window is open. It was closed and locked when I put Carl in here.”

I went to the window and looked out. No Carl.

“I used to escape through this window all the time when I was in high school,” I said. “What are we going to do?”

“We‘re going to check out Scanlon‘s apartment.”

“What about Carl?”

“Easy come, easy go,” Diesel said.

“Maybe you can sniff him out. Look for his ectoplasm or something. Follow his sensory imprint.”

“Sorry. I don‘t do monkeys.”

“Well, that‘s just peachy. That‘s fine.” I threw my hands into the air and stomped off to the stairs. “Don‘t help. Who needs you anyway? I‘ll look for him myself.”

Diesel followed after me. “I didn‘t say I wouldn‘t help. I just said I didn‘t think I could tune in to monkey ectoplasm.”

I stopped at the front door and yelled that I was leaving. “Thanks for dinner,” I said.

My mother came to the door with a bag of leftovers. “Here‘s for lunch.”

My grandmother was with her. “Where‘s Carl?”

“He went on ahead,” I told her. “We‘re going to catch up with him later.”

We slowly drove around the block but didn‘t see Carl.

We parked and walked a four-block grid, including alleyways. No Carl.

“Are you getting anything?” I asked Diesel.

“Yeah, I‘m getting tired of walking around looking for a wiseass monkey.”

“I feel responsible. Susan trusted me to take care of Carl until she came home.”

“Honey, Susan‘s never coming home. She just dumped her monkey on you.”

“You don‘t know that for sure.”

“True. I was putting myself in Susan‘s place.” He draped an arm around my shoulders and pulled me into him. “Here‘s my deal. If you snoop around Scanlon‘s apartment with me, I‘ll come back and look for Carl in the morning.”

“Deal.”

Connie had listed Scanlon‘s address as 2206 Niley Circle in Hamilton Township. I was familiar with Niley Circle. It was part of a large town house condo complex off Klockner Boulevard. I found the complex and parked in the lot. Diesel and I got out and studied the cluster of narrow town houses in front of us. Easy to find Scanlon‘s, since the door was sealed with yellow crime-scene tape.

Diesel ripped the tape off and opened the door.

“How did you do that?” I asked him. “How did you just turn the knob and open the door?”

“I don‘t know. It‘s a gift. I can flush a toilet without touching the little lever, too.”

“Really?”

Diesel grinned down at me. “You are so gullible.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “You‘re scum.”

“It‘s okay,” Diesel said, planting a kiss on the top of my head. “It‘s cute.”

We were standing in a small foyer in the dark. This was a two-story town house, so presumably, there were stairs somewhere, plus furniture and a kitchen and all the things one ordinarily finds in a home. Unfortunately, I couldn‘t see any of them because it was pitch black. I felt Diesel leave my side, and I could hear him moving around the room.

“Can you see where you‘re going?” I asked him.

“Yep. Can‘t you?”

I blew out a sigh. “No.”

“Maybe you need to eat more carrots or blueberries or something.”

I took a couple steps forward and fell over a large unseen object. Diesel crossed the room, picked me up, and set me on my feet.

“Stand here, and don‘t move, and let me look around,” Diesel said.

I listened to him search the condo for what seemed like forever and a day. My eyes adjusted to the absence of light enough to see a few large shapes but never enough to make out detail. From time to time, I‘d see a penlight flick on, and moments later, it would flick off. Diesel could see in the dark, but not perfectly.

“This is boring,” I said to him.

“I‘m almost done.”

“Are you finding anything helpful?”

“He was planning on leaving the country. He had a suitcase packed, and his passport is out on his dresser. No travel itinerary. There are computer connections but no computer. And Wulf‘s been here. The place reeks of him.”

“The crime lab might have taken the computer.”

“It‘s possible. Or Wulf might have taken it.”

Diesel wrapped an arm around me and steered me to the foyer and out the front door. We made a halfhearted attempt to reattach the crime-scene tape, but it had lost most of its sticking power, so we left it on the ground and scuttled back to my car.

Halfway home my phone rang.

“Carl‘s here,” Grandma Mazur said. “I went to answer the doorbell, and there he was on the porch looking all dejected.”

“Where is he now?”

“He‘s here in the kitchen, eating cookies.”

“I‘ll be right there.”

Thirty minutes later, Diesel walked into my apartment, went straight to the couch, and flipped the ball game on. Carl scampered up beside him.

“Make yourself at home,” I said.

“I‘m going to pretend that wasn‘t sarcasm,” Diesel said.

“I don‘t suppose you have any chips?”

I brought him a bag of corn chips and a jar of salsa. I took a chip for Rex and dropped it into his cage, along with a baby carrot. I put my mother‘s leftover bag in the fridge, and I shuffled back to the couch.

“I‘m going to bed,” I said to Diesel. “Alone. And I expect to wake up alone.”

“You bet.”

I looked down at Carl. “And I expect you to behave yourself.”

Carl did a palms-up and shrugged.

SIX

I
WOKE UP
with a heavy arm across my chest. Diesel. I knew from past experiences that Diesel didn‘t fit on my couch and wasn‘t the sort of guy to tough it out on the floor, so I‘d taken the precaution of going to bed dressed in T-shirt and running shorts.

Diesel shifted next to me and half-opened his eyes. “Coffee,” he murmured.

I slithered out from under him, rolled out of bed, and stepped over the clothes he‘d left on the floor, including seafoam green boxers with palm trees and hula girls.

I used the bathroom and shuffled into the living room, where Carl was watching the news on tele vision. I got the coffee going and fed Rex. I wasn‘t sure what monkeys ate in the morning, so I gave Carl a box of Fruit Loops. Diesel ambled into the kitchen and poured himself a mug of coffee.

“What have we got to eat?” he asked.

“Carl‘s eating the Fruit Loops, so that leaves leftovers from last night, peanut butter, hamster crunchies, and half a jar of salsa. Looks like you ate all the chips.”

“I shared with Carl.” He retrieved the leftover bag from the refrigerator and dumped it on the counter. Pot roast, gravy, green bean casserole. No mashed potatoes. He put it all on a plate and nuked it. “There‘s enough here for two.”

I sipped my coffee. “I‘ll pass.”

Diesel dug into the mountain of food and ate it all.

“It‘s not fair,” I said. “You eat tons of food. Why aren‘t you fat?”

“High rate of metabolism and clean living.”

“What are you doing today?”

“I thought I‘d hang out,” Diesel said.

“You and Carl?”

“Yeah.”

Carl gave Diesel a thumbs-up.

“Well, I‘m a working girl,” I told him. “I‘m going to take a shower and go catch a bad guy.”

“Knock yourself out,” Diesel said. “If you get a line on Munch, let me know.”

L
ULA WAS ON
the couch in the bonds office when I walked in. She was wearing a pink sweat suit and sneakers, and she was holding a box of tissues. She didn‘t have any makeup on, and her hair was somewhere between rat‘s nest and exploded canary.

“What‘s up?” I asked.

“I‘m dying is what‘s up,” Lula said. “I got the flu back. I woke up this morning, and I couldn‘t stop sneezing. And my eyes are all puffy. And I feel like crap.”

“Maybe it‘s an allergy,” I said to her.

“I don‘t get allergies. I never been allergic to anything.”

“How‘d it go with Tank last night? Did you set a new date for the wedding?”

“I decided December first is a good time on account of it‘ll be easy to remember for anniversaries.”

“That was okay with Tank?”

“Yeah. He had his eyes closed when I told him, but I‘m pretty sure he was listening.”

Lula sneezed and blew her nose. “I swear, this just came on me. One minute, I‘m doing the nasty, and then next thing, I got the flu again.”

“Maybe you‘re allergic to Tank,” Connie said.

“I gotta get my numbers done,” Lula said. “I think there‘s something wrong with my juju. I‘m gonna call Miss Gloria. This just isn‘t right.”

I pulled Gordo Bollo‘s file out of my bag. “I‘m going to look in on Mr. Bollo. According to his file, he works for Greenblat Produce on Water Street.”

“I‘ll go with you,” Lula said. “I heard about Greenblat. That‘s a big fruit distributor. I could get an orange or a grapefruit for my bad juju while we‘re there. And I‘ll call Miss Gloria from the car.”

We piled into the Jeep and I took Hamilton, driving toward Broad Street. I had my top up but none of the windows zipped in. It was the end of September, and Trenton was enjoying a last-ditch warm spell.

“Hello,” Lula said into her phone. “This here‘s Lula, and I need to talk to Miss Gloria. It‘s an emergency. I‘m sick, and I think it‘s my juju, and I need my numbers done right away before I might die or something.” Lula disconnected and dropped her phone into her purse. “I hate being sick. No one should ever be sick. And if they do have to be sick, there should never be mucus involved.”

I didn‘t want to hear any more about mucus, so I punched the radio on, found a rap station for Lula, and blasted it out. By the time I rolled to a stop in front of Greenblat Produce, Lula was on a rant over my radio.

“You can‘t play rap on this cheap-ass radio,” she said. “There‘s no bass. This is like Alvin and the Chipmunks do Jay-Z. On the other hand, your open-air car got my head cleared out. I can breathe. I don‘t even feel a sneeze coming on.”

Greenblat Produce was housed in a large cement-block ware house with a loading dock in the rear and a small windowless office in the front. There were four desks in the office, and they were occupied by women who looked like Connie clones.

“What?” one of them said to me.

“I‘m looking for Gordo Bollo.”

“Oh damn, what‘d he do now?”

“He forgot his court date. I represent his bail bondsman, and I need to get him rescheduled.”

“I guess it could be worse,” she said.

“Oh boy,” Lula said to me. “This guy‘s in deep doo-doo when he got worse visitors than us.”

“He‘s in the back,” the woman said. “Go through this door behind me. He‘s probably sorting tomatoes.”

Lula and I entered the ware house, and I showed her a photo of Gordo.

“He looks real familiar,” Lula said. “I know him from somewhere. Maybe I knew him in a professional manner from when I was a ‘ho. No wait, that‘s not it. Now, that‘s gonna drive me nuts. I hate when this happens. Okay, I got it. He looks like Curly from the Three Stooges. Same bowling ball head and everything. No wonder his wife divorced him. Who‘d want to be married to a man with a head like a bowling ball?”

“Have you been taking cold medicine?”

“Maybe I had a couple hits this morning for medicinal purposes,” Lula said.

“I think you should wait in the car.”

“What? I‘m not waiting in no car. I want to see the guy with the bowling ball head.”

“Fine, but don‘t say anything.”

“My lips are sealed. See what I‘m doing? I‘m zipping them and locking them. And look at this. I‘m throwing away the key.”

Lula sneezed and farted.

“Oops, excuse me,” Lula said. “I thought I was done sneezing. Good thing we‘re in this big ware house with all this rotting fruit.”

I took a giant step away from Lula and scanned the room. I walked down an aisle formed from crates of iceberg lettuce, turned the corner, and found Bollo off-loading a pallet of tomatoes.

“Gordo Bollo?” I asked.

“Who wants to know?”

“We want to know,” Lula said. “Who the heck do you think?”

I gave Bollo my card. “I represent your bail bondsman,” I told him. “You missed your court date, and you need to reschedule.”

“The whole thing is bogus,” he said. “My foot got stuck on the accelerator.”

“You run over that guy twice,” Lula said.

“Yeah, my foot got stuck twice. It was an accident.”

“It really doesn‘t matter,” I said to him. “You‘ll have a chance to explain all that if you‘ll just come with me to get a new date.”

“I can‘t go now. I‘m working.”

“These look like real nice tomatoes,” Lula said.

And then she sneezed and farted again.

“Cripes, lady,” Bollo said. “You just cut the cheese on the tomatoes.”

“I didn‘t do no such thing,” Lula said. “I was facing the other direction.” She turned and looked behind her. “I laid one on these grapefruits from Guatemala. And anyways, it‘s not my fault. I got bad juju going. I‘m waitin‘ on a call from Miss Gloria.”

“This won‘t take long,” I said to Bollo.

“I‘m not coming with you. Go away. Leave me alone.”

“I gotta get out of here,” Lula said. “There‘s something in here making my nose twitch.”

“Go out to the car. I‘ll be there in a minute.”

“You sure you don‘t need me?” Lula asked.

“I‘m sure!”

Bollo went back to sorting tomatoes.

“Listen up,” I said to him. “You are required by law to return to the court, and I‘m authorized to use force if necessary.”

“Oh yeah? Force this,” he said.

And he hit me square in the forehead with a tomato. I turned and
SPLAT
—I took another in the back of the head. By the time I reached the door, I‘d taken at least three more tomatoes.

“Uh-oh,” a Connie clone said when I staggered into the office. “Looks like you pissed Gordo off. That man could use some anger management.”

“I‘ll be back,” I told her. “How late does he work?”

“He‘ll be here until four.”

I left the office and settled myself behind the wheel of the Jeep.

“What the Sam Hill happened to you?” Lula wanted to know.

“Bollo needs anger management.”

“I‘d go shoot him or something for you, but I‘m waiting on Miss Gloria.”

I wheeled out of the lot, turned onto Broad, and Miss Gloria called Lula back.

“Yeah?” Lula said to Miss Gloria. “Un-hunh, un-hunh, un-hunh.”

“Well?” I asked her when she disconnected.

“It‘s my moons. Miss Gloria ran my numbers, and they didn‘t look so good, so then she did my chart, and it turns out my moons are all screwed up.”

“So?”

“I just gotta wait it out. She said I need to be extra careful during this time and not make any big decisions on account of they could be life changing and I could decide the wrong thing.”

“Because of your moons?”

“Yeah, and we‘re on the cusp of something right now, but cell reception wasn‘t good, so I didn‘t get it all.”

I parked curbside at the office and followed Lula through the front door.

“Omigod,” Connie said. “What happened? Is that blood?”

“Tomatoes.”

“Gordo Bollo had issues with takin‘ a ride with us,” Lula said.

“I need cuffs and pepper spray and a stun gun,” I told Connie.

“You haven‘t got any?”

“She lost them when someone stole her purse at the mall last week,” Lula said. “I was with her. One minute, we were in the food court, eating pizza, and next thing, she didn‘t have no purse. Lucky she just paid for the pizza, and she had her wallet in her pocket, or she wouldn‘t have no credit cards.”

“Take what ever you need,” Connie said.

I got myself outfitted, and walked outside into the midday sunshine. A black Porsche turbo slid to a stop behind my Jeep, and Ranger angled out from behind the wheel and stood hands on hips, looking me over.

“Babe,” Ranger said. And he almost smiled.

Ranger dresses in black. The rest of him comes in varying shades of brown. Silky dark brown hair, light brown skin, and brown eyes that are more often than not hidden behind mirrored sunglasses. He‘s two months older than I am and years ahead in life experience. He‘s a security expert and part own er of Rangeman, a protective ser vices company located in a stealth town house in center city.

“Tomatoes,” I said by way of explanation.

“Do you need help?”

“No. But thanks for asking.”

“Diesel is back,” Ranger said.

“Yes. How did you know?”

“I woke up with a migraine this morning.” Ranger picked a chunk of tomato out of my hair. “Word on the street is that you‘re looking for Munch, and Munch is looking for pure barium. And he‘s willing to pay serious money. There are a couple vendors who deal in this sort of thing. Solomon Cuddles and Doc Weiner. If you watch one of these guys, you might run into Munch. You can find Cuddles at the mall somewhere between the food court and the Gap. Weiner operates out of the Sky Social Club on Stark. Don‘t go in there alone. In fact, don‘t go in there at all.”

“Why would Munch want barium?”

“I don‘t know. It‘s commonly used in X-ray imaging. And it‘s useful in making certain kinds of superconductors. I‘m sure it has other uses, but I‘m not a barium expert.”

A shiny black SUV rolled to a stop behind Ranger‘s Porsche. Tank was in Rangeman black fatigues behind the wheel, and Hal was next to him.

“I have to go,” Ranger said. “Try not to stand too close to Diesel. He has some bad enemies. You don‘t want to get caught in the cross fire.”