'That's a pity.'
'There's always tomorrow,' I said, unlocking my door, slipping inside. My hamster, Rex, was running on his wheel, his feet a blur of pink. I tapped on the glass cage by way of greeting, causing him to momentarily pause, his whiskers twitching, his shiny black eyes large and alert.
'Howdy, Rex,' I said.
Rex didn't say anything. He's the small, silent type.
I dumped my black shoulder bag on the kitchen counter and got a spoon from the cutlery drawer. I popped the top on the ice cream container and listened to my phone messages while I ate.
All of the messages were from my mother. She was making a nice roast chicken tomorrow, and I should come for dinner. I should be sure not to be late because Betty Szajack's brother-in-law died and Grandma Mazur wanted to make the seven o'clock viewing.
Grandma Mazur reads the obituary columns like they're part of the paper's entertainment section. Other communities have country clubs and fraternal orders. The burg has funeral parlors. If people stopped dying the social life of the burg would come to a grinding halt. I finished off the ice cream and put the spoon in the dishwasher. I gave Rex a few hamster nuggets and a grape and went to bed.
I woke up to rain slapping against my bedroom window, drumming on the old-fashioned black wrought-iron fire escape that serves as my balcony. I liked the way rain sounded at night when I was snug in bed. I couldn't get excited about rain in the morning. I needed to harass Julia Cenetta some more. And I needed to run a check on the car that had picked her up. The phone rang, and I automatically reached for the portable at bedside, thinking it was early to be getting a phone call. The digital readout on my clock said 7:15.
It was my cop friend, Eddie Gazarra.
' 'Morning,' he said. 'Time to go to work.'
'Is this a social call?' Gazarra and I had grown up together, and now he's married to my cousin Shirley.
'This is an information call, and I didn't make it. Are you still looking for Kenny Mancuso?'
'Yes.'
'The gas station attendant he nailed in the knee got dead this morning.' This put me on my feet. 'What happened?'
'A second shooting. I heard from Schmidty. He was working the desk when the call came in. A customer found the attendant, Moogey Bues, in the gas station office with a big hole in his head.'
'Jesus.'
'I thought you might be interested. Maybe there's a tie-in, maybe not. Could be Mancuso decided shooting his pal in the knee wasn't enough, and he came back to blow the guy's brains out.'
'I owe you.'
'We could use a baby-sitter next Friday.'
'I don't owe you that much.'
Eddie grunted and disconnected.
I took a fast shower, blasted my hair with the hair dryer, and squashed it under a New York Rangers hat, turning the brim to the back. I was wearing button-fly Levi's, a red plaid flannel shirt over a black T-shirt, and Doc Martens in honor of the rain. Rex was asleep in his soup can after a hard night on the wheel, so I tiptoed past him. I switched the answering machine on, grabbed my pocketbook and my black-and-purple Gore-Tex jacket, and locked up behind myself.
The gas station, Delio's Exxon, was on Hamilton, not far from my apartment. I stopped at a convenience store on the way and got a large coffee to go and a box of chocolatecovered doughnuts. I figured if you had to breathe New Jersey air there wasn't much point in getting carried away with always eating healthy food.
There were a lot of cops and cop cars at the gas station, and an emergency rescue truck had backed itself up close to the office door. The rain had tapered off to a fine drizzle. I parked half a block away and made my way through the crowd, taking my coffee and doughnuts with me, looking to spot a familiar face.
The only familiar face I saw belonged to Joe Morelli.
