Explosive Eighteen

movie here? I wouldn’t mind seeing Tom Cruise. I hear he’s short, but I wouldn’t hold that against him.”

“It was supposed to be a sketch of the guy in the photograph,” I said, “but I guess I was thinking of Tom Cruise when I gave the description to the FBI artist.”

“Or maybe the guy in the photograph was Tom Cruise,” Lula said.

I shook my head. “He wasn’t Tom Cruise, but I think there were similarities. His hair and the shape of his face.”

“I say we go proactive,” Lula said. “What we gotta do is root out the bad guys. We gotta get to the bottom of this. This is like one of them intrigue things. If we just knew what this story was, I bet it could be a television show. They’re always looking for good shit like this.”

“I don’t want to be a television show,” I said.

“Okay, but you don’t want to be dead, either. I don’t see those FBI idiots doing anything for you. I say we take charge and figure out what’s going on. WHAM! And then if you don’t want to sell it to television, we could sell it to one of them book publishers. We could even write the book ourself. How hard could it be?”

I had mixed feelings about going proactive. On the one hand, I was in my take-charge mode, and Lula was right about the FBI not doing a lot for me. On the other hand, I hated to get more involved. I was really hoping that if I just stuck to my story, eventually everyone would leave me alone. And from a purely practical point of view, I wasn’t making money when I chased down the people looking for the photograph.

“We could start by checking out Brenda,” Lula said. “She works at one of them strip malls before you get to Princeton. And we could look for Magpie on the way.”

Good compromise, I thought. There were two cemeteries off Route 1. He’d been known to hunker down in both of them. And on the way back to Trenton, I could take an early exit and head for the farmer’s market and flea market. There were acres of woods around the markets, and the woods were laced with single-lane dirt roads used for romance, and drugs, and, in Magpie’s case, camping. Magpie drove and lived in an ancient Crown Vic. In its glory years, the Crown Vic had been a black-and-white police car, but it had been sold at auction, and eventually found its way to Magpie. Magpie had hand-painted black over the white, but the car was still a bashed-in, rusted-out, retired cop car.

I drove one exit on Route 1 and turned off into the newer and smaller of the two cemeteries. For the most part, it was all flat ground, broken by an occasional tree. All grave markers were the same. Small granite slabs sunk into the grass. Easy maintenance. You could probably get the tractor up to about 40 mph and be done with the whole deal in an hour.

I took the loop around the cemetery, circled the little chapel and crematorium, and headed out, finding no indicators that Magpie had recently squatted here. No blackened splotch from a campfire. No stains from leaking transmission oil. No bag of discarded garbage. No ribbons of toilet tissue floating across the landscape.

The second cemetery was ten miles down the highway. It was a real monster, with rolling hills, lush landscaping, and elaborate tombstones. I methodically worked my way through the maze of feeder roads curling over and around hill and dale. Again, no sign of Magpie, so I returned to Route 1.

Lula had The Hair Barn plugged into the GPS app on her cell phone. “It’s on the left,” she said. “Take the next light.”

The Hair Barn was located in a complex that included some light industrial businesses, a budget hotel, two fairly large office buildings, and an outdoor shopping mall. The shopping mall was anchored at one end by a Kohl’s and a Target at the other. The Hair Barn was in the middle of the mall. The Scion was parked at the outer perimeter of the lot with what I assumed were a few other employee cars.

I found a space close to Kohl’s, and Lula and I walked to the cluster of stucco-faced buildings. We stood outside The Hair Barn and watched Brenda fiddle with an older woman’s hair, teasing it up and smoothing it out.

“That’s not good,” Lula said. “That woman looks like Donald Trump on a bad day. And he don’t look all that good on a good day.”

Brenda finished, the woman tottered to the desk, and Brenda took a moment to clean up her station. Lula stayed outside, and I went in to talk to Brenda.

Brenda got steely-eyed when she saw me. “What are you doing here?” she asked. “Did you wise up and bring me the photograph?”

“No. I want some answers.”

She looked through the front window at Lula. “I see you left your muscle outside. Isn’t that risky?”

“Lula isn’t my muscle.”

“Well then, what is she?”

Good question. I didn’t know the answer. “She’s just Lula,” I said. “Okay, yeah, I guess she’s my muscle.”

Brenda dropped her brush and comb into a drawer. “So what did you come here for? You want a haircut? I could do a lot better than what you got. You got no style.”

“It’s a ponytail.”

“Yeah, but it’s boring. You should add a piece. We got a bunch on the wall. Or you could put some color in it. Like gold streaks. Pull some of the hair out and rat it. You know, mess it up like mine. You see how much better my hair looks?”

I glanced at her hair and bit my lip. She looked like an exploded canary. “Maybe next time,” I said. “I want to know about the photograph. Why does everyone want it?”

“I told you why I want it. Poor dead Ritchy wanted me to have it.” She stiffened a little. “Wait a minute. What do you mean everyone?”

“You. And everyone.”

“There’s others?” she asked.

“You didn’t know?”

Brenda’s lips curled back and her eyes got squinty. “That sonovabitch. He’s trying to cut me out. I should have guessed.”

“Who?” I asked her. “Who’s the sonovabitch?”

“Boy, this really steams me.”

“Who? Who?”

“Never mind who. And you better not be dealing with him. He’s a snake in the grass. And he hasn’t got any money, either. Don’t believe him if he tells you he’s got money.”

“Give me a clue. What does he look like? Old, young, fat?”

“I can’t chat anymore,” Brenda said. “I got a client.”

“Well?” Lula said when I left the shop. “How’d that go?”

“It didn’t go anywhere.”

“You must have learned something.”

“Nope,” I said. “Nothing useful.” I felt my ponytail. “Do you think my hair is boring?”

“Compared to what? It’s not as good as my hair, for instance. But it’s better than lots of other white folks’ hair.”

We climbed into the truck, and I stuck the key in the ignition.

“I think we should take a look at Brenda’s apartment,” I said to Lula. “Connie has it in West Windsor.”

Why not? I thought. If for no reason other than grim curiosity.

Lula tapped the address into her cell phone GPS. “I got it. It’s not all that far from here.”

I drove one exit on Route 1, turned off, and followed Lula’s directions.

“She’s renting, but not an apartment,” Lula said. “Looks to me like she’s renting a house.”

We were winding our way through a neighborhood of small, single-story homes in varying stages of disrepair. Several were empty with FOR SALE signs planted in their small front yards. Most had curtains hanging in windows. Many had swing sets in the backyards.

I found Brenda’s house and sat at idle, taking it in. Driveway leading to single-car attached garage. The house had been painted pale green with bright yellow trim. The yard was bare but neat.

“Let’s take a look,” Lula said.

“We can’t just walk around and look in windows. There are cars parked in some of the driveways. Probably, there are people at home in some of the houses. We’ll be noticed.”

“Yeah, but we do that all the time,” Lula said.

“We do it when we’re looking for a felon and they’ve waived their rights. Brenda isn’t a felon.”