“No. I found out on my own.”
“I guess it’s okay then.”
“You don’t seem especially motivated to beat information out of me,” I said.
“We’re following orders,” Lancer said. “We keep our eye on you and report back where you go and who you talk to.”
“Razzle Dazzle is more aggressive.”
Lancer snorted. “He’s a freak. He used to hang out at the casino until they kicked him out. He had a way of getting the slots to pay out. Works for some Somali nutcase. Used to brag about how he could cut off a finger with a single slash of his knife.”
Connie, Lula, and Vinnie were standing at silent attention when I walked into the office.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“We’re listening,” Connie said. “Do you hear that?”
I cocked my head and listened. “What am I supposed to be hearing?”
“They’re squeaking,” Connie said. “They’re having a meeting.”
“Who?”
“The rats.”
Oh boy.
“I don’t hear them no more,” Lula said. “I’m not sure I ever heard them. I think the squeaking might have been Vinnie wheezin’.”
“I don’t wheeze,” Vinnie said. “I’m the picture of health.”
“Things to do. People to see,” I said. “There’s a warehouse I need to check out by Bordentown.”
“They got good shopping at a flea market there,” Lula said. “I wouldn’t mind going with you.”
“I wasn’t planning on shopping.”
“Yeah, but you never know when the urge might hit you,” Lula said. “They got a kick-ass rib place there, too.”
TWENTY-THREE
I DITCHED LANCER AND SLASHER in midtown Trenton, and got onto Broad. We picked Route 295 up in Whitehorse and went south.
“I’m feeling like those guys aren’t trying real hard to tail you,” Lula said. “Seems to me they don’t got a lot of motivation.”
“They’re security guards who got promoted beyond their level of incompetence.”
“Why are we going to look at this warehouse?”
“Lancer and Slasher are employed by a guy named Chester Billings. Billings owns a gourmet food-distribution company, and his warehouse is in Bordentown. Turns out Brenda Schwartz is his sister.”
“Hunh,” Lula said. “What’s all that mean?”
“Haven’t a clue.”
“So we’re goin’ pokin’ around his warehouse?”
“Not so much poking around as riding by. I’d like to get a sense of the operation.”
The Billings warehouse and office were in a light industrial park. I found the service road and wound my way through the complex, finally coming to Billings Gourmet Food at the end of a cul-de-sac. The buildings were relatively new. Grounds were minimally landscaped but neat. The office was attached to the warehouse. Maybe two thousand square feet for the office. A lot more for the warehouse. Large parking lot. I drove around back to see the loading docks. Two loading docks and two roll-up garage doors. Woods behind. I thought about the charge of receiving stolen goods. He had the perfect setup.
“Okay,” I said. “I’ve seen enough.”
Lula looked at me. “That’s it?”
“Yep.”
“We rode all the way down here to do this? You don’t want to go in or nothin’?”
“Nope.”
What would I say to big bad Chester Billings? I haven’t got the photograph, but I’m pretty sure the guy looked like either Tom Cruise or Ashton Kutcher. And I’d appreciate it if you’d leave me alone. I couldn’t see Chester Billings having a sense of humor about that message.
“I got the ribs place programmed into my phone,” Lula said. “Just in case you’re interested.”
Ninety minutes and ten pounds later, we were back on the road.
“That was excellent,” Lula said. “Nothing like lunching on ribs and fries and all that other shit to make me feel like a new woman.”
I’d had absolutely no self-control. I’d eaten everything that was put in front of me, with the exception of the napkin, and I felt like
“What wild-goose chase we going on next?” Lula asked.
“I want to break into Brenda’s house.”
“Now you’re talking!
“We’ll be in disguise.”
“A covert operation,” Lula said. “I like it.”
I drove back to Trenton, stopped at my mom’s house, and borrowed a mop, a bucket, and a cleaning caddy filled with a bunch of cleaning products.
“This here’s sexist,” Lula said. “Why do we have to be cleaning ladies?”
“Because we look like cleaning ladies. Do you have a better idea?”
“I was just sayin’. No need to get huffy. Usually, we’re ’hos when we go undercover. I’m good at being a ’ho.”
“I didn’t think ’ho would work here.”
“I guess you got a point.”
I found Brenda’s little green house, and I parked in the driveway. We went to the front door and rang the bell. No answer. I felt around the doorjamb for a key. Nothing. I scanned the ground for fake dog poop or a fake rock. Nada.
We carted our buckets and mops to the back and tried the back door. Locked. I lifted the doormat and looked under. There was the key. We opened the back door and walked into the kitchen. A couple bowls and coffee mugs in the sink. A box of cereal on the counter.
“What are we looking for?” Lula asked me.
“I don’t know.”
“That makes it easy,” Lula said.
It was a small, traditional ranch. Two bedrooms and one bath. Crammed with furniture. Probably whatever Brenda had loaded on a truck before the foreclosure police padlocked her out of her former house. There was a picture on an end table in the living room of Brenda and a young man. Her son, maybe. He was slim, with shoulder- length brown hair, wearing jeans and ratty sneakers and a brown T-shirt. They looked happy.
Brenda’s bedroom was as expected. Her closet stuffed with clothes. Shoes lined up everywhere. A bureau crammed with undies, dressy T-shirts, sweaters. The top of the bureau loaded with hair products, nail polish, a professional makeup chest, a spice-scented candle. A jewelry chest containing costume jewelry. So far no pictures of her and Crick. No engagement ring in the jewelry box.
