20 Takedown Twenty (20 page)

“How would I hook up with them?”

“Same way you hook up with anyone,” Shirlene said. “Twitter. Or you could walk down the fifth block wearing red, and then they’d show up and shoot you.”

“Anything else?” Lula asked.

“I hear some of them play basketball on the city courts across from the projects.”

“Do you know when they play?” I asked.

“They don’t play in the morning.”

I gave Shirlene twenty dollars, and Lula and I drove to the basketball courts by the projects. There were kids playing basketball, and some of them looked like killers, but none of them looked like Antwan.

“I don’t know why Vinnie wrote a bond on this loser,” Lula said. “It’s no wonder we can’t find him. We don’t have any information. Who writes a bond on someone without an address or a single relative?”

“The bond was completely secured. Vinnie doesn’t care if we find him.”

“Then why are we looking?”

“
I
need to find him. I need the recovery money for a new car. Or at least a new muffler.”

“I don’t know why you’re going there. You’ll be rolling in dough when you capture Uncle Sunny.”

“I’m making zero progress with the Sunny capture. I broke my finger, I’ve been condemned to hell, dropped off a bridge, and shot at.”

“Yeah, but you can’t expect everything to go perfect all the time. You just had a few bumps in the road.”

“I need a new job.”

“I don’t think so. What about me if you get a new job? What am I going to do?”

“You’d be the office bounty hunter.”

“That sounds pretty good. That’s an important promotion. I like the way that sounds. Only wait a minute, then I’m gonna be the one getting dropped off the bridge. I’d hate that. It’d ruin my hair. And what happens to my Via Spigas when I go off the bridge?”

I drove through the projects, and then because we were close to Fifteenth I drove through Sunny’s neighborhood. We
didn’t see Sunny. We didn’t see Kevin. We didn’t see Antwan. I drove back to the basketball court and the court was empty. I made one last pass down Stark Street and dropped Lula off at her car.

“This was a pretty good day,” Lula said. “We didn’t get shot at even once.”

I let myself into my apartment, slumped into my bedroom, flopped onto the bed, and pulled the pillow over my face. I wallowed in self-pity for a couple minutes, did a couple minutes of berating myself, but ultimately it wasn’t working for me. I got up, had a beer and a peanut butter sandwich, and felt pretty good. It’s hard to feel bad after drinking some beer and eating some worthless white bread and peanut butter.

I went to the computer and logged on to Antwan’s Twitter page. There was a lot of tweeting about music. Some chest beating about how tough he was. He had ham and cheese for lunch. Blah, blah, blah. He trash-talked about a girl he’d messed up. His brain-dead friends tweeted back supportive messages. More blah, blah, blah. He hung out with Big Al after basketball.

Eureka. This was exactly what I was looking for. He played basketball. He wasn’t there yesterday, but he was there sometimes. I kept reading, and there was another mention of his usual noontime basketball game. So maybe I knew where to
find Antwan. Now I just had to figure out how to capture him. I wondered if Morelli was serious about the SWAT team.

At nine o’clock I followed Grandma’s instructions and signed on to play Bingo. I read the rules and used my credit card to deposit fifty dollars in my Bingo account. I was able to buy cards with this account, and winnings would be deposited in it. I could withdraw my money at any time so it seemed okay. I gave “Luvbaby” as my screen name, and I bought three Bingo cards. It took three minutes for me to lose. I bought three more cards. Lost. Bought more cards. Won a small jackpot.

Morelli called a little before ten o’clock, and I told him I couldn’t talk. I got back to the game and played until midnight, when I had to quit because I’d maxed out my credit card.

I crashed into bed, chanting
Stupid, stupid, stupid
to myself. The phone rang after I’d thrashed around for fifteen minutes.

“Babe,” Ranger said, “I’m not going to get to you tonight. I have a client with a major security breach and a missing fifteen-hundred-pound safe.”

“No problem,” I said. “I have my own issues.”

I LOOKED AT my reflection in the bathroom mirror at eight
A.M
. and couldn’t believe what I saw. A Bingo addict was holding my toothbrush. I’d maxed out my credit card playing a game I didn’t even like. What the heck was I thinking?

I rolled into the office a little before nine. Vinnie’s car wasn’t parked behind the office, and his door was closed. Connie was busy on her computer. Lula’s car was parked outside, but she wasn’t in the office.

“Where is everyone?” I asked.

“First thing this morning Vinnie got a threatening message from Harry about Sunucchi,” Connie told me. “Harry’s accountant was going over the books, and he wasn’t happy. So Vinnie took a mental health day and went underground.”

“Where’s Lula?”

“She’s taking inventory in the storeroom.”

“Have you ever played Bingo online?”

“No, but I know lots of people who do. I’m more into poker.”

“What happens if you gamble more money than you have?” I asked Connie. “Would the site put you into collection?”

“I guess they could, but I don’t think that happens. Your credit card would just get declined.”

I called Morelli at work.

“The women who were murdered and tossed into the Dumpsters,” I said to Morelli. “Their bank accounts were cleaned out, right?”

“Right.”

“Are we talking about a lot of money?”

“It ranged from fifteen hundred dollars to just under thirty thousand.”

“Do you suppose they could have been paying off gambling debts?”

“Why were they killed if they were paying off debts? Usually you get killed if you
don’t
pay off.”

“I haven’t got that part figured out.”

“Do you want to do something tonight?” Morelli asked.

“What did you have in mind?”

“Depends. Do we need to have the aborted relationship discussion?”

“No. I had the discussion all by myself and got it all straight.”

“Did you reach any conclusions I should know about?”

“Nope. It’s all good.”

“So I should stop at the drugstore on the way over?”

“Sure, and pick up some ice cream.”

“Should I also pick up dinner?”

“Wouldn’t hurt.”

I hung up, took a deep breath, and told myself it would all work out. Somewhere, out there in the cosmos, there was a plan for me. Someday I’d get my life under control. My fear was that it might not be someday soon.

Lula came out of the storeroom. “Did I hear you talking to Morelli? Are you seeing him tonight? Because I was hoping we could go out under cover of darkness tonight and look for Kevin.”

“Maybe Connie will go out with you.”

“Pass,” Connie said. “I’m taking my mother to a baby shower for Ann Marie Scarelli.”

Connie comes from a big Italian family that has a baby shower or wedding shower every week. And on the odd occasion that there’s not a wedding shower or baby shower, there’s a jewelry party, makeup party, Botox party, or potluck dinner.

“I’m worried about Kevin,” Lula said. “What if he’s laying in the middle of the road starving? I haven’t been leaving him lettuce.”

“I think someone would notice a giraffe in the middle of the road,” I said.

“Yeah, but what if he’s a magic giraffe, and we’re the only ones can see him?”

I didn’t want to consider that possibility. That might indicate
insanity. Fortunately Ranger had also seen Kevin, so I would at least have a boyfriend in the loony bin with me.

“We can look for Kevin this morning,” I said to Lula. “I should do a drive-by on Sunny’s properties anyway.”

“I thought you didn’t want to be seen someplace where people wanted to shoot you?”

“That was yesterday.”

“Maybe we should go in disguise,” Lula said. “I was just taking inventory, and we got some wigs back there from when Vinnie bonded out that drag queen what was robbing banks. He’s doing ten to twenty and he never came back for his wigs. The wigs are pretty good, and we sprayed them for cooties when they came in, so they’re even sanitary.”

“It’s not a bad idea,” Connie said. “It wouldn’t hurt to look at them.”

Lula went to the storeroom and came back with a box filled with wigs. Blond wigs, red wigs, pink wigs, black wigs, brown wigs. Some were curly, and some were straight, in a variety of lengths.

“I even know which one I want already,” Lula said. “I’m taking the Marilyn wig. It’s just like her hair in
The Seven Year Itch
. Remember when the air from the subway grate blew her skirt up? It’s what you call a iconic wig.”

I went with a short red wig that had spiky curls and bangs. I tucked my ponytail under the wig and looked at myself in the bathroom mirror. I was kind of cute.

“You don’t look like yourself at all,” Lula said to me. “You look like you’d be a lot of fun.”

I cut across town, and stopped at a light on Fifteenth.

“Have you noticed people are looking at us?” Lula said. “I wouldn’t think we be attracting this much attention in this little SUV. It’s a normal car compared to my red Firebird or your big blue Buick.”

“I’m going out on a limb here and suggesting they’re looking at the black woman in the platinum Marilyn wig.”

“Do you think?” Lula flipped the visor down and looked at herself in the mirror. “I
am
spectacular. I guess I’d have to take a second look at me too. Probably people are wondering if I’m a supermodel or movie star.”

I drove two more blocks and parked at the corner of Fifteenth and Freeman.

“I thought we were riding around,” Lula said. “How come we’re parked?”

“We can see more on foot. And I maxed out my credit card, so I’m watching my gas consumption.”

“How about your life-or-death consumption? I bet you don’t even have a gun.”

“Wrong. I have my gun with me.”

“Do you have bullets in it?”

“No. I haven’t gotten around to buying bullets. It would be a lot easier if more places sold bullets.”

“You mean like 7-Eleven and Cluck-in-a-Bucket? And why do you have your gun if you don’t have bullets in it?”

“I could scare someone with it. Or I could hit someone over the head. And when Ranger asks me if I’m carrying a gun I can say yes.”

“That all makes sense to me. Which way you want to walk first?”

“Let’s go down Fifteenth.”

We walked past the Chestnut Social Club, past Sunny’s apartment building, and past the building on the next block that they were renovating. We didn’t see Sunny, Moe, Shorty, or Kevin, and we didn’t get kidnapped or shot at, but we did have two opportunities to make some spare change.

“I don’t get it,” Lula said. “I stood out on the corner all night, and business was terrible. And here I am looking respectable, trying to do a job, and we get two fools asking about our services. And they were cash customers. They didn’t even offer food stamps. I think it must be you in that wig. I think you look like a loose woman.”

Lula was wearing a sequined spandex skirt that came an inch below her doo-dah and a tank top that looked like it had shrunk in the wash. When you put it together with the Marilyn wig she might as well have had
LOVE FOR SALE
tattooed onto her forehead.

“What do you suppose they’re doing to that building they’re renovating?” I asked Lula. “You don’t see a lot of renovating going on in this neighborhood. At least not on that scale. It looks like they’re gutting the first two floors.”

“Must be some business going in. Like another fake tailor.”

“It’s two floors, and it looks like they’re also working in the basement.”

“Maybe it’s another social club.”

“Nobody puts money into a social club. A social club in Trenton is like a senior center for the mob.”

“Then maybe they’re setting up to do Bingo.”

“Three floors of Bingo?”

“I got a nervous stomach on account of I haven’t seen any trace of Kevin,” Lula said. “We didn’t see piles of poop or anything. I’m worried something happened to him. Like he could have wandered away, and now he could be walking down the Garden State Parkway, looking for tender green leaves, on his way to Atlantic City. He could get hit. It’s not like people driving that road are looking out for giraffes.”

I didn’t see anything good coming from spending more time on Fifteenth Street, so I steered Lula back to the car, and we headed for the basketball court. It wasn’t raining yet, but rain was predicted and the sky was overcast. I parked across the street from the court, and pulled binoculars out of the glove box.

“What are we going to do if we find this guy?” Lula asked. “You busting in with your gun blazing? Oh, hold on a minute, your gun don’t blaze.”

“I thought we’d watch him, and wait for him to go his own way. We can’t do anything when he’s with his friends.”

“So we just gonna hang with him?”

“Yeah.”

“And then?”

“I don’t know.”

“Sounds like a plan.”