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We got to the curb and looked at the Buick and the Firebird.
“What’s it going to be?” I asked Lula.
“I’m thinking Buick. Just in case we get lucky, I don’t want to put Billy Bacon back in my Firebird.”
“No problem.”
We chugged away, and I took a left on Broad.
“I don’t like the looks of this,” Lula said. “You’re going looking for Blatzo.”
“We’ll do a drive-by in his neighborhood. If we see any cats gnawing on body parts we’ll call the police.”
“I got creepy crawlies thinking about it. I’m gonna have nightmares tonight.”
•••
Blatzo lived in a hard-times, drug-infested neighborhood of dingy little cinder block houses squatting on blighted, neglected lots. Junker cars and rusted-out refrigerators were left to linger in the front yards. Rats served as target practice in the backyards. The best you could say about Blatzo’s street was that it was free of the gangbangers who lived on Stark. Here the gangbangers only stopped by occasionally to visit the meth lab that flourished two doors down from Blatzo’s.
I idled in front of Blatzo’s house, and Lula and I looked up and down the street.
“Don’t look like anybody’s home,” Lula said. “No lights on. No car in the driveway. Weeds don’t look trampled. No cats sitting on the stoop. Are we sure Blatzo is still living here?”
“According to Connie. His name is on the lease as a renter, and someone is paying the rent.”
“Are you gonna go look around?”
“I’m thinking about it.”
“Well, you could think about how you’re gonna do it all by yourself because I’m not walking out in that yard. There’s snakes.”
Lula had a point. Hard to tell what was living in the tall weeds and trash.
“There’s a path to the house,” I said. “I’m going to knock on the front door.”
“Are you nuts? What are you gonna do after you knock? What if he answers?”
“If he answers I’ll cuff him.”
“The man is six foot tall, probably weighs as much as a Volkswagen, and eats raw meat.”
I got out of the car and tucked cuffs into my right back pocket and pepper spray into the left.
“Do you have a gun?” Lula asked.
“I have a stun gun.”
“Does it work?”
I took the stun gun out of my bag and turned it on. “Yep,” I said. “It’s charged.”
“I got another one of those feelings,” Lula said. “It’s a premonition of disaster.”
“Chances of Blatzo being in the house are minuscule,” I said. “I’m going to knock on the door. No one will answer. Case closed.”
“I like that thinking,” Lula said. “That makes sense. I could even take a video with my cellphone to show Vinnie we did something.”
I squared my shoulders, tipped my chin up, and marched across the street to the house. Lula got out of the Buick and started filming. I got halfway up the path to the front door, eyes on the prize, and I stepped on a snake. I shrieked and jumped. The snake slid away into the weeds. And I ran back to the car.
