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Morelli left. I closed and locked the door, and had four more pieces of candy. I went back to the bathroom and looked at my hair again. Who was I kidding? I wouldn’t make it as a hairdresser. I had no patience with hair. I didn’t even like fussing with my own hair. I’d make a better auto mechanic than hairdresser.
I put the lid on the candy and retied the red ribbon. I’d run it over to Grandma when I got the chance. A text message buzzed my phone at five o’clock. Gobbles wanted to meet with me at ten in the Windward Dorm parking lot. I texted back that I would be there with Lula.
NINETEEN
I RAN THE candy over to Grandma at five-thirty. This was a shameless ploy to mooch dinner.
“Look who’s here,” Grandma said, always happy to see me. “And just in time. We’re having meatloaf for dinner and your mother made enough for an army.”
“Meatloaf sounds great,” I told her. “Who’s Kenny?”
“He’s one of my catfishing people that I cut loose. He was a real sweetie pie. I hated to let him go, but he was talking about getting married, and I was afraid he was underage.”
“You mean a minor?”
“No. I mean too young to keep up with. I’m pretty good, but there’s a lot of maintenance you got to do with a younger man. I cut them off at fifty. You might want to take a look at Kenny. He’s local and he has a good job. He’s a payroll clerk at the button factory.”
I had the flowers under one arm and the candy under another. “He sent you these. They came to my apartment, of course.”
“Flowers and candy! Isn’t he the one. And Godiva! That’s a quality gift.”
“He seemed to think it was our birthday.”
“I might have told him that.”
“And your guy from Des Moines came to see me at work today. He said he didn’t mind about the head lice and the toenail fungus.”
“You didn’t give him my address, did you? I never really was into him.”
“You have to stop the catfishing.”
“I see that. It was getting old anyway.”
“Get in touch with Kenny and tell him you were fibbing and offer to pay for the flowers and candy.”
“How about if I tell him we died?” Grandma said.
“No!”
I helped with the dishes after dinner, watched television with everyone for an hour, and took off for home. Ordinarily I would have driven straight to Hamilton, but tonight I wound through the Burg and ended up in front of Morelli’s house. Lights were on and I could see the flicker of the television. I sat there for a while feeling connected in a sad kind of way. Then I was connected in an angry kind of way. And ultimately I drove away and gave him the finger. Maybe I should check out Kenny. At least he pays attention to birthdays.
I told Lula I would pick her up at nine-thirty. It was a nice night out, warm for this time of the year, and Lula was sitting on her porch steps when I drove up.
“What’s the plan?” she wanted to know when she got into the car.
“He wants to talk. That’s all. I just want you to stand at a distance.”
“Like I’m backup in case he decides to go maniac or something.”
“Yes.”
“Okay, I can do that.”
“No shooting.”
“You got a real thing about no shooting. You ever think you might be in the wrong profession?”
“Every day. Anyway, Ranger took down Blatzo this morning without drawing his gun.”
