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We crawled along, stopping when people appeared. The drill was that Jolly would spring out of the truck, put on his happy face, and conduct business. He’d get back into the truck and mutter something about the dumb little fuckers. After an hour of this his mood had turned even more sullen.
“What time is it?” he asked me.
“It’s almost one o’clock.”
“Damn! We’re behind schedule. Hang on.”
Ducker stomped on the gas. The truck chirped its tires and shot forward. He blew through a stop sign, took a corner on two wheels, and raced down Central Avenue.
“What’s going on? Where are we going?” I shouted at him.
“The soccer games are over at one o’clock. Whoever gets the parking place by the gate gets to sell all the ice cream. The only other parking place is half a block away, and no one goes there.”
“Is it critical that you sell all your ice cream?”
“Yes! If I sell it all early I get to go home early. I don’t have to finish out the route.”
He turned onto the street that ran along the playing fields, and his face got as red as his nose when he saw the Mo Morris truck parked by the gate.
“Sonnovabitch! That sonnovabitch!” he yelled. “He knows that’s my spot. I hate that sonnovabitch.”
Ducker drove past the Mo truck and gave the driver the finger, then wheeled around and parked nose to nose with him.
“You’re in my spot!” Ducker yelled. “Get out of my spot.”
“I got here first,” the Mo driver said. “It’s my spot today.”
Ducker reached under his seat, hauled out a big semiautomatic, and pointed it at the driver. “You want to play Mister Tough Guy?”
The Mo driver went pale, backed his truck out of the parking space, and drove away. Ducker returned the gun to its hidey-hole under his seat and got out to sell ice cream.
So I’m thinking that now I might have three suspects. Ducker was a raving lunatic. He was also in the right spot at the right time. I had his employment record, but I didn’t have any of his financials. I thought it wouldn’t hurt to take a closer look at him.
I called Connie and asked her to run a report on Stan Ducker and Kenny Morris.
“Do you want me to email them to you, or do you want to pick them up here?” Connie asked. “I’ll be here until three o’clock.”
“I’ll pick them up. If I don’t get there by three just leave them by the back door. Is Lula working today?”
“She’s here at the office. I wouldn’t go so far as to say she’s working.”
I hung up with Connie and called Eddie Gazarra.
“Do you still need a babysitter for tonight?” I asked him.
“No, it’s a wash,” Eddie said. “My youngest woke up with a stomach bug and is running a fever. I’m not all that unhappy. We were supposed to go to a baby shower. I’d like to get hold of the idiot who thought it was a good idea to have men invited to baby showers.”
I murmured condolences to the youngest and congratulations to Eddie. I disconnected, swiveled in my seat, and looked out at Ducker. He was surrounded by people wanting ice cream.
“Do you need help?” I asked him.
“Yeah. Try to get them into a line before I get trampled.”
I got everyone lined up, and Ducker collected the money and handed out the ice cream. The last person in line got the last Bogart Bar. He wanted two Bogart Bars, but there was only one left, so Ducker gave him a Bogart Kidz Kup for free.
“Done and done,” Ducker said, getting up behind the wheel.
“You sold everything?”
