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“No. I don’t want to make a big fuss. I just want Shine to go with me to get bonded out again.”
“I’d go with you bu
t I’m waiting on my burger,” Lula said.
“No problem. I’ll be right back.”
I walked around the bar and tried the door. Locked. A little plaque on the door said PRIVATE. I knocked and waited a couple beats. I knocked a second time. Two very large goons appeared out of nowhere.
“There are gentlemen playing cards in the private salon, and they don’t wish to be disturbed,” one of the goons said. “You’ll have to leave.”
“I’m not leaving until I have Charlie Shine in custody.”
“Unfortunately, you’re creating a disturbance for our floor show,” he said. “We’re going to have to remove you.”
In the next instant I was bookended by the two goons, who each had a hand under an armpit. My feet were four inches off the floor, and I was whisked out of the Mole Hole. Slam! The door closed behind me, and I stood blinking in the bright sun.
A minute later, the door opened, and Lula joined me. She had her burger and fries in a bag and her chardonnay in a cardboard to-go coffee cup.
“This worked out good,” Lula said. “They didn’t charge me for my burger. Where are we off to now?”
“Drop me at the office so I can pick up my car and go to my parents’ house. I want to talk to Grandma. I’ll have lunch there and meet up with you later.”
CHAPTER SIX
WHEN I WALKED IN, my mother and grandmother were in the kitchen, staring at the casserole dishes on the kitchen counters. They looked relieved when they saw me.
“Thank heavens it’s you,” my mother said. “We heard the door open and were worried that it was someone with more food.”
“We’ve run out of refrigerator space,” Grandma said. “We got seven dishes of lasagna, twelve cakes, at least ten pounds of potato salad, and that’s just the beginning.”
“It’s for the wake,” my mother said. “I don’t even know half the people who dropped this stuff off. We’re going to have to rent a truck to get it to the Mole Hole.”
I lifted the lid on one of the casseroles. “This looks good. Do you mind if I have some for lunch?”
“Take what you want,” my mother said.
“I’m going to dig in too,” Grandma said. “It’s not just for the wake. It’s to help us through our time of bereavement.”
I loaded up with mac and cheese, fried chicken, kielbasa, and a bunch of mini hot dogs wrapped in mini rolls.
“The funeral is at nine o’clock tomorrow,” my mother said, sitting across from me at the kitchen table. “The funeral home is sending a car for us at eight-thirty. Your sister isn’t going. Everyone in her house has the flu. So, there will be room for you in the car.”
If I’d known about Valerie and the flu I would have gone over a couple days ago and gotten infected. I’d take the flu over the funeral any day of the week.
“I might be going with Morelli,” I said.
“He can ride in the car too,” Grandma said. “It’s a big car. It’s a limo. Not every day you get to ride in a limo. And you’ll get to sit up front at the church. They’re reserving a front row pew for us. It’s a shame Jimmy isn’t here. He would have liked riding in the limo.”
There was a long moment of silence.
“There’s times when it’s quiet at night, and I wonder about him. And I hope he’s okay,” Grandma said. “I guess he did some bad things, so it’s a crapshoot if he got into heaven.” She pushed some macaroni salad around on her plate. “Truth is I’ll be relieved when all this is over, and I can move on to what’s in front of me instead of what’s behind me. It’s not like I want to forget Jimmy. It’s just that he’s in a different spot in my life now. He’s in the good memories spot. If I didn’t put him there, I’d be sad all the time, and I don’t like being sad. I figure happiness is a choice that you make. Even in terrible times.” Grandma slumped a little. “Sometimes you really gotta work at it.”
So, here’s Grandma Mazur with hot pink lipstick and flame red hair, dressing up like the Queen of England, appropriating a ten-pound rump roast from the bingo hall . . . and it turns out she’s brilliant. She has a life philosophy. She can articulate it. She consciously tries to live by it. Happiness is a choice that you make. Wow.
“That’s great, Grandma,” I said. “Good for you.”
“I got a strong sense of self-preservation,” Grandma said. “You got it too. It’s from our Hungarian farm stock. ’Course there’s also some Gypsy in us, and it’s best not to talk about those tendencies. The Gypsies were a little loosey-goosey, if you know what I mean.”
