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“Hey!” I yelled at her. “The tunnel is dangerous. You shouldn’t be exploring down there.”
She disappeared from view, her boots echoing on the concrete for a short time, and then there was silence.
“Do you know her?” I asked the bartender.
“Never saw her before,” he said.
“She’s not from Jersey,” Lula said. “She doesn’t talk right. She sounds like Eliza Doolittle. And she’s a crazy lady, but she got good taste in purses. She had a Fendi mini backpack hanging from her shoulder. I always wanted one of them.”
Lula and I were splattered with mud and smelled of gasoline. We left the back room, walked through the dimly lit barroom, and went out the door. We stood blinking in the bright sunlight.
“I need to get out of these clothes before I got spontaneous combustion going on,” Lula said.
CHAPTER TWO
I dropped Lula off at the bail bonds office on Hamilton Avenue. Her car was parked at the curb, and my cousin Vinnie’s Cadillac was parked behind her. Vinnie’s name is on the store front sign. Vincent Plum Bail Bonds. And on some more or less official papers it looks like Vinnie owns the business. Truth is, his father-in-law, Harry the Hammer, owns the business, and he also owns Vinnie.
Traffic was light, allowing me to do the drive from the bail bonds office to my apartment building in less than fifteen minutes. I had the windows open, hoping the gasoline smell wouldn’t linger in the upholstery. I was driving a blue Honda CR-V that wasn’t brand-new, but it was new to me.
I live in a boring but adequately maintained three-story apartment building on the outskirts of Trenton proper. My one-bedroom apartment is on the second floor and looks out at the parking lot. It’s not a scenic location but it’s quiet
with the exception of the dumpster collection twice a week. I share the apartment with a hamster named Rex. He lives in an aquarium on my kitchen counter, and he sleeps in a soup can. Until very recently I sometimes shared the apartment with an on-again, off-again boyfriend, Joe Morelli. He’s a plainclothes Trenton cop working crimes against persons. Our relationship is currently in the off-again stage, so these days it’s just me and Rex.
Rex is mostly a nighttime kind of guy, but he peeked out of his soup can when I walked into the kitchen.
“Here’s the deal,” I said to Rex. “I didn’t find Charlie Shine, but I did find his partner Lou. He tried to set me on fire, and he got away, but as you can see I’m perfectly okay. Except for my sneakers that smell like gasoline.”
Rex retreated into his den, so I assumed he didn’t feel compelled to know the details of my ordeal.
I dropped an apple slice into his food dish, and I tossed the sneakers into the trash. I needed new ones anyway.
* * *
My parents live a couple of blocks from the bail bonds office in a residential chunk of Trenton called the Burg. I grew up in the Burg and I feel comfortable there, but it’s not where I want to live. The Burg is a lot like Rex’s glass aquarium. Small and enclosed and open for everyone to see in. I can’t get away from my past in the Burg. Not that my past is so terrible. It’s more that I’d like to be judged on my future… whatever that might be. Since I don’t have a good grip on my future, I’m stuck in the Burg and its surrounding neighborhood, which is another way of saying I’m halfway to who-knows-where.
My parents still live in the house where I grew up. It’s a small house on a small lot. The house is painted mustard yellow and brown, not because anyone likes the colors but because it costs too much money to change. There are three small bedrooms upstairs plus a bathroom. Living room, dining room, and kitchen downstairs. Narrow front porch running the width of the house. Small stoop in the back off the kitchen door. Single-car detached garage.
My maternal grandmother lives in the house, too. She moved in when my grandpa Mazur succumbed to years of schnitzel and Marlboros and took up residence in heaven. At least we hope it’s heaven. She was at the front door when I parked at the curb. Possibly checking the weather or maybe experiencing a moment of Grandma ESP that told her I was driving down the street.
“Just in time for lunch,” she said when I walked up to the house. “It’s Monday so that means leftover roast chicken. Your mother made it into chicken salad. And we have little rolls from the bakery.”
Food is important in the Burg. It’s the glue that holds everything together. News travels through the bakery and the deli. Bread is blessed at the church. Charities are funded at bake sales. Families still sit at the table for dinner whether they like it or not. Adult children are bribed into visiting their parents with the promise of pineapple upside-down cake, lasagna, fried chicken and biscuits, Virginia baked ham. Cultural appropriation is a good thing here. Polish housewives share recipes with their Italian neighbors. Kielbasa, macaroni and red sauce, Cozido a Portuguesa, enchiladas, burgers, goulash, pot roast, pirogi, pad thai. We eat it all. The American melting pot is alive and healthy in Burg kitchens. Even death prompts an outpouring of food. Liquor flows at the after-burial reception and the buffet table holds a disturbing number of noodle casseroles.
My father was in his chair in front of the television in the living room. He’s retired from the post office and drives a cab part-time, mostly taking a few regulars to and from the train station. He had a sandwich and a soda on a tray table, and he was tuned in to QVC. Grandma and I tiptoed around him and joined my mother in the kitchen.
“I’m glad you’re here,” my mother said to me. “Your grandmother is talking crazy again about going off on a treasure hunt. You have to speak to her. She won’t listen to me.”
At some point in time, my mother and grandmother reversed roles. My mother is now the voice of maturity and reason and my grandmother is the rebellious family member who is happy to throw caution to the wind and dye her hair flame red.
“They aren’t crazy ideas,” Grandma said. “And that treasure is my legitimate inheritance. My honey, Jimmy, left it to me. He was Keeper of the La-Z-Boys’ Keys, and he left the two keys to me.”
“He didn’t leave the keys to you,” my mother said. “He put them under his chair cushion, he died, one of his mob buddies stupidly gave you the chair, and by dumb luck we found the keys. And now I’m left with that horrible chair in my living room.”
The chair was Jimmy’s ancient Mole Hole La-Z-Boy recliner. My father loved it.
“Anyway, Stephanie promised she would help me find my treasure,” Grandma said.
“Whatever the keys unlock belongs to the six men named on the keys. Not just to Jimmy,” my mother said. “He was only one of the six La-Z-Boys.”
