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“It’s a big deal,” Grandma said. “It’s almost as big as Comic-Con. It’s at the convention center in Atlantic City this week. I was thinking of going with Carol Lumbardi, but she punked out on me.”
“Are you a comic book fan?” Lula asked Grandma.
“No. I heard Jason Momoa is going to be there. I thought he might be worth seeing.”
“He’s hot,” Lula said. “Not as hot as Ranger, but still pretty darn hot.”
“Local news did a story on it this morning and I thought about Benji,” Grandma said.
“Good thinking,” Lula said. “When’s this comic thingy start?”
“It’s going on now,” Grandma said. “Yesterday was the first day and it runs through the weekend.”
“There will be hundreds, maybe thousands of people attending,” I said. “What are the chances of finding Benji?”
“Here’s Miss Rain-on-the-Parade,” Lula said. “You gotta think positive. And if we can’t find Benji, we might be able to find Jason Momoa.” Lula looked over at my mom. “How about you, Mrs. P? Are you up for GoComic? We got room in the car.”
“I’m going to stay home and knit, but thank you for asking,” she said. “There’s a crafts show coming up next month and I thought I might enter my scarf if I can get enough length.”
“If it gets much bigger, you’re gonna have to rent a truck to get it to the show,” Lula said.
Atlantic City is a little less than an hour and a half from Trenton. Considering it’s Jersey, it’s a fairly pleasant ride. I took Hamilton Avenue to Route 129, drove south, and got onto I-295. The rest was a straight shot down 295 and the Atlantic City Expressway.
“I’m on the GoComic website,” Lula said. “It looks like you gotta pay to get into this.”
“I get a break because I’m a senior citizen,” Grandma said.
“How much does it cost for us?” I asked Lula.
“It’s fifty dollars. Good thing this is official business. I brought petty cash from the office, and I got a new credit card that I gave myself as temporary office manager.”
“Do you see anything about Jason Momoa?” Grandma asked.
“There’s an Aquaman panel discussion but it doesn’t say who’s on it.”
Here’s something promising, I thought. Benji’s wasted roommate said Benji was going to hang out with Aquaman. I was about to get lucky.
“When is the Aquaman panel?” I asked Lula.
“Three o’clock.”
“That makes things tight for us,” Grandma said to me. “Your mother isn’t going to be happy if we’re late for dinner.”
“You can’t be thinking about dinner at a time when we’re about to crack this case wide open,” Lula said to Grandma. “One of our prime suspects could be in the audience for that Aquaman panel. Aquaman himself might even help us make an apprehension.”
“I guess when you put it that way it would make sense to miss dinner,” Grandma said.
“We want totalkto Benji, not apprehend him,” I said. “He hasn’t committed a crime. At least none that we know about.”
The Atlantic City Convention Center is a massive structure at the end of the Atlantic City Expressway. It isn’t directly on the ocean but it isn’t far away either. I parked in the center’s garage, and we all hustled over to the main building.
“This is exciting,” Grandma said. “I always wanted to go to one of these things. I’ve seen pictures of people who come dressed up like their favorite characters. If I’d known ahead, I would have dressed up like a Power Ranger. I got all the moves.”
“I’d be Sexy Loki,” Lula said. She looked at me. “Who would you want to be?”
“Iron Man.”
“That’s a serious superhero,” Grandma said.
