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I finished the pasta salad and stood. “Gotta go. Things to do.”
“Me too,” Lula said. “What time is dinner?”
“There’s no dinner,” I said. “I don’t cook.”
“Yeah, but you defrost.”
“I don’t defrost,” I said. “Sometimes I toast. And frequently I dial. That’s as complicated as it gets.”
I have nothing against cooking. I have pots and pans. I watch cooking shows and I buy foodie magazines. I actually like food a lot. It’s just that I can’t get motivated to spend hours in the kitchen when the only other creature eating my food is a hamster. He’s happy with a grape. I suppose I could find joy in fixing dinner for Lula and Nutsy, but if I feed them real meals, they might want to stay longer. I like them, but not in my apartment.
“Okay,” Lula said, “I’ll be in charge of dinner. I’m excellent at dialing. Dinner is at six o’clock.”
Bob and I left the office and got into Ranger’s SUV. I settled myself behind the wheel, took a calming breath, and called Nutsy.
“Hey,” he said.
“Where are you?”
“I’m leaving Sissy’s house. I swapped out my bike for Duncan’s Kia Rio. Sissy’s okay driving my bike. She’s done it before.”
“Not perfect but good enough. Let’s find the homeless guy. Pick a meet spot.”
“The coffee shop on Broad and Twenty-Third Street.”
Nutsy was already there when Bob and I arrived. He was sitting at an outside table, and he was looking nervous. I left Bob with him, went inside to get a coffee, and returned to the table.
“You can relax,” I said to Nutsy. “Plover isn’t sniper material.”
“He might have hired someone,” Nutsy said. “A hit man.”
“Do you have reason to believe this?”
“It’s what happens on television.”
“Tell me about the homeless guy. What does he look like? Have you seen him since his friend was killed?”
“He was a little past middle-aged. Maybe late fifties. Hard to tell with homeless because they have hard lives, and they age. A white guy but weathered and tan. Sort of faded brown hair. Ponytail. Maybe five foot ten. Shorter than me. Medium build. He was usually in sneakers and baggy pants and a T-shirt and sweatshirt. Mostly clean-shaven.”
“That describes half the men in Trenton.”
“He had a spider tattoo on his hand. Both homeless guys had the spider tattoo.”
“That’s helpful.”
“They were always on the corner, outside the jewelry store, but I haven’t seen them since the one guy was shot.”
“Have you talked to anyone else in the area who might know them? Other panhandlers, crazies, drug dealers?”
“A hooker knew them as Marcus and Stump. Stump is the one who was killed. He was taller than Marcus and he had gray hair that looked like steel wool. Frizzy. She said they weren’t customers but she talked to them sometimes, and sometimes they showed up for the evening food truck.”
“Did you talk to the food truck people?”
“Sure, but they didn’t know much. They just hand out sandwiches and soup. It’s not like they’re social workers. They remembered Marcus because of the spider tattoo, but they haven’t seen him lately.”
“Have you been watching the food truck?”
“I was for a while. No Marcus.”
