Hard Eight (2 page)

“I guess you know Evelyn’s marriage didn’t work out. She and Steven got a divorce a while back, and it was pretty bitter,” Mabel finally said.

Evelyn is Mabel’s granddaughter. I’ve known Evelyn all my life, but we were never close friends. She lived several blocks away, and she went to Catholic school. Our paths only intersected on Sundays when she’d come to dinner at Mabel’s house. Valerie and I called her the Giggler because she giggled at everything. She’d come over to play board games in her Sunday clothes, and she’d giggle when she rolled the dice, giggle when she moved her piece, giggle when she lost. She giggled so much she got dimples. And when she got older, she was one of those girls that boys love. Evelyn was all round softness and dimples and vivacious energy.

I hardly ever saw Evelyn anymore, but when I did there wasn’t much vivacious energy left in her.

Mabel pressed her thin lips together. “There was so much arguing and hard feelings over the divorce that the judge made Evelyn take out one of these new child custody bonds. I guess he was afraid Evelyn wouldn’t let Steven see Annie. Anyway, Evelyn didn’t have any money to put up for the bond. Steven took the money that Evelyn got when my daughter died, and he never gave Evelyn anything. Evelyn was like a prisoner in that house on Key Street. I’m almost the only relative left for Evelyn and Annie now, so I put my house here up for collateral. Evelyn wouldn’t have gotten custody if I didn’t do that.”

This was all new to me. I’d never heard of a
custody
bond. The people I tracked down were in violation of a
bail
bond.

Mabel wiped the table clean of crumbs and dumped the crumbs in the sink. Mabel wasn’t good at sitting. “It was all just fine until last week when I got a note from Evelyn, saying she and Annie were going away for a while. I didn’t think much of it, but all of a sudden everyone is looking for Annie. Steven came to my house a couple days ago, raising his voice and saying terrible things about Evelyn. He said she had no business taking Annie off like she did, taking her away from him and taking her out of first grade. And he said he was invoking the custody bond. And then this morning I got a phone call from the bond company telling me they were going to take my house if I didn’t help them get Annie back.”

Mabel looked around her kitchen. “I don’t know what I’d do without the house. Can they really take it from me?”

“I don’t know,” I told Mabel. “I’ve never been involved in anything like this.”

“And now they all got me worried. How do I know if Evelyn and Annie are okay? I don’t have any way of getting in touch. And it was just a note. It wasn’t even like I talked to Evelyn.”

Mabel’s eyes filled up again, and I was really hoping she wasn’t going to flat-out cry because I wasn’t great with big displays of emotion. My mother and I expressed affection through veiled compliments about gravy.

“I feel just terrible,” Mabel said. “I don’t know what to do. I thought maybe you could find Evelyn and talk to her . . . make sure her and Annie are all right. I could put up with losing the house, but I don’t want to lose Evelyn and Annie. I’ve got some money set aside. I don’t know how much you charge for this sort of thing.”

“I don’t charge anything. I’m not a private investigator. I don’t take on private cases like this.” Hell, I’m not even a very good bounty hunter!

Mabel picked at her apron, tears rolling down her cheeks now. “I don’t know who else to ask.”

Oh man, I don’t believe this. Mabel Markowitz, crying! This was at about the same comfort level as getting a gyno exam in the middle of Main Street at high noon.

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll see what I can do . . . as a neighbor.”

Mabel nodded and wiped her eyes. “I’d appreciate it.” She took an envelope from the sideboard. “I have a picture for you. It’s Annie and Evelyn. It was taken last year when Annie turned seven. And I wrote Evelyn’s address on a piece of paper for you, too. And her car and license plate.”

“Do you have a key to her house?”

“No,” Mabel said. “She never gave me one.”

“Do you have any ideas about where Evelyn might have gone? Anything at all?”

Mabel shook her head. “I can’t imagine where she’s taken off to. She grew up here in the Burg. Never lived anyplace else. Didn’t go away to college. Most all our relatives are right here.”

“Did Vinnie write the bond?”

“No. It’s some other company. I wrote it down.” She reached into her apron pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. “It’s True Blue Bonds, and the man’s name is Les Sebring.”

My cousin Vinnie owns Vincent Plum Bail Bonds and runs his business out of a small storefront office on Hamilton Avenue. A while back when I’d been desperate for a job, I’d sort of blackmailed Vinnie into taking me on. The Trenton economy has since improved, and I’m not sure why I’m still working for Vinnie, except that the office is across from a bakery.

Sebring has offices downtown, and his operation makes Vinnie’s look like chump change. I’ve never met Sebring but I’ve heard stories. He’s supposed to be extremely professional. And he’s rumored to have legs second only to Tina Turner’s.

I gave Mabel an awkward hug, told her I’d look into things for her, and I left.

My mother and my grandmother were waiting for me. They were at my parents’ front door with the door cracked an inch, their noses pressed to the glass.

“
Pssst,
” my grandmother said. “Hurry up over here. We’re dying.”

“I can’t tell you,” I said.

Both women sucked in air. This went against the code of the Burg. In the Burg, blood was
always
thicker than water. Professional ethics didn’t count for much when held up to a juicy piece of gossip among family members.

“Okay,” I said, ducking inside. “I might as well tell you. You’ll find out anyway.” We rationalize a lot in the Burg, too. “When Evelyn got divorced she had to take out something called a child custody bond. Mabel put her house up as collateral. Now Evelyn and Annie are off somewhere, and Mabel is getting pressured by the bond company.”

“Oh my goodness,” my mother said. “I had no idea.”

“Mabel is worried about Evelyn and Annie. Evelyn sent her a note and said she and Annie were going away for a while, but Mabel hasn’t heard from them since.”

“If I was Mabel I’d be worried about her
house
,” Grandma said. “Sounds to me like she could be living in a cardboard box under the railroad bridge.”

“I told her I’d help her, but this isn’t really my thing. I’m not a private investigator.”

“Maybe you could get your friend Ranger to help her,” Grandma said. “That might be better anyway, on account of he’s hot. I wouldn’t mind having him hang around the neighborhood.”

Ranger is more associate than friend, although I guess friendship is mixed in there somehow, too. Plus a scary sexual attraction. A few months ago we made a deal that has haunted me. Another one of those jumping-off-the-garage-roof things, except this deal involved my bedroom. Ranger is Cuban-American with skin the color of a mocha latte, heavy on the mocha, and a body that can best be described as
yum
. He’s got a big-time stock portfolio, an
endless, inexplicable supply of expensive black cars, and skills that make Rambo look like an amateur. I’m pretty sure he only kills bad guys, and I think he might be able to fly like Superman, although the flying part has never been confirmed. Ranger works in bond enforcement, among other things. And Ranger always gets his man.

My black Honda CR-V was parked curbside. Grandma walked me to the car. “Just let me know if there’s anything I can do to help,” she said. “I always thought I’d make a good detective, on account of I’m so nosy.”

“Maybe you could ask around the neighborhood.”

“You bet. And I could go to Stiva’s tomorrow. Charlie Shleckner is laid out. I hear Stiva did a real good job on him.”

New York has Lincoln Center. Florida has Disney World. The Burg has Stiva’s Funeral Home. Not only is Stiva’s the premier entertainment facility for the Burg, it’s also the nerve center of the news network. If you can’t get the dirt on someone at Stiva’s, then there isn’t any dirt to get.

It was still early when I left Mabel’s, so I drove past Evelyn’s house on Key Street. It was a two-family house very much like my parents’. Small front yard, small front porch, small two-story house. No sign of life in Evelyn’s half. No car parked in front. No lights shining behind drawn drapes. According to Grandma Mazur, Evelyn had lived in the house when she’d been married to Steven Soder and had stayed there with Annie when Soder moved out. Eddie Abruzzi owns the property and rents out both units. Abruzzi owns several houses in the Burg
and a couple large office buildings in downtown Trenton. I don’t know him personally, but I’ve heard he’s not the world’s nicest guy.

I parked and walked to Evelyn’s front porch. I rapped lightly on her door. No answer. I tried to peek in the front window, but the drapes were drawn tight. I walked around the side of the house and stood on tippy toes, looking in. No luck with the side windows in the front room and dining room, but my snoopiness paid off with the kitchen. No curtains drawn in the kitchen. There were two cereal bowls and two glasses on the counter next to the sink. Everything else seemed tidy. No sign of Evelyn or Annie. I returned to the front and knocked on the neighbor’s door.

The door opened, and Carol Nadich looked out at me.

“Stephanie!” she said. “How the hell are you?”

I went to school with Carol. She got a job at the button factory when we graduated and two months later married Lenny Nadich. Once in a while I run into her at Giovichinni’s Meat Market, but beyond that we’ve lost touch.

“I didn’t realize you were living here,” I said. “I was looking for Evelyn.”

Carol did an eye roll. “Everyone’s looking for Evelyn. And to tell you the truth, I hope no one finds her. Except for you, of course. Those other jerks I wouldn’t wish on anyone.”

“What other jerks?’

“Her ex-husband and his friends. And the landlord, Abruzzi, and his goons.”

“You and Evelyn were close?”

“As close as anyone could get to Evelyn. We moved here two years ago, before the divorce. She’d spend all
day popping pills and then drink herself into a stupor at night.”

“What kind of pills?”

“Prescription. For depression, I think. Understandable, since she was married to Soder. Do you know him?”

“Not well.” I met Steven Soder for the first time at Evelyn’s wedding nine years ago, and I took an instant dislike to him. In my brief dealings with him over the following years I found nothing to change my original bad impression.

“He’s a real manipulative bastard. And abusive,” Carol said.

“He’d hit her?”

“Not that I know. Just mental abuse. I could hear him yelling at her all the time. Telling her she was stupid. She was kind of heavy, and he used to call her ‘the cow.’ Then one day he moved out and moved in with some other woman. Joanne Something. Evelyn’s lucky day.”

“Do you think Evelyn and Annie are safe?”

“God, I hope so. Those two deserve a break.”

I looked over at Evelyn’s front door. “I don’t suppose you have a key?”

Carol shook her head. “Evelyn didn’t trust anyone. She was real paranoid. I don’t think her grandma even has a key. And she didn’t tell me where she was going, if that’s your next question. One day she just loaded a bunch of bags into her car and took off.”

I gave Carol my card and headed for home. I live in a three-story brick apartment building about ten minutes from the Burg . . . five, if I’m late for dinner and I hit the lights right. The building was constructed at a time when energy was cheap and architecture was inspired by economy.
My bathroom is orange and brown, my refrigerator is avocado green, and my windows were born before Thermopane. Fine by me. The rent is reasonable, and the other tenants are okay. Mostly the building is inhabited by seniors on fixed incomes. The seniors are, for the most part, nice people . . . as long as you don’t let them get behind the wheel of a car.

I parked in the lot and pushed through the double glass door that led to the small lobby. I was filled with chicken and potatoes and gravy and chocolate layer cake and Mabel’s coffee cake, so I bypassed the elevator and took the stairs as penance. All right, so I’m only one flight up, but it’s a start, right?

My hamster, Rex, was waiting for me when I opened the door to my apartment. Rex lives in a soup can in a glass aquarium in my kitchen. He stopped running on his wheel when I switched the light on and blinked out at me, whiskers whirring. I like to think it was
welcome home
but probably it was
who put the damn light on?
I gave him a raisin and a small piece of cheese. He stuffed the food into his cheeks and disappeared into his soup can. So much for roommate interaction.

In the past, Rex has sometimes shared his roommate status with a Trenton cop named Joe Morelli. Morelli’s two years older than I am, half a foot taller, and his gun is bigger than mine. Morelli started looking up my skirt when I was six, and he’s just never gotten out of the habit. We’ve had some differences of opinion lately, and Morelli’s toothbrush is not currently in my bathroom. Unfortunately, it’s a lot harder to get Morelli out of my heart and my mind than out of my bathroom. Nevertheless, I’m making an effort.

I got a beer from the fridge and settled in front of the television. I flipped through the stations, hitting the high points, not finding much. I had the photo of Evelyn and Annie in front of me. They were standing together, looking happy. Annie had curly red hair and the pale skin of a natural redhead. Evelyn had her brown hair pulled back. Conservative makeup. She was smiling, but not enough to bring out the dimples.

A mom and her kid . . . and I was supposed to find them.

Connie Rosolli had a doughnut in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other when I walked into the bail bonds office the next morning. She pushed the doughnut box across the top of her desk with her elbow and white powdered sugar sifted off her doughnut, down onto her boobs. “Have a doughnut,” she said. “You look like you need one.”