Mrs. Baggett answered the door. Stuart was close enough to my age that we might be friends. I thought I'd go with this approach first, saying very little, letting Mrs. Baggett assume the obvious.
“Hi,” I said. “I'm looking for Stuart.”
There was a moment's hesitation, which might have been concern, or maybe she was just trying to place me. “I'm sorry” she said. “Stuart's not home. Was he supposed to meet you here?”
“No. I just thought I might catch him.”
“He's with one of his friends,” Mrs. Baggett said. “Moved out yesterday. Said he had a new job, and he was going to share a place with this friend of his.”
“Do you have an address or a phone number?”
“No. I don't even have a name. He had some words with his father and stormed off. Would you like to leave a message?”
I gave her my card. “Stuart failed to appear in court. He needs to reschedule his court date as soon as possible. It's very important.”
Mrs. Baggett made a distressed little sound. “I don't know what to do with him. He's just gone wild.”
“I'd appreciate it if you'd call me if you hear from him.”
She nodded her head. “I will. I'll call you.”
I could expend a lot of energy looking for Stuart, or I could wait for him to go home. I decided to go with the latter. Mrs. Baggett looked like a responsible, intelligent woman. I felt pretty confident that she'd get back to me. If not I'd make a return visit later in the week.
Ranger called back a little after seven with news that Shorty O had gone south for the winter. No one had seen him in days, and that probably included Mo.
At eight o'clock I was standing across the street from Uncle Mo's, and I was feeling nervous. Even though I had a key to his apartment, there were some who might regard what I was about to do as breaking and entering. Of course I could always fib, and say Uncle Mo had asked me to look after his things. If it was a judge who was doing the asking I guess my answer might fall into that undesirable area of perjury. Perjury seemed like a good thing to avoid. Although in Jersey, written law often bowed to common sense. Which meant perjury was better than being dispatched to the landfill.
The sky was dark. The moon obscured by cloud cover. Lights were on in houses up and down Mo's street, but Mo's apartment windows were black. A car cruised by and parked three houses away. I was lost in shadow and the driver walked from his car to his house without seeming to notice me. I'd left the Buick on Lindal Street, one block away.
I could see Mrs. Steeger moving in her front room. I was waiting for her to settle before going closer. She peered out her living room window, and my heart stopped dead in my chest. She drew back from the window, and I gasped for air. Little black dots danced in front of my eyes. I clapped a hand to my chest. The woman made my blood run cold.
Headlights swung around the corner, and a car stopped at the Steeger house. The driver beeped, and Mrs. Steeger opened her door and waved. A moment later she was locking up behind herself. I held my breath and willed myself invisible. Mrs. Steeger carefully picked her way along the dark steps and sidewalk to the car. She seated herself next to the driver, slammed the door shut and the car drove off.
My lucky day.
I crossed the street and tried Mo's house key on the candy store door with no success. I walked to the back and tried the same key on the rear entrance. The key didn't work there either.
It had occurred to me while talking to Ranger that due to police interruption, I'd never gotten around to searching Mo's store. I don't know what I expected to find, but it felt like unfinished business.
Since the house keys didn't work on the store doors, I assumed there had to be another set of keys in Mo's apartment. I took the stairs as if I owned the place. When in doubt, always look like you know what you're doing. I pulled a flashlight out of my pocketbook and knocked twice. I called to Uncle Mo. No answer. I unlocked the door, took one step inside and swept a beam of light around the room. Everything seemed to be in order, so I closed the door behind myself and did a fast walk-through of the rest of the apartment. There were no keys lying on open surfaces and no cute little key hooks on any of the walls. There was no evidence that anyone had been in the apartment since my last visit.
The kitchen was small. White metal cupboards over a gray Formica countertop and an old white porcelain sink that had a few black chips showing. The cupboards held a mismatched assortment of glasses, cups, plates and bowls. No keys. I went through the under-the-counter drawers. One dedicated to silverware. One for dish towels. One for plastic wrap, aluminum foil, plastic bags. One for junk. Still no keys.
I took a moment to look at the photos on the wall next to the fridge. Pictures of children. All from the burg. I recognized almost everyon
e. I searched until I found mine. Twelve years old, eating an ice cream cone. I remembered Mo taking the picture.
I poked in the refrigerator, checking for cleverly hollowed out heads of cabbage and fake cola cans. Not finding any, I moved on to the bedroom.
The double bed was covered with a quilted bedspread, its yellow and brown flowers faded, the cotton material softened from years of service. The bed and nightstand were inexpensive walnut veneer. Uncle Mo lived modestly. Guess there wasn't all that much profit in ice cream cones.
I started with the top bureau drawer and sure enough, there was the key ring consigned to its own compartment in a removable wooden jewelry tray. I pocketed the key ring, closed the drawer and was about to leave when the stack of movie magazines caught my eye. Premiere, Entertainment Weekly, Soap Opera Digest, Juggs. Whoa! Juggs? Not the sort of reading material one would expect to find in a gay man's bedroom.
I wedged the flashlight under my armpit, sank to the floor and flipped through the first half of Juggs. Appalling. I flipped through the second half. Equally appalling and fascinatingly disgusting. The next magazine in the stack had a naked man on the cover. He was wearing a black mask and black socks and his Mr. Happy hung almost to his knees. He looked like he'd been sired by Thunder the Wonder Horse. I was tempted to look inside, but the pages were stuck together, so I moved on. I found a couple magazines that I'd never heard of that were devoted primarily to amateurish snapshots of people in various stages of undress, in a variety of embarrassing poses labeled “Mary and Frank from Sioux City” and “Rebecca Sue in Her Kitchen.” There were some more Entertainment Weeklys, and on the bottom of the pile there were a couple photographic catalogues, which reminded me that I'd found a couple unopened boxes of film in the fridge.
And this reminded me that I was supposed to be conducting an illegal search, not comparing anatomical features with women wearing crotchless panties and spiked dog collars.
I neatened everything up and crept out of the room, out of the apartment, thinking that Uncle Mo was a very weird guy.