I used Connie's phone to call my mother.
“Don't worry about Grandma,” I said. “I know where she is and I'm going to pick her up later tonight.” Then I hung up before my mother could ask questions.
AFTER LUNCH LULA and I went to Price Chopper.
“We need a heart,” Lida said to the butcher. “And it has to be in good condition.”
“Sorry,” he said, “we don't have any hearts. How about so
me other kind of organ meat. Like liver. We have some nice calf livers.”
“Has to be a heart,” Lula said. “You know where we can get a heart?”
“So far as I know, they all go to a dog food factory in Arkansas.”
“We haven't got time to go to Arkansas,” Lula said. “Thanks, anyway.”
On the way out we stopped at a display of picnic necessities and bought a small red-and-white Igloo cooler.
“This'll be perfect,” Lula said. “All we need now is the heart.”
“Do you think we'll have better luck on Stark Street?”
“I know some butchers there that sell stuff you don't want to know about,” Lula said. “If they don't got a heart they'll go get one, no questions asked.”
There were parts to Stark Street that made Bosnia look good. Lula worked Stark Street when she was a ho. It was a long street of depressed businesses, depressed housing, and depressed people.
It took us close to a half hour to get there, rumbling through center city, enjoying the custom pipes and the attention a hog demands.
It was a sunny April day, but Stark Street looked dreary. Pages from a newspaper cartwheeled down the street and banked against curbs and the cement stoops of cheerless row houses. Gang slogans were spray-painted on brick fronts. An occasional building had been burned and gutted, the windows blackened and boarded. Small businesses squatted between the row houses. Andy's Bar & Grill, Stark Street Garage, Stan's Appliances, Omar's Meat Market.
“This is the place,” Lula said. “Omar's Meat Market. If it's used for dog food then Omar's gonna be selling it for soup. We just want to make sure the heart isn't still beating when we get it.”
“Is it safe to leave the bike parked here at the curb?”
“Hell no. Park it on the sidewalk next to the window so we can watch it.”
There was a large black man behind the meat case. His hair was buzzed short and was shot with gray. His white butcher's apron was blood-smeared. He had a thick gold chain around his neck and he wore a single diamond stud. He smiled ear-to-ear when he saw us.
“Lula! Looking good. Never see you anymore since you stopped working the street. Like the leather.”
“This here's Omar,” Lula said to me. “He's about as rich as Bill Gates. He just runs this butcher shop because he likes sticking his hand up chicken butts.”
Omar tipped his head back and laughed, and the sound was a lot like the Harley echoing off the Stark Street storefronts.
“What can I do for you?” Omar asked Lula.
“I need a heart.”
Omar didn't blink an eye. Guess he got requests for hearts all the time. “Sure,” he said, “what kind of a heart do you want? What are you going to do with it? Make soup? Slice it and fry it?”
“I don't suppose you have any human hearts?”
“Not today. They're special order.”
“What's the next closest thing, then?”
“Pig heart. Can't hardly tell the difference.”