The porch light was on at Ronald's house. Guess he was waiting for me. Hope he had room in his freezer for an organ. I left Lula on the bike with her Glock in her hand, and I walked the cooler to the front door and rang the bell.
Ronald opened the door and looked out at me and then at Lula. “Do you two sleep together, too?”
“No,” I said. “I sleep with Joe Morelli.”
Ronald looked a little grim at that since Morelli is a vice cop and Ronald is a vice purveyor.
“Before I hand this over to you I want you to call and have Grandma released,” I said.
“Sure. Come on in.”
“I'll stay here. And I want to hear Grandma tell me she's okay.”
Ronald shrugged. “Whatever. Let me see the heart.”
I slid the top back and Ronald looked inside.
“Jesus,” he said, “it's frozen.”
I looked in the cooler, too. What I saw was a blechy-looking lump of maroon ice wrapped in plastic.
“Yeah,” I said, “it was starting to look a little funky. You can't keep a heart around forever, you know. So I froze it.”
“You saw it when it wasn't frozen, though, right? And it looked okay?”
“I'm not exactly an expert on this stuff.”
Ronald disappeared and returned with a portable phone. “Here,” he said, handing the phone over to me. “Here's your granny.”
“I'm at Quaker Bridge with Eddie,” Grandma said. “I saw a jacket I like at Macy's, but I have to wait for my Social Security check.”
Eddie got on the line. “I'm going to leave her at the pizza place here. You can pick her up anytime.”
I repeated it for Ranger. “Okay, let me get this straight. You're going to leave Grandma at the pizza place at Quaker Bridge Mall.”
“Yeah,” Eddie said, “what are you, wearing a wire?”
“Who, me?”
I gave the phone back to Ronald and handed him the cooler. “If I were you I'd put the heart in the freezer for now and then maybe pack it in dry ice for the trip to Richmond.”
He nodded. “I'll do that. Wouldn't want to give Louie D a heart full of maggots.”
“Out of morbid curiosity,” I said, “was it your idea for me to bring the heart here?”
“You said don't let anything go wrong.”
When I got back to the bike I hauled my cell phone out and called Ranger.
“I'm on my way,” Ranger said. “I'm about ten minutes from Quaker Bridge. I'll call when I have her.”
I nodded my head and disconnected, unable to speak. There are times when life is just fucking overwhelming.
LULA LIVES IN a tiny apartment in a part of the ghetto that's pretty nice as far as ghettos go. I took Brunswick Avenue, wound around some, crossed over the train tracks, and found Lula's neighborhood. Streets were narrow and houses were small. Probably originally built for immigrants imported to work in the porcelain factories and steel mills. Lula lived in the middle of the block on the second floor of one of these houses.
My phone rang just as I cut the engine.
“I've got your grandmother with me, babe,” Ranger said. “I'm taking her home. Do you want any pizza?”