“Yeah,” Morelli said. “So?”
I blew out a sigh. “I'll be over around six.”
I drove a couple blocks down Hamilton and left-turned onto Olden. The button factory is just beyond the city limits of north Trenton. At four in the morning, it's a ten-minute drive from my apartment. At all other hours, the drive time is unpredictable. I stopped for a red light at the corner of Olden and State and just as the light flashed green I heard the pop of gunshot behind me and the zing, zing, zing of three rounds tearing into metal and fiberglass. I was pretty sure it was my metal and fiberglass, so I floored the Saturn and sailed across the intersection. I crossed North Clinton and kept going, checking my rearview mirror. Hard to tell in traffic, but I didn't think anyone was following me. My heart was racing, and I was telling myself to chill. No reason to believe this was anything more than a random shooting. Probably just some gang guy having fun, practicing his sniping. You've got to practice somewhere, right?
I fished my cell phone out of my purse and called Morelli. "Someone's taking
potshots at cars on the corner of Olden and State,“ I told him. ”You might want to send someone over to check things out."
“Are you okay?”
“I'd be better if I had that second doughnut.” Okay, so this was my best try at bravado. My hands were white-knuckled gripping the wheel and my foot was
shaking on the gas pedal. I sucked in some air and told myself I was just a little excited. Not panicked. Not terrified. Just a little excited. All I had to do was calm down and take a couple more deep breaths and I'd be fine.
Ten minutes later, I pulled the Saturn into the button factory parking lot.
The entire factory was housed in a mammoth three-story redbrick building.
The bricks were dark with age, the old-fashioned double-hung windows were
grimy, and the landscaping was lunar. Dickens would have loved it. I wasn't so sure it was my thing. But then, my thing wasn't clearly defined anymore.
I got out and walked to the rear of the car, hoping I'd been wrong about the
gunshot. I felt another dump of adrenaline when I saw the damage. I'd taken
three hits. Two rounds were embedded in the back panel and one had destroyed
a rear light.
No one had followed me into the lot, and I didn't see any cars lingering on the road. Wrong place, wrong time, I told myself. And I would have believed it entirely if it hadn't been for my lousy previous job and the two notes.
As it was, I had to back-burner some paranoia so as not to be in a terror-induced cold sweat while trying to talk some guy into hiring me.
I crossed the lot to the large glass double doors leading to the offices, and I sashayed through the doors into the lobby. The lobby was small with a chipped tile floor and seasick green walls. Somewhere, not far off, I could
hear machines stamping out buttons. Phones rang in another part of the building. I approached the reception desk and asked for Karen Slobodsky.
“Sorry,” the woman said. “You're two hours too late. She just quit. Stormed out of here like hurricane Slobodsky, yelling something about sexual harassment.”
“So there's a job opening?” I asked, thinking my day was finally turning lucky.
“Sure looks that way. I'll buzz her boss, Jimmy Alizzi.”
Ten minutes later, I was in Alizzi's office, sitting across from him. He was at his desk and his slight frame was dwarfed by his massive furniture. He looked to be in his late thirties to early forties. He had slicked-back black hair and an accent and skin tone that had me thinking Indian.
“I will tell you now that I am not Indian,” Alizzi said. “Everyone thinks I am Indian, but that is a false assumption. I come from a very small island country off the coast of India.”
“Sri Lanka?”
“No, no, no,” he said, wagging his bony finger at me. “Not Sri Lanka. My country is even smaller. We are a very proud people, so you must be careful not to make ethnic slurs.”
“Sure. You want to tell me the name of this country?”
“Latorran.”
“Never heard of it.”