“You don't know him. Someone I went to school with.”
“Well, you're lucky to have friends like that. You should bake him something. A cake.”
I pushed past her, heading for the cellar stairs. “I brought my laundry. I hope you don't mind.”
“Of course I don't mind. What's that smell? Is that you? You smell like a garbage can.”
“I accidentally dropped my keys in a Dumpster, and I had to climb in and get them out.”
“I don't understand how these things happen to you. They don't happen to anyone else. Who else do you know dropped their keys in a Dumpster? No one, that's who. Only you would do such a thing.”
Grandma Mazur came out of the kitchen. “I smell throw-up.”
“It's Stephanie,” my mother said. “She was in a Dumpster.”
“What was she doing in a Dumpster? Was she looking for bodies? I saw a movie on TV where the mob splattered some guy's brains all over the place and then left him for rat food in a Dumpster.”
“She was looking for her keys,” my mother told Grandma Mazur. “It was an accident.”
> “Well that's disappointing,” Grandma Mazur said. “I expected something better from her.”
When we were done eating, I called Eddie Gazarra, put the second load of laundry in the washer, and hosed down my shoes and my keys. I sprayed the inside of the Jeep with Lysol and opened the windows wide. The alarm wasn't usable with the windows open, but I didn't think I was running much risk of the car being reclaimed from in front of my parents' house. I took a shower and dressed in clean clothes fresh from the dryer.
I was spooked over John Kuzack's death and not anxious to walk into a dark apartment, so I made a point of getting home early. I'd just locked the door behind me when the phone rang. The voice was muffled, so that I had to strain to hear, squinting at the handset as if that would help.
Fear is not a logical emotion. No one can physically hurt me on the phone, but I flinched all the same when I realized it was Ramirez.
I immediately hung up, and when the phone rang again I snapped the plug from the wall jack. I needed an answering machine to monitor my calls, but I couldn't afford to buy one until I made a recovery. First thing in the morning I was going to have to go after Lonnie Dodd.
* * * * *
I AWOKE TO THE STEADY DRUMMING OF RAIN on my fire escape. Wonderful. Just what I needed to complicate my life further. I crawled out of bed and pulled the curtain aside, not pleased at the sight of an all-day soaker. The parking lot had slicked up, reflecting light from mysterious sources. The rest of the world was gunmetal gray, the cloud cover low and unending, the buildings robbed of color behind the rain.
I showered and dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, letting my hair dry on its own. No sense fussing when I was going to get drenched the instant I stepped out of the building. I did the breakfast thing, brushed my teeth, and applied a nice thick line of turquoise eyeliner to offset the gloom. I was wearing my Dumpster shoes in honor of the rain. I looked down and sniffed. Maybe I smelled a hint of boiled ham, but all things considered I didn't think that was so bad.
I did a pocketbook inventory, making sure I had all my goodies—cuffs, bludgeoning baton, flashlight, gun, extra ammo (not much good to me since I'd already forgotten how to load the gun—still, you never knew when you might need something heavy to throw at an escaping felon). I crammed Dodd's file in along with a collapsible umbrella and a package of peanut butter crackers for emergency snacking. I grabbed the ultracool black and purple Gore-Tex jacket I'd purchased when I was of the privileged working class, and I headed for the parking lot.
This was the sort of day to read comic books under a blanket tent and eat the icing from the middle of the Oreos. This was not the sort of day to chase down desperados. Unfortunately, I was hard up for money and couldn't be choosy about selecting desperado days.
Lonnie Dodd's address was listed as 2115 Barnes. I hauled my map out and looked up the coordinates. Hamilton Township is about three times the size of Trenton proper and roughly shaped like a wedge of pie that's suffered some nibbles. Barnes ran with its back pressed to the Conrail tracks just north of Yardville, the beginning of the lower third of the county.
I took Chambers to Broad and cut up on Apollo. Barnes struck off from Apollo. The sky had lightened marginally, and it was possible to read house numbers as I drove. The closer I got to 2115 the more depressed I became. Property value was dropping at a frightening rate. What had begun as a respectable blue-collar neighborhood with trim single-family bungalows on good-sized lots had deteriorated to neglected low-income to no-income housing.
Twenty-one fifteen was at the end of the street. The grass was overgrown and had gone to seed. A rusted bike and a washing machine with its top lid askew decorated the front yard. The house itself was a small cinder block rancher built on a slab. It looked to be more of an outbuilding than a home. Something intended for chickens or porkers. A sheet had been tacked haphazardly over the front picture window. Probably to afford the inhabitants privacy while they crushed cans of Bull's-Eye beer against their foreheads and plotted mayhem.
I told myself it was now or never. Rain pattered on the roof and sluiced down the windshield. I pumped myself up by applying fresh lipstick. There was no great surge of power, so I deepened the blue liner and added mascara and blush. I checked myself out in the rearview mirror. Wonder Woman, eat your heart out. Yeah, right. I studied Dodd's picture one last time. Didn't want to overwhelm the wrong man. I dropped my keys into into my pocketbook, pulled my hood tip, and got out of the car. I knocked on the door and caught myself secretly hoping no one was home. The rain and the neighborhood and the prim little house were giving me the creeps. If the second knock goes unanswered, I thought, I'll consider it the will of God that I'm not destined to catch Dodd, and I'll get the hell out of here.
No one answered on the second knock, but I'd heard a toilet flush, and I knew someone was in there. Damn. I gave the door a few good shots with my fist. “Open up,” I yelled at the top of my voice. “Pizza delivery.”
A skinny guy with dark, tangled shoulder-length hair answered the door. He was a couple inches taller than me. He was barefoot and shirtless, wearing a pair of filthy, lowslung jeans that were unsnapped and only half zipped. Beyond him I could see a trash-filled livingroom. The air drifting out was pungent with cat fumes.
“I didn't order no pizza,” he said.
“Are you Lonnie Dodd?”
“Yeah. What's with the pizza delivery shit?”
“It was a ploy to get you to answer your door.”