“So, Mr. Magic,” I said to Diesel, “what can you do with cars?”
“I can drive ‘em.”
“Can you fix them?”
“I can change a tire.”
I filed that away in case I needed a tire changed, wrenched the door open, and rammed myself behind the wheel.
My parents live in the Burg, short for the Chambersburg section of Trenton. Houses and aspirations are modest, but meals are large. My mother dumped a mess of scrambled eggs and over a pound of breakfast sausages onto Diesel’s plate. “I got up this morning, and she was gone,” my mother said. “Poof.”
Diesel didn’t look too concerned. I was guessing in his world, poof, and you’re gone wasn’t all that unusual.
“Where did you find the note?” I asked my mother.
“On the kitchen table.”
I ate my last piece of sausage. “Last time she disappeared, we found her camped out in line, waiting to buy tickets to the Stones concert.”
“I have your father driving around looking, but so far he hasn’t seen her.”
My father was retired from the Post Office and now drove a cab part-?time. Mostly, he drove the cab to his lodge to play cards with his friends, but sometimes he picked up early-?morning fares to the train station.
I drained
my coffee cup, pushed back from the table, and went upstairs and looked around Grandma’s room. From what I could tell, she’d taken her purse, her gray jacket, her teeth, and the clothes on her back. There was no sign of struggle. No bloodstains. No duffel bag. There was a brochure for Daffy’s Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City on her nightstand.
I traipsed back downstairs to the kitchen. “Where’s the big bag?”
“What big bag?” my mother wanted to know.
“Grandma had a big bag with her yesterday. It’s not in her room.”
“I don’t know anything about a bag,” my mother said.
“Did Grandma just get her social security check?”
“A couple days ago.”
So maybe she bought herself some new clothes, stuffed them into the duffel bag, and got herself on an early bus to Daffy’s.
Diesel finished his breakfast and stood. “Need help?”
“Are you any good at finding lost grandmothers?”
“Nope. Not my area of expertise.”
“What is your area of expertise?” I asked him.
Diesel grinned at me.
“Besides that,” I said.
“Maybe she just took off for a nooner with the butcher.”
My mother gasped. Horrified that Diesel would say such a thing, and doubly horrified because she knew it was a possibility.
“She wouldn’t leave in the middle of the night for a nooner.”