SEVEN
“THINGS ARE GOING good today,” Lula said. “We haven’t been shot at or nothin’. Have you got the bottle with you?”
“No. I left it at home.”
“Imagine if you had the bottle.”
“I’ve got Chopper’s file in my bag,” I said to Lula. “Pull it out and read me his address. I think he’s off South Broad.”
“I’m not sure I want to go after someone named Chopper,” Lula said. “Suppose he got his name chopping off fingers and toes. I don’t want to lose none of mine. I couldn’t wear peep-toe shoes. It would limit my fashion potential.”
“Does it say anything in his file about fingers or toes?”
Lula paged through the file. “No. His real name is Mortimer Gonzolez, but it says everyone calls him Chopper. And it says he got a pet named Mr. Jingles, and you want to be careful about Mr. Jingles. I hope it’s not a cat. It sounds like a cat name. Just thinking about it makes my eyes itch.”
“Has he got priors?”
“Yeah, lots of them. All like this. All for dealin’ drugs. Don’t see no assault with a deadly weapon in here. Looks to me like he’s a businessman. Middle management.”
“Did Connie include a map?”
“Yeah. You have to turn right off Broad onto Cotter Street.”
I drove down Broad, and I thought about Mickey
Gritch. He said he was out of it. I hoped he wasn’t so out of it that he couldn’t lead me to Vinnie. And what the heck did he mean when he said it was complicated and there were bad people involved? I thought this was about a simple gambling debt.
“Hey!” Lula said. “You just drove past the street.”
I hooked a U-turn and doubled back to Cotter. “I was thinking about the conversation with Gritch. How bad would you have to be to be worse than Bobby Sunflower?”
“I hear you,” Lula said. “I think Vinnie got himself into a real mess this time.”
I drove one block down Cotter, and Lula counted off numbers.
“Here,” she said. “He’s living over this plumbing supply warehouse. Must be a loft apartment.”
Cotter Street was an odd mix of light industrial and residential. Low-income single-family houses were mixed between auto body shops, small warehouse facilities, and a variety of building supply businesses. I drove around the block to see if it was intersected by an alley. Turned out it was, so I drove down the alley and idled behind the plumbing supply warehouse, looking up at the second-floor loft.
“How do you want to do this?” Lula asked. “Girl Scout cookies? Pizza delivery? Census survey?”
There were stairs leading up to a small deck and a back door. So far as I could tell, this was the only entrance. “I’m in a mood to just go up and kick the door down,” I said to Lula.
“Me, too. That was gonna be my next suggestion.” Lula looked over at me. “You learn how to kick a door down?”
“No. I thought you’d do it.”
“I’m wearing four-inch slut shoes. I can’t kick a door down in slut shoes. It isn’t done. You need boots to kick a door down. Everyone knows that.”
“Then I guess we’ll ring the doorbell and identify ourselves.”
“Whatever,” Lula said.
I parked behind a rusted-out Econoline van, and Lula and I got out and walked up the stairs to the deck. There was no doorbell, so I knocked on the door. No answer. I knocked again. Still no answer. I pulled my phone out and dialed Chopper’s number. We could hear the phone ringing inside, but no one was answering that, either.
“Too bad we don’t know how to break the door down,” Lula said. “He might be hiding under the bed.”
I stood on tiptoes and felt over the doorjamb and found a key.