“I’m Stephanie,” I told him.
“That’s right,” Lula said. “And I’m with her. We’re a team.”
“I don’t know anything about a team,” Bogart said. “I wasn’t told about this.”
“Well, lucky you,” Lula said. “You get the two of us. In my former profession as a ’ho it was considered a treat to get two women.”
Bogart’s ruddy cheeks had turned purple, and it seemed to me he was having difficulty breathing.
“Do you know this woman?” he asked me.
“No,” I said. “Don’t know her.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Kathy said, herding Lula and me out of the office. “I’m sure Jim can find jobs for them.”
We followed Kathy down the hall, into the main production area and through a door marked “Ladies’ Locker Room.”
“You can have lockers 17 and 18,” Kathy said. “You can get suited up and leave your personal possessions in the lockers.”
“Say what?” Lula said.
“Everyone working on the floor needs to wear a sanitary cap, booties, and a jumpsuit,” Kathy said. “You’ll find them in your lockers. I’ll tell Jim you’re here, and he’ll meet you just outside the locker room.”
Lula looked at the jumpsuit assigned to her. “I picked out a special celebratory ice cream outfit for today, and this is going to ruin everything. I don’t see where this is going to contribute to my experience.”
I shrugged into the jumpsuit and covered my sneakers with the booties. I didn’t care a lot about it since I hadn’t worn a special celebratory ice cream outfit. I put the yellow disposable shower cap on, and Lula looked horrified.
“You look like a idiot,” she said. “You look like a giant deranged minion from that movie Despicable Me.”
“Are you getting dressed? Or are you going home?”
“I’m thinking about going back and demanding a office job. It would be something more suited to my wardrobe and unique talents.”
“What talents are we talking about?”
“Office worker talents. I got a lot of them. And I got a good chance of getting a excellent office job because I got cards. You gotta take what they give you, because you got almost no cards. You got the woman card, but it’s about worthless on account of you’re thin and white. I’m a plus-size black woman. Bam! That’s three cards. It’s like I hit the political-correctness jackpot. Only thing better than what I got is if I lost a eye or a leg to police brutality.”
“That’s horrible.”
“No way. It’s using what God give you. I got a personal relationship with God, and I know he’d be disappointed in me if I didn’t use my gift cards.”
I guess she could have a point with using her gift cards, but I didn’t think those cards were going to help her when she had to figure out how to read a spreadsheet.
“I have to go to work,” I said to Lula. “I’ll try to hook up with you at lunch.”
“They give us ice cream for lunch, right?”
NINE
JIM WAS WAITING at the locker room door. He looked like he drank a lot of beer and was ready for retirement.
“So,” he said. “You want to make ice cream?”
I adjusted my shower cap. “Mostly I want to make money.”
“I hear you. We’ll start you out on the cup dropper and filler. It’s a real no-brainer. You watch the empty cups when they come on line and make sure they’re straight. If they aren’t straight you fix them. Then you watch that the ice cream goes in them okay. If it doesn’t go in perfect you pull the screwup off the line. If it happens three times in a row you shut the machine down by hitting the big red button that says ‘Stop.’ A buzzer will go off and I’ll come over to take a look.”
I gave him thumbs-up and he walked away. A minute later the machine went into action. After forty-five minutes of watching the cups go by I was hypnotized. I jumped up and down, stamped my feet, and sang “Happy Birthday” to myself. After an hour and a half I was afraid I was going to go into a catatonic stupor and face-plant into a pint of mint chocolate chip.
A young woman tapped me on the shoulder. “You get a fifteen-minute break,” she said. “I’ll watch the machine.”
I shuffled off to the break room next to the locker room and went straight to the coffee machine. Two women were at a round table that seated six. I got my coffee and sat at the table with them.
“I’m Tina, and this is Doris,” one of the women said. “How’s your first day going so far?”
“I’m having a hard time concentrating. All those cups going by one after the other. It’s hypnotic.”
“You get used to it,” Tina said. “You need to drink a lot of coffee. And if that doesn’t work I’ve got some red pills that’ll perk you up.”
“Aside from the boredom it seems like an okay job,” I said.
Doris drained her coffee cup. “Yeah, as long as you don’t get turned into a Bogart Bar.”
I leaned forward a little. “I heard about that. Did you know him?”
“Sort of,” Tina said. “He was here every day, but he mostly kept to himself. He’d come in and get coffee and take it back to his office. I guess when you’re the guy who has the power to promote or fire you can’t get real chummy with the folks.”
“Why do you think he was killed?”
“Someone didn’t like him,” Tina said.
“Did you like him?” I asked her.
“He seemed okay. I didn’t have much to do with him.”
“What about Mr. Bogart? I met him for the first time today, and he seemed grumpy.”
“He huffs and puffs around the floor a couple times a day. Doesn’t say much to anyone. Everything goes through Jim.”
“Bogart is big on image,” Doris said. “Everyone has to look happy when he’s on the floor. We get suited up in yellow because he thinks it’s a happy color. His slogan is ‘Happy ice cream made by happy people.’ ”
“Is everyone really happy?” I asked her.
She shrugged. “I’m happy.”
“Me too,” Tina said.
I looked at my watch. My break was over. I went back to my station and stared at the cups for two more hours. Every once in a while I had to straighten one. At precisely one o’clock the young woman came back and sent me to lunch. The break room was filled with second-shift lunch people. They were all brown baggers. Harry Bogart didn’t operate a cafeteria. There was free coffee and tea, and there were vending machines.
I went to my locker and called Lula.
“Where are you?” I asked her. “Did you get an office job?”
“I’m here with Connie. They said they didn’t have no office jobs available, and it don’t matter anyway because cheap-ass Bogart don’t give away free ice cream to his employees.”
“What’s going on at the bonds office? Am I missing anything?”
“We got cupcakes instead of donuts this morning. And a new copy of Star magazine came out. I didn’t get a chance to read it yet, but it got a guy on the cover that looks like one of the Property Brothers, but I think it might just be a look-alike. Imagine three guys out there lookin’ that good. And the real Property Brothers can even sing. You ever hear them sing?”
“No.”
“I think they should be on Live at Daryl’s House and then I could see my two favorite shows at one time.”
“I thought your favorite show was Naked and Afraid.”
“I got a lot of favorite shows. Mostly the common ingredient is hot men. Daryl got a real dope band, and the best part is Daryl’s hair. He’s got one of them blond flip-back things going. If I was white I’d want hair like Daryl. He’s like Farrah Fawcett only with a lot of testosterone.”
“Anything happening at the office besides cupcakes and the Star?”
“Vinnie came in, and he was on a rant over Eugene Winkle. How long you gonna be working at the ice cream fun factory? Vinnie’s not gonna be happy to hear you’re moonlighting.”
“I’ll go after Winkle toni
ght.”
“Are you nuts? The man is a bridge troll. How are you gonna bring him in?”
“Do you want to help?”
“No!”
I disconnected, pulled a couple dollars out of my pocket, and fed them into one of the vending machines in the break room. I got a packet of peanut butter crackers, a candy bar, and more coffee. I sat at a table with four women and introduced myself.
“I see you’re going for the high-protein vending machine diet,” one of the women said to me. “I’m Betty, and this is Miranda here to my right.”
“I didn’t pack a lunch,” I told them. “I thought there might be a cafeteria.”
“Honey, you’re working at the wrong ice cream factory,” Betty said. “That would be Mo Morris across town. He’s got a cafeteria, and his wife makes the sandwiches.”
“Yeah, and everyone gets free ice cream over there,” Miranda said.
I unwrapped my crackers. “So why are you all working here?”
“It’s impossible to get a job at the Morris plant,” Betty said. “No one ever leaves.”
“There’s not much turnover here either,” Miranda said. “Of course, there’s a human resources job open.”
“I noticed they still have the crime scene tape up,” I said. “It’s a little creepy. When I came in this morning the receptionist took me to see Mr. Bogart. Didn’t the human resources guy have an assistant?”
“Nope. It was just him,” Betty said. “This isn’t such a big operation. Evelyn has the office next to HR. She does the clerical work for everyone, including Arnold. He’s the deceased. Arnold Zigler.”
“Who’s Evelyn?” I asked.
The round-faced chubby woman sitting across from me raised her hand. “I’m Evelyn.”
“Oh, wow,” I said. “I’m sorry. You must have been friends with…Arnold.”
“He was a nice man,” Evelyn said. “Quiet. Kept to himself. Took his job seriously. I didn’t know him beyond work.” She pressed her lips together. “He hated Bogart Bars. He was allergic to nuts. Not so bad that they bothered him in the plant, but he couldn’t eat them.”
“What happened if he ate them?” I asked.
“Hives,” Evelyn said. “I never saw them firsthand. He kept Benadryl in his desk just in case.”
I didn’t know what to say. I guess it could have been an ironic coincidence, but it seemed especially nasty that he’d been covered with something that made him sick.
“Do you have any idea who killed him?” I asked.
Evelyn shook her head. “No.”
Everyone else had the same response.
“Terrible,” I said. “I heard the nuts came from here. It had to have been done by someone who works here and knew him. Remember Jeffrey Dahmer, the serial killer who worked in a candy factory? Maybe there’s a serial killer at loose here.”
“So far only one person has been killed,” Betty said. “You need to kill a bunch of people to be a serial killer.”
“This could be the beginning,” I said. I looked around the table. “Do any of you know anyone who looks like a serial killer?”
“Marty,” Betty said. “He’s at the end of the line working the wrapper. He has shifty eyes. They look in different directions.”
“He told me about that once,” Evelyn said. “He has a glass eye. He poked his real eye out with a clam shucker. He said he’d been drinking.”
There was a moment of silence.
“Anybody got any weed?” Evelyn asked.
“I have some in my locker,” one of the other women said.
Evelyn perked up. “I’ll trade you for an egg salad sandwich.”
“Is it on sourdough?” the woman asked. “Do you have pickles?”
“Of course.”
“Deal.”
So now I thought I might be understanding everyone’s happiness.
• • •
My shift was over at four o’clock. I peeled the yellow jumpsuit off and dragged myself out of the ice cream factory. I got into my SUV and stared at the windshield.
Wake up! I thought. Snap out of it.
Someone knocked on my side window. It was Evelyn.
“See you tomorrow,” she said.
I nodded and forced a smile. The people were nice. The job was deadly. All those cups. The hum of the machines. The overhead fluorescent lights. And the smell of vanilla beans was stuck in my nose. Did I accomplish anything? No. I wasn’t the world’s best spy.
There was still plenty of daylight, so I pointed my car toward Stark Street. The plan was to ride past Eugene Winkle’s address and hope I didn’t see him. If I did see him I’d call Ranger and ask for help. This plan had the additional advantage of being able to pop into the 7-Eleven on State Street at the end of Stark and get some nachos. Morelli was bringing dinner, but he wouldn’t be around until six o’clock and I was starving.
I connected with Stark Street on the fifth block and turned left. Traffic was minimal. A couple weary-looking hookers had staked out a corner. An old man was curled up like a cat asleep on a stoop. Fast food drink cups and burger wrappers littered the sidewalks and banked up against the curbs. No gargantuan snub-nosed guy in sight.
I continued on down Stark, looking for Winkle, trying to stay alert for trouble. I didn’t want to get caught in gang-related crossfire. I didn’t want to accidentally run over a drugged-up homeless person. I didn’t want to look like I was trolling for dope. I recognized a hooker on the corner of block three. Her name was Sharelle Jones. Vinnie had bonded her out several times, and she was friendly with Lula. I pulled over and rolled my window down.
“Hey, girl,” Sharelle said, leaning in. “You lookin’ for a good time?”
“No,” I said. “I’m looking for Eugene Winkle. Have you seen him?”
“Haven’t seen him. Don’t want to see him. Don’t need that kind of trouble. Dude’s ugly inside and out.”
I wrapped a twenty around my business card and handed it to Sharelle. “Let me know if you hear anything.”
“Will do,” Sharelle said. “Tell Lula I was askin’ on her.”
I drove the length of Stark and pulled into the 7-Eleven. I was on my way out when I ran into Larry Virgil.
“Oh crap!” Virgil said. And he took off running.
He tried to cross State Street and ran out of luck halfway when an orange Subaru plowed into him, knocked him into the oncoming lane, and three cars ran over him before all traffic came to a screeching stop. I called 911, but I didn’t think they needed to be in a big rush.
A lot of people ran to Virgil and huddled around. I stayed on the outskirts. I didn’t think I could help in any way, and I didn’t especially want to see the carnage.
A fire truck was the first to arrive. Two cop cars were close behind. Within five minutes the road was clogged with emergency vehicles, and police were diverting traffic.
Eddie Gazarra got out of a cop car and walked over to me.
“I see they gave you a new car,” I said to him.
“They tried to put me on a bicycle, but my ass didn’t fit on the seat.” He looked at the container of nachos still in my hand. “Are you going to eat that?”
I shook my head. “My stomach isn’t feeling great. I bought these before…you know.”
“Looks like they gave you extra cheese glop. Be a shame to waste it.”
I handed the nachos over to Eddie. “Enjoy.”
“If I had to take a guess I’d say you bumped into Virgil on your way out of the 7-Eleven, and he ran across the road trying to get away.”
“Your guess would be right.”
“It’s not your fault,” Eddie said.
“It feels like my fault.”
“He chose to run. You didn’t make him run into the street, did you?”
I blew out a sigh. I knew Eddie was right, but I still felt bad.
“No,” I said. “I didn’t make him run into the street, but I was a catalyst. It’s like I’m always there when disaster happens.”
/>
“I hear you,” Eddie said. “You think you’re in a lousy spot? You should have my job.”
“How do you manage?”
“I walk the dog, and I think about my retirement pension.”
I helped myself to one of the corn chips and scooped up some cheese goo. “There has to be more.”
“For as long as I could remember I wanted to be a cop. It’s not exactly the way I thought it would be, but I think I’m a good cop. And sometimes I get to help people. And it’s never boring. The ‘never boring’ is important because I have a short attention span. I’m ADD.”
As were his kids and his dog.
“I suppose I have to talk to someone,” I said.
Eddie looked back at the knot of people around Virgil. “I think Manny Rogezzi has this. You remember Manny? He was a year ahead of you in high school. He married Marilyn Fugg.” He finished the nachos and handed the empty container back to me. “Stay here and I’ll send him over.”
After what seemed like an eternity Manny made his way through the crowd to where I was standing.
“How is he?” I asked. “He was killed, wasn’t he?”
“Yeah. From the tire tracks on him I’d say he was killed at least three times. Did you see him run into the road?”
“I was coming out of the store and I bumped into him. He panicked and ran. I don’t think there was any way the cars could have avoided hitting him.” I gave an involuntary shudder at the memory. “He was FTA.”
“He was more than FTA,” Manny said. “I heard he was driving the Bogart ice cream truck with the frozen Bogart Bar guy inside. At least, he was driving it until you and your sidekick got hold of it.”
“I think he must have come across the truck abandoned, or maybe it was a spur-of-the-moment hijacking. He for sure wasn’t a Bogart employee. It’s unfortunate that he’s dead, because he would have been able to fill in some blanks on the murder.”
Manny cracked a smile. “Did you really total Gazarra’s squad car?”
“Lula misjudged the brakes on the truck.”
Manny gave a bark of laughter. “Life is good.” He cut his eyes back to the road. “Sometimes. Sometimes not so good.”
“Anything else?”
“No. I’ll send you an accident report to verify.”