"What happened to it?"
"Crashed it."
"Is that how you got the way you are now? Dead, or something?"
"No. The only thing that died was the bike."
It was midmorning and the sun was lost behind cloud cover that was the color and texture of bean curd. I was wearing wool socks, thick-soled CAT boots, black jeans, a red plaid flannel shirt over a T-shirt, and a black leather biker jacket. I looked pretty damn tough, in a very cool way... and I was freezing my ass off. Diesel was wearing his jacket unzipped and didn't look the least bit cold.
I crossed the street and rang the doorbell. Elaine opened the door wide and smiled out at me. She was a couple inches shorter than me and almost as wide as she was tall. She was maybe seventy years old. Her hair was snow white, cut short and curled. She had apple cheeks and bright blue eyes. And she smelled like gingerbread cookies. "Hello, dear," she said, "how nice to see you again." She looked to the side where Diesel was lurking and gasped. "Oh my," she said, red scald rising from her neck to her cheek. "You startled me. I didn't see you standing there at first."
"I'm with Ms. Plum," Diesel said. "I'm her... assistant."
"Goodness."
"Is Sandy at home?" I asked.
"I'm afraid not," she said. "He's very busy at this time of year. Sometimes I don't see him for days on end. He owns a toy store, you know. And toy stores are very busy at Christmas."
I knew the toy store. It was a shabby little store in a strip mall in Hamilton Township. "I stopped by the store yesterday," I said. "It was closed."
"Sandy must have been busy running errands. Sometimes he closes down to run errands."
"Elaine, you used this house as collateral to bond out your brother. If Sandy doesn't appear in court, my employer will seize this house."
Elaine continued to smile. "I'm sure your employer wouldn't do a mean thing like that. Sandy and I just moved here, but already we love this house. We wallpapered the bathroom last week. It looks lovely."
Oh boy. This was going to be a disaster. If I don't bring Claws in, I don't get paid and I look like a big failure. If I threaten and intimidate Elaine into ratting on her brother, I feel like a jerk. Better to be after a crazed killer who's hated by everyone, including his mother. Of course, crazed killers tend to shoot at bounty hunters, and getting shot at isn't high on my list of favorite activities.
"I smell gingerbread," Diesel said to Elaine. "I bet you're baking cookies."
"I bake cookies every day," she told him. "Yesterday I made sugar cookies with colored sprinkles and today I'm making gingerbread."
"I love gingerbread," Diesel said. He slid past Elaine and found his way to her kitchen. He selected a cookie from a plate heaped with cookies, took a bite, and smiled. "I bet you add vinegar to your cookie dough."
"It's my secret ingredient," Elaine said.
"So where is the old guy?" Diesel asked. "Where's Sandy?"
"He's probably at his workshop. He makes a lot of his own toys, you know."
Diesel wandered to the back door and looked out. "And where's the workshop?"
"There's a small workshop behind the store. And then there's the main workshop. I don't know exactly where the main workshop is. I've never been there. I'm always too busy with the cookies."
"Is it in Trenton?" Diesel asked.
Elaine looked thoughtful. "Isn't that something?" she said. "I don't know. Sandy talks about the toys and about the labor problem, but I can't remember him ever talking about the workshop."
Diesel took a cookie for the road, thanked Elaine, and we left.
"Want some of my cookie?" Diesel asked, the cookie held between perfect white teeth while he clicked the seat belt into place.
"I do not."
He had a nice voice. Slightly husky and hinting of a smile. His eyes fit the voice. I really hated that I liked the voice and the eyes. My life is already complicated by two men. One is my mentor and tormentor, a Cuban-American bounty hunter/businessman named Ranger. He was currently out of town. No one knew where he was or when he'd return. This was normal. The other man in my life is a Trenton cop named Joe Morelli. When I was a kid, Morelli lured me into his father's garage and taught me how to play choochoo. I was the tunnel and Morelli was the train, if you get the picture. When I was a teen working at Tasty Pastry Bakery, Morelli sweet-talked me onto the floor after hours and performed a more adult version of choochoo behind the case. We've both grown up some since then. The attraction is still there. It's been enhanced by genuine affection... maybe even love. We haven't totally mastered trust and the ability to commit. I really didn't need a third potentially nonhuman guy in my life.
"I bet you're worried about the way those jeans are fitting, right?" Diesel asked. "Afraid to add cookie calories?"
"Wrong! My jeans fit just fine." I didn't want a cookie with Diesel spit on it. I mean, what do I know about him? And okay, so my jeans actually were a little tight. Yeesh.
He bit off the gingerbread man's head. "What's next? Does Claws have kids we can interrogate? I think I'm getting the hang of this."
"No kids. I ran a check on him, and he has no relatives in the area. Same with Elaine. She's widowed with no children."
"That must be hard on Elaine. A woman gets those urges, you know."
I narrowed my eyes. "Urges?"
"Kids. Procreation. Maternal urges."
"Who are you?"
"That's a good question," Diesel said. "I'm not sure I fully know the answer to that. Do any of us truly know who we are?"
Great. Now he's a philosopher.
"Don't you have maternal urges?" he asked. "Don't you hear that biological clock ticking? Tick, tick, tick," he said, smiling again, having some fun with it.
"I have a hamster."
"Hey, you couldn't ask for more than that. Hamsters are cool. Personally, I think kids are overrated."
I was getting an eye twitch. I put my finger to my eye to stop the fluttering. "I'd rather not get into this right now."
Diesel held his hands up. "No problemo. Don't want to make you uncomfortable."
Yeah, right.
"Back to the big manhunt. Have you got a plan here?" he asked.
"I'm going back to the store. I didn't realize there was a workshop attached."
Twenty minutes later we stood at the front door to the store, staring at the small, handwritten cardboard sign in the window. CLOSED. Diesel put his hand to the doorknob and the locks tumbled open.
"Pretty impressive, hunh?" he said.
"Pretty illegal."
He pushed the door open. "You're a real spoilsport, you know that?"
We both squinted into the dark. The only windows were the small panes of glass in the door. The shop was about the size of a two-car garage. Diesel closed the door behind us and flipped a light switch. Two overhead fluorescent fixtures buzzed on and threw a dim, flickering light across the interior.
"Boy, this is cheery," Diesel said. "This would make me want to buy toys. Right after I poked my eye out and slit my throat."
The walls were lined with shelves, but the shelves were empty, and train sets, board games, dolls, action figures, and stuffed animals were all jumbled together on the floor.
"This is strange," I said. "Why are the toys on the floor?"
Diesel looked around the room. "Maybe someone had a temper tantrum." An ancient cash register sat on a small counter. Diesel punched a key and the register opened. "Seven dollars and fifty cents," he said. "Don't think Sandy does much business." He walked the length of the store and tested the back door. The door was unlocked. He opened the door and we both peeked into the back room. "Not much to see here, either," Diesel said.
There were a couple of long, metal folding tables and several metal folding chairs. Crude wood toys in various stages of completion cluttered the tables. Most were clunky carved animals and even clunkier carved trains. The train cars were connected by large hooks and eyes.
"Look around for something that might have
the address of the other workshop," I said. "It might be printed on a shipping label or box. Or maybe there's a scrap of paper with a phone number."
We worked both rooms, but we didn't find an address or phone number. The only item in the trash was a crumpled bakery bag from Baldanno's. Sandy Claws had a sweet tooth. The store didn't have a phone. None had been listed on the bond agreement and we didn't see any on site. The bond agreement also didn't list a cell phone. That didn't guarantee that one didn't exist.
We left the store, locking the front door behind us. We stood beside my CRV in the parking lot and looked back. "Do you notice anything odd about this store?" I asked Diesel.
"No name," Diesel said. "There's just a door with a small cutout of a wooden soldier on it."
"What kind of a toy store doesn't have a name?"
"If you look closely you can see where the sign was torn off," Diesel said. "It used to hang above the door."
"Probably this is a front for a numbers operation."
Diesel shook his head. "It would have phones. It would probably have a computer. There'd be ashtrays and cigarette butts."
I raised my eyebrows at him.
"I watch television," he said.
Okay. Whatever. "I'm going to my parents' now," I told him. "Maybe you want me to drop you someplace. Shopping center, pool hall, loony bin..."
"Boy, that really hurts. You don't want me to meet your parents."
"It's not like we're going steady."
"My assignment is to bring you some Christmas cheer, and I take my job very seriously."
I gave him disgusted. "You do not take your job seriously. You told me you don't even like Christmas."
"I was caught by surprise. It's not usually my gig. But I'm starting to get into it. Can't you tell? Don't I look more cheery?"
"I'm not going to get rid of you, am I?"
He rocked back on his heels, hands in jacket pockets, a large grin firmly in place. "No."
I blew out a sigh, put the car into gear, and pulled out of the lot. It wasn't a far ride to my parents' house in the Burg. The Burg is short for Chambersburg, a small residential community that sits on the edge of Trenton proper. I was born and raised in the Burg and I'll be a Burger for life. I've tried moving away, but I can't seem to get far enough.
Like most houses in the Burg, my parents' house is a small two-story clapboard built on a small, narrow lot. And like many houses in the Burg, the house shares a common wall with an identical house. Mabel Markowitz owns the house that adjoins my parents' house. She lives there alone, now that her husband has passed on. She keeps her windows clean, she plays bingo twice a week at the senior center, and she squeezes thirteen cents out of every dime.
I parked at the curb and Diesel looked at the two houses. Mrs. Markowitz's house was painted a bilious green. She had a plaster statue of the Virgin Mary in her tiny front yard and she'd put a pot of plastic red poinsettias next to the Virgin. A lone candle had been placed in her front window. My parents' house was painted yellow and brown and was decorated with a string of colored lights across the front of the house. A big old plastic Santa, his red suit sun-bleached to pale pink, had been set up in my parents' front yard, in direct competition with Mrs. Markowitz's Virgin. My mother had electric candles in all the windows and a wreath on the front door.
"Holy crap," Diesel said. "This is a car crash."
I had to agree with him. The houses were fascinating in their awfulness. Even worse, they were a comfort. They'd looked exactly like this for as long as I could remember. I couldn't imagine them looking any other way. When I was fourteen Mrs. Markowitz's Virgin had gotten beaned with a baseball and some of her head had chipped away, but that didn't stop the Virgin from blessing the house. She stood stalwart through wind and rain and sleet and storm with a chipped head. Just as Santa faded and dented but returned each year.
Grandma Mazur was behind my parents' glass storm door, looking out at us. Grandma Mazur lives with my parents now that Grampa Mazur's eating pork rinds and deep-fried peanut butter sandwiches with Elvis. Grandma Mazur's mostly spindle bone and slack skin. She keeps her gray hair curled tight to her head and carries a .45 long barrel in her purse. The concept of growing old gracefully has never taken hold with Grandma.
Grandma opened the door when I approached with Diesel. "Who's this?" she asked, eyeballing Diesel. "I didn't know you were bringing a new man over. Look at me. I'm not even dressed up. And what about Joseph? What happened to him?"
"Who's Joseph?" Diesel wanted to know.
"He's her boyfriend," Grandma Mazur said. "Joseph Morelli. He's a Trenton cop. He's supposed to be coming over later for dinner on account of it's Sunday."
Diesel grinned down at me. "You didn't tell me you had a boyfriend."
I introduced Diesel to my mom, Grandma Mazur, and my dad.
"What's with men and ponytails?" my father said. "Girls are supposed to have long hair. Men are supposed to have short hair."
"What about Jesus?" Grandma asked. "He had long hair."
"This guy isn't Jesus," my father said. He stuck his hand out to Diesel. "Nice to meet you. What are you, one of them wrestlers or something?"
"No sir, I'm not a wrestler," Diesel said, smiling.
"They're sports entertainers," Grandma said. "Only some of them are real good at wrestling, like Kurt Angle and Lance Storm."
"Lance Storm?" my father said. "What kind of a name is that?"
"It's one of those Canadian names," Grandma said. "He's a cutie, too."
Diesel looked at me and the smile widened. "I love your family."
TWO
MY SISTER VALERIE CAME IN from the kitchen. Valerie is recently divorced and penniless and has moved herself and her two lads into my old bedroom. Before the divorce and the move back to Jersey, Valerie was living in southern California where she had limited success at cloning herself into Meg Ryan. Valerie's still got the blond shag. The resilient perkiness dropped out of her somewhere over Kansas on the flight home.
"Dang," Valerie said, taking Diesel in.
Grandma agreed. "He's a pip, isn't he?" she said. "He's a real looker."
Diesel elbowed me in the side. "You see? They like me."
I dragged Diesel into the living room. "They think you've got a nice ass. That's different from liking you. Sit in front of the television. Watch cartoons. Try to find a ball game. Don't talk to anybody."
My mother and grandmother and sister were waiting for me in the kitchen.
"Who is he?" Valerie wanted to know. "He's gorgeous."
"Yeah, and I can tell he's a hottie," Grandma said. "He's got that look in his eye. And I bet he's got a good package."
"He's nobody," I said, trying to push aside thoughts of Diesel's package. "He moved into the building, and he doesn't know anybody, so I've sort of adopted him. He's kind of a charity case."
Valerie got serious. "Is he married?"
"I don't think so, but you don't want him. He's not normal."
"He looks normal."
"Trust me. He's not your normal guy."
"He's gay, right?"
"Yep. That's it. I think he's gay." Better than telling Valerie that Diesel was a supernatural pain in the behind.
"The gorgeous ones are always gay," Valerie said with a sigh. "It's a rule."
Grandma had a big wad of cookie dough on the table. She rolled it out and then she gave me a star-shaped cookie cutter. "You do the sugar cookies," Grandma said. "I'm going to get Valerie working on the drop cookies."
If I take anything with me when I die it'll be the way my mother's kitchen smells. Coffee brewing in the morning, red cabbage and pot roast steaming the kitchen windows on a cold day in February, a hot apple pie on the counter in September. Sounds corny when I think about it, but the smells are real and as much a part of me as my thumb and my heart. I swear I first smelled pineapple upside-down cake when I was in the womb.
Today the air in my mother's kitchen was heavy with butter cookies baking in the ove
n. My mom used real butter and real vanilla, and the vanilla scent clung to my skin and hung in my hair. The kitchen was warm and cluttered with women, and I was drunk on butter cookies. It would be a perfect moment, if only there wasn't a space alien sitting in the living room, watching television with my dad.
I stuck my head out the kitchen door and looked through the dining room to Diesel and my dad in the living room. Diesel was standing in front of the Christmas tree — a scrawny, five-foot-tall spruce set into a rickety stand. Four days to Christmas and already the tree was dropping needles. My father had placed a green and silver foil star at the balding top of the tree. The rest of the tree was ringed with colored twinkle lights and decorated with an assortment of ornaments collected over the lifetime of my parents' marriage. The rickety stand was wrapped in white cotton batting that was supposed to resemble snow. A village of aging cardboard houses had been assembled on the cotton batting.
Valerie's kids, nine-year-old Angie and seven-year-old Mary Alice, had finished the tree off with gobs of tinsel. Angie is the perfect child and is often mistaken for a very short forty-year-old woman. Mary Alice has had a longstanding identity problem and is usually convinced she's a horse.
"Nice tree," Diesel said.
My father concentrated on the television screen. My father knew a loser tree when he saw one and this was no prizewinner. He'd cheaped out, as usual, and he'd gotten the tree from Andy at the Mobil station. Andy's trees always looked like they were grown next to a nuclear power plant.
Mary Alice and Angie had been watching television with my father. Mary Alice tore her attention away from the screen and looked up at Diesel. "Who are you?" she asked.
"My name's Diesel," he said. "Who are you?"
"I'm Mary Alice, and I'm a beautiful palomino. And that's my sister Angie. She's just a girl."
"You aren't a palomino," Angie said. "Palominos have golden hair, and you have brown hair."
"I can be a palomino if I want to," Mary Alice said.
"Can not."
"Can too."
"Can not."
I closed the kitchen door and returned to the cookie cutting. "There's a toy store in the Price Cutter strip mall in Hamilton Township," I said to my mother and grandmother. "Do either of you know anything about it?"