Page 10 of Now or Never

“And I’m thinking you’re right. Next stop is his office.”

“We gotta go back to town. He’s on East Gilbert Street. Jug Produce. Looks like he’s got an office and a warehouse there.According to Connie, he’s one of the top produce wholesalers in Central Jersey.”

I retraced my steps back to North Olden and let the GPS lady take me to East Gilbert. I was approaching Jug Produce, and Ranger called.

“Just checking in,” he said. “Ella tells me you’ve moved out.”

Ranger has a small but perfect apartment on the top floor of his office building. Gourmet food, Bulgari shower gel, fluffy towels, heavenly pillows, freshly ironed expensive sheets, and other niceties are supplied by his housekeeper, Ella. The one-bedroom flat has a neutral, slightly masculine color palette with comfortable, clean-lined, softly modern furniture that Ranger didn’t even buy secondhand.

My hamster, Rex, and I had cohabitated with Ranger while my apartment was recovering from the firebombing. I moved out like a thief in the night when I went off the rails and got engaged to Morelli.

“Rex and I went back to my apartment,” I said. “I thought I’d take this time to organize since you’re out of town.”

“And now?”

“Now I’m in the car with Lula, and you’re on the speakerphone.”

“Babe,” Ranger said. And he disconnected.

“He’s a man of few words,” I said to Lula.

“Yeah, but he saysbabelike it’s an invitation to an orgasm.”

Jug Produce was housed in a two-story cement-block warehouse. There was a front door on East Gilbert Street that served as a visitors’ entrance with on-street parking. Windows on the second floor. Probably offices up there. Connie’s notes indicated that the Jug property fronted Gilbert and backed up to the street behind it. I drove around the block and found the back gate to Jug Produce.

“It looks like there’s a loading dock behind the building,” Lulasaid. “Everything’s nice and secure with chain-link fence. Guess you want to make sure no one’s stealing melons and such.”

I thought it probably was also handy for delivery of hijacked sneakers and human trafficking.

“I guess we’re coming back here tomorrow,” Lula said.

“I’d rather try to get him at home. I think it will be an easier apprehension.”

“That’s going to be early in the morning or at dinnertime,” Lula said.

“I’m thinking first thing in the morning. We’ll stake out the house, wait for lights to go on, and then we’ll go in.”

“How early is first thing?”

“Seven o’clock.”

“Say what? In the morning? It takes half an hour just to drive there. That’s like out of the house at six thirty. I got a beauty routine. I gotta accessorize. Plus, I’ll miss my morning doughnuts at the office. It’s part of the start-my-day ritual. My body won’t know what to do without doughnuts. My body don’t like surprises like that.”

“I’ll bring doughnuts.”

“And coffee. Good coffee. Not the kindyoumake.”

“Yeah, I’ll bring good coffee.”

I dropped Lula off at the office and drove to my apartment building. Three floors of uninspired brick construction. Not new. Not old. Not luxury living. Not a slum. Affordable and moderately comfortable if you were willing to lower your standards. I parked in the lot and looked up at my second-floor windows. The brick around the windows was still smudged with soot from the fire. I bypassed the unreliable elevator and took the stairs. Men wereworking in the hall on the second floor, replacing the water-soaked carpet. Some good things come out of a fire, right? Like new carpet.

I let myself into my apartment and glanced into my kitchen. Apart from some smoke damage it was untouched by the fire. My hamster, Rex, was asleep in his aquarium on my kitchen counter. I called hello to him, dropped my messenger bag on my dining room table, and returned to the kitchen to give Rex a snack. Half a Ritz cracker and a peanut still in its shell. The bedding stirred in front of his soup-can den, and Rex poked his head out and twitched his nose. He rushed at the cracker and peanut, shoved them into his cheek pouch, and returned to his soup can. The perfect roommate. Quiet, nonjudgmental, small poop.

The fire had wiped out my bedroom and most of my living room. The fire restoration company had done a decent job, but I needed paint throughout, new carpet and furniture. So far, my redecorating efforts had gotten me a couch, a table lamp, a sleeping bag, and a pillow. I didn’t want to spend any more than was absolutely necessary on the essentials. They were temporary. Probably. Hopefully. Maybe.

I sat at my dining room table/desk and opened my MacBook Air. After a half hour I had a queen mattress and frame, an end table, a nightstand, a second table lamp, a quilt, and a set of sheets getting delivered in forty-eight hours. If I brought Jug in, I would be able to pay for it all.

The obituaries were next up. I surfed funeral homes and hit gold right away. Larry Luger was having a viewing at the Burg’s premier funeral home. Larry was a big deal in the Knights of Columbus. He was going to draw a crowd. Grandma would be attending. Grandma and her girlfriends’ social life consisted of viewings, bingo at the firehouse, and an occasional visit to the Hunk-O-Mania All-Male Revue.

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