Stephanie Plum - Seven Up Part 25

"Anyway, it's probably not Sophia because I hear she's been locked in her house ever since Louie died, lighting candles and praying and cursing DeChooch." Connie thought about it for a minute. "You know who else could have kidnapped Mooner? Louie D's sister, Estelle Colucci."

It wouldn't be difficult to kidnap Mooner, either. All you have to do is offer Mooner a joint and he'll happily follow you to the ends of the earth.

"Maybe we should go talk to Estelle Colucci," I said to Lula.

"I'm ready to roll," Lula said.

BENNY AND ESTELLE Colucci live in a nicely maintained duplex in the Burg. For that matter, just about every house in the Burg is nicely maintained. It's mandatory for survival. Decorating taste might vary, but windows d.a.m.n well better be clean.

I parked the bike in front of the Colucci house, walked to the door, and knocked. No answer. Lula pushed into the bushes under the front windows and looked inside.

"Don't see anyone," Lula said. "No lights on. Television's not going."

We tried the club next. No Benny. I drove two blocks to Hamilton and recognized Benny's car at the corner of Hamilton and Grand, parked in front of the Tip Top Sandwich Shop. Lula and I squinted in through the plate-gla.s.s window. Benny and Ziggy were inside having a late breakfast.

The Tip Top is a narrow hole-in-the-wall cafe that serves homemade food for reasonable prices. The green-and-black linoleum on the floor is cracked, the overhead light fixtures are dim from grime, the Naugahyde seats in the booths are patched with duct tape. Mickey Spritz was an army cook during the Korean conflict. He opened the Tip Top when he got out of the army thirty years ago and he hasn't changed a thing since. Not the flooring, the booth seats, the menu. Mickey and his wife do all the cooking. And a r.e.t.a.r.ded man, Pookie Potter, buses the tables and washes the dishes.

Benny and Ziggy were concentrating on eating their eggs when Lula and I approached.

"Jeez," Benny said, looking up from his eggs, gaping at Lula in full leather. "Where do you find these people?"

"We stopped by your house," I said to Benny. "No one was home."

"Yeah. That's because I'm here."

"What about Estelle? Estelle wasn't home, either."

"We had a death in the family," Benny said. "Estelle is out of town for a couple days."

"I guess you're talking about Louie D," I said. "And the screw-up."

I had Benny and Ziggy's attention now.

"You know about the screw-up?" Benny asked.

"I know about the heart."

"Jesus H. Christ," Benny said. "I thought you were bluffing."

"Where's Mooner?"

"I'm telling you, I don't know where he is, but my wife is driving me f.u.c.king nuts over this heart thing. You gotta give me the heart. That's all I hear about . . . how I gotta get the heart. I'm only human, you know what I mean? I can't take it anymore."

"Benny isn't well himself," Ziggy said. "He has conditions, too. You should give him the heart so he can have some peace. It's the right thing to do."

"And just think about Louie D laying there without his heart," Benny said. "That's not nice. You should have your heart when they put you in the ground."

"When did Estelle leave for Richmond?"

"Monday."

"That's the day Mooner disappeared," I said.

Benny leaned forward. "What are you suggesting?"

"That Estelle s.n.a.t.c.hed Mooner."

Benny and Ziggy looked at each other. They hadn't considered this possibility.

"Estelle doesn't do stuff like that," Benny said.

"How did she get to Richmond? Did she take a limo?"

"No. She drove. She was going to Richmond to visit Louie D's wife, Sophia, and then she was going to Norfolk. We got a daughter there."

"I don't suppose you have a picture of Estelle with you?"

Benny pulled his wallet out and showed me a picture of Estelle. She was a pleasant-looking woman with a round face and short gray hair.

"Well, I've got the heart, and now it's up to you to find out who has Mooner," I said to Benny.

And Lula and I left.

"Holy s.h.i.+t," Lula said when we were on the bike. "You were so freaking cool in there. You actually had me thinking you knew what you were doing. Like, I was almost thinking you had the heart."

Lula and I went back to the office, and my cell phone buzzed just as I walked through the door.

"Is your grandmother with you?" my mother wanted to know. "She walked to the bakery early this morning to get some rolls and she hasn't come back."

"I haven't seen her."

"Your father went out to look for her but he couldn't find her. And I've called all her friends. She's been gone for hours."

"How many hours?"

"I don't know. A couple. It's just that it's not like her. She always comes right home from the bakery."

"Okay," I said, "I'll go look for Grandma. Give me a call if she turns up."

I disconnected and my phone immediately rang again.

It was Eddie DeChooch. "Do you still have the heart?" he wanted to know.

"Yes."

"Well, I've got something to trade."

I had a bad feeling in my stomach. "Mooner?"

"Guess again."

There was some scuffling and then Grandma came on the line.

"What's this business about a heart?" Grandma wanted to know.

"It's sort of complicated. Are you okay?"

"I've got a little arthritis in my knee today."

"No. I mean is Choochy treating you all right?"

I could hear Chooch in the background prompting Grandma. "Tell her you're kidnapped," he was saying. "Tell her I'm gonna blow your head off if she doesn't give me the heart."

"I'm not telling her that," Grandma said. "How would that sound? And don't get any funny ideas, either. Just because I'm kidnapped doesn't mean I'm easy. I'm not doing anything with you unless you take precautions. I'm not taking any chances getting one of them diseases."

DeChooch came back on the line. "Here's the deal. You take your cell phone and Louie D's heart to Quaker Bridge Mall and I'll call you at seven o'clock. Any cops come in on this and your granny's dead."

"WHAT WAS THAT all about?" Lula wanted to know.

"DeChooch has Grandma Mazur. He wants to trade her for the heart. I'm supposed to take the heart to Quaker Bridge Mall, and he's going to call me at seven with further instructions. He said he'll kill her if I bring the police into it."

"Kidnappers always say that," Lula said. "It's in the kidnapper handbook."

"What are you going to do?" Connie wanted to know. "Do you have any idea who has the heart?"

"Hold up here," Lula said. "Louie D don't have his name engraved on his heart. Why don't we just get another heart? How's Eddie DeChooch gonna know if it's Louie D's heart? I bet we could give Eddie DeChooch a cow heart and he wouldn't know. We just go to a butcher and tell him we need a cow heart. We don't go to a butcher in the Burg because word might get around. We go to some other butcher. I know a couple over on Stark Street. Or we could try Price Chopper. They've got a real good meat department.

"I'm surprised DeChooch didn't come up with this. I mean, n.o.body has even seen Louie D's heart except for DeChooch. And DeChooch can't see for s.h.i.+t. DeChooch probably took that pot roast out of Dougie's freezer thinking it was the heart."

"Lulu's come up with something here," Connie said. "It might work."

I picked my head up from between my legs. "It's creepy!"

"Yeah," Lula said. "That's the best part." She looked at the clock on the wall. "It's lunchtime. Let's go get a burger and then we'll get a heart."

I used Connie's phone to call my mother.

"Don't worry about Grandma," I said. "I know where she is and I'm going to pick her up later tonight." Then I hung up before my mother could ask questions.

AFTER LUNCH LULA and I went to Price Chopper.

"We need a heart," Lida said to the butcher. "And it has to be in good condition."

"Sorry," he said, "we don't have any hearts. How about some other kind of organ meat. Like liver. We have some nice calf livers."

"Has to be a heart," Lula said. "You know where we can get a heart?"

"So far as I know, they all go to a dog food factory in Arkansas."

"We haven't got time to go to Arkansas," Lula said. "Thanks, anyway."

On the way out we stopped at a display of picnic necessities and bought a small red-and-white Igloo cooler.

"This'll be perfect," Lula said. "All we need now is the heart."

"Do you think we'll have better luck on Stark Street?"

"I know some butchers there that sell stuff you don't want to know about," Lula said. "If they don't got a heart they'll go get one, no questions asked."

There were parts to Stark Street that made Bosnia look good. Lula worked Stark Street when she was a ho. It was a long street of depressed businesses, depressed housing, and depressed people.

It took us close to a half hour to get there, rumbling through center city, enjoying the custom pipes and the attention a hog demands.

It was a sunny April day, but Stark Street looked dreary. Pages from a newspaper cartwheeled down the street and banked against curbs and the cement stoops of cheerless row houses. Gang slogans were spray-painted on brick fronts. An occasional building had been burned and gutted, the windows blackened and boarded. Small businesses squatted between the row houses. Andy's Bar & Grill, Stark Street Garage, Stan's Appliances, Omar's Meat Market.

"This is the place," Lula said. "Omar's Meat Market. If it's used for dog food then Omar's gonna be selling it for soup. We just want to make sure the heart isn't still beating when we get it."

"Is it safe to leave the bike parked here at the curb?"

"h.e.l.l no. Park it on the sidewalk next to the window so we can watch it."

There was a large black man behind the meat case. His hair was buzzed short and was shot with gray. His white butcher's ap.r.o.n was blood-smeared. He had a thick gold chain around his neck and he wore a single diamond stud. He smiled ear-to-ear when he saw us.

"Lula! Looking good. Never see you anymore since you stopped working the street. Like the leather."

"This here's Omar," Lula said to me. "He's about as rich as Bill Gates. He just runs this butcher shop because he likes sticking his hand up chicken b.u.t.ts."

Omar tipped his head back and laughed, and the sound was a lot like the Harley echoing off the Stark Street storefronts.

"What can I do for you?" Omar asked Lula.

"I need a heart."