We finished the pie and carried our dishes into the kitchen. Morelli gave the last chunk of pie crust to Rex, gave a small piece of chicken he’d been saving to Bob, and reached out for me, pulling me flat against him. “I haven’t taken any pills today,” he said. “I have full control over my tongue.”
“No time,” I told him. “Lula will be here any minute. Maybe we can test out your tongue after Bingo.”
“Can’t do it after Bingo. I promised my brother I’d go to the ball game with him.” He looked at my splinted finger. “Do you really want drugs?”
“No. I’m feeling better now that I’m full of wine and pie.”
Morelli moved to kiss me, and the doorbell rang.
“Don’t answer it,” he said. “Eventually she’ll go away.”
“She won’t go away. She’ll shoot the lock off the door. I’ll have to pay for a new door.”
“Hey!” Lula yelled. “I know you’re in there. I can hear you breathing. What are you doing?”
I opened the door, and Lula looked past me and waved at Morelli.
“I saw your car in the lot,” Lula said.
“I’ll give you twenty bucks if you go away,” Morelli said to Lula.
“I gotta take Stephanie and her granny to Bingo,” Lula told him. “I bet we win the jackpot. I feel lucky. I got my lucky undies on.”
Morelli snapped the leash onto Bob and gave me a fast kiss. “I can’t compete with her lucky undies. I’ll try to catch you tomorrow.”
EIGHT
I’D BEEN TO the Senior Center before and it always smelled like eucalyptus, canned peas, and orange blossom air freshener. It was a single-story redbrick structure straddling the line between Trenton and Hamilton Township. Bingo was held in the largest of the meeting rooms. Rectangular folding tables were set out in rows that ran perpendicular to the small stage at one end. The caller sat at a little table on the stage, and an overhead flat-screen television flashed the numbers as they were called.
“This is a real professional setup,” Lula said, taking a seat.
“It’s pretty good, but it’s not as good as some of the Bingo halls in Atlantic City,” Grandma said. “Some of them are all electronic. You don’t need cards or daubers or nothing.”
I’d elected to play four cards. Grandma took twelve cards. And Lula bought thirty.
“Are you going to be able to keep track of all those cards?” Grandma asked Lula. “That’s a lot of cards.”
“Yeah, but the more cards you got, the more chances you got to win, right?”
“That’s true,” Grandma said. “Do you play Bingo a lot?”
Lula laid all her cards out in front of her. “I’m one of those intermittent players.”
“Me too,” Grandma said. “I don’t know how these women have the time to do this every night. I got a schedule to keep. I gotta see Dancing with the Stars and America’s Got Talent. I record my shows when I have to, but it’s not like seeing them live.”
We were sitting to the side and back of the room and I could see all the players. Most were women in their sixties and seventies. The demographic would be a lot younger when we went to Bingo at the firehouse. There were a few men mixed in with the women. I knew some of them. They were, for the most part, the core participants in the senior program. They went on the bus trips to Atlantic City, they played cards in the afternoon, they took a variety of classes that were available at the center, and they went to Bingo.
“I got my eyes open for the killer,” Grandma said. “If I had to pick someone out in this room, it would be Willy Benson. I always thought he looked shifty.”
“He’s ninety-three years old!”
“Yeah, but he’s crafty. And he gets around pretty good.”
“I know Willy,” Lula said. “He looks shifty on account of his one eye don’t look at you. It looks someplace else. You can’t malign a man for a disability.”
“It depends where the other eye’s looking,” Grandma said.
Marion Wenger was onstage twirling the cage containing the numbered Bingo balls. She selected one and called out B-10.
“I know I got a B-10 somewhere,” Lula said. “Here’s one. And here’s another one. Am I off to a good start, or what?”
“I got one too,” Grandma said, marking it off with her dauber.
“G-47,” Marion called.
“Got it,” Lula said. “Here, and here, and here …”
“N-40.”
“Hold on,” Lula said. “I’m not done looking for G-47.”