“I thought we were riding around,” Lula said. “How come we’re parked?”
“We can see more on foot. And I maxed out my credit card, so I’m watching my gas consumption.”
“How about your life-or-death consumption? I bet you don’t even have a gun.”
“Wrong. I have my gun with me.”
“Do you have bullets in it?”
“No. I haven’t gotten around to buying bullets. It would be a lot easier if more places sold bullets.”
“You mean like 7-Eleven and Cluck-in-a-Bucket? And why do you have your gun if you don’t have bullets in it?”
“I could scare someone with it. Or I could hit someone over the head. And when Ranger asks me if I’m carrying a gun I can say yes.”
“That all makes sense to me. Which way you want to walk first?”
“Let’s go down Fifteenth.”
We walked past the Chestnut Social Club, past Sunny’s apartment building, and past the building on the next block that they were renovating. We didn’t see Sunny, Moe, Shorty, or Kevin, and we didn’t get kidnapped or shot at, but we did have two opportunities to make some spare change.
“I don’t get it,” Lula said. “I stood out on the corner all night, and business was terrible. And here I am looking respectable, trying to do a job, and we get two fools asking about our services. And they were cash customers. They didn’t even offer food stamps. I think it must be you in that wig. I think you look like a loose woman.”
Lula was wearing a sequined spandex skirt that came an inch below her doo-dah and a tank top that looked like it had shrunk in the wash. When you put it together with the Marilyn wig she might as well have had LOVE FOR SALE tattooed onto her forehead.
“What do you suppose they’re doing to that building they’re renovating?” I asked Lula. “You don’t see a lot of renovating going on in this neighborhood. At least not on that scale. It looks like they’re gutting the first two floors.”
“Must be some business going in. Like another fake tailor.”
“It’s two floors, and it looks like they’re also working in the basement.”
“Maybe it’s another social club.”
“Nobody puts money into a social club. A social club in Trenton is like a senior center for the mob.”
“Then maybe they’re setting up to do Bingo.”
“Three floors of Bingo?”
“I got a nervous stomach on account of I haven’t seen any trace of Kevin,” Lula said. “We didn’t see piles of poop or anything. I’m worried something happened to him. Like he could have wandered away, and now he could be walking down the Garden State Parkway, looking for tender green leaves, on his way to Atlantic City. He could get hit. It’s not like people driving that road are looking out for giraffes.”
I didn’t see anything good coming from spending more time on Fifteenth Street, so I steered Lula back to the car, and we headed for the basketball court. It wasn’t raining yet, but rain was predicted and the sky was overcast. I parked across the street from the court, and pulled binoculars out of the glove box.
“What are we going to do if we find this guy?” Lula asked. “You busting in with your gun blazing? Oh, hold on a minute, your gun don’t blaze.”
“I thought we’d watch him, and wait for him to go his own way. We can’t do anything when he’s with his friends.”
“So we just gonna hang with him?”
“Yeah.”
“And then?”
“I don’t know.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
The basketball court was surrounded by chain link fence. It backed up to an empty lot on one side, and ran along the sidewalk on another. A big kid lumbered around on the court, all by himself. He’d dribble the ball and shoot a basket. He’d shuffle after the ball and do more dribbling and shooting. It was like watching a dancing bear.
After ten minutes, two more kids strutted in. And a couple minutes later three more showed up. I was pretty sure one of them was Antwan. I trained the binoculars on him and made a positive ID.
“That’s our idiot,” I said to Lula.
They played basketball for almost an hour, and it started to rain. Nothing serious. Just an annoying drizzle. The dancing bear took his basketball and left. Antwan left with him. They walked down the street and disappeared into a six-story redbrick graffiti-riddled apartment building.
“Now what?” Lula asked. “We gonna be Girl Scouts selling cookies?”
I looked at my watch. “Let’s give them a half hour, and see if they come out. If they don’t come out we’ll go in and quietly snoop around a little.”