CHAPTER NINE

The Margo was in a sketchy neighborhood four blocks from the Mole Hole. It was three floors with six cubbyhole bedrooms on each of the top two floors and five bedrooms and a minuscule lobby on the ground floor. There was on-street parking in front of the Margo and a small parking lot behind it. A white Kia was parked on the street two doors down. I took a photo of the plate and sent it to Connie.

“This could be your lucky day, ” Lula said. “Or maybe not. ”

I parked across the street from the Kia and Lula and I walked over to the Margo. The small lobby was dimly lit. It contained two worn-out armchairs and a reception desk. There was no one at the desk.

“You gotta push the buzzer on the desk, ” Lula said. “And then Andy comes out. He’s got an office in a broom closet behind the desk. ”

Lula pushed the buzzer and a small old man shuffled out of the broom closet.

“Hey, ” he said to Lula. “Long time, no see. ”

“Been busy, ” Lula said. “I want to show my proté gé around. Any rooms occupied? ”

“Seven, nine, and twelve, ” Andy said. “The rest are open. ”

“How about Charlie Shine? ” Lula asked. “Is he in one of them? I saw his car outside. ”

“Haven’t seen him, ” Andy said, “but you know how it is. Healthier not to look too hard. ”

Andy went back to his broom closet and I followed Lula down the hallway.

“They never lock the doors here, ” Lula said. “Mostly because they lost the keys and they never got replaced. ” She paused at door number one. “Do you want to check out all these rooms? ”

“Might as well, ” I said.

Lula opened the first door and a huge rat scurried across the room and hid under the bed.

“Maybe it’s not necessary to check every room, ” I said.

“Yeah, ” Lula said. “They’re all pretty much the same. ”

“Just because Andy hasn’t seen Shine today doesn’t mean Shine isn’t here, ” I said. “He could be using this to access the tunnel and go somewhere else. ”

“I don’t like where this thinking is going, ” Lula said. “I’m worried it’s leading to looking for the tunnel, and then it could lead to us going into the tunnel and possibly dying there. And you know how much I hate the thought of dying. And besides this, you don’t even know if that Kia belongs to Shine. It could belong to anybody. ”

“I’m not going into the tunnel, ” I said, “but I wouldn’t mind finding it. There’s a door at the end of this hallway that’s different from the others. I bet it goes to a mechanical room. ”

I opened the door, flipped the light switch, and stared at steel stairs leading down to a poorly lit jumble of decrepit machinery and hoarded junk. Truth is, I don’t like mechanical rooms. They conjure up images of explosions and scalding hot steam escaping from ruptured corroded lead pipes wrapped in cancerous asbestos.

“You aren’t going down there, are you? ” Lula asked.

“No, ” I said. “Maybe. ”

“Maybe? Are you shitting me? That’s sick. There’s no maybe going down in that hellhole. ”

“It’s just a mechanical room, ” I said. “And there might be a door to the tunnel down there. ”

“No way. No how. You try to go down those steps, and I’ll shoot you with my new gun. ”

“That makes no sense at all. ”

“It wouldn’t be a fatal shot, ” Lula said. “Maybe I’d just pretend to shoot you. Like I could say Bang! ”

“Okay, give it the nipple test. ”

“Say what? ”

“Stand on the first step and see what your nipples say. You’ve got nipple radar, right? ”

“Damn right I got nipple radar. ”

I made a sweeping gesture toward the stairs. “So, stand on the first step and give it the nipple test. ”

“I guess I could do that, but you move back in case I gotta get out into the hall real fast. I don’t want to have to knock you over. ”

Lula crept onto the first step and froze.

“Well? ” I asked.

“Shush, ” she said. “I need quiet to concentrate. I need to give them a minute to go sensory. ”

I stared at my watch. “It’s been three minutes, ” I said. “What’s the nipple verdict? ”

“I got nothing. ”

“Not even a tingle? ”

“Nothing, ” Lula said. “Zero. It’s like I got a systems failure. Like my nipples are out to lunch. ”

“You might not be close enough to the danger, ” I said. “Try going down a couple more steps and see if that does anything. ”

Lula crept halfway down the stairs and stopped.

“Now what? ” I asked her.

“I hear something, ” Lula whispered. “It’s like someone’s singing the Snow White song. Hi ho hi ho, it’s off to work we go. Only it’s muffled so I can barely hear it, and it doesn’t sound like there’s a lot of dwarfs singing it. I think I’m only hearing one dwarf. ”

I moved next to Lula and listened. “You’re right, ” I said. “Someone’s singing the Seven Dwarfs’ song. It’s coming from somewhere in the basement. ”

I squeezed past Lula and went to the bottom of the stairs. The singing was coming from somewhere deep in the bowels of the basement room. The lighting was dim, and I had to weave my way around discarded hotel furniture, crates of plumbing fixtures, storage tanks filled with God-knows-what, water heaters, a furnace that looked like it belonged in a crematorium, and bales of what I’m pretty sure was weed. I inched around a stack of boxes labeled EXPLOSIVES. No other information given. A small area had been cleared beyond the explosives. The floor of the area was littered with empty bags of chips, what looked like crushed Cheetos, crumpled fast-food burger wrappers, and french fry containers. A card table and a folding chair had been set in the middle of the area. The table was lit by a single, bare, overhead lightbulb. A man was hunched over the table. His back was to me, and he was singing the Seven Dwarfs’ song, oblivious to the fact that I was standing a short distance behind him.

The man was Lou Salgusta, and he was laboring over his torture tools, oiling and sharpening blades and adjusting tension on pliers and clippers. I’d seen those tools not so long ago when he’d kidnapped Grandma and me.

I had an instant gut reaction of revulsion so strong it sickened my stomach. I heard Lula suck in air behind me, and I suspected she was in a similar state. My mind was telling me to bolt and run, but my body was frozen in place by the horror in front of me.

Salgusta obviously sensed our presence because he turned in his chair and calmly stared at us.

“Unexpected visitors, ” he said. “How convenient. I have a new knife that I believe will be superior at flaying the skin off a human being. Who would like to be my first test case? It might be uncomfortable in the beginning, but eventually I believe the brain will shut down from the trauma. ”

Lula gagged and vomited up a half-digested Boston creme donut.

I jumped away in time to miss most of the splatter and worked at mustering some bravado.

“I thought you were retired, ” I said to Salgusta. “Have you decided to take on another job? ”

“I’m getting these ready for you and your granny, ” he said. “As you know, she has something I want. ”

“We’ve already been through this, ” I said. “Grandma doesn’t have what you want. ”

“Then she knows where to find it. And if she’s forgotten, I’m going to help her remember. ”

“I need a wet wipe, ” Lula said, searching through her purse. “I know I got one in here somewhere. ”

Salgusta grabbed one of his knives, and before I could react, he threw it at Lula and impaled her purse.

“Hey! ” Lula said. “What the heck is wrong with you? You stuck a knife in my handbag. This here’s an original Louis Vuitton knockoff. ”

“Sorry, ” Salgusta said. “I was aiming at your heart, but you moved at the last minute. ” He picked up another knife. “Let’s see if I can be more accurate this time. ”

Lula hauled her gun out of her purse and aimed it at Salgusta. Her eyes were practically popping out of her head and her gun hand was shaking. “Put the knife down, or I’ll blow a hole in your head, ” she said.

Salgusta threw the knife at Lula, and Lula fired off a bunch of shots at Salgusta. The knife missed Lula’s head but sliced into her massive puff ball of curls. All of her shots missed Salgusta.

I didn’t have a knife or a gun, so I ducked behind a couple of bales of weed. “Everyone stop! ” I yelled. “Just stop! ”

Salgusta grabbed a flamethrower he had leaning against the card table and blasted a stream of fire at me. It missed me but it hit the stack of weed, and whoooosh, the weed went up in flames. The burning bales crackled and popped, and sparks shot out, setting off satellite fires. A line of fire licked along the floor toward Salgusta. I grabbed Lula by her purse strap and yanked her toward the stairs.

“Time to go! ” I yelled.

“Fuckin’ A, ” Lula said, scrambling after me.

We reached the stairs and there was a series of small explosions. We were halfway up the stairs when the big one blew, shaking the building. KABLAAAAM!

We stumbled into the hall and saw that smoke and flames were billowing out of the small lobby area. I opened the nearest bedroom door, and Lula and I ran in, climbed out the window, and dropped to the sidewalk.

Andy, two naked old men, and three women in ho clothes were standing in the middle of the road, mouths open, eyes wide. One of the men had blood streaming from a gash in his forehead. Sirens were wailing a couple blocks away and a Trenton PD car angled to a stop at the curb. A second car followed.

I knew the cop in the second car. He gave me a short wave, and I tried not to cringe when I returned the wave. This was going to get back to Morelli.

The Rangeman number buzzed on my cell phone.

“Babe, ” Ranger said. “Your car is in a red zone. ”

“The Margo sort of got blown up, but I’m okay, ” I said.

“Good to know, ” Ranger said. And he disconnected.

“That was a hideous experience, ” Lula said. “And I think I might have a knife stuck in my hair. ”

I pulled the knife out and handed it over to her.

“Am I bleeding? ” she asked.

“Not that I can see, ” I said.

Lula felt her hair. “I got a lot of product in my hair today. I was going for a certain look. ”

A big chunk of Lula’s hair fell off her head and floated down to the ground.

“Damn, ” Lula said. “I hate when that happens. ”

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