Janet Evanovich - Notorious Nineteen

“Like what?” Lula asked him.

“Like this. I got a lot riding on this game. Loser has to get tested for Alzheimer’s.”

“I guess that’s assisted-living humor,” Lula said.

“About Bill Smoot,” I said. “Where can I find him?”

“He’s probably sitting outside the dining room. He gets there early so he can get a good seat.”

Lula and I left the lounge and followed the corridor to the dining room. The dining room doors were closed, and the sign on the door stated that lunch would be served at noon. Noon was a little over an hour away but people were already lining up.

“Your granny is right,” Lula said. “It’s good living here. You get to watch television, and someone makes your food, and it’s real pretty. And everyone looks happy unless they’re talking about Cubbin. I bet they give out good pharmaceuticals.”

“What about the pigeons?”

“That would be a problem.”

There were four men sitting on a couch by the dining room door.

“Would one of you be Bill Smoot?” I asked.

“Yep, that’s me,” one of them said.

He was about 5'7" with white hair and thick glasses. I put him at late seventies, possibly early eighties. He was wearing tan slacks and a three-button white knit shirt.

“I’d like to talk to you about Geoffrey Cubbin.”

All four men leaned forward, eyes narrowed.

“Asshole,” one of them said.

“I understand you went to see him?”

They exchanged glances, and I knew I’d found the hospital contingent.

“What’s this about?” Smoot asked.

“I’m looking for Cubbin and I thought you might be helpful.”

“Why are you looking for him? Are you a cop?”

“Fugitive apprehension agent.”

“Hah!” one of them said. “Bounty hunter.”

There were smiles all around. “All right then,” Smoot said. “What do you want to know?”

“Did you go to the hospital to see him?”

“Yeah,” Smoot said. “We were gonna beat the snot out of him until he told us where he had the money stashed.”

“You’d beat up a guy who’d just had his appendix removed?”

Everyone sort of shifted in his seat.

“We didn’t have a clear-cut plan,” Smoot said. “We might have just slapped him around a little.”

“So what happened?”

“Ernie over there spent some time on that floor a couple months ago so he knew the drill,” Smoot said.

Ernie shrugged. “Gallbladder. Easy come, easy go.”

“The night nurses come on at eleven. They punch in, skim over the charts, and then they watch movies on their iPads. Central isn’t exactly an award-winning hospital,” Smoot said. “So we figured we could sneak in after visiting hours when the nurses were snarfing down vodka-laced chocolate candies and tuning in to Twilight episodes. We took the stairs and everything was going to plan except when we got to Cubbin’s room it was empty. No Cubbin.”

“So what did you do?”

“We left. We got stopped by the night guard on the way out. I guess he caught us on one of the monitors. We acted all dumb and demented and confused and he helped us get to our car. And then we went to the diner on Livingston and then we went home.”

“I know that diner,” Lula said. “They got amazing rice pudding.”

“I always get grilled cheese,” Smoot said. “It’s nice and greasy. They don’t give you a lot of grease here at the Manor.”

“Well, that’s a strike against them,” Lula said. “That and the pigeons. The bad news is adding up.”

“I don’t suppose any of you have any idea where Cubbin might be?” I asked.

“Vanished off the face of the earth,” Smoot said.

Lula and I left through the side door and got into the Mercedes.

“I’m out of ideas again,” I said.

“Not me. I got a good idea. I say we have lunch. I’m in a pizza mood.”

A half hour later we were sitting at a table in Pino’s, working our way through a basket of bread, waiting for our pizzas. Pino’s is a bar and grill on the edge of the Burg. It’s a cop hangout and it’s the go-to place for pizza. The polished wood bar is dark and smells slightly of whiskey. The tables on the fringe and in the middle of the room have red and white checked tablecloths. The light is dim even during daytime hours. The aroma of garlic and pizza dough baking hangs in the air. Sitting in Pino’s is like being in a time warp. After a few minutes you can’t remember if it’s day or night. After a couple beers you don’t care.

“I think that Sunshine dude is fishy,” Lula said, buttering a wedge of bread. “And why was the Yeti in Cubbin’s house? I bet he was gathering up some stuff for Cubbin. My theory is they got Cubbin stashed away at The Clinic and they’re waiting for the right time to get him out of the country. Cubbin’s gonna give them a bag of money, and they’re gonna send him to Denmark.”

“Why Denmark?”

“Nobody would think to look for him in Denmark. Have you ever heard of anybody hiding out in Denmark? It’s another one of my genius observations. I bet all those other people who disappeared are in Denmark too. It’s perfect.”

“The homeless guy?”

“Maybe not the homeless guy. I can’t explain the homeless guy. He could be in Carteret.”

“Okay, let’s go with your idea. I see where Sunshine would be involved. It’s his building. And I can see the Yeti. He’s muscle. I can even see Nurse Norma. She makes the contact. What I don’t get are the two doctors. Where do they fit?”

“They could have gotten rooked into something that never happened. Like this was supposed to be a medical facility and it was one of them things seemed like a good idea. And they probably don’t even know their good name could get besmirched.”

“Besmirched?”

“Yeah, that means you got a smirch on it.”

We’d ordered one pepperoni with extra cheese and one with everything they could find in the kitchen. The pizzas came to the table, and I started with a slice of the pepperoni.

“I got another good idea,” Lula said, going for the pizza with the works. “I always get inspired when I eat, and my new idea is we bag on Geoffrey Cubbin. I’m thinking we’d be better using our time to go look for some other scumbag.”

“Brody Logan is the only other live FTA right now.”

“What’s with that? We usually got a stack of skips.”

I took a second piece of pizza. “I’m sure some more will come in.”

“Yeah, if there’s one thing you can count on in Trenton, it’s crime.”

We had half a pizza left over, and I thought it would be a nice gesture to take it to Susan Cubbin. And while we were at it we could see if anything interesting was going on with Nurse Norma.

SIXTEEN

THE VAN WASstill parked across from Norma’s condo, and Susan was behind the wheel. She was smoking, staring straight ahead, eyes glazed.

“Hey,” I said. “How’s it going?”

“It’s not going,” she said. “My ass is asleep from sitting here.”

“We had pizza for lunch and we couldn’t finish it. You want some?”

“Sure.”

I passed the pizza box to her through the open window. “Any change in Norma’s routine? Has she had any visitors?”

“No. And no.”

“Are you here 24/7?” Lula asked. “Where do you go to the bathroom?”

“I go home when she goes to work. I figure Jerkface is sleeping then and isn’t going to be out walking around.”

“Jerkface as in Geoffrey?” I asked her.

“Yeah. Jerkface Geoffrey.” She opened the lid on the pizza box and looked inside. “What’s on this?”

“Everything,” I said.

Susan finished her cigarette, tore a chunk of pizza off for the cat, and ate the rest of the slice.