“What about him?”

“No one wants to fork up the money.”

“Doesn’t surprise me,” Gritch said. “He’s a turd. Don’t get me wrong. I like Vinnie. We’ve done business for a lot of years. But he’s still a turd.”

“Maybe we can make a deal?”

“Like what?”

“Like you don’t kill him, and he can get some kind of a payment plan.”

“Listen, if it was me, that would be okay. But it’s not me. I don’t have anything to do with it anymore. This is Bobby Sunflower’s deal, and it’s more complicated than you know.”

“Complicated how?”

“Just complicated. I don’t know. I don’t want to know. There’s bad people involved. Badder than Bobby Sunflower.” He leaned out a little. “Is that Lula? Hey, momma.”

“Don’t you hey momma me,” Lula said. “I’ll be out of a job if they off Vinnie, and then what? I got bills to pay. I got a standard of living.”

“I got a job for you,” Gritch said.

“Hunh,” Lula said. “I don’t do that no more, you little runt-ass Polish sausage.”

The tinted window rolled up on Gritch’s Mercedes. I put the Jeep in gear and drove out of the lot.

SEVEN

“THINGS ARE GOING good today,” Lula said. “We haven’t been shot at or nothin’. Have you got the bottle with you?”

“No. I left it at home.”

“Imagine if you had the bottle.”

“I’ve got Chopper’s file in my bag,” I said to Lula. “Pull it out and read me his address. I think he’s off South Broad.”

“I’m not sure I want to go after someone named Chopper,” Lula said. “Suppose he got his name chopping off fingers and toes. I don’t want to lose none of mine. I couldn’t wear peep-toe shoes. It would limit my fashion potential.”

“Does it say anything in his file about fingers or toes?”

Lula paged through the file. “No. His real name is Mortimer Gonzolez, but it says everyone calls him Chopper. And it says he got a pet named Mr. Jingles, and you want to be careful about Mr. Jingles. I hope it’s not a cat. It sounds like a cat name. Just thinking about it makes my eyes itch.”

“Has he got priors?”

“Yeah, lots of them. All like this. All for dealin’ drugs. Don’t see no assault with a deadly weapon in here. Looks to me like he’s a businessman. Middle management.”

“Did Connie include a map?”

“Yeah. You have to turn right off Broad onto Cotter Street.”

I drove down Broad, and I thought about Mickey Gritch. He said he was out of it. I hoped he wasn’t so out of it that he couldn’t lead me to Vinnie. And what the heck did he mean when he said it was complicated and there were bad people involved? I thought this was about a simple gambling debt.

“Hey!” Lula said. “You just drove past the street.”

I hooked a U-turn and doubled back to Cotter. “I was thinking about the conversation with Gritch. How bad would you have to be to be worse than Bobby Sunflower?”