I responded with some derisive Italian hand gestures and commented on his mother. Being born in Trenton carries a certain responsibility in these situations.

Traffic dragged along city streets, and I was relieved to finally cross over the train tracks and feel the burg growing closer, sucking me forward. I reached Hamilton, and the tractor beam of familial guilt locked onto my car.

My mother was peering out the storm door when I parked at the curb. “You’re late,” she said.

“Two minutes!”

“I heard sirens. You weren’t in an accident, were you?”

“No. I wasn’t in an accident. I was working.”

“You should get a real job. Something steady with normal hours. Your cousin Marjorie got a nice secretarial job with J and J. I hear she makes big money.”

Grandma Mazur was standing in the hall. She lived with my parents now that Grandpa Mazur was scarfing down his normal two-eggs-and-a-half-pound-of-bacon breakfast in the hereafter.

“We better get a move on with this dinner if we’re gonna make the viewing,” Grandma Mazur said. “You know how I like to get there early, so I can get a good seat. And the Knights of Columbus will be there tonight. There’ll be a big crowd.” She smoothed the front of her dress. “What do you think of this dress?” she asked me. “You think it’s too flashy?”

Grandma Mazur was seventy-two and didn’t look a day over ninety. I loved her dearly, but when you got her down to her skivvies, she resembled a soup chicken. Tonight’s dress was a fire-engine-red shirtwaist with shiny gold buttons. “It’s perfect,” I told her. Especially for the funeral home, which would be cataract central.

My mother brought the mashed potatoes to the table. “Come and eat,” she said, “before the mashed potatoes get cold.”

“So what did you do today?” Grandma Mazur asked. “You have to rough anyone up?”

“I spent the day looking for Kenny Mancuso, but I didn’t have much luck.”

“Kenny Mancuso is a bum,” my mother said. “All those Morelli and Mancuso men are trash. You can’t trust a one of them.”

I looked over at my mother. “Have you heard any news about Kenny? Anything going through the gossip mill?”

“Just that he’s a bum,” my mother said. “Isn’t that enough?”

In the burg it is possible to be born into bumhood. The Morelli and Mancuso women are above reproach, but the men are jerks. They drink, they cuss, they slap their kids around and cheat on their wives and girlfriends.

“Sergie Morelli will be at the viewing,” Grandma Mazur said. “He’ll be there with the K of C. I could grill him for you. I’d be real sneaky about it too. He’s always been kind of sweet on me, you know.”

Sergie Morelli was eighty-one years old and had a lot of bristly gray hair coming out of ears that were half the size of his withered head. I didn’t expect Sergie knew where Kenny was hiding, but sometimes bits and pieces of seemingly benign information turned out to be useful. “How about if I come to the viewing with you, “ I said, “and we can grill Sergie together?”