“Yeah,” she said.
“I'm looking for Maxine.”
“You a friend of Maxy's?”
I gave her my card. “I'm with the Plum Agency. Maxine missed her court date. I'm trying to find her so we can get her rescheduled.”
Mrs. Nowicki raised a crayoned brown eyebrow. “I wasn't born yesterday, honey. You're a bounty hunter, and you're out to get my little girl.”
“Do you know where she is?”
“Wouldn't tell you if I did. She'll get found when she wants to.”
“You put your house up as security against the bond. If Maxine doesn't come forward you could lose your house.”
“Oh yeah, that'd be a tragedy,” she said, rummaging in the pocket of her chenille robe, coming up with a pack of Kools. “Architectural Digest keeps wanting to do a spread, but I can't find the time.” She stuck a cigarette in her mouth and lit up. She sucked hard and squinted at me through the smoke haze. “I owe five years' back taxes. You want this house you're gonna hafta take a number and get in line.”
Sometimes bail jumpers are simply at home, trying to pretend their life isn't in the toilet, hoping the whole mess will go away if they ignore the order to appear in court. I'd originally thought Maxine would be one of these people. She wasn't a career criminal, and the charges weren't serious. She really had no reason to skip out.
Now I wasn't so sure. I was getting an uncomfortable feeling about Maxine. Her apartment had been trashed, and her mother had me thinking maybe Maxine didn't want to be found right now. I slunk back to my car and decided my deductive reasoning would be vastly improved if I ate a doughnut. So I cut across town to Hamilton and parked in front of Tasty Pastry Bakery.
I'd worked part-?time at Tasty Pastry when I was in high school. It hadn't changed much since then. Same green-?and-?white linoleum floor. Same sparkling clean display cases filled with Italian cookies, chocolate chip cannoli, biscotti, napoleons, fresh bread and coffee cakes. Same happy smell of fried sweet dough and cinnamon.
Lennie Smulenski and Anthony Zuck bake the goodies in the back room in big steel ovens and troughs of hot oil. Clouds of flour and sugar sift onto table surfaces and slip under foot. And lard is transferred daily from commercial-?sized vats directly to local butts.
I choose two Boston cremes and pocketed some napkins. When I came out I found Joe Morelli lounging against my car. I'd known Morelli all of my life. First when he was a lecherous little kid, then as a dangerous teen. And finally as the guy who at age eighteen, sweet-?talked me out of my underwear, laid me down on the floor behind the eclair case one day after work and relieved me of my virginity. Morelli was a cop now, and the only way he'd get back into my pants would be at gunpoint. He worked Vice, and he looked like he knew a lot about it firsthand. He was wearing washed-?out Levi's and a navy T-?shirt. His hair needed cutting, and his body was perfect. Lean and hard-?muscled with the best ass in Trenton . . . maybe the world. Buns you wanted to sink your teeth into.
Not that I intended to nibble on Morelli. He had an annoying habit of periodically popping up in my life, frustrating the hell out of me and then walking off into the sunset. I couldn't do much about the popping up or the walking off. I could do something about the frustrating. From here on out, Morelli was erotica non grata. Look but Don't Touch, that was my motto. And he could keep his tongue to himself, thank you.
Morelli grinned by way of hello. “You're not going to eat both those doughnuts all by yourself, are you?”
“That was the plan. What are you doing here?”
“Drove by. Saw your car. Thought you'd need some help with those Boston cremes.”
“How do you know they're Boston cremes?”
“You always get Boston cremes.”
Last time I saw Morelli was back in February. One minute we were in a clinch on my couch with his hand halfway up my thigh, and then next thing I knew, his pager went off and he was gone. Not to be seen for five months. And now here he was . . . sniffing at my doughnuts.
“Long time, no see,” I said.
“I've been undercover.”
Yeah, right.
“Okay,” he said. “I could have called.”
“I thought maybe you were dead.”
The smile tightened. “Wishful thinking?”
“You're scum, Morelli.”
He blew out a sigh. “You're not going to share those doughnuts, are you?”
I got into my car, slammed the door, squealed out of the lot and headed for home. By the time I got to my apartment I'd eaten both the doughnuts, and I was feeling much better. And I was thinking about Nowicki. She was five years older than Kuntz. High school graduate. Twice married. No children. Her file photo showed me a blowzy blonde with big Jersey hair, lots of makeup and a slim frame. She was squinting into the sun and smiling, wearing four-?inch heels, tight black stretch pants and a loose flowing sweater with sleeves pushed up to her elbows and a V neck deep enough to show cleavage. I half expected to find writing on the back of the picture . . . “If you want a good time, call Maxine Nowicki.”