REX WAS IN his soup can when I walked into my kitchen. I tapped on the cage and said hello. Nothing. I dropped a peanut into his cage, he rushed out of the can, stuffed the peanut into his cheek, and rushed back into his can. Okay, that was fun. I ate some olives and a couple handfuls of Froot Loops. I lifted the lid on my brown bear cookie jar and looked in at my gun. Probably Briggs was right. I should get rid of the gun and buy some cookies. I wasn’t opposed to gun ownership. I just didn’t feel comfortable shooting people. And it would be nice to have cookies.
Morelli showed up at four-thirty with Bob. We took Bob for a walk, came home and fried up the hot dogs, and downloaded a movie. Domestic bliss. At nine-thirty we were about to migrate to the bedroom and take the bliss up a notch when my mother called.
“Is your grandmother with you?” she asked.
“No. Is she supposed to be with me?”
“I was brushing my teeth, and I heard the front door open and close. I looked out the window and saw your grandmother get into a red car that looks like the one Lula drives.”
Oh boy.
“I hope she’s not going to another one of those Chippendales shows with Lula,” my mother said. “She almost got arrested last time when she got up onstage to dance with them.”
“I don’t think the Chippendales are in town.”
“Well, you need to go find your grandmother and bring her home before she gets into trouble.”
“No problem,” I said. “I’ll track her down.”
Morelli looked at me with one eyebrow raised. “I don’t like the sound of this.”
“Lula is shooting her reality demo tonight, and I think Grandma has volunteered to be part of the production team. My mother said Grandma just got into a red car that looked like Lula’s Firebird.”
“Is that so bad?”
“They’re doing a demo for Naked and Afraid . . . the Trenton version.”
Morelli cracked a smile. “You’re kidding. Who’s going to be naked?”
“Lula and Randy Briggs.”
“Whoa!”
I got my messenger bag from the kitchen, and Morelli followed me.
“I’ll ride along with you,” Morelli said.
“No way. You’re a cop. You’d have to arrest Lula for being naked.”
“Where are they shooting this?”
“Across town,” I said. “Don’t worry. I won’t be long. I’ll go get Grandma, bring her home, and be back in a jiffy.”
I took the stairs and ran to my car. I wanted to get to Mill Street before they started filming. Not only didn’t I want Grandma near Stark Street, I was afraid Grandma would be the second naked woman. There was minimal traffic, but I hit every light going across town. By the time I got to Mill Street I was white-knuckle on the steering wheel. I’d tried calling Lula, but she wasn’t picking up.
It was a cloudless sky with a sliver of a moon. Not a lot of light on Mill. Streetlights had been shot out long ago, and most of the buildings were shuttered at night. There were rooming houses on the lower blocks, but eventually they gave way to commercial-use warehouse-type structures. Lula had said they’d be filming on the edge of the residential area. I found them on the third block. They were huddled beside a van. Lula’s Firebird and a silver Honda Civic were also parked there. They were in front of a graffiti-spattered three-story building that had at one time been apartments but was now boarded up.
I parked in front of the Civic and walked back to the van. Howie was there with a handheld camera. A large woman with cornrows and braids halfway down her back stood next to Howie. She was wearing an apron with a lot of pockets. When I got closer I saw that they were stuffed with makeup brushes and assorted cosmetics. One of the pockets held a large can of hairspray. Another pocket held a large nickel-plated semiautomatic. The gun caught the moonlight and sparkled like a piece of jewelry.
Grandma, wearing black Pilates pants, a black sweatshirt, and a fanny pack, was holding a flashlight and standing next to the makeup woman. The barrel of Grandma’s .45 stuck out of one end of her fanny pack.
Lula and Briggs were naked. They were listening intently to Howie.
“This is the big opening scene,” Howie said. “You’re going to stand on the stoop of this apartment building, and you’re going to look excited, anxious to start your adventure. Grandma’s going to highlight you with the flashlight, and I’ll pan in for a close-up.”
“Excuse me,” I said. “My mother sent me to get Grandma.”
“Good thing you’re here,” Lula said. “Laurene didn’t show up, and we need someone to work the clacker.”
“What’s a ‘clacker’?”
Howie handed me a small chalkboard. “It’s this thing,” he said. “You write the number of the scene on it, and then you say ‘Scene one, take one,’ and you clack the wooden frame down.”
“It’s a real important job,” Lula said. “It keeps everything in order.”
“I’m not staying,” I said. “I just came to get Grandma.”
“I can’t go,” Grandma said. “I have to shine the flashlight during close-ups.”
“We’re losing time,” Howie said. “Everybody on their marks.”
Lula and Briggs went to the stoop.
“You gotta scooch down a little,” Howie said to Lula. “I can’t get both of you in the frame.”
“How about if I just pick the little dwarf up?” Lula said.
“You touch me and I’ll be on you like a badger ripping apart a rodent,” Briggs said.
“That’s good!” Howie yelled. “Already we got drama. Grandma, get the flashlight on them.”
“We can’t start yet,” Grandma said. “Nobody did the clacky thing.”
Everyone looked at me.
“Oh, for crying out loud,” I said. “Scene one, take one.” And I clacked the clacker.
Grandma rushed in with the flashlight, Howie shouted “Action!” and Lula and Briggs mugged for the camera.
“Cut!” Howie yelled. “Grandma, you’re supposed to be shining the light on their faces. You’re shining it on Randy’s dick.”
“It’s one of them uncontrollable things,” Grandma said. “I can’t stop staring at it. I never get to see men’s parts anymore.”
Lula looked down at Briggs. “There’s not much to see.”
“Yeah,” Grandma said. “I remember them as being bigger, but it’s still hypnotic the way it’s moving around.”
“I’m excited, okay?” Briggs said. “This is what happens when I get excited.”
“Now that everyone called attention to it, I find it distracting,” Lula said. “I can’t do my best emoting under these circumstances.”
“Cripes,” Howie said. “Now you have me staring at it.”
“Maybe it would help if you put some powder on it so it’s not so noticeable in the moonlight,” Grandma said.
“It’s not the moonlight,” Briggs said. “It’s the stupid flashlight.”
The makeup woman rushed in and powdered Briggs’s dick.
“Hold it still,” she said. “I can’t do nothing with it bobbing around.”
“Listen up,” Howie said. “We’re all going to ignore the dick.”
“I’m good with that,” Grandma said. “I’ve seen enough.”
“Here’s the plan,” Howie said. “After I get a close-up of Lula and Randy they’re going to start on their way around the block. I’m going to follow them as they creep forward. When they move to the next block with the burned-out warehouse they get more wary. This is where they’re on alert for urban dangers. I got a couple dangers planned out, but they’re going to be a surprise.”
“I don’t like snakes and dead people,” Lula said to Howie. “You better not have any of them in your plan.”
I rubbed out “Take 1” on my chalkboard and wrote in “Take 2.”
“Yada yada,” I said. And I clacked the clacker.
“Action!” Howie yelled.
Lula and Briggs walked down the street. They were bare-assed and barefoot, and it was dark. Mostly the only thing visible was the little red light from the infrared camera following after them.
“I don’t like this,” Briggs said. “I can’t see where I’m going, and I don’t know what I’m stepping in. I just stepped in something squishy.”