motored home. When things calmed down I'd go back with some sort of long-handled mechanism for retrieving the bottle. I didn't want to explain to the cops about the clues.
In the meantime, there were a few phone calls I could make. I'd only gotten partially through Eddie Kuntz's list. It wouldn't hurt to run through the rest of the names.
Mrs. Williams, one of my neighbors, was in the lobby when I swung through the doors. "I've got a terrible ringing in my ears," she said. "And I'm having a dizzy spell."
Another neighbor, Mrs. Balog, was standing next to Mrs. Williams, checking her mailbox. "It's the hardening of the arteries. Evelyn Krutchka on the third floor has it something awful. I heard her arteries are just about turned to stone."
Most of the people in my building were seniors. There were a couple of single mothers with babies, Ernie Wall and his girlfriend, May, and one other woman my age, who only spoke Spanish. We were the segment of society on fixed incomes or incomes of dubious reliability. We weren't interested in tennis or sitting at poolside. For the most part we were a quiet, peaceful group, armed to the teeth for no good reason, violent only when a premium parking slot was at stake.
I took the stairs to the second floor, hoping they'd have some effect on the pie I'd had for breakfast. I let myself into my apartment and made an instant left turn into the kitchen. I stuck my head in the refrigerator and pushed things around some, searching for the perfect lunch. After a few minutes of this I decided on a hard-boiled egg and a banana.
I sat at my dining room table, which is actually in a little alcove off my living room, and I ate my egg and started on the list of names and businesses Kuntz had given me. I dialed Maxine's cleaner first. No, they hadn't seen her lately. No, she didn't have any clothes to pick up. I called my cousin Marion, who worked at Maxine's bank, and asked about recent transactions. No new postings, Marion said. The most recent transaction was two weeks ago when she withdrew three hundred dollars from the outside ATM.
Last name on the list was a 7-Eleven in north Trenton, a quarter mile from Eddie Kuntz and Mama Nowicki. The night manager had just come on when I called. She said a woman meeting Maxine's description had been in the night before. She remembered the woman because she was a regular. It had been late at night and store traffic had been slow. The woman had been chatty and had relieved the tedium.
I stuffed Maxine's photo into my shoulder bag and took off for the 7-Eleven to confirm the identification. I parked nose-in to the curb at the front of the store and stared beyond the plate glass windows to the register. There were four men in line. Three still in suits, looking rumpled from the heat and the workday. By the time I made my way through the door, there were two men left. I waited for them to complete their business before introducing myself to the woman behind the counter.
She extended her hand. "Helen Badijian. I'm the night manager. We spoke on the phone."
Her brown hair was plaited in a single braid that reached to her shoulder blades, and her face was devoid of makeup with the exception of eyes lined in smudgy black liner. "I didn't get it straight on the phone," Helen said. "Are you with the police?"
I usually try to avoid answering that question directly. "Bond enforcement," I said, leaving Helen to believe whatever. Not that I would lie about police affiliation. Imitating a police officer isn't smart. Still, if someone misunderstood because they weren't paying attention . . . that wasn't my problem.
Helen looked at Maxine's photo and nodded her head. "Yep, that's her. Only she's a lot more tan now."
So I knew two things. Maxine was alive, and she had time to sit in the sun.
"She bought a couple packs of cigarettes," Helen said. "Menthol. And a large Coke. Said she had a long drive ahead of her. I asked her if she was going to buy a lottery ticket because that's what she always did . . . bought a ticket every week. She said no. Said she didn't need to win the lottery anymore."