I MADE A U-turn in front of the bonds office and drove to Hamilton Township. Gurky lived around the corner from Delio’s gas station. She was in a large, sprawling complex of two-story buildings that each housed six garden-level apartments and six second-floor apartments. Gurky was in a garden-level apartment. She answered the door with a smile. I introduced myself and explained to her that she’d missed her court date and would need to come with me to reschedule.

“I’m in the middle of breakfast,” she said. “Maybe some other time.”

Lula grinned. “Lady, you smell like you’re having a hundred-proof breakfast.”

“I like a splash of vodka in my orange juice,” Gurky said.

“This won’t take long,” I told her. “We’ll put the orange juice in the fridge, and you can finish it when you get back.”

“This is all a misunderstanding,” she said. “I wasn’t stealing anything. I just forgot to pay. And then that horrible man attacked me.”

“The one you punched in the nose?” Lula asked.

“Yes. That’s the one. The purse snatcher. He tried to rob me. He grabbed my tote bag.”

“You might have been confused on account of you had too much orange juice,” Lula said.

“I need a lot of orange juice,” Gurky said. “I have a lot of anger. I’ve been married to the same man for fifty-two years and last month he decided I wasn’t ‘doing it for him anymore,’ so he ran off with my sister. My sister! I always knew she was a slut. And he took my cat, Miss Muffy. He never even liked Miss Muffy.”

“Boy, that’s so crummy,” Lula said. “What a pig. You know what we should do? We should get Miss Muffy back. We should catnap her.”

“We’re not in the catnap business,” I said to Lula. “And you’re allergic to cats.” I looked at my watch. Time was ticking away. We had to open the deli’s doors for the cooks at ten o’clock. “We need to take you downtown to check in with the court,” I said to Gurky. “We’ll help you lock up the house.”

“I won’t have to stay in jail, will I?” Gurky asked.

“No,” I told her. “Court is in session. We’ll get you rescheduled and rebonded.”

A half hour later we buckled Gurky into the back seat of my Nova. She’d put on lipstick, changed her shoes, slurped down some more orange juice, checked her door locks fifteen times, and tried to sneak out her back door.

“This is going to be tight,” Lula said. “I don’t see how you’re going to drop her off at the courthouse and get back to the deli in time.”

“I’ll stop at the deli first, open the door and make sure everyone gets in, and then we’ll take Gurky to the courthouse.”

“Good thinking,” Lula said. “That’ll work.”

Red River Deli isn’t anywhere near a river. It’s near the train station, next to a hotel that rents rooms by the hour. The gentrification process put in streetlamps that looked like gaslights, and brick-fronted a bunch of row houses and apartment buildings that previously had looked like a slum. The row houses and apartment buildings were gutted and renovated and sold to  young professionals who worked in New York and wanted to  be close to the train station. Unfortunately, some of the vagrants and gangbangers who roamed the area didn’t get the gentrification memo so from time to time the area could be a little sketchy.

I parked on the street in front of the deli, and Lula and I looked over our shoulders at Annie Gurky in the back seat. Her hands were cuffed in front of her for comfort, and she was slumped over, softly snoring.

“Looks like she’s sleeping off all that orange juice,” Lula said. “Seems a shame to wake her. Maybe we should just crack a window and lock her in.”

“Hey!” I said. “Annie!”

No response.

Two men were standing in front of the deli. One was Caucasian and the other looked Indian subcontinent. They were wearing baggy striped chef’s pants, white chef’s coats, and Red River Deli ball caps turned backward. They were smoking weed and texting.

“Guess those are our chefs,” Lula said. “They look real professional. They got chef suits and everything. Maybe we should put our hats on.”

“Maybe not,” I said.

“Personally, I’m all about being an assistant restaurant manager,” Lula said. “It’s a excellent advancement opportunity. I hope you’re not going to rain on my parade.”

“There is no parade. We know nothing about running a restaurant. We have no experience.”

“That’s not true. I eat in restaurants all the time. And I saw Ratatouille.”

“Ratatouille is a cartoon.”

“Well, I watch other shows too. I used to watch Hell’s Kitchen with that cranky Ramsay guy.”

I got out of the car and Lula followed. I introduced myself and asked the two men if they were our chefs.

“We are very much so,” the smaller man said. “My name is Raymond. I have my green card.”

The other chef was lanky and about six foot tall. He had black hair, a soul patch, and a gold tooth. He looked down at me through a weed haze.

“Stretch,” he said.

“Even I do not know his true name,” Raymond said. “He has always been Stretch.”

I unlocked the front door and told them they couldn’t smoke weed inside.

“This is not a good beginning,” Raymond said. “I’m hoping you do not have more onerous rules we must follow.”

Stretch playfully put his hand on Lula’s boob, and Lula kicked him in the nuts. Stretch doubled over and sucked air.

“Onerous that rule,” Lula said, and she sashayed inside.

The deli consisted of one room with booths lining two walls. Six tables for four were positioned in the middle of the room, and there was counter seating on the far end. The floors were scarred wood. The booths were red leather. Lighting was close to daylight and appropriate for a deli. There was a very slight lingering odor of fried onion rings, but overall it didn’t smell bad. In fact, it smelled good if you were a fan of onion rings.

I walked past the counter seating and entered the kitchen. It was a galley setup with a large pantry to one side. It looked almost clean. I didn’t see any roaches that were sneakers-up. I took that as a good sign.

I looked at a plastic-coated menu. Sandwiches, hot and cold. The usual sides. Standard deli desserts. Nothing complicated. Maybe Lula and I could pull this off.

“Okay,” I said to Raymond and Stretch. “I’m sure you know what you’re doing here. Lula and I will check back around noon.”

“Whoa, not so fast,” Stretch said. “What about the deliveries?”

“What about them?”

“You have to take inventory and schedule them. Then you have to make sure we get the right stuff on time. And you have to arrange for payment.”

“You don’t do that?”

“I make sandwiches, Cookie Puss.”

I looked over at Raymond. “What about him?”

“He’s the fry guy.”

“Who did it yesterday?” I asked.

“No one,” Stretch said. “So, we’re up shit’s creek today. We had a manager, but he disappeared. Went out for a break two days ago and never came back. He’s the third manager in two weeks to disappear.”

“And we always find one shoe,” Raymond said. “One manager shoe by the dumpster, but no manager.”

“Do the police know about this?”

“Oh yes,” Raymond said. “They have been fully informed. They said it is a great mystery.”

“I’m glad I’m not the new manager,” Lula said to me. “I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes . . . especially since sometime soon he could be left with only one. I would hate that. I take my shoes seriously.”

“I’m the new manager,” I said.

“Oh yeah,” Lula said. “I forgot for a minute. Bummer. On the other hand, you could see the bright side and think this might be like Cinderella. She left a shoe behind and look how good it turned out for her.”

“I can’t take inventory right now,” I told Stretch. “You’re going to have to do it. Order whatever you need. I’ll be back before you open at noon.”

“I need a raise,” Stretch said. “Can I order that?”

Lula and I walked out of the deli and stopped in the middle of the sidewalk.

“Where did we park the car?” Lula asked.

“Here,” I said. “We parked it right here in front of the deli.”

“I don’t usually like to jump to conclusions, but I think someone stole your car,” Lula said. “It might have been that Annie Gurky. She could have woke up and needed more orange juice.”

That would be the best-case scenario. The worst would be that some thug took the car with Annie Gurky in it. I hauled my cellphone out of my bag and placed a call.

There are two men in my life. Joe Morelli is a Trenton cop who works plainclothes in crimes against persons. Morelli and I have a long history together that includes being engaged and not being engaged and several times almost being engaged. He has a nice little house on Slater Street that he inherited from his Aunt Rose. He has a big orange dog, two brothers, two sisters, and a crazy grandmother named Bella. He’s also totally sexy in an Italian movie star, homicide detective kind of way. The other guy is Ricardo Carlos Manoso, better known as Ranger. He’s Latino. He’s former Special Forces. He’s hot. He owns Rangeman, a high-end security business operating out of a high-tech, low-profile building in downtown Trenton. And he’s dedicated to keeping me alive and in sight. His motives aren’t entirely altruistic.

“Are you calling the cops?” Lula asked.

“No. I’m calling Ranger. It’s the fastest way to find my car.”