“Nobody calls me pecker head and lives,” Pecker said. And he launched himself across the table and tackled Julia Child.

The two men went to the floor, punching and grunting, rolling around locked together.

“Look at that,” Grandma said, leaning across the table. “He is wearing ladies’ panties.”

My father kept his head down, shoveling in buttered biscuits and barbecued chicken, and my mother went to the kitchen to refill her glass.

Lula hauled her Glock out of her purse and fired off a round at the ceiling. A small chunk of plaster fell down onto the table, and Larry and Pecker stopped gouging each other’s eyes out long enough to look around.

“We got chicken on the table,” Lula said, pointing the gun at the two men. “And I want some respect for it. What the hell are you thinking, rolling around on the floor like that at dinner hour? You need to get your asses into your chairs and show some manners. It’s like you two were born in a barn. Not to mention I got a contest coming up, and I need to know if this is gonna give you all diarrhea on account of everything I’ve cooked so far has gone through people like goose grease.”

Larry righted his chair and sat down, and Pecker went to his side of the table. Pecker’s nose was bleeding a little, and Larry had a bruise developing on his cheekbone.

“I hope this chicken’s okay,” Grandma said, spooning coleslaw onto her plate. “I’m hungry.”

Everyone looked to my father. He’d been shoveling food into his face nonstop, including the chicken.

“What do you think of the chicken?” my mother asked him.

“Passable,” my father said. “It would be better if it was roasted.”

Pecker tested out a leg. “This is pretty good,” he said, reaching for another piece.

“It’s Larry’s recipe,” Grandma said.

Pecker looked over at Larry. “No kidding? How do you get that sweet but spicy taste?”

“Blackberry jelly,” Larry said. “You add a dab to the hot sauce.”

“I would never have thought of that,” Pecker said.

I ate a biscuit and nibbled at the chicken. Pecker was right. The chicken was good. Really good. I didn’t have any delusions about winning the contest, but at least we might not poison anyone.

My father reached for the butter and noticed the chunk of plaster in the middle of the table. “Where’d that come from?” he asked.

No one said anything.

My father looked up to the ceiling and spotted the hole. “I knew when we hired your cousin to do the plastering it wasn’t going to hold,” my father said to my mother.

“He plastered that ceiling thirty years ago,” my mother said.

“Well, some of it fell down. Call him after dinner and tell him he better fix it.”

“I heard some interesting news today,” Grandma said.

“Arline Sweeney called and said they were going to hold the Chipotle funeral here in Trenton.”

“Why would they do that?” Lula asked.

“I guess he had three ex-wives who didn’t want him in their plot. And his sister didn’t want him in her plot. So the barbecue company decided to take charge and bury him here since that’s where his head is. And he’s gonna be at the funeral home on Hamilton. Right here in the Burg.”

“That’s weird,” Lula said. “Are they going to have a viewing?”

“Arline didn’t know anything about that, but I guess they’d have a viewing. There’s always a viewing.”

“Yeah, but they only got a head,” Lula said. “How do they have a viewing with just a head? And what about the casket? Would they put just the head in a whole big casket?”

“Seems like a waste,” Grandma said. “You could just put the head in a hatbox.”

AN HOUR LATER, Grandma waved good-bye to Larry and Pecker and closed the front door. “That went well,” she said. “We need to have company to dinner more often.”

I was holding my laundry basket of clean clothes and the keys to my Uncle Sandor’s baby blue and white ’53 Buick. He’d bequeathed it to Grandma Mazur when he went into the nursing home, but Grandma Mazur didn’t drive it. Grandma didn’t have a license. So I got to borrow the gas-guzzling behemoth when I had a transportation emergency. The car was a lot like my apartment bathroom, not nearly what I would choose but utterly indestructible.

“What’s the deal with your apartment?” I asked Lula. “Is your door fixed?”

“Yeah, and I’m moving back in. I just have to stop at your place to get my clothes. I’ll be over in a little while. I gotta get some groceries first.”

I carted my laundry out to the Buick and slumped a little when confronted with the reality of my life. I would have preferred a new Porsche Turbo, but my car budget was old borrowed Buick. And the truth is, I was lucky to have anything at all. I put the basket in the trunk, slid onto the couch-like bench seat, gripped the wheel, and turned the key in the ignition. The engine rumbled in front of me. Testosterone shot out the exhaust pipe. Big, wide-eyed headlights blinked on.

I slowly backed out of the garage and chugged down the street. Without thinking too much about it, I turned down Adams Street and after a couple blocks found myself in Morelli’s neighborhood. On nights like this, after suffering through dinner with a guy dressed up like Julia Child and a guy who looked like an ad for erectile disfunction remedies, I found myself missing Morelli. He wasn’t perfect, but at least he didn’t look like a penis.

FOURTEEN

I THOUGHT I would quietly cruise by Morelli’s house unnoticed, but it turned out Morelli was standing in his small front yard and spotted me half a block away. Hard to miss me in the Buick. I pulled to the curb and he walked over to me.

“What’s going on?” I asked. As if I didn’t know. Bob was hunched on the lawn, head down, tail up.

“Bob’s got problems,” Morelli said.

“Must have eaten something that disagreed with him.”

“Yeah, I’ve got the same problem,” Morelli said. “Mooch and Anthony came over to watch the game and I think we got some bad food.”

“Bummer.”

“I thought you were driving Ranger’s Cayenne.”

“It sort of burned up.”

“Sort of?”

“Totally.”

Morelli gave a bark of laughter. “That’s the first thing I’ve had to smile about all day. No one was hurt?”

“No. Ernie Dell stole it and torched it.”

“I bet that went over big with Ranger.”

“He went after Ernie and rooted him out like a rat in his nest.”

“I don’t always like Ranger, but I have to admit he gets the job done.”

Bob had taken to dragging his butt on the ground, going in circles around the yard.

“Maybe he needs to go to the vet,” I said to Morelli.

“This is nothing,” Morelli said. “Remember when he ate your red thong? And the time he ate my sock?”

“That was my favorite thong.”

“Mine, too,” Morelli said. His face broke out in a cold sweat, and he bent at the waist. “Oh man, my intestines are in a knot. I have to go inside and lie down in the bathroom.”

“Do you need help? Do you want me to get you Pepto-Bismol or something?”

“No, but thanks for the offer.” Morelli waved me away, collected Bob, and they shuffled into the house.

Okay, that was sad. I thought it might be satisfying, but it wasn’t at all. I drove on autopilot to my apartment building, surprised when I realized I was parked in the lot. I hauled my laundry basket to the second floor, let myself in, and listened to the silence of my empty apartment. The silence felt lonely. Rex was still with Ranger. I wasn’t greeted by rustling pine bedding or the squeak of Rex’s wheel. I carted the basket into my bedroom, set it on the floor, and my cell phone rang.

“Bitch,” Joyce Barnhardt said when I answered.

“Do you have a problem?”

“You poisoned me.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t play dumb. You knew exactly what you were doing when you forced that pork on me.”