“Choochy comes back to Trenton with the cigarettes, drops some off with Dougie, and then gets himself arrested trying to take the rest of the cigarettes to New York.”
I nodded some more.
“Next thing Loretta Ricci is dead and Chooch takes off on us.”
“Yep. And then Dougie goes missing. Benny and Ziggy are looking for Chooch. Chooch is looking for something. Again, we don't know what. And somebody steals Dougie's pot roast.”
“And now Mooner's missing, too,” Lula said. “Chooch thought Mooner had the something. You told Chooch you had the something. And Chooch offered you money but no Mooner.”
“Yeah.”
“That's the dumbest load of shit I ever heard,” Lula said, biting i
nto a chicken thigh. She stopped talking and chewing and opened her eyes wide. “Urg,” she said. Then she started waving her arms and clutching her throat.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
More throat clutching.
“Whack her on the back,” someone offered from another table.
“That doesn't work,” someone else said. “You're supposed to do that Heimlich thing.”
I ran around to Lula and tried to wrap my arms around her to do the Heimlich, but my arms wouldn't go all the way around.
A big guy walked over from the counter, got Lula in a bear hug from behind, and squeezed.
“Ptoooh,” Lula said. And a piece of chicken flew out of her mouth and hit a kid two tables over in the head.
“You've got to lose some weight,” I said to Lula.
“It's just I've got big bones,” Lula said.
Everything quieted down, and Lula sucked on her milk shake.
“I had an idea while I was dying,” Lula said. “It's clear what you've got to do next. Tell Chooch you've decided to make the deal for money. Then we snatch him when he comes to pick up the thing. And after we got him we make him talk.”
“We haven't had much luck snatching him so far.”
“Yeah, but what have you got to lose here? He's gonna be picking up nothing.”
True.
“You should call up Mary Maggie the mud wrestler and tell her we'll deal,” Lula said.
I found my cell phone and dialed Mary Maggie, but there was no answer. I left my name and number and asked her to return my call.
I was putting my cell phone back in my shoulder bag when Joyce stormed in.
“I saw your car in the lot,” Joyce said. “You expect to find DeChooch in here eating chicken?”
“He just left,” Lula said. “We could have brought him in, but we thought it was too easy. We like a challenge.”
“You two wouldn't know what to do with a challenge,” Joyce said. “You're losers. Fatso and Ditzo. You two are pathetic.”
“Yeah, well we're not so pathetic we got a chow mein problem,” Lula said.
That caught Joyce short for a moment, not sure if Lula was in on the dastardly deed or merely provoking her.