“Excuse me?” I said.
“I’ll drive.”
“I don’t think so. This is my car, and I drive.”
“The guy drives. Everyone knows that.”
“Only in Saudi Arabia.”
He dangled the keys over my head. “Do you think you can get these keys from me?”
“Do you think you can walk after I kick you in the knee?”
“You can be a real pain in the ass,” Diesel said.
Another tear slid down my cheek.
“You forced yourself to do that,” Diesel said.
“I didn’t. I’m feeling very emotional. I’m hungry and I need a shower and some awful toad man is going to shoot my grandmother. And I’m tired. I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night.”
“It was nice last night,” Diesel said. “I liked holding you.”
“You’re trying to soften me up.”
“Is it working?”
I did some mental eye rolling and got into the passenger side of the car.
The car wash wasn’t far from my apartment. We cruised past, made a U-?turn, and drove by a second time. It was a little after eleven o’clock on a Thursday, and the car wash was empty. Three Hispanic guys in car wash gear lounged in front of the drive-?through brushless system that was built into a cement block tunnel. The waiting room and Delvina’s office were a couple feet away in a second cement block building. The waiting room was glass-?fronted, and I could see some vending machines and a counter with a cash register, but no people. There were two junker cars in the lot. Nothing that looked like it would belong to Delvina.
Diesel drove around a couple blocks, getting the lay of the land, looking for black Mafia staff cars. We didn’t see any Mafia cars, horse barns, hay wagons, or men hobbling around holding their privates because Grandma finally managed to get her leg up high enough to do damage.
“Delvina could have your grandmother stashed anywhere,” Diesel said. “The horse is a whole other thing. You don’t ride a horse through downtown Trenton to get handed off for ransom. Delvina needs a horse van to move Doug around. So far, I’m not seeing any evidence of a horse or a van.”
Diesel turned onto Roebling and slowed when he came to Delvina’s social club. It was a dingy, redbrick, two-?story row house. Two metal folding chairs from Lugio’s Funeral Home had been placed beside the front stoop. This was Chambersburg patio furniture. Pottery Barn, eat your heart out. There was no visible activity in or around the club. No place to hide a horse.
Diesel took the alley behind the row houses. Each house had a small, narrow yard with a single-?car garage at the rear. Diesel parked halfway down the alley, left the car, and walked. He looked in each of the garages and in all the yards.
“No sign of a horse,” he said when he returned. “But I’m guessing a couple people are hijacking trucks. Do you need a toaster?”
I called Connie and asked if Delvina had any other properties.
“Hold on,” Connie said. “I’ll run him through some programs.”
I listened to Connie tap onto her computer keyboard and waited while she read through information appearing on her screen.
“So far, I’m only showing his house in Cranbury and his house in Bucks County. Plus the car wash. I know he owns other properties, but they were probably bought through a holding company. I can run that down, but it’ll take a while. I’ll call you back.”
“Thanks.”
“We have time,” Diesel said. “We might as well look at the house in Cranbury.”
Cranbury is a pretty little town within shouting distance of Route 130. Delvina lived on a quiet, tree-?lined street. His house was white clapboard with black shutters and a red door. It was two stories, with a two-?car detached garage. The lot was maybe a quarter acre and filled with trees and flowerbeds and shrubs. Mrs. Delvina liked to garden.
“This all seems so benign, so normal,” Diesel said, sitting in the car, looking across the street at the house.
“Maybe when Delvina is in this house he is sort of normal.”