Notorious Nineteen

out of him until he told us where he had the money stashed.”
    “You’d beat up a guy who’d just had his appendix removed?”
    Everyone sort of shifted in his seat.
    “We didn’t have a clear-cut plan,” Smoot said. “We might have just slapped him around a little.”
    “So what happened?”
    “Ernie over there spent some time on that floor a couple months ago so he knew the drill,” Smoot said.
    Ernie shrugged. “Gallbladder. Easy come, easy go.”
    “The night nurses come on at eleven. They punch in, skim over the charts, and then they watch movies on their iPads. Central isn’t exactly an award-winning hospital,” Smoot said. “So we figured we could sneak in after visiting hours when the nurses were snarfing down vodka-laced chocolate candies and tuning in to Twilight episodes. We took the stairs and everything was going to plan except when we got to Cubbin’s room it was empty. No Cubbin.”
    “So what did you do?”
    “We left. We got stopped by the night guard on the way out. I guess he caught us on one of the monitors. We acted alldumb and demented and confused and he helped us get to our car. And then we went to the diner on Livingston and then we went home.”
    “I know that diner,” Lula said. “They got amazing rice pudding.”
    “I always get grilled cheese,” Smoot said. “It’s nice and greasy. They don’t give you a lot of grease here at the Manor.”
    “Well, that’s a strike against them,” Lula said. “That and the pigeons. The bad news is adding up.”
    “I don’t suppose any of you have any idea where Cubbin might be?” I asked.
    “Vanished off the face of the earth,” Smoot said.
    Lula and I left through the side door and got into the Mercedes.
    “I’m out of ideas again,” I said.
    “Not me. I got a good idea. I say we have lunch. I’m in a pizza mood.”
    A half hour later we were sitting at a table in Pino’s, working our way through a basket of bread, waiting for our pizzas. Pino’s is a bar and grill on the edge of the Burg. It’s a cop hangout and it’s the go-to place for pizza. The polished wood bar is dark and smells slightly of whiskey. The tables on the fringe and in the middle of the room have red and white checked tablecloths. The light is dim even during daytime hours. The aroma of garlic and pizza dough baking hangs in the air. Sitting in Pino’s is like being in a time warp. After a few minutesyou can’t remember if it’s day or night. After a couple beers you don’t care.
    “I think that Sunshine dude is fishy,” Lula said, buttering a wedge of bread. “And why was the Yeti in Cubbin’s house? I bet he was gathering up some stuff for Cubbin. My theory is they got Cubbin stashed away at The Clinic and they’re waiting for the right time to get him out of the country. Cubbin’s gonna give them a bag of money, and they’re gonna send him to Denmark.”
    “Why Denmark?”
    “Nobody would think to look for him in Denmark. Have you ever heard of anybody hiding out in Denmark? It’s another one of my genius observations. I bet all those other people who disappeared are in Denmark too. It’s perfect.”
    “The homeless guy?”
    “Maybe not the homeless guy. I can’t explain the homeless guy. He could be in Carteret.”
    “Okay, let’s go with your idea. I see where Sunshine would be involved. It’s his building. And I can see the Yeti. He’s muscle. I can even see Nurse Norma. She makes the contact. What I don’t get are the two doctors. Where do they fit?”
    “They could have gotten rooked into something that never happened. Like this was supposed to be a medical facility and it was one of them things seemed like a good idea. And they probably don’t even know their good name could get besmirched.”
    “Besmirched?”
    “Yeah, that means you got a smirch on it.”
    We’d ordered one pepperoni with extra cheese and one with everything they could find in the kitchen. The pizzas came to the table, and I started with a slice of the pepperoni.
    “I got another good idea,” Lula said, going for the pizza with the works. “I always get inspired when I eat, and my new idea is we bag on Geoffrey Cubbin. I’m thinking we’d be better using our time to go look for some other scumbag.”
    “Brody Logan is the only other live FTA right now.”
    “What’s with that? We usually got a stack of skips.”
    I took a second piece of pizza. “I’m sure some more will come in.”
    “Yeah, if there’s one thing you can