Fearless Fourteen - Janet Evanovich [14]
Zook was written over the entire car in black and scarlet and gold, surrounded by swirling flames edged in metallic green.
“He did it when I took a shower this morning. He said it would wash off,” I told Lula.
“Too bad. It’s a real improvement on this hunk of junk car.”
“It’s supposed to protect me from the griefer.”
“You can never have too much protection,” Lula said.
We buckled in and I drove the short distance to Conway Street.
“I’ll just be a minute,” I told Lula. “I need to talk to Dominic Rizzi.”
“Holler if you need help. I hear he’s a nut case.”
Alma Rizzi’s small front yard was bare of landscaping, with the exception of a plaster statue of the Virgin Mary. The Virgin and the weather-beaten gray clapboard house behind it were stoic. They’d seen it all. Good times and bad.
I knocked on the front door and Dom answered. He was about five-feet-nine, with a barrel chest and a head like a melon. He was a couple years older than Loretta, and a lot of pounds heavier. He looked like Friar Tuck with road rage.
“Stephanie Plum,” he said. “You got a lot of nerve coming here. First you put my kid sister in jail, and then you kidnap my nephew. If I wasn’t on probation, I’d shoot you.”
“I didn’t kidnap Mario. Loretta made me promise to take him. And if you’d bail her out, he could go back home instead of living with Morelli and me.”
Dom went goggle-eyed. “Mario is living with Joe Morelli? That bastard has my nephew?”
“Yeah.”
“In his house?”
“Yeah.”
Dom was just about vibrating in front of me, hands fisted, neck cords bulging, spit foaming at the corners of his mouth, face purple.
“Sonovabitch. Sonovabitch. I’m gonna kill that snake Morelli. I swear to God, I’m gonna kill him. I’m gonna cut off his head. That’s what you do to a snake.”
Yikes. “Yeah, but not when you’re on probation, right?”
“Fuck probation. He deserves to die. First he got my kid sister pregnant. And then he took Rose’s house. And now he’s got Mario.”
“Whoa, wait up a minute. What do you mean he got Loretta pregnant?”
“It’s obvious,” Dom said. “Take a look at the kid. Recognize anyone?”
“Loretta and Joe are vaguely related. It’s not shocking that there’d be a family resemblance.”
“It’s more than a family resemblance. Besides, I caught them in the act. They were doing it in my old man’s garage. Nine months later, Mario popped out of the oven. That piece of shit Morelli. I should have killed him then.”
I was stunned. I’d seen the resemblance, but this had never crossed my mind. Morelli had been pretty wild in high school and his early twenties. He hadn’t been my favorite person, and I was willing to believe a lot of bad things about him. This went beyond what I would have expected. Hard to believe he’d have a romantic relationship with Loretta and then walk away from her and the baby.
“I know Morelli had a Casanova reputation in high school, but this is out of character,” I said to Dom. “Family and friends were always important to Morelli.”
“He ruined my kid sister’s life. She was smart. She always got the good grades. She could have been something, but she had to quit high school. And now she’s in jail. This is his fault. He stole her future, just like he stole mine. You tell the sonovabitch to live in fear. You tell him to watch his back, because I’m gonna chop the head off the snake. And you tell him to stay far away from my nephew,” Rizzi said, eyes narrowed.
“If you’d post the security for the bond on Loretta . . .”
“I’m living in my mother’s house. Does that say something? Like maybe I haven’t got a cent? No job. No money. No goddamn house.”
“I thought you might have some cash laying around.”
“What are you, fucking deaf? I have nothing.”
“Okay then. Good talking to you. Let me know if you find some money. Just give me a ringy dingy.”
I turned and practically ran back to the car. He was friggin’ scary. And I couldn’t believe I told him to give me a ringy dingy! Where did that come from?
Lula was eyebrows up when I slid behind the wheel. “Well, how’d that go?” she asked.
“Could have been better.”
“He gonna