Fearless Fourteen - Janet Evanovich [2]
“What do you mean she isn’t bonded out?” I asked Connie, my voice rising to an octave normally only heard from Minnie Mouse.
“She has no money to secure the bond. And no assets.”
“That’s impossible. Everyone has assets. What about her mother? Her brother? She must have a hundred cousins living in a ten-mile radius.”
“She’s working on it, but right now she has nothing. Bupkus. Nada. So Vinnie’s waiting on her.”
“Yeah, and it’s almost two-thirty,” Lula said. “You better go get her kid like you promised.”
Connie swiveled her head toward me and her eyebrows went up to her hairline. “You promised to take care of Mario?”
“I said I’d pick him up if Loretta wasn’t bonded out in time. I didn’t know there’d be an issue with her bond.”
“Oh boy,” Connie said. “Good luck with that one.”
“Loretta said he was sensitive and artistic.”
“I don’t know about the sensitive part, but his art is limited to spray paint. He’s probably defaced half of Trenton. Loretta has to pick him up from school because they won’t let him on a school bus.”
I hiked my bag onto my shoulder. “I’m just driving him home. That was the deal.”
“There might be some gray area in the deal,” Lula said. “You might’ve said you’d take care of him. And anyways, you can’t dump him in an empty house. You get child services after you for doin’ that.”
“Well, what the heck am I supposed to do with him?”
Lula and Connie did I don’t know shoulder shrugs.
“Maybe I can sign for Loretta’s bond,” I said to Connie.
“I don’t think that’ll fly,” Connie said. “You’re the only person I know who has fewer assets than Loretta.”
“Great.” I huffed out of the office and rammed myself into my latest P.O.S. car. It was a Nissan Sentra that used to be silver but was now mostly rust. It had doughnut-size wheels, a Jaguar hood ornament, and a bobble-head Tony Stewart doll in the back window. I like Tony Stewart a lot, but seeing his head jiggling around in my rearview mirror doesn’t do much for me. Unfortunately, he was stuck on with Crazy Glue and nothing short of dismantling the car was going to get him out of my life.
Loretta had given me a photo of Mario and a pickup location. I cruised to a spot where a group of kids were shuffling around, looking for their rides. Easy to spot Mario. He resembled Morelli when Morelli was his age. Wavy black hair and slim build. Some facial similarities, although Morelli has always been movie star handsome and Mario was a little short of movie star. Of course, I might have been distracted by the multiple silver rings piercing his eyebrows, ears, and nose. He was wearing black-and-white Converse sneakers, stovepipe jeans with a chain belt, a black T-shirt with Japanese characters, and a black denim jacket.
Morelli had been an early bloomer. He grew up fast and hard. His dad was a mean drunk, and Morelli got good with his hands as a kid. He could use them in a fight, and he could use them to coax girls out of their clothes. The first time Morelli and I played doctor, I was five years old, and he was seven. He’s periodically repeated the performance, and lately we seem to be a couple. He’s a cop now, and against all odds, he’s mostly lost the anger he had growing up. He inherited a nice little house from his Aunt Rose and has become domestic enough to own a dog and a toaster. He hasn’t as yet reached the crockpot, toilet seat down, live plant in the kitchen level of domesticity.
Mario looked like a late bloomer. He was short for his age and had “desperate geek” written all over him.
I got out of my car and walked to the group of kids. “Mario Rizzi?”
“Who wants to know?”
“I do,” I said. “Your mother can’t pick you up today. I promised her I’d bring you home.”
This produced some moronic comments and snickers from Mario’s idiot friends.
“The name is Zook,” Mario said to me. “I don’t answer to Mario.”
I rolled my eyes, grabbed Zook by the strap on his backpack, and towed him to my car.
“This is a piece of shit,” he said, hands dangling at his sides, taking the car in.
“And?”
He shrugged