That's Amore! - Janelle Denison [49]
"All those without immediate business, outside. Now," she said, her tone brooking no argument as she swung her cuffs.
Like a bunch of angry hens, Efi's aunts and cousins quickly filed out of the station, leaving a blessed calm in their wake. That still left her parents, Nick and his parents, and her sisters at the desk. The female officer eyed them, then sighed and went back to work.
The officer with the paperwork stepped to the desk. "He's been arrested for grand larceny," he stated.
Efi's mother shook her head. "What does that mean, exactly?"
The officer stared at her. "It means he crashed his car through the window of a local furniture shop and made off with some of the goods. When the responding officers caught up with him, he was dragging a dining-room table on a blanket on the street behind him."
Her wedding gift of a dining-room table…
Efi closed her eyes, wishing the nightmare away.
Her father looked around. "Where's Gus?"
Everyone looked around, as if by doing so they could make her grandfather's best friend, and very likely the owner of the furniture store in question, materialize.
"I'll go get him," Nick offered, earning him a grateful gaze from Efi.
He left and she turned her attention to the officer.
"How do we get him out?" she asked.
"Thankfully it's been a light day. He's already gone before the judge." The officer then named a bond amount that made her mother gasp.
Her father took out his checkbook.
"I'm sorry, sir," the officer said. "I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask for either cash or a cashier's check. We don't take personal checks, for obvious reasons."
"What obvious reasons?" her father asked.
The officer merely stared at him.
"Are you calling me a liar? Saying I don't have the money to cover the bond?"
Efi touched her father's arm. "Why don't you let Diana go to the bank and cash the check, Papa? There's a branch just up the block."
A half hour later they were leaving with her grandfather.
"Damn thief," he was saying, apparently about his best friend. "He's the thief and it's me they arrest."
"Papou, you crashed through the front of his shop." And he'd been dragging a dining-room table behind his car.
Efi found it amazingly easy to envision her grandfather doing just that, going twenty miles an hour down the street in order not to do much damage to her wedding gift, even as broken glass fell from the hood of his old Lincoln.
"I should have crashed through all the windows, the klefti," he said vehemently.
Nick pulled up to the curb, then rounded his car to help Gus out, her grandfather's lifelong friend and the owner of the shop he'd vandalized.
"You son of a bitch!" her grandfather shouted, advancing on the other man.
"They let you out?" Gus countered. "They should keep you locked up for good. You're a danger to society!"
And just like that the families fought to keep the two men apart as officers coming into the building slowed their steps, wondering whether or not intervention would be needed.
"Would you two stop it!" Efi stepped between them. "You're acting like children."
"Children?" Gus said to her. "Who are you to insult me? It must be in your blood, this blatant disrespect."
"Don't you talk to my granddaughter in that tone, you old goat!"
Efi stared at her grandfather. "Yes, you're right. I am your granddaughter. Your granddaughter who is set to get married tomorrow and whose day you just ruined with the stunt you pulled."
Her grandfather had the grace to look abashed.
Gus snorted. "None of this would have happened had he just paid what the furniture was worth."
"Worth? You marked the price up three times retail because you knew that was the piece I wanted to buy for my granddaughter! The girl who is named after my wife, God bless her soul."
"Others were interested in buying the set."
"Others aren't your best friend!" her grandfather said. He lifted a hand showing two fingers. "Twenty years we're friends. Twenty years I drink wine with you, treat your kids like they're my kids, help put your son through college, and this is the thanks