Mary Ann Falattio's husband, Danny, hijacked trucks for the Trenton Mob, and from time to time, Mary Ann supplemented her household budget by tapping into the merchandise stored in her garage. “What's she got?” I asked Connie.
“She said Danny got a load of Louis Vuitton last night. Picked them up at Port Newark.”
“I'm in,” Lula said. “I could use a new bag. She just get bags or did she get shoes, too?”
“I don't know,” Connie said. “It was a message on my machine.”
I shoved the new file into my pocket. “I'm working tonight. Brenda's having dinner with the mayor. If she passes out early enough, I'll stop by.”
There was still rush-hour traffic clogging Hamilton when Lula and I left the bonds office. The sky was as blue as it gets in Jersey, and the air was warm enough that I could unzip my sweatshirt.
Lula walked half a block to my parked car and stopped short, eyes bugged, mouth open. “Holy cow.”
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.”