“Insurance policies don't pay out on suicides,” Lula said.
“Oh crap! Is that true?” Loretta asked me.
“Yeah. Anyway, I don't know why you're worried about that. You have a big family. Someone will take care of Mario.”
“It's not that easy. My mother is in rehab from when she had the stroke. She can't take him. And my brother, Dom, can't take him. He just got out of jail three days ago. He's on probation.”
“What about your sister?”
“My sister's got her hands full with her own kids. Her rat turd husband left her for some pre-puberty lap dancer.”
“There must be someone who can baby-sit for you,” Lula said to Loretta.
“Everyone's got their own thing going. And I don't want to leave Mario with just anybody. He's very sensitive... and artistic.”
I counted back and placed her kid in his early teens. Loretta had never married, and so far as I know, she'd never fingered a father for him.
“Maybe you could take him,” Loretta said to me.
“What? No. No, no, no, no.”
“Just until I can make bail. And then I'll try to find someone more permanent.”
“If I take you in now, Vinnie can bond you out right away.”
“Yeah, but if something goes wrong, I need someone to pick Mario up after school.”
“What can go wrong?”
“I don't know. A mother worries about these things. Promise you'll pick him up if I'm still in jail. He gets out at two-thirty.”
“She'll do it,” Lula said to Loretta. “Just put the gun down and go get dressed so we can get this over and done. I need coffee. I need one of those extra-greasy breakfast sandwiches. I gotta clog my arteries on account of otherwise the blood rushes around too fast and I might get a dizzy spell.”
Lula was sprawled on the brown Naugahyde couch hugging the wall in the bonds office, and Vinnie's office manager, Connie Rosolli, was at her desk. Connie and the desk had been strategically placed in front of Vinnie's inner-office door with the hope it would discourage pissed-off pimps, bookies, and other assorted lowlifes from rushing in and strangling Vinnie.
“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 w
asn'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.”