22 Caliber - A Stephanie Plum-inspired Story

Chapter Five

When Ranger dropped me off at the office, I entered to see Lula lounging on the brown vegan leather sofa. Her feet were propped up on Connie's desk and were keeping time and shaking Connie's desk as her legs bee-bopped to the rhythm in her earphones. Her earphones were plugged into her phone and she was singing at the top of her voice – and Lula can't sing.

"Lula, stop singing" Connie begged.

Lula took out her earphones. "What? Did you say something?"

"Please stop singing", Connie repeated.

I'm not singing" Lula replied. She put her earphones back in and proceeded to continue to sing and dance in her seat. "I can't get nooo...satis-faction...But I try....But I try...But I try...But I try-yi..."

Connie looked at me. "Please, please tell me you are done with Ranger and you can take her out of the office. I'm begging you. The only good thing that came out of her singing and gyrating was it drove Vinnie away. "

I pulled the earphones back out of Lula's ears. "I'm off to find Mario Morelli. Want to tag along?"

Lula bounced up. "It was getting boring here anyway", she said. "Vinnie even went home so I couldn't amuse myself by pissing him off. Besides you may need some help with Grandma Bella. She's a crazy old bat. I know how to handle crazy old bats like that. When I was growing up I had to deal with lots of crazy old bats. 'Course, those old bats were crazy because their brains were rotted by drugs. Grandma Bella is just crazy because she wants to be."

I couldn't argue with that. We decided to visit Mrs. Morelli first and get it over with. I hoped Grandma Bella was at the Senior's Center, or shopping, or at her grandkids... or anywhere other than at the Morelli's. We got to the house. "Do you want me to cover the back so if that Mario man tries to disappear we can nail him? I'm good at nailing people. I can jump on him and squash him like a little bug."

"No. First of all, Mario isn't in violation of his bond agreement yet. Second of all, we are just doing a favor to Joe and Vinnie by trying to track down Mario before the Morellis end up losing their house. We'll go up to the front door, hopefully get invited in and talk civilly to the Morellis."

"What do you mean 'hopefully get invited in'? You are going out with their son. You are practically engaged to the man. Do you mean you might not get invited in?"

What Lula said made me pause. Was I practically engaged to the man? I knew there were times when I had lived with Joe, but after a couple of months we wised up and I went back to my own apartment again. The truth was that I liked having my own place. I liked the peace, I liked the space and I liked having my own bathroom. Joe's place was nice too – it was comfortable and had Bob the dog, a shaggy, orange, lovable golden-retriever type of beast that ate everything. But it wasn't home.

We drove up to the Morelli house. Like the Mendez house, the Morelli house was a modest duplex with a small porch on the front. Unlike the Mendez house, the Morelli house was located in the Burg. Its porch was decorated for Hallowe'en with pumpkins, scarecrows and chrysanthemums. A handmade autumn silk floral arrangement hung beside the front door.

We knocked on the front door. Mrs. Morelli answered and stood blocking the way into the house. "Sorry", she whispered, "I would invite you in but Grandma Bella is having her afternoon nap."

"Hunh", Lula said. She rocked back and forth.

"That's fine. We really don't want to disturb Grandma Bella" I said. I came right to the point of why I was there – no point hanging around when Grandma Bella could wake up at any time. I explained that Joe and Vinnie had asked Lula and I to look into Mario's case, that Mario seemed to be missing and his trial was coming up in a few days. I told her we were just doing a check in and asked whether she had seen Mario in the last little while. "No", she answered. "But I don't expect to. He'll show up for court. He knows that we'll lose the house if he doesn't show up. I'm sure he will be there." I didn't know who she was trying to convince – us or herself. I asked whether there was anyone she could think of that Mario would stay with. "No – just his brothers, Joe, Anthony. Any of the cousins. His wife, Tessa."