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“Pretty good, hunh?” Mickey said. “No one will know we’re kidnapping her. Lots of old ladies getting rolled around this place.”
Delvina shook his finger at Grandma. “You better be good when we get you out of this room. You make a fuss, and Mickey’s gonna give you a blast with the stun gun, make you piss your pants.”
“That don’t scare me,” Grandma said. “You get to be my age, and you do that all the time.”
“Why are you kidnapping her?” I asked Delvina.
“I want my money.”
“You already have a horse. How many hostages do you need?”
“As many as it takes.”
“Take me instead of Grandma. I’ll be more cooperative.”
“You tricked me and Mickey last time we saw you,” Delvina said. “I didn’t like that. You and that train engine guy... Diesel.” Some color came into Delvina’s swollen, blotchy face. “I hate him. And you’ll see, my time’s gonna come. You don’t mess with Lou Delvina. I got where I am today because I’m tough. I hold a grudge, and I get even. Everyone knows that. And now I got a plan. Ain’t that right, Mickey?”
“Yeah, boss, you got a plan.”
“What kind of plan?” I asked him.
“A big plan.”
Oh boy. Besides looking like a toad, Lou Delvina had gone a little nutso.
“The first part of the plan is that I want my money,” Delvina croaked. “Get the money to me, and you get your granny back.”
“Why don’t you wait here, and I’ll get the money. I just have to find Briggs.”
“What, do I look stupid?” Delvina said. “You’ll come back with the cops. And besides, I gotta get my shot. And Mickey’s gotta feed the horse.”
Mickey was still holding his gun on me. He handed the gun to Delvina and took cuffs from his back pocket. “Gimme your wrist,” Mickey said.
“No.”
“Give it to me, or Lou’s gonna shoot.”
“I don’t think he’ll shoot me.”
“You got that right,” Delvina said. “I’ll shoot the old lady. I’d love to shoot the old lady.”
I blew out a sigh and held my hand out for Mickey to cuff. He snapped a cuff on, walked me into the bathroom, and attached the other bracelet to the towel bar.
Mickey left the bathroom, closing the door after him. Seconds later, I heard the faint sound of the door to the suite opening and closing.
On the surface, Lou Delvina and Mickey were clichéd, mid-?level, bumbling bad guys right out of central casting for every Mob movie ever made. At least, they used to be before Delvina’s cortisone issue. Problem was, Delvina was right about his reputation. Delvina had ruthlessly scratched and clawed his way up the crime ladder in Newark and finally had been rewarded with his own piece of real estate. That real estate was Trenton. In the old days, it would have been a prize, but the old days were gone and the Mob no longer exclusively ran Trenton. The Mob had to share the Trenton pie with Russian thugs, kid gangs, Asian triads, black and Hispanic gangstas. So Delvina was still scratching and clawing, and sometimes people who got in his way disappeared.
I sat on the edge of the tub and waited. Eventually, someone would show up. A maid. Diesel. Briggs. A half hour ground by and I heard my phone ringing in my purse in the other room. I prayed it wasn’t my mother. My mother was going to freak. She sent me out to retrieve Grandma Mazur and now Grandma was kidnapped.
The phone stopped ringing and I waited some more. Ten minutes later, I heard someone enter the suite.
“Help,” I yelled. “I’m locked in the bathroom.”
Diesel opened the door and looked in at me. “I’m not usually into bondage, but I’m getting turned on.”
“Delvina and his pal Mickey were here. They kidnapped Grandma.”
“Is that a bad thing?”
