AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I washed the hotdog down with a beer. “We weren’t able to catch Vlatko, but Ranger has him pinned down in the consulate.”
“I don’t suppose you brought the FBI in on this?”
“Not whil
e I was there. It all happened too fast. I guess Ranger could have called them in after I left.”
Personally, I thought chances of that were slim to none. Ranger would want to call the shots on this, and the FBI would freeze him out.
“So how did your day go?” I asked Morelli.
“My grandmother says your grandmother is stalking her.”
“That could be true. Grandma made a bucket list, and getting your grandmother is on it.”
“Did she say how she was going to get her?”
“I don’t think she’s decided.”
“She wouldn’t do anything crazy like shoot her or beat her silly with a baseball bat, would she? I don’t want to have to arrest your grandmother.”
“I’ll talk to her.”
EIGHTEEN
WHEN I WALKED in, Grandma was in the kitchen, chopping vegetables for soup.
“Help yourself to coffee,” she said. “Would you like me to make you some eggs? Your mother is at mass.”
“I already ate breakfast,” I said, “but coffee would be great.”
“I guess you’re happy now that Jimmy Poletti’s behind bars,” Grandma said.
“Yep. Briggs is out of my life, and I can afford to get a car of my own. Thanks for helping with the takedown.”
“I got a good start on my bucket list,” Grandma said. “Not that I’m planning on getting planted anytime soon, but I figure why not get all that stuff out of the way, right?”
“There’ve been some rumors that you’re stalking Joe’s Grandma Bella.”
“You bet I’m stalking her. I’m freaking her out. She tried to put the whammy on me a couple times, but I just whammied her back.”
“You know how to do that?”
“I Googled it. I’m pretty sure I got it right.”
Joe’s Grandma Bella is the scourge of the Burg. She looks like an extra from a Godfather movie. Steel gray hair pulled back into a bun. No makeup. Ferocious black eyebrows. Eyes like a fish hawk. Five long black chin hairs. She’s short and stooped and wears black shirtwaist dresses and flat black shoes. The longer she’s lived in this country, the stronger her Sicilian accent has become. And she is feared for her ability to give people the eye. The eye is some weird Sicilian curse that makes your hair fall out, your face break out in warts, your teeth rot in your mouth, and your private parts shrivel. Intelligent people cross the street rather than pass too close to Bella. Grandma prefers to pass as close as possible and double-dare Bella to look at her cross-eyed. And Bella is happy to comply. The result is sometimes an ugly display of old lady bitch slapping. And God forbid they should simultaneously get to the cookie table at the funeral home with just one cookie remaining.
“I know getting the best of Bella is on your bucket list.”
“You bet it is. I’m going to get her good. She’s messed with me one time too many. Remember when she called me an old slut?” Grandma whacked a carrot in half. “Well, I’m not all that old. And she bumped me on purpose with her shopping cart at the grocery store. She said I wasn’t moving fast enough. And then she tried to push in front of me in the checkout line.”
My mom came into the kitchen at the end of Grandma’s tirade.
“She’s a silly old lady,” my mother said. “You could be a good Christian and turn the other cheek.”
“I’m a plenty good Christian,” Grandma said, “but I got it on good authority that God wants me to get Bella for Him.”
My mother made the sign of the cross and wistfully looked over at the cabinet where she keeps her booze. Being a good housewife and Christian woman, she knew it was too early in the day for medicinal help from Jack Daniel’s.
