Chances

by Jackie Collins

  She hugged him. “We both will.”

  They began to kiss. He pushed her away laughing. “I’ve got to take a piss.”

  “Oh, really? I just thought I’d got incredibly fortunate!”

  “Stay right where you are. Don’t move.”

  As if she would. She wanted to pinch herself to make sure she wasn’t dreaming.

  When he climbed back into bed he regarded her gravely. “I’ll tell you something that I think you should know. If you’re just fucking around—then you’re fucking with the wrong guy. You do understand that, don’t you?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I just thought I should tell you.”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “That’s what I like, a show of respect.”

  She dived under the black silk sheets. “I’ll show you respect—I’ll show you respect where it really matters!” She had such a passion for him. It wasn’t just sex, although that was incredibly good. It was something more. It was caring about him, what he did and how he felt. He was going to belong to her, and she was going to belong to him. Just the way it should be.

  When they finished making love she was grinning like a dummy. “When can we tell everyone?” she demanded.

  He stretched and placed his hands behind his head. “I’ll have to break it to Helena first. Things haven’t been that great between us. She’s—”

  “Dumb?”

  “No. Don’t sound like a bitch. She’s just more interested in herself than anything else. She’s beautiful and… boring, I guess. I’ll set her up in a house in L.A. or New York—wherever she wants. It’ll take a month or two.”

  Lucky looked alarmed. “A month or two? I can’t wait that long!”

  He began to laugh. “So I’ll fly to L.A. later today and tell her. Does that satisfy you?”

  “You satisfy me. Oh, God! You satisfy me more than anyone in my whole life!”

  It was another hour before he was dressed and ready to leave. They talked, they giggled, they grinned like a couple of crazies.

  Marco shook his head. “I don’t believe this. I knew it would happen, but I didn’t know it would be like this.”

  “Tell me about it—like what?” she asked eagerly.

  “Like—Jesus, I don’t know. I’m forty-five years old, and I feel like I’m just finding something special out. You make me feel like a fucking idiot!”

  She kissed him, roaming his mouth with her tongue, until he pushed her gently away and said, “I’ve got to do some work sometime today. Like take care of business, remember?”

  She grinned. “Why don’t you just shift your ass then, lover?” After he left there was no way she could remove the smile from her face. She dressed quickly in white jeans and a soft silk shirt. Tinted shades covered her shining eyes. If this was being in love, someone should bottle it—they’d make a fucking fortune!

  Dario sat quietly in the Patio restaurant, toying with his fork, pushing bacon and eggs across the plate, and thinking of his encounter with Warris Charters. It had been different—that was for sure. He had never met anyone quite like him before.

  “What’s this script you were talking about?” he had asked after introducing himself.

  Warris angrily watched Lucky walk away. “Your sister is a cunt, did you know that?”

  Dario smiled. “I’m glad to meet someone who agrees with me.”

  After that they got along just fine. Warris decided that if he couldn’t hit on Lucky to talk to her father, the brother would do just as well. He told him about Kill Shot. About his plan to either produce or abort—whatever Gino wanted—as long as he was willing to pay. “Can you arrange for me to get the script to your old man? Find out which way he wants to play it?”

  Dario nodded. He had not taken his eyes from Warris’s face. There was something decadent there, something sexual and bitter and hard… something he wanted….

  They had spent the rest of the evening talking, and the more he talked the more interested Warris had become. Then two girls had horned in on their conversation, two sad-sack hookers with long hair and curvy bodies. Warris’s interest had waned in Dario, his arm had crept around the short girl, and he had said, “This one’s for me. That all right with you?”

  Dario had felt a sharp twinge of jealousy. Warris hadn’t realized, didn’t know….

  “Sure,” he said casually. “When will you get me the script?”

  “How about noon tomorrow? Where will you be?”

  “In a plane on my way back to New York.”

  “You’re leaving that soon?”

  “There’s nothing for me to hang around here for.”

  It was as if Warris had finally sensed what Dario was, what he wanted. Their eyes met. Warris wondered why he had been so slow in realizing. His arm dropped from around the girl, and he said, “Beat it honey, not tonight. I got business.”

  She left, complaining, dragging her friend with her.

  Warris stared. “You should have told me.”

  Dario could feel the excitement building inside him. “Why?”

  “Then we’d both have known where we were.”

  “Do we know now?”

  Slowly Warris had nodded.

  Dario smiled as he remembered the rest. He pushed the eggs around his plate some more and glanced at the entrance to the restaurant. Breakfast, Lucky had said, the Patio, ten o’clock. It was now ten thirty and still no sign of her. But of course it was only him she was meeting. What did he matter?

  Abruptly he clicked his fingers for a waitress. He was not hanging around any longer. He wasn’t one of her lackeys ready to sit around and wait. Besides, Warris had said he didn’t have to beg for more money. He had said there were other ways to get what was rightly his.

  The waitress handed him a check. “You have a nice day now.” She smiled.

  He planned to. Warris had invited him to stay for a while in Los Angeles. “You help me and I’ll help you,” he had said. “Together we can both come up stinking of money—your money, Dario. It’s just as much yours as hers. We’ll figure out a way to get a big chunk.”

  He hurried from the restaurant. He was meeting Warris at the airport at eleven thirty and he didn’t want to be late.

  Rudolpho Crown sprawled on the back seat of a fast-moving Mercedes limousine as it raced along the desert highway. The smell of new leather made him want to vomit. But he couldn’t even do that, there was nothing left to bring up.

  He craved a glass of water—coffee—anything to remove the taste of stale bile from his mouth. Painfully he sat up, but he was separated from the driver by a curtained glass panel.

  A low moan escaped his lips. Every bone in his body was bruised and aching, but it was the dull throbbing pain in his crotch that really worried him. Rudolpho Crown had always fancied himself as a great cocksman. If there was anything permanently wrong in that department… it did not bear thinking about.

  He closed his eyes and moaned again. Who would believe what he had gone through? Who would believe it?

  The Kassari twins. So nice. So polite. Coming to his office and giving him creamed bullshit about all the money they were going to put his way.

  Jerking him off. Coming with him to Vegas. Supplying five pieces of ass and telling him he had his choice.

  He had his choice, all right: the brunette with legs that finished under her armpits. Only he never got to stick it to her, did he?

  The Kassari twins. They lived up to their reputation. They took him for a ride and in the end he was begging to sign his piece of the Magiriano away, begging and pleading and crying and groveling like some sort of animal.

  They had the papers ready, all drawn up and legal. They had witnesses to his signature who no way would ever admit that he had only signed under duress. When it was all taken care of, he had been bundled in the Mercedes and sent on his way.

  “The driver’ll take you to Los Angeles,” Salvatore said nonchalantly. “You can catch a plane to New York there. Only no calls. We got
things to take care of. You make one motherfuckin’ call, an’ you’re a dead man.”

  What did they think he was? A fool?

  He moaned again and clutched at his balls. Money. Shit! He had been better off hustling a living at the racetrack.

  Enzio Bonnatti and his entourage stood at the entrance to the hotel while their bags were loaded into a long sleek Lincoln Continental.

  Lucky stood with them. “I wish you could stay longer. All this way for just one night—it seems ridiculous.”

  “When you get to be my age you know what’s good for you, and what’s good for me is my own friggin’ bed—’scuse my language.”

  “Weren’t you comfortable last night?” she asked quickly.

  He laughed, a throaty rasp. “Sure. Why shouldn’t I be? You had the only kind of pillow I like—two bottles of my favorite mineral water beside the bed—chocolate in the refrigerator. How you know all these little things?”

  She laughed in return. “I make it my business to find out.”

  He leaned forward and kissed her on both cheeks. “You’re a good girl.”

  “I’m not a girl, Enzio.”

  “So what are you, an old man? To me you are a girl. But first you are a Santangelo—and that counts for much. When Gino gets his ass back—”

  “I’ll be in New York next week,” she interrupted quickly. “Can we have dinner?”

  He smiled. “She asks, can we? You don’t need to ask, Lucky, you’re like family.”

  “I know.” She hugged him warmly. “Thank you for coming. It meant so much.”

  “I hadda see for myself the job y’did.”

  “And were you impressed?”

  “Y’got a winner. Makes the other place look like a dump.” He climbed into the Lincoln.

  Lucky stood and watched the car out of sight, then realized it was past noon. There was so much to do. So far she had done nothing except spend an idle hour with Enzio before his departure. Marco had dropped by to pay his respects to the old man, and she had looked at him, wanted him, and loved him so much that it almost hurt. Why couldn’t she tell everyone about them? Why couldn’t she climb to the top of the hotel and make a loudspeaker announcement for the whole of Las Vegas to hear?

  Goddamn it, Marco—tell Helena and then I can tell the world.

  What would Gino think when he heard? If only he had fixed it for her to marry Marco instead of Craven Richmond….

  Marco had bid Enzio a fond goodbye, and then he had winked at Lucky and said, “I’m dropping by the Mirage. Why don’t we meet for a late lunch at two in the Patio?”

  “Sure.” She had tried to keep her voice casual in front of everybody, but surely the way she was glowing all over was giving the game away.

  “Lucky.” Skip was bearing down on her, waving an envelope. “I thought you’d want to see the photos from last night. They just came in.”

  “I’d like to, Skip, but I’m running late on everything.”

  “Oh.” He looked disappointed. “I was hoping we could grab an early lunch and I could fill you in on some of my plans. The press reaction is—”

  “Why don’t you have a memo typed up and send it up to me with the photos? I’m two hours late for a meeting with my brother, and that’s the least of my problems.” She hurried into the lobby and looked around. The place was nicely busy. What to do first? Track down Dario? If he could wait two hours, another twenty minutes wouldn’t hurt. She had to see Costa immediately, and there were a whole lot of employees she wanted a personal word with and several urgent phone calls to return.

  What she wanted to do was spend the rest of her life in bed with Marco.

  “Ms. Santangelo… paging Ms. Santangelo.” The loudspeaker message came across loud and clear.

  She walked over to the main reception desk and picked up the phone. “Yes?”

  “Lucky Santangelo?”

  “Who is this?”

  “Lucky. This is one of your new business partners.”

  “What?”

  “You heard.”

  “Who is this?”

  “Just wanted to let you know.”

  “What?” Whoever was on the line hung up. She slammed the phone down and snapped at a startled desk clerk, “Tell the switchboard I do not want to be paged unless it is urgent. And all calls are to go through the office first.”

  The desk clerk nodded admiringly. “Yes, ma’am.”

  Stupid phone call. Goddamn moron on the switchboard. “Get me Dario Santangelo on the line.”

  “He checked out, ma’am.”

  “When?”

  “Around an hour and a half ago.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I sent his bill through to the office to be comped myself.”

  “O.K. Thank you.” If Dario couldn’t be bothered to wait, it wasn’t her problem. She would catch up with him in New York.

  She thought about Marco, shivered, and wished it was two o’clock when they would be together again.

  The Kassari twins celebrated with a magnum of champagne and two well-endowed hookers who had no objection to sharing.

  While they indulged in the pleasures of the flesh, their enforcers were out working. Rudolpho Crown’s piece of the Magiriano was not enough to satisfy them. There were other members of the syndicate who could be persuaded to sell. Not that they would get any money up front—like Rudolpho, they would have to wait for their investment to be returned.

  Salvatore Kassari squeezed the full buttocks of the woman in his bed and said, “You love it, don’t you? You love getting fucked by a man like me?”

  “Yes,” the hooker replied dutifully, “you are some big man.”

  Salvatore turned his attentions to the woman underneath his brother on the next bed. “And you? How about you?”

  “Ohhh, yesss, you are both real sex machines.”

  Sex machines! He leered. They could talk—two cunts who put it out day and night for money. Usually he wouldn’t dream of paying. But today was different. Today the whores were being useful….

  A knock on the door. “Room service,” a voice announced.

  “Come in,” he shouted.

  The floor waiter opened up the door with his pass key and wheeled the trolley laden with food into the room. He stopped abruptly when he saw what was going on.

  Salvatore picked up a twenty-dollar bill from the bedside and waved it at the man. “That’s O.K. Take no notice. Bring me over the check to sign.”

  The waiter had interrupted a lot of scenes in his time—twenty years on the floor, you saw plenty—but he had never seen anything like this. Pietro Kassari and friend kept right on bouncing up and down. Salvatore Kassari was stark naked, and so was the woman lolling beside him.

  The floor waiter couldn’t wait to get back to the kitchen to tell this story.

  Salvatore signed the check with a flourish. “What time you got, pal?”

  The waiter consulted his watch, “Ten after two, sir.”

  Lucky lit another cigarette and said, “It’s not like Marco to be late. He said two o’clock and it’s twenty after.”

  Costa took a sip of hot sweet tea and regarded her carefully. “I spoke with Gino this morning,” he announced.

  It was almost as if she didn’t hear him. “Oh, yes?” she said distantly.

  “One of these days you will have to face up to the fact that he is your father. That everything you have achieved was only made possible because of…”

  She wasn’t listening. She refused to listen. Why was Costa trying to spoil her day? Why was he always carrying on about Gino?

  Across the restaurant she noticed Boogie in agitated conversation with someone. Idly she watched, purposely not listening to Costa. It looked like one of the parking boys. What was a parking boy doing in the restaurant? Have to put a stop to that.

  “Eventually,” Costa continued, “Gino will come back, and then you are going to have…”

  Boogie was heading swiftly across the restaurant toward her. He
moved like a panther, sure-footed—fast—silent. As he approached, she felt a slight chill of apprehension. Something was wrong. She was standing before he reached her. “What is it?”

  His face was blank. “There’s been a shooting outside.”

  “A shooting? What do you mean?”

  Costa joined in. “What happened?”

  Boogie shook his head. “I don’t know. Someone got shot. I want to get you upstairs, Lucky—now.” He already had a steel grip on her arm.

  She tried to shake free. “I don’t want to go upstairs,” she began.

  “Yes. Take her upstairs,” Costa ordered. “I’ll find out what’s going on.”

  “Goddamn it!” she flashed. “I am not going upstairs. Will you let go of me!”

  Boogie looked quickly to Costa, who gave an imperceptible nod. He released her arm.

  She was furious. Who the hell did Boogie think he was working for anyway? “Let’s go find out what’s going on,” she said shortly.

  The man, lying on the hot asphalt ground could not see or hear much of anything. They say that when you are dying your life flashes before you. Not so. Not so at all. Pain had taken over his entire body. A blinding relentless pain caused by the three bullets that had smashed into him as he walked toward the entrance of the hotel. Pain was taking him on a wild trip, a short trip, and soon it would be all over. He choked for breath. His last breath. And as he went he heard her agonized scream.

  “M… A… R… C…O ! Oh, n… ooo. OH GOD…. noooooo…. M… A… R… C… O !…”

  BOOK

  THREE

  Thursday, July 14, 1977

  New York

  Wearily Lucky reached the last flight of concrete stairs. Although it was only seven in the morning, the heat was already settling over the city. She felt filthy and in desperate need of a shower.

  The stairs led into the basement garage. Once there she headed for her car, a small sleek bronze Mercedes. She set her large bag on the hood and began the ritual search for her keys. As she scrambled through the contents of her bag, she got more and more aggravated. The goddamn keys weren’t there!

  In a fury she tipped the bag upside down and everything fell out. No apartment keys, no car keys.