“Gangsters. Much less interesting. I’m in their gangster lair right now. You heard of Pierce Agostini?”
“God, yeah. ‘The bad boy of Wall Street.’ Is he really a gangster?”
“Certainly acts like one.”
“Princess! Really?”
“Yeah. But it’s okay.” Hearing Ethan’s voice always made her remember their childhood. Now, it seemed to open the lid on her emotions. She gulped and pressed her lips between her teeth. “Really, I’m okay.”
“Apart from the criminal king-pin holding you captive thing? Oh, well, that’s reassuring.” Ethan’s dead-pan wrapped a warm glow of comfort around her like a familiar blanket. “You almost had me worried there for a moment.”
“Really, Ethan, I’m fine. Honestly.” Princess held a snigger back, but it was such a relief to talk to him, she almost buckled. “A gangster came and took over Hotsteppa’s. He’s keeping me to make Daddy do what he says.”
“Oh, so it’s just an everyday hostage, coercion, and blackmail situation. I am relieved. What could possibly go wrong with that?” She peered out over the park.
Ethan said, “In the papers he’s a billionaire financier, isn’t he?”
“Trust me, Ethan. He’s a full-service gangster. Extortions R Us. WeGraft.com.”
“Well, as long as he’s the real thing. I wouldn’t want to think of you being held captive by a flaky, fake gangster. Are you being treated all right? Are you in rusty chains? Does he feed you gruel?”
“Champagne so far. And smoked salmon.”
“Unbearable.”
“Caviar at breakfast, I expect. Lobster for lunch.”
“Princess, you got me crying. The man’s a monster. A low-fiber diet is all very fine for an angry mobster—he’s probably used to it. But you, Princess? Doesn’t he know you need greens? Does the brute have no care for your complexion?”
“Ethan, I want to hear about you. You were made the music promoter at the Laguna, right?”
“Yeah. Are you sure you don’t want me to mount a rescue attempt?”
“Definitely not, Ethan. Seriously, he said if anyone came, he’d have them thrown off the roof.”
“How high is the roof?”
“I’m looking out over Central Park, and I can see the Hudson and the financial district from here.”
“How long can you stand captivity in conditions like that, Princess? Seriously, you sure I shouldn’t call the cops?”
“No, Ethan, don’t. And seriously, I’m okay.” Talking to Ethan, someone familiar, someone she trusted, she realized it was true. She didn’t quite have her plan yet, but she was okay. “Tell me about the Laguna.”
“We got taken over by a genuine thug. White Russian guy. I don’t mean he was a Cossack, or whatever it is. I just mean he’s white, like deathly pale.”
Princess lowered her voice. “Really? Now I need to know if you’re okay.” She slipped off the arm of the couch and curled up in the corner.
Ethan said, “I’m fine, sure. He walked in a few days ago with a wall of goons in black and white Prada. He’s one of those thin, bloodless dudes with a voice that makes you go cold.”
She cupped her hand around the phone as she listened.
“Pale blond, more straw than strawberry. Dead eyes with almost no color. If he sleeps, he probably does it hanging upside down or in a coffin or something. Moves without a sound. He’d probably have you cut up just to see how nutritious you might be. Don’t know what he said to Paretsky, but he took a powder and blew.”
“You’ve been finding time for old black and white gangster movies.”
“Burt Lancaster, Alan Ladd. Veronica Lake and Barbara Stanwyck. You know I love that shit.”
“But how are you, Ethan? And how are things at the club?”
“Well, since we’re under mob management, we’ve had even more of the superstar DJs on. Chuck E. D. and Jay Jay Effers played last weekend.” Those were big names, even for the Laguna. Princess was impressed. Ethan said, “There’s money sloshing around everywhere now.”
“Any of it dribbling your way?”
Ethan laughed nervously. “Really, Princess, I’m too wary of someone down the line wanting to collect on a ‘favor.’ ”
“If he wanted to collect, and he’s really the hood you say he is, it wouldn’t make much difference whether you ‘owed’ him or not. Might as well grab whatever swag is going.”
Ethan was quiet for a moment. Thinking, maybe. “Maybe you’re right. Anyway, he says he wants me to get the kind of music that will attract the big investment bankers.”
“What kind of music is that?”
“If you find out, message me fast. Judging by the ones we’ve seen in Laguna, the only thing they want to listen to apart from the sound of bulk bill-counters is the honk of their own bragging.”
“They’re coming into the club, then?”
“Some. Mainly the ones the ghost brings personally in his limo. And they don’t stay long.”
Her voice was low, almost a whisper. Now she wished she had made the call from her room. “I wonder if that’s the reason Agostini wants Hotsteppa’s. Strange coincidence, isn’t it?”
“Mm. So, apart from torturing you with rich foods and wines that are inappropriate for the time of day, is he treating you okay?”
She drew a breath. “I suppose he’s pretty okay, under the circumstances. For a brute.”
“Sounds like someone likes our little Princess.”
“I doubt that. He’s got no interest in anyone beyond what he can squeeze out of them or manipulate them to do for him.”
“Ouch. You nursing a scratch there?”
“Really, Ethan, sometimes I don’t know where your head’s at.”
Behind her, she heard Pierce’s voice. He was talking to Callaghan and Calhoun and she knew he was talking about her. “Listen, got to go. I’ll call you soon, all right?”
“Long as your cell holds up in the dungeon. Be, er… be careful, okay? Look after yourself.”
“You too, Ethan.” She held the phone, silent for a moment. “Stay safe.”
~
When she returned to the living area, she heard Pierce say, “Calhoun, Callaghan, while Princess is with us, I need one of you to have an eye on her and for one of you to watch the elevator. Constantly.”
They both said, “Yes, boss.” They had thick Irish accents. Not like Boston or Chicago Irish, or Pennsylvania Irish. Oirish from Ireland. Ebony black skin and they spoke with Irish brogues.
“When she sleeps,” he told them, “it should be enough for you to take shifts on the door.”
Princess scowled and jutted her bottom lip. She stood as she called out, “I’m still here, you know.”
He ignored her. “Calhoun, for now, you make sure that Princess has all that she needs.”
Her hands were on her hips. “You mean, ‘make sure she doesn’t get out, cause trouble or break stuff,’ don’t you?”
He gave her a weary look. So, maybe she was making some progress. Perhaps she was wearing him down. “You like to call it the way it is, don’t you, Princess?”
He chewed the inside of his cheek. “I think you’re just doing all of this to find out how we react, learn how quickly we respond, see if we make an error.”
She stepped toward him, letting her hips sway as she did. He lifted an eyebrow. “Keep us jumping and guessing. It’s tactical, isn’t it? You’re probing and looking out for ways you might get an upper hand.”
“Oh, I think the probing,” she said as she pushed her body against him and pressed. Through his pants his stiff cock twitched. “The probing,” she shook her breasts against him as she said it, “now, that’s you, isn’t it, Pierce Agostini?”
Agostini grabbed her by the chin and held her tight. It hurt. He pulled her up toward his face. “You know you can’t get away. You know that if you did, it would all go badly for your father as well as for the club. You know all of that, don’t you?” His voice rose and was tense. “Do
n’t you.”
She raised her eyebrows innocently.
“So, stop playing games, little girl.” Oh, that made her mad.
“Look,” she said, “people say you’re in the Mafia. People talk about you like you’re some huge gangster figure.”
“People talk a lot of horseshit.” His top lip sneered. “I’d have thought a girl from clubland would know that. Especially Wall Street clubland.”
“Maybe. But how do I know that you aren’t going to chop me into little pieces or feed me to an ornamental piranha lake? How do I know you aren’t planning to sell me to a gang of Balkan slavers?”
He let go of her chin and his eyes softened. “You have a vivid imagination, I have to hand it to you.”
Calhoun shifted and his mouth twisted. Without looking around, Agostini said, “Well, Calhoun, out with it.”
“It’s nothing, boss.”
“Say your piece, Calhoun.”
“Well, fair play to her, she’s got a point. We know and you know, but how’s she to know none of that’s true. Or something worse.”
“Worse?” Pierce scowled. “You’ve got more imagination than she does. What’s worse than any of that?” He raised a hand. “Okay, tell me later. Your point’s made.”
He looked back into Princess’ face. His voice softened as he held out the palms of his hands and took a step back. “We aren’t going to chop you into little pieces or hand you over to sex-crazed savages or throw you to a hungry tiger. Scout’s honor.”
He stepped away, moved casually back down into the seating area. “I want to treat you as a guest, but you’re going to have to show me that you can act like one.”
“You’ve brought me against my will and now you want to complain about how I act? Well, forgive me, Mr. Agostini, if I haven’t brushed up lately on Miss Manners’ etiquette for kidnap victims.”
“Well,” he strode back and his nose almost touched hers, “isn’t it mainly how to hold a soup spoon in a concrete cell when the man with a scarf over his face brings gray sludge in a metal bowl?”
“The solution’s simple enough, mister. Take me back.”
“That could work, only if I did, there would be nowhere to take you back to, since I’d have to throw you and your daddy out on the street, and all because he’s such a lousy drunk and a stupid card player.”
Her cheeks were hot and her fists balled. “You’ve no right to talk about him like that. You don’t have the first idea of what he’s been through. That club is his life. He built it and you’ve no right to take it away.”
“Might is right, Princess.”
“You’re pretty sure of yourself, aren’t you, Mr. Agostini?”
“Only when I know what I’m doing.” He took a step back. “I suppose that would be most of the time, though.”
He turned to walk away. Without thinking, she said, “You have women’s clothes in the closet of your dungeon, Mr. Agostini. Are they trophies or are they for a hobby of yours?”
Over his shoulder he said, “I know it will break your heart, but you aren’t the first occupant that suite has known.” He picked up a laptop and took it to the coffee table in the sunken lounge area.
“Did you have to drag most of the others there, too?”
Sitting on the couch and opening the laptop, he said, “No. Even better, I actually wanted some of them to be here.”
“What, even the next morning?”
“Oh!” Calhoun called out from the kitchen
Callaghan said, “She shoots, she scores!” The two Irishmen laughed. Agostini glowered. Calhoun and Callaghan were immediately quiet.
Agostini said, “Callaghan, come and tell me about Pennsylvania land registry.”
As Callaghan approached the table, Agostini said, “Princess is going to have to come along with us tomorrow.”
Callaghan’s face furrowed. “But are you sure now, boss? Come with us to Marley’s?”
“To all three. There’s no other way. I can’t leave one of you behind, and if she’s here on her own, she’ll launch her own one woman flying academy.”
Callaghan said, “Right enough. If she’s left alone, she’ll do damage or harm or both.”
Agostini looked down at his screen. The matter was settled. “We’ll take the Grand Cherokee tomorrow, Calhoun.”
Princess wondered where it was they were going, and why Callaghan was so unhappy to have her along.
In the morning, Agostini made coffee and omelettes for breakfast and sent Calhoun to wake Princess. She shuffled out, bleary-eyed and grumpy, peered at the fluffy omelettes, and then at him.
“No steak?” she said, “No caviar?”
He shook his head slowly as he watched her take some coffee. “You really think you’ve got me pegged.”
“Sure. You’re a thug. A gangster in a penthouse.” She perched at the kitchen counter and took a bite of her omelette. “A gangster who makes a decent omelette and pretty good coffee, though. I’ll give you that.”
As she ate, she asked him, “We taking a trip today, Mr. Captor?”
He studied her puffy, insolent pout. Whenever he looked at her, he seemed to feel the opposite of what he ought to feel. When he first saw her in the club, he should have just seen her as baggage. A thing he would have to take, with the problem of keeping it safe to hold over old man Grace.
He had an uneasy feeling of complications arising. Pierce hated complication.
She was exactly what you’d expect as the daughter of an irresponsible gambler, the single parent father of a daughter just out of her teens. She was pretty in a careless kind of a way and she was spoiled.
But when he looked at her, something surged inside him. Something unfamiliar and disruptive.
“We have some errands to run, Princess, and we can’t leave you behind.” He saw her eyebrow lift. “Unfortunately.”
He sent Calhoun down to the garage to fetch the car around front. “Send the elevator back up after you.”
It took some of his patience to get her to be ready to leave. Callaghan, Princess and Agostini took the elevator and stepped out into the lobby. Agostini stopped at the sweeping reception desk. “How’s it going, Mikey?”
Mikey, filling his uniform white shirt and blue serge pants to capacity, gave him a wide open smile. “Everything’s peachy, thank you, Mr. Agostini. How are you today?”
“I’m great, Mikey. We’ll be out for the day. You know my number if you need to be in touch, right?”
He had nothing to say, but keeping a regular contact with the doormen, Mikey, Cyril and Georgey, was important. They were the building’s security, and if anything happened around the building or the apartment, he wanted them to call him first. Before the police, for sure.
To keep that relationship fresh, as well as finding excuses to give tips that were only a little over-generous, Agostini made a point to visit the reception desk and chat with them at least once every day.
Calhoun pulled up in front of the big glass front of the gleaming steel reception, and Agostini installed himself and Princess in the back of the big black SUV. She scowled and sulked in the corner of the back seat. That was okay with him. Maybe she could stay quiet and not cause trouble for a while.
In the morning light, Calhoun drove through Manhattan traffic to the Lincoln tunnel. Callaghan and Calhoun made what talk there was, and it was mainly about the roads and the drive. “New Jersey still feels like you’re in a tunnel.”
“For Highway Nine, you’ve to take the turn-off for Jersey City.”
“New Jersey is just a wilderness of chain-link, car lots, and pawn shops.”
“This part is, for sure. Here, this is the turn. You get to I-9 from here, and then it’s a straight shot.”
Pierce Agostini was occupied with his laptop, the case full of papers and some calls. He called the Marchmade estate office, said that he was from Springfield Land Assay Bureau.
He wanted to let them know that there was a discrepancy in the papers that had been filed on th
e farm for the land registry. It wouldn’t be too serious or expensive to solve—this was mainly a courtesy call. Just in case they were thinking of transferring ownership.
No, a notification of variance was incomplete, that was all. Probably an oversight, and it was only a formality. There was just the possibility of a federal criminal liability if they sold or transferred ownership before it was cleared up. No, it was no trouble at all. He was glad to be of help.
Two Hitmen: A Double Bad Boy Mafia Romance (Lawless Book 1) Page 72