“Enough with the small talk,” Eddie said, gesturing toward his crotch. “Whyn’t you take a look at how much I’ve missed you.”
“Aren’t you going to offer me a drink first?” she asked coyly, attempting to ignore his erection, which was still pointing directly at her.
“C’mon, sexy tits,” Eddie said with an agonized groan. “Let’s get this show started.”
“Okay, okay,” she said, realizing that this meeting was going nowhere until she’d given him what he was begging for. “But after we’re finished, we talk. Right?”
“You got it.”
Willow fell to her knees on the plush carpet. If I wasn’t so ambitious, I would’ve made a fantastic hooker, she thought as he jammed himself into her mouth.
Then it was on.
Willow took great pride in being the best little cocksucker in town.
* * *
Rafael spent a restless day going over how he was supposed to handle this new circumstance that had arisen. He was being blackmailed, pure and simple. Blackmailed by the idiot Alejandro, who now fancied himself a movie producer. What a moron Alejandro was. Did he honestly believe that money could buy him anything he desired? And how was he, Rafael, supposed to persuade Pablo Fernandez Diego that making a movie was a legitimate venture for the Diegos to become involved in?
Rafael was sickened by it all. He’d been had. Plied with liquor and God knew what kind of drugs to make him think he was making love to his precious Elizabetta. How could he have allowed this to take place?
Perhaps it was punishment for the girl in Chicago. Rafael had thought he’d hired a professional who knew what he was being paid to do, but the man had killed the girl instead of beating her up. It was not the result Rafael had wanted, although according to his informant in the DA’s office, it had gotten Denver Jones out of town, running to her boyfriend’s side.
He still had a bad feeling about what had taken place, and now he was paying for it. Not that he was a religious man, but his mother was, and she’d instilled a certain amount of guilt in him, guilt he’d learned to brush aside because he was in the drug business. He was involved in importing all kinds of drugs into America and consequently ruining people’s lives. It was not a profession he’d chosen, it was simply his lot in life.
These were the facts he usually chose to ignore. Only today was different—today he was being punished for his bad deeds. He felt it in his bones.
Alejandro was his problem, and there was nothing he could do about it, for if any harm came to Alejandro, Pablo would surely have Rafael killed. Rafael knew that for a fact.
He swallowed hard as he paced around his small office at Club Luna. There had to be an answer, and yet he was at a loss to know what that answer might be.
* * *
“Hey,” a fully satisfied Eddie Falcon said, tucking his dick back into his pants. “You haven’t lost your touch, babe. You always were the best.”
Willow emerged from his private bathroom, dabbing her lips with a tissue. “Thank you, kind sir,” she responded with a sly smile. “Positive reviews are always welcome.”
“We should get together more often,” Eddie noted with a pleased smirk. “Gotta say I missed your magic skills.”
At least he appreciates me, Willow thought. Now he can listen to me.
“Eddie,” she said, dropping into an ultramodern steel-and-chrome chair. “I have a proposition you’re gonna love.”
Eddie did not sit. Eddie was too busy getting dressed.
“Make it fast, babe,” he said, shrugging on his Armani jacket. “I got a dinner to go to.”
“I’ll make it fast, all right,” Willow responded, fumbling in her purse for a cigarette. “How does a million bucks cash—straight into your pocket—sound?”
And so Eddie listened.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
“As soon as Lennie gets back from lunch with the boys, tell him I had to go out,” Lucky informed Danny, who was already hard at work making arrangements for the funeral service and the party that would follow.
“Should I come with you?” Danny asked, anxious to take a break since he was snowed under with everything he had to organize. “Or should I get one of the guards to accompany you?”
“Not necessary,” Lucky replied briskly. She had things to take care of, things that did not involve anyone except herself, and she certainly didn’t want security or Danny tagging along.
Danny was longing to ask where she was off to, even though he was well aware that his boss did not appreciate being questioned. “Will we be going back to Palm Springs later?” he inquired, wondering if he could bring Buff, his significant other.
Lucky was already striding toward the front door. “No,” she called over her shoulder. “Put together plans to set everything up in Vegas. We’ll be making that our next stop.”
Outside, her red Ferrari was parked in the driveway.
For a moment she paused before getting into the driver’s seat and revving the engine. She had things to take care of, and now was the time.
* * *
Chris Warwick considered himself an expert at his job. Dealing with people was his thing—sussing them out, gauging their reactions, figuring out whether they were telling the truth or not. He always knew; he had a finely tuned antenna for bullshit.
After arriving in Palm Springs, he went straight to work—checking out the street where Gino had met his end, observing that the area was no longer roped off with police tape. The sidewalk had been power-cleaned and showed no sign of the violent crime that had taken place. The affluent neighborhood was back to normal. Palm trees softly swaying, a slight breeze, bright sunlight, birds singing in the trees. A perfect Palm Springs day.
Nice place to live, Chris thought. That’s if you don’t end up with a bullet in the back of your head.
With watchful eyes he surveyed the area, noting exactly which houses might have had a view of the crime scene—because in spite of the long driveways, there were plenty of landscape windows through which someone could have seen something.
Lucky had informed him that all the houses had been canvassed by a team of cops. However, they were both aware that cops were not always as thorough as they should be.
After a while, Chris zeroed in on two houses, noting that they both had a clear view of the crime scene.
He approached house number one—a fifties-style structure with a circular driveway and no menacing gates.
An older man wearing khaki knee-length shorts and a colorful Hawaiian shirt answered the door. Chris immediately recognized him as a once well-known crooner from the Sinatra era. His name was Bud something or other—Chris couldn’t quite recall his surname.
Bud something or other was fit and tanned, and except for a row of glistening overly white false teeth and badly dyed orange hair, he looked okay for a dude who had to be fast approaching eighty.
Adopting a detective stance, Chris flashed the phony badge he’d gotten off the Internet. He looked so accommodating and honest, nobody ever doubted him.
“Saw nothing,” Bud something or other said in answer to Chris’s question about the shooting. “Heard a pop, thought it was a car backfiring. Next thing I know, cops are swarming everywhere. It was like a movie happening on my own doorstep.”
“Must’ve been quite a shock when you found out what had taken place,” Chris remarked. “A brutal murder right on the street where you live.”
Bud something or other bobbed his head. “You can bet on that.”
“All you heard was a pop, right?”
“That’s it.”
Chris leaned forward. “Did you know Mr. Santangelo?” he asked.
“Sure I knew him. We played poker a coupla times a week.”
“How about his wife? Did you know her too?”
Bud something or other clicked his false teeth and looked perplexed. “What’s with the questions again? I told ’em yesterday I never saw nothin’.”
“Understood,” Chris said cal
mly. “We’re following up.”
“Well, go follow up somewhere else. I got a golf game to get to.”
“Thanks for your help, Mr.…?”
“Pappas. Bud Pappas.” With a sneaky grin, he added, “Don’t tell me you didn’t get laid playin’ my songs when you were in high school.”
Chris laughed. “Who didn’t?” he lied. “I was a big, big fan.”
Bud Pappas preened, suddenly forgetting all about his golf game. “Wanna come in, grab a cuppa java?” he said with a jovial chuckle. “I got stories that’ll make your cock-a-doodle-doo so hard, you’ll think you died and went to Viagra heaven!”
And so Chris walked into the fifties-style house with its mud-brown shag carpets and multiple frames hanging on the wall filled with photos of an era long past.
When he left an hour later, he had found out plenty. According to Bud Pappas, everyone had loved Gino Santangelo, whereas his wife, Paige, was not so popular. The consensus was that she was a conniving, cheating, snobbish bitch on wheels. And nobody would be surprised if it turned out that she’d paid to have Gino taken out.
Interesting. Suspect number one: Paige Santangelo.
Lucky would eat this information up.
* * *
The security room at the bank was located in the basement. Gino had taken Lucky there once so that she could sign in if she ever had to. Now that time had come. He’d used a different identity—smart—so nobody could put a hold on his safe-deposit boxes should anything ever happen to him.
A heavyset woman with graying hair and a name tag that read MRS. CRISP pinned to her blouse was sitting behind a desk. After an exchange of information, she asked Lucky to sign in and produce her key. Lucky did so, whereupon Mrs. Crisp got up, said, “Follow me,” and activated the automatic lock on the steel-barred gates leading to the inner sanctum.
They entered together and proceeded to the numbered slot where Gino’s safe-deposit boxes were. Mrs. Crisp inserted her key and Lucky did the same. The steel door opened, and Lucky slid the two boxes out.
“Do you require a private room?” Mrs. Crisp asked.
Lucky nodded. Mrs. Crisp escorted her to a small cubicle, where Lucky placed the two boxes on a table and waited for the woman to leave.
As soon as she was alone, her heart began to pound. She was nervous, not sure what secrets the boxes would reveal. Years ago, in Vegas when she was a teenager, she’d managed to get into Gino’s bedroom safe hidden behind a Picasso. She’d been shocked by what she’d found. Apart from photos of Gino with Maria, a couple of handguns, some jewelry, a collection of expensive watches, stacks of cash, gold coins, and pornographic photos of movie star Marabelle Blue, there was an envelope marked THE RICHMOND FILE. In the envelope, she’d discovered incriminating photos of Marabelle in bed with Senator Peter Richmond, the father of Craven, the man Gino had forced her to marry at sixteen.
She flashed back on how sick she’d felt discovering the photos that Gino had obviously used as a blackmail tool to facilitate her teenage marriage to the Richmonds’ dull son.
Now here she was again, faced with even more secrets.
* * *
After visiting with Bud Pappas, Chris noticed that the other house he’d targeted had an outdoor camera. According to the police report Lucky had gotten hold of, the owner of the house had stated that the camera was not operational on the day of Gino’s murder.
Chris approached the house, pressed the buzzer on the iron gates, and waited. After a few minutes, a female voice came through a speakerphone demanding to know who he was and what he wanted.
“Detective Warwick, ma’am. I simply require a few moments of your time. It’s about the unfortunate incident that took place yesterday.”
“Oh my God!” the woman exclaimed. “I’ve already spoken to the police. What now?”
“Can we speak in person?”
“This is most inconvenient,” she huffed, pressing the buzzer anyway, allowing him to enter the property.
He strolled up the driveway to the front door, where he was greeted by an attractive dark-haired woman with a slight accent.
“Mrs. Yassan?” he questioned.
She looked him over, liking what she saw. “You can call me Christi,” she said.
“Thanks, uh, Christi,” he replied, fixing her with his honest brown eyes.
“I was just making coffee. Would you care for a cup?”
“That would be very nice,” he said, following her into the tastefully decorated house.
They exchanged a few pleasantries before Chris began questioning her about the malfunctioning camera. Immediately, he sensed she was lying. Her eyes refused to meet his, and her skin began to flush a dull red from the neck up. She was definitely hiding something.
“Is your husband around?” he asked.
Her eyes darted nervously around the room. “My husband is away on a business trip,” she said at last.
Chris’s intuition kicked in. Husband away. Perhaps a lover visits. It was no wonder she’d claimed the camera had malfunctioned; she didn’t want anyone seeing the tape.
“Mrs. Yassan—Christi,” he said, keeping his voice low and even. “I think there is something you should show me. And please trust me—whatever is on the tape will remain between you and me. That’s a promise.”
* * *
Did she really want to find out what was in these two boxes? Would the Richmond file still be in there? The pornographic photos of Marabelle Blue?
Lucky sighed. She didn’t want to know, yet she had to. What if there was something connected to Gino’s murder?
Her hands began to tremble—which was ridiculous, because she was so not a hands trembling kind of woman. Yet at this very moment, she felt vulnerable and apprehensive about what she might discover.
Gino and his fucking secrets. Who knew what he had hidden away.
Just as she was about to open box number one, her phone buzzed. The ID read “Unknown caller.”
Should she answer? Or get on with opening the safe-deposit boxes?
A distraction would be good. Maybe it was Beverly Villiers or Detective Allan with up-to-date information.
“Hello,” she said into the phone.
“Mom? It’s me, Max. And have I got news for you!”
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
“Is something the matter?” Lorenzo asked, reentering the small dressing room adjacent to the photo studio where he and Max had been waiting for Carlo and Dante to finish arguing about what Max should wear and how she should look in the photos. He’d left the room when Max had decided to make a call to her mother, and now he could see that she was upset. “Is it Dante?” he continued. “I warned you about him. He’s a mean one. Do not let him upset you.”
Max had just gotten off the phone with Lucky, and her head was in a whirl. The news she’d heard was devastating. Her grandfather had been shot to death. Her brother had been arrested in Chicago. Now Lorenzo was asking her if anything was wrong.
Yes, something was wrong, and it sure as hell wasn’t creepy Dante with his yellow teeth and hooded eyes. She could deal with him, but how was she supposed to deal with the shocking news from home?
Tears started rolling down her cheeks, tears of grief because she’d loved Gino so much. They’d shared a special bond, and the one thing she’d been sure of was that any time she needed her grandfather, he’d be there for her.
Now he was gone. It was an unexpected blow.
As for Bobby, what the heck? He’d been arrested, for what? Lucky had refused to say; she’d merely told her not to believe anything she might read or see on the Internet, and that it was all a big mistake.
“I’ll get the next plane home,” she’d cried out to her mom.
“No,” Lucky had said. “Stay where you are. You’re safer there.”
Safer? What did that mean?
Then Lucky had gone on to tell her that she should come home for the big funeral service, and not before.
Lorenzo awkwardly placed
an arm around her shoulders, attempting to comfort her. “What is it?” he asked. “Is it Dante? Because if it is, we can go above him. We can go to Gabriella.”
“It’s not Dante,” she managed to blurt out. “It’s my grandfather. I just heard that he … he died.”
“I am so sorry,” Lorenzo said, hurriedly handing her a tissue. “What can I do for you?”
“Nothing,” Max replied, dabbing her eyes. “He was very old … but I always expected him to be around.”
“Of course,” Lorenzo said.
“I think I have to fly home.”
“We should tell Gabriella. She will understand.”
“Gabriella will understand what?” Dante demanded, appearing in the doorway, a belligerent sneer on his sallow face.
Lorenzo quickly explained the situation in rapid Italian just as Carlo came up behind Dante.
Once again, Max wished she understood what they were saying. A lot of raised voices and angry gesturing was going on. All she wanted to do was close her eyes and be alone with her thoughts. Somehow, from the way Dante was carrying on, she knew this was not to be.
Eventually, after more explosive exchanges, Carlo shooed Dante and Lorenzo out of the room and sat down beside her. “Listen to me, bella,” he said in a soothing voice, his hand covering hers. “This family ordeal cannot interfere with your work. You have signed a contract, and Dante—who is a testa di cazzo—will force you to honor it.”
“He can’t make me do anything,” she said defiantly. “Not if I don’t want to.”
“Ah, it is possible he can sue you,” Carlo pointed out. “There is no doubt he would do that. Anyway, bella, this job is too important for you to walk away from. You are destined to be a star, mio tesoro.”
It occurred to her that Carlo was right. Becoming the face of Dolcezza was her future, her big opportunity to make it. And if she left … what then?
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