“Only us?” Kevin gulped. “What about everybody else?”
“Nattie and Nicky? And what about Pat, isn’t he getting surgery right now?” Mike added. “We can’t leave the country —”
“Leave the country? Alaska’s part of the United States, guys.”
“You have to go through Canada to get there,” Mike reasoned.
“Well, like it or not, we’re leaving tomorrow so let’s get packing. We’ll hit the attic where Grandpa keeps his camping and hunting equipment. I still have some of my old stuff in boxes. We’ll take all the heavy stuff since it does get cold up there.”
Kevin started to cry quietly, but he couldn’t suppress his sniffles.
“See what I mean, boys,” Steve said sharply, “you guys have to stop being such mama’s boys and toughen up.”
“But we need to talk to Mom and make sure that Pat’s okay,” Mike insisted.
Steve frowned. “Boys, we’re a team now. We’re what’s left of this family, and we’re starting a new life. Now let’s go. Let’s get Grandpa and go sort out what goes and what stays.”
As the Nelson men climbed the stairs to the attic, Mike excused himself to go to the bathroom.
“Mrs. Whitman?” Mike struggled to keep his voice low after he dialed his Tampa telephone number, which rang in her apartment. “Kevin’s in the attic with Dad and Grandpa. They’re —”
Carmen Williams missed Kim. Didn’t matter that she now had money. Money from Kim’s small nest egg and Kim’s awesome wardrobe and jewelry collection. Didn’t matter that she could now afford places like the bar at the Columbia Restaurant in Ybor City. A classy place where Kim used to take her. A place where Kim used to go with Frankie Santiago.
Carmen approached the bar, aware of the looks. She looked great, and she knew it. Kim had been much tinier that she, but Carmen had found a seamstress that had done magic. The red halter dress — Kim’s favorite color — was snug, but sexy. Her luxuriant auburn hair was clipped into place with a ruby — probably not real — studded clip and she felt like quite the lady in red strappy heels.
“What’ll you have?” asked the bartender, a hefty man with salt-and-pepper hair clipped military style. He had been there most times she and Kim had come in.
“Perrier with lime,” she said after a noticeable hesitation.
“On the wagon or what?” he asked.
“Yeah, I’m trying. Guess I shouldn’t be here, but I’m so lonely. I sure miss Kim.”
“You two were such good pals.” He blinked as he poured the bubbly water into her glass. “I miss seeing her too. She was a perky one. Channel Eight’s never been the same since she left.” He nodded to the TV monitor over the bar. The news was on. The anchor couple from Memphis.
“Duds,” Carmen said.
“But you’re lookin’ like a million bucks,” he said. “You doin’ okay?”
New patrons had arrived, so he took off without a response.
Carmen went back to her drink, but was soon distracted by a familiar sounding voice. She turned to look as an older man with longish gray hair and dark glasses nodded to the bartender. The guy looked out of place in this swanky lounge –cheap baggy pants that hung to the floor, a faded teal Miami Dolphin tee shirt, worn sneakers. Curious, she watched as he headed up the steps leading to private rooms and offices, carrying a worn canvas gym bag.
“Who was that?” she asked the bartender when he came back her way.
“Hell if I know,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “Knew the code, so I let him up.”
He must be used to characters, Carmen thought. Everybody knew that the Columbia was a hangout for the mob boys. Even the big boys came here. Guess that’s why Frankie kept taking Kim here, she figured. Then she choked on a sip of Perrier. That voice — Frankie’s raspy voice.
There was a ladies’ room upstairs next to the private rooms. Carmen bolted out of her chair before even thinking.
“Carmen?” the bartender asked.
“Gotta use the can,” she said, rushing toward the stairs.
“One’s down here,” he said, scratching his head, but she was halfway up.
Carmen knew the cops were all over Tampa looking for Frank. So why was she following him? Did she want that Detective Lopez and that jerky Detective Goodnuf all over her again? Shit no. She stopped abruptly at the top of the stairs just as two men went into a room. The bummy looking one who sounded like Frank and, to her horror, a guy with a bushy moustache, coal black hair clipped close to his head, dressed in slacks and a black polo shirt. A guy she knew from the old days when she’d turned tricks. A high strung, slight man, who liked his sex routine missionary. A john who’d used her twice and that was it until the night she’d been in this very restaurant with Kim. Kim had leaned over and whispered, “That’s Manny Gonzolas. He’s a hit man. Frankie told me. Lives in a mansion on the beach in Clearwater. Hangs out here all the time.”
Carmen shook with fear then, and she did so again now. Frank and a hit man?
Instead of going back to the bar, she ducked into the ladies’ room next door. Putting a cold paper towel to her forehead, she strained to hear conversation from the next room, but of course, she couldn’t.
“C’mon, Manny, give it up,” Frank snarled as he accepted a shot of tequila.
Manny sipped his beer. “You got the cash? Half now, half when it’s done. Hundred grand plus.”
“I got it, but you ain’t seein’ it till I get the plan. C’mon already, I gotta get outta here.”
“Don’t fuck with me, Frankie. I got a reputation, don’t take no gang stuff. Don’t want no complications with Miami.”
“Won’t be any. It’s just gotta happen fast. So what did you find out?”
“My man’s expensive, but he’s good, long as I take care of him.”
Frank reached down and lifted a worn athletic bag onto his lap. He carefully removed the dirty socks and underwear he’d brought with him from the Sanibel hideaway, revealing neatly packed rolls of hundred dollar bills beneath a sheet of plastic.
“Now you’re talkin’. Ten grand for my informant. It ain’t cheap to get inside like this. Maybe another five for expenses. One ten for the job itself. That’s one twenty-five, my man.”
“Yeah, I’m good for it. Now fuck it, Manny, what’d you find out?”
Manny dug out a piece of paper from his pants pocket. “It was the kid next door who fingered you at the Nelson place. Palmer. Turns out she’s deaf and dumb, goes to a special school for the deaf.”
Frank scowled. “A kid? Mierda. Not a fucking kid? How the fuck —”
“Nelson’s lawyer called the cops ’bout what the kid saw. A woman lawyer. Turns out she’s got a deaf kid too. Name’s Carrie Diamond.”
“Okay, so Diamond’s a lawyer,” Frank repeated.
“Firm hired a P.I. Big guy with a big rep, he got results. D.A. had nothin’ on you till this Palmer kid shows up. Cops put a uniform at the house for protection once the kid pegged you, but over the weekend they got a call to hold off. So I figure maybe they split.”
“Whadda mean? You gotta find this kid.”
“Did a little walk around the neighborhood early this morning, but nobody’s home at the Palmer’s. Neighbor thinks they’re on vacation, but doesn’t know for sure. Not like them to just leave without tellin’ the whole neighborhood. Apparently the missus is big on blabbin’. Knows everyone’s business, tells everyone hers.”
Frank drummed his fingers on the table. “Yeah, yeah. What else?”
“Followed up with the school the kid goes to, see what I can find out. Is the kid absent is the bottom line.” He pointed to himself. “Make like I’m a prospective parent, right? I ask to see the school roster, there’s the ‘absent’ or ‘present’ columns right there. I see the kid’s gone. Also, the Diamond kid is ‘absent.’ What a coincidence, eh? Security cameras all over the place so I start asking questions about that. Managed to nab last week’s tape by the time I left.”
Frank grunted. “And?”
“Spent the rest of the day on fast forward with it, and bingo, caught the day Diamond showed up and then a half-hour later there’s one kid having a conversation with another kid — fitting the description of the Palmer kid. Got a sign expert. Bingo again. She’s the one fingered you, amigo.”
Frank slammed his drink down on the table. “A fucking kid. No way. I can’t believe it.”
Manny watched him. “Yeah, so?”
“A kid. Takin’ a kid out —”
“Job’s a job. You want it done or not? The kid ID’d you, that’s the word. If you want my advice —”
Frank scowled. “Hey, gimme a minute to think, a kid. Ice a kid?”
“Whatever you decide,” Manny took a long swig of beer, “half that money’s mine. Already did a ton of leg work.”
“Shit, what am I gonna do?” Frank squirmed. “So the kid disappeared?”
Manny lit a fat Cuban cigar. “Vamoose. But I have my ways. You know how the females are. That Diamond bitch’ll lead us to those kids no doubt. So, is it a go?”
“Fuck it, Manny. You took the job, you fucking do it.” Frank scratched the stubble on his chin. “No way around it.”
Manny nodded. “Just so ya know, my inside didn’t turn up anything linking you to that Mexican hit.”
Frank checked his watch. “Tell me something I don’t know. So what the fuck did you find out about Nelson?”
Manny smiled. “Put a bug in his place on Davis Island last night. Easy stuff. And it already paid off.”
“What’s that do for me?”
“Your guy’s leavin’ for Fairbanks, Alaska, tomorrow. Takin’ off in the middle of all this shit with two of his kids. So you better get on him pronto. Unless you wanta freeze your ass takin’ him down in the tundra.”
Frank stared at his empty shot glass. “Now why the fuck would he do that?”
“You tell me, I’m only the hired help. Your lady was killed at his place, right? He’s gotta figure sooner or later you’re on his tail so he tries to disappear in Alaska, I dunno. Do know the info’s on target, checked out the airlines. Northwest flight out of Detroit with a connection in San Francisco.”
“Detroit,” Frank groaned. “Easier take-out than fucking Traverse City.”
“Figured. I already booked you. Set up a car at the airport through a guy I know. There’s a piece in it.”
“Bueno. Fucking Nelson.” Frank stood up.
“Forgettin’ something, Frankie?” Manny pointed to the bag of cash.
Frank shoved it at Manny as he fumbled in his pants pocket for a key that he put in Manny’s other hand. “Once I hear the job’s done, the rest’ll be where we agreed.”
Manny opened the door. The two men lingered as Manny slapped him on the back. “No worries, it’s in the bag. Nail Nelson in Detroit. And amigo, when I’m done with the job you won’t be seein’ me around for a while.”
“Same.”
As the men said good-bye, neither noticed the young woman in a short red halter dress lurking just inside the open door to the ladies’ room.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
As the sun began to set beyond the hospital windows, Laura sat between her parents, the twins playing checkers in the corner. While the minutes crept by, she vowed to remember the agony of those waiting when she operated again — if she ever did. At the moment, presiding over a surgical procedure seemed about the furthest thing from reality.
Twelve hours had passed since Patrick was wheeled into the operating room; the only feedback Tim’s visit five long hours ago. His report had been a huge relief, but still so many things could go wrong. If it hadn’t been for her parents’ and the twins’ arrival, Laura didn’t think she’d get through this ordeal.
For a moment, she shut her eyes. When she opened them, Tim was striding into the room.
“Tim!” Laura rushed toward him.
The surgeon smiled a tired smile as he took Laura’s hands in his. “He’s going to be okay. They’ve taken him to the ICU. Still on a ventilator, but —”
“Oh thank God! Can I see him?”
“Right now the surgical team’s meeting in the conference room, and we’d like you to come in. Being a surgeon, we thought you’d like all the details and Dr. Kamen himself is handling the debrief.”
“Of course. Thank you.”
Four men in surgical greens stood up as Laura entered the room with Tim. Among them was Dr. George Kamen, the venerable head of pediatric surgery at CHOP. Tumors in the heart were very rare in kids and of all pediatric surgeons in the world, he had the most experience excising them.
“Dr. Nelson,” his deep, booming voice greeted her, “we had ourselves quite a case here, but your little guy’s quite the fighter.”
A big man of sixty with bushy eyebrows and curly gray hair, he shook her hand. “It’s an honor to meet you, my dear. I didn’t expect you to be so young, or so beautiful.”
A touch of color permeated Laura’s pallor as she held out her hand.
“You’ve made quite a name for yourself in Florida,” he went on, “but I am so sorry that we meet under these circumstances. I’d just returned from a pediatric surgery conference in Moscow, when I learned about your son. Because it’s such a rare condition I did the procedure personally.”
“I’m so grateful, Dr. Kamen. Such an overwhelming tumor. I should have been more vigilant,” Laura replied as the elder doctor took his place at the head of the cluttered conference table and waited for her to take a seat. “I’ll never be able to thank you all enough,” she said to everyone.
“Young lady, that’s what surgery is all about, you know that. Now let’s review your little boy’s status. As you know,” Dr. Kamen continued, “our objective was to resect the whole tumor since the child presented with such severe symptoms. If we couldn’t get it all, we’d go for palliation, or worst case, have to wait for a heart transplant…”
“A heart transplant. So drastic.” Laura sucked in her breath.
“We were able to get the tumor out, but it was not well circumscribed and it extended into both ventricles, practically destroying the mitral valve, so we put in a prosthesis —”
Laura stifled a moan. Tim had predicted this, but she’d hoped it could be repaired. Recalling the favorable statistics on valve replacements in children, however, she sighed with relief.
“We had to go to cardiopulmonary bypass. The OR was equipped with intraoperative radiation and —”
“But Tim said the lesion was benign,” Laura interrupted. Then she covered her mouth with her hand.
“Yes, my dear, it was a typical fibroma. Abundant fibroblasts arranged haphazardly in interlacing bundles,” he patiently explained, “but we were prepared in case there were malignant cells.”
Laura nodded, mentally reviewing the pediatric texts she’d scoured and the stack of case reports from the medical library. Yes, this was good news. The cytology Dr. Kamen was describing meant that the tumor was benign, which meant it would not come back, and it would not metastasize to other organs.
“Of course. I’m so thankful.” Laura stammered. “Excuse me for interrupting, I’m just beside myself with worry.”
“It’s understandable, Dr. Nelson,” the kindly surgeon went on. “So after the valve replacement we reconstituted the anterior wall of the left ventricle with autologous pericardium and used as much pericardium patching as we could along with direct suture. But for the most part, we relied on Teflon strips.” The doctor glanced at Laura. “You’ve probably used these extensively, Teflon buttressed sutures for closure. And that, my dear, is why it took so long and why I’m so exhausted and will now leave your son in the capable hands of Dr. Robinson here.”
“Thank you, Dr. Kamen. May I just ask, what complications do you expect postoperatively?”
Dr. Kamen sighed. “In my experience, ventricular arrhythmia is our main worry. Right now we can only monitor him. He’s on high doses of beta-blockers. In a couple of months we’ll
do programmed electrical stimulation and see if we can take him off. Antibiotic prophylaxis, of course, is routine for a prosthetic heart valve, but the good news is that the myocardium is basically healthy and we expect no residual heart failure.”
Newly relieved, Laura was about to thank the surgeon yet again when a knock on the door interrupted her.
“Sorry, I have an urgent call for Dr. Nelson,” a pert, young assistant explained.
Laura rose from her chair to follow the young woman. “Excuse me, please.”
“Take it in here,” the assistant said as she led Laura back to the waiting area where Peg stood gripping the phone. She handed it to her daughter with a worried expression on her face.
“Hello,” Laura whispered.
“Laura, thank the good lord I got you,” blurted Marcy Whitman in an anxious, high-pitched tone.
“Marcy?”
“It’s me. Laura, I’m so sorry I have some bad news —”
“It’s Mike and Kevin,” Laura cut in. It was more statement than question.
“Yes, Mike and Kevin. Steve has plans to leave with them for Alaska tomorrow. The boys saw the plane tickets.”
“To Alaska?” Laura’s knees buckled and she grabbed the desk for support.
“Mike called a little while ago. I warned him not to let Steve know he told me. The boys are really confused — scared.”
“Marcy, did you say tomorrow?” Laura felt her world swirling. She was losing Mike and Kevin. She started to sway and Peg reached to steady her.
“That’s what Mike said. Can you get your lawyers to stop him? Alaska’s so far away it’s easy to get lost. I remember my cousin’s kid went there when he got in some kind of trouble and nobody ever heard from him again.”
“My lawyer is here in Philly with me,” Laura spoke as calmly as she could. “I’ll call him right away. I can’t let Steve take them. Oh, Marcy, thanks for being there and for letting me know.”
“We’re all praying for you, Laura. I’m here, if there’s anything I can do.”
Laura hung up the phone and whirled around. “Where’s Dad?” she asked her mother, panic flashing in her green eyes.
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