Now she started to tremble. “What do you do when I leave you for so long?” Dino scolded, “How come you never come up and visit me?” He turned his back on her and stared a hole right through his nemesis. Angelo gave him a cocky look and talked to his friends out of the side of his mouth. He then reached for his cigar which had been left in the ashtray from his earlier hurried departure.
A very young waitress, probably not even legal drinking age, came up to Angelo offering him a light. He started puffing to get it going, never once taking his eyes off Dino. Angelo then very deliberately put his arm around the waitress.
Kristen didn’t know that Dino had a thing going with the waitress, but Angelo did. Dino saw them and whirled around angrily and grabbed Kristen a little roughly. “Let’s go.” She protested “Where?” He growled, “Let’s get some dinner.” She noticed Angelo was still flirting with the girl and was rubbing her back as he watched them leave.
One of the bodyguards walked up to Dino and he whispered something to him. The bodyguard nodded his head toward Angelo. Dino then waved both of the bodyguards off and they went outside. Dino walked down the block in silence with Kristen until they reached a small Italian café.
As they were seated at a small table, she could see that Dino was preoccupied with something. He kept polite talk with her but wasn’t acting normal. “Could he know?” she thought. He was such a poker-face with his emotions she couldn’t figure out anything with him. He was taking long gulps of his drink in between the awkward pauses of their conversation.
After an especially long stretch of silence, he blurted out “What’s wrong with you!” She instantly wanted to crawl under the table. “I know what you’re doing.” She looked scared. “You’re playing me. You don’t think I notice?” He started swearing at her in Sicilian. She wouldn’t respond and was studying him.
Even though she was innocent, she couldn’t see how he knew about Angelo, so she waited for him to offer more information before pleading guilty to anything. She giggled at him. “What are you doing with yourself when
you’re noticing me?” Dino whined “No, come on, be serious, what are you doing to me?” She asked “What is wrong with you?” He said “Just don’t play me, don’t do it, I don’t want to hurt you.” He threw some money on the table for the bill. “I’ve got to go.”
He rushed out of the café leaving her at the table. She was amused and quite pleased with herself “What was that?” She loved the fact that he was unnerved, maybe this meant he truly liked her. She was going to definitely see how far she could take this and how much she could financially get out of him. She needed some guilt-free spending money. Kristen knew she no longer actually liked Dino. She just wanted to mess with him. This new vulnerability he was showing had really turned her off. She was going to have her fun with him and then end it.
As she walked back down the street from the café, Angelo came speeding up in his Lincoln. He pulled up to her, leaned over, and opened the door for her to get in. “I am ready to try for that other round beautiful!” She giggled and sat next to him. Too bad she was with Dino. Angelo was much hotter and taller. Angelo got right to work. He whispered “You’re mine now! I am going to make you feel really good!” He pushed the button to recline the seat and then pushed himself on her. Kristen wanted him too and felt like she might surrender this time. She grabbed at his belt.
Lights flashed in their eyes and a dark car pulled up quickly blocking the Lincoln at the front right corner of it. A woman jumped out of the car and ran over to Kristen’s door. She flung it open. “You Bitch! Get out of there! You are a whore!” She grabbed Kristen and pulled on her until she dropped out hard on the pavement. Kristen was petrified!
The woman then dove in the door and started hitting Angelo. He grabbed her hands and pulled her into the car laughing at her. “Calm down honey, calm down! I’m not doing anything. We’re just talking, she’s Dino’s girl. I was just giving her a ride back to the club to meet him.” The enraged woman looked at him like she didn’t believe him.
He got out of the car and helped Kristen off the ground. “Are you alright? You can get back in. Everything is fine.” Kristen said “Who the hell is that? Your wife?” He answered “No, no, it’s just one of my girlfriends. My wife would never be that stupid. Come on. Let me drive you to the club.” Kristen said “No way!” She quickly walked away from him.
The woman got back in her car and followed his Lincoln to “God knows where!” Kristen had just seen her life flash before her eyes. That woman could have easily had a gun, and in that brief encounter, it would have been curtains for her. Kristen now swore, with the exception of Dino, that she would never knowingly mess around with a married man ever again. She couldn’t believe she had been so callous and selfish in her thoughts about this before.
She pulled out her cell phone and hurriedly dialed her girlfriend. “Hey, come and pick me up. I’m free tonight, let’s go downtown.” Her friend arrived a short time later and they sped towards the city. The women had a great time dancing and flirting in different clubs. They stayed out until even the latest bars closed. All the time, Kristen had a strange feeling that she was being watched. Now that Dino had planted that in her head, she was feeling very uneasy about it. She knew it wouldn’t take much to get him to sniff her out and then snuff her. He could make things happen.
It was totally laughable whenever the press said the mob no longer existed in Chicago. It was just that no one knew where the secrets were buried. They weren’t as open these days when they whacked someone, but it still happened. And everyone that needed to know; did.
As the weeks wore on, Kristen contributed as little as possible to her relationship with Dino. She showed less interest in having sex and he didn’t push it. He seemed more interested in focusing on his club and hanging out there. He had now opened a small casino in the basement that was only for his crew and closest buddies. There were several slot and poker machines down there, two craps tables and even a tiny stage for select comedians and Sinatra wannabees.
Kristen usually chose to remain upstairs in the disco zone. But tonight, there was not much going on up there, so she went downstairs. She saw a few men playing the slots. She didn’t see Dino and walked into his private room where the door was half ajar.
Dino was sitting at his desk with a big pile of money in front of him. Seated on his lap was the young waitress that Kristen had always suspected he was fooling around with; her cleavage was pulled completely out of her uniform. Dino, with cigar in hand, looked like he was ready to do a ‘‘Bill Clinton” when he saw his girlfriend in front of him.
Kristen screamed “You JERK! You’re worried about me all the time. What the hell is this?” He was caught off guard and struggled to reply. He whispered something in the girl’s ear. She bounced off his lap, adjusted herself, and walked like she didn’t care, out the door. He now looked at Kristen. “Oh, come on baby, it’s nothing, you know that” he said and stuck his cigar in his mouth.
Dino thought he could easily dismiss the confrontation by virtually ignoring her. He started counting his money. Kristen drew her arm back and took a big swat at the pile, knocking it all over the desk and floor. She then reached down, took a big handful of it and then ran upstairs screaming “I deserve this Dino for all the crap I have taken from you.” He did not follow her. The waitress was outside in the hall. She watched Kristen leave and then came back in his room while he closed the door.
Once she was back in the disco, Kristen sat down and tried to stuff the bills into her purse. She must have grabbed around five thousand in hundreds. Luckily, she didn’t grab the dollar bills. She was feeling very freaked out and was afraid Dino was going to come up after her. Some of his friends looked at her from their table and were quite amused. They were shaking their heads. It was obvious that she had just had a fight with him.
Kristen
wasn’t afraid enough to leave. She wanted a drink and she didn’t wait for a waitress. After all, Dino was probably doing all of them! She went straight up to the bartender and demanded her own bottle of Absolut vodka and a shot glass. She then went back to her chair and pounded them down. One of his friends laughed and had a waitress deliver a carton of orange juice to her, not even in a pitcher.
Kristen looked so mad! His friends just watched her and felt sorry for Dino, and what she was going to do to him once she was successfully loaded. She sat there by herself for a half-hour. She noticed Angelo come in the door and he had a date with him. This made her even madder.
No one approached her. No one asked her to dance. So she went outside carrying the bottle with her and sat on the curb. She saw Dino come out of the basement entrance by himself. His driver pulled up about a hundred feet from her. Dino got into the car and did not even notice Kristen. As he drove off, she threw the bottle at the car, just bouncing it off the tire.
For the next month, whenever Kristen saw Dino’s number on her caller I.D. she would hang up the phone. She began going out every night to Rush Street with or without her girlfriends, and danced
The Devil's Intended-Love & Evil In Palm Beach Page 21