When Tony Pacelli found out his daughter had run away, he didn’t yell, and he didn’t lose his temper. His wife chain smoked, crying one minute, cursing the next. But Tony stayed in control, if only to prove to himself that no one, including his daughter, could get the drop on him.
First he questioned his wife, not an easy task.
“What happened?” he asked for the fourth or fifth time.
“I—I already told you,” she sobbed. “I woke up, went in—into her room to make sure she was up, and she wasn’t there.”
“What time was that?” he asked.
“¡Jesù Cristo! You were there. It was about seven.”
He continued to grill her. Bit by bit he discovered she’d been concealing information from him. She tearfully admitted Francesca had been seeing a local. Marlena had forbidden it, and Frankie had promised her mother it was over.
“She swore she would never see him again. Then…” Marlena spread her hands. “…this.”
Tony’s only external reaction was to raise his eyebrows. But inside his gut roiled. How could his wife have been so gullible? No one in Havana kept their promises these days. Including, apparently, his daughter. As he struggled to maintain his composure, he decided to deal with his wife later. The imperative was to find Francesca.
“And you have no idea who this local was—is?”
Marlena hiccupped and pulled at her hair with one hand. The other, holding the cigarette, was trembling. Tony figured she was remembering the time he’d been betrayed by a capo back in Chicago and what Tony had done to the man. And if this wasn’t a betrayal, what was it?
“Is he a friend? A friend of a friend? Someone we know?”
She didn’t answer.
“Marlena, we have to consider that she might have been kidnapped.”
His wife shook her head. “She went willingly.”
“How do you know?”
She gazed at him. “A woman knows.”
And does nothing to stop them, Tony thought. Not only were women the most foolish creatures on earth, they were the most useless.
Marlena’s eyes narrowed.
Tony caught it. “What is it?”
“The waiter…Ramon…”
“The one you made me fire the other day?”
She nodded.
“Is he is the one?” He felt the cords in his neck bulge. Adrenaline surged through him. A common waiter had his hands all over Tony Pacelli’s daughter?
“It is not him,” Marlena said. “But I think he knows who it is.”
Tony strode to the sliding glass door of the balcony and stared down at the Malecón. He fisted and opened his hands several times to relieve the tension. Those hands had wrung necks in his time, and he’d happily wring more. In fact, he would smash the little spic’s face in if—no, when—he found him. He turned away from the view and went to the phone.
“What are you going to do?”
He held up his index finger and called down to the hotel manager. “What was the name of the waiter we fired the other day?”
“Which one?” The manager was chatty. “The one who was stealing supplies or the one who couldn’t be bothered to come in on time?”
“Ramon.”
“Suarez. The one who was stealing.”
Tony depressed the switch button and called down to the garage. “Enrico, come up here.”
When Enrico arrived, Tony gave his instructions. “I want you to find him and bring him to me.”
“Si, Señor Pacelli.”
“Pronto. Ahora mismo.”
Frankie was so exhausted she lay down on Luis’s bed and promptly fell back to sleep. Luis wanted to lie next to her, but he was afraid to. He wasn’t a saint, but he’d never brought a girl to his room before, and he feared she might cry out or talk too loudly if he woke her.
So he sat in a chair and gazed at her. Her cheeks were flushed, and her breath was soft, with a hint of snoring. If he wasn’t careful, he might start making mistakes. He knew about the power of women. A woman could weave a spell over a man, rob him of his manhood.
He shifted in his chair. He shouldn’t let her stay. She would become a target—everyone would be searching for her. Letting her stay was crazy. But he didn’t want to let her go. Or was it that he couldn’t? Maybe she was a witch. Maybe she’d already woven her spell over him.
Whatever she was, they couldn’t stay here. He’d been planning to leave in any case. The fight against Batista was intensifying, and his group was carrying out more frequent operations. It was only a matter of time before the doctor figured out what Luis was up to. At which point he would kick him out. Or turn him in. Or both. Luis rose and quietly pulled out his suitcase.