05 Virgin Heat by Laurence Shames

Author:Laurence Shames [Shames, Laurence]
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

27

The meeting was over.

On the glaring sidewalk, Tommy Lucca said tartly, “So Paul, this yokel, he meet with your approval?”

“I think I’d like a little time to myself.”

Lucca shot a glance at Carlos Mendez. Mendez adjusted the tilt of his hat, said mildly, “Our colleague, your concerns are answered?”

Amaro said, “Later. Let’s talk about it later.”

“What later?” Lucca pressed. “I thought we’re doin’ business here?”

Paul said nothing.

Lucca twitched. He wanted to get home and he was tired of sitting on his exasperation. “Christ, Paul,” he went on, “the guy’s a pro, anyone can see that. Little shitass town like this, he’s pullin’ in—”

“Tommy,” Paul Amaro interrupted, “it’s nothin’ against your guy, okay? He’s a cocky scumbag, but that’s okay by me. I have a lot on my mind, I’d like a little time to think. Ask your driver, please, to bring me to the beach.”

“The beach,” said Tommy Lucca. A Floridian, he did not, in the middle of a business day, see the big appeal of sand and water.

“That’s right. The beach. To me, Tommy, the beach is very soothing.”

* * *

Carmen Salazar was all pumped up about his flirtation with the big boys. Though he tried to be blase, he couldn’t help replaying his sitdown with the mobsters, reviewing for his minions how well it had gone, how suave he had been. Ziggy, unless he wanted to reveal his panic, had no choice but to stand there in the garden, listening to his boss congratulate himself, before he could slip away and bolt.

He would bolt, there was not a shred of doubt about it now. He should have fled before, as soon as Paul Amaro’s relatives had mysteriously begun appearing at his bar. He’d been stupid to stick around, and it was pointless now even to wonder why he’d done it. He felt damn lucky and stunningly surprised to have met Amaro face-to-face and not been murdered on the spot. He saw no virtue in pressing his luck still further.

He waited for Salazar to finish chattering, then said a curt goodbye and stepped briskly through the dimness of the candy store, paused on the top step of the cracked stoop, glancing left and right. Instinct was battling fatalism. If his enemy was onto him, he was dead, if not today, tomorrow; he knew that. Yet the innards counseled vigilance. He probed the glaring street for assassins, fairly tiptoed to the Oldsmobile, held his breath as the car cranked out the ignition spark that might set off a bomb.

He hadn’t been shot. He didn’t blow up. He put the car in gear and headed home to grab his little stash of money and a change or two of clothes, and tried to figure just where the hell he’d go to hide.

* * *

Paul Amaro left his suit jacket in the limousine as he stepped out onto the promenade flanking Smathers Beach.

It was early afternoon. The sun was white, the sky a careless blue with little clouds whose bottoms picked up green reflections from the waters of the Florida Straits.

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