In a Heartbeat - Elizabeth Adler [101]
Safe again, Mel thought. For the moment.
57
Estevez was waiting for them at the airport in New York. “Since Ed cannot do so, I must take responsibility,” he told Camelia. “I have arranged for them all to stay at Ed’s penthouse. There are two armed bodyguards, day and night. They will accompany them whenever they go out.”
But when they arrived at Vincent Towers Fifth, Estevez declined to go into Ed’s home. Ed had never invited him there, and he felt it would be an intrusion on his privacy to enter now. He said good-bye and promised to telephone later to check on them and see if they needed anything.
“All the expenses will be paid for by Vincent Properties,” he told Mel. “Please take care of whatever they need, and see that the little girl has a good time. She has earned it.”
The two guards were waiting, tall young men in conservative dark suits and ties, with broad shoulders and alert eyes. Riley was very impressed. “Just wait till I tell the kids at school,” she marveled. And then she almost flipped when she saw the penthouse.
Watching her run from room to room, window to window, Mel thanked the Lord that her daughter was still with her. Then she sent out for pizza, arranged Harriet comfortably on the rather lumpy old sofa, planted Riley in front of the TV, and left in a hurry to check on Ed.
There and back to LA in a day, she marveled. Oh, the power of big money. And much good it’s doing you, Ed, she thought with that familiar pang at her heart.
She held Camelia’s hand for comfort on the ride to the hospital.
58
Mario de Soto stood in front of the bank of TV screens in his media room. Each screen was tuned to a different channel and Gus Aramanov’s face appeared on every one. Mario’s hands were clenched into fists, his back rigid with anger.
The hit man had blown it. The police had ID’d Aramanov; his picture was in every newspaper, all over the TV. He knew it was only a matter of time until they found him and that Gus would plea-bargain. Aramanov would tell all, in return for his life.
He left the media room and walked through the marble hall to the front door. He leaned his bulk against the pillared portico, looking around at his beautiful and hated prison. His vision of a brave new world for himself was collapsing.
When Mario had bought his big new house in Miami, he had filled it with the best the expensive decorator could buy: expensive furniture; art; silver; books. He was an avid reader and liked to boast that he had read every book in his library, which of course he had not. But then, he had always been a liar.
Mario de Soto was not the name he had been born with. Or even the only name he had used. There had been several others before he had fortuitously availed himself of the name Mario de Soto, when the real Mario—whom he had invited on a fishing trip in the Bahamas—“accidentally” drowned.
It had been easy to switch identities. Nobody there knew either of them, and he had chosen the man carefully for his purpose, knowing he was a loner. A Cuban of about his own age, build, and appearance whose family was still in Havana with no chance of getting out.
He had killed Mario de Soto, taken on his identity, buried “Mitch Rogan” in the Bahamas, and sailed home to Miami, a new man.
No one, not even the cops, had taken much notice when he took up residence in one of Miami’s most exclusive areas. He was just another Cuban of suspect background, most probably a drug dealer who had struck it rich and gotten out of the business.
Then he was seen splashing his money around on flashy cars and expensive women, and the cops began to take an interest. No one knew exactly where his money came from; no one could keep track of him or his multiple companies and business deals. Stories began to circulate, about financial maneuvers gone wrong; a real estate deal where Mario’s two partners had suddenly disappeared. He was clever, though, and there was never anything