The Property of a Lady - Elizabeth Adler [204]
“Zev chartered a little plane and we flew back right away. Rosa was distraught and Rachel was in tears. Apparently Azaylee had just packed a few things and disappeared in the middle of the night. When she didn’t appear for breakfast Rosa thought she was sleeping late, and it wasn’t until hours later that she realized she was missing.
“Zev guessed that Rachel knew something, and he took her outside and asked her what was going on.”
Missie hesitated and Cal noticed how tightly her hands were gripped together, but he knew she was determined to tell her story so he didn’t interrupt her.
“She told him that Carlos del Villaloso had raped Azaylee, that she was pregnant and had gone to Agua Caliente to find him so they could get married. Of course I refused to believe it. I ranted up and down screaming it could not be true, that she was just an innocent child….
“Zev knew he couldn’t call in the police. The story would be sure to get out and the publicity would kill her. He called Burbank again and chartered another plane, only this time he wouldn’t let me go with him. Instead he took a couple of bodyguards they used at the studio to keep away the cranks and riffraff who always haunted the stars. They were big, brutal-looking men, and up until then I’d always thought they had been chosen because they looked the role. Now I knew different.
“We all spent a sleepless night. You’ll never know how many times I asked myself, ‘After all I had gone through to protect her, how could this have happened? What had I done that left her so weak and vulnerable to a heel like Carlos del Villaloso?’
“Zev found Villaloso at his usual place, the racetrack. He didn’t want a public scene so he told him he wanted to speak to him outside. Zev could tell from Villaloso’s face that he knew he was in trouble, but at first he just shrugged off his accusations. He said he barely knew Azaylee and that he had never seen her alone. Then Zev let the bodyguards loose on him, and after a few minutes he changed his tune. He said she had come to him with some ridiculous story about him being the father of her child, wanting him to marry her. He said she had thrown herself at him, that she had followed him to Tijuana, and that she was nothing but a little tramp.
“That was when Zev took over, knocking out a few of Villaloso’s precious white teeth in the process.
“‘Where is she?’ Zev demanded, so filled with rage that he didn’t even feel the pain from his bruised fists. ‘Tell me what has happened to her, or I’ll kill you with my own hands.’
“Villaloso’s face was part of his stock-in-trade. Now it was a mess and he decided he didn’t want to die too. ‘I gave her some money,’ he said, gasping, spitting out blood and some more teeth. ‘She went to Tijuana…’.
“Zev knew what he meant. Cheap abortions were available in every back street of Tijuana. He groaned and put his hands to his face as he thought of Azaylee in the hands of some butcher. He knew he had better move fast before they could touch her. Leaving Villaloso in care of one of the guards, he and the other took off for Tijuana.
“They started with the ‘clinics,’ but she wasn’t there. Villaloso hadn’t given her enough money for that. Someone suggested they try ‘Doc’ Miller, usually known as ‘Doc Loco’ because he was always ‘loco’ from tequila. He was an American who had migrated south to Mexico after being struck off the medical register years before for almost killing a patient with an ovedose while under the influence of drink.
“They found him, all right, propping up his usual sleazy bar, dead drunk of course and with money