The Black Stiletto (16 page)

I had to stop reading and pick up Gina at Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire. By seven o’clock, the usual traffic jams in the parking lots and access roads surrounding the school had dissipated. I can remember days when I
hated
taking or picking up Gina during the normal start or let-out times.

Gina came out the back by the gymnasium section of the building, wearing a shockingly short skirt that revealed her long bare legs. I guess she inherited those from her grandmother. My daughter also must have gotten her good looks from her mother. She certainly didn’t from me. I’m not a bad-looking guy, but Carol was damned gorgeous. Gina is too, and as she gets into her twenties, I’m sure she’ll be a stunner. She has dark hair—almost black—just like my mom did. Brown eyes. Pretty face. No wonder I get a little concerned about the boys she sees.

Why didn’t I inherit some of mom’s physical genes? I’m not tall. In fact, you might say I’m short for my weight, which makes me a little pudgy. Mind you, I’m not
fat
. Just, well, let’s say I could stand to lose a few pounds. Unlike my mom and my daughter, I hate to exercise and was never into sports. I was always the nerd who excelled in math and science, made good grades, and never dated cheerleaders.

Gina got in the car and said, “I took a shower and changed already.”

I just shrugged. “Whatever. You ready to go eat now?”

“Yeah, Jon’s picking me up at eight thirty.” As I pulled out of the school parking lot, she asked, “Can I have your car tonight, Dad?” It was a BMW E90.

“What?”

“I’m kidding. Scared you, though, didn’t I?”

There was the usual twenty-minute wait when we got to Big Bowl. Gina spent most of that time on her cell phone, either talking or texting, leaving me to stand and stare at the waitresses. A couple of ‘em were cute. Eventually we got seated, placed our order, and had father-daughter face time.

“So how’s your mother?” I asked to be politically correct.

“She’s okay. I think she has a boyfriend.” Like me, Carol hadn’t remarried.

“Oh? Who?”

“Some guy named Ross.”

“What does Ross do?”

“I don’t know. He’s a lawyer, I think. Mom says he’s rich.”

I’m not sure why that irked me, but it did. I wasn’t
rich
, but I did okay. Well, sort of okay; George’s doomsday prediction of layoffs at Bailey and Catlow was a little disconcerting. The recession had taken its toll on the firm, just like with everyone else.

“We gonna go see Grandma tomorrow?” she asked.

Usually if Gina visited me on a weekend, we’d go to Woodlands on Saturday to see her grandmother.

“Sure, that’d be a good idea. She’d be happy to see you.”

“She doesn’t even know who I am.”

“She knows she loves you, though.”

Actually, Gina seemed to communicate better with my mom than I could. They often had somewhat coherent conversations, whereas with me it was usually a series of non sequiturs.

“Didn’t she live in New York when she was young?” Gina asked.

“Yep. Why?”

“Just wondering.”

We finally got around to talking about college. I asked Gina again about the schools she applied for and whether or not she’d decided to go into business or education. For a couple of years I’d been pushing her to go in one of those directions. With her athletic skills, she’d make a great girls’ coach at a high school somewhere. And, like me, she was very organized. I could see her as VP or even a president of a company.

“Okay, Dad,” she said, “listen. I don’t want to have a fight.”

“Fight? Who’s fighting?”

“You will be when you hear what I’m gonna say.”

“What.”

“Dad, I don’t
want
to go into business or education. That’s not who I am. I’ve tried to tell you this a million times.”

Great
, I thought,
here we go again
.

“Geez, honey, I thought we’d settled this. We met with your counselor and all that. I thought we were agreed.”

“Dad, I never agreed. You just thought I agreed ‘cause you don’t listen to me. You never hear what I say. Mom says the same thing.”

Terrific.
It figured Carol would take her side.

“Well, Gina, are you sure you can get an athletics scholarship? What will you do with the degree? Either you go and be a professional athlete—and the last time I looked, there weren’t a lot of women making big bucks on balance beams—or you teach.”

“Dad.”

“What?”

“I want to study theatre.”

I thought I was going to spit out my pad Thai. “No you don’t.”

“Dad! Listen to me. I’m a good actress. It’s what I really love. I mean, I love gymnastics, too, but that’s more of an exercise thing.
Something I do because it feels good. I don’t want to make a living doing it.”

“You can’t make a living as an actress.”

“Plenty of people do.”

“Gina, an extremely small percentage of actors actually makes money. They all can’t be Julia Roberts.”

She made one of her
dad-you-are-so-not-with-it
faces.

“Sweetheart, I want you to study something practical. It’s a tough world out there. You need a skill you can make a real living doing.”

“What, like being a boring
accountant
?” She said it as if it was the lowest career move possible.

“It’s put food on your table and clothes on your back, young lady.”

She didn’t apologize.

You know, it hurt to hear what she said. My daughter thinks I’m boring. I suppose I could say this was the kind of thing all fathers experience with teenage girls—and boys—and I should just shrug it off. But I couldn’t. It really bothered me.

We spent the rest of the dinner in an awkward silence. When we were done, we went to my house. She went up to her room and then primped in the bathroom for five minutes—and then
Jon
came and picked her up. He seemed nice enough when Gina introduced me to him. At least he didn’t seem gay or anything, like some of those drama types.

I figured she’d come in late and I wouldn’t see her until morning. Still stinging a bit from Gina’s denigration, I fixed myself a cocktail and sat down to read more of my mom’s diary.

15
Judy’s Diary
1958

When I climbed over the roof edge and landed on my feet, I looked below. Someone was chasing me up the stairs. A single guy. It was difficult to see his face—only the top of his head was visible and he was moving fast. I turned and quickly surveyed the landscape.

Rooftops. Of various heights.

Maybe going up wasn’t such a good idea after all.

I had to do something, so I sprinted across the roof to the back. Lucky for me, there was one of those bunkhouse type structures with a metal door presumably leading to a stairwell that descended back into the hotel. I grabbed the doorknob.

Locked.

Thinking quickly, I pulled the lockpicks out of the pouch on my belt, fumbled with them for another second, and then poked one into the keyhole.

Gunfire!

A bullet ricocheted off the metal door a few inches from my head. I stole a quick glance back. The man chasing me had reached the roof and had fired from the edge.

It was Roberto Ranelli.

The lockpick didn’t work. I had to try a different one.

The enforcer fired a second shot. This time the round struck
the roof near my right foot, spewing a cloud of cement chips and debris.

He ran toward me. The next shot wouldn’t miss.

Thank God the second lockpick did the trick and the door opened. I spun inside and slammed the door shut, locking it behind me. The stairs descended to the thirteenth floor, the highest in the building. I set off, taking the steps two at a time; but when I reached the next landing I heard two more muffled gunshots above me. Roberto had shot out the lock in the door. I kept going to the twelfth floor, then the eleventh. At one point he leaned over the rail and fired a shot at me down the center of the stairwell. The bullet didn’t hit me—I don’t know where it went—but the noise was monstrously loud and echoed all the way down to the bottom.

Nothing I could do but keep running. If I had to fight my way out the front door of the hotel, I would.

It was a good thing I had spent the last few years training with Freddie, otherwise I would have run out of breath long before. I had a feeling it wasn’t so easy for the man chasing me—I could hear him panting heavily, even from the distance between us.

The stairwell finally came to an end on the second floor. I’d have to expose myself by going out to the elevator lobby and taking the open staircase down to the ground. Unfortunately, the lobby outside the door was full of people—mostly mobsters. My handiwork in the ladies’ room and in the DeLuca’s suite had obviously been discovered. The sound of running footsteps above me grew closer. He’d be on me in a few seconds. There was no other option. I burst out of the stairwell and flew down the staircase toward the back exit near the kitchen.

Someone shouted, “Hey! Look there!”

I was out the door in a flash and in the alleyway that ran parallel to the building. I reached the outer door, opened it, and
erupted onto 44th Street. The front of the hotel was mobbed, no pun intended. An ambulance stood at the curb, along with two police cars. I didn’t linger. I bolted across the street, barely dodging oncoming traffic. Horns blared, attracting attention my way. Once on the other side of the street, I ran west toward Sixth Avenue, zigzagging through pedestrians and New Years Eve revelers. As soon as I got to the corner, I heard a single pair of running footsteps behind me.

Ranelli had continued the chase alone.

I darted back across 44th Street, heading south along Sixth. More people. Shouts of alarm as I rushed past. I took a chance and attempted to cross Sixth Avenue. A taxicab screeched to a halt and slammed into my left side, knocking me to the ground. If the driver hadn’t braked, I’d be dead. Still, the impact stunned me and I don’t know how long I laid there before I was able to pull myself up. I heard the driver say, “Lady? Are you all right?”

The pursuing footsteps reached the avenue.

I leaped to my feet, running as hard as I could.

A gunshot. Screams.

My left leg hurt badly. I was going to have a heck of a bruise there the next day, if I lived to see it. But I made it to the west side of Sixth Avenue and continued running south. I fell when I reached the corner of 42nd Street and Sixth. I don’t know what I tripped on, but I did. Maybe it was a wet spot on the pavement, or maybe it was an empty champagne bottle—I have no idea. At any rate, I went flying and did a belly flop on the sidewalk. It hurt so much I wanted to cry out, but I didn’t.

Roberto Ranelli reached the corner just as I stood. He pointed his pistol at me—onlookers gasped and at least two women screamed at the sight.

I was dead. I knew it.

The killer pulled the trigger.

Click
.

The gun was empty. He’d fired six shots and hadn’t stopped to reload.

I faced Roberto and assumed a defensive position—legs apart, arms raised, hands flat and stiff.

“I will kill you for this,” he spat as he holstered his gun. “Whoever you are. You and your entire family!” And then he attacked.

A fist flew at my face. I deftly blocked it by chopping it away with a knife-hand blow to his forearm. He grunted and tried again, but missed. I saw an opening best suited for a boxing cross, so I let him have it. My fist connected with his jaw and his head jerked back. He recovered quickly and moved closer. I wanted to strike again, but I froze. I’m not sure what happened to me, but I
forgot
everything I was trained to do. I was a brown belt in
karate
, for Christ’s sake, and I couldn’t remember the first thing of how to defend myself.

Before I could react at all, he clobbered me with a powerful right hook that connected with my left cheekbone. I swear I saw stars as lightning bolts of pain shot through my skull. His other fist slammed into my mouth, once, twice, and then he got me with another right hook. Reflexively, I brought up my leg and attempted a front kick—but he was too quick for me. He
caught
my leg, as if he’d been expecting my maneuver, and held it tightly. I hit him hard on the chest with a
shotei uchi
—a palm heel strike—but he used my instability to his advantage and toppled me. I fell hard and tried to roll away before he could kick me in the side, but I wasn’t fast enough. The toe of his shoe crashed into my right ribs, sending intense explosions of agony up my spine and into my brain. And then he kicked me again as I rotated, catching the blow this time in my stomach. It seriously knocked the wind out of me, but I had the presence of mind to lash out from my balled position at his stationary leg with a side kick. He yelped in pain and also dropped to the ground. I hoped I’d broken his tibia.

I crawled onto my hands and knees, desperately attempting to catch my breath. My lungs wouldn’t work. I simply gasped in pain and struggled to relax the spasm in my diaphragm.