Tess's Tale (The Chanel Series Book 3) (8 page)

‘Who is this?’ I hoped it wasn’t some sicko. I was still recovering from the finger episode, I didn’t need any more excitement at the moment.

‘Jim.’ There was a thudding, crashing noise and then silence.

‘Jim?’ His words had been so garbled I almost couldn’t understand them.

Scrabbling. A moan. Gurgling.

Christ something was happening to Jim. Was Giuseppe there? Was I listening to Jim being killed?

I dropped the receiver, grabbed my bag and sprinted for the door. I had to get to the Pink Flamingo and I had to get there five minutes ago.

I flagged a cab heading down the street, threw myself in the back seat and barked out my destination. I only had a twenty, so when we got there I threw that at the driver and jumped out, sprinting for the door and the concierge I could see floating near the front desk. His name tag said Tom.

‘There’s something wrong with Jim.’ My voice was barely controlled hysteria.

‘I’m sorry, is Jim a guest at the hotel.’

Resisting the urge to shake him I said, ‘Jolly Jim. Mr Milano.’

That
got his attention.

‘He rang me. I think he’s collapsed.’
Or missing a limb or two.

‘Sally,’ Tom barked, ‘call an ambulance. Send them to the penthouse.’ Then he grabbed my arm and dragged me towards the elevator. He swiped the card necessary to access the penthouse level and then also inserted a key. ‘Prevents the elevator from stopping at any other floors.’ He nodded at the key.

‘Great.’ I could feel my heart thumping in my chest. What if Giuseppe was up there? I should have grabbed the gun.

Even without having to stop at any other floors it seemed to take forever to get to the top. Finally, the doors started to creep open. I threw myself at the widening gap and squeezed through, making it to the entry door a few seconds before Tom.

He knocked on the door and called out, ‘Mr Milano?’

Oh great.
So much for the element of surprise.

‘Open the door,’ I hissed. ‘And do it quietly.’

He gave me a strange look as he complied. That look was nothing though compared to the one he gave me when I dived commando style through the door and crouched behind the entry wall.

‘Get down.’ I flapped my hand at him and he scuttled to my side. Pulling my compact mirror from my bag I held it around the corner and peered into it down the hall. There was nobody there.

‘Quick.’ I jumped up and raced down the hall stopping to do the same thing at the entry to the lounge. I could see Jim, lying with his head away from me, but I couldn’t see all of the room in my mirror. What if Giuseppe was hiding around the corner?

I looked back at Jim. All of his legs and arms were still connected to the rest of his body. There was no blood on the silk rug. Giuseppe would have had plenty of time to work him over in the time it had taken me to get there – which meant he probably wasn’t there.

I dropped my mirror back in my bag as I climbed to my feet and rushed into the room. ‘Jim,’ I shook his shoulders. ‘Jim, can you hear me.’

He let out a low moan but his eyes remained closed. I almost cried with relief. He wasn’t dead. Yet.

‘I’ll wait for the ambulance,’ Tom said.

I nodded my head but didn’t respond. I felt helpless as I watched some saliva bubble out of his mouth. That couldn’t be good. How could he breathe with that in his mouth?

I rolled him onto his side and turned his head down so that the saliva dribbled out. He took a big shuddering breath and his body relaxed. I supported him against my leg as I waited for the ambulance.

This was the man who had instilled fear into the hearts of the other Mafia bosses. Rumour had it that he was called Jolly Jim because he laughed while he killed people. I looked down at his overweight body, his little balding patch on the top of his head and the drool coming out of his mouth. He didn’t seem so scary now.

His eyelids fluttered and his hand scrabbled at the floor.

‘Shhhhh,’ I crooned, stroking him on the head. ‘I’m here. Help is on the way.’

It seemed like forever since I’d arrived. Each second that passed was ticked off by a huge grandfather clock. Where were the paramedics?

Tick, tick, tick.
Please don’t die.
Tick, tick, tick. What was taking them so long?

I stroked his hair as I sung him the first thing that came into my head.

‘Hush little baby don’t you cry, Momma’s gonna sing you a lullaby.’

Finally I heard the front door of the apartment open. A man in a paramedic’s uniform carried a large bag into the room.

‘We’ll take it from here love,’ he said.

A trolley appeared in the hallway and a second man squeezed past it.

I tried to back away but Jim gripped my hand. For a man seemingly on the verge of death he had a grip like a gorilla. ‘I’m staying,’ I said. ‘But you need to let go so that the paramedics can help you.’ His grip lessened and I pulled my arm free, sliding backwards till I sat against the sofa.

Rosella rushed into the room. She took one look at Jim and let out a scream, rushing to his side and throwing herself over his chest. She babbled in Italian while patting his cheek.

‘Madame.’ The first paramedic tried to remove her from Jim.

‘Rosella.’ I pulled on her arm, gesturing her towards me with my spare hand.

She nodded and wiped her eyes with the back of her arm. Then she crawled backwards till she was sitting next to me. I took her hand in mine and squeezed it while I wondered if cooking and cleaning were her only jobs.

‘Is he on any medication?’ The paramedic looked at me.

‘I have no idea.’ Yep, daughter-in-law of the year right here. ‘Rosella?’ I wasn’t sure how much English she understood but she climbed to her feet and raced off. She came back holding a bottle of tablets. The second paramedic took them and said, ‘Probably his heart.’ He held them up so his friend could see.

They opened up Jim’s shirt and attached some monitors to his chest and then they lifted him onto the trolley.

‘Where are you taking him?’ What if they were Giuseppe’s men?

‘Centennial Hills.’

I nodded my head. It was the hospital I’d gone to when I’d had my tonsils removed.
That
was something I’d never forget.

I found the telephone on Jim’s desk and rang Liss. ‘I’m on my way to the hospital.’

‘What happened?’

‘Jim’s had some sort of turn. They think it’s his heart.’

There was silence for a couple of seconds, both of us thinking the same thing. If something happened to Jim, Harry would be free.

‘I’ll keep ringing your house till Harry gets home.’

‘We’ll be at Centennial Hills.’

By the time I hung up, the paramedics were at the elevator. Rosella stood by the front door with her handbag and cardigan in her hands and a stubborn look on her face. I wasn’t going anywhere without her.

Tom flagged us a cab and we followed the ambulance. Two strangers holding hands in the back of a cab.

Harry found us like that in the emergency waiting room a few hours later. We had no news of Jim.

Rosella hugged him and spoke frantically, the wildness of her gestures in proportion to the shrillness of her voice.

He responded in Italian so I couldn’t understand what he said, but his tone was calm, and eventually she nodded and sat back down, pulling her cardigan tight around her.

‘What happened?’ He sat, but his eyes roamed the room.

‘I’m not sure. He must have known he was having an attack. I heard him collapse on the other end of the phone. I got there as fast as I could.’

‘Shhhhh.’ He pulled me to him and for the first time I realised I was crying. Weird.

‘What if I was too slow?’

He kissed me on the forehead. ‘I’m sure you did everything you could.’

I leaned in close and whispered in his ear. ‘I thought it was Giuseppe.’

‘But you went anyway.’

‘He’s your Dad.’

‘Not many women would have done that.’

I shrugged and looked away, suddenly embarrassed. He wouldn’t have been sounding so impressed if he had seen me in action. I bet Tom was going to be talking about
that
for a while.

A man in a white clinic coat walked towards us. He had a clipboard in one hand and a stethoscope around his neck. It just screamed Doctor. ‘Tess Milano?’

‘Yes.’ I stood up.

‘I saw you singing a couple of months back at Vegas Ladies.’

I wasn’t sure if he was trying to see through my skeleton to my lungs or if he was checking out my boobs.

Harry cleared his voice and stood up. ‘I’m Harry. Tess’s husband.’ The way he said the word ‘husband’ spoke of broken bones and blood noses.

The doctor’s gaze immediately made its way to my face. Apparently my boobs weren’t worth the risk.

‘Have you news of my father?’

‘Ah yes.’ The doctor adjusted his stethoscope as if to draw attention to it. ‘Your father is in a stable condition. I’ve come to take you to him.’

We followed him through several sets of swinging doors, down halls, through more doors and up a set of stairs.

‘I hope the food here is good,’ I muttered to Harry.

‘Why?’ He had a firm grip on my hand and was glaring at the doctor’s back.

‘Because I’m never going to find my way out of here.’

He smiled but didn’t let up on the glaring.

Finally the doctor pushed open a door and we could see Jim lying on a bed. His eyes were closed but his colour looked improved on what it had when I’d found him. I felt tension I didn’t realise I had been holding, flow out of my body.

Another man in a white coat stood by Jim’s bed making notes in a chart. He had a name badge on – Doctor Blair.

‘Ahh there you are.’ Doctor Blair cocked his head on the side as he stared at the man who had brought us. ‘I was wondering where that was.’ He held his hand out and snapped his fingers.

The first man’s cheeks reddened as he pulled the stethoscope from around his neck and handed it over.

‘Thank you Nurse Simpson,’ Doctor Blair said.

Harry let out a laugh and Nurse Simpson’s cheeks went even redder. ‘She likes her men tough,’ he said, ‘not smart.’

‘That’s not true.’ I stared up at Harry. ‘You’re tough
and
smart.’

He leaned down to press a kiss to my lips as Nurse Simpson scampered out of the room.

‘Sorry about that,’ Doctor Blair said. ‘He’s a great nurse but sometimes his ego writes checks his career can’t cash.’

Jim’s eyelids fluttered open and he said, ‘Well are you going to say hello or not?’

Rosella rushed to his side, pressing kisses to his cheeks and forehead.

‘Stop it woman.’ He flapped his hands at her but she was not to be deterred.

Harry waited for her to finish before striding to his father’s side. ‘You don’t look so good.’

‘You say the sweetest things.’ It was the closest thing to a joke I’d ever heard out of Jolly Jim.

‘You gave us all a fright.’ He leant down and hugged his Dad.

Jim held his hand out to me and said, ‘I knew you were there.’

I resisted an urge to pull a face. I mean I had sung
nursery rhymes
to him. Instead, I took his hand and kissed him on the cheek.

Doctor Blair waited patiently for us to finish before saying, ‘Your father has had a minor heart attack. He’ll need to stay in for a few days while we run tests. It is imperative that he stays calm and quiet.’

Two million dollars missing and the Sicilian Death Squad in town? Yeah they were the right ingredients for a man to remain calm and quiet.

Doctor Blair said he would be back later to check on Jim and then left.

‘What happened?’ Harry said once the door was shut.

‘Got a phone call from Sam the Suit. One of his boys went missing a cupla days ago. Said pieces of him started showin’ up in the mail today.’

I pressed my hands to my stomach. It didn’t take much to make me feel nauseous these days.

‘The last one had a message with it.’

‘What did it say?’ Harry’s face was intent as he stared at his father.

‘Tell JJ he’s next.’

‘Dad, this is serious.’

Now
he thought it was serious? What the hell was it when we got
our
specially delivered body part?

‘Ya gotta look after business for me ‘till I get back home.’

I sat down in the chair and Rosella picked up my hand and started to pat it.

‘Dad, that’s not my thing.’

‘We can’t be seen to be weak at a time like this.’

We? Since when had it become we?

‘I….’

‘The men will listen to ya. They respect ya. Goin’ ya own way and everythin’.’

I put my head between my knees and took some deep breaths. I didn’t want Harry to do it, I really didn’t. But I had to concede that Jim was right. The only thing stopping the whole deck of cards from crashing down around us was the fact that everyone was scared shitless of Jim. If the head was cut off the snake, all hell would break loose as every faction fought to gain control.

A gang war was the last thing we needed with Giuseppe on the loose.

And of course my realisation that
I
had thought the word
we
did little to help control my near hysteria.

I hadn’t wanted to be a part of this. I didn’t want to be a part of this.

I looked up at Harry and met his eyes. I wanted him to say no, but I could tell straight away that he wouldn’t. His eyes held a shadow of sorrow behind the grim determination.

He must have found what he wanted to see on my face because he turned back to Jim and said, ‘Just until you’re home.’

Jim leant back onto his pillows and closed his eyes. ‘Thank you.’ The words came out in a rasp.

‘He needs to rest.’ I squeezed Rosella’s hand before I let go and climbed to my feet. ‘He’s just had a heart attack.’

Harry nodded and leant down and kissed his father on both cheeks. I followed suit, a chill of apprehension filling me as I kissed him. His face managed to be red and blotchy, and pale at the same time. He didn’t look well at all.

‘You concentrate on getting well,’ I said. He
had
to get better. He just
had
to.

Rosella settled herself back into the chair by Jim’s bed. She pulled a ball of knitting, still attached to two sticks, out of her bag and started work on it. I guessed she wasn’t going anywhere in a hurry.