Carlotta and the Krius Scepter (Carlotta Series Book 1) Read Free Page A

help...”
    I smiled and he smiled back. I was right; he was cute when he smiled.
    “Thank you, Rex King,” I said very formally. “If I ever need your help I shall be sure to call, but you should be wary of the things you ask for. They might come true.”
    He kissed me on the forehead and I fought a deep desire to rip the clothes off him and give him a present for being so nice. The fact that I was expected by The Don stopped me.
    “We’d better go before The Don gets worried,” I said lightly and Rex started the engine.

3.    The Don
     
    Rex pulled his car into a drop-off point at the rear of the hotel. The front of the place was glamour and glitz, but the back was a concrete canyon littered with green dumpsters overloaded with trash. I got out to the smell of fries and burgers, the vents from the kitchen wafted warm air into my face. The Don was sure a class act.
    Rex touched the brim of his hat in a casual salute.
    “Here’s lookin’ at you, babe.” Tires screamed as he spun the wheels of his car and shot away leaving me coughing in a fog of burnt rubber. He was right to leave at speed, a comment like that was asking for it and I was just the girl to give it to him.
    “You’se Carlotta?”
    I turned to face a gorilla in a badly fitting suit who, it appeared, had learned his first words of English sometime earlier that day. Actually, I’m being unfair to gorillas; they’re beautiful in their own way, whereas this guy was every bit as ugly as he was brutish. A sense of unreality hung over me. I was in a bad film noir. It was difficult to take any of it seriously. However, the bulge where this guy’s badly concealed shoulder holster pressed against his undersize jacket was real enough.
    I nodded. Big and ugly indicated I should follow him with a shrug and set off into the building without looking back. As I followed him down the elegantly finished corridor, knee deep in expensive red carpet, I wondered what I was doing here. Why had I sent myself to see The Don like this rather than calling him on the phone? Why was my memory missing and who were the people using the bird symbol? Was I one of them?
    The gorilla knocked at a door, opened it and gestured for me to go ahead of him. Maybe he’d only mastered the two words he’d used earlier and operated mainly by sign language? It wouldn’t surprise me; his mouth didn’t seem to be shaped for speech.
    The room didn’t surprise me either. Nominally a rectangular library, leather bound books filled the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves covering three walls of the room. I wondered if the books were real or glued in fakes for show. The air was thick with cigar smoke. Expensive Havana cigar smoke if my nose didn’t deceive me.
    Five men sat around a large, greenish-beige-covered card-table. A spotlight on the ceiling lit it, the only significant light in the room. To one side of the men, a pool table waited for players, the balls cued in position. Two tired looking girls in leotards leaned against the bookshelves, holding trays with drinks on them. I turned to see a small bar on the side I’d entered. No one was manning it.
    The two girls stared at me belligerently. They looked like rabbits caught in headlights, nearly mindless creatures with pupils little more than pinpricks despite the gloom. But I was a female on their turf and their anger and anxiety showed. As far as I was concerned they could have it. They had nothing to fear from me.
    The men ignored me, which gave me time to size them up. On the far side of the table was a man who only needed the word ‘ Capo’ in neon over his head to complete the stereotype. The men wore expensive suits, but he was the only one with a waistcoat and massive rings adorning his oversized fingers. His thinning hair was slicked back with enough oil to fill a swimming pool. He was a heavyweight man and his jowls had jowls.
    I wondered if there was an Italian tailor’s shop somewhere in this town called ‘Hood’s ’R