“Did you push him around?” Sal questioned.
“I did a lot more than push him around. I clocked him with a good one to start, which turned him into a rag doll such that I had to pick him up off the floor. I might have broken his nose, but I don’t know for sure. I know I gave him a black eye. Then I walloped him the hell out of his chair at the end, after our little talk.”
“What about a warning?” Sal questioned. “Did you tell him you’d be back if he didn’t get his ass back here to Boston and get his company back on track?”
“Yeah! I said I’d hurt him bad if I had to come back, and there’s no doubt he got the message.”
Both Sal and Lou looked at Tony. They shrugged in unison.
“Gaetano doesn’t lie about this kind of thing,” Sal said. Lou nodded in agreement.
“Well, then it’s just another instance of this professor flipping us off,” Tony said. “He certainly didn’t take Gaetano seriously, and he obviously doesn’t give a damn about our two hundred K.”
For a few minutes, silence reigned in the room. The four men eyed one another. It was obvious everybody was thinking the same thing. Tony was waiting for someone else to bring it up, and Sal finally obliged: “It’s like he’s asking for it. I mean, we already decided if he didn’t straighten up, we’d whack him and let Tony’s sister take the reins.”
“Gaetano,” Lou said. “It looks like you’re going back to the Bahamas.”
“When?” Gaetano asked. “Don’t forget, I’m supposed to push around that deadbeat eye doctor from Newton tomorrow night.”
“I haven’t forgotten,” Lou said. He looked at his watch. “It’s only twelve-thirty. You can go this afternoon via Miami, get rid of the professor, and be back tomorrow.”
Gaetano rolled his eyes.
“What’s the matter?” Lou demanded mockingly. “You got other things to do?”
“Sometimes it’s not that easy to whack somebody,” Gaetano said. “Hell, I got to find the guy first.”
Lou looked at Tony. “Do you know where your sister and her boyfriend are staying these days?”
“Yeah, they’re in the same hotel,” Tony said, with a dismissive laugh. “That’s how serious they took Gaetano’s lame message.”
“I’m telling you,” Gaetano insisted. “It wasn’t lame. I clocked the guy good several times.”
“How do you know they’re at the same hotel?” Lou asked.
“From my mother,” Tony said. “She’s been mostly calling my sister’s cell phone, but she told me she’d also tried the hotel once when she couldn’t get through on the cell. The lovebirds are not only at the same hotel, but they’re still in the same room.”
“Well, there you go,” Lou said to Gaetano.
“Can I do the hit at the hotel?” Gaetano asked. “That will make it a hell of a lot easier.”
Lou looked at Sal. Sal looked at Tony.
“No reason why not,” Tony said with a shrug. “I mean, as long as my sister’s not involved, and as long as it’s done quietly, without a scene.”
“That goes without saying,” Gaetano remarked. He was warming to the idea. Heading all the way down to Nassau for an overnight might involve a lot of traveling, and it would be hardly a vacation in the sun, but it could be fun. “What about a gun? It’s got to have a silencer.”
“I’m sure our Colombian friends in Miami can arrange that,” Lou said. “With as much of their junk as we push for them up here in New England, they owe us.”
“How will I get it?” Gaetano asked.
“I imagine somebody will come to you when you land in Nassau,” Lou said. “I’ll work on it. As soon as you know the number of the flight you’re going to take over to the island, let me know.”
“What if there is a problem, and I don’t get a gun?” Gaetano questioned. “If you want me back here for tomorrow night, everything has to go smoothly.”
“If you arrive and no one approaches you, give me a call,” Lou said.
“Okay,” Gaetano said agreeably. “I’d better get my ass in gear.”
nineteen
12:11 P.M., Monday, March 11, 2002
The sign’s message was clear. It said: RESTRICTED ACCESS, AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY, PROHIBITION STRICTLY ENFORCED. Stephanie paused for a moment, gazing at the framed, glazed sign. It was attached to a door next to a freight elevator. It was from this door that Cindy Drexler routinely emerged, most interestingly, when she’d brought the oocytes for Stephanie and Daniel. Stephanie had seen the sign obliquely from a distance but had never gone over to read it. Now that she had, it gave her pause. She wondered what it meant for the prohibition to be strictly enforced, considering the Wingate principals’ tendency toward overkill in the security arena. But she had come this far and wasn’t about to turn around and give up because of a generic printed warning. She pushed against the door. It opened. Beyond was a stairway leading downward. The reassuring thought went through her mind that if they were so concerned about intruders in the egg room, they would have locked the stairwell door.
With a final rapid glance over her shoulder to make sure she was alone in the lab, Stephanie stepped through the door. It closed behind her. Immediately, she sensed a contrast from the dry coolness of the air-conditioned lab. Within the stairwell, the air was considerably warmer and moister. She started down the stairs, moving quickly, aided by her flat shoes.
Stephanie was rushing as best she could because she had planned to give herself a mere fifteen minutes-twenty, tops-to be away from Daniel. She checked her watch as she descended; five minutes had already been consumed just getting from the cafeteria to where she was at that moment. Her only minor detour had been to grab her cell phone. She didn’t want to forget and get back to the cafeteria without it, since it was her excuse for being away. Daniel had given her a strange look when she’d jumped up, saying she’d forgotten it, just after sitting down with her meal. She knew he’d be irritated if he knew what she was up to.
At the base of the stairs, Stephanie skidded to a stop. She found herself in a short, dimly lit corridor with access to the freight elevator along one wall and a shiny, stainless-steel door totally devoid of hardware at its end. There was no door handle or even lock. Stephanie approached the door and put her hand on it to push. It was warm to the touch but entirely immobile. She put her ear to it. She thought she could detect a slight whirring noise from beyond.
Stephanie leaned back and glanced around the blank door’s periphery. It sealed against a metal jamb with a machinist’s precision. Getting down on her hands and knees, she noted it was the same at the door’s base. The care with which the door was fashioned fanned her already considerable curiosity. She got back on her feet, and with the side of her fist, she thumped quietly against the door. She was trying to gauge its thickness, which she surmised was considerable, since it was rock-solid.
“Well, so much for my mini-investigation,” Stephanie whispered out loud. She shook her head in frustration while allowing her eyes to trace around the periphery once more. She was surprised there was no bell or intercom system, nor any obvious way to open the door or communicate with anyone within.
With a final sigh of exasperation accompanied by an expression of disgust, she turned back to the stairs, recognizing she’d have to conjure up another strategy if she intended to continue her clandestine sleuthing. But she only took a single step when her eye caught something she’d missed. Barely protruding from the wall opposite the freight elevator and quite inconspicuous in the dim light was a tiny, three-inch-long by three-quarters-of-an-inch-wide card swipe. Stephanie had not seen it earlier, because her attention had been overwhelmed by the gleaming door itself. Also, the swipe was the same neutral color as the wall and was more than six feet from the door.