Daughter of the Mob (Sample)

10 | A Threat

"Do not go gentle into that good night, rage, rage against the dying of the light." — Dylan Thomas

PAMELA STARED AT JOSEPH MARINO, her head spinning with the news he had just relayed.

He was staring back down at her, gripping the back of her arm as if to steady her beating heart.

It wasn't any use.

She was left paralyzed by his words, and not for any of the proper reasons. She knew she should feel sorry for Mr. Friedenberg and the terrible fate that had gotten the better of him, but she was more concerned with her safety, and more afraid that she might be the next one to suffer the consequences of her emerging affiliations with the mob.

And she was angry.

She should never have danced with Johnny Siciliano. She had always acknowledged that he was a mobster, a mafioso.

He can't be that bad, can he? She had asked herself, hoping to sympathize with an evil man. She felt sick to her stomach knowing that the man who had held her close on the dance floor was the same man behind the murder of her now-deceased employer.

"Was it Johnny?" Pamela beseeched, but she already knew the answer.

Officer Marino examined her with sympathetic eyes. "We don't know. I suspect that the Mancini family was involved, but considering their history with avoiding charges, I'm sure that they will get out of this fix too."

Pamela realized that Officer Marino's hand was still resting on the small of her back. She took a firm step away from him.

He seemed to notice her sudden movement, but rather than being irked by it, he laughed. "Well, go back in there and dance with your boyfriend. Any information he gives you is evidence we can use to press charges in court."

Pamela focussed her eyes on the dim scenery behind him.

Streets snaked up and down hills and around the curves and edges of buildings, squeezing like a boa constrictor or tropical snake that could suffocate the entire city, snapping its neck with one wrong move.

"He isn't my boyfriend, Sergeant Marino." Pamela knew he had told her not to call him that, but she didn't care. "And I'm certainly not his girlfriend. One dance was all it was."

Joseph Marino shrugged. "Look. I want to reiterate that my intention was never to put you in any danger, Miss Kelly, but if you can illicit any information from him about Mr. Friedenberg's sudden death... then I would be grateful."

"I won't go back in." Pamela objected, folding her arms across her chest like a child. There was nothing he could do to make her. Sure, he was an officer of the law, but what could he do? Tie her up and drag her back inside?

"Don't be unreasonable, Miss Kelly." He continually addressed her with the voice of one who considers themselves to be a grown-up, acting as though she were decades younger and less experienced than him. It irritated her that he was putting her in so much danger, and yet speaking to her in such a patronizing, didactic, condescending tone.

Sergeant Marino fixated on her with a particular message projecting from his eyes: don't be difficult. "I'm right here, okay doll? You don't need to worry about a thing. I'll follow you in shortly to make sure you are safe. But not to worry, I'll stay just close enough so that they don't notice me. I'll be invisible, okay?"

As if she was a puppet being controlled by someone other than herself, Pamela walked back inside Copacabana.

The music had increased in pitch and volume if that was possible, and men were swinging their female dance partners up and around, throwing them and catching them mid-air like rag dolls.