He switched to the small car he had stashed in a garage just a few miles from the estate. He paid a nominal fee to house the vehicle, and no one had bothered it. Still, he was careful as he approached, looking for signs of disturbance. He never took chances. That had been drilled into him in the schools he’d attended and now, when there was a hit out on him, placed there by the very men he’d served faithfully for years, those lessons had come in handy.
3
Casimir arranged to enter Salvadore’s just as Arturo approached with a dark-haired woman pacing just behind him. Casimir continued walking as they neared him, but it was all he could do to keep his mouth closed tight when it wanted to drop open in pure shock. He would never have known the woman walking with Arturo was Lissa Piner. She was… plain. Pretty enough, but plain.
Lissa was so vibrant and alive. A living flame. There was no way to deny the passion in her. She drew the eye of men and women around her. It was impossible not to see her beauty and be drawn to it. She looked sexy, sensual, a woman made for long nights and pure sin. She moved with the flowing grace of a dancer. The dark-haired woman following Arturo into the cappuccino bar didn’t come close to Lissa’s beauty.
Just inside the door Casimir stopped to read the menu posted on the far wall. He kept an eye on the two of them. Arturo broke off and went to sit at one of the tables along the far wall where he could look into the mirror behind the counter and see everyone in the cappuccino bar as well as have the advantage of facing the door and wide windows overlooking the street.
The woman was the same height as Lissa, but not as curvy. In fact, she looked straight up and down. There was no sign of Lissa’s generous breasts. Her hair was shoulder-length, a glossy black. Her eyebrows and lashes were dark as well as her eyes. There was a beauty mark on the right side of her lips. Still, there was no mistaking her mouth. Casimir had far too many fantasies about that mouth to fail to recognize her. Under that thin, stick of a disguise was his woman.
She went straight to a table in the far corner. Fortunately, it was in his path. Casimir pulled his book from his backpack and peered at the pages, reading as he walked up the aisle toward the area where the single tables were located, right where Arturo had chosen to sit. He bumped into a woman, bounced off her and banged into Lissa’s table, apologizing in fluent Italian the entire time. He had to grab the table’s edge to steady himself, deftly slipping the tiny bug beneath the table as he did so.
He didn’t meet Lissa’s eyes, in fact, barely glanced at her, but nearly prostrated himself in front of the other woman. He hunched over, shuffling his worn shoes. He wore horn-rimmed glasses over his light brown eyes. His jawline was quite different, filled out, and he was slightly bucktoothed. His mousy brown hair, streaked with gray, was thinning. His voice was nasally. Even the shape and color of his fingernails were different. He didn’t have a single identifying mark on his face or hands.
His clothes were loose, covering the paunch around his belly. The trousers fit his buttocks tighter, but that was because he had a very rounded butt. The woman he followed continually smiled and reassured him until he wiped beads of sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief and dropped into a chair as if he was exhausted from apologizing.
Casimir deliberately chose the table on the other side of Arturo, a good distance from Lissa. He opened his book with a huge relieved sigh, loud enough for everyone in the bar to hear, pulled out his earphones and slipped them on after ordering a cappuccino and pastrami pizza, the bar’s signature dish.
Lissa’s chair faced away from him, but she sat sideways, better to observe the room. She placed gloves carefully on the tabletop, precisely on the small clutch she’d brought with her. A signal that meant all clear. He’d used such signals himself many times. Had she just left the clutch without the gloves, he surmised she would have been warning whomever she was meeting to stay away.
Casimir took a cautious look around the bar without appearing to do so. He had great practice looking completely absorbed in his choice of reading material. His glasses were slightly tinted, partially hiding his eyes as his gaze moved around the room. Two tables down he spotted her contact and his gut seized. He knew the man. A total weasel for the Russian mob. What was Lissa doing meeting such a man? He couldn’t be trusted. He was known for double-dealing, selling information, but informing the mob who wanted it and where the meet would take place. He cursed under his breath in four languages – eloquently.
The weasel, a man by the name of Ivan Belsky, sitting a few tables down from Casimir, rose and made his way to Lissa’s table and sank into the chair opposite her. He wore a shapeless coat and a hat, and his beady eyes were restless, constantly moving. Sweat beaded on his forehead. That told Casimir he hadn’t come alone and this meeting was a setup.