Sidney Sheldon 3-Book Collection: If Tomorrow Comes, Nothing Lasts Forever, The Best Laid Plans

The travel agent turned to her desk computer. In a few seconds, she said, ‘We’re all set. One first-class seat on Pan American’s Flight seven twenty-eight, leaving at six-thirty P.M. on Friday, with a short stopover in Miami.’

‘He’ll be very pleased,’ Tracy assured the woman.

‘That will be nineteen hundred and twenty-nine dollars. Will that be cash or charge?’

‘Mr Romano always pays cash. COD. Could you have the ticket delivered to his office on Thursday, please?’

‘We could have it delivered tomorrow, if you like.’

‘No. Mr Romano won’t be there tomorrow. Would you make it Thursday at eleven A.M.?’

‘Yes. That will be fine. And the address?’

‘Mr Joseph Romano, Two-seventeen Poydras Street, Suite four-zero-eight.’

The woman made a note of it. ‘Very well. I’ll see that it’s delivered Thursday morning.’

‘Eleven sharp,’ Tracy said. ‘Thank you.’

Half a block down the street was Acme Luggage Store. Tracy studied the display in the window before she walked inside.

A clerk approached her. ‘Good morning. And what can I do for you this morning?’

‘I want to buy some luggage for my husband.’

‘You’ve come to the right place. We’re having a sale. We have some nice, inexpensive –’

‘No,’ Tracy said. ‘Nothing inexpensive.’

She stepped over to a display of Vuitton suitcases stacked against a wall. ‘That’s more what I’m looking for. We’re going away on a trip.’

‘Well, I’m sure he’ll be pleased with one of these. We have three different sizes. Which one would –?’

‘I’ll take one of each.’

‘Oh. Fine. Will that be charge or cash?’

‘COD. The name is Joseph Romano. Could you have them delivered to my husband’s office on Thursday morning?’

‘Why, certainly, Mrs Romano.’

‘At eleven o’clock?’

‘I’ll see to it personally.’

As an afterthought, Tracy added, ‘Oh … would you put his initials on them – in gold? That’s J. R.’

‘Of course. It will be a pleasure, Mrs Romano.’

Tracy smiled and gave him the office address.

At a nearby Western Union office, Tracy sent a paid cable to the Rio Othon Place on Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro. It read: REQUEST YOUR BEST SUITE COMMENCING THIS FRIDAY FOR TWO MONTHS. PLEASE CONFIRM BY COLLECT CABLE. JOSEPH ROMANO, 217 POYDRAS STREET, SUITE 408, NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA, USA.

Three days later Tracy telephoned the bank and asked to speak to Lester Torrance. When she heard his voice, she said softly, ‘You probably don’t remember me, Lester, but this is Lureen Hartford, Mr Romano’s secretary, and –’

Not remember her! His voice was eager. ‘Of course I remember you, Lureen. I –’

‘You do? Why, I’m flattered. You must meet so many people.’

‘Not like you,’ Lester assured her. ‘You haven’t forgotten about our dinner date, have you?’

‘You don’t know how much I’m lookin’ forward to it. Would next Tuesday suit you, Lester?’

‘Great!’

‘Then it’s a date. Oh. I’m such an idiot! You got me so excited talkin’ to you I almost forgot why I called. Mr Romano asked me to check on his bank balance. Would you give me that figure?’

‘You bet. No trouble at all.’

Ordinarily, Lester Torrance would have asked for a birth date or some form of identification from the caller, but in this case it was certainly not necessary. No, sir. ‘Hang on, Lureen,’ he said.

He walked over to the file, pulled out Joseph Romano’s sheet, and studied it in surprise. There had been an extraordinary number of deposits made to Romano’s acount in the past several days. Romano had never kept so much money in his account before. Lester Torrance wondered what was going on. Some big deal, obviously. When he had dinner with Lureen Hartford, he intended to pump her. A little inside information never hurt. He returned to the phone.

‘Your boss has been keeping us busy,’ he told Tracy. ‘He has just over three hundred thousand dollars in his current account.’

‘Oh, good. That’s the figure I have.’

‘Would he like us to transfer it to an investment account? It’s not drawing any interest sitting here, and I could –’

‘No. He wants it right where it is,’ Tracy assured him.

‘Okay.’

‘Thank you so much, Lester. You’re a darlin’.’

‘Wait a minute! Should I call you at the office about the arrangements for Tuesday?’

‘I’ll call you, honey,’ Tracy told him.

And the connection was broken.

The modern high-rise office building owned by Anthony Orsatti stood on Poydras Street between the riverfront and the gigantic Louisiana Superdrome, and the offices of the Pacific Import-Export Company occupied the entire fourth floor of the building. At one end of the suite were Orsatti’s offices, and at the other end, Joe Romano’s rooms. The space in between was occupied by four young receptionists who were available evenings to entertain Anthony Orsatti’s friends and business acquaintances. In front of Orsatti’s suite sat two very large men whose lives were devoted to guarding their boss. They also served as chauffeurs, masseurs and errand boys for the capo.

On this Thursday morning Orsatti was in his office checking out the previous day’s receipts from running numbers, book-making, prostitution, and a dozen other lucrative activities that the Pacific Import-Export Company controlled.

Anthony Orsatti was in his late sixties. He was a strangely built man with a large, heavy torso and short, bony legs that seemed to have been designed for a smaller man. Standing up he looked like a seated frog. He had a face crisscrossed with an erratic web of scars that could have been woven by a drunken spider, an oversized mouth and black, bulbous eyes. He had been totally bald from the age of fifteen after an attack of alopecia, and had worn a black wig ever since. It fitted him badly, but in all the years no one had dared mention it to his face. Orsatti’s cold eyes were gambler’s eyes, giving away nothing, and his face, except when he was with his five daughters, whom he adored, was expressionless. The only clue to Orsatti’s emotions was his voice. He had a hoarse, raspy voice, the result of a wire having been tightened around his throat on his twenty-first birthday, when he had been left for dead. The two men who had made that mistake had turned up in the morgue the following week. When Orsatti got really upset, his voice lowered to a strangled whisper that could barely be heard.

Anthony Orsatti was a king who ran his fiefdom with bribes, guns and blackmail. He ruled New Orleans, and it paid him obeisance in the form of untold riches. The capos of the other Families across the country respected him and constantly sought his advice.