Page 59 of His Girl Hollywood
“You can’t force me to sign a new contract. If I buy you out, it’s over.”
Frankie laughed, a high-pitched giggle that didn’t match his tough-guy persona in the least. It was almost girlish and disturbing in its tenor. “He thinks he’s got me all figured out,” Frankie announced to the room. The goons began to laugh nervously, imitating their boss. “Thinks he can put a little cash in my pocket and I’ll walk away.”
He lunged at Don and grabbed his face once again. “You’re mine and you always will be.” Frankie pressed his thumb into the side of Don’s cheek where it was cut. The wound pressed against his teeth and Don’s mouth filled with blood. He spat it in Frankie’s face, a mask of red coating the gangster’s face.
Don grimaced, his teeth stained red with his own blood. “Iwas never yours.” He huffed it out. Each word was painful. Frankie slugged him in the gut, and this time when Don doubled over, the goon let him go, leaving him to fall to his knees. Don spat a fresh mouthful of blood onto the hotel rug and struggled to catch his breath, holding his stomach while he looked up at Frankie with every ounce of hate he could muster.
The rage was gone from Frankie now. He was chillingly still. He methodically took a white handkerchief from his pocket and mopped the blood from his face. “That may be. Tell you what, I’ll give you some time to think about it.”
Don closed his eyes in relief. Fine. Frankie would let him go. For now. If nothing else, Frankie didn’t know about Lena. Thank God for small miracles. Don would need some extra help from the makeup department tomorrow. But then he could figure out a new plan. It would be harder now. But not impossible. All he knew was he was never going to spend another day working for Frankie Martino. No matter how much time he had to think about it.
“But if you’re not gonna be mine, you sure as hell ain’t gonna be anyone else’s either.” Frankie landed a vicious kick to Don’s side, sending him careening to the floor. “Seems like you could use a vivid reminder of where you came from. Good thing fishing season has been disappointing this year. Lots of empty space.”
Don groaned, understanding implicitly where Frankie meant to take him. To the docks at Terminal Island and the cannery warehouses. The reeking pits of fish and misery that his father had wasted away his life in. That Don had been determined never to return to, never even to mention. He’d arrived in New York intending to bill himself as an orphan with no past to speak of.
Only Frankie knew the truth. He hadn’t had to work hard to get it out of Don. The night the stooge had signed him to a contract and sold him some fatherly nonsense about wanting to knowmore about his clients, Don had opened up to him like a can of sardines, explaining in detail his father’s job, how his parents met at the canneries, and the expanse of the warehouses that his father occasionally did maintenance work on. Frankie had immediately turned the information into a cudgel with which he could beat Don into submission. Taunting him with the reminder of his father, his origins, and the past he wanted no part of. After that, Don never told anyone else.
That meant that even if someone realized Frankie was kidnapping Don, no one would ever think to look at the canneries. Not Eleanor. Certainly not Eddie. The only one who had any prayer of guessing where he was would be Lena.
Oh God, Lena. What would she think? That he’d been lying? That he’d disappeared in the night and left her and the picture high and dry? He had to try to leave a message. To get some word that she could understand. To let her know he’d been here. He clawed at the tie around his neck, loosened by Frankie’s goons. He managed to undo the knot and pushed it under Eddie’s bed. “What do you think you’re doing?” snarled Frankie.
Don scrambled frantically across the rug, burning his forearms as he tried to use his finger to write words in the weft of the carpet. He drew a symbol before starting to write outDad Cannery. He had started to the draw theainCannerywhen someone clubbed him on the back of the head with something cylindrical and heavy. From the haze of his pain, he heard Frankie say one word: “Boys.”
One of the goons grabbed Don by the scruff of his neck and hauled him to his knees. His head was throbbing too much to fight back. The other pressed a cloth to his nose and mouth, and as Don realized it was laced with chloroform, everything went black.
Chapter 23
Don was kissing her. Making his way from her mouth to her breasts and down her torso, until he placed his hands on her thighs, spread her legs, and kissed her there, sucking her clit between his teeth and swirling his tongue over it in a way that made her mindless with need. She opened her mouth to scream, to gasp. Instead, a shrill ring emerged.
No, wait, that wasn’t right. Arlene heard it again and jolted up in bed. She’d been dreaming.Nuts.The ringing sound was coming from the phone on her bedside table. She pressed her legs together; the wetness there wasn’t a dream. Even if the rest of it was. She scrubbed at her tired face and eyes and looked at the clock next to the phone. It was 5:30 a.m. She’d only been asleep a little over an hour. The piercing trill of the phone cut through the quiet of the early morning once more, and she fumbled for the receiver. “Hello?”
Her brother’s voice answered. “Lena?” A shiver of dread ran down her spine. He didn’t call this early. He didn’t call ever. Except for one time before.
“Bill, what’s wrong?”
The next words confirmed her worst fears. “It’s Mom. She fell. I found her unconscious.”
Arlene jumped up from her bed and yanked the phone from its spot on the night table to the foot of the bed. The phone pressedbetween her shoulder and her ear, she pulled open her dresser drawers and began pawing through them to find slacks and a sweater. “What happened?”
“I don’t know. I came over to have our cup of coffee, like I do every morning before I take the boat out, and I found like her this. The ambulance is on its way.”
Arlene’s stomach turned upside down. She suppressed her urge to throw up. This couldn’t be happening. Not again.
“I’m on my way.” She didn’t care if her clothes matched. She fished a pair of underwear out of her top drawer and nearly lost her balance trying to pull them on while she talked to her brother.
“Lena, are you…are you alone?”
Astonishing. Even in a moment of crisis, her face could turn beet red with embarrassment. “I am. Not that it’s any of your business.”
Bill coughed pointedly on the other end of the line. “I only ask because I don’t know if you should drive yourself. You’re distressed. You’re not thinking clearly.”
She wanted to tell her brother where he could stick that idea, but she had to admit he was right. She needed help right now. Support. She needed to be able to worry about her mom and nothing else. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.” Over the phone, she could hear the whine of the siren approaching in the distance.
“Okay, we’ll be at the San Pedro hospital. And Lena?”
She stopped fighting with the tangled bra strap she was trying to undo. “Yeah?”
“Call Don, please. You need him right now.” The phone clicked on the other end of the line as her brother went to meet the ambulance. He was right. She did need Don. Desperately.