Oz looked at him.
“You spent the night with the daughter of our enemy,” Andreas said. “Did you not?”
“That’s none of your affair.”
They couldn’t believe it. “We are tied together now, Odysseus!” Andreas declared. “If that man would risk the life of his own daughter, think what he will do to our daughters and wives and sons? And to us? What are you doing?”
“I am leading the families out of this mess we’re in. That’s what I’m doing! And making rash decisions is not what we will do.”
“But why are you sleeping with his daughter?” asked Denasis.
“She has nothing to do with this. They’re barely on speaking terms is what I could gather from it. Leave her out of this. Every one of you have worked for me before. Have I ever let you down?”
None of them wanted to answer that.
“Have I?” Oz yelled.
“You have not,” Andreas admitted.
“No, you haven’t,” admitted Petrakis too.
Oz exhaled. “Then do as I tell you to do. We wait,” he said.
Andreas frowned. “But what are we waiting for?” he asked.
“Negotiations. If it’s Sinatra, he will not tit-for-tat over and over again. Something will break.”
“Yes,” said Denasis. “He could just kill us all!”
“Are you loopy?” asked Oz. “If that man wanted to kill us all, we’d already be dead! Don’t you understand how very badly we need the leader of the Ghost Mafia to not be Mick the Tick? You might have stepped on a landmine when you started grabbing west coast land. That was bad enough. You stepped on a nuclear bomb when Mick Sinatra is claiming to have owned the land you grabbed. Pray it’s not him. You go back to your homes in Jersey, and we wait and we pray. That’s what we do,” Oz said, and then left the room.
The heads of the families all looked dissatisfied. Because they all knew better.
“You think he suspects us?” asked Denasis.
“No,” responded Petrakis. “He doesn’t suspect a thing.”
“But I am worried,” said Denasis. “We took out Madinis to rope him in. He came in. But at what price to us if he suspects we were grabbing land we knew was already owned.”
“But we didn’t know Sinatra owned it!”
“I know. But I’m still worried. We paid them good money to take him out, and look what it got us. He walks around as if nothing never happened. As if we needn’t do anything but wait and see. Wait and see?”
“And pray. He says to pray. Don’t forget that!”
“What is our next move, Andreas?”
“The same move as before,” said Andreas. “Odysseus has got to be eliminated. That’s the only way we stand a chance.”
“But what if we are wrong, and Mick Sinatra is not the head of the Ghost Mafia?”
“We have to assume we’re right,” said Andreas. “For our families’ sake, we have to believe the evidence before us. And Odysseus must sacrifice for our families’ sake, just like many of our people sacrificed for him and his family when we were in Greece. Oz must die with Sinatra thinking he dragged us into a war of his own making.”
“And then?”
“And then,” said Andreas, “we must hope Sinatra has mercy on us, and spare our lives. That is the only chance we have.”
“Or we can get off the sidelines and fight back,” Petrakis said. “Maybe Sinatra isn’t as mighty as everybody thinks he is.”
They all looked at Petrakis. “Then you go to war with him,” said Andreas, “and tell us about it later.” Andreas frowned. “Don’t be a fool, Petrakis,” he admonished his colleague.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
“Shirley!” Pearl hurried over to the manager of Lucinda’s Diner.
Shirley, who was wiping down a table near the hall leading to the back of the diner, looked up. “What?”
“Look,” said Pearl as she pointed toward the big window. Oz was getting out of his Porsche and heading into the diner. “Look at all of those bullet holes. I told you he got shot at. The police hushing it up because he’s a Drakos. But they said Miss Gloria was involved too.”
But Shirley was shaking her head. “I don’t believe that. Oz, yes. But Gloria? She’s a ritzy type. I don’t believe she was involved for a second.”
After speaking to various workers, including a black worker that he hadn’t seen there before, Oz began heading toward the hallway, where Shirley and Pearl stood.
“Hey, Oz,” Shirley said with a smile.
“She in?” Oz asked without breaking his stride.
“She’s in,” Shirley said, “but let me see if she can see you.”
Oz smiled a knowing smile and kept heading down the hall. Shirley was surprised. “No, he didn’t,” she said.
But when Oz knocked once and then opened the office door at the end of the hall, and they heard Gloria’s voice say hey, Oz as if she was thrilled to see him, both ladies were shocked. “Oh yes he did,” said Pearl.
They nearly collapsed against each other when they saw what looked like Gloria hurrying from around her desk and falling into Oz’s arms. When Oz kicked the door shut as he held Gloria in his arms, they did collapse against each other.
Inside the office, Oz was kissing Gloria with a long, passionate kiss. He placed both hands on her tight ass and began massaging her as he kissed her.
When they stopped, he continued to hold her against him, and kept his hands on her butt. He smiled. “Let’s go to Vegas,” he said.
Gloria leaned back from him. “What?”
“Let’s go to Vegas.”
“Vegas? Why?”
“Why not?”
“Let me see. Oh, that’s right. Because I have a business to run!”
But Oz was still game. “Come on, babe! We’ll have a blast.”
“No, Oz. You have a business to run too.”
“Oh, yeah,” Oz said as if he’d forgotten. “There’s that!”
Gloria laughed. Oz was always good for a laugh. And she pulled away from him and went behind her desk.
Oz watched her tight ass as she walked behind that desk. He was so enamored with it that he followed her and before she could sit down, he sat down. And pulled her onto his lap. She grinned because he moved so quickly. “Oz!” she said, hitting him across his chest. “What are you doing?”
“Nothing yet,” he said. “What I’m getting ready to do?” he asked and she heard him unzip his zipper. “I’m getting ready to do you.”
That was when Gloria felt his raw penis against her thigh. She also felt his hand slide the seat of her panties to one side, and his fingers began massaging her. She leaned back against him. “I have work to do,” she said unconvincingly.
“So do I,” said Oz. “I’m supposed to drive my Porsche to Pensacola for bodywork. That’s work, too, right?” He began kissing her neck.
“Why couldn’t the guys at the shop in Pensacola come and pick it up?” Gloria asked.
“They could have. But I like the attention I get driving it,” Oz said.