Chapter 39

After that second deadly car bombing that robbed me of my precious Julie, I was in a contained rage that took hold of me and made me have only one goal in life. I wanted to rub out the filthy criminals that had perpetrated this grotesque horror right under our noses.

One thing was readily apparent to me and that was that the Federal witness protection program needed some big changes because they were not doing the job their mission described as their primary duty.

I knew right away that the only way we would be able to survive the affair would be to take the baby and Consuela and her daughter and get as far away from New York City as possible. Of course, I didn’t make my feelings known because I was beginning to suspect that the Federal Law Enforcement system was a lot more concerned with the “big picture” than they were interested in saving my life or my daughter’s life because we were after all was said and done just pawns in the corridors of power and that was secondary to maintaining firm control over the political bureaucracy and reining in organized crime at least to the point that they would not cross the line.

The line was invisible to most but law enforcement knew where to find it and most politicians were aware of it and the press never mentioned it because they seldom wanted to become the story and not be merely reporting the story and letting the readers make their own minds up about the validity.

The task force took the gloves off and they started to round up the lower echelons of the criminal element and confiscated huge amounts of drugs and illegal guns and dirty cash.

It didn’t take very long before they were working up into the higher ranks of the mob and actually arrested some of the bosses that usually remained insulated from the rank and file of the organization. The higher ups were passing in the civilian world as honest folks with perhaps more assets than the average Joe and their families were not involved in the dark side of their existence.

I knew that they had crossed the line with the bomb that had caused the death of my Julie because it was targeting the family and not the man himself. The excuse was that it was accidental, but there is nothing accidental about a car bomb which has no brain that sends a signal to the finger on the trigger.

A bomb has no agenda and no bias about who it kills.

Now we had been visited by two deadly bombs and it was time to hit back hard against organized crime. The head of the families knew they had crossed the line and they were unhappy about it because it brought unwanted attention to their existence just below the surface of ordinary life.

I sat down with Consuela and explained our situation and was surprised when she told me not to worry because she came from a quiet village in Puerto Rico and that her family actually owned a lot of land and even had a nice tourist hotel for the visitors from the mainland. She told me in her heavily accented voice, “I was a bad girl, Mister Mike and I spread my legs for a German tourist without using a condom and that is why I have my beautiful Maria at my side. She is like a gift from heaven but my family was dishonored and they wanted me to come here to New York City to live my life away from their home. Now they want me back because my grandfather is dead and they need me to operate the hotel like I was trained to do in management classes at the University. We can all go there and the four of us can be a family if you want to share a bed with me. We don’t have to get married, it is just enough for us to be together.”

In a way, it was a perfect solution for me with the added perk of having the still attractive Consuela as a bed mate as well as her taking care of the motherly duties that I knew were out of my ability to handle on my own.

I closed all my accounts and opened a bank account in San Juan as long as a line of credit to access my Swiss bank accounts where I had parked my Uncle Joe’s assets. I had other plans for the extensive gun collection he had also willed to me in his final words.

Consuela helped me to plan the funeral for Julie and she was like a little General organizing the two children into obedient robots following orders without question. In the case of the baby, it was no problem because she was too young to be difficult. Maria helped her mother tremendously by watching out for the baby and we functioned like a family unit behind closed doors.

When she threw back the covers and welcomed me into the bed, I didn’t hesitate because it was an invitation no gentleman could possibly refuse. I spooned her fabulous rump with my hardness but we didn’t do anything out of respect to my recently departed wife.

I knew we would bet around to doing the nasty together real soon but for right now at this moment we could just cuddle and spoon and have plenty of time for the real thing later on.

I figured we could drive down to Florida and take a cruise ship from one of the ports on the Atlantic coast to Puerto Rico and I could transport the car in the hold as baggage at the same time. I knew I had no desire to board an airplane for the journey because of the sharp eyes on the passenger list of any flight leaving the country. In this way, we could keep our final destination a secret and we might be able to stay off the grid by not turning in our passports in our own hotel.