Why I Hated The Guy From The FBI Ch. 08

"The young woman he was seeing left him suddenly, Thursday, and he has been inconsolable since then. He has not taken care of himself, at all."

"Celeste left him, and you were just calling me, now! Do not leave him alone, I will be there as soon as I can."

Frank grabbed Antonia, and headed out to the car with their escorts. Antonia demanded to know what was wrong, and Frank told her on the way there.

"I knew that woman was in love. Whatever he said to her scared her senseless."

"What could Philip have said to send her running away like that?"

"Frank, we will find that out when we get there. I want you to call your friend at the FBI, and find her. I just want to make sure that she is okay. I have to know she has not hurt herself. Please do that for me."

"Okay, I am not sure the bureau will like it, but I will ask him."

As they ran up the steps to the estate, Frank asked where Philip was, and he was directed to him. When they got there, Frank laughed at him.

Philip became furious and attacked Frank with every bit of energy. He had left in his body.

Frank did not have any trouble pinning his friend to the ground. "Philip, now you know how I felt while Antonia was dragging me through the mud, before I asked her to marry me. How does it feel, my friend."

"When you let me up Frank, I am going to kill you."

"The smell of you has almost done that already. When was the last time you showered? The beard almost becomes you. However, the mustache has got to go."

"Frank, now I know why Antonia always tells you she hates you. I have a few more words less delicate than that, that I would like to say, but there is a lady present."

"Where, Antonia is the only person here, and she is no lady."

Frank felt a sudden pain in his ribs, caused by a sharp kick from the pointed right shoe on Antonia's foot.

Philip laughed, as Frank groaned in pain.

"That will teach you to aggravate the woman you are going to marry, Frank."

"I did not say she wasn't a woman, Philip. I just said she was not a lady."

Frank groaned, but this time so did Philip. Antonia had jumped in the air and landed square on Frank's back. Frank was lying on top of Philip's back, so both of them took the force of the blow.

"Are you two finished making fun of me? The next time I jump it will be off the table, and crush you both."

"Frank, I promise to be good. Can I get up now?"

"Do you promise to take a shower, without any sharp instruments around?"

"Yes, Frank, I promise."

"Philip, you have 30 minutes to make yourself presentable. Dinner will be on the table, when you come back. 31 minutes and I'll beat your ass all over the place. Understood?"

"I will be down in 30 minutes Frank."

Dinner was not the somber affair you would have expected. Antonia jumped all over Philip like a wolf jumping on an injured sheep.

"She asked me, Antonia. What was I supposed to do, ignore her?"

"You should have given her a simple answer. Once she said she had no knowledge of religion, you should have backed off. Didn't you realize she was in love with you? She would not have gone near the church with anyone else. She would have built a church for anyone, but never gone in one. You men are all idiots when it comes to women. Frank, I thought you were the dumbest man alive. Now, I know you have competition."

"Okay, your highness, what do I do now?"

"You! You do not do a thing. Frank's friends will find her, and I will go to her. I will not promise you I will bring her back, but I will make sure that she is okay. If you have hurt that woman, I swear to God I will shoot you between the eyes. She is the only friend I have on this planet, and I will not lose her."

Philip looked in Antonia's eyes, and said to Frank, "Please hide your guns. She is not joking around. If you do not find her, Antonia will kill me."

"Give me your cell phone, Philip. The agency probably has a trace on mine. Let me call my friend and see what I can do."

It was a very quick phone call, because even from an unknown cell phone, the FBI can do wondrous things. Gomes had all the information he needed and promised to do everything he could. He told Frank that finding a billionaire should not be hard to do. He found out he was wrong.

27. A Rose for Milan

On October 7, Rose walked off the Delta Airlines flight, looking for her daughter. She received a reception quite like the one Antonia received in Rome. There was family everywhere. Aunts and uncles she had not seen since she left for the United States, 22 years ago were there to greet her. There were enough tears flowing to start another fountain. It was nearly an hour after her initial greeting that she realized she had not seen her daughter. She called out, "Antonia."

"Up here, mom." From the balcony, one floor up stood Antonia and Frank, smiling down at her."

"What are you doing up there," Rose asked?

"Do you think I wanted to be in the middle of that mob?"

Rose looked around and then back up at her daughter and said, "No, I guess not. Will you come down, or should I come up?"

"I will come down to you, mama."

Past arguments were forgotten as soon as their arms intermingled. They had missed each other sorely, and did not want anything to stand in their way now.

Rose looked at Frank, and said, "You do not look as tall as I remember."

Frank laughed. "She has cut me off at the knees, Rose, and she has scrambled my brains also. Why do you think I am marrying her? I could not inflict her on any other man. They would never survive her."

Antonia stepped on his foot, and Frank let out a howl.

"Do you see what I mean mom, she is absolutely untamable."

"I believe Vincent warned you of that problem."

"I guess I missed that lesson."

"If you two are finished, we could get my mother's bags and head home now. I am tired of being everyone's punching bag."

Frank took Rose's arm and said, "Oh, if it was only so."

He got hit again for that remark.

Rose loved the villa where Antonia and Frank were staying. However, once she was settled, she asked Frank if he could take a walk for about an hour because she wanted to talk to her daughter alone.

He took his books and went to the library and told them to call his cell, when he was allowed to return.

As soon as Rose was sure he could not hear her, she said to Antonia,

"Sex is so much fun, since you told me what to do."

Antonia and Rose burst into a fit of laughter, simultaneously.

"Are you going to tell me about it or are you going to be too embarrassed to speak to your daughter about your intimate life?"

"Your father demanded that I talk to you about it. He said I was able to do things that some of the women that work for him could not do."

"Mom, are you going to become a working girl?"

"No, I am not going to get a job."

"Mom, a working girl is a hooker; a prostitute."

"Be nice to your mother, or I will take you over my knee and spank you."

"That is one of my favorite things, mom. Frank will probably tell you that later. However, now I want to hear all about your exploits. What has happened in the three weeks since I have called you?"

"When your father got off the phone, I told him we were going back to bed because 'I wanted to get laid.' He looked at me like I was from outer space. We had a discussion about our relationship, from the day we met until now, and we realized that we loved each other, as much that day, as we had from the very beginning of our marriage. He took me to bed and he took control right away. However, after I came the first time, I did what you told me to do. He tried to stop me, because I had never done that before. He told me I did not have to do it because it might not be in my comfort zone. I told him how would I know if it is in my comfort zone if I had never done it? I told him to lie down, and I started. I told him what you said about the teeth and he laughed. I held it in my hand like he told me to and put it in my mouth with no problem. My mouth was very wet so it slid past my uvula very easily and I had no trouble breathing. I did not know this was out of the ordinary so I continued putting it down further into my throat. When my nose your dads stomach, he got so excited, he came immediately, and shot his stuff straight down into my stomach. That time I did not taste a thing because it was already past my taste buds. When I took it out of my mouth, I looked at him and asked, 'Is that all there is to it?' Your dad laughed and pulled me up to his face and kissed me all over. That is when he told me that he had women that worked for him that could not do what I just did. Then he surprised me and said that he had been faithful to me during all the years of our marriage. He told me he had many opportunities over the years but as he told Vincent and Donna, 'Family is the most important thing in life.' I thought we were done but he surprised me and we made love in a different position than missionary. Then he went down to my vagina and sucked our stuff out and came up to me and held my nose until I opened my mouth and he shared it with me. Do you know how he got me to open my mouth, that bastard! He stuck a finger up my rear end."

Antonia burst into laughter as her mother explained the beginning of her sexual revolution. She explained to her mother that the best was yet to come and that the more she experimented with dad the better the sex would be.

Rose exclaimed, "Better, I have never changed the sheets on our bed so often in our married life. They always seem to be wet. I have had to buy padding to put under the sheets, so we do not ruin the mattress."

"Mom, if you are going to be playing around on the bed and acting like teenagers again, you had better get a better mattress. The one you have has to be more than 10 years old and it has seen better days."

"I will ask your father about it."

"Do not ask him; tell him you want a new mattress. If he says no, tell him he is not getting any more, until you get it."

"What are you talking about? I am the one that wants it more than he does. If I stop giving him sex, I will be the one that suffers."

"Mom, you have a lot to learn about men. Once they start getting something, they cannot live without it. How do you think I got Frank to ask me to marry him? I taunted him to the point that he was ready to kill me. Then, I turned away from him, and left him alone. He did not know what to do with himself, when I was not there to aggravate him. His favorite saying was 'I hate you Antonia, I really, really, really hate you.' I would say to him that hate was the closest thing to love known to man. He would scream and walk away."

"Antonia, that was totally unfair."

"Mom, I am getting married in December."

"You do have a point dear."

Frank's cell phone rang and he thought he was going it was safe to go home. It was Gomes, however, giving him some bad news. Celeste was nowhere to be found. He had called in every favor he had and no one could find were she had gone. Wherever it was, it was far off the beaten track. He would keep looking to see if she popped up anywhere, but as of right now there was no sighting of her anywhere in the civilized world. She had not used her cell phone, credit card, checkbook, or real name at any airport, train, or bus station in Europe or the United States. Russia was a problem because their computers were not tied into Interpol. They would have to be accessed separately. There was no chance of getting anything out of the Chinese or the Middle East, and South America was a quagmire of inefficiency. Gomes joked that it would be easier to find her, if she was on the Antarctic continent than any place in the Brazilian rainforest.

That is when the idea hit Frank. "Gomes she is in St. Louis."

"Trust me Frank she is not in St. Louis."

"Not our St. Louis, dummy, the St. Louis on the Amazon River. She once said that she loved the old opera house, in St. Louis. Shit, it is not called St. Louis anymore. She told me the name, but I only remember St. Louis. I am in the library, I will look it up and I will call you back."

"Frank, I could call the Library of Congress and have they done it for us. It would probably be faster."

"Smart ass, cock sucking bastard!"

"I like you to Frank. I will call you back. Goodbye."

When the phone rang five minutes later Frank asked, "What did you find out?"

Antonia replied, "I cannot tell you what I talked to my mother about."

"Oh, it is you, I thought it was Gomes. He was supposed to call me back."

"Did he find Celeste?"

"That is what the phone call is going to be about. I remembered something that she told me once, and I could not remember the name of the city. I remembered the old name but not the new name. Gomes is calling the Library of Congress to get it, and when he does he will call me back."

"You can come back now. My mom is cooking dinner."

"Oh great, my stomach will not bother me tonight."

"Frank you may not live until December at this rate."

"From your lips, to God's ears, Antonia."

"How high did you say your guns are? My mother is taller than I am."

"My guns are in one place; the bullets are in another.

"I told you, that you were a sneaky bastard, Frank."

"I am also teaching Philip the art and science of being sneaky. You scared him the other day and he has to be on the alert every time he sees you."

"I would never kill Philip; except if Celeste hurt herself. Then all bets are off. As for you, I have to make sure your insurance is paid up and you have my father taken care of in Tunisia. Once that is accomplished, somebody else will kill you and I will dance on your grave."

"Antonia, did I tell you I was recording this conversation?"

"You are not Frank."

Frank played back the last 30 seconds of the conversation to her and Antonia yelled, "You cannot use that in court its entrapment."

"This is not the United States. Italy loves to put little women in jail. Insurance companies will not pay women who murder their husbands. The best laid plans of mice and women oft go awry."

"Fuck you Frank."

"Is that a threat or promise?"

"Antonia, watch your mouth."

"I am so glad your mother is here."

"Not even my mother can save you Frank."

"Rope and a ceiling fan may save me."

"I hate you Frank I really, really, really hate you."

"Tell your mother I will be home in 20 minutes. Does she need anything from the store?"

"Mom, Frank wants to know if you need anything from the store."

"Yes, I need a bar of lye soap, so I can wash out my daughter's mouth."

"You do not have to repeat it Antonia, I heard it. I will bring home 10."

"I hate you Frank. If you bring lye soap into this house, you are never getting it again."

"If you put that in writing I will sign it in blood."

Antonia did not answer; she just slammed the phone down onto the receiver and ran into the den.

Rose said to her, "I guess you lost that deal, didn't you?"

"Mother, sometimes he just pisses me off."

"Antonia, after 12 years of Catholic school, do you think you could use language more befitting a young lady?"

"I will quote my future husband, "I did not say she was not a woman I said she was not a lady."

"I could not agree with him more. The way you act and the way you speak indicates that you are not a lady. You act like a tomboy, and you speak like a truck driver. If you want to be treated like a lady, you have to act like a lady. If you want to be treated like a woman act like a woman. You told me a short time ago that a man wants a Madonna on his arm and a whore in his bedroom. If you meant that, you have to act like it. You have been angry all your life, because you thought we did not want you around us. It was a mistake your father made, because of who he is and what he does. He did not want you to see what he does and who he associates with. He wanted to keep you safe and away from harm. He thought he was doing the best thing for you. He did not realize; we did not realize, how hurt you were, until you spoke up when you came home from school this year. You have no idea how sorry your father is. However, I do not believe he would change a thing considering his circumstances. He may have kept you closer to home, but that would have been the only change."

"Mom, we need talks like this more often. Like I told Frank when he told me he had feelings about me the way he decided to keep away from me was to try and keep me angry with him. He thought if I was angry with him, I would only see him as my guard and not as a man. The problem with his thinking was the more he tried to push me away, the more I pulled him towards me. He pushed and I pulled. He found out I was stronger, because we both really wanted the same thing: Each other. However, I do think you are right, as much as I hate to admit it. I think I should back off a little bit and give him some breathing room. I love him so much mom, and I do not want to lose him. I am afraid if I change anything it will ruin our balance and he will think something is wrong. I will try to tone down my rhetoric a little bit to please you and him between now and the wedding."

"As far as you and daddy sending me away to school, we will talk about that another time, when Frank is here. Some things are happening and they need to be explained so there are no misconceptions about it, and no hard feelings because of it."

"Antonia, that sounds a little bit ominous. Is there a problem brewing that I need to know about?"

"Mom, Frank needs to be here to explain everything to you because it is very technical and I do not want to get it wrong. He will be here soon and everything will work out fine."

Frank yelled, "I hope dinner is ready I am starved."

"Mom, he is just like every man. You can call him this and you can call him that, just do not call him late for dinner."

"In that case Antonia, you know what time you will be home."

Frank walked into the den and kissed his future mother-in-law and looked to see if it was safe to kiss his future bride.

Antonia said, "Well do I get a kiss, also?"

"I was just checking to see if it was safe to approach you."

"Do you see what I have to put up with mother? He starts as soon as he walks into the house, and you wonder why I yell at him."

"Darling, considering the way you talked to him at the airport, on the ride home, and the instructions you gave him on allowing him to come home, I would have checked your mannerisms, also."

"Mother, you are not allowed to take his side."

"I am the guest here; I can do as I please."

"Rose, when we build our house, I am going to build a wing just for you. I want you to be around, to keep correcting her."

"Frank, you are sleeping with me tonight, and Celeste is not here. That moves me into first position for that operation."

"Come on you two, dinner is ready. If you are going to kill each other, at least do it on a full stomach."

"Rose, I was not going to kill her. I was just going to tie her up, attach her to a ceiling fan, and turn it on. If she eats dinner first, the room is going to be awfully messy."

"I do not care, as long as it is your room, Frank."

"Mom, you are not helping me, at all."

"You are threatening to cut off your future husband's privates, and you want help from me?"

"Some men have too many balls."

"Those with too few would not give you a second glance."

"That was really cold, mother. Are you sure our family is not from Sicily?"

"It is an ancient family secret, and I will never tell."

Antonia walked into the kitchen to help serve dinner, while Frank just held his hands over his crotch to make sure he had two balls and one dick left the play with.

As soon as dinner was over, and they were having coffee, Antonia asked Frank to explain to her mother what was happening around her.