“Will that be one ticket?”
“Yes. First class. An aisle seat. Smoking, please.”
“Round trip?”
“One way.”
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-five P.M. on Friday, with a short stopover in Miami.”
“He’ll be very pleased,” Tracy assured the woman.
“That will be nineteen hundred 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 the 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 our 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 Palace 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’s Romano’s sheet, and studied it in surprise. There had been an extraordinary number of deposits made to Romano’s account 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 checking account.”
“Oh, good. That’s the figure I have.”
“Would he like us to transfer it to a money market account? It’s not drawing any interest sitting here, and I could—”
“No. He wants it right where it is,” Tracy assured him.