If Tomorrow Comes Read Online Free PDF Page A

helpless anger. “But all she had to do was tell them the truth—explain what that man did to her.”
    The old foreman shook his head. “Joe Romano works for a man named Anthony Orsatti. Orsatti runs New Orleans. I found out too late that Romano’s done this before with other companies. Even if your mother had taken him to court, it would have been years before it was all untangled, and she didn’t have the money to fight him.”
    “Why didn’t she tell me?” It was a cry of anguish, a cry for her mother’s anguish.
    “Your mother was a proud woman. And what could you do? There’s nothing anyone can do.”
    You’re wrong , Tracy thought fiercely. “I want to see Joe Romano. Where can I find him?”
    Schmidt said flatly, “Forget about him. You have no idea how powerful he is.”
    “Where does he live, Otto?”
    “He has an estate near Jackson Square, but it won’t help to go there, Tracy, believe me.”
    Tracy did not answer. She was filled with an emotion totally unfamiliar to her: hatred. Joe Romano is going to pay for killing my mother , Tracy swore to herself.

3
    She needed time. Time to think, time to plan her next move. She could not bear to go back to the despoiled house, so she checked into a small hotel on Magazine Street, far from the French Quarter, where the mad parades were still going on. She had no luggage, and the suspicious clerk behind the desk said, “You’ll have to pay in advance. That’ll be forty dollars for the night.”
    From her room Tracy telephoned Clarence Desmond to tell him she would be unable to come to work for a few days.
    He concealed his irritation at being inconvenienced. “Don’t worry about it,” he told Tracy. “I’ll find someone to fill in until you return.” He hoped she would remember to tell Charles Stanhope how understanding he had been.
    Tracy’s next call was to Charles. “Charles, darling—”
    “Where the devil are you, Tracy? Mother has been trying to reach you all morning. She wanted to have lunch with you today. You two have a lot of arrangements to go over.”
    “I’m sorry, darling. I’m in New Orleans.”
    “You’re where? What are you doing in New Orleans?”
    “My mother—died.” The word stuck in her throat.
    “Oh.” The tone of his voice changed instantly. “I’m sorry, Tracy. It must have been very sudden. She was quite young, wasn’t she?”
    She was very young , Tracy thought miserably. Aloud she said, “Yes. Yes, she was.”
    “What happened? Are you all right?”
    Somehow Tracy could not bring herself to tell Charles that it was suicide. She wanted desperately to cry out the whole terrible story about what they had done to her mother, but she stopped herself. It’s my problem , she thought. I can’t throw my burden on Charles. She said, “Don’t worry I’m all right, darling.”
    “Would you like me to come down there, Tracy?”
    “No. Thank you. I can handle it. I’m burying Mama tomorrow. I’ll be back in Philadelphia on Monday.”
    When she hung up, she lay on the hotel bed, her thoughts unfocused. She counted the stained acoustical tiles on the ceiling. One…two…three…Romano…four…five…Joe Romano…six…seven…he was going to pay. She had no plan. She knew only that she was not going to let Joe Romano get away with what he had done, that she would find some way to avenge her mother.
    Tracy left her hotel in the late afternoon and walked along Canal Street until she came to a pawn shop. A cadaverous-looking man wearing an old-fashioned green eyeshade sat in a cage behind a counter.
    “Help you?”
    “I—I want to buy a gun.”
    “What kind of gun?”
    “You know…a…revolver.”
    “You want a thirty-two, a forty-five, a—”
    Tracy had never even held a gun. “A—a thirty-two will do.”
    “I have a nice thirty-two caliber Smith and Wesson here for two hundred twenty-nine dollars, or a Charter Arms thirty-two for a hundred fifty-nine…”
    She had not brought much cash with her.