Programmed for Peril

frustration gathered, and her sinuses burned. She was going to break down. Desperate, she shouted, “Get out of here!”
    The reporters fell silent for an instant, startled.
    The door flew open. Through it came Dino Castelli, Protective Michelle in his wake. “Whatzis?” he bellowed. He pointed at the reporters with a breadstick he had been nibbling. “You hassling my girlfriend here?”
    The reporters made unkind replies.
    He whirled toward Trish. “You finished with these—” He used an uncomplimentary Italian word she didn’t know “Yes! Yes, I am.”
    “Out!” He snatched the tape recorder from the woman’s hand and tossed it past Michelle into the reception area. The reporter started after it. He raised his foot and gave her rear a shove that sent her stumbling and screaming out of view. Michelle clapped her hands in glee. The heavier of the two men Dino simply lifted off his feet and carried out of the cubicle. His Vietnam alligator tattoo writhed with the exertion. “This interview session is officially over!” he growled in his heavy baritone. He glowered at the remaining reporter, who fled in silence.
    While Dino finished escorting the reporters the rest of the way out, Trish smiled ruefully. One didn’t find that sort of brash assertiveness in many men. She remembered one of them had been... Carson, a dominating force when in full cry, long red hair flying. She kicked her memory free of him yet again. When Dino returned, brown eyes bright with humor, she had nearly composed herself.
    “Lucky for both of us I came over to talk to you,” he said. “Lucky for you because I got rid of those jerks for you. Lucky for me because I like giving jerks the bum’s rush.” He shouted toward the reception area, “Hey, Ms. Ironeyes, bring in that white bag I put down, okay?”
    Dino had brought apple tarts. He gave some to Michelle, left the rest in the bag for Trish. “I put in extra apple because I know you like them better that way.”
    She dug in her hand. “You’re so nice to me,” she said. “Yeah, yeah.” He nodded curtly. “You must have hit my soft spot. Maybe it happened when I talked to that vagabondo Rocco.”
    “I want to thank you again for that, Dino. At the time I thought he—”
    “Like I said, he didn’t do nothing to you.” He leaned back and brushed his tight mop of curly hair. “Later I got to thinking. His business and yours are alike, no? And you’re gonna be married pretty soon. Right?”
    “Yes.”
    “And you told me you didn’t think you’d keep this business. Your guy Foster, you said, has—” He rubbed thumb against curled forefinger. “So I decided Rocco ought to buy you out.”
    “Dino—”
    “I went and talked to him again yesterday. I told him he makes you a better offer, maybe you take it. Then you don’t have to worry no more about what goes on here. You get married, stay home, raise more bambini, and let your old man bring home the dough. That’s why I came over now, to tell you maybe you’ll hear from Rocco.”
    Trish laughed and shook her head. “That... wasn’t necessary. I mean I appreciate it and all. I did say I was thinking about selling out sometime... ."
    He lit a cigarette and leaned forward. “You still having trouble here? Like you were telling me about before I talked to Rocco?”
    She nodded. “I’m afraid it’s a little worse than it was.” Her intuition had previously okayed Dino, and her faith had been confirmed by his real help. So she told him about the bugs and the bombs.
    The phone rang. She picked it up. A man’s voice. “Nobody got killed—this time.”
    “Who is this?”
    “Next time it could be different.”
    “Who—”
    “Cancel the wedding!” The line went dead.
    Trish’s whitening face spoke eloquently to Dino. “That was him, huh?” he said.
    She nodded. “The wedding... he doesn’t want the wedding.”
    Dino leaned back, blew out smoke. “What you got going on here, Patricia? Who doesn’t want your wedding? Why?”
    “I don’t know!”
    He nodded. “Look, I’m a baker now. But you know I was in Nam. I did and saw some hard things. I can still be hard.”
    She had sensed that. For some reason she found it comforting. “Could you maybe help me—if I need it? j might not. But—”
    “You give me a call. That’s all.”
    “I hope I don’t have to.” She sensed that if incidents continued, each seemingly worse than the one before, she’d need more than odd Nicholas and