Evil Deeds (Bob Danforth 1)

by Joseph Badal

  “A little girl.”

  Gregorie shrank back in the corner of the backseat. He felt frightened. This is a sin, he thought. Every part of his being ached with a tremendous desire to scream at his father, to curse him, to tell him how he felt. But the ache grew until he thought his head would explode. He knew he could never stand up to his father.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  “Are you crazy, Janos?” Demetria said, pacing the floor of the small apartment. “Your uncle will get us sent to prison.”

  “You don’t understand, Demetria,” Janos said, slumped on the couch, head in hands. “We have no choice. He’ll kill us if we don’t cooperate.”

  She took a deep breath and softened her voice. “What do you mean we have no choice? Of course we have a choice. We should go to the police now, before your uncle gets you in even deeper.” She walked to the telephone and lifted the receiver. “Here,” she said in a pleading tone, “call them.”

  Janos’ head came up and his eyes shot open. He leaped off the couch, snatched the receiver from her hand, and slammed it onto the cradle. “Don’t even think such a thing,” he rasped, as though Stefan were within earshot. “You must not ask me any questions,” Janos said, forlornly. His shoulders slumped and he turned away.

  “How can you say that? I’m your wife.”

  Janos opened and closed his mouth three times, like a fish gasping for oxygen. He turned and walked out of the apartment.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Franklin Meers was shocked when George Makris announced after returning from the beach with Liz that he was going to help the Danforths find their son. The man had seemed so emotionally beaten that Meers didn’t think he had the fortitude to get involved. He was stunned when Makris said he would go along with them on the ride back to Kifissia.

  On the drive from Evoia, George proved to be more vocal, more animated than he’d been at his parents’ home. He told them all he could remember about his three years in the Petrich Orphanage. By the time he’d told his story in detail, Liz was quietly crying and Bob couldn’t seem to stop cursing the Bulgarians and the Gypsy band that took Michael.

  The trip back to Kifissia took nearly two hours. Meers parked the car in front of the Danforths’ home and they all followed Liz into the house.

  After Bob set out drinks for everyone in the dining room, he asked, “What do we do now? We can’t just drive across the Bulgarian border to Petrich, knock on the door of some building, and ask if there are any two-year-old American boys there.”

  “Of course not,” George said. “There are patrols all along the border and guards at the orphanage. We’re not going anywhere near Bulgaria until we do some groundwork in Athens.” George then focused on Meers. “And before we start, we need to know how much help we can expect to get from Mr. Meers here.”

  Both Bob and Liz snapped their heads toward Meers, wide-eyed expectant looks on their faces.

  “Oh no. I’ve already stuck my neck out to here,” Meers said, holding his hand two feet away from his face. “If you think I’m getting in any deeper, you’re nuts. What do you want me to do, ruin my career, go to prison? I’ve already crossed the line. You can’t even think about me helping anymore. You’re on your own from here–”

  Meers was already losing steam, but the look on Liz’s face completely stopped him. He halted in mid-sentence, swallowed, and started again. “The risk is too great. Not just for me, but for all of you, too. You could get killed. And the odds against finding Michael are staggering. You’ve got to understand, if you–”

  Liz was now staring at Meers with begging eyes.

  “Goddammit!” he said. “Goddammit!” He couldn’t fight the desperation he saw on her face.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Following Stefan’s telephoned instructions, Janos drove his truck until he found the Mercedes parked on a narrow, deserted road just outside the Athenian suburb of Glyfada. Stefan sat behind the wheel. Vanja was in the front passenger seat. But Janos didn’t know the person sitting in the back, a boy about fourteen years old.

  Stefan got out of the Mercedes and walked to the cab of Janos’ truck. “Show me what you’ve done,” he ordered.

  Janos stepped down and led Stefan to the rear of the truck. He rolled up the cargo door and hopped up into the empty bay. Stefan followed him to the front of the bay.

  Janos used a crowbar to pry at a section of the front wall. It swung open on hinges to reveal a nine-meter-high, two-meter-deep compartment along the entire width of the truck. A thin mattress was on the floor of the compartment, next to an ice chest.

  Stefan clapped his nephew on the back. “Good job, Janos. We’re going to do a lot of business together.”

  Janos felt a lightning bolt of fear race down his spine.

  Stefan jumped down into the street and waved toward the Mercedes.

  Vanja got out of the car, holding a baby in her arms. She walked to the truck, followed by the boy from the backseat. Without a word, she handed the baby to Stefan, climbed up into the truck, reached down for the baby, and walked to the secret compartment. She sat down on the mattress. The boy stayed outside the truck.

  “I think it’s about time you cousins met,” Stefan said, smiling, his eyes narrowed with humor. “Gregorie, say ‘dobar dan’ to Janos, your Aunt Ismerelda’s oldest son. Janos, this is my son, Gregorie. He’s going to work with us. Radko and Son. Kind of catchy, don’t you think?” He laughed uproariously.

  The boy hung his head, seemingly cowed by his father. Sparse, silky hairs grew above his upper lip. He had his father’s dark skin, but his hair was lighter.

  Poor kid, Janos thought. He’s probably as afraid of his father as I am.

  “All right,” Stefan said. “Enough formality! We go! After we have loaded the crates of wine from the warehouse, we’ll be on our way north. Wine for Thessaloniki; a baby for the Bulgarian Communist Party. Capitalism at its best. Ha ha!”

  With Vanja and the baby shut up in the compartment, Gregorie in the passenger seat beside him, and Stefan following in the Mercedes, Janos pulled the truck onto the pavement and drove back to Athens.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  “What do you mean you want to meet one of my undercover agents?” Meers shouted, rising from his chair at the Danforth’s dining room table. “I’ve helped all I can. I won’t do that. If you compromise one of my operatives, I’ll be useless here. You’re asking too–”

  “Please, Franklin,” Liz pleaded.

  Meers turned to Liz. “Listen, I’m sick about what’s happened to you and Bob, but I can’t do this.”

  In the sudden silence that came over the room, George said, icily, “You don’t have much choice.” He put his hands on the table and leaned toward Meers. “I could see to it your superiors find out you’ve already allowed unauthorized persons access to classified intelligence files.”

  Meers stared at George. His eyes widened, then narrowed in a squint. “You play rough.”

  “That’s the way the Communist Bloc trains its agents,” George said, sitting back in his chair.

  Meers stood and walked to a window. He looked out at the street. After a few seconds, he turned back to the others. Taking a small notebook from his jacket pocket, he wrote something on a sheet of paper. Passing the sheet to Makris, he said, “Be there at seven tomorrow morning.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  After weeks at the Petrich Orphanage, Michael finally did more than pick at his food. He ate his first full meal. And he began playing with the other children and learned some of the funny language they spoke. He didn’t really like his big new house. It was cold all the time and he kept getting lost. And there were no dogs in this house. At night, the house made him scared. He could hear some of the other children crying. Sometimes he had nightmares.

  He liked the way Mommy Katrina took care of him – like he was special. But he wished she’d let him sleep with all the other children. She made loud noises when she slept and it made him wake up a lot
. But, she’s nice, Michael thought. She gives me candy and hugs me. I like her hugs. They’re warm like Mommy’s. But my other Mommy smells better. Mommy Katrina says Mommy and Daddy don’t want me anymore. That makes me sad. I miss White Dog.

  Michael saw Mommy Katrina smiling at him. She crossed the room and patted him on the head. She picked him up from his chair.

  “Oh, what a good boy you are,” she said. “You ate all your food. You have made your mommy so happy.”

  Michael stared at Mommy Katrina. He understood her words, even though she talked funny. I like when she’s happy, he thought. I like to make my new mommy happy.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Janos tried to get Gregorie to talk during the drive north, but conversation seemed almost painful for the boy. He’d rub his hands on his trousers, stutter, and look straight ahead down the highway.

  “Do you go to school?” Janos asked.

  “No,” the boy said, almost too quietly to be heard.

  “Why not?”

  The boy just shrugged.

  Janos reached back and knocked on the wall between the truck’s cab and the cargo bay. “Are you all right back there?” he shouted through the small screened air vent he’d installed in the partition.

  “It’s hot, but we’re okay,” Vanja answered. “You just woke up the baby.”

  For the next five miles Janos listened to the infant cry. Then the crying abruptly stopped.

  Gregorie’s voice suddenly broke the quiet. “He’s a bastard,” he said softly, his fists clenched on his thighs, his face red. The bitterness in his voice was unmistakable.

  “He leaves my mother, his romni, alone while he parades around with his pornee. He has made all of us mahrime.”

  Janos reflected on the superstitious Gypsy life. Stefan has a mistress, therefore his family must be unclean—mahrime.

  “Have you been living with your mother?” Janos asked. “Is that why I’ve never seen you before?”

  “Yes, in Gevgelija, in Yugoslavia. My father visits there maybe twice a year.” The boy paused. “It’s disgusting. My mother treats him like a king when he shows up. Then he disappears again. He spends more time with his whore than he does with his own family.”

  Janos heard hatred as well as disgust in Gregorie’s voice. And he also heard fear.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Meers had written the name of a beach – Kaki Thalassa – on the piece of paper he’d given them. They arrived there early, at 6:45 a.m. The beach was deserted. Bob and George got out of the car and looked around. A strong wind blowing off the water whipped the sand into a stinging frenzy. They retreated to the car and wiped the sand from their eyes.

  “Damn! The wind must be blowing forty miles an hour,” Bob said. “My face feels like it got hit by a cactus.”

  The ticking of the car’s clock sounded louder and louder with each passing minute.

  “Do you think he’ll show?” Liz asked.

  “He’ll be here,” George answered. “He’s got too much to lose if he doesn’t.”

  Meers finally drove up, twenty minutes late, with a passenger seated in the back of his black Volvo.

  “Wait here,” George ordered.

  Using his hand to shield his eyes from the blowing sand, George walked to Meers’ car. He opened the right rear door and slid onto the backseat, pulling the door shut behind him. Meers looked back at George. “I’ll leave you guys alone,” he said. Meers then turned and left the car.

  The stranger across from him looked straight ahead, not acknowledging George in any way.

  “Thank you for coming,” George said, extending his right hand.

  The man didn’t take the hand, but did finally turn his head to look at George.

  George withdrew his hand and brushed his windblown hair off his forehead while taking the measure of the other man. He could tell from his features the man was a Gypsy. He had a curved white scar running down the left side of his face, from his cheekbone to the rim of his jaw. The scar seemed to shine against his mahogany skin. The man’s eyes were ebony-colored.

  “I take it you don’t like being here,” George said in Greek.

  Leering at George with a “you must be stupid” look on his face, the man said, “If it ever gets back to the Rom I helped you, my own clan will kill me. Let’s get this over with.”

  “All right. Who’s behind the kidnappings of children in Greece?”

  “Why the fuck should I tell you?” the Gypsy said, his mouth twisting into a cruel slash.

  He wants money, George thought. He glared at the Gypsy, who leaned back against the car seat and smiled smugly. George leaped at the man and grabbed his throat. “You’re going to tell me everything,” he said in a dead-calm voice. “If you hesitate once, if you lie to me, I will rip your throat out.”

  Croaking through compressed vocal chords, the man raised a hand in submission. “Okay! Ease up.”

  George released him, all the while watching his eyes. They seemed to have turned even blacker. He watched the man massage his throat. “We know Gypsies have done at least some of the kidnappings,” George said. “Who are they?”

  “It’s not Gypsies. You say it as if all of Rom is behind the kidnappings. It’s only a small band of renegades.”

  “Who’s their leader?”

  “A mean sonofabitch,” the man answered. “Guy named Radko, Stefan Radko. His own kumpania won’t have anything to do with him. Been working with the Bulgarians, kidnapping kids for over twenty years. He’s in his forties now. In tight with the Bulgarian Secret Police.”

  “How do you know so much about Radko?”

  “Radko’s a Rom legend. Gypsy mothers tell their children he’s the bogeyman. The clan leaders are afraid if it ever gets out that a Gypsy has been kidnapping Greek children, there’ll be a massacre of Gypsies all over the country.”

  George rubbed his face with his hands and focused on the sound of the sand blowing against the car. After a moment, he looked over at the Gypsy and asked, “Where can I find Radko?”

  “I don’t know. I heard he has a cousin or nephew, last name Milatko, living in Athens. I can’t remember his first name.”

  “Where are the kidnapped children being taken?” George asked.

  “Somewhere in Bulgaria.”

  “Does Petrich sound familiar?”

  “That’s it!” the Gypsy exclaimed. “How did you know?”

  Nothing’s changed, George thought.

  “Okay, one last question,” George said, while he pulled the handle to open the door. “Since you’re working for the Americans, why didn’t you give them this information before?”

  “No one asked,” the Gypsy replied, laughing.

  That drove George over the edge. The years of bottled-up anger and sadness overflowed. He leaned toward the Gypsy. “If Meers hadn’t brought you here, I’d slit your throat. You’re slime of the worst kind.” Then he spat at the man’s feet and turned to open the car door.

  The Gypsy lunged – something flashed in his hand. George felt a hot sensation just below his left armpit. He fell through the open door onto the sand. The Gypsy scrambled across the seat after him. “You bastard!” he screamed. “You fucking put your filthy hands on me! You call me slime!”

  George rolled on his back and kicked at the door, slamming it against the man’s knife arm. The knife fell to the sand. The Gypsy pushed the door open, tumbled out of the car, and lunged for the weapon. George grabbed the Gypsy’s wrist as the man wrapped his fingers around the knife handle. They wrestled in the sand, rolling over and over, gouging and hitting each other with their free hands, fighting for control of the knife. George felt blood running from the wound in his side. The Gypsy managed to roll on top of him and press his weight behind the knife – the blade quivering just inches above George’s heart.

  George got both hands on the man’s wrist and pushed up, fighting to raise the point of the blade higher. The two men matched one another’s strength, George pushing upward, the Gyp
sy pressing down. George suddenly changed tactics. Instead of pushing upward, he turned his wrists outward, twisting the other man’s hands and the knife back at the man’s chest. George pushed, driving the blade into the other man’s chest. The Gypsy groaned and then cursed George.

  George rolled the man off him at the moment Meers ran up.

  “Sonofabitch!” Meers shouted. “What the hell happened?”

  “He pulled a knife.”

  Meers knelt next to the now-still Gypsy. He pressed two fingers against the side of the man’s throat. “Damn!,” he said.

  “We’ve got to get rid of the body,” George said, as Bob and Liz ran up.

  “Oh my God,” Liz said breathlessly. “George, what happened?”

  George ignored her.

  Meers looked down at the Gypsy again. “Shit, shit, shit. How the hell am I going to explain this to my boss?”

  “It seems to me,” George said in a weakening voice, “that you’d be better off not explaining anything to your boss. Just dump the body and claim you never heard from him again.”

  Bob glanced at George who was pale and perspiring profusely.

  Meers suddenly blurted, “Help me put the body in my car. Then I want you all out of here.”

  Bob and Meers lifted the Gypsy’s body into the trunk of Meer’s car. Meers ran around the car and opened the driver side door. He yelled across the car roof, shielding his eyes from the blowing sand. “What are you waiting for? Get the hell out of here. I’ll call you at your house later.” He then got behind the wheel and drove off the beach toward the road.

  Bob started for his car when George groaned and sagged to the sand.

  “My God, he’s hurt,” Liz said. “He’s bleeding.”

  “Wait here; I’ll get our car,” Bob told her.

  When Bob returned and got out of his car, he and Liz helped George get up and into the back seat. After telling Liz to get the first-aid kit from the trunk, Bob removed George’s jacket. He tore a strip of cloth from George’s shirt to wipe blood away from the upper left side of his chest.