Sons

by Michael Halfhill

  Louis looked out the limo’s smoked window glass and shook his head. He couldn’t believe the Russian expected him to help Yuri rape and possibly kill another kid, especially after the argument they’d had earlier that day.

  Oh no you don’t. Not again! he vowed.

  Louis returned his attention to the book. He turned a few more pages when a notation caught his eye. Added to the list of customers was a newcomer to Philadelphia, an Arab calling himself Ben, who wanted a girl and boy combination. Apparently, this client preferred to be a voyeur rather than a participating party. A dark shadow pressed like a mask over Louis’s face. He smiled as if his part in the murder of a young girl had never occurred.

  “Well, Ben, whatever feeds your monkey. Business is business,” he said with a low giggle.

  The smile faded from his lips as Louis flipped the page. Frozen on paper was the face of Jan Phillips. Louis yanked the photo from the binder and studied it for a puzzled moment. Is this some kind of joke? Flipping the photo over, he read the inscription.

  The son of Islam’s sworn enemy.

  Name believed to be Colin Phillips.

  Capture and deliver.

  Money no object.

  At first, Louis thought it was a trap, but no, Krevchenko gave him the new additions before they had argued. Pytór wouldn’t have suspected that he would try to break with him. Louis took another look at the picture. He read again the details noted in a hand clearly not familiar with making English letters. The last line appealed to Louis especially, as his cash flow seemed to be perpetually in extremis. An evil grin spread across his face as he thought about getting even with Jan Phillips, the man who had publicly humiliated him. Payment for his trouble was an added bonus.

  So, they want the kid! This is heaven sent. “I’ve gotcha this time, mister high and mighty Jan Phillips, gotcha this time!”

  “Sir?” Mario said.

  “Take me home, Mario, and don’t spare the horses!”

  Twenty-Nine

  LOUIS CAREW stepped out of the limousine, pulled his pants up over a newly acquired paunch, and walked across the street’s cobbled surface to his Delancy Place three-story townhouse, a home he rented from his father’s company, PennEagle Inc.

  Inside, he walked to a downstairs bathroom, where he eliminated the beer he’d downed while meeting with Pytόr Krevchenko and the Arab, Ben. Relieved, he turned, rinsed off his hands, and looked at his haggard face in the mirror. Splashing cool water wouldn’t restore his lost looks, but he gave it a try anyway, only to find no clean linen on the towel rack.

  “Great! Just fucking great,” he swore bitterly.

  With that, he wiped his hands down the sides of his pants and stomped out into the hall. Louis was hungry, tired, and eager to contact Ben. Somehow, he needed to separate the Arab from the Russian. He sensed that a great deal of money would go to the man who delivered Jan Phillips’s son… to whom?

  “Hmm,” Louis mused aloud, “I wonder who wants the brat? Doesn’t matter, I guess. I just gotta get Krevchenko out of the way. After all, one goes into a check more times than two.”

  Just then, the phone rang. Louis hurried to the living room, crossed to a small table flanked by nine-foot windows that looked out onto the tree-lined street. He reached for the receiver. The caller ID flashed, “Victor Carew 388-1257.”

  Louis shook his head.

  Oh no, you bastard. Not tonight. I’ve got too much going on to argue with you!

  Pressing a small button on the phone’s console, he looked at the caller log for the day. Of the dozen or so calls placed to him, clearly ten were from his father.

  Pushy asshole!

  The phone continued its shrill ring. Louis bent over, addressed the instrument, and yelled, “I don’t care what you want, old man! You think just because you’re a big shot, I gotta do everything you say! Well, I’m gonna be a big shot too, and soon. You just wait and see, ya stinkin’ son of a bitch!”

  Louis sagged into an overstuffed chair and simultaneously began to laugh and cry.

  The phone abruptly stopped in mid-ring. Louis looked at the phone and listened a moment. This time there was no message pleading for him to call his father. Both relieved and disappointed, he sat and looked out of the window.

  Louis was a simple man who liked simple emotions, like lust. Lust he understood, appreciated even, but feelings of regret or disappointment, when he felt them at all, left him confused. Instinctively, he knew that confusion in a simple mind never went unpunished.

  Louis cocked his head and watched the leaves of a sycamore. Etched against the evening darkness by the pale glow of the gas streetlight, the leaves swayed slowly to and fro, as if in a secret dance only the tree knew. Doubts dispelled, he reached for the phone and punched in a number he knew by heart, the number for McGillin’s Ale House.

  “Hello, Red?” Louis said.

  “Yeah, this is Red.”

  “It’s Louis Carew. Is that Arab guy still there—you know, the one I was talking to earlier?”

  “He’s still here. That other one, the Russian. He left a while ago. You want I should tell him you called?”

  “No!” Louis said, his voice betraying his excitement. “Uhh, what I mean is, I want to talk to the Arab guy, okay?”

  “Sure. Hold on.”

  Anxious moments passed. Louis began to sweat. He rehearsed an imaginary conversation in his head… what he would say and what he hoped the Arab would say. Would this Ben character play ball with him alone, or would he insist that Krevchenko be in on any deal to snatch the Phillips kid?

  “Hello?” Ben’s voice sounded suspicious. Clearly, the Muslim was unaccustomed to receiving phone calls in a bar, especially one located smack dab in the middle of America’s Cradle of Democracy.

  “This is Louis Carew. I was with Pytόr and you earlier.”

  There was a pause. Louis figured either Ben was trying to place the name with a face, or he was deciding if he wanted to speak with a man he had only just met. He held his breath and waited.

  “Yes. I remember.” Ben rolled the Rs in the word remember. He spoke in a quiet yet wary voice.

  Louis fished a handkerchief from his a pocket and blotted away a trickle of sweat that had found the corner of his mouth.

  He said, “Krevchenko gave me a list of client requirements. I just finished going over it, and umm… I noticed one of the things listed was a certain person you had a specific interest in.”

  Louis let the thought sink in. His tongue flicked around his lips. They were salty and dry. He could hear the Arab breathe.

  Caution colored Ben’s reply when he spoke.

  “I recall something like that, but you must be more specific.”

  Louis pressed the thought.

  “We discussed certain, shall we say, clients who have certain tastes in, umm, companionship. I just reviewed the particulars Pytόr gave me on one such client. This person went so far as to request a companion—a boy—by name. Do you remember that?”

  Again, caution.

  “Yes, I seem to remember something like that.”

  “What would you say if I told you I can deliver this person of interest?”

  Now it was Ben’s turn to sweat. He shifted the phone receiver from one ear to another and cupped his hand over the mouthpiece.

  “I would say that the identity of the person of interest, as you put it, would have to be proved, and I would also say that a means of transport out of the country would have to be provided by you. Do you understand?”

  “How much is your client prepared to advance?” Louis asked.

  “That is a matter for my client to decide. You can say what you feel is a fair price, and I will ask. I must warn you, this depends on whether the person of interest is indeed the one sought by the client and if delivery can be made without interference by the authorities. If not, nothing is paid.”

  “I understand. As for, shall we say, a finder’s fee, I was thinking in the range of four million.”

&n
bsp; Ben gave a short gasp. “Four million! American dollars? Pytór did not say—”

  “This deal has nothing to do with Pytór. You want the boy in question, and I can get him, because I’ve already made contact. If you want him, you have to deal with me, exclusively. As I said, the price is four million.”

  Once again, the Arab was silent.

  “The amount you demand is much larger than we expected to pay.”

  Louis ignored the remark.

  “When can you let me know? Maybe someone else would be interested in the boy.”

  “Where can I reach you?” asked Ben.

  Louis gave Ben his cell phone number, adding, “Ben, one more thing. Remember, this is a private deal, just between us. Understand?”

  Another trail of perspiration snaked a crooked path down Louis’s cheek, crossed to his chin, and fell with a splat onto the floor.

  The short chuckle from Ben confirmed for Louis that the Arab understood. Pytόr Krevchenko would not be a party to this particular adventure in flesh peddling.

  Louis ended the conversation, returned the receiver to its cradle, and then began a tense wait. He had been prepared to hand over the Phillips brat for nothing, but he reasoned that if he could recoup the losses Jan Phillips’s law firm had cost him, so much the better. Four million dollars would also go a long way in freeing him from his father’s shadow.

  True to his word, the man who called himself Ben phoned later that evening. The deal was on.

  Thirty

  “HERE, Amal made you some green tea,” Michael said as he placed a cup of the pale brew on the table.

  It had been several days since Jan’s conversation with Marsha about his son’s sexual relationship with her daughter. Jan kept the girl’s parentage private, even with Michael, because it was clearly what Marsha wanted, although she hadn’t expressed it in so many words.

  “I’m too upset to drink tea,” Jan complained.

  “Well, I am sorry, but we are out of hemlock,” Michael joked.

  “Very funny, auditioning for the Tonight Show, are we?” Jan said with a smirk.

  Michael looked at Jan and said, “Oh come on. How bad can this be? Colin has discovered sex. It is just sex. You like sex, I like sex, and now Colin likes it. It is natural.”

  “Colin’s liking it is exactly the problem. He’s only fifteen, for God’s sake!”

  “Are you telling me you would have passed up a chance to have sex when you were fifteen?”

  Jan grinned shyly and twirled a spoon in the center of the teacup.

  “When I was fifteen the closest to sex I got was watching pigeons mating in the park, but you’re right, I should be grateful he’s not sleeping around with a squad of girls. At least I know Alexandra.”

  “Speaking of whom,” Michael said, “I thought she was very nice when she came to dinner. A little grown up for her age, but I expect that was just an act for your sake. Besides, having Marsha for a mother would age anybody! I find that woman very intimidating.”

  “Alexandra’s acting grown up isn’t because she has Marsha as a mother. Being the only child of a single mother, she’s lived most of her life in the company of adults. I know that’s how it was with me. Aside from Bobby O’Farrell, the neighborhood friend I told you about, I spent most of my time with priests and nuns. Then it was home to Mom and my sisters.”

  Jan mentioning Bobby O’Farrell’s name catapulted him into a fit of remembrance.

  “Jan, you can make big money at Fifteenth and Van Wyck. All’s you gotta do is let queers… you know, do it to you.”

  “Do what?”

  “You know… suck your dick.”

  That conversation, shared so many years ago, set into motion Jan’s meeting Tim Morris and Jan eventually becoming the Mundus Master for North America, as well as owning his own law firm. Death and destruction also flowed from those few words spoken in hushed tones in a row house basement in Kensington.

  Michael noticed Jan had begun to frown. He said, “Drink the tea.”

  Michael’s voice shook Jan from his thoughts. “What?

  “Drink the tea,” Michael insisted.

  AMAL stood outside Colin’s bedroom with a creased business card in his hand. He tapped the stained, cream-colored paper against a fingernail as he worked out in his mind what to do about this discovery. He read the engraved words again.

  LC Enterprises

  Model Agency and Film Company

  1458 Seventh Street

  Philadelphia, PA 29900

  Louis Carew, Producer 215-908-9997

  The name, Louis Carew, seemed to grow larger the longer Amal looked at it. He had heard of this Carew person before. The words were words of disgust. So what was the young master doing with the despised man’s business card? Amal was torn with indecision. To take this to his master would most certainly bring wrath upon the boy. The two had formed a bond since Colin’s arrival. Amal sympathized with the teen’s feeling of alienation. He too, had felt out of place, and at times even threatened by the new world of Philadelphia, and the Americans who looked at him with suspicion and yes, even fear. Yet, to withhold the information that his son had some dealing with the hated Carew would be an act of disloyalty to his master. The son is the product of the father. Without the father the son is lost, he reasoned.

  His mind made up, Amal descended the winding staircase to the living room and approached Jan as he sipped the tea Michael had pressed on him.

  Michael smiled at Amal as he approached the two men. Between them, a haphazard patchwork of wooden tiles covered a Scrabble board.

  “It is too a word! I can spell just as well as you can!” Michael said, laughing. “You tell him, Amal.”

  Giving a mock serious bow, Amal said, “Alas, I have not sufficient knowledge of the language to judge.”

  “Give me the damn dictionary,” Jan said. “Let’s see now, how did you spell—”

  “Excuse me, Effendi,” Amal interrupted, as he handed Louis Carew’s business card to Jan. “I found this.”

  Michael leaned over the board to see what the card said.

  Jan puzzled over the card a moment.

  “Where did this come from?”

  “I found it on the floor in the young master’s bedroom. Forgive me, but this may mean something bad.”

  Jan let the dictionary drop with a thud. The thin pages fluttered open to the letter I. The first word to catch Jan’s eye was, “Imp: A friend from hell.”

  “Jan, what is it?” Michael said.

  Jan handed the dog-eared card to Michael.

  “Louis Carew! How? Where would Colin get this?”

  “I’m asking myself the same question,” Jan said.

  Michael looked at the card once more before tossing it aside. Jan stood, stretched his arms, and walked to the window. He looked out at the river traffic.

  Carew! Jesu! The man’s as dangerous as an adder. What the hell is Colin up to? Where would they have met? Did Carew approach Colin?

  Jan shuddered at the thought.

  He turned to Michael and said, “Kids! Now I know the real reason Medea strangled her children!”

  Amal turned to leave and then stepped back. “Effendi, I did not wish to cause you unhappiness, or to anger you toward your son. It may be he is unaware of the danger.”

  Jan took a deep breath as he considered Amal’s wisdom.

  “Thank you, Amal. Would you leave us, please?”

  After Amal left them, Jan turned to Michael.

  “Colin says I don’t understand him, or maybe he means I don’t understand anything. I’m not sure… he doesn’t define his terms very well. My guess is what he really is saying is that he doesn’t believe I love him.”

  “Is he right? Do you love him because you feel you must, because he is your son, or because you find him loveable?” Michael probed.

  Jan thought a while before answering. Finally, he said, “Yes, I can honestly say that I love him. Don’t ask me where it comes from. Perhaps it comes w
ith knowing your own flesh. I don’t know. I’m sure I’m not the only man who’s faced this, but, Michael, the truth is, I don’t understand him. You’d think he’d be happy to be here. He doesn’t know what it’s like to be left alone and frightened.”

  “Doesn’t he, Jan? How quickly you forget. A year ago, a mother he had loved and who protected him, was taken from him in a horrible way. Now he is among strangers who frighten him. Just because we know he is safe here does not mean he understands it, any more than you understand him or what he wants.”

  “What could a fifteen-year-old possibly want that we can’t give him?” Jan said impatiently.

  “He wants what we all want, a sense of self, a feeling of fitting in—love. He is impatient, just like we were at fifteen.”

  Jan picked up a magazine, then flung it across the table in disgust.

  “First Colin hates me, he hates living here, then he’s having sex with my office manager’s daughter, and now he’s running around with gangsters. This kid is out to make me crazy!”

  “Oh, do not be so melodramatic. This is not about you, after all. Wait, see what he has to say, and for heaven’s sake, do not accuse him of anything—just see what it means.”

  Thirty-One

  ZAN and Colin sat side by side in a corner booth at Schrafft’s ice cream parlor as they shared a chocolate malted milkshake. Usually, they preferred to sit at the shiny chrome counter, on the wire-backed stools bolted into the white tiled floor. From there, they could watch the soda jerk create some of the 110 ice cream sundaes that made Schrafft’s famous.

  Alexandra slipped the paper wrapper from a plastic straw and jabbed it into the milkshake.

  “Why didn’t you get a shake of your own?” Colin asked, as Alexandra drew down on the straw, reducing the icy goblet’s contents by a full third.

  “I don’t want to get fat,” she replied.