There was a procession of people who sat next to me. It was like musical chairs, except I was the only one who didn’t move. I must have given my thirty second bio a dozen times, explained where Palm Beach was in relation to the Orlando theme parks about seven times, and the origin of my name about four times. The kid who had been driving us around in the town car sat to my left for a while. I was glad he was allowed inside. It turned out his name was Philip and he was a student at Fordham, and he hoped to become an architect.
A person could travel a long way before meeting a nicer group of people. The conversation was loud and intimidating but never mean or harsh, and the children were all polite to a fault. It was easy to be swept up by the good feelings in the room, and to see the merits of a large family, a collection of folks who you knew always had your back, and to forget the fact that most of the people in the room habitually committed crime for a living.
We had retired to the living room for coffee and Pepto when Sal sat next to me on a large burgundy sofa.
“I hope it was not too much,” he said.
“It was an experience,” I said with a smile. “It’s a part of the Bronx I didn’t even know existed. I can see why they live here.”
“Oh, they don’t live here. This is their summer house. They have a red stone townhouse south of the zoo.”
“So like, fifteen minutes away.”
“They like the Bronx.”
I felt the same way about Florida.
“I’m sorry about Don,” said Sal. “He has responsibilities he must consider.”
“I understand,” I said. Brett Pickering wasn’t his problem, and neither was Coach Dunbar. “So he’s the boss, hey?”
Sal nodded.
“He’s younger than I thought he’d be. I always thought the boss would be an older guy.” I looked at Sal with a raised eyebrow.
“It’s not a job I ever wanted, kid. There are things you have to do, calls you have to make, that just wouldn’t sit with me. I got off that track a long time ago.”
“Is that why you went to Florida?”
“It’s one of many reasons. Just like you.”
I nodded. That was true.
I leaned into Sal and whispered. “Say, I didn’t really know you guys still used all that terminology, like The Don. Is he really the godfather?”
Sal smiled. “We don’t really go in for all that, anymore. Francis Ford Coppola’s world is gone and buried. There’s still hierarchy and terms of respect, but not like it was.”
“But he’s still called Don Mondavi.”
“He is, but actually his name is Donato, so it’s really just his name.”
I gave my impressed face and looked at my coffee. I didn’t have room for it. When the phone trilled in my pocket I had to flop around like a performing seal to get it out, and I was struck by the notion that I hadn’t heard or seen a single phone since I had arrived. I looked at the screen and decided I should take the call, so I levered myself out of the sofa and stepped outside.
There was no one out there. Don Mondavi had been moved to the head of the dining table, so I had the patio to myself. The water was darker than it had been, a result of the thickening clouds overhead. I answered the call from Ellen Pickering.
“Ellen,” I said.
“Mr. Jones?” She sounded like she had been running.
“What’s wrong?”
“Mr. Jones, it’s the girls.”
“What girls?”
“My girls. My daughters.”
All the food in my stomach hit rock bottom and was replaced by a bad feeling.
“What about your girls?”
“They’re missing, Mr. Jones. He’s taken them.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Sal was watching me through the sliding doors and saw the look on my face. He needed assistance to climb out of the sofa, and then he came out onto the deck.
“What?” he said.
“I gotta go,” I replied.
“What?”
“Like Don said, it’s not your battle.”
He put his hand on my shoulder. “What, Miami?”
“Nurlan’s kidnapped Brett Pickering’s daughters.”
Sal’s face dropped. I could see the cogs going around in his head. He felt responsible, because in his mind he had made it happen. He had miscalculated, he had met with Nurlan, he had made it look like the Italians were cutting in on Nurlan’s action, and he had precipitated events that had led to the Pickering girls being swiped.
“This isn’t your fault,” I said.
“Really?”
“Really. This is all on Brett Pickering. All of it. If a guy eats like a pig and smokes like a chimney and then has a heart attack, you’re not at fault if your CPR cracks a rib.”
“Kidnapping is more than a cracked rib.”
“I gotta go.”
“Philip will drive you.”
“Hasn’t he been drinking?”
“No, he has to take me home anyway.”
“I can get a cab.”
“No, Philip will take you.”
It didn’t sound like he was going to budge on it, so I relented. Sal’s sister Anna was in the kitchen and I stopped in to apologize for having to leave so suddenly, and she waved it off as if she saw people having to leave hurriedly all the time, which she probably did. Don Mondavi was in deep conversation with a cluster of guys so I chose not to interrupt. Sal escorted me out. The tall guy at the door gave me my warm-up jacket and I met Philip at the top of the stairs.
“Please give my apologies to Don,” I said to Sal.
“I will explain. Now go. Call me when you know.”
The town car was parked down the street, so we walked to it and I got in the front with Philip.
“Sorry to ruin your lunch,” I said to him.
“That’s all right. It’s kind of boring after we eat anyway. Mom never lets us put the TV on when Don’s visiting. We just sit around like we’re at church. This is better.”
He pulled out and found his way onto I-95, and then headed up the coast. It was a good hour’s drive, and Philip drove fast without speeding. I watched the scenery, for what it was worth. I-95 was the antithesis of the Merritt Parkway. It was all function over form, a river of tarmac carved through the commuter suburbs for New York City, large concrete sound barriers obstructing any chance of a view for large swathes of the journey.
The old Taurus was in the front of the steps when I got to the Pickerings’. I leaped up the steps and tried the door, which was open, so I just walked on in.
Brett and Ellen Pickering were on a sofa in the great room. He had his head in his hands, she had her hands pinned in between her knees. They both looked in my direction when they saw the movement, and they both looked exactly as expected. Terrible.
Brett had been crying. I had never seen that side of him back in school, but it was definitely a part of his psychological makeup. I had nothing against it—it could be pretty damned cathartic to have a good sob—but it never seemed to bring him any resolve.
Ellen didn’t have the same puffy look, but she didn’t look any better for it. She was as white as spilled milk and her eyes bore a distant gaze. She looked up at me as if she hoped I was her daughters, and her mouth trembled at the realization that I wasn’t. I slipped into the sofa opposite them.
“Tell me exactly what happened.”
Brett rubbed his face. He had aged a century since I had last seen him.
“I took the girls to soccer,” he said. “That was when he pulled me into the car and warned me.”
“Right.”
“So I went back this afternoon to collect the girls, and they weren’t there.”
“They were just gone?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Isn’t there anybody at this soccer place responsible for them?”
“Yes, of course. We have to sign them out. But the guy who does that said they went to the locker room shed to change their shoes or go to the bathroo
m or something. They never came back.”
“So maybe they went somewhere?”
“No. I called around. One of their friends reported seeing them talking to someone driving a limo.”
My mind flashed to the two guys in the town car.
“And no one thought this suspicious?” I asked.
“You don’t understand, Mr. Jones,” said Ellen. “Kids in this neighborhood get picked up in limos and town cars all the time. It’s not that unusual.”
I couldn’t imagine how such a thing as being picked up in a limo would become de rigueur. I really lived on a different planet.
“So have they made contact?” I asked. “Made any demands?”
“No,” said Brett. “Nothing.”
“I think we should call the police,” said Ellen. “What do you think, Mr. Jones?”
“That’s tricky. I agree it’s a good idea, but if the kidnapping involves a minor and the kidnapper is not a relative, then chances are the police will call in the FBI.”
“So?” asked Ellen.
“So, the FBI are the guys who are going to put Brett in jail if they get wind of his financial irregularities.”
“Why would they even look at that?”
“Because they’re going to look into a motive for the kidnapping. People don’t do this for kicks, not usually. If it’s not a family dispute then there’s usually money involved. Which means they’ll look at his business, and that’s not good reading right now.”
“So what?” said Brett. “I don’t care. I don’t care if I go to jail. I just want the girls to be safe. Call the police, call the damn FBI.”
“Okay,” I said. “I know somebody at the FBI. Let me see what I can do.”
I stepped out into the foyer and pulled out my phone and stared at it. Calling the FBI would be the end of Brett, and the end of Coach getting his money back. But none of that mattered compared to saving the lives of two innocent girls. Which made me think of why they had been taken, which made me think of who had taken them, and where. And that made me think the whole thing back to front, back to the beginning. And of pragmatism.
I made a call. I had to. Then when I was done, I went back into the great room and told Brett and Ellen Pickering that I had made the call, and I had a hunch to follow. I told them to hang tight, and that I would be back.
“We’ll find them,” I said. “We’ll get them back.”
I said it with a lot more confidence than I felt, but I was always good at that. It had been a strength when I played football, and even in my baseball career. It was a fake it ’til you make it thing, but it worked more often that it should have. I saw a glimmer of hope appear on the faces of the couple on the sofa, and I felt that same hope swell within. Sometimes even I fall for my own baloney.
Philip pulled out of the driveway and I told him to get us back to Stamford, post haste. I had a couple of things to do. First was to get my car back. It was still in the lot at Brett’s office. Second was to check if the town car was doing the rounds at said office. That was a long shot, I had to admit that even to myself, but it would take no more effort to check. Then I planned to go and visit the source, Nurlan, and I didn’t want to arrive in a town car belonging to Sal’s family. I needed to distance myself from them if I was to protect Brett and his family.
The traffic was building toward its Thanksgiving crescendo and the Merritt was like driving in thick mud. Philip used some app on his phone to cut around on surface streets, but it seemed that lots of folks had the same app, and it took forever to reach Greenwich. We cut down Steamboat Road and I told Philip to slow down as I scanned the parking lot of Brett’s office building.
The herd was thinning for the holiday so it was easy to spot my rental car in the lot. Two rows further back toward the street I saw another familiar vehicle. A black town car. I got Philip to stop on the street and told him to return to the Bronx. I slipped out of the one town car, and keeping low, I stalked the other.
I broke through the small hedge that separated the sidewalk from the lot and ran between the parked vehicles to the town car. I yanked hard on the handle on the driver’s door. I silently cursed carjacking morons as the handle almost came off in my hand but the door stayed firmly locked. The guy inside jumped like a cat seeing a cucumber. It was the right guy. I hadn’t been this close to him before, but the thin face and the mustache were unmistakable. He almost landed in the lap of the guy in the passenger seat.
“We really need to talk,” I yelled.
The guy didn’t seem to agree. He grabbed at the keys in the ignition and started the car. I slammed on the window, hard enough to hurt but clearly not enough to break the glass. How guys did that with their elbows in the movies was beyond me. The guy punched the town car into drive and pulled away, and I ran alongside, banging on the window as we went.
“Where are they?” I yelled. “Where are the girls?”
I had a pretty good idea where they were, but I wanted to beat it out of these guys anyway. The town car sped up, faster than I could run and hammer a window at the same time, and I gave up and dashed for my car. The town car was on the street, tires peeling, by the time I started the Chevy Blah and pulled out to follow. I screamed onto the street and saw the town car well ahead, about to turn left.
I mashed the pedal to the floor and was met with a resounding whine of despair as the little car decided if speed was really part of its repertoire, and then I lurched forward as the gears engaged. I hit the end of Steamboat Road and pulled hard left onto Arch Street. At this point there were two options. They could continue on Arch Street and into Greenwich where they could get lost in the surface streets, or they could cut up the onramp onto the freeway, for a fast break toward the warehouse in Stamford.
As I turned onto Arch Street I surveyed the lanes ahead and saw nothing that looked like a black town car. There was a chance they had already gone under the freeway overpass already, and might be lost to me. I scanned across the empty commuter parking lot at the long ramp that led up to I-95.
There, halfway up the ramp, was a black town car. I couldn’t be sure if it was the right one. I couldn’t see the plates and the reflection on the window prevented me seeing whoever was in the passenger seat, if anyone. But I had to make a choice. And instinct told me when spooked they would fly for home, so I pulled right onto the ramp and followed them up onto the freeway.
I was about six cars back. The traffic on the Turnpike through Greenwich was heavy but moving, and we hit the freeway doing all of thirty miles an hour. I stayed in the right lane so I could get off if I saw the town car exit. The first exit was at Indian Field Road, and I saw no one get off.
We dropped to twenty miles an hour as we hit Cos Cob and then fifteen as we crossed the Mianus River. By the time we reached the Old Greenwich exit we were doing no more than five miles an hour. The exit lane there was long and straight, and I watched but saw nothing but a blue Toyota getting off.
After that it was stop-start traffic. We crawled past the Harvard Avenue exit and headed toward the downtown Stamford exits. My phone rang and I pulled it out with one eye on the exits, and answered it with no hands on the wheel. It didn’t matter. I wasn’t moving at all.
It was Sal.
“Hello?” asked a voice that didn’t belong to Sal.
“Hello?” I answered.
“Is this Miami Jones?”
“It is. Who is calling?” I rolled forward about three feet.
“This is Don Mondavi.”
I refocused. “Mr. Mondavi. What can I do for you, sir?”
“Salvatore tells me your situation has escalated.”
“Yes, sir, it has.”
“Young girls have been taken?”
“That’s right.”
“I have a daughter of my own,” he said. “That’s not right, doing that over a misunderstanding.”
I wasn’t sure it was right under any circumstances, but I kept that opinion to myself.
“You’re sure it was
the Kazakh’s men?” he asked.
“There’s no one else involved, sir.” I moved another two feet. I could see the sign for the Greenwich Avenue exit, which I knew was downtown Stamford and the Metro North train station. The traffic wasn’t going to get any lighter anytime soon.
“I’m going to make a call,” he said.
“Yes, sir.”
I think he hung up. There was no further talking and I heard nothing else down the line, but I waited for a minute just in case he was making the call on another line. When the phone finally gave up and disconnected I figured he was gone. I was exactly where I had been for the previous few minutes. I stayed there a few minutes longer. I could see the beginnings of the exit lane for Greenwich Avenue, and the cars trying to get off weren’t moving either.
The town car was somewhere ahead, maybe as little as six vehicles. Fifteen feet per vehicle give or take, plus a couple feet either side for buffer, call it twenty feet by six cars. One hundred twenty feet. From the mound to home plate and back. Not far. Except when you’re not moving.
To hell with not moving. I pulled off into the emergency lane and got a honk like I was a line jumper. The car in front of me pulled slightly right to try and block me from cutting up the inside, as if it offended their sense of fair play. But I wasn’t planning on cutting up the inside.
The emergency lane was pitifully tight and the car still hung out a little into the traffic. I switched off the engine and got out. The woman behind me was tailgating and had gotten in nice and close, so she was going to have a fun time getting around—and she knew it by the savage look she gave me.
I moved to the rear and opened the trunk, and then pulled up the flooring. I noticed for the first time that there was no spare tire in the back, just an empty wheel well where the tire ought to be. What I was supposed to do in event of a flat was beyond me, but I didn’t spend too long thinking about it. Despite there being no spare tire, there was a tire iron. That would do.
I slammed the trunk shut and got a honk from the woman behind despite the fact that the traffic hadn’t budged an inch. I marched off up the emergency lane, past all the stationary cars. For reasons I couldn’t begin to fathom, a cacophony of horns broke out. I realized that pedestrians were not really supposed to be on the Turnpike, but I wondered what it was that they were hoping to achieve with their honking.
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