Chapter 49
In his den two hours later, Monelli, in a black jogging suit, sat at his desk and searched the inscrutable face of Charlie Watts. Dressed casually, white polo shirt and tan slacks, his fit, muscular body filled the chair next to the desk.
“One million dollars by five o’clock Friday afternoon,” said Monelli.
Charlie said quietly, “Not a problem, I presume.”
“Correct. But obviously I’d rather not. That’s why you’re here.”
“But why me? You’ve got lots of, shall we say, skilled people.”
Monelli smiled faintly. “I told you, I was impressed with you, Charlie. Besides, I have a feeling the key to this thing may be in the black community. As I’m sure you know, there’s always some war going on between factions, and it wouldn’t be the first time that one or the other may want to blame my people for something. I want you to look into that possibility. Basically, I need your knowledge and contacts.”
“And how much are you willing to pay for ‘em?”
“How about ten grand for the next two days? Five now and five later.”
Charlie didn’t hesitate. “How about ten now and ten times that if I find her by five Friday?”
Monelli stared at Charlie. Finally he said, “All right, you got a deal. But remember, keep it quiet. Don’t let anyone know you’re working for me, or what your assignment is.”
“Okay. You get me the cash, I’ll get started.”
Monelli nodded, rose and moved around the desk. “It’ll take me a few minutes to put the money together, so come out here, and I’ll get you a photo of Megan.”
Charlie walked out of the den with his new client. In the front hall they came upon Catherine in a long white dressing gown as she moved down the staircase. She looked curiously at Charlie, then glanced expectantly at her husband.
“Catherine, this is Charles Watts. He’s going to help us with Megan. Charles, my wife Catherine.”
Charlie took the hand she offered. “Hello. I’m very sorry about your daughter.”
Catherine looked at him with interest. “You’re going to help us find Megan?”
“I’m gonna try.”
“Charles needs a photo of Megan,” said Monelli. “And maybe tell him what she was wearing. I’ve got some business to take care of for a couple of minutes, so I’ll let you handle that. Charles, I’ll be right back.”
The black man nodded, and Monelli walked back into the den, closing the door behind. Sitting at the desk, he reached for a small carved figure displayed on a wall shelf to his right, along with framed photos of his mother and father. The figure was a rhinoceros dressed in a business suit and carrying an attache case. He twisted the rhino’s head counter-clockwise, and the attaché case popped open revealing a small button. When he pushed the button he heard a quiet snap inside the desk that told him the lock had been released. He then reached down and pulled open a large drawer on the right side, revealing a good-sized metal box. When he lifted the lid, the red-labeled cassette sat on top of several rubber-banded bundles of cash. He moved the cassette aside and extracted one of the bundles.
In the front hall Charlie was looking closely at a small photo of Megan. “A very pretty little girl.”
Catherine cocked her head at him. “Are you a private detective or something?”
“That’s right.”
After an awkward pause she asked, “What did my husband tell you about the ransom?”
He tucked the photo into his wallet. “A million by Friday afternoon.”
She nodded. “Do you have a card?”
“Yeah, right here.” He opened his wallet again, slipped out a card and handed it to her. “I’ve got a phone in my car, so you can reach me just about anytime.”
The door to the den opened, and Monelli emerged carrying a fat white envelope. “Okay, Charles, let’s get you started.”
Chapter 50
At 9:20 pm, carrying a small, black Sampsonite, Robert led a deeply tanned, white-haired man in a black golf shirt and slacks past a sparse crowd of travelers moving through an exit to the pick-up area at Detroit Metro. At the Cadillac waiting curbside, Robert slipped the bag in the trunk while the older man climbed into the backseat and lit up a large Cuban.
As Robert drove quickly through light airport traffic to I-94, in the backseat Mike Monelli took a long drag and exhaled out a cracked window at the night sky. “So, what else do you know about this thing with my granddaughter?”
“Nothin’ much, sir. But that ransom deal’s kinda strange. I mean a mill plus a key, pretty weird.”
“Tells me it’s probably the shines. Fuckin’ animals.”
“Yeah, maybe so.”
“Cause they don’t like us takin’ care of business.”
“Yeah, well, you know the shines.”
“Yeah, I know the fuckin’ shines.”
Chapter 51
The neighborhood looked like it was bombed from the air several years ago—a few abandoned Victorians still standing, the rubble of others piled nearby, but mostly wide-open fields with six-foot-tall weeds flourishing.
On one corner a streetlight illuminated three black teens dancing mock-karate moves on each other, trying to appear as if they were simply hanging out. On the opposite corner, under another streetlamp that also improbably produced light, several older black men were in fact hanging out, sitting on crates and broken chairs, sharing their philosophy of life and passing a bottle in a brown paper bag.
At the edge of this group Charlie was talking to a small, very black man in a wide-brimmed white straw hat. After awhile they bumped fists, and Charlie waved to the others.
Some of them nodded or waved back as he moved to the Nova with the dented roof.
Chapter 52
At the back entrance off the kitchen, Monelli embraced his father. “Pa, thanks so much for coming.”
Reeking of his Cuban, old Mike moved on to hug Catherine in her white dressing gown. “Something like this happening, I’m not gonna come?”
Through tears, she said, “Oh, Dad, it’s so good to have you here.”
He held his daughter-in-law at arms length. “Catherine, I know this is terrible for you, but don’t you worry for a second. We’ll have her back safe and sound in no time. In the meantime, you look more beautiful every time I see you.”
She moved to embrace him again. “Oh, Dad, what are we going to do? I’m so frightened for our baby.”
The old man held her at arm’s length. “Look, don’t worry so much. We been through these things before, especially in the old days. Happened all the time. We’ll have Meg back here in no time.”
“Oh, god, I hope you’re right.”
Monelli to Robert standing there with the suitcase: “Bring it right up to Pa’s room.”
“Yes, sir.”
Robert left, and Monelli headed for the den. “Com’on, Pa. I know you must be tired, but maybe we could talk for a while.”
Father followed son. “No problem.”
“So Pa, how you doing? How’s the knee?”
“I’m fine, for a retired old bum. The knee I feel in morning when I get up. Otherwise it’s okay.”
Catherine followed. “Dad, are you hungry? How about something to eat?”
“No, no thanks.” The old man stopped briefly. “I never eat this time of night. Maybe you got a little glass of wine?”
“Of course, you go ahead. I’ll bring it right in to you.”
In the den Monelli sat behind his desk, his father in an armchair close by. “How’s she taking it?”
“Catherine? All right, I guess. A little hysterical. God knows, if she really knew what’s going on.”
“Meaning what?”
“Well, I told her the ransom’s a million bucks.”
“Yeah, and a key? Robert filled me in.”
“I asked him to.” He sighed heavily. “But it’s a lot more complicated than that.”
Old Mike looked hard at his only surviving son. “C
omplicated?”
Monelli took the red-labeled cassette from a drawer in the desk. “Yeah, it’s all right here. But we gotta wait till she goes upstairs.”
Robert stuck his head in the doorway. “Anything else you need, sir?”
Monelli looked up, surprised. “Oh, Robert. Forgot you were here. No, see you in the morning.”
“Right. Good night.” He nodded at both men and left.
Shaking his head silently, Monelli frowned at his father, waiting for Robert to be out of earshot. Finally he heard the backdoor off the kitchen open and close. “I gotta be more careful around here.”
Then the tinkling of glass preceded by a few seconds his wife’s entrance with three glasses of red wine on a small silver tray. Monelli used those seconds to slip the cassette into a jogging suit pocket.
“Here we are, Dad. Steven, I brought a little for us too. Seemed like a good idea.”
She carried the tray to her father-in-law, who took a glass. Up from his chair, Monelli moved to take the tray from her and place it on the desk. He handed her a glass.
“It’s a very good idea, but I want you to take yours upstairs and climb into bed. You must be exhausted, and I have to talk with Pa for awhile.”
“But...”
“No, I want you upstairs. I’ll be up very shortly.”
She glimpsed the old man looking at his son. She knew from the dead-sure look of her husband’s dark brown eyes that he would not relent. Clearly her only hope was the intercession of her father-in-law. “Steven, I want to hear what Dad has to say about all this.”
When no word came from his father, Monelli took her arm and moved her toward the door. “We’ll talk again in the morning.”
She looked back at her father-in-law pleadingly. “But, Dad...”
The old man did not turn to her. “Go ahead, Catherine. Steven and I need to talk.”
With his hand firmly gripping her arm, Monelli ushered her through the door from the den to the foot of the stairs. “All right, get some rest now. You’ll need it.”
Her eyes moist again, she spoke softly. “Steven, she’s my daughter too.”
His eyes turned even harder. “Catherine, “Upstairs!”
He watched as she climbed the staircase. When she neared the top, he walked back into the den and closed the door.
As he crossed the room, his father asked, “She knows nothing about the business?”
Monelli took the cassette from his pocket and moves to the tape deck in a cabinet behind his desk. “Nothing. I’ve always taken your advice about that.”
“And she hasn’t heard this tape.”
Opening the tape deck door, he slipped in the cassette. “Christ, no.”
He pushed the play button, and the guy’s drawl came from two large speakers, one on each side of the room:
“Listen to this carefully, because these are the conditions for your daughter’s safe return...”
Chapter 53
There were several suggestions from issues of Architectural Digest in the large master bedroom. How much pleasure she had taken in re-decorating this house with almost no concern for budget. How wonderful her life had seemed in those days. How awful it seemed now.
How could she have married someone like Steven and joined her life to a family with a reputation like the Monellis’?
When her own father, a steel plant worker, had died of lung cancer, she had been younger than Megan. Along with her embittered mother, who had worked two jobs, as a waitress and a grocery checker, to support her family of three, Catherine had always blamed the plant’s working conditions for his cancer. She could certainly understand how a father and his family might be victimized by society, and maybe that was why she had so readily accepted Steven’s defense of his family’s reputation.
When she thought about it now, though, the comparison seemed absurd.
Yes, maybe her marriage to Steven had more to do with the fact that her family would never have to worry about money again, with a pleasant little home for her mother and a job for her brother. Yes, Steven had been bright and attractive, but she should have known that a man who had always treated her as a fragile princess or an incompetent girl would inevitably dominate and cheat on her.
She had long suspected he was sleeping with other women, but as with just about everything else in her life as a Monelli, she had managed to avoid seeing, or even thinking about, something so unpleasant. Was she now about to pay for it all with the loss of her only child, truly the light of her life?
The thought was too awful to hold in the mind as she sat on the edge of the king-sized bed and wept.
Chapter 54
In the den Monelli was at the tape deck again, this time pushing the re-wind button. “So obviously you’re the only one, Pa, besides me, who’s gonna hear this. For everybody else the ransom is a million and a key.”
The old man somehow looked older than when he had walked in tonight.
“Yeah. Sure.”
“I mean, if a word about this gets out to anybody inside our business, Pa, I’m a dead man.”
His father shifted in his chair and blew smoke from the Cuban at the ceiling. “Yeah, but look, the thing to remember is what I said before. There ain’t nothin’ new about this. In the old days, with the Black Hand, there used to be lots of kidnappings. One bunch would grab a kid belonged to somebody they was tryin’ to squeeze and hold ‘em till they got what they wanted. Or till they got tired of movin’ ‘em around from place to place in a flour sack or whatever. I remember one day I was four or five, they brought a kid like that to our house, and my mother took better care of that kid than she did of me that week. Then they let him go. The kids never got hurt.”
“Pa, that was the old days. Things have changed.”
“Yeah, but you want my guess, you got the same thing here. From what I hear, Gigante and Carolla ain’t doin’ great business these days, and they want what you got with that pipeline from them Cubans. The chance they would harm that child is next to none. They do, whatta they got? Nothin’. Nothin’ but a war from you when we find out who it is. And kidnappin’s is always hard to keep quiet. Always somebody knows somethin’.”
“So what are you saying? What would you do?”
The old man leans forward in the chair. “Stall ‘em off. Tell ‘em you can’t get that much coke, or DeFauw don’t want you on his show this week, anything. Give it some time, and they’ll get tired of this game.”
Leaning back, Monelli put his hands behind his head. “I don’t know. It just makes no sense for Gigante or Carolla to pull something like this.”
“Then maybe it’s some small timer trying’ to get started, tryin’ to make his balls. It’s the same thing.”
“I’ll tell you, I’m beginning to think it’s somebody black. That makes more sense.”
The old man shook his head. “Coloreds don’t have the balls to do something like this.”
“Some of ‘em do. Some of ‘em are crazy. And in this city, with the mayor and the cops and the schools and every other goddamn thing just about all black, they think they own the fuckin’ place. It’s not like other towns where they still know their place. Here you got all these punk kids drivin’ around in Mercedes and flashin’ all this green, and they want to be runnin’ everything. Anyway I hired a black guy tonight, a private dick, very resourceful type guy. At least I’ll have somebody lookin’ at that possibility.”
The old man showed his son a tired frown. “Let me listen to that tape again. Turn it up a little this time.”
Chapter 55
At midnight, Floods, a glitzy art deco downtown club, was jammed with businessmen and high rollers, players and posers, most of them black, most paired off with a remarkable collection of attractive and provocatively dressed women of all colors. Some were dancing, breaking seemingly ever more elaborate moves, as if there would be prizes awarded later. Others sat, at the bar, at tables and in booths, some conversing in subdued tones, others laughing and talking loud
enough to be heard over the very hot quintet playing on a raised platform in the middle of the room.
In a booth Charlie Watts leaned at a fat man dressed entirely in white, his massive arms around two young women, one blond and one coal black with a shaved head. The fat man was slowly shaking his head.
Chapter 56
Still sitting on the edge of the bed, Catherine used a tissue to dry her eyes. Getting to her feet, she walked out of the bedroom, through the hall past Megan’s darkened room and down the staircase, all with the same deliberate pace. On the first floor she crossed the front hall to the den’s closed door. But there she was stopped by a strange voice coming from inside. Her ear close to the door, she could hear clearly most of the words in a young man’s drawl:
“...you will immediately turn yourself in to Drug Enforcement agents. All of this you will do precisely as I’ve outlined here, and you’ll make absolutely certain none of these demands ever reaches the public, or you will never see your daughter alive again. Not until you’ve been appropriately sentenced, and until it’s clear that you are cooperating fully in the prosecution of your associates, will your daughter be released. Now in closing, a few words from your daughter...”
And now she felt her heart pound even harder.
“Daddy, this is Megan. I’m all right. He’s treating me well. But please do what he says to get me back, because he’s desperate. I love you and Mom. Bye.”
She listened for a few more seconds, but with the sound of buttons being pushed on the tape deck, she opened the door.
A red-labeled cassette in his hand, her husband was turning from the tape deck, surprise and anger covering his dark face. “What are you doing in here? I told you to go to bed.”
With a fierce resolve, she stopped in the middle of the room next to the armchair where her father-in-law was blowing smoke at the ceiling. “Well, for some reason I couldn’t sleep. And so I come down here, and there’s my kidnapped baby on that tape. The one you wouldn’t let me hear.”
Admission of Guilt (The detroit im dyin Trilogy, Book 2) (The Detroit Im Dying Trilogy) Page 14