by L. T. Ryan
No one moved. Someone coughed from the platform. They followed it up with something in Greek. Sounded timid.
“Got it?” the guy shouted.
Three sets of hard-soled shoes backed away from me. I looked around and saw three weapons holstered. Another chance to do something. Not enough of one. As soon as I secured a weapon, the others would be raining bullets on me, orders or not.
“Now get on the damn plane, Jack, and hope that you never encounter me again.”
Chapter 25
AS I CLIMBED THE STAIRS, the breeze grew stiffer. Still smelled of oil and gas and rubber, as though I stood in a mechanic’s garage. The railing felt cool and slick. Half the flight crew boarded before me. The other half followed me in. My escorts remained on the ground. I took a seat on the side of the plane nearest them and stared out the window. One by one, they broke off their gaze and returned to their respective vehicle. Chris remained until the end. He watched me while the jet taxied and was still standing there when we barreled down the runway, his black suit flapping.
Like the drive to the small airport, the flight back was shorter. I figured that was something out of Kosta’s control. Not much was, it seemed. Even had me under it.
To a point, at least.
I’d hand over the letter and I’d make Esau tell me where the rest of the money was hidden. I’d arrange the drop and even bring the money if I had to, so long as it was public. No way in hell was I going back to the house. They could threaten me with anything they wanted and I wouldn’t step foot in there again.
I wondered if Alik could arrange someplace else for us to stay. Would Frank go for it? Would he send some help to deal with the mess, or apply pressure to Kostas? He was one of Greece’s top criminals. Surely he didn’t want the SIS or CIA looking into his dealings. Likewise, Kostas presumably had contacts within the Greek government and potentially in intelligence. That caused all sorts of problems. The kind of problems Frank wouldn’t want to deal with.
The jet crested, hung there for a moment, and then began its descent. The airstrip was in view. The pilot banked left, looped around, then dropped the bird down and landed.
A woman came out and opened the door. She looked at me, smiled, turned, disappeared into the cockpit. They wanted nothing to do with me. I was surprised they hadn’t locked the doors after what had happened on the ground. They must’ve been on the old guy’s payroll. Only explanation.
I rose and made my way to the door, passing bursts of stale air from the overhead vents, happy to get out. At the opening I swept my gaze across the lighted tarmac. At the edge of the wash I saw a familiar sight. Esau’s car. Alik stepped forward. Both hands were out of view. Both held a weapon, I presumed. He nodded. I returned the gesture, then I exited and climbed down the stairs. The whine of the jet engine blocked out all other sounds. Alik turned his head left and right and looked over his shoulders. Even when his head didn’t move, his eyes darted around.
Ten feet away, I said, “Relax, it’s only me. Everyone else stayed behind.”
It didn’t calm him.
“How’d you know I’d be here?” I said.
“They called with the phone you brought,” Alik said.
He’d left the car running. We got inside. He shifted into gear before I had my door shut.
“They say anything worth mentioning?” I said.
Alik shrugged. “Just that you were on a plane and where and when to pick you up. Said I had better be there on time because they had snipers on the ground and if you stood there for five minutes they’d blow your head off.”
Now I understood his apprehension. He hadn’t been afraid of anyone on the plane. I glanced around, wondering whether it was true or if they were trying to get a rise out of us.
“Bullshit,” I said. “Where are they hiding?”
“Don’t know. Don’t care.” He turned onto the road and slammed the gas to the floor. The cabin darkened and filled with diesel fumes. I lowered my window an inch. The wind roared in and out and neutralized the air.
“Did you tell Esau?” I said.
“No,” he said.
“Care to know what happened?”
“Not really.”
“I need to talk to someone about it.”
“Call them when we get back to the apartment.”
“Dammit, Alik. This isn’t over. And until it’s over, we aren’t safe in the apartment. So either get Frank on the phone and tell him we need to move or cooperate and listen to me.”
He clutched the steering wheel with both hands while glancing between the road and me. He jerked to the right and we slid to a stop on the gravely shoulder.
“So tell me then,” Alik said.
He faced me while I told him what had happened at the house, starting with the blindfolded ride, and all the way up to punching Chris and no one doing anything about it.
“So they think you can deliver?” Alik said.
I shrugged. “Guess they’re thinking I can. The money has to be somewhere, right? If Esau doesn’t come up with it, he’s a dead man. And Isadora won’t leave the house alive. They made that clear.”
“You want me to call Frank? Get us out of here?”
I sat for a long moment, staring out into the blackness. Part of me agreed that getting Frank involved was the best option. He could move us. Maybe I could convince him to send some muscle over to help free Isadora. Chances of that were slim, though. Frank was under intense scrutiny lately. Always being watched by someone in the Pentagon. They’d see the movement no matter how hard he tried to hide it. Would only be a matter of time before they tracked it back to me.
“Frank’s out,” I said.
“Why?”
“Only thing he can do is get us off the island.”
“How is that a bad thing?”
“I know you compartmentalize well, Alik. I do most of the time, too. But this isn’t part of the job. It’s become personal.”
He shifted into gear and started the car rolling forward again. “I guess it’s time to shake down Esau then.”
Chapter 26
ALL THE LIGHTS WERE ON inside the cafe when we pulled up to the curb. Someone had placed a large piece of plywood over the shattered window. Perhaps they were there now making the repair. I scanned my surroundings, then jogged over and peered inside. The dining room was empty. A tool bag sat open on a table.
“Let’s go around,” Alik said.
We went in through the side entrance, walked past the stairs, stepped into the cafe. Esau’s door was open. The light was on. He was sitting there tapping on his keyboard. He looked worn down and distraught.
I stepped to the door, knocked on it.
Esau looked up. The monitor splashed blue light over his face. Shadows formed where lines etched his face. The skin under his eyes was dark and puffy.
He got up halfway out of his seat. “Where is she?”
I shook my head as my voice caught in my throat.
Alik spoke for me. “We need to talk with you, Esau.”
Settling back into his office chair, he motioned us in. He avoided our stares. Instead, his gaze swept over his desk. He shuffled loose papers from either end into a hectic stack, then picked it up and banged it against his desk until they were as uniform as they were going to get. He spun and placed them on a low shelf, then turned back toward us slowly. His eyes lingered on his monitor, then shifted down toward his keyboard. He straightened it then picked up the mouse and set it next to the number pad.
“Did you see her?” he asked quietly, still avoiding our eyes.
“I did,” I said.
“And?”
“She’s well. They’ve treated her fine. She…” I didn’t know how much to tell him. Isadora saw nothing wrong with what she had done since it was in response to Esau’s transgressions. But Esau would look at it as betrayal. “She had a small scratch on her face. Told me it was from falling because she tripped over her feet.”
A slight smile formed on Esau’s l
ips. “She’s always been a klutz.”
I said nothing. Neither did Alik. We breathed in rhythm, waiting for Esau to build the courage to ask the next question.
After a few minutes, he did. “So, if she’s not here, does that mean Kostas rejected my offer?”
I reached into my pocket and pulled out the folded note. Held it up and waved it. “He countered.”
Esau reached for the note. I lowered it out of view.
“What?” he said.
“I need you to level with me, Esau.”
“What is it?”
“What did you do with the money Kostas gave you?”
“I told you, I paid for my wife’s botched surgery.”
“Botched?”
“It failed. Didn’t work. Wasted all that money and she died anyway.”
Alik said, “What really happened?”
Esau said, “What do you mean? I just told you.”
“You tried to spoon feed us bullshit.”
Esau’s face reddened and his eyes opened wide and his nostrils flared out. “What are you saying to me?”
I said, “Just want you to be straight with us, Esau.”
The veins on the side of his head and neck stood out. He slammed his hands open-palm on the desktop. The keyboard rattled and the mouse jumped an inch to the right.
“Why don’t you just come out and call me a liar?”
For a few moments the only sound in the room was his ragged breath, fast and erratic, drawing in and expelling out.
“You’re a liar, Esau,” I said.
He lunged forward, but stopped. Whether of his own accord or because his knees hit the desk, I don’t know. Slowly he settled into his chair. His hands rose toward his face. He cupped them over his cheeks and eyes. Pulled down with his fingers pressed tight, drawing his lower eyelids down and revealing the pink flesh underneath. His hands slipped further down his cheeks. He tucked his chin to his chest and stared down at the keyboard.
“What do you know?” he asked.
I said, “That your wife never received the operation.”
“How do you know this?”
I had to craft my words so that I remained a step ahead. Once I informed him that Isadora told me, he’d question why.
“Your niece found all the paperwork. She called the doctor’s office. They told her that your wife never had the surgery.”
Esau nodded slowly. Looked up. First at Alik, then me. “And why did she tell you this?”
“I told you Kostas and his men are being good to her, but she’s still being held against her will. They had guns on both of us when I handed them a bag that contained a fifth of what you’d borrowed. I knew they weren’t going to do anything. She was scared, though. I guess she thought she was buying us time by telling them you never spent the money.”
Esau said nothing.
“My question is why didn’t she know this from the beginning? She was here, right? She would have known your wife never had the surgery.”
Esau shook his head. “We sent her away. I told her Eleni insisted on it. That she didn’t want to burden the girl post-op. She said we were bringing in help. So I arranged a month away for Isa. Time to relax and be a young woman. By the time she returned, my wife had slipped so far she didn’t talk anymore. I made sure the nurse was always at her side to keep my niece from prying around.”
By now he looked like a defeated man. Slumped in his chair. Elbows on the chair arms, supporting his torso. He propped his head up with one hand. Balled the other into a fist.
“So where is it?” Alik said.
Esau said nothing.
“Where are you hiding the rest of the money?” Alik said.
Esau looked away and still said nothing.
Alik stood and leaned over the desk. He grabbed Esau by the wisps of hair on his head and forced him to look up. “You fool. Your niece is in danger of losing her life. Where are you hiding the fucking money?”
“The money’s gone!” Esau shouted. “Gone! I don’t have it anymore!”
Chapter 27
ALIK RELEASED THE OLD GUY and stepped back, kicking his chair. It tipped over and banged against the wall. He looked down at me, held out his hands, shrugged like he’d been defeated.
I leaned forward and placed my arms on the desk. “Esau? What do you mean the money’s gone? What’d you do with it?”
He coughed as he wiped tears from his cheeks and eyes. The redness faded from his skin. “I had a lead. A good one, you see.”
“A lead on what?” I said.
“I couldn’t lose this time. I’d sat out when so many other opportunities came. But I tracked each one, and they were all winners. I knew that the time was right.”
“What are you talking about, old man?” Alik righted his chair and lowered himself onto it.
“The time was right, yes it was.” Esau swiveled ninety degrees and pulled open a drawer. He was muttering in Greek as he rifled through it, then another, and finally the bottom one. He pulled out a slip of paper that looked like it had been folded, dropped in mud, sprayed with water, and trampled on by a pack of wild animals. “Ah, here it is.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“I had the money for about a week or two. Eleni didn’t know about it. I never told Isadora about it. Not like she knew of our finances anyway. Maybe what her mother had told her, but that information would come from my wife, and she didn’t really know everything. So I had the money, got the tip, spent a couple thousand to ship Isa off for a month.”
Alik and I glanced at each other. Said nothing.
“The day of, I told my wife that I was headed to see a new doctor about a procedure. She wanted to go, of course. But I told her she was too weak. If everything went well, we’d have the doctor come here to take a look at her.”
“Day of what?” Alik said.
Esau took a deep breath. His gaze darted between the two of us. He smiled for a couple seconds, wider than I’d ever seen, revealing teeth brown near his red gums.
“I couldn’t lose,” he said.
“Lose?”
“At the track,” Esau said. “It was a sure thing. My source had been right fifty out of fifty times. And this time, it was on a forty to one longshot.”
I leaned back in my chair, dumbfounded at what Esau had said. “You bet the money you borrowed for your wife’s surgery on a horse?”
He shook his head. “Not just any horse. A true lock to win. At those odds, I couldn’t pass it up. It would have solved all our problems.”
“How’d that turn out?”
His excitement and his gaze both fell a notch. He lifted his hand and separated his thumb and index finger a couple inches. “Lost by a nose.”
“Jesus Christ,” I said. “You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me. I risked my neck and you risked your niece’s life over money you lost at the track?”
Esau said nothing, which only served to intensify my anger.
I stood and kicked my chair back and kicked the desk toward him. His knees were underneath, leaving nothing but his arms and chest to stop the desk from colliding with the wall. He flung himself backward, but not in time. The edge smashed into his stomach. He bowed forward with his mouth twisted in a soundless scream.
Alik jumped up and positioned himself between me and Esau. “Not now, Jack. Not like this.”
“Like what then?”
Alik pushed me toward the door. I held up my hands in retreat.
“It’s OK. I’m cool.”
“OK.” Alik backed off.
Esau was waving his hands over his head. His face had turned beet red. He’d either get a breath to his lungs, or have a stroke. Couldn’t tell which. After a few more seconds, he gulped air in with a horrid sound. He took a few more breaths, each a little less grating than the one prior.
A few more seconds passed and he spoke. “I’m sorry, my friend, but it had to be done.”
“How the hell can you rationalize this? Huh? You just a regular d
egenerate?”
He swung his head side to side. “No, not at all. I had the money Kostas had lent me, but it wasn’t enough. It is true that I spoke to that doctor. And I was going to see him. But I asked how much the surgery would cost and I wasn’t even close. I thought maybe there’d be help, but it was considered radical and progressive and no one would help fund it. You see, I had no choice.”
“The house?” Alik said. “How much equity?”
“I told you before,” Esau said. “None.”
“And the cafe?”
“A bit, but not enough to pay back the debt. And it doesn’t make enough money to tempt Kostas. I tried that before.”
I opened the paper Chris had handed me. “The original debt is what he’ll take, minus the twenty percent you already paid.”
“I don’t have it,” Esau said. “I don’t have that kind of money. What you took was all there was.”
I stepped forward. Alik moved to block my path. I held out my arm and nodded at him. “It’s OK.” Then I looked at Esau. “I don’t know what to do for you now. Kostas stated his case clearly. If you don’t pay up, then you and Isadora are dead. And I’m guessing he’s gonna make you watch her die, and then he’ll drag your death out for as long as he can. Old friends or not, he’s not someone you mess with.”
I spun and left the office. Stepped into the cafe and climbed the stairs. The echoes of Esau’s wails followed me to the apartment.
Chapter 28
I STOOD IN FRONT OF the open window, staring out at the darkness. The waves rolled and crashed and the wind carried the salt spray into the apartment. It pelted my face like tiny raindrops. I closed my eyes and remained there while my thoughts drifted, recalling scenes throughout the past couple days.
Nothing Isadora had said or done had directly implicated her involvement in this. I couldn’t find any evidence that she sought Kostas to initiate the downfall of her uncle. But it was clear that she had some idea what they were going to do. Maybe she thought she was helping by telling Kostas what she had discovered. She had pushed back against my help. Every look she had given me said stay away. I thought it was because of how weak I was from my recovery. Kostas must have instructed her to keep outside involvement to nothing. Could the reason she was being held be due to my insisting I could help?