by Gregg Loomis
One of Lang’s captors thrust him into a chair, confirming it was every bit as uncomfortable as it looked. Another crossed the room, tapped on the glass, and, upon a response, entered.
He returned moments later and motioned his two companions to bring Lang into an even smaller space. Lang’s first impression was the sour odor of stale cigarette smoke.
It took a second or two for his eyes to adjust to the dinginess of the room, more shadow than light. To his right and left, streaks of gilt, perhaps picture frames, their contents hidden in the darkness. On the wall behind a desk, a floor-to-ceiling tapestry, its subject matter undefined in the gloom. Once again a hand on his shoulder forced him into the hardness of a cane-seated chair, this time in front of the desk. It had a marble slab for a top. There were two objects on the stone. The first was an ornate brass ashtray from which a blue tendril of smoke wended toward the ceiling.
The second caught Lang’s attention: a Tiffany lamp, its hand-blown leaded-glass shade bordered with the “Greek Key” design at the bottom of a field of mottled gold. There was no way to be certain, but Lang would have bet the words TIFFANY STUDIOS NEW YORK were stamped somewhere into the brass base, a series of squares into the lead of the shade. If genuine, he was looking at over half a million dollars. Seeing such a valuable antique in these shabby surroundings was like discovering an original Van Gogh hanging on the walls of a college dorm.
“I assure you, Mr. Reilly, it is quite as it left Louis Tiffany’s shop in 1901. One of his better Favrile designs.”
Only a faint trace of an accent.
The speaker’s face was obscured in shadows, an effect Lang was sure was intentional. What he could see was a man in a dark business suit, the white shirt open and without a tie. The rest was concealed behind the desk.
“Coffee, Mr. Reilly?”
Lang knew coffee played an important social role in Greek life: sharing a cup was a sign of friendship, relaxing over a cup an end to the day. Greek coffee was finely ground, looking like American instant but nothing like it in taste. Brewed three times in a metal cup-like device, a briki, and served with the grounds in the cup along with the sugar added during the brewing process.
“You have the advantage: you know who I am, but I don’t know you.”
A gaily colored ceramic cup appeared, its savory aroma overpowering the stench of the cigarette. “Glyko, one of the 49 different degrees of sweetness,” the man said, a non sequitur. “I hope it not overly sweet to your taste.”
Lang took the cup. “You didn’t have to kidnap me to make me drink Greek coffee. I rather like it anyway.”
A chuckle. “I question your willingness to leave your hotel with my men voluntarily.” In the chiaroscuro of the Tiffany lamp’s light and the darkness of the room, the speaker’s hands seemed to flutter like wounded birds as he spoke. “And go ahead, enjoy your coffee. If I’d wanted to poison or drug you, there would have been no need to bring you here. Besides, it is necessary you have your facilities for this, er, chat.”
So that was it: the guy wanted something he had guessed Lang would be reluctant to give. Stir in a little strong-arm, add plain, old-fashioned fear, and season with a demand. The formula was as old as Hercules’ penance and the 12 tasks. The trick was to not appear intimidated. Easier said than done.
Lang took a tentative sip. Good thing he liked his coffee strong. This stuff could have stripped paint. “First, I’d like to know who you are and what, exactly, do we have to chat about?”
The man leaned forward, his face visible for the first time. Short-cropped white hair topped off a weathered face, the visage of a man who had spent perhaps too much time in the Aegean sun. There was nothing worn about the eyes, though. They sparkled as if this whole affair was a source of merriment.
“You can just call me Alex. If you ask around, the people around here will tell you I usually get what I want.”
Lang recalled those in the street when he was obviously being forced into this building. They had shown no more interest than had he been the postman going about his rounds. Alex, or whatever his real name was, must be the equivalent of the local godfather.
“Okay, Alex, what is it you want?”
“I think you know, Mr. Reilly.”
Lang took a long sip of the super-octane coffee that managed to be both bitter and sweet before he replied. “I’m not fond of guessing games. Why don’t you tell me?”
Alex smiled, his teeth the color of old piano keys as he stubbed out whatever was smoldering in the ashtray. “Your foundation has a blood sample we want. I think you know of what I speak. What will it take to get it?”
Blunt enough.
“Who is ‘we’?”
The Greek’s face retreated back into the shadows. “That really doesn’t matter. The question is, how much?”
Lang was suddenly aware the two of them were alone; the three men who had brought him here had slipped away silent as ghosts. He had little doubt, though, they were still close enough to instantly reappear should they be needed.
He sat back, getting as comfortable as the bare wood back of his chair permitted. “If you mean money, the simple answer is, there isn’t enough. The Foundation has funding beyond your means, I assure you.”
There was the sound of a match striking, a flare of flame illuminating the face, and a puff of smoke. Again, the smell of a cigarette. “Let us not pretend to be naïve, Mr. Reilly. Any offer we make is to you personally.”
Again, the plural pronoun with the indefinite antecedent.
“Thanks, but no thanks. And if you were planning on making a monetary offer, the strong-arm display was hardly necessary.”
From the darkness on the other side of the desk, Alex tisk-tisked. “Understand, Mr. Reilly: we will have that blood sample even if we have to resort to . . . ah . . . less pleasant means.”
“Such as?”
A grainy black-and-white photograph floated across the desk, landing upside down in front of Lang. Even so, he had no trouble recognizing Manfred playing with Grumps in the front yard of the Lafayette Drive house. The newly planted row of impatiens in the background told him the picture had been taken in the last day or so.
“The little boy, you must love him dearly. It would be a pity if something happened to him.”
Bastard! Lang fought the surge of rage that, if not restrained, might cause him to do something foolish.
“His mother and I take care nothing does. Great care.”
The seemingly detached hands made a steeple. “Accidents do happen even to the most careful. In fact, right now in Atlanta, in Ansley Park . . .”
There is a time for apparent acquiescence and a time for immediate, violent opposition. The latter was becoming a more desirable option. Lang thought of the deep laceration in Gurt’s hand, the feeling of helplessness when he had returned to an empty hotel room. It might just be time to demonstrate to these people, whoever they were, that the blood sample was not worth the cost.
“. . . there are men approaching your house. Lafayette Drive, I believe. Manfred . . . that is his name, is it not? Manfred . . .”
The question went unanswered.
Standing, Lang grabbed the Tiffany lamp and smashed it against the desk, a crash of shattered glass. He paused less than a second, enjoying his antagonist’s horror as he realized his near-priceless antique had been reduced to the value of a broken beer bottle.
Lang leapt across the desk, hammering it with the brass base. “Your skull, next, Alex. Not every man gets the chance to die by having his head bashed in by something designed by Louis Comfort Tiffany.”
Lang didn’t have to hear the door behind him open to know Alex had summoned his crew of uglies; he had anticipated it. Now on the same side of the desk, he slipped the base over the man’s head, a hand on each end as it rested across the Greek’s throat.
“Come on in, folks. Please note I’m not holding your boss in front of me just for fun. Makes a rather effective shield, don’t you think? May as wel
l put those guns down. See the position of the brass bar here? One good pull and the man’s neck snaps like a matchstick.”
To demonstrate, Alex was snatched upward, his hands fruitlessly tugging at the bar that was choking him while feet kicked empty air like a man just hanged.
“Tell them to go away, Alex,” Lang said quietly. “And, oh yeah, I want to see my cell phone and Glock on the desk along with their weapons before they leave.”
The three men looked at each other in indecision.
“No, no, guys. Over here! Alex, tell Larry, Curly, and Moe there to do as I say.”
Lang relaxed the pressure slightly, allowing the Greek to suck air into his lungs. He croaked something in Greek, and the trio started to back toward the door.
Lang gave a sudden pull on the brass base, sending Alex into a paroxysm of gagging and choking sounds. “Naughty, naughty! I clearly said weapons, including mine, on the desk there!”
With glares of hatred, one by one, the three laid down two Glocks, one of them Lang’s, a Heckler & Koch P30, and a Colt 1911A .45 automatic. And the iPhone. Sullenly, they filed out of the room.
The lamp base tightly across Alex’s throat, Lang marched him around the desk, stopping to shove three pistols into his belt along with his own Glock, a difficult maneuver while keeping pressure on the lamp base.
“We, you and I, are going for a little walk,” Lang announced.
His prisoner turned his head as far Lang’s grip on the lamp base allowed to give him an apprehensive look.
“Not too far, just far enough that your goons will be out of range.”
“You’ll pay for this, Reilly,” the Greek panted. “You’ll pay if it’s the last thing I do.”
They were at the stairs.
“How smart is it to be making threats in your position?” Lang asked lightly. “And as for the last thing you’ll do, try something cute right now. Sorry, but we have to take these steps one at a time.”
And so they did, each man stepping down at an angle so that Alex provided a shield for Lang. At the bottom was the door to the street.
“Open it,” Lang ordered.
“Open it yourself.”
Lang realized his predicament: by reaching to open the door, he would expose a good part of his body to the one or two men outside clearly visible through the glass. Would they risk taking a shot that might well hit Alex? No way to tell.
“And choking me with that lamp doesn’t help,” Alex gloated. “The second I fall over, you are a target.”
CHAPTER 38
472 Lafayette Drive
Atlanta, Georgia
At the Same Time
(12:20 P.M. EDT)
Manfred, home from day camp, was impatiently waiting at the kitchen table for his favorite lunch: peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Gurt had conceded her campaign of salads and raw veggies. Not even Grumps showed interest in the freshly sliced carrots, radishes, and celery that went untouched on the little boy’s plate. The dog did, however, gobble up the slices of hard-boiled egg.
Gurt was at the antique chopping block in the center of the room, making sandwiches. Maybe PB & Js weren’t the ideal healthy lunch, but they were low in cholesterol and a good source of the vitamins and protein a growing child needed. And one of only two vegetable sources of protein. And, with the substitution of fruit spread instead of jelly and freshly baked wheat instead of white bread, the calorie and fat content went down. At least, that is what she told herself as she gripped the bread knife and sliced near paper-thin cuts from the loaf.
Anything, almost anything, was better than the candy most of Manfred’s contemporaries had for breakfast, frosted this, sugar-coated that. Lunches of hot dogs, low-grade beef and pork by-products with sodium, fat, and nitrates. And enough preservatives to mummify half the pharaohs of Egypt.
Small wonder obesity was rampant in the country. No small wonder so many children became fat adults. Like it or not, Manfred was going to grow up healthy, healthy and . . .
Grumps suddenly awakened from his twenty-three-and-a-half–hour daily nap with an energy not normally seen. Claws scratching for traction against the floor’s tiles, he galloped to the front door, barked, turned, and dashed back through the kitchen to the door outside where he waited expectantly, tail a blur of wagging. Other than that exhibited at Manfred’s daily return from school when in session, the garbage collectors, and, occasionally, the postman, this was more action than Grumps usually displayed in a week. Even the neighbor’s trespassing cat elicited less excitement.
Someone had come to the front door, then walked along the side of the house to the backyard, Gurt guessed. From the kitchen, she would not have been able see the dining room windows, which the visitor would have had to pass.
Had she remembered to lock the door when she and Manfred had come in?
Manfred looked up from his sandwich. “Who the fuck . . .?”
Manfred, like most children, had a hard time remembering to do his homework, but once an expletive fell on his tender ears, it rarely left his vocabulary. This particular vulgarity, acquired in one of Lang’s more unguarded moments, had earned him multiple time-outs in his room, a visit to the office of the stern-faced principal of Westminster’s Lower School, and a threat that sterner discipline was on the way should “that word” be spread like an infection among his playmates, an almost certain means of ensuring a verbal plague.
This time it would, arguably, save his life.
“Manfred!” Gurt snapped. “You have just earned yourself an afternoon in your room!”
“But Mom . . .” came the inevitable appeal, “Winn Three was coming over to play video games . . .”
“No video, no phone.”
Gurt could once again be thankful that at age seven her son was not sufficiently proficient at spelling to begin texting his peers. That, like acne, dating, and driving, were joys she had ahead of her.
She pointed toward the stairs. “Now!”
Head down, as though walking his last mile, Manfred trudged up the back stairs, followed by Grumps. Gurt could have sworn the dog was glaring at her.
She had no time to contemplate the possibility.
The kitchen door slammed open.
Two men were on the threshold. One, his hair hanging below his shoulders in dreads, wore jeans and a light windbreaker despite the season. The other, with cornrows, was similarly dressed. Both were large and threatening. And both had extended magazines in the identical Glocks they were pointing at her.
Proof she had, in fact, not locked the door.
“De kid, where de kid?” Cornrow demanded.
“Not here,” was the best answer Gurt could come up with on short notice. “Lady, you lie!” Cornrow asserted. “We seen him in de car when you drove in.”
Not only had she carelessly left the door unlocked, she had been oblivious to her surroundings. Men like this would be as obvious in Ansley Park as a grazing dinosaur.
The glance Dreadlocks was giving her body did little to make her feel more at ease. “He be here somewhere.” He nodded to Cornrow. “Whyn’t you go upstairs an’ takes look while I watches Goldilocks here?”
Without reply, his companion headed for the stairs.
“No, really . . .” Gurt began.
Dreadlocks took a step closer, close enough that the muzzle of the Glock touched Gurt’s throat. His other hand was on her hip, moving north.
She took a step back, her spine now pressed against the butcher block. Both the pistol and Dreadlocks’ body pressed against her. With her left hand, she pushed back against his shoulder while the right searched the worn wood.
“Hello?”
The voice came from the open kitchen door. Over Dreadlocks’ shoulder Gurt caught a glimpse of what might have been an Old Testament prophet, except he was black. He had a flowing beard only slightly longer than his hair, and he was thin to the point of emaciation. He was fixed on the scene before him. Gurt had heard of eyes big as saucers, but she’d never believed i
t until now. But there was something . . . She was sure she had seen him before. But where?
“Ma’am?” Leon’s plan for atonement had not anticipated Dreadlocks or Cornrow.
Dreadlocks whirled, the Glock coming to bear on the intruder.
At the same moment, Gurt’s fingers closed around the serrated bread knife she had left on the butcher block. Planting it in Dreadlock’s back, right under the rib cage, would be her easiest line of attack but not instantly fatal. She could ill afford alerting Cornrow, who had just found Manfred, judging by the little boy’s terrified screams from upstairs.
She jumped on his back, left hand full of matted hair, snatching his head back and exposing the throat.
He managed a surprised “Ahhh . . .” before the bread knife’s blade sawed into his neck just under the ear and pushed outward, severing the right cervical carotid’s sheath, cervical fascia, jugular, and vagus nerve in nanoseconds. He bucked with what strength he had, throwing Gurt to a floor already slick with blood.
Fury or fear or both widening his eyes, he faced her as he slowly sank to his knees, the gun level with her face. She simply pushed it away, and it clattered to the floor as his grip loosened.
She ignored the gasping for breath, the splatter of crimson as his weakening heart futilely pumped blood to the brain. Her sole concern at the moment was that he not cry out to warn Cornrow, an unlikely possibility with a slit throat.
On hands and knees, she skidded across the slippery kitchen tiles to snatch up her victim’s Glock.
Weapon in hand, she held onto the chopping block, then the counter to steady her way to that point where back stairs ended just outside the kitchen, pressing against a wall so she was invisible to anyone descending. From the sounds she heard, Manfred was not coming easily, each step accompanied by his screams and growls from Grumps.
Cornrow entered the kitchen, one arm around the little boy’s throat, the other holding a Glock to the child’s head.
He took a step, his back now to Gurt, and came face to face with Leon. “The fuck . . .?”
Leon the peacemaker, hands extended, moved toward Cornrow. “Man, don’t . . .”