by Cee Smith
We watched from our position across the street, observed him opening his back door, pulling out a couple grocery bags, and lugging them up the short walk-up to the house. Scout and I didn’t need to communicate to know what the other was thinking. We were perfectly in tune as we watched him set the bags down—a signal for us to exit the car. I had no intention of scaring the man, but I wouldn’t be leaving without information, one way or another.
He procured a set of keys from his coat pocket—the tinkle of keys clanking together as we made our way up the driveway. Ezra unlocked the door, propping it open with one foot as he bent down to retrieve the two bags still placed on each side of his legs. We reached the bottom of the stairs as he moved into the home, and were just outside the door when he turned to shut it.
“Ezra Michaels?” I phrased his name like a question, curious to see if he would offer up his identity to two men—two fit and overpowering men—who showed up on his doorstep unannounced. His reaction would be the basis for how this conversation played out. With one look at Scout, I knew he would take the route of least resistance. His eyes were wide, a bright ocean blue that held no look of tranquility in those depths. He was fearful. In fact, I would go so far as to say that he wasn’t quite so surprised to see two men at his doorstep. With shaking legs and a quivering lip, he took a step closer to the doorway, knowing that there was no way he could stop us from entering his home if we so chose. But then something changed. His expression evened out with the sound of an inhaled breath that seemed to visually show his body relaxing into some knowledge that Scout and I weren’t privy to.
His eyes widened again, and when his mouth dropped slightly, I knew what he was seeing. His face tipped higher. “Stav—”
“Not quite,” I said watching his eyes register that I was not the ghost of Stavros Callas, but someone who bared an uncanny resemblance.
“He was my father. I have some matters I need to discuss with you. May we come in?”
Ezra’s eyes moved from mine to Scout’s as he considered my question. He hesitated a moment longer when he looked back through the house as if he expected someone to walk out at any moment. Scout and I had been sitting outside in the car for the last couple hours; we knew no one was in there but him.
Once inside, I turned to watch as he stuck his head outside one last time before he shut and locked the door. Interesting. Maybe we’re not the only ones looking for him?
“Can I get you gentlemen anything to drink?”
He lifted the bags back up and made his way down a long hallway. Scout merely grunted his response while I told him water would be fine.
Just to the right of the door was a formal living room with furniture still as fresh as the day it was made in the factory. The couch was a buttery black leather with a mahogany coffee table and side table with a lamp that had a large white shade that matched the color of the rug in the middle of the room. Brown boxes were pushed up against the walls like Tetris blocks. We moved further down the hall, but not before I noticed the lamp didn’t have a speck of dust on it. Either they were immaculate and never allowed dust to collect on even the smallest of trinkets or frames decorating the shelves and walls or I was looking at the fruits of my father’s labor. We passed a formal dining room before arriving at the kitchen in the back of the house.
The L-shaped kitchen didn’t allow for much space. There was a small bistro table pushed against the wall closest to the door leading to the backyard. Scout and I hung out against the wall with arms folded as we watched Ezra unload the brown sacks filled to the brim with food. He stopped mid-stride to the fridge, “You don’t mind, do you?” he asked, lifting a package of pre-cut salami.
“No.”
“Please, please. Have a seat. Make yourselves comfortable. I’ll only be just a minute and then I’ll grab us some water and we can move our conversation to the dining room. My apologies, I didn’t—I don’t know you’re names.”
“Dominic. Scout,” I said pointing to ourselves respectively. He nodded his head as if committing our names to memory before continuing unpacking.
Once he was done, he grabbed a pitcher of water as he guided us back to the dining room we passed on the way in.
“Are you sure I can’t offer you something to drink, Scout? Some coffee perhaps?”
“He’ll be fine. Thank you.”
Ezra took one last look between us, as if he wasn’t quite sure what to make of us. On the other side of the adjacent wall, we listened to Ezra root around before he finally came back with two glasses. One of which he placed in front of his seat.
“Here, let me,” he said as he picked up the pitcher to fill our glasses.
His hands vibrated like the impending sign of a train coming. Apparently our presence affected Ezra more than he let on. Never mind the fact that he hadn’t stood still since we saw him on his doorstep.
“I’m assuming you know who I am?” I asked, the moment he settled into his chair at the head of the table.
“You said you’re Stavros’s son.”
“Yes. How did you know my father?”
“He was…he was a dear friend of mine.”
Already I was questioning how close they could have been because he didn’t seem to know me by name. Anyone that would have been a friend of my father’s would have known he had a son named Dominic. The fact that he still questioned our relationship made me even more curious as to who this man was that had access to my father’s accounts and seemed to live a nomad’s life.
“I’m going to cut to the chase here, Ezra…” Ezra gulped, his Adam’s apple sliding up and down his throat. “My father owned various bank accounts, one of which was accessed a couple days ago.” With the mention of bank accounts, Ezra’s eyebrows shot up to his hairline. I could already tell that he was steeling himself to deny his involvement in the withdrawal of that money, but he didn’t know all of what we knew. He was unequivocally the person who withdrew the $500,000, and I already felt heat in the pit of my stomach at the possibility of him lying about it.
“Don’t insult me, Ezra. You look like you’re getting ready to lie, and I don’t take too well to liars. I don’t care about the money. It means shit to me. I’m here for information. Information that I’m sure you have.” My voice took on a gravelly tone that I was sure he could feel thrumming through the table and reverberating in his hands.
The small chandelier hanging above the table rained an amber light upon us, showing the small traces of sweat gathering across his forehead and upper lip. He stole a glance at Scout in the chair diagonal from him, his eyes widening as if he just noticed the muscle sitting at his table.
“I-I…what do you want from me?” He sat up taller, his back pushing painfully into the wood backing of the chair. I thought at any moment he would burst through the back of the chair with the way he kept scooting deeper into his seat. He could scoot across the whole house for all I cared. He would never escape me or the questions I had for him.
“Are you the only person with access to the account?”
“I don’t think so. Last I knew, there were a few people on each account.”
“The ones I could find are dead. What are the accounts used for? It looks like you just moved in. Is it safe to assume that money was used to purchase this house?”
“Ye-Yes,” He swallowed thickly, watching as I surveyed his home from where I sat. There was nothing lavish here, just modest furnishings that were well taken care of, nothing above the means of two office administrators.
He followed my line of sight as if he were double-checking that there was nothing left out that would be incriminating.
“…and the accounts?”
“They’re…they’re emergency funds set up by your father. You don’t know?”
“Emergency funds? What would my father be setting up emergency funds for? Who are these accounts used by?”
“Well, they’re for people like me. Greeks fleeing Greece. Greeks that are starting over.”
I t
ook a look at Scout to see if he was following along with this, checking to see if there was anything that turned up in his research that would allude to what Ezra was talking about, but he looked just as surprised as I felt.
“What do you mean ‘flee’? Are you trying to say that my father was part of some underground railroad for Greeks?”
“Exactly,” he said with the most enthusiasm he’d had since we showed up at his doorstep.
“I’m not quite sure I understand. Why would my father be saving people? What was he saving you from?”
“Dominic, I’m sure you’re a man who can handle himself,” he paused glancing to Scout before continuing, “but I’m not so sure this is something you should involve yourself in. You’re what 29, 30? So that would have made you 18 when he and your mother disappeared. You were old enough to understand what your father was doing, but he didn’t tell you. If he didn’t tell you, it was for your own good. He did it to protect you. I wouldn’t want to be responsible for his son to face the same fate.”
“You’re right. I am a man who can handle himself. Now answer my question.”
He took another sip of water, the tremor in his hands was now more noticeable. He was shaking from his wrist down to the tips of his fingers. His eyes closed just as his mouth descended on the rim of the glass and his neck tipped back, allowing the contents to flush down his fear with a hearty swallow.
When he opened his eyes again, Scout and I were both looking at him, waiting with an uncanny patience for him to continue.
“You can start with how you met my father.”
“Your parents got out at a time when the crime rates in Greece were at an all-time low. When the government was encouraging people to leave Greece to gain an education so that they would come back and share the bounty of their knowledge and hard efforts with their mother country. A lot of us weren’t so lucky.” Scout’s eyebrows furrowed into hard lines as he listened to Ezra slip into the retelling of his past so easily. It was almost as if it were something he relived every day, something that haunted him while he slept.
“I never met your father when he still lived there. He had become a ghost, a name whispered amongst friends with hushed voices in back alleys. It was always someone who knew someone who knew him. By the time I had met him, he had already successfully helped at least ten, maybe twenty families flee from the men who were taking over our town.”
“What happened to my father, my mother?”
“I know very little about the details, but from what I hear, Zephyr made an example of him. I didn’t know much about your father’s operation. In actuality, I think very few people knew the full scope of what he put together for the families he was able to save. Zephyr’s gang was awful. Prostitution, extortion, blackmail, murder, the slave trade—he had his hand in every pie. People feared for their families, their businesses. By the time I was leaving, he damn near had my city wrapped around his fingers. The police were no better. It was literally every man for himself.”
“And this Zephyr?”
“He’s still around, and his reach is encroaching a transatlantic magnitude. A week or so back my wife got a call at her job. She didn’t know who it was, but she said it sounded weird, like they were trying to obtain information from her.”
“What kind of information?”
“You know, it all sounds so simple, but for us it’s not. We’ve been in hiding for years. Many of us have. Some have taken aliases, some have become undocumented workers just so they don’t leave a trail of where they’ve been. He was asking for information like he was some kind of collector, but he wanted verification of all of our names, address, socials. She said this man sounded like he was reading the information to her, but phrased it in a way so it became a question. She got the feeling he knew all the information he was asking for. I didn’t need any more proof that someone knew where we were.”
“And that’s why you took the money.” I didn’t need to phrase it like a question. What I said was rhetorical. I’m not usually one to run away from problems, but even I can assume that would be the logical thing to do. The paunchy man that sat before us didn’t look like he could protect himself, let alone his wife and daughter, so I couldn’t fault him for doing what it took to keep his family safe.
Scout gave me a hardened look, and I could sense his worry in the span of those two seconds when our eyes met. Hailey. Ellie. Two years ago, hell, even six months ago, I would have told him to get the plane ready, like a modern-day cowboy heading off to the Wild Wild West. But now? Now things were different. I was a man with something to lose. Two very important somethings.
There was no doubt in my mind that I would be taking care of this Zephyr person. I would rain down the wrath of all the pain and anger that had burrowed beneath my skin, hollowed out my veins, until pain was what fueled me in my everyday life. It was what I woke to, what I breathed, what drove every aspiration. It was my motivation.
A thought of Hailey flickered across my mind, but I let it fall away, slithering back into the depths from where it had escaped. There wasn't time to sort through everything that circled my head like vultures waiting to descend on my weakened state. Because that's what Hailey made me. Weak. I couldn't deny that I loved her with a passion that set my soul on fire, but that fire had the power to burn me to ash. It was a precarious line I towed—trying to be a good man, a man she deserved, while also remaining true to who I was. Which was a man that wanted to burn everything to the ground until I felt Zephyr's neck crumble beneath my fists. I wanted to stare in his eyes and watch the light drain from him as he struggled for the next inhale. I felt a smirk pull at my lips at the thought.
“Excuse us,” I said as my chair was already pushing away from the table. Scout followed my lead, walking to the formal room we passed on our way to the kitchen. His eyes did a quick once-over of the room.
“Are we on the same page?”
“Absolutely. Let’s make this fucker pay.” I was glad for Scout’s enthusiasm. I knew I didn't have to ask, but I wanted to give him an opportunity to back out. Surely what Scout did for me wasn't exactly legal from time to time, but I had never asked him to participate in what I knew, going in, would be murder. I couldn't even be sure the last time he'd even had to kill someone, and I didn't take it lightly that he would do this for me, for my family—both new and old—because the one thing we had going for us was the fact that it looked like my fathers’ associates knew very little about his home life, specifically that he had a son. We had the element of surprise going for us, but we couldn't rely on that, so my first priority was making sure that the girls were somewhere safe.
I clapped Scout on the shoulder, “Can you secure travel and accommodations for the girls? Somewhere off the grid, no more than five hours flight time to Athens.”
The phone in my coat pocket felt like it weighed a ton with the knowledge that once again I was about to upend our lives, and there was nothing more I could give my wife besides the hope that it would all turn out OK because I certainly couldn't burden her with the truth. We were officially starting in on a wild goose chase and the only thing going for us at the moment was that we knew more about this mob boss, Zephyr, than he seemed to know about me. That would be the only explanation for the fact that I was still alive. Men like him didn't normally leave loose ends, and I was most definitely a loose end in his world.
“Hey honey,” Hailey's angelic voice rung through the line with an unexpected happiness in reaction to my call. I told her when I left that I would most likely only be gone for a day, so I’m sure she didn't expect to hear from me, but she was no doubt happy for the surprise.
“Hi, babe. What's going on?” I tried to act casual about the call, not wanting to trigger any alarms as to why I was calling. She was already suspicious about this “business trip” that I was supposedly on.
“How are things with Jackson?” Jackson was the security detail I used whenever Scout was unavailable to watch the girls. Scout trusted him without ques
tion, so I, in turn, felt comfortable leaving my family in his care.
“He's fine. I haven't seen too much of him because we haven't left, but yeah, everything's fine here. How are things going with you? I figured you'd be in meetings all day. Are you taking a break?”
“Yeah. We'll be wrapping things up here shortly,” I said while watching a mini-van pull into the driveway across the street. A mom and her two kids bustled out of the van, rushing through the cold wind that kicked up to the awning covering their front door. She ushered them through before following them in, their raucous voices muffled with the close of the door.
“Look, Scout and I will probably spend another day taking care of this, but after we’re finished, we can all go on a vacation. I'm arranging for a plane tomorrow, and Scout and I will fly out tomorrow to meet you.”
“I don't understand, Dominic. What's going on?”
“We're all going on a vacation. I can call Clema to help you pack—since it's such short notice—or you can ask her to help. Scout will send Jackson the details, which you'll get in another hour or so.”
“But we don't even know where we're going or what to pack. Or how long we'll be there.”
“Pack a little bit of everything. Pack enough for two weeks, and we can buy anything beyond that. Don't ask any more questions, Hailey. Just do as I say. I'll see if I can give you a call a little later.” I felt the tinge of anger begin to lace my words, but tried to soften the end of my sentence with hope that we would speak later. I could sense the question in the silence that echoed through the phone, the way the background noise amplified across the line. She softly said “OK,” and we ended the call shortly thereafter. Any longer and she would have opened a new line of questioning. Hailey—always the curious one.
I walked back into the house, the heat wrapping around my body, clawing through my jacket to greet me hello. A slight shiver raced up my spine. I shook off the temperature change and made my way back to the dining room, where Scout and Ezra sat.