“I am going to make him suffer like I am suffering,” Grazia continued, with fervor. “He took hours of my life from me—hours that only he knows. I want to find out what happened. And then I will punish him if it’s the last thing I ever do!” Anger filled her. “I will cut off his . . . his . . . ”
“Balls,” supplied Janine. “You’re talking about revenge, and revenge isn’t healthy. Revenge poisons the soul. Put that guy in your rearview mirror and start driving.”
“Not revenge, then. Justice.”
“There’s a thin line between revenge and justice. Folks start out saying they want justice, and pretty soon they’re after revenge. Revenge will keep that guy in your rearview mirror no matter how fast you’re driving.”
After their conversation, Grazia looked out at the snowy street for some time. Then she called Detective Cargill. His voice sounded tired but lightened when she identified herself. “Any leads?” he asked.
“I was talking to Edmondo, the night security guard,” Grazia began. “He was telling me that finding the man who assaulted me would be close to impossible and the experience will be horrible for me if we do find him. I’ll have to tell my story over and over. He said the perpetrator could come after me and do worse things than . . . what happened. Now I don’t know what to do. What is your advice?”
“What do you want to do?” Cargill asked.
Grazia faltered. She couldn’t determine if the detective really cared about what she wanted or was posing this difficult question to duck wasting time on the phone with an annoyingly persistent victim. She plunged in.
“Everybody gives me different advice. Janine says I won’t remember everything that happened because the drug prevented me from forming memories. She says I should put the guy in my rearview mirror and start driving. Cindy says that trying to reconstruct painful events before I am emotionally and psychologically able to handle them might delay my recovery and that trying to remember holds me in the past. She says I should use what happened to me to learn about myself and become a stronger person.”
“Cindy’s got all the right words.”
Grazia hurried on. “I went to a hypnotist today to get past my fear. She believes that I have memories of what happened. She unblocked some today, but she stopped the session when I became distressed. She said my brain didn’t want to remember. We made an appointment for tomorrow, in my hotel room. But she isn’t sure it’s a good idea psychologically. Now I’m really confused. What do you think I should do, Detective?”
He was some time answering. At last, he replied. “If you ask me as a police officer, I’d tell you to remember all you can. Then we can locate the offender and achieve some sort of justice, although with drug-facilitated, justice is rarely possible for all the reasons that Edmondo gave you. If you ask me as a human being what you should do, I’d say, think about what kind of life you want from now on. Then ask yourself, ‘Do I need to know this man’s identity to lead that life?’ If you decide you need to know, then continue your search.”
She waited, but that was all. “So I have to know the life I want before I can make this decision?”
“No, you just have to think about it.”
“And thinking will lead to knowing?”
“Maybe. For sure it will lead to more thinking, and then the life you want might just happen by itself.”
Chapter 20
Something was chiming over and over—ping, ping. It dragged Grazia out of her recurring nightmare—the terror, the shouting, the glint of gold. She sat up, nightshirt sticking to her sweaty back. The chiming was a video call to her laptop on the round table.
Het smartphone read Tuesday six a.m. She felt lethargic, groggy, disoriented. Her blurry gaze fell on her suitcase lying open on the floor. Now she remembered. After two hours of tossing and turning the previous night, she had unlocked the closet and swallowed a sleeping tablet. Sleep had arrived so quickly that she hadn’t even replaced the lid on the little vial sitting on the bedside table.
The incoming call was chiming again. She got up and peered at the screen. Francisco. What more could he want? She pulled on her yellow silk dressing gown and glanced in the mirror—pale face, shadows under her eyes. She applied lipstick, ran her hands through her hair, and rubbed her cheeks. She forced a smile and hit “accept.” In seconds, Francisco’s strained face was staring at her, his eyes wild.
“You bitch!” he shouted. “You worthless piece of—”
Grazia clicked “close.” She walked around the room, taking deep breaths. This was one reason she was leaving her job and leaving Francisco. She was sick of his violent temper. When he blew a fuse, the shouting reverberated throughout the office suites. His rage always abated, and he apologized, usually with gifts. But never before had he called her foul names. Grazia put coffee into the coffeemaker. She poured herself a glass of juice and drank it.
The chiming started again. She counted to ten and clicked “accept.” “What’s the problem? And no swearing, please.”
“TV news reporters have been calling all morning. They woke me up at dawn. Some informer told the Building Safety Department and the press about our client, Kourtis.”
Grazia’s throat went tight. Her voice was hoarse. “What did they say?”
“You know perfectly well!” he shouted. “You drafted the contract terms. You’re in New York blabbing to strangers in bars.”
“What are you talking about?”
Francisco rubbed his eyes. “Don’t play games with me. You knew that Kourtis was pouring substandard cement. That’s why you wrote in your draft of his new contract with the construction firm that Kourtis would repour the low-quality stuff he was using. You knew that Kourtis was using refugee laborers from the migrant camps, the ones the coast guard pulled off sinking boats. You must have known they were unsupervised, operating at night under hazardous working conditions. That’s why you drafted that Kourtis had to employ qualified labor and provide safe working conditions.”
Grazia’s lips had gone numb. Francisco wiped his eyes and his mouth with his handkerchief and flung it on the desk.
“Building-safety inspectors raided the Kourtis construction site in the middle of the night—accompanied by all the major media. They filmed police carting off refugees in police vans. The site is shut down along with Kourtis’ other construction sites, pending inspection. Kourtis is in jail without bail. The prosecuting attorney won’t let me talk to him. They’re holding the refugees in deportation cells. You can bet that the prosecuting attorney is promising them asylum if they testify against Kourtis. The law firm representing Kourtis was just on the phone. They’re claiming the informer is one of us. You’re the only one who broke security protocol.”
“Kourtis and I spoke briefly and without details,” Grazia lied, her heart pounding as she thought of the confidential information she might have blurted out at the Brazilian Bar after she was drugged.
Francisco’s eyes narrowed. His voice grew deadly calm. “How did you know that Kourtis was pouring substandard cement? Who told you? Answer me!” Francisco was shouting again.
It was an effort to keep her voice calm. “I went to Kourtis’ construction site one night and talked to the cement workers.”
“You what?”
“It’s part of my job, Francisco, you know that. Every week I visit the construction sites of the clients I represent to make sure they’re on schedule. About two o’clock in the morning, the day before I came to New York, I was driving home from a party and I drove by his construction site. There was hardly any traffic and I had my window open. I heard the cement mixers operating. I had visited the site the previous afternoon and I saw them shutting down the mixers. So I got out and banged on the gate. A worker opened it. The man was African, spoke no Italian but a little English. It didn’t take five minutes to figure out that they were African refugees that Kourtis had bussed in from a refugee camp. He was paying them practically nothing. They were working without lights under dangerous conditio
ns. I saw the cement they were pouring. It was terrible quality. The workers were happy to talk. They knew what cement they were pouring.
“I thought about this a lot, Francisco. People’s lives are at stake here. When I was in New York, I called Kourtis by video call. I explained that I wasn’t going to let him abuse refugee workers. And I wasn’t going to let him construct a building that would crumble in the next earthquake.”
“Why didn’t you tell me!” Francisco raged. He paced the room like a caged leopard, passing back and forth across the screen, behind him the skyline of Naples.
“Because you would have ordered me to look the other way and let the night work finish as quickly as possible. You would have replaced me on the negotiating team with a lawyer who doesn’t care about earthquake standards. So I confronted Kourtis directly.”
“And Kourtis just said, ‘Sorry, Grazia dear, I’ll repour all the cement?’” Francisco’s voice dripped with sarcasm.
“I told him that if he didn’t, I would alert the Naples Building Safety Department.”
“You blackmailed a client!” Francisco slammed his fist on the desk in fury. “Gerasimos Kourtis, of all people. You know his reputation.”
“It’s the only language he understands.” She hurried on. “I told him I had documented everything, including photographs, and sent a copy to a friend. He promised to stop the midnight work and start repouring the cement.”
“But he didn’t. And now some informer has reported him to Building Safety and the press. I’ve issued a statement that my law firm had no knowledge of the situation but the refugees will tell them a woman came by the site and it won’t take long for the press and the Building Safety Department to figure out who you are. They’ll hit me with criminal charges along with fines. And the penalties they’ll hit Kourtis with could ruin him. The TV news is having a field day. We can’t kill this with a bribe or two.” Francisco put his head in his hands.
“Anyone driving by could have spotted the night work going on, like I did,” Grazia said, thinking wildly. “A reporter could have heard the cement mixers churning. Maybe someone from Building Safety drove by. Those refugees were happy to talk. What about Kourtis’ office staff—someone might have had qualms about the substandard cement. When I spoke to him on video communication, we used his system.”
Francisco waved away her words. He reached for a glass of water. A glint of gold caught Grazia’s eye, his gold watch. “We’ve got to shift the blame to someone else. We’ve got to find that informer and show that the informer knew long before we did, and didn’t report it.” Francisco looked at her with deadly calm. “Anything else you’re keeping from me?”
“No,” she lied, wondering how long it would take him to find out she had been drugged and raped and had probably talked about Kourtis to Laura, a lawyer working for the contractor who had hired Kourtis to pour the cement. “Have you notified Miranda Security Systems?”
“Miranda Laterza and her computer security team have examined our Naples office. They claim our system wasn’t hacked. That’s because the leak didn’t come through us. It came through you and your computer in New York. You’re fired. For good, this time.” He broke the connection.
Chapter 21
Grazia’s knees buckled. She sat down hard on the carpet. Her mind whirled. Accusing voices filled her ears: “You talked when you were drugged! You’re the informer!” She clutched her hair and rocked back and forth, groaning. She could visualize herself at the Brazilian Bar just as Laura had described her, laughing and bragging about how she had forced a construction industry giant to bend to her will and repour tons of cement. “Francisco knew you had been out drinking,” sneered the accusing voices. “That means his bodyguards were in New York, following you to the Brazilian Bar. They overheard you bragging about your fantastic work and even more fantastic job interview.”
Her lawyer mind cut through the emotional nonsense. “If Francisco’s bodyguards had been there, they would have escorted you safely to your hotel room.”
The voices were quickly back. “They’re men. They took you there and raped you.”
“Which is worse?” she thought with cynical humor. “To be drugged, then raped? Or to be drugged, then reveal secrets that brought financial ruin to a client and a law firm—and torpedo your career?” The answer was obvious. The second option. Rape could be kept secret. But the Kourtis disaster was front-page news.
Her lawyer self interrupted. “Why is Francisco so certain that there was an informer? Anyone could have talked to the refugee laborers, as you did. Kourtis was taking a huge risk using night laborers. Find out what happened. Find out how the Building Safety Department and the press got the news. Shift the blame off yourself. Save your career.”
Feeling more in control—in fact, with anger rising—she got her smartphone. The most likely informant had to be Laura. Laura’s client was the contractor who had hired Kourtis to lay the cement.
“You traitor!” she lashed out as soon as Laura’s voice came on the line. “You’re following the news, I assume. You heard me at the Brazilian Bar blab about the substandard cement Kourtis was pouring on your client’s construction site. You called the Building Safety Department and they raided the site.”
“Don’t be stupid,” Laura snapped. “If Kourtis goes down, so does our client. You think my law firm doesn’t know what’s happening on our clients’ construction sites?”
“You knew about the substandard cement and the refugee workers?” Grazia couldn’t believe her ears.
“It’s called ‘cutting costs.’ Therefore, my firm would be the last to inform Building Safety about your idiotic client. That’s why I dragged you out of the bar when you started jabbering about cement quality and how you were saving Naples from a building toppling over in the next earthquake.”
Grazia listened in shock. “Did I say the name ‘Kourtis’?” she choked.
“No. And that bar was so noisy, I doubt that you could be heard by many people. But anyone who knows the Naples construction industry could have put two and two together and called Building Safety. Which they did.”
“And it’s lucky they did!” lashed out Grazia, in fury. “That cement would have crumbled in a big earthquake. You should have told your client to make Kourtis stop. You put people’s lives in danger!”
“Some of the cement fit minimum standards, and Naples hasn’t had a deadly earthquake. We tried to make Kourtis avoid night work by offering to extend the completion date with no penalties. But Kourtis was rushing to finish because he had other contracts lined up and he would have had to pay penalties by extending their start dates. We warned Kourtis that anyone could drive by the construction site and see what was happening but he claimed the construction site was locked and the laborers wouldn’t open the gates.”
“But Kourtis agreed to my clause saying he would repour the cement,” she stammered.
“What an ego you have, to tell a cement contractor his morals need an upgrade,” sneered Laura. “Kourtis called us about that silly clause, and we all had a good laugh—after Francisco assured Kourtis that you were safely in New York and wouldn’t be calling Building Safety. Francisco and Kourtis grew up together. There’s nothing they don’t know about each other. I might add, your threatening to blow the whistle on Kourtis was stupid, career-wise. Whistle-blowers always lose their jobs and never get another. Besides, it was dangerous. Kourtis isn’t a man to trifle with.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this Saturday night?” Grazia yelled.
Laura burst into laughter. “First of all, you were drunk out of your mind.”
“Drugged!”
“And why should I tell you? After ten years of not seeing me, you only talked about yourself.”
“But I got sick that night. You could have taken me to my hotel.”
“I called you a taxi.”
“And left me to the mercy of a man who raped me! A friend would never do that.”
“Friend? I didn’t get into La
w Review because you were on the board and said I wasn’t good enough. I didn’t get the job at Francisco Pamplona because you got it. And at the Brazilian Bar I had to smile and raise my glass because you got an interview for the job I wanted.” The line went dead.
Grazia sank to the floor again. She didn’t think; she just sat. Sometime later, she heard a tap on the door. The knob turned, and the door hit the chain. She dragged herself to her feet and looked out the peephole. Sophia.
* * *
“The person who informed Building Safety and the press wasn’t Laura,” Grazia explained after relating what had happened. “Laura already knew about the substandard cement and the refugee laborers. So did her client, the building contractor. So did Francisco. They don’t care about the construction quality. The cheaper they build, the greater their profits. At this point, Francisco only cares that Building Safety doesn’t find out that he knew about the substandard cement. If they accuse him, Francisco will claim that I didn’t tell him and when he found out, he fired me. That will prove his innocence. I will have to go before the legal disciplinary board. They’ll do what Francisco tells them and fine me and disbar me. I’ll never again work as a lawyer.”
Sophia said nothing, just sat with her hand over her mouth.
Grazia went over to the window. Below, the doorman was sweeping away the last bits of glistening snow; pedestrians were stepping over a snow ridge left by the snowplow. New Yorkers were getting on with their day. “Today is Tuesday,” she said with determination. “By Friday I have to know who informed the Building Safety and the press about Kourtis. I also have to know who drugged and raped me. The first will save my career; the second will save my sanity. ”
She turned to Sophia, organizing her thoughts. “Laura said that I talked about cement quality when I was at the Brazilian Bar when I was drugged, although I didn’t name Kourtis. It’s very possible that someone heard me and called Building Safety. If I can find out who at the Brazilian Bar that night is familiar with the construction industry in Naples and knows how to reach an authority in Building Safety, I may have found the informer. The only Italians I know I met that night were Raoul, the other three Italians he was with, and the Italian who bought the champagne. I’m going to find them, somehow, and question them. As for who drugged and raped me, Manuel saw a man bring me back to the hotel. I’ve got to find Manuel.”
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