by Nele Neuhaus
“Would you like something to drink?”
“Yes, please.” Alex tried to get her panic under control and stop her trembling. She had to get out of this house right away! She wished she could fly home to her parents in Germany this very second. What the hell had she gotten herself into? Sergio handed her a glass of whiskey and observed her with a penetrating look. He seemed to be wondering if she’d really eavesdropped at the door.
“Did you understand anything I just said to Cesare?” he asked her in Italian. Alex’s brain was still functioning and instinctively reacted the right way.
“I don’t understand what you’re saying,” she said with a slight smile. “Maybe you could speak English with me.”
“No, it’s all right.” Sergio smiled and took the empty glass from her hand. Then he put his arms around her and kissed her cheek. She almost pushed him away, but managed to control the impulse.
“Cesare is somewhat overzealous at times,” Sergio said softly. “He scared you.”
“He tried.” Alex managed to smile. “But people don’t scare me that easily.”
After everything she had learned about Sergio, nothing in the world could frighten her anymore. Senators, bank executives, the governor of the State of New York, judges, and lawyers were sitting out there. There was no way that they knew the whole truth about Sergio Vitali! Don Sergio, indeed, commanded an army of killers, paving his own path with money and murder.
“Come, cara,” Sergio said, “let’s go outside to my guests. We’ll drink another glass of champagne and enjoy ourselves.”
“Yes,” Alex mumbled, a little dazed. “Yes, that sounds good.”
A dark shadow had fallen over her entire life that evening. In desperation and dread, she asked herself what she should do.
Frank Cohen yawned and rubbed his eyes. His watch read quarter past ten. Besides him, only security guards and cleaning crews were still at city hall. There was such a flurry of activity at the mayor’s office during the day that Frank saved matters requiring more concentration for the evening. The last two evenings, he had been researching Donald Coleman—an African American preacher from Harlem who was stabbed outside his church by unknown assailants fifteen years ago. His death had nearly triggered a riot at the time and made a martyr out of Coleman. Tomorrow Mayor Kostidis would inaugurate a youth center named after Donald Coleman. The East Harlem center would employ social workers to look after street kids in one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods. The building had a library, a computer lab, and a counseling center for teenagers who were down on their luck or addicted to drugs. The printer spewed out four pages containing all the information about Donald Coleman that Frank was able to gather. The mayor would skim through them for two minutes tomorrow—two minutes attention for at least eight hours of work—and then give a brilliant, affectionate speech about Coleman for the opening ceremony’s guests, as if they’d been close friends for many years.
Gathering his papers and turning off the computer, Frank smiled to himself. Without a doubt, Nicholas Kostidis was the most impressive person he’d ever met. He’d gotten to know him about twelve years ago, when Kostidis was an assistant US attorney at the Department of Justice in Washington DC. Frank had just graduated with honors from law school and had managed to snag one of few highly coveted internships at the Department of Justice. Frank was assigned to work on Kostidis’s staff, and he was immediately fascinated by his boss. He had inexhaustible energy, cunning intelligence, and inspiring charisma. Nick Kostidis was straightforward and incorruptible, ambitious without seeming arrogant. Fighting crime was dear to his heart—in contrast to many other people who had only their political careers in mind. It was typical for him to work sixteen-hour days, and he demanded complete loyalty and hard work from all of his staff members. In return, he was an unconventional and generous boss. He hated pedantry and bureaucracy almost as much as organized crime and drug trafficking, which he had combated directly as the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York. Nick Kostidis’s enthusiasm was often called fanaticism by his adversaries, and Frank had to admit that it sometimes really seemed that way.
Frank vividly remembered the winter of 1984. After months of intense preparation for the RICO indictment against the city’s leading Mafia bosses, Kostidis had been just a shadow of himself—pale with dark lines under his eyes, driven only by his almost inhuman energy. He lived for his work. Sometimes it was downright frightening to see him in his office ready to accomplish his mission after five hours of sleep, setting a pace that even much younger staff members couldn’t sustain. Nick Kostidis set very high standards, yet he was tough and courageous, and willing to give it all he had. Moreover, he had an infallible instinct for dealing with the media. He was never afraid to state his opinion bluntly in front of running cameras. The majority of New York City’s population loved him for it, but there were also many people who hated him because he posed a threat to their lucrative—and in most cases illegal—businesses. Over the years, Frank had come to the conclusion that you either had to love or hate Nick Kostidis. At the very least, you couldn’t be indifferent to him.
Frank never regretted that he hadn’t become a lawyer like his father or his brothers. Fate had introduced him to Nick Kostidis, and Frank was grateful for that. Although his job was stressful and didn’t pay particularly well, the position as the closest assistant to the mayor of New York City held new challenges and assignments every day. Frank was confronted in his work with a sense of life’s incredible highs and lows that could only exist in a metropolis like New York. Wealth and misery, crime and charity bloomed and faded rapidly like colors in a kaleidoscope. The biggest bright spot was Nick Kostidis, this incredible man who never neglected humanity because of politics. Frank would never let Nick down in his tireless effort to fight for improving people’s lives in New York.
The telephone rang.
“Good evening,” he answered.
“You’re still there,” said an unpleasantly droning voice.
“Hello, Mr. McDeere.” Frank closed his tired eyes. “What can I do for you at this late hour?”
Truman McDeere was the FBI agent who’d been assigned to guard key witness David Zuckerman. Frank didn’t like this bald man with his grim expression and jaundiced face. He’d met him during the indictment of the city’s Mafia bosses and was happy when their collaboration ended.
“Where can I reach the mayor?”
“He’s out on private business tonight. Would you like to leave him a message?”
“I have to speak to him urgently. Something happened that he should know about.”
It was very unusual for the otherwise arrogant McDeere to stammer so sheepishly.
“Did something happen to Zuckerman?” he asked and opened his eyes.
“Yes, God damn it! He’s dead. We had fifteen men in the freaking hotel!”
“My God!” Frank jumped up so violently that he hit his knee on the desk drawer. “You’re kidding, right? Was it suicide?”
“No,” McDeere said meekly. “He was shot—with a suppressed forty-five.”
“Shit.” Frank sank down on his chair and rubbed his hurt knee. His thoughts raced. Nick had put all his hopes on Zuckerman’s testimony. He was sure that he could finally get Sergio Vitali with the help of this man. Zuckerman’s initial arrogance wore down during his months in jail. He’d virtually fallen apart over the past weeks. Last night, he had made the surprising decision to testify in front of a grand jury. He announced that he would reveal everything about the corruption scandal case surrounding the construction of the World Financial Center, which had fizzled out due to a lack of evidence. Zuckerman had rambled about bribery and extortion, falsified building applications and plans, excessive cost calculations, and price fixing. His testimony would have been more than unpleasant for Sergio Vitali. At the first grand jury hearing in November of last year, Zuckerman had taken his lawyer’s advice and pleaded the Fifth Amendment. Although this was considered a clear admission
of guilt, the US Attorney’s Office closed the investigation. Kostidis’s anger went through the roof. He did everything he could to keep Zuckerman locked up and to reopen the case. He’d succeeded in appointing a new investigation committee to make absolutely certain that Vitali wouldn’t be able to get away this time. There was no doubt that Nick would be devastated to hear of Zuckerman’s death.
Just two days before, Zuckerman had been transferred from the Metropolitan Correction Center to a hotel in a cloak-and-dagger operation while guarded by fifteen FBI agents. Their job was to keep him completely shielded before his testimony. And now he was dead. Shot dead. It was quite clear that Vitali had found out about Zuckerman’s decision to cooperate with the authorities, contracted an assassin, and duped the FBI. Frank sighed. He would have liked for his boss to spend a quiet evening with his wife, but he had to deliver the bad news right away before the mayor read about it in the morning newspapers.
“I’ll inform him right away,” Frank said to the FBI officer. “Thanks for calling, Truman.” He hung up and rushed out of his office.
“Fucking bullshit,” he muttered on his way out the door.
A half hour later Frank was standing with his boss. He had been expecting a fit of rage over the FBI’s stupidity, but instead Nick Kostidis merely acknowledged the news with a resigned nod of his head. He let himself sink onto one of the benches outside Central Park’s Delacorte Theater and rubbed his eyes wearily.
“Vitali is behind this, there’s no doubt,” he said in a somber tone.
Muted voices and applause could be heard from the theater’s fully occupied semicircular pavilion.
“I’m really sorry,” Frank said quietly. In the bright light of the park lanterns, he noticed the wrinkles and dark shadows on Kostidis’s face, and saw that the fire in his eyes had gone out. Kostidis looked as if he had aged years in the past few minutes. His energy and enthusiasm had vanished. Kostidis stared at his closest staff member for a moment and then sighed.
“Sometimes I wonder whether I’m doing the right thing or making big mistakes because I’m too zealous.”
“Mistakes?” Frank was taken aback. He didn’t think of his boss as someone who doubted himself.
“Yes.” Kostidis leaned back and closed his eyes. “Zuckerman would still be alive if I hadn’t insisted on keeping him locked up for so long until he came clean. Now his wife is a widow and his children are fatherless. He’s dead, and we still haven’t made any progress.”
Frank was shocked.
“Vitali is stronger than me,” Nick Kostidis continued. “He’s stronger because he’s ruthless. Because he has no conscience and doesn’t give a damn about human lives. What have I done?”
“But Nick,” Frank objected, “we did the right thing. How could we possibly know that Zuckerman would be murdered? With his testimony, we could have killed ten birds with one stone.”
“Do we really have the right to risk someone’s life in the name of justice?” Kostidis opened his eyes. “I’m not so sure about that anymore. I used to think that I was doing the right thing.”
His boss’s doubts and dejection affected Frank more than any fit of rage could have, but he couldn’t think of what to say to console him.
“Go home, Frank.” Kostidis placed his hand on the younger man’s shoulder. “You’ve more than earned your time off after work.”
Frank nodded. “I didn’t mean to spoil your evening, but I thought that it would be better for you to hear the bad news from me than the radio.”
“Yes, you’re right. Thank you.” Nick Kostidis sat up straight, now that the first spectators poured out of the open-air theater. “Call Jerome Harding and Michael Page. I’d like to meet them tomorrow morning at ten o’clock in my office.”
“On it,” Frank nodded. He said goodnight to his boss and headed home with much on his mind.
Mary Kostidis slowly flowed with the crowd and searched for her husband. Once again, something so important had happened that it couldn’t wait until morning. She hadn’t been able to follow the rest of the theater performance because she wondered what was going on. When she finally caught sight of him, his facial expression said everything.
Mary had known her husband for thirty-two years. She had always supported him and admired his dedication, but she observed with concern how hard he fought. The wrinkles in his face had grown deeper, and the first gray strands had begun to appear in his thick dark hair. As the mayor, he was more vulnerable than ever before. He was always in the public eye, and any small mistake he made was greedily seized upon and mercilessly exploited by his enemies. He had been so tense the past few weeks that he didn’t often really listen to her. Something occupied his mind, but she knew that pushing him for information was pointless. He would tell her if he deemed it necessary. On the outside, Nick appeared as strong and fearless as ever. His circumstances and the grueling years of fighting had made him hard as granite, but on the inside, he remained a sensitive and compassionate human being who suffered when his efforts failed.
Mary was often worried about her husband because he antagonized many powerful men. He had never been afraid. She still loved him as much as when they first met in the reading room of the New York Public Library. Mary admired his ambition and straightforwardness and loved his ability to admit defeat gracefully. Time and again, he foiled other people’s business with his plans. He had been at the receiving end of many death threats, hostile newspaper articles, and anonymous phone calls. But none of this ever deterred Nick from doing what he thought was right. Mary was worried, but she never bothered him with her concerns. If there was anyone who knew what he was doing, it was Nick. She’d support any actions he took to fulfill his lifetime dream of improving the quality of life for the residents of New York.
“What happened?” she asked when she reached her husband.
“David Zuckerman, the man who agreed to testify in front of the investigation committee, was shot,” Nick said after they had been walking for a while. “Frank was here and told me.”
“My God!” Mary knew how much it meant to her husband to find a witness to provide testimony against Sergio Vitali and to nail his powerful enemy—who had triumphed over him time and again. “That’s terrible.”
“No,” Nick said, walking with his head down. “It’s sickening.”
They left the park through the Metropolitan Museum exit. Passersby greeted Nick, but he didn’t respond. Nick was normally in his element in public, known for having an open ear for anyone, but tonight he looked exhausted. They crossed the street, and Nick signaled the passing taxis.
“I wonder whether Frank has a private life at all,” he said pensively.
Mary smiled and shrugged her shoulders.
The third taxi stopped.
“Christopher is coming home this weekend,” Mary said as the yellow taxi turned from Fifth Avenue onto Eighty-Sixth Street toward Carl Schurz Park, the location of Gracie Mansion.
“Oh,” Nick mumbled, lost in his thoughts, “how nice.”
“He’s bringing his girlfriend.” Mary noticed that her husband wasn’t really listening. “He wants to introduce her to you. You can spend some time with them on the weekend, right?”
“Pardon me?” Nick gave his wife an apologetic look. “I was just thinking about something.”
Mary sighed and patiently repeated what she’d said.
“Chris has a girlfriend?” Nick asked in surprise. “This is the first time I’ve heard about it!”
“That’s why he’s coming to the city,” Mary replied. “Her name is Britney Edwards, and she’s studying art history and philosophy at Harvard. Her family lives somewhere in the Hudson Valley, and her father is a high-ranking officer at West Point.”
“Aha. And how serious is Chris about her?”
“I think he’s very serious. He told me he wants to marry her.”
“Get married?” Nick stared at his wife in irritation.
“Why not?” She laughed. “After all, he�
��s already twenty-nine. We were already married and had a child at that age.”
“Yes, sure, but…” Nick shook his head. Unbelievable that their boy was already twenty-nine. It felt like his first day of school was just yesterday. How quickly time flies! Christopher was a good kid who had never caused him any trouble. High school, Air Force, and medical school. Now he had a good job at Washington Memorial Hospital—his résumé was exemplary. And he had never reproached Nick for spending so little time with him. He’d never blamed his father for rarely going to the ballpark or the movies like his friends’ fathers did.
“You realize how old you are when you look at your kids,” Nick said and wiped his hand across his face. “I have so many plans for the future, but more and more, I feel that time is running out.”
“You’re not old, my love,” Mary said, grabbing his hand. “You’re a man in his best years.”
“That’s tactful.” Nick’s smile was bitter. “I feel ancient. Everything’s getting harder. I used to be so enthusiastic, so sure that I would be successful. And now…”
He fell silent.
“Don’t take Zuckerman’s death personally.”
“I don’t. It’s just the situation. I’ve failed. It’s not like in the movies where the good guys always win.”
“Are you sure that Vitali is behind this assassination?”
“Yes, I’m pretty sure.” Nick sighed. “Somehow he found out that Zuckerman agreed to testify. And he acted immediately. I blame myself that I pressured this man into cooperating with us. I’m responsible for his death.”
“No, you’re not. He was the one who got involved with criminals.”
“That doesn’t change the fact that he’d still be alive if I hadn’t pushed him to testify.”
The grim expression on her husband’s face made Mary feel queasy. She anticipated that there was more than this man’s death behind his dejection.
“But it was the US Attorney’s Office that decided to keep him in custody,” she said carefully. At least he was talking to her instead of falling into his gloomy silence of recent weeks.