“That’s good Nikolaus.”
“You know I never wanted you to work for the company, don’t you?”
“Yes, I suspected that. Why? Are you going to remove me?”
“I thought about it. But it hasn’t interfered with our relationship and you have been doing an amazing job. The lawyers said you handled yourself quite adequately at the D.C. committee hearing.”
“Thank you for saying that. I was proud of myself.”
“Here’s the thing though,” he said, turning to look at her, “are you totally on my side? Are you willing to support all my decisions?”
“I’m not sure what you’re getting at Nikolaus but, yes, I fully support you.”
“You once were concerned about our shipping E-waste overseas. My father and I decided to grow that part of our business. Are you going to be okay with that?”
“Of course Nikolaus! You’ve shown me that you want to be a responsible participant in cleaning up the environment, so I’m okay with it. Why would you think otherwise?”
“I don‘t know,” he said awkwardly, “I guess I needed to know for sure you would be okay with it. You’ll be the one deflecting our detractors.”
“You mean Doug Williams don’t you?”
“Yes, and all those ‘do-gooder’ organizations that will likely come out to protest our actions.”
“I can handle it Nikolaus. When do you plan on starting?”
“Things are in motion now. Before my father died, he established an agreement with a larger recycling company, and their trucks are on the way to us. The company is G&D Recyclers.”
Nikolaus turned away from Reese and looked out the window. He didn’t want her see his face when he lied.
“I was concerned at first because they had a tainted past, but my father assured me he wouldn’t do business with them unless they had turned themselves around. After meeting with my father, I had one of our lawyers check on them and he cleared them to do business with us. I’m telling you this because their past is going to come up.”
“Thanks for being honest with me,” she said, hugging his arm. “I’ll do everything I can to see that this will be a successful venture.”
“Good! I have to go by my father’s house and take care of a few things. I’ll drop you off at home and call you later.”
Neither of them spoke much more on the way back to her apartment.
“There they are!” said Shelley, as the limousine pulled into the apartment complex. They watched as Reese was let out of the vehicle and went into the building. As soon as the limo had rolled out of sight, they made their move.
Reese had barely gotten into her apartment when there was a knock on the door. She thought Nikolaus had forgotten something and opened it. Her mouth practically hit the floor.
“What are you doing here?” she asked surprised. “Come in!”
She stepped aside allowing Shelley and Chief Daniels to enter.
“We have something to tell you,” Shelley said. “You better sit down.”
Reese took a seat on a gray and white, floral-pattern, swoop-arm chair while Daniels and Shelley sat together on a solid gray sofa.
“I don’t know why you are here Chief, but it must be important to bring you all the way to Savannah. Something happen in New Harmony?”
“No. It’s about the Drakos family. I wasn’t going to do this, but when Shelley called and told me about Viktor dying ….”
Shelley cut him off. “It was my idea Reese, don’t be mad at us.”
“Alright, now I am getting worried. What’s going on?”
“We only care about you, which is why when I last went to New Harmony I asked Robert to do some checking on the Drakos family. You were getting close to Nikolaus and his father and I was worried that you might get hurt.”
“You’re not making any sense Shelley,” said an agitated Reese. “Hurt by what?” She looked to the Chief for an answer.
“Shelley found out the reason for Doug Williams’ animosity toward Viktor. Here, I want you to read these. He pulled two folded pieces of paper from his back pocket and handed them to her.
She unfolded them. One was a copy of a two by two inch news article dated November 16, 1989. It read: The body of 29 year old Evelyn Williams was discovered by her brother, Douglas Williams, yesterday afternoon in her home. When authorities arrived, they discovered an empty bottle of sleeping pills and a half-empty bottle of alcohol on the floor next to the bed. A note was found on a nightstand, but police haven’t released the details. They are calling it a suicide pending the outcome of an autopsy.
Reese looked up at the pair sitting on the sofa with disbelief. “Doug had a sister?”
“Yes,” said Shelley. “And what’s more, I heard Doug and Viktor arguing in Doug’s office last week and he accused Viktor of killing his sister. From what I could gather, she was in love with Viktor but he wasn’t in love with her. It appears she took her own life because of a broken heart. Kind of explains the relationship between Viktor and Doug doesn’t it?”
Chief Daniels looked into Reese’s stunned face. “There’s more.” He pointed to the other piece of paper.
She read a 1999 Savannah police report that detailed a twenty-year-old Nikolaus Drakos had attacked his father for no apparent reason, causing multiple bruises to his face and a concussion. He was initially admitted to Georgia Regional Hospital but later transferred to the McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts and treated for bipolar condition.
When he saw she had completed reading the report he spoke again. “He spent four months at McLean. The guy is unstable Reese and we don’t want you to get hurt. That family had troubles and Nikolaus is still a wild card. You need to get away from him.”
“These don’t prove anything,” she said, waving the papers. “It doesn’t say Viktor killed anyone — that’s Doug’s interpretation. And I’ve never seen Nikolaus behaving strangely.”
“Honey, medications can help with a bipolar condition,” said Shelley, “but it never goes away. What if he ever quit taking them?”
“You both are out of line here and making a lot of assumptions about a lot of things. Look, I appreciate your concern for me but you wasted your time. Nikolaus needs me now more than ever and I’m not abandoning him.”
“But ….”
“No ‘buts’ Shelley! You both need to leave,” she insisted, and got up to show them out. “I’m sorry Chief you came all this way for nothing, but you both need to stay out of my personal life.”
On the other side of the closed door, Shelley gave an exasperated look to Robert.
“She wants us out of her business, so we’re staying out of her business,” he said. “I told you this wasn’t going to work, she’s too headstrong. She’ll have to figure it out on her own.”
Before their feet hit the first stair of the second floor, Shelley looked over her shoulder at Reese’s door praying she would come to her senses.
CHAPTER 26
A quick burst of cold air invaded the steam-filled shower as Nikolaus slipped in behind Reese. Although just having finished a round of hot sex, she could feel his desire hadn’t been quenched.
He reached around grabbing the hand that was holding a soapy loofah sponge and assisted rubbing it across her neck and down across her breasts. He watched as the lather of soap snaked over her shoulder and ran down the middle of her back. It temporarily pooled in the recess of her firm buttocks before diving to the drain below.
“You sure you don’t want to stay and go another round?” he said, nuzzling her neck and pressing himself closer.
”As much as I’d like to I can’t,” she said, her eyes closed and feeling his hands glide lower. “I’m having dinner with city officials tonight and I need to make them aware of your plans for expanding the E-waste operation. A few of them are sensitive to this issue and I want to be sure and educate them before they draw their own conclusions.”
“Alright, but will you come back to the beach house after that? I th
ink this afternoon helped both of us to shed some of our frustrations.”
“I’ll probably be late.”
“That’s okay, I’ll wait up for you.”
“If you really don’t want me to go …”
“No, it’s okay. I brought some papers from my father’s house I want to look over. Besides, you’re right, we want the city on our side.”
She turned and kissed him hard as though she needed his assurance. She felt as if the water was not only rinsing their bodies, but symbolically expunging her worries about him.
A short while later, Reese’s car navigated the driveway to the front of the property disappearing into the foliage and out onto the main road.
Nikolaus poured himself a glass of wine and moved into the living room. He made himself comfortable on an overstuffed leather chair that faced the back of the beach house. After approving the taste of the wine, he placed the glass on a side table and picked up a well-worn black folder. Before he could get to its contents, his cell phone chimed.
“This is Dimitris, we have some trouble on the docks. You better come down here.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“Some of those waste trucks pulled in here an hour ago and a few of the workers are refusing to offload the scrap material.”
“Can’t you handle it?”
“Nikolaus, they’re worried about handling this stuff. They heard what happened to Greenfield. I tried telling them he was already sick when we hired him, but they aren’t buying it.”
“Damn it! I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
He drained the contents of the wine glass and made his way upstairs to change into other clothes.
In his dressing closet, he slid the folder under some shoe boxes and then clothed himself suitable for the riverfront.
It took him just under an hour to reach the security gate. As he approached the warehouse, he saw a line of seven trucks attached to open-trailers with loosely stretched canvas covers over their contents. The drivers, sitting in the cabs, were prevented from exiting by a group of about twenty angry longshoremen. Dimitris was moving among the men trying to get them to go back to work.
Nikolaus grabbed a hardhat from the back seat, got out of the vehicle, and approached his workers. “What the hell is going on here? Why aren’t you offloading these trucks?”
One of the bigger men came from the back of the group and approached Nikolaus. He seemed to be the self-appointed leader of the mutineers and said, “We aren’t moving this stuff anywhere.”
Groans and cheers of support came from some of the men behind him.
Nikolaus looked the man over. He didn’t remember his face, but he did recognize many of the other men in the group.
“Are you new to our family?”
Dimitris stepped forward saying, “He’s been with us three months. He operates one of the cranes.”
Nikolaus pushed him aside and stepped closer to the big man looking up directly at him?
“Why aren’t you offloading these trucks?” he said softly.
The larger man was taken aback by Nikolaus’ direct but subtle tactic. He took a step back and began to stutter a reply. “C-cause this j-junk will make you sick.”
“Who told you that?” he asked taking a step forward.
“Some of the men told it to me,” he answered nodding over his shoulder.
Nikolaus moved around the big guy and confronted the other workers who had now gone quiet. Some of them dipping their heads in shame.
“Look, I know you think Greenfield got sick from handling this scrap material, but that’s not so. It’s no secret he worked with others at this warehouse, and none of them are ill. You’re just letting your imaginations run away.”
He stepped into the group. “Some of you men have been with Drakos Shipping a long time. You were loyal to my father and you know he always took care of you. I’m not going to be any different. My father intended to expand our scrap waste business, but unfortunately, he didn’t have the chance to tell you all about it. These trucks are the first of many that are going to be rolling in here and I need your support.”
“But Nikolaus,” interrupted a man standing nearby, “there are rumors.”
“That’s all they are,” he said, walking to the back of one of the trailers.
Putting his hand on the tailgate he continued, “The scrap in here is just plastic, metal and wires. There’s no boogeyman! It’s the same material you all have in your homes right now.”
“But how can we be sure?” said another man with grey hair.
“Because you have my word. And if that’s not good enough, the company is putting together brochures that better explain it. Everything we are doing here follows state and federal guidelines and then some. Do you think I can afford for you guys to get sick?”
He returned to face the big man while talking to the group at large. “I’ll understand if any of you want to leave the company but you’d be making a bad choice.”
The members of the group gathered in a small circle and chattered among themselves. After a few seconds of discussion, the grey-haired man spoke. “We’re with you Mr. Drakos. If it’s what your father wanted, then we’ll make it happen.”
He turned to the other men and yelled, “Let’s get this stuff unloaded!”
“How about you?” Nikolaus said to the big man, “You in or out?”
He dipped his head, “Sorry Mr. Drakos, we just didn’t understand. I need this job, so I hope you don’t hold this against me.”
Nikolaus replied loud enough for Dimitris to hear. “You’re new, so I can forgive your lack of judgment, but don’t let it happen again.”
The man bowed backing away from Nikolaus and joined the others.
Nikolaus then walked over to where Dimitris was standing. But instead of looking at him, he gazed out to the empty berths. “The king is dead, Dimitris. So you’re going to have to decide which side you’re on. I wasn’t happy you got to my father before I did; betrayal isn’t something I’m likely to forget.”
He turned and walked back to his car.
Reese returned to the beach house. When she pulled into the garage, she noticed Nikolaus’ car was not there. “That’s odd,” she thought.
At the main floor, she yelled to see if Nikolaus was anywhere in the house. Noticing an empty wine glass on the side table, she picked it up and put it in the kitchen sink. Then she took the stairway up to the bedroom.
The robe that he was wearing was lying on the bed. Nikolaus was somewhat of a neat freak, so the wine glass and robe suggested he had to leave in a hurry. She thought about calling him, but another thought invaded her thinking. It was the police report that Chief Daniels had shown her and the warning that trailed it.
“If Nikolaus has a bipolar condition, then there must be some medication here,” she said to herself. “It’s not in the cabinet or I would have seen it.”
She started to look through the drawers in the vanity pulling each one out as far as they would go, rummaging toward the very back. Not finding anything, she moved to his closet.
She searched his dresser draws and came up empty. She removed the lid on one of the stacked shoe boxes narrowly missing the folder that was concealed underneath.
The last place she looked should have been the most obvious from the start. She opened the nightstand drawer on the side of the bed and took out two pill bottles. One had a dated label showing Thorazine. The other was a newer prescription showing Lithium.
“He’s not hiding them,” she acknowledged aloud. “I’ll have to find a way to bring it up with him.” She made a mental note to look the medications up on the internet.
Suddenly, she heard a vehicle pull around to the back of the house. Quickly returning the pills, she went over to the balcony doors and stepped out looking over the edge. Seeing Nikolaus approaching the house she yelled down at him. “Where have you been?”
“I’ll tell you about it,” he said.
“Wine?”
She met him at the elevator off the kitchen holding a bottle of bourbon in one hand and a bottle of Scotch in the other. “Choose your poison.”
He tapped the bottle of Scotch and made himself comfortable on the living room sofa.
“How was your dinner tonight?”
She wrestled getting the cap off the Scotch. “Everything went well. I don’t think we are going to have any issues with the city.”
“Good!” he said, rubbing his hands across his face.
“Are you okay Nikolaus?”
“I’m feeling a little edgy at the moment.”
“Are you sick?”
“No, why are you asking?”
“I don’t know. But you can tell me anything you know.”
He took the drink glass from her hand as she sat next to him. The suggestion of him being sick raised his suspicions. “What are you getting at Reese?”
She reconsidered her line of questioning. “You leave here unexpectedly, you tell me you’re agitated, and I can see something is bothering you. What else am I to think?”
He sipped his Scotch. “If you have anything you want to ask me, then ask.”
“Alright, where did you go tonight?”
“I got a call there was trouble at the dock.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“A bunch of trucks from G&D Recyclers showed up this evening and a group of workers didn’t want to offload the scrap.”
“Why?”
“They were afraid it was going to make them sick.”
He took another sip. “You need to do some internal public affairs and put out some brochures so they know what they’re dealing with.”
“Alright, I will. What else?”
“That’s it. I took care of their concerns for now.”
“Are you going to be okay?”
“I will as soon as I get you back upstairs. Right now, making love to you is the only thing that will make things better. He pulled her from the sofa and they disappeared upstairs.
The next morning, Reese slipped out of bed before Nikolaus woke up and quietly went into the bathroom. A restless night had preceded, owing to the fact that both Nikolaus and the trouble at the dock worried her. Things were getting complicated in both her love life and in her work. She started to wrestle with doubt about her relationship with him, and even about why she ever came to Savannah in the first place.
Halfway to the Truth Page 14