Part 4 (1/2)
And there was the tap.
Only a professional, someone very good, would've thought to replace a door that had been kicked in or forced. The doors in the building were flimsy at best, easily manhandled. But would just as easily show the violence done to them.
Maintaining a tracer tap on a line that had no phone or modem attached was also a pro's touch.
Take someone by force or guile, expunge all physical evidence, then leave an active tap in place. Not to listen to calls that could never be placed, but to determine who might be calling the young student. And, by extrapolation, who might be looking for him.
It was a thing Xenos might've done, had done, in his not-distant-enough past.
He pulled out of the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel shaking his head.
”There's got to be another answer,” he mumbled as he looked around. ”Got to be.”
Ten minutes later he pulled to a stop on Linwood Avenue, convincing himself that he was looking for conspiracies out of habit, not evidence. Paolo DiBenetti was born to the Brotherhood, whether he was an active member or not. He was a law student at one of the top law schools in the world, so he was not only intelligent but sharp. He could have thought it through as part of an elaborate scheme to steal the nearly $100,000 the Brotherhood had given him for his education.
Xenos wanted to believe that, desperately! It would've removed all pressures, made the job easier. It would've allowed him to avoid that part of his personality-which he'd exiled to a tightly bound place within himself-to stay tautly under control. For him to maintain at least the counterfeit peace that he'd so barely established in the last years.
But instinct and experience make for impa.s.sable arguments and waking nightmares of the bad old days.
Getting out of the car, he put aside the contradictions, the questions, looked around, then sighed.
He hadn't intended to come here, in fact had promised himself he wouldn't. But he wasn't all that surprised that he'd ended up in front of the old apartments built above the storefronts.
Pulling his cap down low over his large sungla.s.ses, he started down the street.
As a black Lincoln pulled to a stop a half-block back, the pa.s.senger snapped pictures of him through a telephoto lens.
”I'll be right with you, the teenage boy behind the counter said as he finished with some paperwork.”
The small printing shop was largely empty. An old man was copying a Lost Cat poster on the Xerox machine; an overnight courier was emptying the drop-off box. Somewhere behind the thin part.i.tion that separated the lobby from the shop, a heavy press could be heard running, and the smell of warm ink and toner filled the place.
”What can I do for you? The boy was seventeen, maybe older, and smiled a familial smile.”
”I'm looking for Sarah Goldman.”
The boy looked mildly curious. ”This about an order?”
”It's personal.”
”Got a name?”
”Filotimo.”
The boy looked him over carefully, then hesitantly stepped behind the part.i.tion. After locking the cash register. A minute later a woman in her mid-thirties in jeans and a sweats.h.i.+rt came out.
”You wanted to see me?”
He took off the sungla.s.ses.
She froze. ”My G.o.d,” she whispered. ”My G.o.d. Sarah quickly looked around, not frightened ... careful,” then gestured toward the street. ”I'll be back in a few minutes, Bradley. She followed Xenos out before the boy could form the obvious question.”
They walked together silently for half a block, Sarah openly staring at Xenos, shaking her head but saying nothing.
”Is it safe for you here?” she finally asked. Xenos shrugged. ”There is no safe.”
”Jesus,” she mumbled. ”Jesus.”
They turned into a small park, walking over to the swings, where some small children were playing.
”If this creates a problem for you,” Xenos said after another awkward moment, ”I'll leave.”
”No!” Sarah almost yelled in a panic.
Xenos smiled, looked around, took off his shades and cap, and held his arms wide. A moment later he held her tight against him in a hug he hoped would never end.
”Twelve years is too G.o.dd.a.m.ned long, big brother.” Sarah weeped as she kissed him. ”Where you been, huh?”
Xenos hesitated, then indicated a nearby bench. ”Don't ask questions like that.” He smiled bitterly.
”Dope,” she said with an equally large grin.
”Princess,” he shot back, trying to ape her human emotion and warmth.
She stroked his face. ”I have so much I want to ask, need to say.”
”Later.”
She looked doubtful. ”Will there be a later?” There was the slightest hint of accusation in her tone.
”I'll try.”
For the next ten minutes Sarah talked of her life, her son, her ex-husband, all the meaningless things that she could think to avoid the thing that was always there on the rare moments that they saw each other.
Xenos feigned interest, responded with generalities about the Greek islands, France, with no specifics intended or asked for.
Finally, painfully, the inevitable lay before them.
”Will he see me?”
”He hasn't changed,” she said glumly. ”And I'd bet my last dime-if I had a dime to bet-that you haven't either.”
Xenos concentrated on the street. ”You might be surprised.” His look turned solemn. ”I really need him to see me.”
”Jerry”-she took his callused hand in hers-”it's sixteen years.”
The big man moved his mouth, nothing came out. Then a deep breath. ”Seventeen. I just need him to see me, to talk to me. His eyes followed a cable TV truck as it slowly moved past.”