“How did he save her?”
“She’d been kidnapped by a rival Albania mafia clan who were under contract by some financial types to kill her. They didn’t because of her last name, which they knew was Albanian. The father, being a connected man, was contacted, and he proved she was family. The Albanians are a bit like the Italian mafia with family and their own idiosyncratic ideas of honor above all else.”
“Mafia or no mafia, I think you should give this Burim a try. Why do you think he might not be willing to help?”
“After he did manage to save her from the rival Albanian group, he tried to resurrect some sort of relationship with her, but she wouldn’t have any part of it. She wouldn’t even talk to him. When she was around six he had abandoned her to the New York City foster care system, where she had been psychologically tortured. He actually called me at that point, which is why I have his cell number. He asked me to try to intervene and get Pia to call him. Stupidly I tried to help, but Pia went ballistic, accusing me of interfering in her life. That was the last I saw her until I popped out here in April.”
Paul shrugged. “This father sounds less than charming, but I don’t think we have a lot of choice. Unfortunately it’s pretty clear the Boulder police are not going to do anything unless some sort of direct proof surfaces of her being snatched. My sense is that she is not here in Boulder.”
“That’s my thought, too.”
“I do have a contact out at the airport. Maybe as a starter I can find out if the Nano jet is around, and if it isn’t, where it might have gone. I don’t know if that is common information or not, but pilots do have to file flight plans.”
“It wouldn’t hurt,” George said. “Shit. I don’t like the idea of talking with the likes of Burim Graziani. He’s very hard-core, but I’m at my wit’s end. I don’t see any alternative.”
“I guess you’d better call him,” said Paul.
“Actually, I already did. Of course there was no answer. I had to leave my name and number.”
The call George had been hoping to get came an hour later. As soon as George started to talk, the caller, who admitted he was not Burim, said that he wanted to hear no details over the phone. If George wanted to talk to Burim, it had to be in person in a public place, meaning George had to travel east. The caller then warned George that he better not be wasting anyone’s time. The invitation, grudging though it might be, was what George needed to hear, but the question then arose of how to get away from Boulder without being seen. Neither George nor Paul thought it a good idea to advertise where George was going as long as Nano had them under surveillance.
George booked a ticket on the 8:37 A.M. United flight to Newark, and then he and Paul strategized a way for George to get to the Denver airport without being detected. Which was why Paul sat in his Subaru at four in the morning in the car park of his apartment building with the engine running.
“Hey, Eric, they’re on the move.”
Having failed to get Caldwell and Wilson arrested at Mariel Spallek’s house, Chad Wells and Eric McKenzie pulled the Nano security detail’s night shift. They had parked down the street from Paul Caldwell’s apartment building in a spot that afforded them a view of the parking lot. Chad was lucky — he had fallen asleep, as had Eric, but awoke in time to notice Caldwell’s car’s lights on and the engine running and see the men sitting in the vehicle.
“Are they both in the car?” said Eric trying to get his eyes to function. “What the fuck time is it, for chrissake?”
“It’s around four.”
“What the hell are they doing up at this time? Where the hell could they be going?”
“I think that’s what we have to find out. Remember, they are doctors. Maybe they got called on an emergency.”
“It looks like they are both in the car.”
“That’s my take,” said Chad, but he didn’t know for sure as far away as they were. But it seemed safer to sound definite than admit he couldn’t be sure. Besides, it was a good bet both of them were there, as the two of them had done everything together up to this point. Besides, he didn’t want to stand out in the damn cold if Eric suggested he do so.
“Okay, let’s follow. But stay well back, okay?”
“Got it.”
After five minutes, Paul started to move, and he drove very deliberately out of the parking lot making sure his headlights strafed the car he assumed was the surveillance vehicle. The idea was for him to drive out toward Berman’s house, hang out for a time, and then and loop back via the hospital. It would take at least an hour, by which time George would have the opportunity to walk out of the back entrance of the apartment building and be met by a prearranged car service at a gas station a half mile down the road in the other direction. Both Paul and George doubted there would be more than one car involved in any surveillance, and even if a man were to be left behind at the apartment complex, he wouldn’t be able to see George leaving out the back. Or so they hoped.
George watched Paul leave and then let the curtain fall back into place. After waiting fifteen minutes, he followed the plan and left Paul’s apartment, making his way out the rear door, and walked down the road quickly without looking back. He had borrowed one of Paul’s sports coats and a pair of dress pants that fit him well enough. For some reason, he wanted to dress up for the meeting he’d arranged for four o’clock that same afternoon. Just thinking about it gave him an uneasy, queasy feeling that made his pulse race. George knew he was not a risk-taker by nature, but he knew he had to do it and do it soon. As he approached the gas station, he saw a town car sitting on the forecourt and knew it had to be his ride.
Now George essayed a glance over his shoulder and saw he was quite alone. He’d made it.
CHAPTER 58
George Wilson sat at the back of the Roy Rogers restaurant. It reminded him of long family trips he had taken as a child, and of sitting in places like this. His family had always bought their own food, buying only beverages, and George used to sit eating homemade egg sandwiches while other kids gorged on hamburgers. He guessed that was why he’d ordered a hamburger today, but he’d taken one bite and couldn’t eat any more. He nursed his jumbo Diet Coke and waited.
Twenty minutes later, and thirty-five minutes late, his meeting arrived.
“You’re still here,” said Burim Graziani, née Grazdani, surprising George, who hadn’t noticed him walk in. He was accompanied by another man with whom he could have been related. Burim was just as George remembered him. A slight man of medium height, seemingly in his fifties, dark-complected in all respects, with piercing eyes as black as coal. His mouth pulled up slightly in the left corner in a kind of sneer from a scar. In George’s eyes he was the stereotypical hoodlum with a demeanor that suggested he was incapable of remorse. He was dressed in an ill-fitting black leather jacket and black turtleneck. He sat down, keeping both hands under the table. George imagined he was armed. The other, larger man stood where he was with his arms folded, eyeing George like a cat might eye a motionless mouse.
“Of course, I’m still here,” George croaked. He cleared his throat. “I wanted to see you.”
“I can’t say the same. We met before but it was a waste of my time. I asked for you to help me, but you fucked up and made it worse. I saved my daughter’s ass almost two years ago and all I asked for my trouble was some kind of…” He struggled for the right word.