As she brought the car to a halt for a red light at the beginning of that upscale strip of stores and shops called the Village, she searched the two pay-phone stands on her right and found no sign of Megan. With her heart sinking she replayed the phone call that finally ended the agony of her wait in the big silent house.
“Mom, I’m at the pay phones in the Village. Come get me.”
Like a hundred other calls before it when Megan had phoned for a ride home after shopping with her girlfriends. Only this call meant that enough of Catherine’s shattered world would still be intact to forge a new life.
“Megan, baby, are you okay?”
“I’m fine, Mom. I just don’t feel like walking home.”
“Don’t move, baby. Don’t go anywhere. I’ll be right there.”
And now suddenly up the street on her left, in jeans and a top Catherine has never seen before, there was Megan turning in front of the bookstore window and waving at her. Catherine began to press the accelerator, then remembered the red light and slammed down the brake just in time to avoid a car crossing the intersection. “For Godsake, be careful,” she told herself aloud. “All you need now is an accident.”
With the light green she moved through the intersection, then swung the sedan in a quick u-turn and stopped in front of Megan at the curb. Her daughter opened the door, gave her a big bright-eyed smile, and climbed in. Her own eyes filling with tears Catherine grabbed the girl and held her tight.
“Oh, Meg, baby, I love you. I’ve been so frightened for you.”
“Mom, I’m okay. Don’t worry.” Megan hugged her back with almost equal fervor.
“Oh, Meg...” Catherine enveloped the girl with a desperate joy, her relief beyond words.
With a small laugh finally, Megan said, “Mom, you’re crushing me. Let me close the door and let’s get out of here. That creep might still be around.”
“Oh, God, yes.” Catherine released her long enough for Megan to close the door. Then grabbing her again, she held her face in her hands and searched her eyes. “Meg, are you sure you’re okay? Did he touch you? Did he hurt you?”
“Mom, I told you, I’m okay. He never touched me. Com’on, let’s get out of here. I want to see Daddy.”
Catherine kissed her daughter’s cheek, then finally let her go and turned back to the wheel, moving the car carefully away from the curb. “Baby, some things have happened with your father, and we’re not going to be seeing him for awhile. Maybe not for a long time.”
“You mean what happened on TV tonight?”
“You saw that?”
“I heard it. Those guys were watching. They had me locked up, but I could hear it.”
“Then you know what’s happened.” Catherine felt almost relieved as she turned right on Cadieux, a street that would take them right to I-94.
“I know what happened. And I know why Daddy said those things. They were holding me hostage so Daddy would have to do what they wanted.”
Catherine felt her hands tighten on the steering wheel and told herself to stay calm. “Baby, the things your father said on TV are true. That’s the problem. And that’s why you and I have to go away.”
“What do you mean, go away? I just want to go home.”
“Megan, listen to me. I don’t want to frighten you. But you and I are in danger because of what your father’s said and done. We’ve got to go someplace where no one can find us and stay there until we’re safe again.”
“But we’ve got to tell Daddy that I’m okay, so he can tell everybody that what he said wasn’t true.”
“But, baby, I told you, what he said is true. And that’s why we’re in danger. Now I promise you, after a while, we’ll make sure your father knows you’re safe. But right now we’ve got to help each other and support each other, because we’re all we’ve got.”
Megan shook her head in silence as the signal light turned green, and they crossed Mack, the avenue that marked the Grosse Pointe limit.
Catherine said finally, in a softer voice, “I’ve packed a bag for you, darling, with some of your favorite things. We’re just going to have to look at this as a kind of adventure.”
“Some adventure.” Megan spoke with a sullen air that promised many more difficult moments ahead. “I just get away from one kidnapper, and I’m kidnapped again—by my own mother.”
Chapter 100
“That fuckin’ DeFauw,” said Charlie in the dark, his voice holding both admiration and disdain.
“I know,” said Susan snuggling next to him in the bed, her head on his chest.
After his return to the flat that evening and his detailed account, prompted by her unending questions, of exactly what had happened, they had watched DeFauw at 11.
Off the top, calling this day “perhaps one of the most extraordinary in the history of journalism in this city,” DeFauw had announced that Channel 5 was extending the newscast for an extra half hour. Then they had replayed in its entirety the “Up Front” segment featuring Steven Monelli’s sensational admission of guilt. The newscast had also included another live report from the steps of the Federal Court Building downtown in which DEA officials were quoted as saying that Monelli had signed a statement and was cooperating fully. DeFauw had closed the segment with one of his patented, fervid commentaries, this one on the “marvelous contributions of Italian-Americans to our city, our state and our nation, from the hard-working guy pouring the cement for your driveway to the eloquence of Mario Cuomo to the extraordinary leadership of a captain of industry like Lee Iacocca.”
“So what are you going to do with all that cash?” She shifted a bit to her side so she could move her hand down to Charlie’s cock. And, yes, her suspicions confirmed, it was already huge.
He groaned with pleasure. “Ten grand ain’t goin’ very far. Not compared with what it woulda been, if I’d just made one little phone call.”
“Oh, please, Charlie. You know you did the right thing.” She stroked delicately, then played with his balls the way he always loved.
“Maybe...Oh, yes...maybe not. But I’ve been thinking, maybe I should use the money to get me an office in the suburbs, Grosse Pointe or Birmingham maybe, where I’m more likely to draw the kind of cliental I need.”
She propped herself on an elbow, still playing with him. “I think a new office location is a good idea. But not in the suburbs.”
“Why not?”
“Charlie, if people like us, the much-maligned black middle-class, keep moving out of the city like whitey already has, that’s going to be the death knell of this city.”
“Hey, who says I’m middle-class? I ain’t even near there yet, never will be if I don’t start getting more business.”
“You know what I mean. And I think you could probably do just as well downtown in one of the new buildings, or even in one of the older buildings where the rent is so cheap because of all the new space.”
“I just can’t believe you.” He offered mock disgust as he turned her gently so he could slide his hand up under her nightgown. “My little do-gooder just never gives up.”
“Oh, baby, I’m so proud of what you’ve done. I hope you know that.”
Her nipples were hard, and he traced them lightly, the way that made them even harder. “Look, what I did, in the long run, ain’t gonna make a damn bit of difference to anybody. It’s just not going to matter.”
“Well, there’s one person it’s always going to matter to.” She smiled at him in the dark, then lifted her head enough to kiss him softly on the mouth.
“Yeah, I know.” He sounded slightly exasperated. “You’re proud of me and of what I did. And it’s always going to matter to you.”
“Well, that’s all true, but I’m not talking about me.”
“Who then?”
“You.”
Chapter 101
A heavily bearded young man, his dark hair unfashionably long and curly, sat in the harsh neon of a small diner wrapped in the shadows cast by the huge cement stilt
s on which 1-95 stretched across downtown Miami. From his favorite corner table he worked on his Eggs Rancheros and watched the young Cuban girl who was the only waitress in the place.
In her tight light blue uniform she moved with an awkward grace behind the counter, running a damp cloth over the chipped and dented Formica, trying to look professional. Even though there were only two other customers, that meant acting as if she didn’t know the bearded young man, as if he had not helped her get the job in this place two days ago.
He knew how she felt. He too had worried about looking professional that first night at La Veranda in Pompano Beach. He had taken the job a week after he had made it to Pompano with one last gasp from the old black Ford, finding the little ten-unit motel near the Intercoastal where he had stayed for a week with his mother and his stepfather a decade ago at the age of fifteen. The Ford had died shortly after his arrival, so he had walked to the restaurant that first night and had been nervous enough to drop a plate of linguini with clam sauce in the kitchen.
He had been honest with the manager about his lack of experience, saying he had held a couple of wait jobs in college and was an out-of-work teacher. And they had been patient with him, telling him to forget the dropped plate and generally making things easy. In fact he could have stayed on at La Veranda indefinitely, if he had wanted to, but frequently the place served what he thought were certain worrisome types, customers whose looks made him nervous.
Finally, one Saturday evening he had found a heavy-set fellow in a black shirt sitting alone and staring at him for most of the evening. And the next morning he had bought the Sunday Miami Herald and searched the want ads. A live-in shelter on North Miami Avenue for run-away teens with drug and alcohol problems had caught his eye, and that afternoon he had taken a bus into Miami. He was surprised at how shabby the area around the shelter had been and how reminiscent of his own southwest corner of Detroit.
And he had been amazed at how easily he had secured the counselor’s position without presenting any evidence of having done this kind of work before. Again he had been honest about his background, but the woman in charge had simply talked with him for an hour and then explained how difficult it was to find people who would live at the shelter and work with these children. Basically, he had been hired on the spot.
His salary had been minuscule, his room at the shelter hardly more than a closet and the meals there barely adequate, but at least he had felt safe and didn’t need a car. Usually on Saturday afternoons, he had walked about ten blocks to a branch of the Miami public library and read a week’s worth of his hometown papers, both the Free Press and the News.
Every so often he would find a story about Steven “The Bank” Monelli who had made a very public admission of his role in the importing of large amounts of cocaine and heroin to the city. But having signed a statement prepared by federal Drug Enforcement agents, he had then recanted his confession some days later and refused to testify against anyone he had previously named. His claim now? He had been coerced into making the statement by someone who had kidnapped his daughter and threatened her life.
“Monelli to Use DeLorean Defense” was one headline he remembered in a Sunday edition. The lengthy piece quoted the high-powered defense attorney hired by Monelli as saying, “Look, we all saw John DeLorean holding all that coke and saying it was better than gold. And we all know what happened when he said he only went along with the scheme because his ‘business associates’ had threatened his family. You’re going to hear a very similar story from Mr. Monelli, and I’m confident you’ll see a very similar result.”
The prosecution wouldn’t talk, but another criminal defense attorney in town, unconnected to the case and wishing to remain anonymous, had been quoted to the effect that since Monelli’s 12-year-old daughter was apparently not available to testify, he might have difficulty proving his story.
“I think if I were on the case,” the attorney had been quoted as saying, ‘I might be trying to bargain down the time he’ll get for possession of that kilo.”
And apparently at Monelli’s trial in Federal Court, the defense’s inability to convince the jury that a kidnapping and coercion had actually taken place had, in fact, led to his downfall. A string of witnesses, most of them with credibility problems, testified that they had been out searching for Megan Monelli in the days preceding her father’s public admission of guilt. A few of them claimed to have heard Steven Monelli say the kidnapper was demanding a false confession. But perhaps the most impressive defense witness, a private investigator named Charles Watts, had claimed that Monelli told him the ransom demand was simply one million dollars.
The most recent story the young man saw in the paper two weeks ago had said Monelli had been convicted of possession of one kilo of 92% pure cocaine and had been sentenced to seven and a half years at the Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary in Pennsylvania. With good behavior he would be eligible for parole in five years.
Earlier Detroit police officials had been quoted as saying they had seen some impact from the Monelli case on the price and availability of cocaine. More recent reports from the street indicated it was once again business as usual.
“Can I get anything else for you, sir?”
The young man looked up from the last of his Eggs Rancheros and gazed into the Cuban girl’s pretty brown eyes. “How about a new life, Rosa?”
Chapter 102
Moving slowly with an old duffle bag into the row where Frank DeFauw sat was a young goateed guy who looked somehow familiar. Following him was a shapely black-haired girl, Cuban, he guessed. They ended up sitting directly across from Frank, and the young guy stared at him, saying finally, “You’re Frank, right?”
“Yeah. I know you, don’t I?”
“Yes, you do. You interviewed me once. Name’s John Giordano.”
“Giordano. Oh, right. We talked to you for the “Kids and Crack” doc. How you doin’? You were a teacher who lost his job.”
Giordano smiled. “Good memory.”
“So you found a teaching job down here?”
“No, right now I’m working for a small weekly paper. I’m writing profiles mostly about Cuban refugees, like my friend Rosa here.” He put a hand on her thigh.
“Hi, Rosa, I’m Frank.”
The girl smiled but said nothing.
After a pause, Frank said, “Well I’d like to read your stuff. How about sending me some stories? If I like ‘em, I’ll send them on to an old buddy of mine who’s an editor at the Herald down here. I mean, if that’s okay with you.”
“Hey, thanks, that would be great. So you on business down here?”
Frank shook his head. “Pleasure. Coming back with my family.” He gestured at Marci and Jen reading books and Bobby into his headset in a corner of the waiting area. “We have a place down on Providenciales in the Turks and Caicos Islands. How about you?”
“Going home to see my family. My mom really. It’s been about a year and half. Hey, let me ask you something. I followed, as much as I could in the papers back there, that big story of yours about Monelli and his confession.”
“Oh, right.”
“Yeah, so whatever happened with Monelli’s daughter. What was her name, Megan? They ever find her?”
“Nope. Story was, about a week after Monelli was on my show, the girl called her grandfather and said she was okay, but that her mother had kidnapped her, and she was somewhere in Canada. She didn’t know exactly where.”
“She said her mother kidnapped her?”
“Yeah. Of course, when Monelli recanted, his lawyers denied that story and claimed some enemy of the family had snatched the girl, and Monelli’s supposedly false confession was the condition of her release. Which made sense, but without the girl or her mother they didn’t have much of a chance in court.”
“Yeah, that and the kilo of coke.”
“Yeah, the coke was a little hard to explain.”
Giordano shook his head. “Canada. So have the girl and her mo
ther ever surfaced?”
“Not that we know of. Canada is a big place, and who knows if it’s even Canada. We’ve sent a reporter up there to root around for awhile in a few cities—Toronto, Montreal—even some smaller places. Talk to cops, do some reports. Mostly it’s just a ratings grabber. I can’t imagine how much time and money the Monellis have spent on really searching. But so far, from what we know, mom and Megan have just disappeared.”
Giordano stared off with a strange smile. Finally he asked, “So whatever happened to that documentary you were working on? Did it ever get finished?”
“Oh, yeah, got a great reaction. Lots of good comments about you, as I recall. I’ll tell you what. You send me your stories, I’ll send you the doc.”
Giordano smiled again and put an arm around his pretty girl.
“You’ve got a deal.”
###
Other Books by T.V. LoCicero
True Crime Books:
Murder in the Synagogue
Squelched: The Suppression of Murder in the Synagogue
Novels:
The Obsession
The Disappearance
The Car Bomb
When A Pretty Woman Smiles
Sicilian Quilt
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Admission of Guilt (The detroit im dyin Trilogy, Book 2) (The Detroit Im Dying Trilogy) Page 22
