by Con Lehane
He stood and shook hands with her. She sat down on a couch across from him. “I’ve asked Juanita to bring us martinis.” She didn’t say who Juanita was—he assumed the maid who’d let him in—or ask if he wanted a martini.
“I think you’re right. It is time we talked.” She stared into the space in front of her for a moment. “I’ve allowed the attorneys to handle everything when I should have taken charge.” He thought he’d come there to talk to her. She had other ideas. “After what he’s been through, the boy needs more structure than either of us can give him.”
He didn’t catch on right away that she was talking about boarding school, so he nodded as she spoke until he did catch on.
Juanita arrived with the drinks, placing Lisa Young’s on the table in front of her, handing the other to Ambler. Lisa Young had stopped speaking as soon as the maid entered the room, waiting until the door closed behind her before speaking again. She did this automatically, as you might wait for a car to pass before starting across the street.
“I’m sure it’s been ages for you, too, since you attempted to reason with a child.”
He began to say something halfway in agreement. Johnny, because of how he grew up, was more self-reliant than you’d expect a boy his age to be. Unused to rules or requirements, he had a chip on his shoulder about being told what to do. Ambler however said none of this because Lisa Young wasn’t looking for confirmation or any response at all.
Perhaps the two large swallows of the martini he took while she went on about Johnny’s stubbornness gave him courage. “I’m not going to send Johnny to a boarding school,” he said, interrupting her. “I don’t know what I’d do without him.”
She considered this for a moment, frowning. “The point of this is not what’s best for you, Mr. Ambler. The boy needs structure—”
“He needs his family.”
She lifted her glass from the table for the first time and sipped from it. “That isn’t what he has. He has two elderly people in his life who are ill-equipped to raise him.” She let the words carry their own weight, no raised eyebrows, no meaningful glance.
“He’s my family.”
She spoke to him over the rim of her cocktail glass. “A somewhat dysfunctional family.” Before he could respond, she met his gaze, her eyes reflecting a depth of pain he’d seen in the past. “I’m surely no one to talk about dysfunctional families.” She smiled, the smile chiseling the look of sorrow more deeply into her face.
“He needs you, too,” he said, though he hadn’t planned to say this and didn’t know where it came from. Something had opened up a vulnerable place in her. For a moment, he didn’t know if he meant what he’d said, but picturing Johnny, hearing him complain about his grandmother in a kind of possessive way, he knew it was true. Johnny needed his grandmother, as cold and difficult and aloof as she was. She was his connection to his mother.
“Johnny doesn’t want to be kept away from you,” he said quietly. “I was too stubborn to hear what he was saying.”
Her attitude changed. She was more subdued, conciliatory. They talked for a while longer. Defenses down, they reached an understanding. The terrain they asked Johnny to travel over would be difficult. He’d have to live in two different worlds. Ambler’s modest existence, despite occasional adventure and notoriety because of his dabbling in criminal investigations, was the everyday world of the civil servant. Lisa Young lived in the rarified world of CPW mansions, ski chalets in Vail, summer cottages in Newport, society balls, hobnobbing with the power elite. You had to think at some point Johnny would have to choose one world or the other. For now, there could be peace. They agreed to meet with the judge, just the two of them, no lawyers.
Before he left, he told her about Denise’s arrest and asked if she’d hired private detectives to investigate him. “Did you ever hear of Campbell Security?”
She shrugged. “Brad Campbell’s company provides executive protection. He’s done work for my husband for years.”
Ambler followed her gaze around the room—the leather-bound books on the shelves, the ornate, gilded picture frames, oriental rugs, tapestries, mahogany library tables. She lowered her voice to a whisper. “We’re not supposed to talk about security.” She nodded toward the ceiling at one corner of the room, where a tiny light on a small camera blinked.
“Campbell provides security here?”
She smiled. “Wealth requires precautions in this day and age. It brings with it some danger, kidnapping and such things. My husband might have arranged protection for our grandson. He wouldn’t necessarily have told me. The boy wouldn’t know. It’s done discretely.”
He hadn’t thought of that. Kidnapping. One more danger in the poor kid’s life; because his grandmother was rich, he could be a target. The boarding school might not be a self-serving idea, after all.
Lisa Young watched Ambler curiously. “We know the Campbells socially. Would you like to meet him?”
The idea of chatting with Campbell over cocktails and canapés made him smile. “We’ve met. We didn’t hit it off.”
She looked at Ambler dubiously but with a smile as if she got the joke. “Did the disagreement have something to do with the recent murder at the library?”
He told her the police found the victim’s body in the crime fiction reading room.
“Do you do something to draw murder to you, Mr. Ambler?”
“I hope not.”
She pursed her lips, looking at him appraisingly. “You’re getting your back up already. I can see why you and Brad might not hit it off. It’s too bad. You’re both engaging in some of the same ways.”
Ambler stared at her. Was she being flirtatious?
“It would be fun to put you together at the right gathering.” She put her fingers to her chin. They’d been moving toward the foyer as they talked and had reached the door. She held out one hand toward him and opened the door with the other. “I’ll think of something. I’m an accomplished matchmaker.”
Chapter 26
Adele almost always walked home after work, even in the darkness and chill of these winter evenings, though on the city sidewalks it was never really dark. Usually, she walked uptown with after-work, homeward-bound crowds, though she might be walking in the woods for all the attention anyone paid her.
On this January evening, she walked briskly. She’d stayed late at the library reading about Islam instead of going to Raymond’s reception. She’d been reading about the religion since the last time she’d seen Gobi, not so much trying to understand Islam as trying to understand him.
One thing she discovered was that under Islamic law Muslim men could marry non-Muslim women—if they were Christians or Jews. Such women were called women of the book, a certain irony in that for her. Not only that, Islamic law said a Muslim man could marry up to four women of the book. She doubted Gobi wanted four wives but he was so inscrutable, she had no idea. He might have three already.
She giggled as she walked, picturing herself as one of four wives. Unfortunately, there was a deal breaker under the law of Islam. The woman of the book had to be a virgin when she married, a state of being Adele last held when she was sixteen. Although, given how things had gone lately, she may have reverted.
When she turned from Eighth Avenue onto her block, the street was darker than usual. Some stores near the corner that were open when she got home at her usual time were closed, their dim facades and the metal gate on one of them casting a pall on the usually cheerful street corner. The darkness was even deeper because a streetlight down the block near her building was out. The only movement on the street was two men on the opposite side of the street walking slowly in the direction she came from and talking to each other. All of the curbside parking spaces were occupied, though there was no streetlight near her building to reflect off the car windshields.
She wasn’t concerned by the darkness, barely noticing it because she was distracted by her thoughts. Her neighborhood was safe. She had no qualms about being
on the street anytime day or night. Yet tonight it felt ominous, perhaps the darkness, and the empty street. Surely, she’d walked down the street before when no else was on the sidewalk. It was a quiet street. Yet, strangely, tonight, the street didn’t feel quiet. It felt deserted.
When she was still a good ways from her building, she heard footsteps behind her and turned to see the two men who’d been walking on the opposite side of the street coming toward her, walking faster than they had been earlier. The purposefulness of their stride, walking in lock-step, set off an alarm. She began to walk faster, turning to find them gaining on her. When she turned the next time, they’d almost caught up with her. She clutched her purse tighter and prepared to run.
“Miss Adele Morgan,” the man who was now almost beside her said. In the dark she couldn’t see his features except to notice he was bulky and darkly handsome in the same way Gobi was. This encounter, she knew, would be different than the one in Texas. No one flashed a badge.
“Who are you?” She should scream and run, yet she didn’t. If one of them had grabbed her, she’d have screamed. Since the man closest was talking to her, it seemed right for her to talk, too.
“We’re sent by Gobi Tabrizi. He wishes to see you.” The man’s voice was heavily accented but calm. She couldn’t see the expression in his eyes because of the dark and because he didn’t look directly at her.
“If he wants to talk to me, he has my phone number.”
“You don’t understand, Miss Morgan.”
She moved two steps away from the man toward her apartment building door. She thought about opening it but was afraid the men would follow her into the vestibule. Instead, she looked toward Ninth Avenue, not far, where there was activity, lights, traffic, people. “I don’t want to get you into trouble. But if you don’t leave me alone, I’ll scream for help.”
“No need, Miss Morgan. Gobi is afraid your phone is tapped. I can give you a note that will tell you where to find him. But you must come tonight, if not with us, by yourself. Before the night is over, he’ll no longer be at this place.”
“You’ll walk away and let me get there by myself?”
“Yes, Miss, if that’s what you want.”
This reassured her. “Where is he? How far?”
“Quite far,” the man said. “In Brooklyn.”
Adele remembered her trip to Bay Ridge, an hour on the subway or forty or fifty dollars for a cab. She looked at the address the man gave her. Sure enough, Bay Ridge.
“This couldn’t wait until tomorrow?”
“No, Miss.”
“I don’t understand why he can’t come here.”
“Your place, we must think, is watched.”
“Then they’re watching you, now.”
He shrugged.
“And they’d follow you if I went with you, wouldn’t they?”
“Perhaps. Perhaps not. We would make it difficult to follow.”
Something changed in his manner. He glanced around quickly, showing the first signs of impatience. He exchanged glances with the man beside him. They looked up and down the street. It was as if something clicked on; they’d received a call to action. She’d been tricked. She took a step toward Ninth Avenue. Her reaction came too late. The second man, the quiet one, moved quickly behind her, taking something out of plastic bag he took from his jacket pocket.
Before she could scream, he grabbed her from behind, one arm around her neck, the other hand stuffing a horrible smelling rag into her mouth. She gagged and choked. She tried to scream and thought she did. He told her to be quiet and not to struggle or he’d break her neck. She felt herself being dragged into the backseat of a car. Soon she was dizzy. Not long after, she felt herself passing out.
She came to, groggy, a splitting headache, half sitting, half lying across the backseat of a car. Alone. She opened her eyes and closed them again as soon as she opened them. Her head pounded so much it was difficult to think. She felt a moment of panic when she did open her eyes, realizing she was a captive in a moving car. She peered out the windows on either side. The buildings and intersections they passed blended into each other and nothing seemed familiar. She’d lived in the city her whole life. How could she not recognize anything? She didn’t know if they were in Brooklyn or Manhattan—or the Bronx, Queens, or Staten Island, for that matter. She wasn’t thinking straight—whatever knocked her out scrambled her brain. She didn’t move. Despite the fogginess and the pain, she knew her captors expected her to be unconscious or they wouldn’t have left her alone in the backseat. She kept still, closed her eyes, hoping her mind would clear.
In a few moments, she opened her eyes. Her brain started to work. They were cruising along a city street, not a highway. Because she was still half lying down, she looked up at the buildings they passed, not ahead in front of her, the way she usually saw the city. That was why she was so confused. Now, out the driver’s side window, she recognized a very tall, granite building with ornate arches at the entrance, followed by a short squat building across from an intersection of three or four wide streets. She knew where they were … on Flatbush Avenue, passing the Williamsburgh Savings Bank Tower and the Atlantic Avenue subway station. Because it was a city street, the car slowed down and stopped at traffic lights, even though it moved at a pretty good clip between the stops.
She knew she had to get out of the car, or at least get a door open and cause a fuss. For sure, she wasn’t going wherever it was they wanted to take her. She had to take a chance. If the car doors were locked in such a way that she couldn’t open them, she was out of luck. But she had to take a chance, opening the door, jumping out, screaming, and running when the car stopped at a light. Things could go wrong. The door might not open. She might fall. One of the men might run after her and catch her. One of them might shoot her.
She was scared, yet it was the right thing to do. The men didn’t know she was awake. It might be the only time she’d have an advantage on them. She waited for two lights past what she believed was the intersection where Flatbush, Atlantic, and Fourth Avenues came together. The third time the car stopped, she waited what she thought was long enough for the light to change back to green, felt or heard the car barely begin to move, took a deep breath and lunged for the door.
She lifted the handle and pushed with her shoulder. The door opened and she more or less rolled out, got her feet under her, screamed, and began running into the street that intersected Flatbush Avenue. She quickly gave up screaming in favor of running and ran for a full block past storefronts that were mostly restaurants, noticing the mildly surprised expressions on the people she ran past.
Only in New York does a young woman running wildly down a street in fear of her life attract nothing more than mild interest from passersby. As she crossed the first street she came to, she saw she was on Fifth Avenue. She’d escaped into trendy Park Slope. After another block she slowed and looked behind her. The two men hadn’t followed her on foot.
They might have stayed in the car and might now be circling the block. The safest thing was to duck in somewhere. Stupidly, she didn’t want to cause a scene and embarrass herself, so she walked another couple of blocks until she came to a pizza place, well-lit, brick-walled, not too fancy, not crowded. She sat for a moment in the first booth she came to and tried to gather her wits. In a moment, she realized she should do something so she ordered a personal pizza with buffalo mozzarella and took it to a booth at the back of the restaurant, against the wall as far from the door as possible. When she looked at the pizza on the table in front of her, an image flashed through her mind of sitting across from Gobi not so long ago while he devoured a pizza.
He couldn’t be behind what happened to her. She wouldn’t believe he would be part of something like this. It was hard to believe it happened at all. She should call the police, yet all she could do was sit there stunned, staring at a pizza she wasn’t going to eat. She sat for a few more minutes, not seeing, remembering the first day she met Gobi, the confron
tation between him and Leila, how whatever went on between them was on a level they understood and she didn’t.
She pictured each time she saw him, actually only a few times. He had a presence, something that drew her to him, like a guru. Maybe he did have four wives, after all. She called Raymond on her cell phone.
When he answered, her voice broke. Tears gushed into her eyes. With sobs breaking up her voice, she told him what happened. By the time she got to where she jumped out of the car, the tears had stopped and she’d gotten her voice under control. Raymond listened calmly. Sometimes, his placidness bothered her—he didn’t get angry at things that should make him mad. Now, it comforted her.
“Are you hurt?” he asked when she paused.
“I’m okay.” She told him where she was. “I’ll wait a little bit and get a cab back.”
“I’ll come get you. Those men might be looking for you. Have you called the police?”
“No. I don’t want to, not yet. I need to think.” She almost choked on the rage rising in her. She didn’t know if she was mad at Gobi or the men who’d accosted her or, for some reason, Raymond. Really, she was mad at all men because at heart they were bullies, who, when push came to shove, relied on being bigger and stronger than you were. From wherever the anger came from, she lashed out. “What good would you do? I can get back by myself. I don’t know why you think you’re helping me.”
“Okay.” He sounded hurt. “Ask the waiter or bartender to get a cab for you and call the police.” He hung up.
As soon as he was gone, she was sorry. She’d attacked him. He offered to help and she struck out at him, as if he’d done something to hurt her, when she was the one who’d hurt him. She did want him to come and get her. Now, it was too late. She couldn’t bring herself to call him back.
