Swimming with Sharks (76 page)

“She’s supposed to be here?” Spooner raised his eyebrows.

“Is there another bar with this name near here?” Nick snarled at the officer impatiently.

“We’ll check the establishment,” Spooner said. “Stay in the car.”

“No,” Nick said as he opened the door and got out. “You stay here, Spooner.”

“We have strict orders to protect you, Mr. Kostidis,” Spooner’s colleague Khazaeli interjected. “If this is a trap—”

“Then I have shitty luck!”

Nick slammed the car door shut. Didn’t Alex risk her life for him once? He owed it to her to come to her without the two US marshals at his side. But Deputy Spooner stepped in his path.

“Mayor or not,” he said, “I have my orders, and I don’t feel like being suspended because of your stubbornness.”

“I don’t give a damn,” Nick replied. “Let me through!”

He pushed the US marshal aside and walked around the building until he found the kitchen door. Under no circumstances did he want to be seen by a dozen people at this bar.

Nick knocked on the door, and Spooner and Khazaeli stood behind him.

“At least keep your weapons out of sight,” Nick asked them.

“So that these guys can gun us down?” Spooner cocked his Glock. “I don’t think so!”

The door opened a crack, and an unshaven, pockmarked man peeked out suspiciously.

“Are you…?”

“Yes,” Nick replied impatiently. “I’m Nick Kostidis.”

“And those guys?”

“US marshals,” Spooner said. “Open the door, pal!”

Nick rolled his eyes. Deputy Spooner was as diplomatic as a steamroller.

“Come in,” the man said, opening the door, and Nick entered the incredibly dirty kitchen. The place made a mockery of New York’s health regulations.

“Hi, Mayor Kostidis.” A fat woman with a cigarette hanging out of the corner of her mouth appeared in the doorway. “I can’t believe it! We all voted for you—me and my regulars.”

Nick forced a smile. “I want to see Ms. Sontheim.”

“Unbelievable. Ain’t it, Travis?” The corpulent woman rammed her elbow into the pockmarked man’s side. “The mayor himself in my place.”

Nick shook with impatience.

“Travis here pulled the girl out of the river,” the fat woman said, patting the man’s back. “She was butt naked and half dead—the poor thing.”

Nick turned pale. Had Vitali really tried to get rid of Alex in the river in classic Mafia style?

“Come with me, Mr. Kostidis.” The fat woman waved to him. She planted herself in front of the two US marshals.

“You stay down here, boys,” she said with an authority that tolerated no dissent. “The babe’s in pretty bad shape, as you can imagine. And I’m sure that she doesn’t want to see any cops.”

“But—” Spooner was about to protest.

“Nope. You stay here.” She heaved herself up the narrow staircase, and Nick followed her along a dimly lit hallway to a door.

“You better be nice to her,” the fat woman said in a quiet voice. “She got roughed up pretty good, the poor thing. Lost her memory and had a high fever. But she’s doin’ better since midday today. She remembers what happened now.”

Nick nodded. His heart was racing, and he would have loved to charge past the big woman.

“Hey, sweetie,” she said in a surprisingly gentle way, “you got a visitor.”

She stepped aside, and Nick entered the room. He didn’t notice the greasy wallpaper, the worn-out carpet, the nicotine-yellow curtains, the decrepit furniture, or the red lamp that made this room what it was in the evenings: a pay-by-the-hour motel. Nick only had eyes for the slender figure that sat at the head of the bed with her arms wrapped around her knees.

“Alex! Oh my God, Alex.”

Her face had been mangled terribly, looking like one big bruise. Blood had dried on her cheeks, chin, nose, and busted lips. Burst blood vessels surrounded her eyes.

“Nick,” she whispered. Her eyes were filled with fear and looked nearly dead. Only a picture of misery remained of this beautiful young woman. He knelt down in front of the bed and looked at the wounds on Alex’s wrists. She was wearing a jogging suit that was much too large.

Nick had a feeling that more had been destroyed than just her beautiful face. A broken human being crouched before him.

“He came to the hotel,” Alex whispered. “I thought that you had come back, that’s why I opened the door.”

Nick frowned as he tried to hold back the tears. This was all so simply horrifying. Tears of anger rose in him and a lump caught in his throat. What unfeeling animals could do such a thing to a woman?

“I didn’t tell him anything. Not a single word,” Alex continued.

She was speaking mechanically; her expression was empty, trancelike.

“They beat and raped me. He said that he would kill me. I couldn’t defend myself. He sat on a chair and watched, and then he…
laughed
…”

Her voice failed her. She swayed back and forth while the tears ran down her face. Nick felt a wild, powerless anger. Sergio Vitali—this brutal, merciless monster without regard for human life—had destroyed Alex. And then Nick’s heart tensed when he remembered her expression of happiness back on the beach in Montauk. That seemed like light-years ago.

“Come with me, Alex.” Nick extended his hand.

“If he finds out that I’m still alive,” she said, her gaze wandering around the room aimlessly, “then he’ll try to kill me again.”

“I’ll look after you, I promise you.” Nick’s voice sounded brave. He extended his hand patiently to her, until Alex finally let go of her knees and grabbed it.

“Oh, Nick,” she suddenly sobbed. “Why did all of this have to happen? Why?”

She threw her arms around his neck, pulled her sobbing body toward him, and buried her face in his chest.

“I’ll take care of you, Alex.” Nick pressed his face into her hair. “I promise you, my love. I’ll protect you.”

He held her tight, cradling her in his arms like a baby, letting her cry. Once she calmed down a bit, he picked her up and carried her out to the hallway, where the fat woman was still on guard. Nick’s eyes met with hers.

“Thanks,” he said. “Thank you for your help.”

“It’s okay,” the woman replied and stroked Alex’s stringy hair. “Take good care of her.”

He carried Alex down the stairs, past the marshals to the car. In the car, Alex cuddled in his arms. Her whole body shivered even though the car was warm and she was wrapped in a wool blanket. Nick murmured senseless, calming words that one might say to a child; his sympathy for her was so deep.

“Where are we going?” Deputy Spooner asked curtly.

“Goldwater Memorial on Roosevelt Island,” Nick replied, “and keep a low profile, please.”

“Of course, sir.”

As the car drove off, Nick stroked Alex’s beaten face and held her tightly in his arms. He searched for consoling words, but there was no solace. Nick remembered his own emotions all too well. In the days following Mary’s and Christopher’s deaths, he couldn’t bear to be spoken to. The lights of the Brooklyn Bridge illuminated the injuries to Alex’s face. Nick wished that he could spare her everything that was waiting for her. She would have to endure endless questioning by the US Attorney’s Office, the SEC’s investigation unit, the NYPD, the doctors, and especially the FBI. Time and again, they would force her to remember what she probably wanted to forget. Often enough during his tenure as a US attorney, Nick had had to ask such questions. He had never realized how painful they could actually be.

The news that Alex had surfaced again put Lloyd Connors into a state of sheer euphoria. His exhaustion was forgotten. With fiery zeal, he and his staff worked overnight on the indictment against Sergio Vitali. However, Alex’s murder charge had to be redacted for her to be a credible witness of the prosecution. But Oliver Skerritt’s testimony would prove Vitali’s guilt, along with St. John’s documents, and—last but not least—Nelson van Mieren’s confession that now had unexpected weight because Alex was alive. Alex had witnessed a hired assassin reporting the killing of David Zuckerman to Vitali. Vitali could not possibly wrench himself free from this accusation. It was six forty-five when Tate Jenkins stepped into Connors’s office accompanied by two men.

“Your time is almost up now, Connors,” the deputy director of the FBI said with a patronizing smile. “How far along are your people with the indictments?”

“Done,” the deputy US attorney replied. “We’re ready to go whenever you give the signal.”

Jenkins nodded in satisfaction.

“What does your plan look like?”

“We have signed confessions from fifty-three bribed individuals,” Connors explained. “There are eleven more people on the list we haven’t spoken to; Whitewater is dead, and Harding still refuses to cooperate. I plan on doing nothing.”

The smile vanished from Jenkins’s face.

“What do you mean?”

“After talking to Mr. Engels, I’ve decided to investigate this without going public,” Connors countered in a calm voice. “The Department of Justice shares my opinion that it’s better if we don’t raise too much dust. We’re going to offer a plea bargain to those willing to cooperate. They’ll avoid tax-evasion charges by paying the back taxes that they owe. We will refrain from prosecuting on criminal corruption charges as long as these men voluntarily resign from office and never run in the future.”

“But—” Jenkins’s jaw dropped in astonishment; he was struggling for words.

“Engels has spoken to the president’s advisor Jordy Rosenbaum,” the deputy US attorney continued, “and the president prefers this quiet solution to avoid an emotional public discussion.”

Jenkins was silent for a moment. Relief was clearly etched into his face. At that moment, Connors knew for sure that his instincts hadn’t failed him, and that Nick was right again. It was unbelievable. Jenkins was in league with Vitali.

“What about Vitali?” Jenkins actually asked.

“Nothing,” Connors said, shrugging his shoulders. “What can we do? Given the current evidence, we can’t prove anything. Until this woman reappears, I won’t even think about preparing indictments that would just be thrown out due to a lack of evidence.”

It was silent in the large office.

“Oh well.” Jenkins cleared his throat and then smiled. “It appears I’m no longer needed in New York. However, I want you to update me regularly about the progress in this case.”

“Of course.” Connors nodded. “I’ll keep you posted.”

Nick Kostidis stood at the frosted door of the private internal medicine ward on Goldwater Memorial Hospital’s third floor. He stared out the window. Ever since he’d found Alex in that sleazy dive, something had changed inside of him. The sight of her battered face, the fear and horror in her eyes, made him forget his own sorrow. Now, he felt a hot, raging fury, a wild thirst for revenge. His time of paralyzing numbness was over, and Nick knew with certainty that he wouldn’t allow Vitali to get away unscathed this time.

The sun pushed through the thick cloud cover and shone on the skyscrapers behind the United Nations. Somewhere over there, Vitali was sleeping calmly, thinking that Alex was dead. Just as dead as Mary and Christopher, Britney Edwards, David Zuckerman, Clarence Whitewater, and Zachary St. John. But he was mistaken. Alex was alive and would soon overcome her shock. And he—Nick Kostidis—would do everything in his power to support her in her testimony.

Nick’s eyes burned from exhaustion, but there was no time to sleep. Lloyd Connors and Gordon Engels had come to the hospital the very same night. They agreed to keep Alex’s reappearance hidden for the time being. Nick and Connors managed to convince Gordon Engels that Jenkins was no longer on their team, and Engels had called the president’s chief of staff and the attorney general—both of whom gave a green light to a strategy excluding the FBI from the investigation.

A few days earlier, Connors had hired a private detective to find the eyewitness to the murder Vitali had committed in 1963—at least according to van Mieren’s testimony.

“I don’t just want to throw Vitali into prison,” Connors had said. “I want him in the electric chair.” He was deeply shocked to see how brutally Vitali had treated Alex.

The frosted glass door opened, and Dr. Virginia Summer, senior physician of the internal medicine ward, stepped out. She balanced two paper cups of hot coffee. Nick had known Ginnie Summer for a long time. She’d been a friend of Mary’s, and her husband was a senior partner at a much-respected law firm. Nick had studied with him back in the day at NYU. “Hello, Ginnie,” Nick said. “How’s Alex?”