CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

“I’m still getting over what Hammer said about Parker Fourtaine,” said Charles as Reno and Tommy walked in. “He was a Costantino? That Vito Costantino was his father, and Aristotle is his grandfather? That changes the whole equation,” Charles added.

“That’s what I’m saying,” said Teddy. “No wonder Fourtaine was willing to lie to Pop’s face when Hammer broke him out of prison. He was protecting his grandfather.”

“But who that fucker is?” asked Sal. “Who is he?”

“Where’s Trevor Reese?” asked Reno. “I thought I saw him here. Shouldn’t he be in this meeting too instead of all these wives? We may need his expertise to get this guy.”

“Mick’s paranoid he’ll tell Hammer,” said Sal, “when everybody knows Trevor isn’t like that.”

“They all are like that,” Mick said, “when it’s blood. He’s cool with missing this one meeting.”

“But what are we doing wrong?” asked Charles.

“That’s the wrong question,” said Mick. “The Feds have been onto this guy for a long time, and they haven’t found him or even has a picture of him. What are the Feds doing wrong is the question we need to answer.”

“And then we need to not do what they’re doing,” said Roz.

Mick nodded.“Right.”

Then the office door opened once again, and this time Oz Drakos walked inside. A man with long, thick hair down his back, a chiseled face, and personality on steroids, most everybody in that room couldn’t help but smile when he walked in. “The champ is here!” Teddy announced and he and Oz gave each other a half-hug, half-handshake.

“How you doing, brother?” Oz asked his brother-in-law.

“I’m good,” Teddy said.

“Hey Nick, how you doing?” Oz asked.

“I’m doing just fine,” Nikki said as she stood up and hugged him too.

“Hello everybody else,” Oz said cheerfully. “Still looking good Jenay.” He and Gloria came to town the day after Jenay arrived back home. But they only stay for that one day and hadn’t been back since. “Charles taking better care of you?”

“Better?” asked Charles.

Jenay laughed. “Yes, he is,” she said.

“Where have you been?” Mick asked Oz.

“Business overseas.”

Mick and Roz glanced at each other. They knew what kind of business Oz had been up to lately. He was once a mob boss back in Greece before he emigrated to the United States. Now he was right back in that world again, a world Mick had warned him to stay away from. “I don’t want my daughter caught up in that shit,” Mick had warned him countless times. But Oz might smile and appear the friendliest guy on earth, but Mick and Roz both knew he was cunning. He did whatever the hell he wanted to do and everybody else be damned.

“What have I missed?” Oz asked.

“We’re trying to find Aristotle,” said Charles. “Not the famous one. But the fucked up one.”

“Aristotle?” Oz asked. Then he grinned. “Why on earth would you need to find that guy?”

Everybody looked at Oz. “You know him?” Mick asked.

“Unless there’s another Aristotle running around in our circles, yes, I know him.”

Mick and Charles glanced at each other. “You know him how?”

“Well I don’t know him like that, but he’s one of Gloria’s tutors.”

“Her tutor?” asked Teddy, astounded. “Gloria never told me she had a tutor.”

“He’s tutoring her in what?” asked Nikki.

“She wants to learn Greek,” said Oz. “I don’t have time to teach her, and neither does Alex. So she found a tutor. Or he found her is more like it.”

“Geez,” said Charles, worried now. “How did he find her?”

“He came in her restaurant one day. I was at the counter trying to teach her a few simple Greek words and this fellow walks in and overhears us. He says he’s a professor of Grecian History over at Florida State, and he said he teaches students interested in learning how to speak Greek on the side, which was exactly what Glo was looking for. He said he taught a class twice a week over at Pensacola Community College, which is just up the street from Apple Valley where we live, and he said he could teach her Greek those two days a week he was in our area. And that’s what he’s been doing for the past two, three months.”

“And you’re certain he said his name was Aristotle?” Mick asked.

“No, no, that’s not his actual name,” said Oz. “But he talked about that philosopher Aristotle so much that it became his name. I mean every other sentence was what Aristotle said about this or what Aristotle said about that. It was so much that Gloria laughed and called him Aristotle to his face one day. He didn’t like it, though, and told her that wasn’t his name. So she never called him that to his face again, but we call him that behind his back all the time. All the regulars in the restaurant calls him that too. Nobody knows him by any other name. He’s that Aristotle guy, or just Aristotle. But he’s a good guy. A likeable man.”

“Did you run a background on him?” asked Mick.

“I didn’t, but Glo did. She said he checked out. He is a professor of History at FSU.”

“What’s his real name?” Teddy asked as he pulled up Google.

But Oz was shaking his head. “You’ll have to ask Glo that. I don’t remember his name. I just know him as Aristotle.”

Everybody looked at Mick. “Is it even possible?” asked Trina.

“Hell yeah it’s possible,” said Reno. “The fucker that killed my kid a long time ago had a nothing, regular job so he could blend in, and he was the head of a vicious mob family.”

“Maybe that’s why Hammer and the government couldn’t find him,” said Jenay. “They were looking in the wrong places.”

“And that wasn’t his real name,” said Charles. “But if Glo and everybody else in her diner could call him Aristotle after only being around him a few months, everybody else wherever he went apparently called him by that nickname too. And that’s the only name the government has.”

“That’s what Hammer said,” Jenay said, and everybody looked at her.

“He said what?” asked Charles.

“Hammer told me Aristotle more than likely wasn’t his real name. But it was the only name his operatives had. And none of them had ever seen him before either.”

“Wouldn’t it be something if he was right under our noses all along?” asked Sal.

“And hanging around my daughter,” said Mick. And as soon as he said it, everybody realized the danger.

“Where’s Gloria anyway?” Roz asked Oz. Gloria was Mick’s daughter and Roz’s stepdaughter. “Did she come with you?”

“No, I just flew in from overseas. Just literally got off my plane and came straight here. Glo and our daughter are catching a ride with Alex and his family. I thought they would have beat me here. I thought they would have been here by now.”

But Mick was confused. “Alex?”

“My brother,” Oz said with a smile. “Remember?”

“I didn’t ask Alex Drakos to come here. He’s keeping his family on lockdown in Florida.”

“And he never mentioned anything about dropping Gloria off when we spoke to him,” said Roz. “In fact he told us she was with you.”

Oz’s smile suddenly left. “With me ?”

“Yes with you!” said Mick.

Teddy quickly phoned his sister. “Voice Mail,” Teddy said. “It went straight to Voice Mail, Pop.” They could hear the panic coming in Teddy’s voice.

Oz quickly phoned his brother, the billionaire Alex Drakos.

“Where are you?” Alex asked as soon as he answered the phone.

“I’m in Philly. Alexio, is Glo with you?”

“With me? She text and told me she was with you.”

Oz’s heart dropped. Everybody’s did. “She text and told me you were flying her and the family to Philly when Mick ordered everybody here.”

“Dear Lord,” said Roz, her heart pounding. “What’s happening, Mick?”

Mick quickly grabbed Oz’s phone. “When was the last time you saw my daughter, Alex?”

“It’s been almost a week. Just after she and Odysseus got back from Jericho. I thought she flew overseas with him. I got a text saying she was with him and if we could keep their daughter a little longer. She wasn’t with him?”

“No. What about my grandchild?”

“She’s with Kari and me. She’s fine,” Alex said. “I have her and the family on lockdown.”

“Keep it that way.”

“Are you telling me Gloria is missing?” Alex asked in an anxious voice.

Mick ran his hand through his hair. Oz took the phone back from him. “Let us know if you hear from her.”

“I’ll check around town. Make sure she’s not with any of her friends.”

“Okay good. Did she ever mention Aristotle to you?”

“Aristotle? The guy they’re looking for? No. Why would she?”

“Long story,” said Oz. “I’ll call you back.” And he ended the call.

Everybody was nervously on their feet by this time. And Mick was pacing the floor.

“What are we gonna do, Pop?” Teddy asked. He and Gloria were especially close.

Mick looked at Oz. “Do you have any photos of him or anything like that?”

Oz shook his head. “No. Why would I? Glo said he checked out.”

“Do you at least know where he lives?” asked Charles.

Oz nodded. “He started teaching Glo on the weekends and I drove her to his house in Tallahassee a couple of times. I only did it because we were having our usual issues, and it gave us a chance to talk.”

Mick started barking out orders. Even he had a sense of anxiousness in his voice. “Teddy?”

“Sir?”

“I want you, Tommy, Monk, and Trevor to stay back and protect the home front.”

“Pop!”

“I know you want to go, Ted, I know you want to go. But you’re too emotionally involved.”

“And you aren’t?” Teddy asked his father with incredulity in his eyes.

“I need you here,” Mick said firmly, his voice cracking under the strain of knowing his baby could be caught up in this madness. “If there’s a blowback attack, I need full force here.” Then he softened. “We’ll get her,” he said.

“Who’s traveling with us?” Charles asked.

“Reno, Sal, and Nikki.”

“And me of course,” said Oz, since it was his wife and he was the only one who knew where Aristotle lived and what he looked like.

“It may not even be the same person,” said Jenay.

“Gloria’s missing. An Aristotle was teaching her how to speak Greek. I don’t believe in that serendipity shit. It’s him,” Mick said as he began hurrying for the exit.

“Aren’t you going to suit up, Uncle Mick?” Tommy asked him.

“On my plane,” Mick said, and left the room. All those going with him left too. But Charles came back, gave Jenay a hug and a kiss, and told her not to worry. “None of you need to sit up here worrying,” he added to everybody else, and then he left too.

But even Charles had to know those were hollow words. Gloria was missing. Could be in the clutches of a man so dangerous and elusive that even the government can’t find him. Everybody still in that office were worried sick.