CHAPTER THIRTY

Teddy began playing the video that his tech crew spliced together to present to the family.

“What’s the timeline?” Charles asked.

“Four days ago,” said Teddy.

“The last time anybody heard from Gloria,” said Alex Drakos.

Teddy nodded.“Right.”

They all were gathered in the dining hall as they watched what appeared to be a clothing store.

“Where is this?”

“Apple Valley. It all takes place there.”

“Where’s her security?” asked Bella.

Teddy, leaned in between his father and Big Daddy, zoomed out and that was when they saw a black SUV. “Right there,” he said.

In the video, Gloria came out of the store and began heading up the sidewalk to the car in front of the SUV. A man came out of the store behind her, and got in the SUV.

But as Gloria walked around and was about to get into her Lexus, a gray Impala pulled up beside her. They could see the door of the black SUV open, but then Gloria smiled and went over to the car, rested her arms on the open window’s track, and was laughing and talking with whomever was behind the wheel. The door of the SUV closed back, and nobody got out.

For nearly five minutes Gloria laughed and talked at that car window. Then she stood erect, motioned to her security detail vehicle, and then the guy that had been in the store with her hopped out of the SUV, hurried over to her, and then listened as she told him something. They talked briefly, as if he wanted to get in the car with her, but then he nodded and went and got back into the SUV as Gloria got inside of the Impala. And they were off.

“Apparently they didn’t see any threat there,” said Alex.

“Do any of you Florida folks recognize that car?” asked Charles.

Alex and Kari didn’t, but Oz nodded. “It’s Aristotle’s car.”

They all looked at him. “You’re certain?” Mick asked him.

Oz nodded. “Oh yeah.”

Nikki looked at Teddy, her husband and boss. “You ran the tag?”

“We did. It’s a rental. We checked the rental company video, but found nothing.”

“What name was it under?”

“Vito Parker,” said Teddy.

Mick and Charles looked at each other. “Vito Costantino and Parker Fourtaine,” said Mick.

“The first names of his son and grandson,” said Charles.

“But he had to be old as mud to be Vito Costantino’s father.”

“That’s how he’s able to get away with shit,” said Oz. “He comes across as this kindly, smart, grandfatherly type. As harmless.”

“Nobody’s harmless,” said Mick as they watched the Impala drive off and the black SUV follow them.

“This is the next video we found,” said Teddy as he cued it up. “It was pinged three miles away.”

They saw the Impala and the SUV nearly on the outer edge of town as it turned down a side road that led to an open field. The camera showed both the car and SUV driving onto the open field.

But then gunfire was suddenly heard on the camera and the SUV began lurching from side to side in defensive maneuvers in an effort to get away from the ambush, but they were in the throes of it. They couldn’t get away. Mick, Nikki, and Teddy watched in horror as their men, their capos, were gunned down in what in essence was a moving grave. They knew that all of them were gone when the SUV began moving slower and slower and then came to a stop against a small tree.

“Zoom out,” Mick ordered, and Teddy zoomed out. That was when they saw the Impala speeding away.

“Damn,” said Oz.

“They set that shit up,” said Alex.

“Where are the shooters?” Charles asked.

Teddy pressed rewind and then play. Then he zoomed over and they all saw a building where gunmen were perched. Then they saw the gunmen leave after the SUV, on the field, came to a complete stop. Then they saw another car speed up to the SUV, one man got out with a rifle, checked to make sure there were no survivors in the SUV, and then he hopped in behind the wheel and took off in Mick’s men’s SUV. The car he had gotten out of followed behind him. They all went in the same direction as the Impala that contained Gloria.

Which terrified them all. Bella started crying again. Oz moved away from the crowd, his hands running through his long hair. Alex looked at his kid brother. He could only imagine the pain he was in.

“No wonder you couldn’t find your guys, Uncle Mick,” Reno said.

Teddy stood erect.

“That’s all we got?” Charles asked him.

“Where’s my wife?” Oz asked angrily. “Where is she???”

“We don’t pick her up again until the airport.”

“Where’s the video?” Charles asked.

“Cue it up, Teddy,” Oz said as he hurried back to the iPad. “Cue that shit up!”

“Oh you’re worried now,” Teddy said to Oz. “All those months out of the country not thinking about her, but you’re worried now?”

Oz angrily went for Teddy and both big men began fighting. It took Alex Drakos, Nikki, Charles, and Monk to break it up before they tore up the entire room. But Mick didn’t move. He agreed with Teddy.

“Cue up the video,” Oz said again when they both had stopped their aggression.

But Teddy shook his head. “Nothing to cue up. I dispatched a crew over to the airfield, but their entire camera system went offline four days ago, and stayed offline until that nightfall. By then, Gloria’s phone was no longer pinging anywhere.”

“That motherfucker turned it off,” said Charles.

“Why did he wait that long to turn it off?” asked Nikki.

“Because he wanted us to waste our time on this shit,” said Mick.

“I’m surprised Gloria didn’t get away from him if he’s as old as you guys are saying,” said Jenay.

“They had company.”

They all looked at Mick. “Company?” asked Teddy. “What company? Nobody else got in that Impala.

“He was already in it. Rewind it.”

Teddy rewound the tape until Mick told him to stop. “Right there,” Mick said.

It was as the Impala was speeding off. “Zoom in,” Mick said, and Teddy did that too. And that was when they all saw the backseat of the Impala suddenly flap down as if someone from the trunk was moving it out of the way. “One of the gunmen,” said Mick.

They all exhaled. This wasn’t good. They knew this wasn’t good.

“What are we gonna do, Mick?” Bella asked him again. “If they were willing to kill her entire security detail, knowing that they work for you and Teddy, then what on earth will they do with our baby?”

It was a question all of them were asking themselves too. It was a question Mick couldn’t begin to answer.

“But if he took out the camera system at that airfield in Florida,” said Monk, “didn’t that mean he didn’t want us to know where he was going?”

“So?” said Reno.

“So that means he didn’t bring Glo to Philly like he claimed.”

“He’s right!” said Bella. “He’s right!”

“What about the driver?” asked Roz. “The driver is the only person that can lead us to Gloria.”

“Teddy, were you able to get a clear picture of him to confirm it’s the old man?” Charles asked him.

“We got a clear look, yes.”

“Show him to us,” said Oz. “I’ll know if it’s that fucker.”

Teddy rewound the tape to when they first entered the open field. Only this camera angle was a frontal view. And that was when he paused it. And they got to see Gloria and her driver. And Gloria was happy at that point, because it was before the ambush of her security detail.

“That him, Oz?” Nikki asked.

But Oz was stunned. “No. That’s not him.”

And it was clear the white man in that freeze frame was not an old man at all.

“That’s not him?” Monk was stunned too. “That’s not Aristotle?”

“That’s not him,” said a now-distressed Oz. “What the fuck is going on!”

“If it’s not Aristotle,” Reno asked for all of them, “then who is it?”

But then Charles frowned. And leaned closer to the screen. “Mother fuck !” he said with great exclamation.

They all looked at him. All except Mick. Mick was staring at the screen too.

“What is it, Big Daddy?” Sal asked him.

Charles rose to his feet. “I know that fucker.”

“How do you know him, Charlie?” Jenay asked.

“I sold him a building that he converted into a tattoo parlor in Jericho. But that was years ago. Just before you came to town, Mick.”

And that was when Mick recognized him too. He never forgot a face. “It was just after I was ambushed in Philly by Vito Costantino.”

“What happened?” Alex asked.

“They were gunning for my ass, but thanks to Bella I was able to turn the tables on those fuckers and take’em all out. I defended myself,” said Mick.

“Against some of them, or all of them?” asked Sal.

“All of them,” said Mick.

“But didn’t Hammer say Vito Costantino was Aristotle’s son?” asked Charles.

“Right.”

“So just after you killed Aristotle’s son, you end up in Jericho around this guy?”

Mick nodded. “Yes. One of my men knew I was going to Jericho to lay low, so he told me about a guy at a tattoo parlor that could get his hands on major weapons. I wanted to make a deal with him, but he was being an asshole and too unreasonable. The deal fell through.”

“Who was the guy that told you he could help you out?” asked Charles.

“One of my guys. He died a week after that ambush.”

“So you came to Jericho, not to just lay low like you told me at the time,” said Charles, “but to beef up your arsenal?”

“Mainly yes.”

“What was the name of the tattoo guy?” asked Jenay.

“I never got his name,” said Mick.

Charles pulled out his phone and called his office.

“Sinatra Properties?” It was Katie, his office manager.

“Go into the Archives and get me the name of the guy I sold the Mims Street building to. It’s a tattoo parlor today.”

“Yes sir,” said Katie, and Charles waited on the phone.

She came back quickly. “You sold it to a Roger Rittenhauser, sir.”

“That’s that name!” Charles said, remembering it on hearing it.

“Rittenhauser?” Sal looked around. “Ring a bell with anybody?”

Nobody else had heard the name before.

But Teddy was already going online searching for Roger Rittenhauser’s photo. And he found it. “He’s still listed as the owner of that tattoo parlor,” said Teddy.

“But it’s the same guy in that Impala with Glo?” asked Oz.

“It’s the same guy.”

“The richest man in the world owning a tattoo parlor in little Jericho?” Bella shook her head. “That don’t even sound right.”

“That’s exactly why he owns that parlor,” said Mick. “That’s why Hammer and the mighty arm of the law can’t find his ass.”

“They’re so busy looking in all these highfalutin places so much that they don’t have time to look under rocks,” said Nikki. “To consider small towns. That’s why they don’t even know what he looks like. Oh he knows what he’s doing. Believe that.”

“We need his cellphone data,” said Charles. “We need to know where his phone is pinging.”

“Good idea, Big Daddy,” Teddy said as he got up and made the phone call to his tech guys.

“I’ll bet you any amount of money,” said Charles, “that his ass ain’t pinging here in Philly.”

They all suspected the same. And they all suspected that the meeting tomorrow was just a ruse. Another distraction. Another nail in Gloria’s coffin if they weren’t careful.