Death Benefit

  “So you think this girl might be your daughter?” Buda asked, not wanting to believe this was happening.

  “It’s possible, for sure. It’s hardly a common name, and the age is about right, mid-to-late twenties.” Try as he might, Burim couldn’t remember Afrodita’s birthday—neither the day nor the year.

  “What’s the story with the change of the family name?”

  Burim related that issue. Since Buda, like all Albanian mafia, knew the details of the Rudaj debacle, he understood. When the FBI came bursting in, lots of people had to go underground.

  “So you lost touch with your daughter a long time ago?”

  “Yes, you know how it is in this business.”

  Having been at the time a gofer in a neighborhood crew that was heavily involved in the drug business didn’t make him ideal parent material. Buda and Burim both understood. Burim didn’t think it was necessary to fill in the details. That the cops had come and taken the kid away and put her in foster care, that he hadn’t bothered to stay in contact, was all understood. Burim went quiet again.

  “You think she’d remember you?”

  “She was six, I believe, when she went away, and I guess a kid can remember back that far.”

  Burim couldn’t help wondering why a man like Buda cared about this woman who might possibly be his daughter. “So how did this Pia Grazdani show up? How did she get involved with you?”

  “She’s associated with a job I was asked to do,” Buda said vaguely. “She’s a medical student at Columbia University, doing work with some researcher who had an accident and died.”

  Burim was shocked once again. Could his daughter be a medical student? And at such a famous university? It seemed incredible. If pressed, he would have thought the girl would end up on a similar path as her mother, would have been with a guy like him or maybe even out on the street. A medical student? He was surprised to feel something like pride.

  “And is she pretty, like Berti said?”

  “I haven’t seen her, but I’m told she is quite beautiful. And, er, scrappy.”

  “You mean she likes a fight?”

  “You could say that.”

  “That sounds right,” Burim said ruefully. “Her mother was a tigress. So what is this about?”

  “Where are you?” Buda asked. “With this development, we need to talk in person.”

  It turned out that Burim was only about fifteen miles from where Buda was parked, near the Lincoln Tunnel exit on the New Jersey Turnpike.

  “Do you know the Swiss House Inn?” Burim asked, and Buda did. The restaurant was just off Route 80, convenient for Burim and Buda and not far, as it happened, from Green Pond either.

  “I want my brother to come,” Burim said.

  “Okay,” Buda said, curious. The two brothers seemed to be like night and day. Why he’d want his moron brother there, Buda couldn’t imagine, but he didn’t care. It was, after all, a family affair.

  “I will have an associate with me as well,” Buda said, thinking of Fatos Toptani. If he could get Fatos Toptani to get there in time, he thought.

  “About thirty minutes,” Buda said, and rang off. He wasn’t happy that the call had taken so long, but his hand had been forced somewhat. What were the odds that Berti’s guy Burim was this Pia’s father? From that perspective, he was very glad he’d thought to look into the issue. Killing the daughter of a connected man, even a long-lost daughter, even a daughter the father was ambivalent about, would have been a serious matter, especially for a man associated with the Ristani crew. More than any other crew Buda knew, they were addicted to violence. For them it was like a sport.

  Buda quickly phoned Berti back and gave him a synopsis of the conversation. “As strange as it may seem, this Pia Grazdani may be Burim’s long-lost daughter.” Berti was as surprised as anyone. “We’re getting together in person,” Buda added.

  “Good,” Berti replied. “I appreciate the care you are taking with this. I wouldn’t want anything to come between our organizations.”

  “Nor would I,” Buda responded, and meant it.

  Buda then made one more call before heading off to the restaurant rendezvous with Burim. He called Prek. It was now more important than ever that Pia be treated with kid gloves. Her fate was going to have to be in Burim’s hands.

  59.

  GREEN POND, NEW JERSEY

  MARCH 25, 2011, 9:24 P.M.

  Prek’s phone rang again. Again it was Buda, just as he expected. He took the news saying little until Buda had finished. He then reassured Buda that everything was fine at the cottage, and before he rang off, he asked Buda to bring them some takeout if it was convenient. Buda agreed, saying he’d bring it from the Swiss House.

  “What is it?” Genti said after Prek had disconnected.

  “The Buda is on his way with Fatos to a restaurant not far from here to meet with two of Berti Ristani’s guys who are brothers. It appears likely that the girl is related to them—the daughter of one and niece of the other. If it turns out to be true, my guess is they’re going to talk for a while and figure out how they will vouch for her silence just like we vouched for her safety. Then they’re going to drive here and find out that our promise was worth nothing. Then they’re going to shoot Neri in the head and you in the legs. If you’re lucky.”

  Prek indicated first Neri and then Genti. Neri had crammed his body into the corner of the couch. His hands were thrust down between his knees and his body was slumped forward although his head was up and he was looking at Prek. His eye, where Prek had smashed him in the face with the pistol, was a livid red. It would turn into a big black shiner, if he lived that long. Genti was sitting at the other end of the couch. He wanted to be sitting up with Prek, who was perched on the back of the couch opposite with his feet on the seat cushion, but he understood the symbolism. He was in the doghouse almost as much as Neri was.

  “You fucking idiot,” Prek said to Genti.

  “Hey, I trusted him too,” Genti said.

  “I trusted you! And you egged him on with all your sex talk.”

  “Well, you didn’t say, ‘I’m going out to the van now, Genti. You make sure that Neri keeps his pants on.’ You said, ‘The boss says he doesn’t know yet, leave the girl alone,’ and you said it to both of us. I figured he heard it as good as I did.”

  “So you went off and took a nap.”

  “You were right outside, Prek. If you were so worried about her, why didn’t you stay in here? It’s as much your fault as it is mine.”

  “My fault?”

  “Okay, Prek, not your fault, but I didn’t touch her. What about this little fucker?” Genti waved his hand in the direction of Neri.

  “I never did nothing,” Neri said very quietly.

  “What did you say?” Prek said.

  “He said he never did anything,” Genti said. “He said you stopped him before he got anywhere. He said that already.”

  “Didn’t look that way to me.”

  “Me, I tend to believe the guy. I would if someone near shot my head off like you did, then hit me in the face with a gun. This guy, I tell him the truth. Listen, Prek, the girl ain’t gonna remember anything either way.”

  “That’s not the point.” Prek was yelling now. “He’s saying he didn’t do anything and I’m saying that is not what I saw.”

  “Which part, Prek?”

  “Which part what?”

  “What did you see?”

  What Prek had seen through the window was Neri with his pants off lying on top of Pia—there was no other conclusion, he was raping her. When Prek smashed the window and fired the gun, it was with the intention of scaring Neri, but the shot had been too close, passing barely three inches above the young man’s head and slamming through a cheap wardrobe into the brick wall behind. But it had the desired effect. The shot awoke Genti, who let the apoplectic Prek in the front door. Prek immediately went to Neri and hit him in the face as he stood there, his pants around his ankles.

 
Neri was thoroughly humiliated and more than a little scared. He was telling the truth, he didn’t rape the girl, but it wasn’t for lack of trying. He’d found he had the same issue with a sleeping beauty as he did with any hooker—he couldn’t get an erection. He’d wanted to prove something to himself, but he’d failed. And right now, that wasn’t the worst of it. The girl had squirmed pretty good underneath him. He was worried that she wasn’t nearly as out of it as she looked.

  Pia gradually felt more and more awake. Her head was pounding, but she remembered a few things. She remembered being at the subway station near the hospital and she remembered George was coming to get her. And Will was there. Something had happened to Will. She remembered that the street was wet, because it was raining. She’d hurt her knee a little when she’d fallen. Why had she fallen?

  The room she was in was a mess of shapes she was having trouble deciphering. She was lying on a bed, she could feel that. She could hear voices from a room nearby. Who did the voices belong to? She shook her head. That’s right, she was in a car. No, a van. And someone stuck a needle in her thigh. Ouch. She listened. The voices belonged to the men who had stuck her with a needle. They were the voices of the men who had attacked her in her dorm room. They were the men who had done something to Will. And one of them was just doing something to me. I have to get out of here, she thought to herself.

  Pia could move her arms and legs. She was surprised to discover she wasn’t tied up. She looked around the room and saw a closed door on one side and a broken window on the other. There had also been a really loud noise. And a man on top of her. Something in Pia’s brain kicked in. She had to get out of that room, even if it was just to the other side of that door or out the window—either would be better than in there. The men’s voices were loud again, and they were coming from the other side of the door. The window, then.

  Pia swung her legs over the side of the bed and tried to stand but she flopped down onto her knees and then her hands. Avoiding shards of glass, she crawled to the window and pulled herself upright. The old-style window had a handle that Pia held on to. As she turned the handle, the empty sash flew open, and she fell halfway out of the frame. It took some effort to reach down until her hands were on the earth in front of the window and she walked herself forward, using them until she could lift one leg then the other out and over the sill. She collapsed on the ground. Pia assumed she’d made so much noise, whoever was shouting in the other room would have heard. But she could still hear the voices, fainter but still there, still raised in disagreement.

  So what are you going to tell Buda?” Genti said. He was now scared.

  “What do you think I should tell him?”

  “Tell him nothing happened. Look him in the eye and tell him nothing happened.”

  “I don’t want to lie to Buda. Why should I lie? It’s you guys who are at fault.”

  Neri looked over at the door to the bedroom where Pia was sleeping. She better not remember anything, he thought, or I’m dead.

  Now sitting on her haunches, Pia resisted the urge to close her eyes, lie down, and go back to sleep, although every bone in her body was telling her to do it. Not for the first time in her life, an adrenaline rush drove her on. She looked over at the van, but she realized it was probably directly in the line of sight of where the voices were coming from. And she was in no state to drive; she’d crash into the first tree she came across.

  Pia had no idea where she was, so she tried to size up the situation. She was cold, she knew that. She had been in a house, and she couldn’t see any other houses around, or any lights. She stared into the dark in front of the house. Was that water? Yes. A river? A lake? Was it the ocean? She had no idea. She saw the light of a midsize moon, mostly obscured by clouds, but she couldn’t tell if it was rising or setting. Pia kept low but started to move to her right, away from the van. She could see better now, and on the other side of the body of water she saw a single house showing one light. There were other homes, but those that she could see both across the water and the immediate neighbors were just dark geometric shapes.

  Leading away from the house in a curve was a pea stone driveway, and Pia walked unsteadily along its edge, trying to keep off the stones. She felt like she was getting her legs beneath her now. Reaching a stretch of pavement, she didn’t know which way to go, left or right. She noticed she was somewhere out in the country, with forest all around. Pia made an arbitrary decision and turned right. On the pavement, she tried to up her speed to a jog, but she staggered along like a drunk. Pia guessed she’d been given some drug. Again she remembered the stabbing pain in her thigh.

  The road was flat and straight and Pia passed driveways on her right but none on the left. The trees kept the road dark; there were no lights on in any of the houses she passed. Pia listened intently for the sound of the van back at the house starting up. Suddenly, the road stopped and split into a starburst of driveways leading off into the darkness. Shafts of moonlight had broken through the clouds and in a gap in the trees, Pia could make out water to her left. Water on her left, water on her right. She got the uncomfortable feeling she was heading down to the end of a peninsula.

  Pia turned and retraced her steps, but then, to her dismay, the quiet of the woods was shattered by the raucous sound of an automobile engine starting. It was coming from outside the house she’d escaped from. The light from the headlights bounced as the van made its way quickly down the driveway. If the van turned right, she was a sitting duck. Pia swung around and ran down a driveway to her left, trying to make as little noise as possible on the gravel. Reaching the house, Pia made a detour on flagstones set into grass around the house, quickly coming upon a small sandy beach. Now she could see she was at the edge of a circular two- or three-hundred-yard-long cove with its relatively narrow neck to her left leading out to a large lake. At this point, the opposite shore was just a couple of hundred feet away and along the shore was the house with the light on.

  Pia weighed her options. If she yelled, Pia knew the men in the van were more likely to hear her than anyone else. She could hide, but she would have to move eventually, and when it got light, for all she knew, she’d be plainly visible to the men who had taken her. Noticing a pile of rocks breaching the water’s surface in the middle of the narrow expanse between where she was standing and the opposite shore, Pia wondered if the water might be shallow all the way across. Although she knew the water would undoubtedly be freezing, she thought that crossing the cove represented her best chance.

  Pia took off her shoes and her shirt and bunched them against her chest and stepped into the water. As she had expected, the water was numbingly cold, and Pia breathed in sharply. She looked behind her, but there was no sign of the van lights. There was sand on the bottom of the cove, then a slick mud and the occasional rock. As the water came up to her waist, there were mostly rocks and Pia slipped, exposing more of her skin to water. Regaining her balance, she continued forward. Suddenly, the headlights flashed across the water in front of her, then again, twenty feet to her right. Pia slowed as she reached the rock pile. Her legs and feet were totally numb and felt more like stilts than legs. Skirting the rocks, she had only fifty feet or so to go.

  Without warning, the bottom dropped away and Pia’s feet slid down an underwater slope covered with slimy silt. In the next instant, she was trying to tread water using one hand, holding her shoes and clothes over her head with the other. She tried to swim, holding her breath in the icy water. Almost immediately she felt her muscles begin to lose some of their function. She gasped for breath: now she was numb all over except for her face. Pia gave up holding her clothes over her head; she dropped her shoes and tried to swim a few strokes. She was able to move forward a little faster even though she felt like she was barely moving.

  Eventually, her right foot touched a sandy bottom. She stood up with the water up to her neck and pushed toward the shore. She was shivering so much it was hard to hold her soaked clothes. Within a few feet, the wat
er was back to waist-deep. The lighted house was about a hundred feet to her left. She tried to call out, but the loudest sound she could make was a whisper. She staggered; her legs weren’t hers. Finally she was out of the water, on a kind of point with the shoreline falling off on both the lake side and the cove side. But the route to the lighted house along the edge of the lake was blocked by large boulders, underbrush, and numerous trees. She’d have to reach the house via the road.

  Pia found a path of sorts through the uneven ground, and she saw there was a long dark driveway from the road down to the house. She made her way toward the driveway so she could reach the road. There were sharp stones under her still totally numb feet, and she was carrying her dripping wet clothes. What would these people think? She reached the pavement and turned left. Walking was difficult, but the house was getting closer.

  Then, behind her, she heard an approaching vehicle. How far away, she couldn’t tell. With mounting panic, she looked behind her into the darkness, and she could see the glow of approaching headlights. She had no time to hide, and she knew she wasn’t able to run. She tried to call out, but the feeble noise was drowned out as she was bathed in bright light. Maybe it was someone else, part of her brain was telling her. Shielding her dark-adapted, squinting eyes with her free hand, Pia stared back. The vehicle braked and came to a halt within inches of her near-naked, shivering body.