Ahmed Foster pulled his Escalade right up to the front gate of Joey Vespucci’s mansion on Staten Island. Gulliver had explained the situation to him on the way over. Ahmed was an ex–Navy Seal and Gulliver’s unofficial partner in the
PI
business. Although Gulliver could handle himself, he didn’t look like he could. That was never a problem for Ahmed. He was a hard man and built like a linebacker. Agile as a cat, Ahmed had the skills and intimidation factor Gulliver lacked.
“You want me to pull on in or wait out here, little man?” Ahmed asked.
That was another thing about Ahmed. He was one of a very few people who could call Gulliver “little man” and get away with it.
“No, you better wait out here.”
Joey “Dollar Menu” Vespucci was two very different men in one body. The face he showed the public and the media was like his nickname and the outside of his house. He meant for people to see him as loud and tough but a bit of a clown. A man with no real style or brains. But the man Gulliver had come to know was not that. The Joey Gulliver knew was both street-smart and just plain smart. He was a man of fine tastes. And he was more than tough. He was deadly, as dangerous as a downed power line in a rain puddle. It was because of this that Gulliver came to him before going out on the street to search for Bella.
Gulliver was smart too. Smart like Joey. Just not as powerful or dangerous. Gulliver understood that once he began looking for Bella, word would leak back to Joey. And that would raise all sorts of questions. Questions like, How did Gulliver find out about Bella? Who asked him to look for her? Questions neither Tony nor Gulliver could risk Joey asking. So Gulliver knew he would have to get Joey’s blessing before beginning the search. He had to give Tony, Maria and himself cover while he did his job. The fact was, if he looked for Bella without Joey’s blessing, there would be trouble. Gulliver also had his own private reasons for being here. He wanted to show Joey that he was the better man. He wanted to make Joey feel small. Smaller even than himself.
At first sight of Gulliver’s small figure hobbling up the long driveway, Tony looked as if he might pass out. But Gulliver
knew Tony would catch on. Tony would realize the same things Gulliver had. That they needed Joey to approve of Gulliver’s looking for Bella. Gulliver gave a wink to Tony as he came up the stairs onto the big stone porch. Tony gave him a slight nod back. They were on the same page.
“What the hell you doing here, Bug?” Tony said, extra loud in case the boss was nearby or someone else was watching.
“Not to see you, you big moron.”
“Watch out, Bug, or I might step on you and squish your little freak guts out all over the porch.”
“Don’t make me have to make a fool out of you again in front of your boss.”
“Screw you,” Tony said. “I’ll go in and see if the boss feels like dealing with insects today.”
A few minutes later, Gulliver Dowd was seated across the big desk from Joey Vespucci. The don smiled at Gulliver.
Before the incident with the envelope, before the choice Joey had forced Gulliver to make between Keisha and Mia, these two men had been friendly. Not friends exactly—even prior to learning of Vespucci’s indirect connection to Keisha’s murder, Gulliver couldn’t be friends with a man of violence. Behind all of Joey’s charm and fine tastes was a man who rose to power by killing his rivals. But Joey and Gulliver respected one another, and Gulliver couldn’t deny that Joey had been helpful to him in the past.
“After what happened between us on the boardwalk, I didn’t think I would ever see you again, little man,” Vespucci said, still smiling at the sight of Gulliver across from him. Vespucci was another of the few people who could get away with calling him “little man.”
“I didn’t think so either, Joey.”
“You still drinking vodka?” Vespucci asked.
“The cheaper the better.”
Vespucci stood. Went over to the bar. Poured Gulliver a few fingers of vodka. He poured himself a hefty glass of single-malt scotch. Gulliver gave Joey the once-over. The don was still a handsome man in his late fifties or early sixties. But he looked worse for wear. The lines on his face were etched more deeply, and there were more of them. There was a faraway look in his eyes. His hand shook slightly as he poured the drinks.
“To what do I owe the pleasure of seeing you again?” Vespucci asked, handing Gulliver his drink.
“I hear things on the street.”
Vespucci made a weak try at laughter. “Things. What kind of things?”
“Things like you’ve hired some of my business rivals to do what I do better than they do.”
“That so? And why would I do that?”
“Because your daughter Bella has been missing for a month,” Gulliver said. “And no one can find her.”
Vespucci’s face conveyed many different emotions at once. The same ones Gulliver had seen on Tony’s face earlier that day. The same except for one. Anger. Joey Vespucci was a man who liked being in control. A man who knew things other people didn’t know. He liked knowing things before other people knew them. He didn’t like it when people knew things they weren’t supposed to know. Vespucci really didn’t like that Gulliver knew about Bella. That much was clear.
“Who told you that?” he almost growled. “I want a name.”
Gulliver shook his head. “No names. Like I said, Joey, I hear things. You forget—this is what I do for a living. I’m the best there is at it. Word gets around. Word gets back. That’s all. It’s how the street works.
You know that. I have a lot of sources out there. When your guys asked around, people got curious. When I heard, I decided to come to you.”
Vespucci guzzled his drink. “Why come to me?”
“Because I’m going to find your daughter.”
“Says who?”
Gulliver thumped his own chest. “Says me.”
“I don’t need you, little man.”
“Oh yes you do. More than you know. You need me bad. A month on the streets is a very long time, Joey. It can be a whole lifetime. A man with all your power and contacts hasn’t been able to find her.”
Vespucci got a sick look on his face, but he was a stubborn man. He hadn’t got all this power and kept it by giving in or giving up easily.
“Exactly, Dowd. Even with all the juice and reach I got, I can’t find her. What makes you think you can do it?”
“Because I’m the best. And having all the power and contacts in the world won’t help you unless you know how to use them. I know how to do that. I have a track record.”
Vespucci laughed a mean laugh. “You don’t fool me, Dowd. I know your game. You think if you find Bella, I’ll spill. That I’ll be so grateful, I’ll tell you about your sister’s murder.”
Gulliver shook his head and smiled. “No, Joey. I know you won’t tell me, and this isn’t a game. I got nothing against your girl. I got nothing against your wife. My problem is with you. But if you want to know why I’m here, I’ll tell you.”
“Okay, I’ll bite. Why are you here?”
“Two reasons. One, I want your blessing. It’ll be easier for me to find Bella if I’m not
working against other people or looking over my shoulder. If you let me go out there and keep your people out of the way, it will work better, and I’ll get to her sooner.”
“The other reason?”
“To prove to you that I’m a bigger man than you will ever be. That in spite of what you did to me, I can rise above it. Your girl is who is important here. Not me. Not you. And when you have her back, I’ll have the satisfaction of knowing that deep down I’m a good person. That even though I have every reason on earth to hate you, I still did this thing.”
“You want money?”
“Keep your money, Joey. I don’t want it, and I wouldn’t take it if you gave it to me. All I want is the info you got so far. I want you to fire the two yo-yos you hired instead of me. And I want access to all of your contacts and a promise from you to keep your people out of my way. You want
to loan me some manpower, then give me Tony.”
Vespucci’s eyes got big. “You hate each other’s guts.”
“Right. That way you can keep tabs on me, and I can have a little extra help.”
“All right, Dowd. You got a week and you got Tony. Find her.”
“I will.”
Vespucci put his right hand out for Gulliver to shake, but the little man got off his chair and walked out of the room.
Ahmed, Tony and Gulliver headed into Brooklyn. Bella’s apartment was in Greenpoint. Greenpoint had once been a largely Polish neighborhood, but it had been overrun by hipsters. Williamsburg had gotten too crowded, so the hipsters had moved to the next neighborhood over. Kids no longer wanted to live in Greenwich Village or SoHo. They wanted to live in Brooklyn. Gulliver still couldn’t get used to it. When he was growing up on Long Island, no one wanted to live in Brooklyn. Not even the people who lived there.
Now it was the hippest, hottest place in all of New York City. So it was no surprise that the daughter of a rich and powerful man would choose to live there.
“I thought freshmen at state schools had to live in campus dorms,” Gulliver said to Tony as Ahmed pulled off the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.
“They do, but it’s Joey Vespucci’s daughter we’re talking about here,” Tony answered.
Gulliver shook his head. “But even Joey can’t make all the rules go away. He’s a Mafia don, not the governor of the state.”
“It was easy.” Tony grunted. “When Joey can’t break the rules or change them, he goes around them. Just because he’s paying the rent on Bella’s dorm room don’t mean she got to live there, right? So to make sure Bella don’t get in no trouble, Joey also pays her roommate’s dorm rent too, and everybody’s happy. Bella lives
where she wants, and the roommate’s got her own private dorm room.”
Most of the runaways Gulliver had dealt with were from poor families, but not all of them. A fair number had been from well-to-do families. Money didn’t make families immune to abuse or violence or bad parenting. Gulliver didn’t doubt for a second that Joey and Maria loved Bella. Plus, she had the extra love of her real father, Tony. But love wasn’t always enough to protect kids from the demons. Their own and the ones in the world. Sometimes love wasn’t nearly enough.
“So what is Bella like, Tony?”
“Why?”
Tony seemed antsy at talking about her in front of Ahmed.
“Don’t worry about Ahmed,” Gulliver said. “He’ll keep your secret. Not because I tell him to. Not because it’s his job. Not because he was a Navy Seal.”
“Then why?” Tony wanted to know.
Gulliver said, “Because it’s his nature. Right, Ahmed?”
Ahmed gave a slight nod of his head and guided the
SUV
into Greenpoint.
“So tell me what she’s like.”
But Tony needed another push. “Why? Why does it matter what she’s like?”
“It will help us find her, Tony. It could tell us who she might turn to or run from when things go bad. If I know how someone reacts to things, it helps me think like they might think. So please, help me out here.”
Tony sighed. “She’s real serious about stuff, Dowd. She thinks a lot of deep thoughts. You know what I mean? She don’t look at the world like her sisters or her parents. And she liked being with herself while she painted. She has always been her own person. I mean, she’s loving and everything. She’s even been nice and
sweet to me. But she never needed a lot of girlfriends or nothing. She’s not sad or a loner. Not like that.”
“She’s self-contained,” Gulliver said. “I know some people like that. Any boyfriends?”
“Not now,” Tony said. “There used to be a guy. An artsy-fartsy type she knew from high school.”
“Mike Goodwin? I saw his name on the other
PI
reports.”
“That’s right, Dowd.”
“So what happened with them?”
“They dated for a while and then he went off to school somewheres in Ohio or Michigan or someplace like that.”
“Okay,” Gulliver said. “When we get to her building, you and Ahmed go have some lunch. I’ll talk to the super and the neighbors. You two would scare the piss out of them. I bet that’s what happened when Joey’s people talked to them.”
Neither Ahmed nor Tony objected. They knew Gulliver was right.
“Okay, little man, this is it,” Ahmed said as he slowed the Escalade to a stop in front of Bella’s building.
“I’ll text you when I’m ready.”
Gulliver hopped out of the Caddy and waited for them to drive away before he walked to the building entrance. So, he thought, it begins.
Although many of the store signs were still written in Polish, Greenpoint had changed. It was once an area of narrow streets full of row houses crammed tightly together. And down by the East River there were factory buildings and warehouses. A lot of the neighborhood still looked that way. Bella’s building fit in like a black puppy in a litter of white kittens. It was a tall, modern high-rise of concrete, steel and glass. Lots and lots of glass. There was so much glass because the building had great views of the Manhattan skyline. Maybe kids
liked living here more than across the river, but they liked looking at Manhattan.
Gulliver didn’t even need to get buzzed into the building. A couple of hipsters on their way out of the building held the door open for him. They gave him that look as they passed. The look of shock and shame and pity. But Gulliver was immune to it. The important thing was that he had gotten into Bella’s building without having to waste time. He went straight to the super’s apartment. Knocked on the door. Stood back. If he didn’t stand back, the person looking through the peephole wouldn’t be able to see him.
The man standing before Gulliver was a heavyset man with an unfriendly, unshaven face. He wore blue coveralls and work boots. He tilted his head at Gulliver. He looked confused and amused at the sight of the little man in the nice clothes.
“What can I do for you?” he asked.
“You can show me apartment 15D.” And before the super could protest, Gulliver handed him three twenty-dollar bills.
Five minutes later, the two men were standing at the door of 15D. The super fished through his big key ring and smiled when he found the right one. But when he grabbed the doorknob, it turned and the door opened without need of the key. The super acted surprised. Too surprised to suit Gulliver.