CHAPTER FIVE
Bob jumped at the sound of the doorbell. He patted Liz’s shoulder, rose from the couch, bent over, and kissed the top of her head. No reaction. He now understood what it meant to have a heavy heart. Liz just continued sitting there. She seemed to be lost in some emotional black hole. Bob sighed and walked to the front door.
A short, thin man who looked like an undertaker in his all-black outfit stood on the porch. Two average-sized, uniformed Greek police officers bracketed him, emphasizing just how short the man actually was. At six-feet-two-inches, Bob towered over the man.
“Inspector Petros Zavitsanos,” the man said, offering his hand. Bob noticed there was no emotion on the Inspector’s face. His features seemed to be made of stone, his eyes black marbles.
Bob took Zavitsanos’ hand. “Bob Danforth. Please come in,” he said. “Have you heard anything? Have you found Michael?”
The Inspector’s face appeared to sag for a moment, then recovered its granite-like composure.
Zavitsanos shook his head. “Nothing yet, Captain Danforth.” Then he turned toward one of the policemen and made a waving motion of his hand. In Greek, he ordered, “Look around the grounds, check with the neighbors, the school next door. Maybe someone saw or heard something.”
“Wouldn’t the neighbors have said something if they’d seen my son kidnapped?” Bob said in Greek.
“Oh, you speak my language,” Zavitsanos said. While Bob nodded, the Inspector added, “Yes, they probably would have already come forward. But you never know.”
Bob stepped aside and allowed Zavitsanos to enter the foyer. He watched the two policemen step around the blood spots on the porch.
He turned and led the Inspector to the living room. Bob tipped his head in Liz’s direction and grimaced. “She’s been like this since I got home an hour ago.”
Liz sat on the couch with their son’s yellow-headed Playskool hammer in her hands, staring vacantly across the room. Bob thought her skin looked gray, her eyes disconnected from the present.
Bob turned to Zavitsanos and shrugged. “I don’t think she’s going to be able to help you.”
Zavitsanos walked over to a bookcase and pointed at a framed photograph.
“This is your son Michael?” the Inspector said.
Bob nodded.
Zavitsanos took the picture to the couch and sat next to Liz. “Your son is very handsome, Mrs. Danforth. Can you tell me something about him?” He held the photo in front of her face.
Liz grabbed it from him and clutched it to her breast. “Michael’s not here,” she said.
CHAPTER SIX
Stefan Radko sat behind the wheel of the gray Mercedes parked on an Athens residential street. He shifted his six-foot, four-inch frame, trying to release the tension in his back and legs. Vanja, his Bulgarian mistress, sat beside him. She was complaining in a high-pitched, fingernails-on-a-blackboard voice, but Stefan wasn’t paying attention to what she said. He twisted one end of his thick, black mustache while he concentrated on his current predicament. He’d been the leader, the bulibasha, of both his clan and a great band of families – a kumpania. But now the members of his old kumpania considered him mahrime – unclean, polluted. Having a mistress was considered “illicit.” Especially a gadja – a non-Gypsy. But he knew his people ostracized him for another reason. They believed he had secret wealth; that he was holding out on his clan. They weren’t wrong.
Now he led only a five-member team composed of a few blood relatives and Vanja. His little group had also become pariahs to the Gypsy community – the Rom – because they’d found a way to make real the gadjo myth that Gypsies steal children. Kidnapping babies, for profit or otherwise, was abhorrent to the Gypsy community. But it didn’t bother Stefan Radko and his crew. Even when the puri daj, the old matriarch, “gave him the eye,” cursing him and his followers – Te bisterdon tumare anava (May your names be forgotten) – he had just laughed.
Radko felt a rush of adrenaline each time he snatched a child. But this one was different. This one was American. He tried to consider all the implications. Would he still be paid? Should he just dump the kid? He needed to think this through, but Vanja wasn’t helping. He looked at her. No matter how mad she made him, he still felt a stirring in his loins. Twenty years his junior, blond and blue-eyed, voluptuous; she was the best looking woman he’d ever fucked. But he had to teach her who was boss.
“Shut up, woman,” he yelled, shooting her an icy-blue-eyed, venomous look. “I can’t think with you complaining in my ear!”
“I told you not to send that imbecile, Rumiah. Didn’t I say she’d cause trouble?” Vanja shouted. “But, oh no, just because she’s your sister. I’ll put a curse on–”
He busted her lip with the back of his hand.
Silence.
YOU ARE READING
EVIL DEEDS
Misterio / SuspensoEvil Deeds is the first in a 4-book series that follows the Danforth family from the kidnapping of their 2-year-old son in Greece in 1971 to present day. The book (and series) is a roller coaster ride of action and suspense. This book, as with all o...
