Halfway to the Truth (13 page)

A quick burst of cold air invaded the steam-filled shower as Nikolaus slipped in behind Reese. Although just having finished a round of hot sex, she could feel his desire hadn’t been quenched.

He reached around grabbing the hand that was holding a soapy loofah sponge and assisted rubbing it across her neck and down across her breasts. He watched as the lather of soap snaked over her shoulder and ran down the middle of her back. It temporarily pooled in the recess of her firm buttocks before diving to the drain below.

“You sure you don’t want to stay and go another round?” he said, nuzzling her neck and pressing himself closer.

”As much as I’d like to I can’t,” she said, her eyes closed and feeling his hands glide lower. “I’m having dinner with city officials tonight and I need to make them aware of your plans for expanding the E-waste operation. A few of them are sensitive to this issue and I want to be sure and educate them before they draw their own conclusions.”

“Alright, but will you come back to the beach house after that? I think this afternoon helped both of us to shed some of our frustrations.”

“I’ll probably be late.”

“That’s okay, I’ll wait up for you.”

“If you really don’t want me to go …”

“No, it’s okay. I brought some papers from my father’s house I want to look over. Besides, you’re right, we want the city on our side.”

She turned and kissed him hard as though she needed his assurance. She felt as if the water was not only rinsing their bodies, but symbolically expunging her worries about him.

A short while later, Reese’s car navigated the driveway to the front of the property disappearing into the foliage and out onto the main road.

Nikolaus poured himself a glass of wine and moved into the living room. He made himself comfortable on an overstuffed leather chair that faced the back of the beach house. After approving the taste of the wine, he placed the glass on a side table and picked up a well-worn black folder. Before he could get to its contents, his cell phone chimed.

“This is Dimitris, we have some trouble on the docks. You better come down here.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“Some of those waste trucks pulled in here an hour ago and a few of the workers are refusing to offload the scrap material.”

“Can’t you handle it?”

“Nikolaus, they’re worried about handling this stuff. They heard what happened to Greenfield. I tried telling them he was already sick when we hired him, but they aren’t buying it.”

“
Damn it
! I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

He drained the contents of the wine glass and made his way upstairs to change into other clothes.

In his dressing closet, he slid the folder under some shoe boxes and then clothed himself suitable for the riverfront.

It took him just under an hour to reach the security gate. As he approached the warehouse, he saw a line of seven trucks attached to open-trailers with loosely stretched canvas covers over their contents. The drivers, sitting in the cabs, were prevented from exiting by a group of about twenty angry longshoremen. Dimitris was moving among the men trying to get them to go back to work.

Nikolaus grabbed a hardhat from the back seat, got out of the vehicle, and approached his workers. “What the hell is going on here? Why aren’t you offloading these trucks?”

One of the bigger men came from the back of the group and approached Nikolaus. He seemed to be the self-appointed leader of the mutineers and said, “We aren’t moving this stuff anywhere.”

Groans and cheers of support came from some of the men behind him.

Nikolaus looked the man over. He didn’t remember his face, but he did recognize many of the other men in the group.

“Are you new to our family?”

Dimitris stepped forward saying, “He’s been with us three months. He operates one of the cranes.”

Nikolaus pushed him aside and stepped closer to the big man looking up directly at him?

“Why aren’t you offloading these trucks?” he said softly.

The larger man was taken aback by Nikolaus’ direct but subtle tactic. He took a step back and began to stutter a reply. “C-cause this j-junk will make you sick.”

“Who told you that?” he asked taking a step forward.

“Some of the men told it to me,” he answered nodding over his shoulder.

Nikolaus moved around the big guy and confronted the other workers who had now gone quiet. Some of them dipping their heads in shame.

“Look, I know you think Greenfield got sick from handling this scrap material, but that’s not so. It’s no secret he worked with others at this warehouse, and none of
them
are ill. You’re just letting your imaginations run away.”

He stepped into the group. “Some of you men have been with Drakos Shipping a long time. You were loyal to my father and you know he always took care of you. I’m not going to be any different. My father intended to expand our scrap waste business, but unfortunately, he didn’t have the chance to tell you all about it. These trucks are the first of many that are going to be rolling in here and I need your support.”

“But Nikolaus,” interrupted a man standing nearby, “there are rumors.”

“That’s all they are,” he said, walking to the back of one of the trailers.

Putting his hand on the tailgate he continued, “The scrap in here is just plastic, metal and wires. There’s no boogeyman! It’s the same material you all have in your homes right now.”

“But how can we be sure?” said another man with grey hair.

“Because you have my word. And if that’s not good enough, the company is putting together brochures that better explain it. Everything we are doing here follows state and federal guidelines and then some. Do you think I can afford for you guys to get sick?”

He returned to face the big man while talking to the group at large. “I’ll understand if any of you want to leave the company but you’d be making a bad choice.”

The members of the group gathered in a small circle and chattered among themselves. After a few seconds of discussion, the grey-haired man spoke. “We’re with you Mr. Drakos. If it’s what your father wanted, then we’ll make it happen.”

He turned to the other men and yelled, “
Let’s get this stuff unloaded
!”

“How about you?” Nikolaus said to the big man, “You in or out?”

He dipped his head, “Sorry Mr. Drakos, we just didn’t understand. I need this job, so I hope you don’t hold this against me.”

Nikolaus replied loud enough for Dimitris to hear. “You’re new, so I can forgive your lack of judgment, but don’t let it happen again.”

The man bowed backing away from Nikolaus and joined the others.

Nikolaus then walked over to where Dimitris was standing. But instead of looking at him, he gazed out to the empty berths. “The king is dead, Dimitris. So you’re going to have to decide which side you’re on. I wasn’t happy you got to my father before I did; betrayal isn’t something I’m likely to forget.”

He turned and walked back to his car.

Reese returned to the beach house. When she pulled into the garage, she noticed Nikolaus’ car was not there. “
That’s odd
,” she thought.

At the main floor, she yelled to see if Nikolaus was anywhere in the house. Noticing an empty wine glass on the side table, she picked it up and put it in the kitchen sink. Then she took the stairway up to the bedroom.

The robe that he was wearing was lying on the bed. Nikolaus was somewhat of a neat freak, so the wine glass and robe suggested he had to leave in a hurry. She thought about calling him, but another thought invaded her thinking. It was the police report that Chief Daniels had shown her and the warning that trailed it.

“If Nikolaus has a bipolar condition, then there must be some medication here,” she said to herself. “It’s not in the cabinet or I would have seen it.”

She started to look through the drawers in the vanity pulling each one out as far as they would go, rummaging toward the very back. Not finding anything, she moved to his closet.

She searched his dresser draws and came up empty. She removed the lid on one of the stacked shoe boxes narrowly missing the folder that was concealed underneath.

The last place she looked should have been the most obvious from the start. She opened the nightstand drawer on the side of the bed and took out two pill bottles. One had a dated label showing Thorazine. The other was a newer prescription showing Lithium.

“He’s not hiding them,” she acknowledged aloud. “I’ll have to find a way to bring it up with him.” She made a mental note to look the medications up on the internet.

Suddenly, she heard a vehicle pull around to the back of the house. Quickly returning the pills, she went over to the balcony doors and stepped out looking over the edge. Seeing Nikolaus approaching the house she yelled down at him. “Where have you been?”

“I’ll tell you about it,” he said.

“Wine?”

“No, something stronger.”

She met him at the elevator off the kitchen holding a bottle of bourbon in one hand and a bottle of Scotch in the other. “Choose your poison.”

He tapped the bottle of Scotch and made himself comfortable on the living room sofa.

“How was your dinner tonight?”

She wrestled getting the cap off the Scotch. “Everything went well. I don’t think we are going to have any issues with the city.”

“Good!” he said, rubbing his hands across his face.

“Are you okay Nikolaus?”

“I’m feeling a little edgy at the moment.”

“Are you sick?”

“No, why are you asking?”

“I don’t know. But you can tell me anything you know.”

He took the drink glass from her hand as she sat next to him. The suggestion of him being sick raised his suspicions. “What are you getting at Reese?”

She reconsidered her line of questioning. “You leave here unexpectedly, you tell me you’re agitated, and I can see something is bothering you. What else am I to think?”

He sipped his Scotch. “If you have anything you want to ask me, then ask.”

“Alright, where did you go tonight?”

“I got a call there was trouble at the dock.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“A bunch of trucks from G&D Recyclers showed up this evening and a group of workers didn’t want to offload the scrap.”

“Why?”

“They were afraid it was going to make them sick.”

He took another sip. “You need to do some internal public affairs and put out some brochures so they know what they’re dealing with.”

“Alright, I will. What else?”

“That’s it. I took care of their concerns for now.”

“Are you going to be okay?”

“I will as soon as I get you back upstairs. Right now, making love to you is the only thing that will make things better. He pulled her from the sofa and they disappeared upstairs.

The next morning, Reese slipped out of bed before Nikolaus woke up and quietly went into the bathroom. A restless night had preceded, owing to the fact that both Nikolaus and the trouble at the dock worried her. Things were getting complicated in both her love life and in her work. She started to wrestle with doubt about her relationship with him, and even about why she ever came to Savannah in the first place.

Nikolaus awoke to the muted sounds coming from the bathroom. He looked over at the dim green numbers on the clock and tried to focus. The time was 5:45
A.M.

He rolled to a sitting position and gave a stretch trying to stimulate his blood flow. Briefly pausing to reassure himself Reese was still there, he opened his nightstand drawer to take his medication. He noticed one of the bottles laying on its side.

He picked it up pressing it and his closed fist to his lips. The questioning from Reese when he returned from the riverfront last night struck him.

Nikolaus got up and went into the closet. Noticing a shoebox lid was not fully locked over a box, he got angry. He was sure he wasn’t the one who disturbed the lid or the medicine container, so he waited.

Reese finally came out from the bathroom and saw him sitting on the side of the bed with his back to her.

“You’re up early,” he said.

She toweled some of the wetness from her hair. “I didn’t sleep well. Sorry I disturbed you.”

“Have you been snooping around?”

She was caught by surprise. “What do you mean?”

He held up the bottle so she could see it. “I mean this.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about; it looks like a bottle of medicine.”

He stood up to face her. “Don’t lie to me!” he yelled.

“Nikolaus, what’s got into you?”

He went back into the closet and pulled the black folder from underneath the boxes. He came out and waved it at her. “You know about my condition, don’t you?”