The Night Falconer (24 page)

“Hiding?”

“Didn’t you send someone to try intimidate Darla Barnes at the airport? We saw the dormitories. We saw the security.”

Watisi’s brow furrowed. Smith, standing off to the side in the corner, crossed his arms and began to say something, but Watisi cut him off.

“What do you think I’m hiding, Mr. Pavlicek?”

“I haven’t quite figured it out yet. Probably something to do with illegal immigrants and some plans that got out of hand.”

Watisi looked incredulously at his lawyer. “Illegal immigrants? What in the world would I have to do with illegal immigrants?”

“You telling me you don’t have some working for you at all these buildings you own?”

“All documented and legal émigrés if not citizens like myself. If any one of my employees is not, it’s news to me.”

I thought about that for a moment. I looked at the lawyer, who nodded.

“You believe these people who took your daughter are illegals?” Watisi asked.

“They aren’t from around here, that’s for sure.”

“I don’t know who they are.”

“But what about the dorms we saw?”

Watisi seemed to be thinking something over for a moment before motioning to his attorney.

“No.” Harry Smith’s eyes grew wide as he stepped forward, speaking in low tones to his client. “I have to counsel against this, Dominic.”

“Yes,” Watisi said. “We have to trust some people sometimes, and this is one of those times.”

Toronto looked at me, puzzled. I had no idea what they were talking about either, but decided it was best to wait them out.

Smith stepped forward and spoke in a clear even tone. Watisi looked away from him and us at his room full of books.

“Gentlemen, my client has asked me to inform you of something that heretofore has been kept under attorney/client privilege. I must demand, in no uncertain terms, that what you are about to hear remain strictly confidential.”

“That’s why it says ‘private’ on my card,” I said. “Unless you’re about to tell us you two are working on a serious criminal enterprise.”

“No, of course not. Nothing of the sort.” Smith looked at his client for one last opportunity to have his apparently imminent revelation stopped, but seeing none, pushed on. “Mr. Watisi has, for some time, been engaged in helping people who have recently come to this country. Mostly legally, but sometimes illegally.”

“Okay.” Now we were getting somewhere.

“His activities have been clandestine, mainly because he doesn’t wish to be brought into any kind of spotlight over this. He has a network of people with whom he is in contact. Nothing on paper. No records of any kind. Each situation is different and sometimes discretion is required.”

“Which is why this whole affair with the missing pets, the protests and the spectacle in the courtroom are bad for business.”

“Yes,” Smith said.

“And you’ve told the cops all of this.”

“No. Otherwise, Mr. Watisi risks losing his anonymity in his efforts. He is only trying to help others enjoy the same kind of opportunity he himself has been able to take advantage of.”

“So you folks are people smugglers,” I said.

“Absolutely not. Mr. Watisi has had to fight against people like that from time to time. You have to understand, my client knows virtually nothing about the missing pets, the threat against Ms. Barnes at the airport, the shootings in the park, or, for that matter, the strange young people who unfortunately absconded with your daughter.”

“Virtually nothing.”

Dominic Watisi put down the volume on the history of the revolutionary war he’d been examining. His eyes met mine as he turned. “The truth is,” he said, “I am as interested as you gentlemen in finding out where these young people from the park are hiding. I’m afraid they may be fleeing from some individuals who mean them harm. I’m afraid they may not be alone.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Several months ago a container ship from East Africa arrived somewhere here in the New York Metropolitan area. My sources tell me that it contained human cargo along with the actual cargo. This is nothing new, of course. It still goes on, although somewhat sporadically since the events of 9/11.”

“Go on.”

“I didn’t report it to the police at that time, and still haven’t, because I’ve had no specifics to give them, but I had recently been given at least a couple of tantalizing clues.”

“Which are?”

“First, there were a number of smuggled African adults on board, but apparently a number of young women as well.”

“Families?”

“No. Not families. These girls are orphans. And unlike most of the adults, they weren’t paying extortion money for their safe passage.”

I immediately flashed back to the image of the young girl bearing the owl on her cuff; the empty eyes, the hunger. “So they were brought in here to work.”

“No, not exactly. These are teenage girls. They were told they would be working as nannies or in restaurants, but the truth, I’m afraid, is much darker.”

“They were going to be pimped into prostitution,” I said.

“Of course. What else?”

A lot was falling into place at once.

“What if those kids who took Nicole were just afraid?” said Toronto, who had probably seen enough in the past few months to fill a lifetime of such stories.

I thought back to the eyes of the young girl with the owl and Sammy Yel Bak’s hand on the trigger of the Kalashnikov.

“That could be it.”

“Yes,” Watisi said. “That most definitely could be it.”

“Do you know who’s running the ring?”

“What I’m told is that it’s an Hispanic street gang.”

“Los Miembrios, I said.

“Exactly. But something happened a few months ago.”

“What’s that?”

“Some of them managed to escape,” he said.

“Jibes with what my contact told me,” Toronto interjected. “But you’ve got some kind of Sudanese connection here too.”

“Yes,” the developer said. “Someone’s funneling these girls in, but I haven’t been able to establish who.”

“I’ve got a feeling he may be right under your nose,” I said.

“What are you talking about?”

“In Grayland Tower, one of your apartment owners, Mitch Collins, travels back and forth to Sudan all the time.”

“But he is a manufacturing consultant.”

“I’ve got a feeling he knows something about this.” I thought back to the computer equipment I’d seen in Collins’ apartment. “Did you also know the video from your Grayland Tower security cameras was being tampered with?”

“What? No.”

“We can get you the proof, if you need it.”

“How’s all this gonna help get Nicole back?” Toronto said. “I want to hear more about this book you all were talking about.”

Watisi abruptly stood and walked past us toward the far end of the room. On the wall hung an inconspicuous plastic box, rectangular in shape and painted to match the background. I had assumed it was a thermostat, but Watisi produced a key from his pocket, pushed it into the side of the box and turned it to reveal a drop-down touchpad. I was half expecting a James Bond type rotating bookcase or some such, but when he punched in a code, a nearly inaudible click sounded through the room. Watisi looked at the corner of the wall where a crack had suddenly appeared, revealing a door that wasn’t visible earlier.

“Nice,” Toronto said.

He and I followed Watisi through the doorway, trailed by the still dour-looking attorney.

On the far side of the wall was a small room, the walls of which were lined by lavishly built bookcases made of mahogany with glass front doors. The cases were filled with numerous leather bound volumes and other books with elaborate bindings. A dehumidifier, coupled with temperature and humidity gauges kept the place climate controlled.

“A decent collection,” I said.

“Of course.”

I’d had some dealings with book collectors in a university town like Charlottesville. Most, unless they were dealing in museum quality first editions worth tens of thousands of dollars, declined to go to such great lengths to protect and preserve their collections. I’d even met one suspendered coot in a brick farm house who kept piles of old and rare books, some of which were quite valuable, stacked up like plates in his kitchen.

“You said you’re missing The Book Of The Mews. Does that mean it was stolen?”

“That’s right. And it’s the only copy in existence.”

“It was taken from this room?”

He nodded. “Six months ago.”

I was trying to imagine the setup. No windows or other visible entrances, unless Watisi had another magical trap door to spring on us.

“Someone had to know about this room and have a key and the code,” I said.

“Precisely.”

“Time out,” Toronto said. “Time out. Would someone please catch me up on what’s so important about this missing book?”

I did. That took about two or three minutes while Watisi and Smith cooled their heels, examining some of the other titles on display.

“You filed a police report?” I asked Watisi when we were through.

“Naturally.” He placed the volume at which he’d been looking back on the shelf and closed the glass door.

“But it didn’t get you very far.”

“Naturally. It was the only book taken. If it had been the whole collection or more titles then… They probably suspect I misplaced it or something.”

“No sign of forced entry?”

“None whatsoever.”

“When did you first notice the book was missing?”

“I have the date written down. I check on the books in here nearly every day.”

“How do you know you had the only copy of this title?”

“Because the dealer I bought it from bought it from the author’s great granddaughter, now deceased. Excerpts have appeared in various places from time to time. She let a newspaper reporter photocopy some of the pages about twenty years ago, but I had the only complete original. A one of a kind. And although the printer used a cheap binding, I even managed to keep that preserved.”

“Who else has a key to this room?”

“No one. I keep a copy in a safety deposit box and the only other one on my person.”

Toronto had already been looking over the doorframe, examining the lock and electronic trigger mechanism as well.

“What do you think?” I asked him.

He shrugged. “Too easy. Just about any pro on the street could get in here with the right setup.”

Watisi, apparently a little insulted, puffed up his shoulders and chest. “That’s what the police said too, but why would they take only this one book? It isn’t even that well written. There are any number of other titles in here worth much more than Book Of The Mews.”

“Whoever took it either wanted the information it contained or wanted to pass it on somehow.”

Watisi’s eyes began to dance. “Exactly what I’ve been thinking. And when this story about a falconer with an owl started surfacing and the lies about me began to be spread by these apartment owners who lost their pets, I began wondering if there might be a connection.”

“You’ve told the NYPD all this.”

“Some of it, yes. They say they’re still investigating.” He gave a slight roll of the eyes.

“Why didn’t they mention it to me?”

“Because I asked them not to. I don’t like my affairs being aired in public. That’s how you end up with spectacles like that one outside the courtroom yesterday.”

Hard to argue with the man there.

“There is something else I didn’t tell the NYPD, however. Something that may help you find your daughter.” Watisi looked at his lawyer.

“What’s that?”

The developer’s gaze dropped toward the floor. “As much as I hate to admit it, I think I realize now who may have stolen the book.”

“Who would that be?”

“She’s a low level employee of mine with whom …” He shook his head in apparent disgust with himself. “With whom I’m ashamed to say I had a brief affair some time ago.”

“Okay.”

“She comes from a troubled past. After we broke things off, I found a job for her, but I’m afraid she may have taken up with one of the members of Los Miembros.”

“Damon Hicks,” I said.

“Yes. And worse, I may have instructed my people to not look too closely at certain other activities she might be involved in for fear of extortion.”

“Other activities such as people smuggling.”

“Quite possibly.” He folded his hands in front of his chin, as if praying for some form of penance.

“Who is it?”

“Who?” It was almost an afterthought and no real surprise to me. “Her name is Jayani Miller,” he said.

29

On the way down to Grayland Tower, I dialed the Central Park Precinct and spoke with Lt. Marbush, who agreed to put out an APB on Jayani Miller and Mitch Collins to bring them both in for questioning, and to have a talk with the DA about Dominic Watisi. I also called Darla, whom Carl was driving home from the hospital, and filled her in.

“Whatever you got to do to get your daughter back, Franco,” she said, her voice sounding a little less loopy than the day before. “I’m sorry for getting you into such a mess. If I had any idea it was going to turn out like this?”

“Forget it. If I was in your shoes, I’d have done the exact same thing.”

“You don’t think Miller’s going to be at work?”

“Not anymore. Everything’s started to hit the fan since Nicky’s kidnapping. Miller has to know the heat’s coming down on her.”

“So why are you heading back to Grayland?”

“To see if we can roust Collins before the cops get there. And something else that reporter I was talking to said about tunnels. I never got to check it out thoroughly.”

“It all seems to start and end with that building.”

“Yeah, it does, doesn’t it?”

“So what, you think those two kids who took Nicky are running from Miller, Collins, Los Miembros, and the like?”

“Something like that.”

“And they can’t go to the cops because they’re illegal and they’re scared. That would be better for Nicole then.”

“Let’s hope so. Unless?”

“Unless Miller, Collins, or someone else from Los Miembros finds them before you do. You got Jake there with you?”

“Sure do.”