American Outrage Page 9

  Sam shrugged and pulled a passport from the sweatshirt pocket. Last spring the three of them had taken a family trip to Ireland, Karen’s last.

  “I showed this to the guy at the desk and said that you told me to meet you here,” Sam said.

  Juliet answered and Jake told her he had Sam, that everything was okay, and that she should fill Louie’s food dish and put him in the kennel, then take tomorrow off and get some rest.

  “So, I can stay, right?” Sam said, his dark eyes sparkling. “We should go to Delaware and check out that company.”

  “You should let me do what I do,” Jake said.

  “Come on.”

  Jake shook his head. “You come on.”

  Sam smiled at him.

  “Shit.”

  Sam smiled some more.

  “Okay. We’ll go down and get my car. You can come to Delaware. I don’t know what I’m going to do with you after that, but you can’t stay with me. Not if I’m going to do this thing.”

  Sam had Jake’s desk laptop computer with him and a backpack stuffed with clothes. Jake took the computer bag from him and scanned the street from inside the lobby for his Albanian friends before limping out to the car. It was nine o’clock by the time they were back on the road. Even with Sam chattering away at him, Jake had a hard time keeping his eyes open. Just before midnight, they pulled over on the Pennsylvania Turnpike and checked in at a Marriott. Jake didn’t even take off his clothes. The room smelled stale and anonymous and as he fell asleep, he could hear the highway traffic zipping by outside.

  Somewhere in the middle of the night, Jake woke up to the static of the TV. Sam was propped up on some pillows, asleep, with his face bathed in the black-and-white light. In one hand was the fax from Delaware. In the other was a wallet-size photo of Karen. He held both equally tightly.

  21

  GRAY LIGHT LEAKED in through the curtain. The clock read 7:23 a.m. Jake slipped out of his pants and examined his puffy knee, which looked like a piece of bruised fruit. Sam was under the covers in the other bed. Jake got up quietly and took a shower. When he came out, Sam was up and had a map spread out on the desk.

  “We’re real close,” he said with his metallic grin.

  Jake made Sam shower, too, but didn’t bother to argue when Sam said his unruly thatch of hair didn’t need a comb. He put on his jeans from the previous day, and when Jake suggested a fresh shirt he pulled a big black T-shirt out of his backpack. In small white lettering it read, MY IMAGINARY FRIEND THINKS YOU HAVE SERIOUS MENTAL PROBLEMS. They ate breakfast at the hotel restaurant, and Sam impressed their waitress by polishing off a full stack of pancakes as well as the All-American Breakfast with scrambled eggs and bacon.

  “Set?” Jake asked as Sam licked the last crumbs of a blueberry muffin from his fingertips.

  Sam wiped his fingers on his shirt.

  “You done?” asked Jake.

  “What else they got?”

  “Not much.”

  “Then I’m done.”

  The low clouds spit down thin, intermittent drops of rain, thickening the traffic around Philly so that by the time they reached Old Airport Road, it was after eleven. Warehouse buildings and crooked telephone poles lined the road. Behind them, a rusty chain-link fence bordered a weed-infested runway. Jake pulled into the nearly empty parking lot of the two-story office building.

  “What do we do now?” Sam asked. “Just go up and knock on the door?”

  Jake stared at the building for a minute, letting the delayed wipers sweep the windshield clean, then nodded and said yes.

  “You stay here.”

  He got out and started across the lot with the fresh smell of rain in the air. The metal door to the building was orange with rusty scars and it looked as if someone had long ago forced it open with a crowbar. Up close, he could see that it listed at a tired angle. He slipped his fingers into the crack and eased it open. The thin gray rug inside was stained and the hallway smelled of old urine and cigars. Jake turned to make sure Sam was still sitting in the car. He gave him a thumbs-up, forced a smile, and went in.

  The suite number for Tarum Jakul was 112. From behind the closed door to 108, Jake heard the one-sided sound of someone arguing on the phone. Suite 112 had no marking on it besides the number, written with Magic Marker. Two-thirds of the way down, though, was a mail slot. Jake poked a finger through, then let it clink shut. He ran his hand along the wood door frame and gripped the knob, looking around before giving it a twist. Locked. He removed his battered license and fished it into the seam.

  Coming from the entrance, the squeak of a metal door made his heart jump.

  22

  SAM,” JAKE SAID, EXHALING. “The words ‘stay here’ aren’t working.”

  Sam shrugged and in a quiet voice said, “I got bored.”

  Jake pursed his lips and nodded his head. “That was kind of the idea.”

  “You can open it with that?” Sam asked, pointing at the driver’s license.

  “Guess not,” Jake said, replacing it in his wallet. He knelt down and examined the knob, then ran his hand along the door frame. He slapped his palm against the door itself on the top, bottom, and middle. “I’ve got an idea, a true investigative reporter’s trick.”

  Sam closed one eye and looked up at his dad. “I think I know.”

  Jake smiled at him.

  “Seriously, a Ranger trick I learned in Afghanistan,” he said, then turned halfway around and, with his good leg, mule-kicked the door. Splinters of wood flew into the air with a dusty cloud that made Jake cough.

  Sam shook his head and said, “How did I see this coming?”

  Jake put his finger to his lips so he could hear if the talking down the hall had stopped. It hadn’t, and he stepped into the office. It was a small dark space with wood paneling and a single desk and chair. There was a lamp but it had no bulb and its shade was layered in dust. On the window hung a slatternly set of blinds. But behind the door was what Jake was interested in, a small pile of mail.

  He scooped it up and set it on the desk, then went through the drawers, but found nothing other than a moldy phone book and some paper clips. With the mail in hand, he took Sam by the arm and hurried him down the hall and out into the fresh air.

  “Can we do that?” Sam asked, getting into the car.

  “We just did,” Jake said, firing up the engine and scanning the mail.

  When a clunky old Caprice Classic rumbled into the parking lot, Jake dropped the letters and put the Taurus in gear, leaving quickly and checking his rearview mirror. He waited until they were well away before pulling in behind a Burger King and coming to a stop.

  “Mrs. Fagal said it’s a federal offense to take someone’s mail, you know,” Sam said.

  “Who’s Mrs. Fagal?”

  “My social studies teacher.”

  “I thought you didn’t pay attention in school.”

  “It’s hard not to hear Mrs. Fagal,” Sam said. “She’s deaf and yells everything.”

  Jake nodded and tore into the mail. There were some advertisements, but mostly bills. Nothing more than a month old, which suggested someone checked the mail regularly. Everything was addressed to Tarum Jakul International, except for the last letter. Jake held it up and examined the return address. Breen & Meese. It looked like a law firm, and the address was 134th Street in the Bronx. The person it was addressed to was Murat Lukaj.

  “Tarum Jakul backward,” Jake said to himself.

  Sam reached over and tilted the envelope toward him. Jake opened it. There was a cover letter from Lukaj’s lawyer explaining the notice from the court that was also enclosed for noncompliance with sentencing. Lukaj had failed to satisfy his sentence of two hundred hours of community service and completion of an extensive anger management treatment program. Jake’s stomach turned sour, and he folded the letter and stuffed it back in the envelope.

  “Why can’t I see?” Sam asked.

  “It’s nothing important,” Jake said, “but it
gives us a name.”

  Sam reached into the backseat and put the computer case on his lap. Patting it, he said, “Great. We find a wireless network and I can do a search.”

  “That’s okay. I’ll get that later,” Jake said, putting the car into gear and pulling back out onto the road.

  “My shrink says I have to tell you if I think you’re being overprotective.”

  Jake looked at him for a moment. “He’s a counselor, not a shrink.”

  “Same difference.”

  “I’m your father, right?” Jake said.

  “Yeah,” Sam said. “And I’m your partner in this.”

  Jake cleared his throat and drove for a few minutes. “I’m starting to get that distinct feeling.”

  Jake nodded at the computer and said, “I’ve got a Verizon wireless account on that. Just open the network connections and you’ll see it. You can access everything through that.”

  Sam flipped open the computer and got to work with a flurry of fingers. Jake called Muldoon and was pleasantly surprised when the producer told him that the cop had had to delay the taping until tomorrow, Saturday. Jake didn’t even bother to tell him what had happened, only that he planned to head back home for an overnight with Sam and be back Saturday afternoon for the shoot.

  They were on 95 heading north when Sam let out a low whistle.

  “This guy Lukaj?” he said. “This dude is a badass mother—”

  Jake held his hand up for silence. “Just the facts. Skip the editorial.”

  23

  DAD, THIS GUY WAS ON TRIAL for murder and racketing.”

  “Racketeering.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The main occupation of badass mothers,” Jake said. “Extortion, armed robberies, prostitution, gambling, drugs. The business of crime.”

  “Killing people?”

  Jake glanced over. “Can’t have one without the other.”

  Sam nodded and looked down. “This stuff happened in New York City. The Bronx. There’s more. Stuff from 1992. Stuff in the New York Times.”

  Sam sat hunched over the computer, reading. Jake glanced at the screen, but quickly returned his eyes to the road.

  After a few minutes, Sam said, “These guys worked for the secret police in Yugoslavia. When the country broke up, they came over here and started taking over stuff the Mafia used to do. Massage parlors.”

  Jake looked over at him. “You know what that is?”

  Sam nodded but kept his eyes looking straight ahead. “You’re the one who ordered Cinemax.”

  “What about parental controls?”

  “Give me a little credit,” Sam said, and then was silent for a few minutes. “Says the police can’t get them because they have a code of silence. They found one guy dead with all his fingernails pulled out.”

  Jake’s knuckles began to ache until he loosened his grip on the wheel and flexed his fingers.

  “It says Murat Lukaj was a lieutenant and that after the FBI started watching him, he disappeared.”

  “To Syracuse,” Jake said.

  “And the agency where you got me?” Sam asked.

  Jake nodded.

  “Were they all criminals? You think my mom was with them?”

  “No,” Jake said. “Albania was a mess back then. It’s like Iraq and Afghanistan. Refugees everywhere. People getting killed. Sometimes babies end up without parents or anyone who can take care of them and they need a home. Murat took advantage of that. They were bad, but sometimes good things come from bad. Does that make sense?”

  “Not really.”

  “I guess not,” he said, giving Sam’s shoulder a squeeze before looking back at the road. “For one reason or another, your parents couldn’t take care of you, so you needed us, too. Bringing us all together was a good thing.”

  “But it’s wrong that they did it for the money?”

  “Wrong if your parents didn’t want to give you up, but they had to because of the money.”

  “How could you sell your kids?” Sam said.

  “I’m sure they didn’t sell you, Sam. Don’t think that.”

  “The secret police took me?”

  “Who knows? It all worked out, right?”

  “You had to pay to get me?” Sam said.

  “There wasn’t any amount of money we wouldn’t have given for you, either,” Jake said. “Whatever we had.”

  Sam’s cheeks colored and he looked down at the computer.

  During the ride back to Long Island, Sam read out loud everything he could find on Murat Lukaj and the Albanians in general. According to the articles, the Albanians had taken over much of the skin trade in big cities like London, Milan, New York, and Boston, infiltrating the massage parlors with young girls who were little more than slaves. Human trafficking was their specialty, with Albania acting as a distribution point for young women from the entire region, from Poland to Turkey.

  “You sure you want to keep reading this stuff?”

  “Sure,” Sam said. “Why not?”

  One small story in the New York Post explained the letter Jake had found from Lukaj’s Bronx lawyer. Evidently, it was in reference to a charge of first-degree assault in 2003, when Lukaj had allegedly beat a man into a coma with a stick of firewood. Lukaj pleaded to a lesser crime and so was sentenced to only two hundred hours of community service as well as the anger management. According to the letter from the lawyer Jake found, Lukaj hadn’t done any of it.

  Jake had Sam run an AutoTRAK. Lukaj had a black ’06 Porsche Carrera and a blue ’01 BMW 740i with a Syracuse street address, 1196 Cole Road. Jake had Sam write it down and then get MapQuest directions to the place. There was only one picture of Lukaj with any of the articles and it was from back in 1994.

  Lukaj’s white face was round with small lips, a high forehead topped by wisps of dark hair, and pale vacant eyes. He looked like a student, too young to be an officer in something like the secret police.

  “He doesn’t look so bad,” Sam said, tilting the computer so Jake could see it.

  24

  THE RED TIP OF THE SUN crept over the distant hill and Murat set down his pencil to watch. In his childhood home in the mountains just north of Tirana, the sun always came up red, filtered through the pollution of Tito’s industrial machine until it choked and died. His sun now grew into a red melon, banded by the morning haze until it began to shrink and glow hot and he had to look away. His eyes quickly surveyed the small city below, buildings afire now in the sunlight, long morning shadows reaching from the trees before he noticed the glint of dew on the web in the corner of his picture window. It would be a fine day. His shipment of Latvian girls should arrive at noon sharp.

  He picked up the pencil and with small scratches finished the accounts for the strip club on State Street before putting the book away in the bulky safe squatting in the corner of his office. The kitchen was on the same floor, but at the opposite end of the house, a walk long enough to leave his very pregnant wife breathing hard. Murat took that walk to make the coffee, listening to the small sounds the house made in the early morning, relishing the expanse of the place. He climbed the back stairs to wake his fifteen-year-old daughter. She slept with an iPod plugged into her ears. Stray hair masked half her face and the parted lips.

  Murat reached for her shoulder, then paused. She had his height, more legs than body, long and thin, and his blue eyes, but the rest was Dardana, his wife. Olive skin. A small upturned nose. High cheeks and thick red lips. In the mirror, he studied his own round face and sinking chin, then tightened his gut and straightened his slumped shoulders, raising himself to full height.

  His daughter inhaled the smell of coffee wafting up from the kitchen and rewarded him with a smile and a kiss on the cheek.

  “Bacon and eggs?” he asked her as she slipped out of bed, covering her nascent breasts with an arm even though she wore a T-shirt.

  She wrinkled her nose. “Just coffee.”

  Murat preferred paca for his own breakfa
st, a hearty soup made from lamb innards, but he tried to do things in the American way for his children, and so he worked hard to quell his accent at home and he offered the same bacon and eggs to his eight-year-old son when he rolled him out of his X-Men bedsheets.

  When he was first sent upstate, after the real trouble, it had felt like Siberia. But it forced him to adapt, assimilate, go outside the Albanian community to expand business and, after 9/11, suddenly that ability became extremely valuable to New York. The raw materials for business, girls and heroin, needed a new way in other than the big-city ports where all eyes were turned. Murat already had just what they needed.

  The cleaning woman arrived just as Lukaj was plying his children with toast doctored up with butter, cinnamon, and sugar. Tajik came after that. Like all the most important people in his organization, Tajik was related, a second cousin with a dark cap of messy hair too thick over the brow and the perpetual shadow of a beard on his cheek. Tajik was neither as tall as Murat nor as thin, but sloppy around the middle like their common grandfather. Murat trusted him with all things, even driving his children to their private school each day.

  Tajik accepted a cup of coffee as he always did and smoked a Turkish cigarette with Murat at the kitchen table while the children made their final preparations.

  In a low tone, Tajik leaned close and said, “I got call from the truck driver. He will be late.”

  “You got a call,” Murat said, glancing at the small orange ball the sun had become and its brilliant beams streaming in through the mullioned window. “A breakdown?”

  “He just say—”

  Murat scowled and Tajik regrouped.

  “He just said, late.”

  Murat exhaled a plume of smoke and squinted through it at Tajik. “Is this the same driver with the red hair? The one from before?”

  “I think so.”

  Murat glanced at the backs of his children, packing lunches with the housekeeper’s help, before he leaned toward Tajik and let his face go sour.

  “We will check the girls,” he said. “If there are bruises, he will pay.”