“How?” I asked.
“I knew the cancer had spread, but as I said, I wasn’t aware of the severity. Mortality was becoming more real, though. I knew that my days were numbered.” He tilted his head to the side, rubbed his jaw. “My business is vast. And complicated. And lucrative. There needs to be a plan in place for my passing.”
I nodded.
“I’ve always wanted Marc to succeed me,” he said. “He’s my only child. I wanted it to stay in the family.”
“Even after he made it clear he wasn’t happy with what you do?” I asked.
“Yes, even after. Call me stubborn.” He smiled a painful smile. “So, when Marc came to me, I saw an opportunity. He needed something and I offered to help. In exchange for his coming to work for me and take over the business.”
“What did he need?” I asked.
“A thousand bucks,” he said. “He needed a thousand dollars.”
“Did he say what for?”
“Not at first, but I pressed him,” Codaselli said. “He tried to be vague, but I knew he wasn’t telling me the truth. It was for a girl.”
I looked at Isabel. She shrugged.
“I don’t know who she is or why,” he explained. “He wouldn’t budge on those things. But he needed the money for her and I think he was being truthful.”
“Did you give him the money?” I asked.
“I did,” he said. “And he agreed to take over my business.”
“He did?”
“Yes,” Codaselli said, smiling. “But I was fairly certain he was just saying that to get the money.”
“So, why’d you give it to him then?”
He brushed again at his knee. “Wishful thinking, I suppose. I was hoping there was a slight chance he’d come back.”
“Come back?”
“Our deal was that he’d be back the next day,” he explained. “We’d start laying the groundwork for his succession. I would’ve shared with him my cancer diagnosis. And he would’ve learned that I don’t have much longer. I knew it was a foolish wish at the time, but that didn’t stop me from making it. I could care less about the money. I just wanted my son around.”
I leaned back in the sofa. He’d gotten hit with a double whammy. Losing his son and his future at the same time. Not an easy thing to swallow for anyone.
“So, what are you doing about it?” I said.
“What do you mean?”
“I can’t believe you’re just letting it go,” I said. “Given all that is on your plate, I’m not buying that you’re just accepting the fact that he’s gone. You may not have your people out searching for him day and night, but I can’t believe that if this matters to you in the way you say it does, that you’re just accepting this as a done deal and letting your son walk.”
Codaselli pinched the bridge of his nose. He looked tired, fatigued. His clothes hung loosely on his body. He didn’t seem near death, but it was easy to see the toll everything was taking on him.
“You’re correct again, Mr. Tyler,” he said. “Someone made a mistake.”
“I’m not following you.”
He leaned forward and set his elbows on his knees. “Someone thought they could blackmail me to get to my son.”
TWENTY-SIX
Codaselli’s eyes hardened and for the first time, I saw a man who was absolutely capable of running a crime organization and doing the things necessary to stay on top of that food chain.
“They obviously didn’t know who I was,” Codaselli said. “The money that my son borrowed from me, they claimed it was owed to them by the girl. They came to shake me down.”
“Bad move,” I said.
The corner of Codaselli’s mouth turned upward. “Very. I did not take kindly to their attitude or their demands. Nor their threats toward my son.”
I didn’t say anything.
“John was able to convince them that they’d made an egregious error in judgment,” he said, the half-smile still on his face. “Isn’t that right, John?”
“Yes, sir,” John said from the conference table.
“John was able to persuade them that they needed to…amend their goals.”
“Amend their goals?”
“We changed their employment status,” he said. “A quick call to their employer and they were seemingly happy to come work for me.”
I nodded. “Got it. And what are they doing now for you?”
“Looking for Marc,” he said. “I’ve told them that if they fail to find him, it will be extremely difficult for them to find new jobs. Because they will be dead.”
I glanced at Isabel, then back to Codaselli. “Stevie and Boyd.”
“Are those their names, John?” Codaselli asked over his shoulder.
“Yes, sir.”
“There you go,” Codaselli said. “You’re apparently familiar with them.”
“We are.”
“Are they looking for Marc?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Not sure how competent they are, though.”
“Stevie’s competent,” John said. “Boyd is not. He’s expendable.”
Codaselli raised an eyebrow. “Fair assessment?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“So, perhaps our interests have dovetailed here,” Codaselli said. “And perhaps you may be more competent than our new employees.”
I had no doubt that Isabel and I were more competent than Stevie and Boyd, but I wasn’t sure that meant we needed to align ourselves with Codaselli, especially if Marc didn’t want to be found by his father. As an adult, he had the right to not be found and I wouldn’t force anything on him.
“I’d like to let Stevie know that we’ve met with you,” I said. “And that he needs to share any info he has.”
“John will ensure that is not a problem,” he said.
John nodded behind him.
“But I can’t promise the return of your son,” I said. “He’s an adult. I can’t compel him in any way to return home.”
“I understand that,” Codaselli said. “If you locate him, I’d just like you to relay the…information.”
“About your illness.”
“Yes,” he said, nodding. “And that I don’t care that he took the money or that he won’t take over.” He cleared his throat, stared at me with clear eyes. “I’d just like to see him before I die.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
“What the hell just happened in there?” Isabel asked incredulously.
“What do you mean?”
We were back in her car, headed back toward Linden Hills.
“I mean, did we just agree to help that guy?” she asked, shaking her head.
“Not really.”
“Sounded like it.”
“I told him we couldn’t promise to get Marc back to him. He’s a legal adult. Marc doesn’t wanna go back, he doesn’t have to.”
She shifted her hands on the steering wheel. “You think he won’t try to get him to come back?”
“I don’t know what he’ll try to do. We’re trying to find Marc and that’s all I’m worried about.”
“You don’t care what happens to Marc if we find him?”
“I care, but there’s not much I can do about it,” I said. “I won’t force him to do anything. He has to make his own choices. But you want to find him to make sure he’s okay. Right?”
She hesitated. “Yeah.”
“Because if you don’t, then we can drop it right now,” I said. “I’m helping you. Not Marc’s father. You don’t want to find him? Then we can stop right now. But I get the sense that you’re worried about him. So, I’m looking for him to help you because I said I would.”
“I am worried about him,” she said, sighing. “He’s not terribly savvy. I don’t think he inherited his father’s…whatever.”
I nodded. “Okay. Then we’ll look for him. It’s not going to be difficult.”
“No?”
I shook my head. “No. We’ve got two things now we didn’t have before.”
“What two things?”
“We know he’s with a girl and we know Stevie and Boyd aren’t a threat. To him or us. And we can use them.”
She hit the blinker and glanced in her rearview window. “I guess.”
“Not I guess. You need to start asking the kids on the street that you’re tight with what they know. Tonight. Don’t wait. It’s a small world. Someone will know something.”