photos of the hotel in its Prohibition past.
“How much you suppose a room up here costs?” Sam said.
“Twenty grand,” I said.
“You think that includes breakfast?”
“I’m going to say no,” I said.
“Howard Johnson’s, you get a buffet breakfast and a room for a C-note.”
“It’s a cruel world.” I knocked on the door. I thought maybe when it opened I’d finally get to see my tough guys in suits, but instead Gennaro Stefania himself opened the door. He wore tan shorts, a polo shirt with the Ottone logo on the breast and no shoes. He was tanned and healthy-looking from a distance, but up close you could see that his eyes were red and puffy. I didn’t think it was from lack of sleep.
“You must be Michael Westen,” he said.
“We all must be someone,” I said. We shook hands, but there wasn’t much there. It was like shaking a straw man. You could tell he was a fine-tuned athlete, but there was a lot being sapped out of him.
“Come in,” he said, and stepped out of the way for Sam and me to pass. “Let me give you the tour, for what it’s worth.”
We stepped into the penthouse and Gennaro took us through room by room, and only then did I realize what being part of the Ottone family meant: there were two living rooms in the penthouse, a separate music room that featured a Steinway piano, and at least 10,000 square feet, which was needed since there were four bedrooms, four baths replete with Jacuzzis, even quarters for a butler. There was also a full bar with flat screen televisions and a stocked cigar humidor.
“You mind?” Sam said to Gennaro. Surprisingly, he was pointing to the humidor and not the five bottles of Macallan 30 year or the two dozen Samuel Adams Utopia blend beers.
“Help yourself,” Gennaro said. “It’s all paid for.”
That’s the wrong thing to say to Sam, who took one Cuban to smoke and grabbed a few more for a rainy day. Another couple for the sunny days, too.
“Just like Howard Johnsons,” I said.
The penthouse was surrounded by a wrap-around terrace that featured an eternity pool and another hot tub, as if the four inside weren’t enough.
But the curious thing was that Gennaro was all alone.
“Nice place,” I said.
“It’s too much,” Gennaro said. “It’s all too much.”
“You could rent the bathrooms out by the hour,” Sam said. He was trying to be funny, maybe make Gennaro crack at least the smallest smile, but I could tell he was in no mood.
“Why don’t we sit down,” I said and Gennaro just nodded, but didn’t really move. It was as if he was in a trance and needed someone to give him even the most rudimentary cues so he’d know what to do with himself. So I said, “Why don’t we sit down on one of the nine sofas?”
Gennaro nodded again and made his way toward an L-shaped taupe sofa that was positioned so that it faced out toward the sea. He dropped into the corner of the L, like he was being punished, and just stared out the window. I pulled a chair up and sat across from him and motioned for Sam to join me, which meant he had to pull himself away from the Utopias, which he’d just discovered.
“So,” I said, once Sam was beside me, “tell me your problem.”
Gennaro reached into his pocket, pulled out an iPhone and handed it to me. “Two days ago,” Gennaro said, “I received that message in my e-mail.”
The e-mail contained a link to a Web site, which when opened began running a surveillance video of Maria Ottone and her young daughter, Liz. For about twenty seconds, it just watched them sleeping in what looked to be a stateroom on a boat. It then cut to a shot of them eating lunch, another of them sunning themselves on the deck, their daughter playing with a Barbie, and again it cut to a shot of Maria showering, the focus getting closer and closer on Maria’s face until you could see the small freckles along her jawline, the fine skin on her cheekbones, the flick of her tongue when a long piece of her hair found the corner of her mouth. It then began running other clips, just a few seconds of the mundane, enough to let whom-ever was watching know that they were observing Maria and Liz at every single moment.
“Where is your wife?” I said. The images were still flitting past. There was no sound on the video. Just the images in silence, which somehow made them all the more disturbing.
“She’s on a boat in the middle of the Atlantic,” he said.
“Whose boat?”
“Her boat. Our boat. One of the family’s boats. She’s on her way from Italy to here. She hates to fly.”
“When was the last time you spoke to her?”
“Thirty minutes ago.”
“And she’s fine?”
“Of course,” he said. “I’ve done everything they’ve asked.” His eyes were getting red again.
Crying women make me uncomfortable. Crying children make me feel self-conscious. Crying men make me want to shower with my clothes on.
“How did they contact you?”
“Two, three minutes after I logged onto the Web site, the phone began ringing. I didn’t pick it up right away, because I didn’t know what I was looking at. I mean, that’s my wife. That’s my daughter. I couldn’t put it together.”
“I understand,” I said.
“So it could have been five, ten minutes later that I finally picked up. I don’t know how many times they called.”
“Was it a man or a woman on the phone?”
“I couldn’t tell,” he said. “The voice sounded strange. Like that guy in the wheelchair.”
“Ironside?” Sam said.
“The scientist. The smart guy.”
“Stephen Hawking?” I said.
“Like that. Like it was coming through a computer.”
It used to be that only the most sophisticated governments had access to spy technology, but today anyone with a decent laptop and access to an Office Max can employ entry-level spy craft. The entire Cuban Missile Crisis could have been averted today using Google. Any twelve-year-old can download voice-changing software for free on the Internet. The difference now is not the technology, but about how savvy you are in using it.
“Hold that thought,” I said to Gennaro. I turned to Sam. “You trace this Web site?”
“It’s a pro job,” Sam said. “Registered through a company in Qatar to Neil Diamond.”
“He’ll be easy to find.”
“His Web site says he’s doing ten sold-out nights in Las Vegas. I could be there in five hours, grab him during ‘Sweet Caroline.’ ”
“He might be a patsy. What else?”
“They used open-source software on the design, so there’s no technology fingerprint on it. It’s a secure site, so only following the embedded link here will get you to it. The video is on a continuous loop. Gene here says they’ve been adding new stuff to it every day.”
“Any way to hack into the code and see who else is viewing it? Get an IP number or a country code? Anything?”
“I already poked around, but the encryption is first-rate,” Sam said. “We’re working with experts here.”
“You have someone you could show it to?” I asked. Sam always has someone he can show things to. He collects people and favors like lint.
“I’ll talk to a buddy of mine.”
I turned back to Gennaro. “Okay,” I said. “How much do they want?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“They said if I didn’t lose the Hurricane Cup, they’d kill Maria and Liz.”
