there, most if it on the street and in shops but some of it in a branch library and on the phone. A little after four I walked a couple of blocks and caught a bus to Bay Ridge.
When I'd seen him last he'd been rumpled and unshaven, but now Kenan Khoury looked cool and composed in gray gabardine slacks and a muted plaid shirt. I followed him into the kitchen and he told me his brother had gone to work in Manhattan that morning. 'Petey said he'd stay here, he didn't care about work, but how many times are we gonna have the same conversation? I made him take the Toyota so he's got that to get back and forth. How about you, Matt? You getting anywhere?'
I said, 'Two men about my size took your wife off the street in front of The Arabian Gourmet and hustled her into a dark blue panel truck or van. A similar truck, probably the same one, was tailing her when she left D'Agostino's. The truck had lettering on the doors, white lettering according to one witness.
TV Sales & Service, with the company name composed of indeterminate initials. B & L, H & M, different people saw different things. Two people remembered an address in Queens and one specifically recalled it as Long Island City.'
'Is there such a firm?'
'The description's vague enough so that there are a dozen or more firms that would fit. A couple of initials, TV repair, a Queens address. I called six or eight outfits and couldn't come up with anybody who runs dark blue trucks or who had a vehicle stolen recently. I didn't expect to.'
'Why not?'
'I don't think the truck was stolen. My guess is that they had your house staked out Thursday morning hoping your wife would go out by herself. When she did they followed her. It probably wasn't the first time they tailed her, waiting for an opportunity to make their play. They wouldn't want to steal a truck each time and ride around all day in something that's liable to show up any hour on the hot-car sheet.'
'You think it was their truck?'
'Most likely. I think they painted a phony company name and address on the doors, and once they completed the snatch they painted the old name out and a new name in. By now I wouldn't be surprised if the whole body's repainted some color other than blue.'
'What about the license plate?'
'It had probably been switched for the occasion, but it hardly matters because nobody got the plate number. One witness thought the three of them had just knocked over the food market, that they were robbers, but all he wanted to do was get inside the store and make sure everybody was all right. Another man thought something funny was going on and he did take a look at the plate, but all he remembered was that it had a nine in it.'
'That's helpful.'
'Very. The men were dressed alike, dark pants and matching work shirts, matching blue windbreakers.
They looked to be in uniform, and, between that and the commercial vehicle they were driving, they appeared legitimate. I learned years ago that you can walk in almost anywhere if you're carrying a clipboard because it looks as though you're doing your job.
They had that edge going for them. Two different people told me they thought they were watching two undercover guys from the INS taking an illegal alien off the street. That's one reason nobody interfered, that and the fact that it was over and done with before anyone had time to react.'
'Pretty slick,' he said.
'The uniform dress did something else, too. It made them invisible, because all people saw was their clothing, and all they remember was that both of them looked the same. Did I mention that they had caps on, too? The witnesses described the caps and the jackets, things they put on for the job and got rid of afterward.'
'So we don't really have anything.'
'That's not really true,' I said. 'We don't have anything that leads directly to them, but we've got something. We know what they did and how they did it, that they're resourceful, that they planned their approach. How do you figure they picked you?'
He shrugged. 'They knew I was a trafficker. That was mentioned.
That makes you a good target. They know you've got money and they know you're not going to call the police.'
'What else did they know about you?'
'My ethnic background. The one guy, the first one, he called me some names.'
'I think you mentioned that.'
'Raghead, sand nigger. That's a nice one, huh? Sand nigger. He left out camel jockey, that's one I used to hear from the Italian kids at St.
Ignatius. 'Hey, Khoury, ya fuckin' camel jockey!' Only camel I ever saw was on a cigarette pack.'
'You think being an Arab made you a target?'
'It never occurred to me. There's a certain amount of prejudice, no question about it, but I'm not usually that conscious of it. Francine's people are Palestinian, did I mention that?'
'Yes.'
'They have it tougher. I know Palestinians who say they're Lebanese or Syrian just to avoid hassles.
'Oh, you're Palestinian, you must be a terrorist.' That kind of ignorant remark, and there are people who have bigoted ideas about Arabs in general.' He rolled his eyes. 'My father, for instance.'
'Your father?'
'I wouldn't say he was anti-Arab, but he had this whole theory that we weren't actually Arabs. Our family's Christian, see.'
