“Shit! I already did this once,” Burim said. “I guess I’m gonna have to do it again. But she better show a bit more gratitude this time, because there is not going to be a third.” His thin-lipped mouth managed a ragged smile.

•   •   •

AT 11:10 THAT EVENING, Burim Grazdani sat in his premium economy seat in a British Airways Airbus bound for London Heathrow and looked at his watch again. His flight had been scheduled to leave five minutes before, but the flight attendants were still walking around checking passengers’ safety belts. Next to his house and car, this plane ticket was the most expensive item he had ever purchased legitimately, or semi-legitimately, since the name on the passport was not his own. Despite the price, he had been told by the booking agent he was very lucky to get even this ticket at three hours’ notice. There had just been a cancellation of a group booking and stand-by passengers had taken every spare seat but one. Burim booked the flight without even listening to the price.

George Wilson had sat with him in the restaurant at the Vince Lombardi Service Area on the New Jersey Turnpike for another half hour. Burim told George he had done the right thing. The police weren’t going to help; and George couldn’t. He needed professional assistance with the resources of the Albanian mafia. Burim hadn’t used the word mafia. Instead he had said family, but George knew what he meant.

Burim asked George to relay the story to him a second time to be sure of the details. He took no notes, but absorbed the information easily—there really wasn’t much to go on. Burim asked George more about this Berman guy. George said he knew he was truly rich—he had a yacht, or access to a yacht, and, of course, the plane.

That was enough information for Burim. He dropped George at the railway station in Paramus, as George said he wanted to go into Manhattan to check on the condition of Will McKinley. Burim Grazdani made no more comments about the events from two years before in which he had been intimately involved, and which had led to McKinley’s injury. He had rescued Pia once, and he was prepared to try to do it again.