The 4 Phase Man Read Online Free PDF Page A

safety in a city like New York.”
    “For the moment,” Xenos finished.
    “They feel you can be trusted to find and return the money,” Franco said, ignoring the comment, “if the worst has happened. Or to help Paolo if he has gotten into some kind of trouble.” He shrugged deeply. “He is my brother, Dureté. I would go if I could, but that would only cause more troubles.” He hesitated. “My family. Do it for family.”
    Xenos walked to the cliff’s edge, looking out at the storm clouds building across the calm Mediterranean waters. “There might be some problem with my getting into the U.S. I’m not real popular over there.” He shook his head at the clouds. “In a lot of places.”
    Franco walked over, smiling. “If there is one thing the Brotherhood knows how to do, it is getting things into and out of places.”
    Less than twenty-four hours later Xenos Filotimo drove across the New York/Canadian border.
    For family.

Two
    It was New York.
    Loud, run-down, alive. People jammed the sidewalk five abreast, seemingly unaware of the people around them. It was dirty and proud, private and loud, unforgiving and compassionate beyond measure.
    It was New York, and Xenos loved every inch of it.
    Although he hadn’t set foot there in a decade, it was the one constant in his world, a place that wouldn’t change no matter what. And he easily found his way to the student apartments outside of Columbia University.
    The street was filled with the odd mix of working poor, welfare caste, and enthused college students that you might expect for one of the world’s great universities that was located on the border of one of America’s great slums. So, amidst the coloration of so many, he had no problem slipping into the building.
    Phone calls from his hotel had provided little more than he had been told in Toulon.
    Paolo DiBenetti (known to the college as Paul Satordi) had been a good student, an activist in the university social scene, with a job as a bellman at a midtown hotel on weekends. He also did some freelance research through the university’s Alumni Association.
    And he had not been seen on campus or at his jobs since two days after his return from spring break.
    That he
had
returned was witnessed by an occasional girlfriend, people at the hotel he worked at, by his work contact at the Alumni Association.
    But that had all been preliminary to this visit to the boy’s apartment.
    Xenos casually strolled through the building’s dark corridors, smiling through his own college memories at doors with obscene or amusing signs posted on them.
No entry without pizza! Naked girls only need apply.
And
Don’t fuck with me; I’m a seminary student!
People passed him, paying no attention to the man with the backpack and the casual air. It was a building of interchangeable students, transients, and constant changes that went unnoticed.
    Everything seemed more than ordinary enough.
    At the door to Paolo’s apartment, for the first time Xenos tensed. A nosy neighbor, curious friend, or wandering security (minimum-waged, unarmed) could vastly complicate things. But the boy had chosen a room at the far end of a dark corridor, near the fire escape, with no apartment directly in line with the front door, on the hot or cold side of the building, depending on the time of year.
    In classic Corsican style, it was a place that few would just wander by.
    Although he had a key supplied by Franco, Xenos took his time outside the door… studying.
    It was typically worn pressboard, probably hollow, showing hundreds of routine scratches and nicks. The knob was slightly discolored brass-metal, with scratches around the keyhole. The dead bolt was much the same.
    For more than a minute Xenos studied that door, the frame, the wall around it, his mind clicking into analysis mode without being asked.
    Something was wrong here, and his instincts wouldn’t let him move until he knew what it was.
    He closed his eyes, pictured the door that was