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He dreaded the moment when he would have to tell her.
Just then his mother turned to him. "Dina," she said, "I've been
thinking. You should sleep with Kosta tonight."
"Kosta?" Dina said. What an incredible thought. It was like
something out of a Woody Allen movie.
"He needs you," Mary said. "He's sad. His Lisa is in the hospital."
It took some doing, but Dina convinced his mother that sleeping with
Kosta was not the best thing.
"I should sleep in your room," he told her. "I'll be there to protect
you if anything happens."
Still, Dina said not a word about Kosta being the villain.
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He had adopted the viewpoint that Teja was behind the attempt on Lisa,
and that Teja or one of his cohorts, might come in the night.
"Kosta," he explained, "can protect himself."
By bedtime on Saturday Dina was a wreck. He had no way to protect
himself if Kosta appeared with a gun during the night. What could he
do, throw a lamp at Kosta? How much protection could he really give
his mother or himself from a man who had more guns than Dirty Harry?
The answer, he knew, was none. He and Mary would be as helpless as
deer in the forest if Kosta decided to come for them. As he thought on
this, Dina thought also that he needed to show Kosta that he believed
there was somebody outside of the house who had tried to kill Lisa. If
Dina didn't act properly apprehensive about outside dangers, then Kosta
might realize that Dina suspected him.
Then it came to Dina that there was a way to solve both problems.
He would borrow a gun from Kosta.
Kosta was in the television room watching the usual shoot-em-up action
fare. Dina sat down beside him on the couch.
"Kosta, can I interrupt you for a minute?"
"Sure," Kosta said. He aimed the remote like a pistol and turned off
the sound on the TV.
"I've been thinking about Teja," Dina said.
"That son of a bitch," Kosta said. "I've been thinking about him,
too.
If I catch that black bastard I'll kill him."
"He's dangerous," Dina said. "I think he's behind this thing."
Kosta smiled. He patted Dina's shoulder. "I think you're right," he
said.
"Look, I'm a little scared," Dina said, "and I was wondering. . .
do you think I could borrow a gun, just for the night?"
If he doesn't give it to me, I'm in trouble, Dina thought.
If he doesn't give me a gun it means he wants me unarmed, so he can
come in and shoot me.
Kosta smiled. "Sure, Dina, sure." He left the couch and walked out of
the house. A minute later he came back with the gun from Lisa's car.
He waved the gun at Dina. "This will protect you," he said.
Standing in the living room, next to Dina, Kosta then unloaded the gun
and reloaded it with bullets from his pocket.
The son of a bitch is putting in blanks, Dina thought.
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He's filling it with blanks and he's doing it right in front of me.
He handed Dina the gun. "You know how to use it?"
"I think so," Dina said. "I think so."
"Good," Kosta said. He patted Dina on the back.
All night long Dina stayed awake. He lay, fully dressed, in his
mother's bedroom, his heart thumping madly with every sound. He had
the door padlocked on the inside, and the gun lay on a night table just
inches away. Now and then he would grab for the gun to see how quickly
he could get it into his hand. He felt as if he were drawing down on
Shootin' Sam at Joyland. Let's hope my aim's a little better now, he
thought. Being what he calls "gun illiterate," Dina had no way of
figuring out if the bullets in his weapon were blanks. (Later he
showed the bullets to Officer Allison Ebel and she assured him that
they were live rounds. In fact, Kosta, for whatever reason, had
replaced the old bullets with a more deadly type.) Mary Paspalakis,
knowing only that her daughter had been shot by a stranger, finally
fell asleep about 2:00 A.M. and Dina could hear the soft sounds of her
breathing.
By dawn, just before he fell asleep, Dina decided that he could not go
through this again. His mother would have to sleep at a relative's
house. The only way he could get her to do that, he knew, would be to
tell her the awful truth.
On Sunday morning Dina went out early to get the News Journal,
Daytona's newspaper. The top story: HUSBAND KILLS INTRUDER, WIFE
WOUNDED IN SHOOTING AT oN. HALIFAX HOME.
Dina had expected the shooting to make the papers, but he was shocked
to see it in big bold headlines, the top story of the day.
The story, by News Journal reporter William D. A. Hill, began, "An
18-year-old intruder is dead and a prominent Halifax Avenue
businesswoman is in serious condition after a shooting in the woman's
home early Saturday morning, police reported."
The article went on to recount Kosta's story about being awakened by a
loud noise, seeing the intruder, and shooting him. The front page also
carried a photograph of Bryan Chase's body being taken out of the
house. Dina took the paper home, wondering how many people in Daytona
Beach would see right through it. How many would know what he knew.
Later that morning Dina drove his mother to the hospital to visit with
Lisa.
"We were driving along," Dina says, "and I turned to her and I said,
"Ma, there's something I got to tell you.
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