by Joe Goldberg
“There is not much to explain. There are larger considerations that are best handled by Danny going forward. You can resume your normal duties,” Jessup said.
“Larger considerations? What—”
“I think we might be too hasty here.” All eyes turned to Chapel when he cut Peter off. “Perhaps we should allow Peter and…his sources…to continue.”
“I don’t think that is wise,” Jessup said.
“We don’t want him—it is too risky—like Walter said.” MacBride was rotating a few inches left and right in his chair. His fingers tapped on the arms of the chair.
“I understand. To allay your fears, I volunteer to be on the ground in Kyiv and act as a sort of mentor, if needed. I would make sure nothing happens that could hurt Kirkwood. If they can retrieve the case, I could act as an intermediary and return it. You did ask for Peter’s help in this for a reason.”
Peter was waiting for someone to ask for his input, but they talked about what he could or could not do, like he was invisible. He was getting upset, and when his foot started to wiggle, he crossed one leg over the other and held it.
“True. But, are you sure, Danny?” Jessup looked at MacBride. “Can this be done without unintended consequences to the company?”
“No harm, right, Peter?” Chapel ran his hand down his tie.
“Of course not. That is the last thing I want to happen,” Peter said, but he knew his face betrayed his confusion. Finding the case was all-important a few seconds ago, now he was being taken off the task.
“Okay, Danny. Peter, you may continue,” Jessup announced.
They stood in unison. Dismayed, Peter shook their hands and left.
Peter was waiting outside for Chapel. “Thank you, Mr. Chapel. But I have to ask—”
“Call me Danny, remember?” he cut in. “Glad to help. This is important.”
“What is their problem? The comment about harming the compa—”
“Forget them.” He waved his hand like swatting away a fly. “What do you need?’
“I need to get to Kyiv.”
“Then you can join me on my plane, as my guest.”
The meeting stunned Peter, and he carried the feeling with him as he drove home.
He was zombie-driving—moving by habit with glazed eyes focused straight ahead. Because of that, he didn’t notice the car that pulled out behind him when he left Kirkwood. He didn’t check his mirrors to see if it was still there when he pulled off I-88 at the Naperville exit. He paid no attention when it parked on his street a block away.
An hour later, he didn’t see it pull behind his Uber and follow him to O’Hare.
Peter had made several mistakes.
36
Thunderlover
Kyiv, Ukraine
The pounding beat of the electro-dance music in Pavlo’s ears wasn’t as distracting as the tube-dressed blondes and brunettes shaking their way to any man who looked like he had money in his pocket. Clouds of perfume, hairspray, estrogen, and testosterone hung in the air. Like cats, they meowed their way along the crowded bar, lounges, and dance floor, looking for a treat.
“Buy me champagne. We need to have fun tonight. Drinks, and then you will take me to the private clubs,” they purred through red, or aqua, or green painted lips. They wiggled and giggled their way up to one man after another, rubbing their skin-tight dress all over the leg a horny tourist—who didn’t know what was happening—or a local—who was hoping something would.
Some were local girls legitimately out for a good time. Some were local girls legitimately looking for the drunken stooge to declare his love, marry her, and take her away to America, where she would leave him and start a new life. Most were ‘house whores,’ who were paid a few hryvnias for the number of champagne bottles they rung up on the guest’s bar tab.
Pavlo was there for none of that. A year ago, a girl looked at him with what he thought was lust, only to find out she wanted him to move so she could get to the women’s restroom. Tonight was different. Standing near the bar, he raised on his tiptoes trying in vain to look over the top of the hundreds of taller, gyrating people.
Pavlo had met her only two days ago during his regular nighttime troll through his array of X-rated web chat rooms, adult live porn sites, and dating and singles sites. Pavlo, AKA Thunderlover, was a premium member to them all. Thunderlover never paid or gave any sign-up information that could be stored in any centralized system. He just hacked into the sites and set up his own accounts.
Every night, either in his basement bunker or like tonight, from his own small apartment down the street from the bank, Pavlo would start his Thunderlover routine. First, he would rotate from one web chat site to another, looking for interesting conversations. At the dating sites, the pages were loaded with statuesque women in tight dresses, or less, bending into their idea of a seductive pose.
Around 3 a.m., he would log into the Ukraine singles sites. He liked the anonymity. He could have conversations without being seen. His fingers were Cyrano De Bergerac. The rest of him was a tree frog.
She popped up on Ukraine Omegle, saying she spoke German and English. The username, NEWGIRL, didn’t provide much detail for Thunderlover to decide whether to click the connect button.
NEW: Hi. (smiley emoji)
TL: Hi.
NEW: I (Heart emoji) UR name!
TL: (astonished face emoji) THX. Made it up.
NEW: I (heart) it. I’m German. New in Kyiv. I don’t speak Ukrainian—YET!
TL: I guessed that. LOL (laughing emoji). English is fine. (prayer hands)
NEW: R U in Kyiv?
TL: Yes. (thumbs up emoji) Born here (frowning emoji)
NEW: What do you do?
TL: (Computer emoji) U?
NEW: (Artist, palette paintbrush, framed picture emojis)
TL: (thumbs up)
NEW: ATM I’m looking for a job.
TL: Maybe I can help?
NEW: OMG that would be Gr8t. But I have to go. Talk L8R. (2 heart emojis)
Then she was gone. An apparition that Pavlo couldn’t believe was real. She was talking to him! She wanted to talk to him again! He had no idea what she looked like, and he didn’t care. He was sure she was different.
NEWGIRL.
It was such a beautiful name.
By mid-day, Pavlo dedicated one of his monitors exclusively to the chatroom—in case NEWGIRL logged in early. Every few seconds, for the next eight hours, he glanced at the screen. No NEWGIRL. The feeling of hope in his chest tensed like a kite string straining not to break. By 11 p.m., his hands shook so much with anxiety he had difficulty hitting the keyboard. By 1 a.m., the tears started to roll down his chubby cheeks.
At 1:35 a.m., his computer let out a ping. The quivers started in his hair, traveled through his body to his toes. Pavlo couldn’t contain the tremors. His heart was beating faster when he saw the name NEWGIRL on the screen.
NEW: Uthere?
NEW: Hello?
NEW: (teary-eyed emoji)
TL: Yes!!!!
NEW: HI!! (two thumbs up emojis)
TL: I have been waiting for you. I was worried.
NEW: Busy day. (walking person emoji). Getting settled. Sore (feet emoji).
TL: Any luck?
NEW: Yes, slow. I could use some help! Show me the nightlife! (beer, wine, martini, champagne bottle emojis)
During the next day, they typed progressively longer messages back and forth. The emojis became less frequent, except those that might coax an answer—prayer hands, winking yellow faces. Pavlo learned a lot.
NEWGIRL was in her mid-twenties and had moved a few weeks before from Berlin. NEWGIRL needed a new, fresh start after a bad relationship. She didn’t want to talk about it, and he didn’t ask. She was an artist. Oils and pencils.
She finally revealed that her name was Katinka, “but my friends call me Tinka.” Her parents were from Finland. Her father was in sales—computers, or something like that and always gone. Her mother was a bitch
. Tinka was an only child. Lonely.
He told her he was too. Why did I say that?
It wasn’t all awkward. They shared jokes and their favorite things—Tinka liked chocolate. He said he liked it too, although that was a lie. Lots of LOLs and LMAOs. She turned her camera on without warning. There she was on his screen. A smile inside a perfect face. She was prettier than Ms. Ira.
Ms. Ira! I need to work on her case…later.
NEW: Well? Turn on UR (camera emoji)!
Pavlo closed his eyes, raised his hand over the key, and pushed. When he opened his eyes, she was still there.
She waved.
“Hello, Thunderlover,” she said in a voice that sounded like vanilla.
He waved back.
Tinka’s smile seemed even broader.
Her hair was a mixture of red, blonde, and brown, resembling the color of a country road. It hung into her turquoise eyes and down the sides of her round face to her shoulders. She wore a sheer white blouse that buttoned down the front with small shiny buttons. The outline of a black bra was barely visible. Pavlo could not help but look at her chest, where the button was open on the shirt at the convergence of her breasts. He could see the lace of the bra and a small red bow.
They kept talking until they agreed to meet at midnight at The Caribbean Club for drinks and dancing and fun.
She saw him in the crowded club before he saw her. There was a tug on the sleeve of his shirt, and he felt a peck on his cheek. He turned too defensively and pushed her without seeing who it was. Pavlo was terrified as he watched her fall back and bump into a group of people who yelled and pushed her back. He caught her.
She wore the same white blouse with shiny buttons. Below was a black thigh-length pleated skirt. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail and alternated colors with the disco lights.
“I’m…I’m sorry. I should go,” Pavlo spluttered, his words faltering as tears filled his eyes.
“Don’t be silly!” Tinka grabbed him and gave him a bear hug. Her arms barely reaching halfway around his sweat-soaked midsection. “I am so happy to meet you.”
In shock, Pavlo reached around and reciprocated with a hug of his own. He could feel the contours of her body against his. Her hair was in his face. She smelled like fresh rain.
After they separated, Pavlo bought beers. He hadn’t had a beer in as long as he could remember. He didn’t like the taste, but this evening, in the heat and noise of the nightclub, it was wonderful.
“I don’t want any more beer,” she screamed into his ear over the noise twenty minutes later. “This round is on me.”
She headed off in the direction of the bar. When he lost sight of her in the crowd, he knew what was happening. Tinka was escaping him now that she saw him in person. The tears started to form in his eyes. He waited a few minutes, just in case. But when she didn’t return, he turned toward the exit. He felt a tug on his arm.
“Try this!” Her smiling face was inches from his. She thrust a large glass filled with a clear liquid and lime into his hand. “A delicious drink. Vodka tonic! Drink. Drink!”
She used her beautiful hand to help him raise the glass. He took a few sips, then a few more. Tinka was right. The refreshing drink did feel good in the steaming dance club.
“Come on, Pavlo. Have some fun!” Tinka was smiling and laughing as she dragged him onto the dance floor.
He thought that maybe it was the constant strobing of the lights and booming of the dance music making him nauseous and drowsy.
“I am hot.” Pavlo was rubbing his hand on his head.
She bit his earlobe, then screamed into Pavlo’s ear.
“Me too. Let’s go to my place.”
“I…um…well,” he mumbled in shock.
A light drizzle was falling when they stepped into the heavy 3 a.m. Kyiv air. A short walk through a courtyard brought them to Symona Petlyury Street. Pavlo staggered and grabbed Tinka to lean on her for support.
“It is a beautiful spring rain.” She locked her arm around his and dragged him along the damp street. She guided him right, then left, then straight down the narrow Nazarivska Street. It ran along one side of the Botanical Gardens. The van was idling in the darkness down the block under the overhanging trees of the gardens.
She had to hurry. The Rohypnol she had dumped into his drink was close to taking full effect, and he was too fat and heavy for her to carry alone.
37
Where is Tinka?
Kyiv, Ukraine
Pavlo was not sure if his memories were real or just drunken delusions.
He recalled rain. Drinks. Laughter. A car. A person in a black hood. Screams. Breaking glass. The smack of fist on flesh. Again. A woman screamed. A fist in his stomach. Then another. Gasping for air. Darkness. Silence.
A bag was covering his head.
Something sharp dug into his shoulders and chest securing him to whatever he was sitting on. His hands were cuffed tightly to what felt like a ring bolt on top of a table. His fingers swollen and numb. The panic set in. He was hyperventilating, and the resulting dizziness made him sick.
Then he remembered Tinka.
“Tinka!” he shouted, as he jerked and twisted. “Tinka, are you here?”
His words echoed from one wall to the other, then he heard the metal on metal grind of a latch opening.
With a click, bright light burned into his eyelids through the hood. Pavlo turned his head away, rocked from side to side, and squeezed his lids as tight as he could. It didn’t help. With the light came heat, sweat, and fear.
Then, as quickly as it arrived, the light dimmed to a tolerable level. The hood was ripped off Pavlo’s head. With some effort, Pavlo opened his eyes. He blinked away tears and bright spots as the space around him came into focus. The room was small, maybe ten feet square, with cinder block walls and concrete floors. No windows. He was sitting at a metal table. Two empty chairs were on the other side. Between the lights was a metal door.
The air smelled like dust, rats, and decay.
Two men walked out of the glare and loomed over Pavlo. They were identical, except Oleg Koval had a ragged scar running along his jawline and down the side of his neck. Oleg Rudenko had a goatee that came to a point like an ice pick a few inches under his chin.
They were tall and muscular. Their bald bullet-shaped heads sat on tattooed necks that rippled with each breath. They wore black boots, jeans, and gray short-sleeved shirts under black leather vests. Tattoos of crosses, skulls, and knives covered their arms.
Pavlo didn’t know who they were, but he knew that body art of skulls and knives meant these men were mobsters—Russian or Ukrainian—and that they were killers.
“Where. What?” He couldn’t form a sentence through a mouth so dry he was sure they plastered his tongue to the top of his mouth.
“Please. Quiet.” Koval said with a thick Ukrainian accent. He dropped his paw on Pavlo’s shoulder, left it there, and squeezed. “You worry about the girl? You are a nice man.”
Pavlo’s head crushed into his neck as the pain rolled through his body. “Where…is…Tinka?” he gasped each word.
Rudenko sat down in his chair. “Let him go.”
“Little fat fucker,” Koval said disappointedly, as he raised his hands in the air spreading his fingers wide.
He walked behind Pavlo, slapped him on his sweat-drenched scalp, sending a snapping sound and grunt ricocheting around the room. Rudenko took his time moving toward the empty chair—the one to Pavlo’s left. He grunted as he sat, leaned back, and rested his shiny black leather boots on the tables’ edge. He stretched his hands behind his head like it was nap time. He rested a boot on the table top. Pavlo saw the shape of a knife carved in the sole of his shoe.
“Wh-why?” Pavlo said.
“We will explain,” Koval said. He leaned forward and interlocked his fingers as he rested his elbows on the table. Each knuckle had diamond “ring of thieves” tattoos on them.
“It is simple. Your boss is scum.
Bondar. And his whore daughter. They killed our boss. Vlasenko. Now they plan to—,” Koval looked at Rudenko and shrugged, “—I don’t know what he plans to do? You?”
“No fucking idea. But I would like to fuck that daughter. She is sweet,” Rudenko said, looking disinterested in the conversation. He pulled out a knife from his belt and started to clean his fingernails.
“We want that case as payment for killing our boss, and—” Koval said as a matter of fact, “—to keep us from killing you and the cute bitch in the other room.”
“I know nothing of killing…or any case.” Pavlo added the lie in a moment of courage. “Where is she?”
Rudenko dropped his boot to the floor with a loud thud.
“What?” Rudenko shouted in his face.
“I…don’t…know…I…don’t…know—” he whimpered. Snot ran out of his nose and stuck to his lips.
With surprising agility, Rudenko wheeled forward, arching his hand high in the air. The knife hit the table with a metallic thwap a quarter of an inch from Pavlo’s right hand.
Pavlo began to shake, then felt a warm stream of urine running down his leg.
“Shit, he is wetting himself!” Rudenko stood up and looked at Koval, then over the table. “Shit.” He pulled his knife out of the table and wiped it on Pavlo’s shoulder.
Pavlo began to cry. “Tin-ka. Tin-ka.”
“Is that the pretty bitch? A fine bitch…well, not now,” Koval and Rudenko laughed together in unison.
“What have you done? Is she—” Pavlo screamed.
“Dead? No, she is not dead. Do you think we are animals?” Koval chuckled. “Want to see her?” Koval reached into his vest and pulled out his mobile phone. He swiped a few times with his thumb. “There.”
Pavlo squinted at an image that showed Tinka wired to a chair. Her head was bent forward. The angle revealed a bruised and bloodied face. Her eyes were swollen closed. Her chin rested on her chest. Her hair was matted to her face. Dark brownish-red lines came from her nostrils, over her split lips, and pooled into a darker stain against her blouse.
