I thought, What’s more noble than trying to rescue an imperiled child?
“All right, then,” I said. “We’ll—”
Suddenly, Ana’s lips were on mine, her tongue probing my mouth with a hunger I hadn’t known since my first months with Tasha in college. This time, the mere thought of turning her away was physically painful, and I quickly rid my head of it, allowed myself to savor her flesh without that unfounded sense of guilt that creeps into too many of us. I wanted her and I’d be damned if I was going to deny myself again.
In a tangle, we dropped onto the bed, our hands clawing at each other’s clothes as though our very existence depended on our being undressed, on our melding our bodies together as one.
Over the next thirty minutes all the fear I knew would melt away, and the past would cave in on itself. For a time it would be as though all the troubles of this world had never truly existed, that they’d been figments of our imagination. For one half hour, there would be no danger to consider, no horror. There would be no war. No violence.
For the next half hour, I would be perfectly at peace.
It wouldn’t last, of course; I knew that.
Neither sex nor peace ever did.
Chapter 36
Ana dressed herself in peasant clothes from a local thrift shop and worked for nearly an hour on her background story, talking it out with me in our hotel room. She would pose as an unemployed seamstress from Bialystok, the capital city of one of the poorest regions of Poland. Bialystok, which was located in the eastern part of the country, not far from the Belarusian border, was currently cursed with an unemployment rate of nearly 40 percent, and those unskilled laborers fortunate enough to have jobs took home roughly $180 per month. Ana subtracted ten years from her true age, then turned to me and asked if she’d pass, and without a second’s hesitation I said, “Yes, of course,” and it was true.
“One problem,” I said, when she stepped out of the bathroom in her peasant clothes. “Dressed like that, you won’t get into the clubs we’ll need to go to in order to find our way to a pimp.”
She looked down at her thin cotton beige blouse with matching skirt, then tore off a large piece of fabric that hung over her midriff and another that covered her legs to the knees. She spun, showing off her exposed belly and back, her perfect bare thighs.
“You do not think so?” she said.
“I stand corrected.”
As for me, I finally traded the bloodstained turtleneck, peacoat, and jeans for one of the suits Davignon had procured for me in Paris. The suit had just been pressed, courtesy of the Mozart Hotel. While my own exposed stomach might get me into Shede, one of Ukraine’s most popular openly gay nightclubs, it wouldn’t gain me entry to Palladium, which was where we would need to start at this time of year. Had it been summer, the action would have been at Arkadia Beach, where two colossal Ibiza-style nightclubs were packed to overflowing seven nights a week. But with Ukraine’s current biting temperatures, the crowds moved inland, closer to Odessa’s city center.
We waited until nightfall, then took separate taxis downtown. It was imperative that no one in or near the nightclub noticed Ana and me together. One minor slip could easily get both of us killed. I was especially concerned for Ana; in fact, I could hardly stop thinking of her.
I entered the club first. It was just after 11:00 P.M. and there was a show being performed on the stage. A half-dozen half-naked women and a single half-naked man moved to pulse-pounding house music in front of an immense screen displaying quick cuts of Ukrainian words and psychedelic images. Palladium was brimming with sexual energy, with both the chemical and mind state of Ecstasy, with all levels and constructs of debauchery.
It wasn’t my scene, of course. Having aspired to become a federal agent from a young age, I hadn’t dared experiment with illegal substances as a teenager. And I’d married Tasha straight out of college, so I’d never really experienced the singles scene. Thanks to work, I’d been in my share of bars and clubs around the world, but searching for kidnappers or deadly armed fugitives was one sure way to put a damper on an evening.
As the whole of my body tingled with adrenaline, I surreptitiously watched the entrance for Ana’s arrival. I’d already spotted several men who fit the successful eastern-European mobster mold—flashy cashmere suit; silk shirt with no tie, the top few buttons undone, revealing multiple necklaces nearly lost in a jungle of chest hair; a gold Rolex, rings on at least three fingers; shoes so shiny they’d blind you in sunlight; and the clincher, prison tattoos covering almost every inch of the hands and neck.
When Ana sauntered in, she turned heads, just as I’d expected. For the briefest of moments our eyes locked on each other’s from across the club, then she turned and vanished into the sea of sweating bodies on the dance floor.
I moved down the length of the bar, pausing once to order a glass of Glenlivet on the rocks. If you didn’t drink in social settings in Ukraine, Ana had told me, you were regarded with suspicion, as someone who couldn’t be trusted. So, scotch in hand, I continued along the bar until I spotted Ana gyrating on the dance floor. Just watching her move was a complete aphrodisiac, and as much I hated to admit it, a pang of jealousy struck me deep in the gut every time I saw another man place his hands on her.
I did what I could to remain inconspicuous, talked to a few women, flirted, bought each a drink or two. My background story was much less elaborate than Ana’s. I was a bar owner from Brooklyn, here in Ukraine on holiday; exploring Odessa’s nightlife would allow me to enumerate the costs as a tax write-off. “That damn Uncle Sam,” I joked more than once.
After a solid hour and a half, I saw Ana move toward the bar with a man in tow. He was dressed well, but not flashy, and for a moment I wondered what the hell Ana was doing. But as per our plan, she picked a spot at the bar immediately next to where I was standing. I turned the other way, put my rocks glass to my lips, and prepared myself to eavesdrop.
I heard Ana call the man Pavlo, and made a mental note. I listened to her deliver her background and was particularly amused when she improvised, adding an absent father, a sick mother, and a paraplegic brother with two kids. She often had to have sex with her terribly overweight landlord in lieu of rent, she told him.
And there, I realized, was her segue.
“Well,” Pavlo said loudly in broken English, “you enjoy certain physical attributes that should make money not so much of an issue, I would think.”
“Really?” she said, as though relishing the compliment.
“I am being dead honest,” he told her. “Your landlord is not the only man who would forgive your debts just for a taste of you.”
“Unfortunately,” Ana said coyly, “the grocer does not accept blow jobs in exchange for fresh fruits and vegetables, and the baker no longer welcomes hand jobs for bread.”
“How about the plumber?” Pavlo said, laughing raucously. “Surely, he enjoys laying pipe.”
Ana joined in with a forced chuckle. “You are too funny, Pavlo.”
“But in all seriousness,” he said, “if you are willing to trade your services for money, I can introduce you to the right people. Just say the word.”
Ana jumped at the opportunity. “Consider it said. As long as I can send money home to my family. I cannot simply abandon them. Especially my disabled brother and his two kids.”
“Of course you can send money back to Bialystok. Sending money home is what most of the girls do.” Pavlo motioned to the bartender. “Two Nemiroff martinis, proshu.” Turning back to Ana, he said, “Let’s enjoy a drink and then I will take you to meet my friend Marko.”
“That’s sounds perfect,” Ana said over the music. “Really, I do not how to thank you.”
“I know a way,” Pavlo said with an unmistakable snigger. “Later tonight, my dear, you can allow me to sample the goods.”
I closed my eyes and took a swallow of scotch and reminded myself that deep down I was really a man of nonviolence.
Chap
ter 37
“Follow that black ZAZ,” I said from the rear of a taxi. “The vehicle that man and woman just stepped into.”
I sighed deeply and leaned back in my seat, wishing I still had the motorcycle. I didn’t want to lose sight of Pavlo’s car even for a second. The plan was for Ana to text me once they reached Marko’s location, or before, if there was any trouble. But any number of things could go wrong. Pavlo could stop the car and take Ana’s phone away before she had a chance to use it. She could lose her signal. Her battery could die.
I removed my mobile from my pocket, checked the battery and the signal; both were fine. So I took the opportunity to call Ostermann’s number in Berlin, but there was no answer. Next I called Lieutenant Davignon in Paris.
“Simon,” he said the moment he answered. “What in the hell is happening in Poland? The lawyer Mikolaj Dabrowski is all over the news. He is apparently being questioned in connection with a shootout at his client’s house in Pomerania. The client, they are saying, is some notorious gangster named Chudzik who was recently acquitted in a racketeering trial. Is this the man behind Lindsay Sorkin’s kidnapping?”
“I’m sorry, Lieutenant, but I don’t have time to fully explain. Suffice it to say that I had a chat with Dabrowski, who led me to a corrupt chief inspector in Warsaw named Aleksander Gasowski.”
“Why does that name sound so familiar?”
“If you’ve been tuned in to the Polish news, you no doubt heard it mentioned during the broadcasts. Gasowski blew his brains out at the Kyriad Prestige in Warsaw. But not before he admitted to his role in Lindsay Sorkin’s abduction. Two of Gasowski’s officers picked the girl up from the Polish military museum after two of Chudzik’s men delivered her there.”
“Chudzik the gangster?”
“Precisely,” I said. “Chudzik’s men had retrieved her from the men’s room at Hauptbahnhof Station in Berlin, where Dietrich Braun and Karl Finster had dropped her off after taking her from Paris.”
“Wait a minute, Simon.” Davignon lowered his voice, presumably so that Vince and Lori Sorkin wouldn’t hear. “So, you are telling me that the girl is now with the police in Poland?”
“Not exactly,” I said. “Before Gasowski committed suicide he said that Chudzik had ordered his men to deliver her somewhere in Ukraine. That’s where I am now.”
“You are in Ukraine?”
“Odessa, to be exact. Gasowski didn’t know which city in Ukraine, or even which region. He was kept in the dark just in case someone like me got to him.”
In the background I heard a woman’s voice repeating a statement in French; it sounded as though it was coming from a loudspeaker.
“What is that?” I said. “Where are you?”
Davignon sighed. “We are in hospital, I am afraid. Lori Sorkin collapsed in the elevator of the hotel. No word yet from her doctors. My fear right now is that she suffered a miscarriage.”
Life is like dominoes, I thought. Once one tile falls …
Once Hailey went missing, I lost Tasha, then slowly Tasha’s parents and brother as well, who’d become a surrogate family to me over the years. I couldn’t fault them for distancing themselves from me, of course. Seeing me was too painful. I was a glaring reminder of all they’d lost. A daughter. A granddaughter. A sister, a niece. Trying to forget was a defense mechanism I understood too well. Hell, even years after the incident I couldn’t drive past the parks Hailey had played in, couldn’t shop in the grocery stores Tasha had favored. I certainly couldn’t live in our house.
“Which reminds me,” Davignon said. “We haven’t been able to get in touch with Keith Richter.”
“Keith Richter?”
“Lindsay’s pediatrician back in the States. We get only an answering service, and no one returns our calls. Apparently the doctor is on vacation this week. But we were able to track down a hospital that drew Lindsay’s blood. Santa Clara Valley Medical Center. Where Lindsay received her stitches as a toddler. The medical-records department is faxing over her lab report, which will contain her blood type and anything else you may require.”
I hoped I wouldn’t require anything more than the photo I had of Lindsay Sorkin smiling.
Through the windshield of the taxi I saw Pavlo’s ZAZ make a sharp right turn.
“I need to leave you for now, Lieutenant. I’ll call you with an update as soon as I can.”
I ended the call and shouted, “Make that right!” to the driver.
Our tires squealed as we turned nearly ninety degrees onto a narrow roadway. I could almost sense Pavlo staring into the rearview. Did he know he was being followed? Had Ana somehow tipped her hand? Was she already in grave danger and unable to contact me?
Sure enough, seconds later, the ZAZ accelerated. The car shot into the wrong lane and passed several slower-moving vehicles before kicking back into the right just in time to avoid an oncoming SUV. Horns blared all around.
Within sixty seconds, the black ZAZ was entirely out of sight.
Chapter 38
We crawled the streets of Odessa for a solid hour, the taxi’s meter running up like the National Debt Clock on Manhattan’s Sixth Avenue. I despised myself for having made such an egregious error with so much at stake. I’d never thought of myself as reckless, but that’s exactly what I was. In attempting to locate Lindsay, I’d gotten Ostermann arrested and Ana kidnapped, now possibly killed.
I glanced at my watch. I saw no choice but to start from the beginning, to enter a club and spark up some conversations, to find someone who knew Pavlo, to learn where he might have taken Ana.
Just as I was about to instruct the driver to return me to Palladium, my mobile finally chirped in my lap. It was a text message from Ana: CHILLAX HOSTEL NEAR BLACK SEA.
I immediately leaned forward and gave the location to the driver.
“No good,” he said in battered English. “That place, it close down two years in the past.”
“But you know where it is,” I said.
“Yes. I am taxi driver eighteen years.”
“Good,” I said, passing forward a couple five-hundred-hryvnia banknotes to keep him interested. “Then take me to it.”
At the next intersection, the driver made a precarious U-turn and headed toward the Black Sea at an acceptable rate of speed. Learning that the hostel had closed was unsettling, made me even more uneasy. Ana was alone in an abandoned building with Pavlo and Marko and whoever the hell else might be there. I continued to loathe myself for moving forward with this plan when I’d had so many reservations. I was more than willing to trade my life for the chance of finding Lindsay alive, but I had no business at all risking Ana’s. She was a lawyer. This wasn’t her fight; it was mine.
We arrived only minutes later. I’d instructed the driver to announce when we were near, and when he did, I asked him to extinguish the headlights. A block away, I ordered him to pull over and let me out. I paid the remainder of the enormous fare and exited the taxi, softly shutting the door behind me.
I’d considered asking the driver to stay in case we needed to get out of the area quickly, but I didn’t want to risk someone’s hearing an idling engine or seeing a taxi driver sitting alone in the dark. Nothing that might tip these guys off, send them on the run.
Chillax was a two-story structure shaped like a box, surrounded by buildings most likely condemned. The entire block was as silent as the dead, the hostel sitting like a sentinel on the corner. No lights were visible from where I stood.
Hostels are the poor man’s motels, places where backpackers can grab an empty cot on the cheap. They are most frequented by the young, including spoiled American kids traveling on their parents’ dime but choosing to spend their spending money not on four-star hotels but on liquor and drugs. For some, backpacking through Europe is an initiation into adulthood; for others, it’s one last hurrah before settling into serious study at an Ivy League college.
At seventeen, I begged my father for the opportunity to backpack through Europe. He pro
mptly and vehemently said he’d have none of it. From the day we arrived in Providence, my father had done everything he could to keep from flying across the Atlantic. That, I had always thought, was the real reason I had requested a transfer to international investigations when I was with the U.S. Marshals. Not to run away from my wife and child, as Alden Fisk had.
The closer I got to the abandoned hostel, the darker it seemed to get. The Eli Roth film I’d caught on pay-per-view in a Stockholm hotel room a few years earlier crept into my mind. I was pretty sure Hostel had been set in Slovakia but right now that provided little comfort. Who knew what hell was waiting for me inside this building. But then, who knew what hell Ana would suffer if I hesitated even another minute.
At the back of the building I climbed a six-foot fence, the metal pulling at the delicate threads of my jacket and pants as I leaped over the top. I hoped Davignon wasn’t expecting the suits back once I finally returned to Paris.
The rear entrance appeared to be locked up tight, a padlock and chains crisscrossing the doorway like a birthday present with an unpleasant bow. I didn’t carry a set of bolt cutters on my person, so entering through this door without making a racket would make for one hell of a trick. I was sure it wasn’t possible.
Which left me only the windows and an imagination operating on little sleep.
There were no windows on the bottom floor so I looked up. The windows on the second floor were boarded up. If there was no glass behind them, that would work wholly to my advantage as far as noise went. Unfortunately, it also meant that I wouldn’t be able to see in. So, while I was prying off the boards, someone on the other side could be waiting for me with a machete.
All right, I thought. Definitely time to remove all horror-movie memories from my mind.
Good As Gone (Simon Fisk Novels) Page 16
