Skin Trade

by Reggie Nadelson

  “He’s a friend. You said you didn’t know him.”

  “I didn’t remember until I saw his face. I met him once at some party. In New York.”

  “So?”

  “Fallon’s from New York. He’s in business. He moves around. I don’t like him.”

  “Why not?”

  Tolya said, “Let’s get breakfast.”

  “I like him.”

  “OK, fine. Let’s eat some breakfast.”

  “I don’t want breakfast. What’s wrong with Fallon?”

  “I don’t like his type.” He was speaking Russian.

  “What type?”

  “Pretend Americans.”

  “So long, Tolya.”

  “Where the hell are you going?”

  “I have a job to do.”

  “You’re in trouble, man. You’re in trouble with the company you work for, with Carol Browne, with the cops here, with yourself. Just stay cool. We’ll work this together, we’ll get Lily better, we’ll take her home.”

  I always hate how I’m in hock to Tolya all the time. Now, I hated it worse because I knew where some of his money came from.

  “You’re just taking off? For where?”

  “None of your business.”

  “What is my business?”

  “Whores.”

  “Grow up. You’re way over your head, you’re running around like a crazy man. I know this thing with Lily makes you unhappy, but you’re nowhere on this case.”

  “You’re going to fix it, right? Like always?”

  “You have to know, whatever you do, Lily will be safe. I’ll be there. I have my guys on it, she’ll have a nurse.” He paused. “How come you’re so pissed off at me, Artyom?” He looked tired. He was sober.

  “I ask you if you know who runs hookers here, you tell me no, then it turns out you have a whorehouse like something from a bad Bond movie.”

  “It’s not mine. I put some money in. It’s an investment. They run it right. No one gets hurt. Everyone makes money, including the women. Especially the women. I fucking hate your fucking sanctimonious moralizing.”

  When Tolya gets angry, his huge body puffs up, his face gets purple.

  “Listen, my cousin Svetlana loved you. This makes you family. But I don’t have to put up with this shit. I’ll take care of Lily because she’s my friend, too, and I love her and I love Beth and I’m her godfather. But I’m fucking tired of your suspicions. You know who I am and what I do and you can come down off your high moral horse, man, and cut it out, and when you decide to dismount, then give me a call.”

  “Go to hell.”

  “Fuck you.”

  I walked to the door. Tolya brushed past me, and all he said was, “If you want me, you know where to find me. I’ll be with the whores,” and set off down the street, his coat flapping in the wind.

  “Lily?”

  After I slept a few hours, the rest of Tuesday I sat with Lily in the hospital, watching her, waiting for Martha’s call. She had promised to call. She promised. I had picked up some maps. I wasn’t sure where I was going, but I had maps and they were on my lap while I sat with Lily. Outside the hospital window, snow fell in thick slanted curtains.

  During the day, once in a while, I touched Lily’s hair where it stuck out from the bandages. Sometimes I held her hand, or talked, and sometimes she talked back a little.

  “Do you know who I am? Sweetheart?”

  She didn’t answer and I said, “Do you remember Martha?”

  “I remember Martha,” she whispered. “My friend.”

  “Yes.”

  “In love with me.”

  “Everyone’s in love with you.”

  Lily smiled and closed her eyes.

  Lariot, the doctor I’d met earlier that week, came by. He was wearing a joke tie, bright pink with cartoon doctors on it. He told me Lily was getting better. Physically, she was improving. He chose his words carefully, but he was frosty; he didn’t like me. I followed him into the hallway.

  I said, “If I have to go away for twenty-four hours, is it all right?”

  He turned to go with the brisk gestures of a man consumed by busyness.

  I grabbed his shoulder. “Tell me.”

  “Please let go of me.”

  “I’m sorry.” I repeated myself. “If I go away for twenty-four hours, if I’m back by tomorrow night, is it OK?”

  “Yes,” he said. “She’ll be all right.”

  Later, Momo dropped in to see Lily, shook my hand, left. The snow was still coming down, but I went into the courtyard for a smoke and stood under an overhang just outside Lily’s room. I was standing, smoking, not talking, and watching the snow when I heard her scream.

  In the doorway of her room, I slammed into Tolya. Lily was in bed, trying to sit up, a look of absolute terror on her face. I knelt next to her, put my arms around her as best I could, but she pushed me away. Tears streamed down her face.

  Lariot hurried in. “What happened?”

  “Lily?”

  She closed her eyes.

  I said, “Someone was here.”

  “That’s impossible,” Lariot said.

  Tolya found his security guy who was in the toilet, fired him, called another one, and got an orderly who showed up ten minutes later with a cot. Tolya was already working the phone.

  “What are you doing?” I said.

  “I’m going to stay with her,” Tolya said.

  I didn’t answer.

  He said, “I don’t know what the fuck happened or who was here, or if there was anyone, but I’m going to live here until she’s ready to go home, and then I’ll take her home. We’ll take her home, Aryom, all right? You do what you have to get the creep. If you need to take a trip, go.”

  Tolya could always read me. I nodded. He pushed his hand in his pocket and brought out a wad of cash. I shook my head.

  He said, “In case. In case. Take it.”

  I took the money. I kissed Lily’s cheek and left, but I had smelled him. I knew Zhaba had been in Lily’s room. I could smell him.

  17

  “You should go now,” she said, opening the door. “You must get out of Paris right away.”

  The last few days, I’d visited Katya Slobodkin more than once. I’d stopped by on my way to and from the hospital. You could see the hospital from her apartment. I could talk to Katya; I could talk about what I’d seen and where I’d been and she believed me because she had been there.

  Katya knew whatever Momo Gourad knew, maybe more. He wasn’t telling me everything, but she told me because she thought I’d kill Zhaba for her. She wanted him dead. The way she saw it, Momo, who was official, couldn’t do the killing, but I could. I was foreign, I wasn’t a cop anymore, I had nothing permanent at stake in Europe; I could take Lily and go home.

  She didn’t mention the night at the club, just kissed me three times Russian style, pulled the belt of her pink bathrobe tight and poured me some of the tea she was drinking. Outside the windows, the snow was piled high and soft on her terrace.

  She said, “I think you should go. I think you’re asking too many questions. People are angry at you, Artemy.”

  I looked around and realized the door to the bedroom was shut. “I know that.”

  “Momo is asleep,” she said. “He came here earlier from the hospital.”

  “I want to know how you’re involved in all this.”

  “I told you. I know the creep. I want him to be dead.”

  “You asked me to kill a guy, Katya. I’m not some enforcer, I can’t just knock off a guy.”

  “Because he hurt your Lily,” she added. “And me, also.”

  “It doesn’t work that way.”

  She smiled wryly. “You’re such an American. Don’t you believe me?”

  “I don’t always know.”

  “Because I’m Russian or because I’m a whore?”

  “Stop it. You think I’m in trouble?”

  “Yes.”

  “If I don’t
find him, he’ll come for Lily again?”

  “Like today at hospital.”

  “You heard?”

  “Yes.”

  “And he’ll come back?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where am I going, Katya?”

  Katya’s robe fell open in front and she gathered it up and pulled the belt tight, then looked at me.

  “You’re blushing, Artemy,” she said. I shook my head.

  She said, “You remember I said I would ask around about some girl I heard got beat up like Lily?”

  “Yes.”

  “I heard about girls that work the border. Czech. German.”

  “I heard something like that, too,” I said. “Where?”

  She sipped her tea. Then, switching from English to Russian and back again, said, “I have heard there is shit-hole on Czech-German border. You cross at Raitzenhaim. On the Czech side, you look for signs to Teplice. This is European Highway 55.”

  “You’ve been there? You know this place?”

  Katya withdrew; she didn’t talk about herself much. “It doesn’t matter how I know,” she said. “You have what you need?”

  I knew she meant a weapon and I nodded.

  “How is Lily?”

  “She’s a little better.”

  “But she still doesn’t know who you are.”

  “No.”

  The phone rang and Katya picked it up quickly. She listened, then hung up.

  She put her hand on my arm then, and said, “Go, Artie. Please, get out of here now.”

  “Who was it?”

  “Just please go.”

  “Who?”

  “Momo’s boss. He’s looking for you.”

  “Why?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Tell me.”

  “Some people start to think maybe you are involved.”

  “That I hurt Lily? That’s fucking insane.”

  She reached for her bag, a large yellow Hermès sack made of expensive reptiles, and pulled something out of it. “Here is something else.”

  “What is it?”

  She spoke in Russian now, very softly. “It is a picture of Zhaba.”

  I held the picture up to the light.

  “He changes his looks sometimes, sometimes a mustache, but you’ll know him. You saw him at the club. You have picture now. You’ll know from the smell, very sweet, very specific, and from tattoos on knuckles. You talked to your friend Anatoly Sverdloff?”

  “What’s there to talk about?”

  “He’s your friend, but you think he is some pimp,” Katya said. “Look, the plane is faster, but it’s snowing pretty bad, so the train to Dresden may be better, also no metal detectors.”

  “Thank you. Can I kiss you goodbye?”

  “Sure. Yes.” Katya wound her arms around my neck and kissed me on the cheek. “Be careful.”

  “Thanks.”

  I looked at the bedroom door and she said, “I’ll tell Momo you were here.”

  “If you want.”

  “You don’t trust Momo?”

  “I trust him,” I said. “I don’t want to make trouble for him. He’s still official. This is my business. You take care of Momo, OK. And Katya?”

  “Yes?”

  “How did you get the picture? Of Zhaba?”

  She smiled slightly. “Why do you care? I give you this picture. It is enough.”

  “I want to know.”

  “I slept with someone.”

  From the street, after I left Katya’s apartment, I tried Martha Burnham. There was no answer. At the hotel, I shoved some of Tolya’s money across the desk and asked the manager to check the trains and planes. Berlin. Dresden. Prague. Anywhere I could make a connection.

  The door opened and Momo appeared. He was out of breath.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “I followed you from Katya’s.” His coat was heavy with snow. He took it off and shook it out.

  “I have to go,” I said.

  “Where are you going?”

  “The hospital.”

  “I’m all you’ve got, Artie, you know that? So don’t come around Katya’s because you want to look at her.”

  “You wanted me to meet Katya. I don’t know what your game is.”

  “There’s no game. I thought she could feel comfortable with you.”

  “Russian to Russian?”

  “Yes. To talk. Who is Stuart Larkin?”

  “What?”

  “A bank in Puteaux put in a call. Some crazy American running around talking to Larkin, who worked for them.”

  “Worked?”

  “He went on leave Friday night. The bank asked him to go. What is this?”

  “Nothing, honestly, it’s just a paper case. This case I’ve been working for Keyes, it’s a security firm.”

  “I know what is Keyes. Come on.”

  “Where to?”

  “I want to show you something.”

  I followed Momo out to his car.

  “Get in.”

  “What?”

  “Get the fuck in the car, Artie, and let’s stop dancing around this. The bank wants to know where you are. I said I didn’t see you since a while.”

  “Thank you.” I got in the car and said, “Larkin sent me a copy of a video tape.”

  “What kind of tape?” He started the car.

  “A surveillance tape, the bank one afternoon, something I’ve been working on. Nothing.”

  “What?”

  “You mentioned a guy named Levesque.”

  “Go on.” He pulled the car away from the curb.

  I told him as much as I knew about Levesque, that he was dead, that someone forged his check, that I figured it was connected to the attack on Lily. I could see he thought I was making connections out of nothing. He was a good guy, this shambling intense cop who was in love with a Russian hooker, but he was a kid.

  “How old are you, Momo?”

  “What kind of shit is this?”

  “How old?”

  “Twenty-seven. You want also to know my sign?”

  “You started early.”

  “I was a boy-genius. Forget it. I’ve been eight years on the job, including two in America. It’s enough.”

  “OK.”

  “You’re thinking of doing some traveling?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I’m all that can cover our ass. Your embassy wants to know, the bank wants to know, my boss definitely wants to know everything there is to know about you.”

  “Your boss looks like a jerk.”

  “My boss is a jerk, but I can only keep him off you if you help me.”

  He pulled up at an anonymous gray building. I looked at my watch.

  “What is it?”

  “Come on.”

  Inside was a duty officer and a woman mopping the floor. I followed Momo down two flights of stairs to the basement.

  It was a morgue. The girl was in a steel drawer he pulled out from the wall.

  The first thing I saw was the hair. It was chopped with a knife, or a pair of shears, rough cut, jagged edges, pieces sticking up. The first time when I’d looked at her up on the waste-ground where she was murdered, maybe I didn’t notice. After the video Burnham showed me of Lily, I could see the hair for what it was. Whoever attacked Lily had killed this girl. He took hair for a souvenir.

  She was tiny and pale. Stored in the cold tray, waiting for an autopsy, tagged and bagged, as they say, she barely looked fourteen; she could have been ten years old.

  Looking down at her, we stood in the cold room. Momo was smoking to keep from weeping. He was a hard-ass cop, but he was a boy, he could still feel stuff. What scared me was I didn’t feel anything at all, nothing. I was cold as ice.

  The room was lined with steel trays; each tray had a number and a body. I looked at my watch.

  “You’re in a hurry?” He was angry. “You can’t respect this girl for five minutes without thinking about your own misery?”
<
br />   “What?”

  Momo crossed himself.

  “You’re lucky, Momo, you know that?”

  “Why’s that?”

  “You’ve got religion.”

  “Sure.”

  “And Monique and the kids, and the cheese soufflés. You’ve got Katya,” I said. “I mean that nice, OK, about Katya.”

  He kept quiet.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s OK. Are you carrying, Artie?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “Tell me.”

  “I’m not doing anything that’s going to put you in the shit. I swear to you.”

  I looked at the girl some more and all I saw was the hacked hair. Momo pulled back the covering and showed me where her joints had been smashed, all the hard surfaces, worse than Lily, knees, elbows, fingers, everywhere. With a hammer, someone smashed her up like she was constructed out of sticks and boards.

  “Teeth, too,” Momo said.

  “What?”

  “They smashed her teeth.”

  “Who was she?”

  “Who knows? Some girl, a kid from nowhere, returning to nowhere, no story-line, no plot, no characters, just one like a million others.”

  “Someone will work this officially, give this a story?”

  “For a while.”

  “Unofficial?”

  He shivered. “Only me.”

  “You?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Because it’s a pattern?”

  “Because of your Lily. Yes, now I have a pattern.”

  He closed the drawer and we started out of the cold room where everyone except us was dead.

  “I’m getting a divorce,” he said.

  “For Katya?”

  “Yes,” Momo said. “You know I used to go a lot.”

  “Go where?”

  “Hookers. Escort services. All the time. You’re surprised?”

  I was silent.

  “A lot of cops, you know, relieve the tension. Other guys. Your typical guy who goes to hookers may be forty-five, athletic, good-looking, successful, married, kids, but he likes sex without involvement, and his wife would kill him if she knew. Kill him, maybe literally. You tip over into that world, you discover everyone’s doing it, every second guy. There’s a million women out there you can fuck, if you want.”

  It was what Katya told me.

  We got outside, where Momo’s car was parked. He opened the door, we got in.

  “You’re shocked, man, aren’t you?” he said. “It’s not your scene at all.”