Mentioning Panama’s name reminded Wally that he had been her initial connection to the Brighton Beach shop. Panama was wired in with most every black-market operation in the city, so Wally made a mental note to question him about the place later on.
The crew headed back to the bank and began calling all the numbers, the phone’s charger plugged into an outlet on the bank floor the entire time. They took turns at it, relay style, reading off a script like telemarketers. “Hello, may I speak to Benjamin Hatch? Hello, Mr. Hatch, I’m calling on behalf of a friend, Yalena Mayakova. No? Sir, by any chance did you ever live or do business in Russia or the Soviet Union? Hello?”
The process went on for three full days, not because the actual calls added up to that but because of the inevitable hang-ups, multiple re-calls that bordered on harassment, and extended games of phone tag played back and forth across various time zones. At one point, Wally had to run out to a local cell phone kiosk to buy two thousand more minutes. She found herself fighting a sense of futility—in both herself and the crew—as the process wore on.
In the end, not one of the numbers or addresses had yielded a connection to the Benjamin Hatch they were looking for.
“Shit,” Wally had said when they finally reached the last name on the list, a Ben Hatch Jr. in Flagstaff, Arizona. He did not know Yalena Mayakova and had never traveled outside Arizona, though he had plans to do so when he was old enough to drive.
“I’m gonna go to the Sommers-Bausch Observatory in Colorado,” said Ben Jr., age nine. “They have a twenty-four-inch telescope and they let people look through it.”
“Wow,” Ella said, impressed. “Do you watch the sky in Flagstaff?”
“Sure,” said Ben. “I have my own telescope, which is smaller than the Sommers-Bausch, but I can see a lot from my backyard.”
“Cool,” said Ella.
At that time, Ben’s father—Benjamin Hatch Sr.—took the phone from his son and confirmed that he had never heard of Yalena Mayakova, either, and had also never been to Russia. Ben Jr. bugged his father to let him back on the phone with Ella but Ben Sr. said “no” and hung up. That call marked the end of the three-day labor with not a single valuable lead to show for their effort.
The crew put on their coats and headed out of the bank, bound for a Japanese ramen shop on 86th Street, where they were eager to spend more of the money from the gem sale. They ate their noodles at the counter, mostly in silence as they contemplated other ways to track down Hatch.
Wally considered a short list of people who might be able to help with her search, but it was frustrating because each was unacceptable for their own reasons. First there was Claire, who was smart and resourceful but would have a meltdown if she found out Wally was looking for her birth mother. The second person who came to mind was Claire’s lawyer, Natalie Stehn, who was the most calm, together person in Claire’s life and seemed to be pretty hooked up, resource wise. But Claire brought Natalie tons of real estate business, giving her the kind of income that bought loyalty; Wally figured Natalie would most likely rat her out to Claire.
The last idea Wally had was the best, by far, coming to her as a slap-on-the-forehead obvious solution. Wally wolfed down the last of her noodles and threw her bag over her shoulder.
“I think I have something,” she said to the crew, and they were happy enough to let her go alone. Three days of wasted time on the phone had burned them out.
EIGHT
The address was a third floor walk-up, just across Lexington Avenue from the 92nd Street YMCA. There were several shops on the ground floor, including a mom-and-pop doughnut shop, so the air carried the delectable aroma of sweet dough being deep-fried.
Wally felt hopeful as she climbed the stairs to the third floor and walked to the last door in the hallway. On the wooden door there was a small logo—the silhouette of a bear—and printed underneath it, THE URSULA SOCIETY. Everything about the location was low-key, nothing that would attract undue attention in this dark corner of the Upper East Side. Wally knocked gently before opening the door and stepping inside the small office, where an elderly man, in his mid-eighties at least, wearing a gray suit and tie, looked up from behind the computer monitor on one of the office’s two desks. The second desk was empty.
“Hello,” said the man behind the desk, with a slight Australian accent. “May I help you?”
“Uh … I spoke to a woman the last time I was here,” Wally said, not looking forward to explaining her story to someone new. “An Asian woman. Her name was Carrie?”
“Yes,” said the man, and gave a slight nod toward the empty desk at the other side of the small room. “Carrie is in graduate school these days, so her hours here are very irregular.”
“Oh.”
“I’m sure I can take up where Carrie left off. I’m Lewis Jordan.”
“I’m Wally.” Wally sat down in the guest chair opposite Lewis. “Wallis Stoneman.”
Lewis typed Wally’s name into his computer. “We’re just beginning the process of digitizing our files, but we’ve begun with the most recent and are working our way backward, so yours might be on … yes. Here it is. Wallis Stoneman.”
Lewis was quiet as his eyes scanned the file on his monitor. Wally noted that unlike most folks over the age of sixty, Lewis seemed completely natural using the computer.
“I see you first came in almost three years ago,” said Lewis as he continued reading the screen, “and last checked in two years ago?”
“Yeah, two years is about right,” Wally replied, suddenly feeling negligent. “Should I have been—?”
“Not at all,” Lewis said.
Three years earlier, Wally had read an article about adopted people—of all ages—who were actively searching for their birth parents. One resource mentioned by the article was the Ursula Society, described as a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping adoptees with particularly difficult searches. Wally had come in on her own—without Claire’s knowledge, of course—at the age of thirteen. She had met with a young Korean American woman named Carrie, who had taken down Wally’s particulars and started a file for her. Carrie’s search had come up empty. For several months after that, Wally had called in on a regular basis to check on any progress, but the answer had always been negative and eventually Wally had stopped calling.
“I’m afraid there’s been no change to your case,” Lewis said. “But I promise we will continue looking. Was there some new information you wanted us to add to your file?”
“I have a name,” Wally answered. “Someone who may have known my mother in Russia. The thing is, I’ve tried every way I can think of but I can’t find him.”
“I see.” Lewis considered this development, a guarded look on his face. “I could use a cup of tea. Black or green?”
“Uh, sure,” Wally said. “Black.” She had seen a mood change in Lewis and guessed this did not bode well for her.
Lewis boiled some water in a plug-in teapot, then poured it into cups with the earthy-smelling tea bags. Wally watched him. There was a forlorn quality that seemed to hover around him. Maybe it was the work. No doubt the Ursula Society experienced far more failure than success.
“Hot,” he said as he handed Wally her tea, then he sat back down.
“Thanks.”
“There’s a line, Wallis,” Lewis began after a moment. “What we have access to … the information, the various kinds of resources … it’s a very sensitive situation.”
Wally nodded. Carrie had explained this to her in very vague terms, several years earlier, but the thrust of it was that the Ursula Society achieved its successes through unconventional resources that were outside the boundaries of what was generally available, or even the boundaries of the law.
“Over the years we’ve arrived at some important guidelines that govern what we are willing to do and what we are not.”
“Okay …” Wally said, remaining hopeful.
“Here’s what I can do in this situation. You supply me with
the name of the source; I’ll track it down and see if your source is interested in cooperating. If so, then good. If not, we walk away.”
Wally considered this, fighting a sense of disappointment.
“I think I get it,” she said. “People come in here and make up stories, sometimes? To find someone they’re looking for, but for different reasons?”
“It’s happened.” Lewis nodded. “With terrible consequences. Imagine a violent criminal using us to locate an enemy. Or an abusive husband lying about his situation so that we’ll help track down his wife, who is in hiding. These are extreme examples, but—”
“I’m not doing anything like that. …”
“I believe you,” said Lewis, “but as I say, the rules are strict for good reason.”
Lewis read the impatience in Wally’s face when he gave her this final word. “This process can be frustrating.”
“Yes,” Wally said. “It’s just, your rules seem pretty unimportant to me right now.”
Lewis looked understanding. “I fought with the Anzac Corps in World War II. My fiancée back home, she … we were pregnant, though she never told me. I heard about the child—my son—from others once I returned home from the war, but by that time my girl had given him up for adoption. It had all been handled through a lawyer who refused to reveal any of the particulars, other than that the family had immigrated to America. Everyone said I should give up on it and go on with my life. Instead, I came here looking for my son. That was sixty-two years ago, and I’m still looking for him.”
“Sixty-two years,” Wally repeated. It sounded to her like forever.
“There are some government records I have never been able to access, despite the connections I’ve made over the years. I just know his name is in there somewhere, but …”
“I’m sorry.”
Lewis nodded. “Losing him has been the sorrow of my life, Wallis. So I appreciate your sadness and frustration. But I’ve handled thousands of cases for the society and there is something I have learned. There are worse things than not knowing, my dear. Answering your question might seem like the most important thing in the world, but it is not. If you place your quest ahead of everything else in your life, you will come to regret it.”
Wally thought about this. “Good speech. Does anyone ever listen?”
“No,” said Lewis, smiling a little at Wally’s feistiness. “By the time people arrive at our door, they are usually hell-bent. Nothing can stop them.”
“Like me,” Wally said.
“Like you,” Lewis agreed.
“I’ll do this on my own, but I’m not a detective or anything,” Wally said, feeling herself grasping now. “These resources of yours, can you hook me up with some of those?”
“I’m afraid not,” he answered, firm but sympathetic. “The situation is this, Wallis: over a long time—more than half a century now—we’ve helped a great many people, from all walks of life. All professions, all sectors of society. We’re a nonprofit organization and don’t accept fees for what we do. However, those we have helped often volunteer to become contributors of another kind.”
“Oh,” Wally said, getting it, “your clients become your sources?”
Lewis nodded. “We have associates inside law enforcement, in the government, the State Department, the judiciary. Intelligence agencies in several countries. Even some in the commercial sector who, in these days of cyber-communities and data mining and so forth, have access to more private information than all the others combined. Those who help us are often taking great risks. They violate laws and oaths and contracts to help in our searches.”
“I see.”
“We assure complete anonymity to all our sources, obviously. They are like a family to us, really. You understand?”
There was no argument left for Wally to make, and again she fought back her feelings of frustration, determined to show Lewis that this setback would not defeat her. Wally took out a piece of paper and wrote down Benjamin Hatch’s name and added, Entrepreneur. Possibly knew Yalena Mayakova in Russia, in the year 1992, or so. She passed the note to Lewis.
“You can add this to my file, anyway,” she said, “in case something else comes up and you can make a connection.”
Lewis took the note and read it. “I’ll do what I can, Wallis. I will review your file as well to see if anything can be updated. We will never stop looking.”
“Neither will I,” Wally said. She walked to the door and Lewis rose from his own chair to show her out. He stayed in the doorway to watch her go, and after a few steps she had a thought and turned back toward him. “I’m sorry about your son.” She meant it.
He shrugged. “Get on with other things, Wallis. Choose the life you want. Don’t lose yourself in this search.”
Wally just smiled, a little sadly, understanding on some level that Lewis’s advice was wise and halfway regretting that she would not be able to follow it.
She shook Lewis’s hand and left the office, heading back down the stairs and onto Lexington Avenue. Wally was about to turn the corner on 92nd Street when she glanced back at the building she had just left. In a window upstairs stood Lewis Jordan, teacup still in hand, watching her go. They exchanged small waves, and then Wally turned away, headed for her bus stop.
Late that night, Wally was awakened by the sound of her cell phone vibrating on the floor of the walkway, high above the bank. She stirred and checked the phone’s display. It read unknown caller.
“Hello?”
“Did you know, Ursula is the patron saint of orphans?” It was Lewis Jordan.
“I didn’t know,” Wally answered.
“I believe she is watching over you.”
Join the club, thought Wally.
“That’s great, Lewis,” she said. “I’ll take all the help I can get.”
“I shouldn’t be sharing information with you, Wally, but it occurs to me that I’ve been following the rules of this process for fifty years and I am no closer to finding my son. I’m still alone.”
“I really am sorry for that, Lewis.” Wally could hear the frustration and sadness in Lewis’s voice, and sensed that he was struggling with a difficult choice. She remained quiet, hoping he would decide in her favor.
“The Benjamin Hatch you’re looking for died three years ago in a traffic accident,” said Lewis.
Wally’s heart sank. Her best lead for finding Yalena was lost.
“He was survived by two sons from an early marriage,” Lewis continued. “Robert and Andrew. Their mother died from ovarian cancer when they were very young. The sons live together in their family home now. It’s not far away. I tried to reach them, but they did not return my calls, so …” Lewis coughed. “By the society’s rules, I should not have told you any of this.”
“Thank you so much, Lewis,” Wally said, grateful to him and feeling a rush of excitement that she would have a good lead to follow the next day. “I promise you won’t regret it.”
Wally found a pen and paper in her shoulder bag and Lewis dictated the street address and phone number of the Hatch home, located in a place called Shelter Island.
NINE
Wally tried the number—with her cell set on speaker phone so the others could listen in—and it rang six times before the line picked up.
“Yes?” came a man’s voice on the other end of the line.
“Hello. Is this the Hatch home? I’m trying to reach either Andrew or Robert Hatch.”
“This is Andrew.” The voice was impatient.
“Mr. Hatch, my name is Wallis Stoneman. I’m the daughter of a woman named Yalena Mayakova. Does that name mean anything to you?”
After a brief pause, he answered simply, “No.”
“Are you sure? She’s from Russia. I’m fairly sure she had some connection with your father, maybe during the time he was doing business over there?”
There was a long moment of silence on the other end of the line.
“He’s gone.”
“Yo
ur father? Yes, I know … I’m very sorry for your loss,” Wally stammered, feeling a twinge of panic as she sensed that Andrew Hatch was ready to hang up on her. “It’s just that I’m trying to locate Yalena, and I was hoping you might have heard your father mention her—”
“We don’t know anything about Russia. We have no connection with his business, or any of the Emerson people.”
“I understand, but if there’s anything—”
“I have nothing for you,” the man said, and hung up.
Wally and the others were quiet for a moment.
“That is a guy,” said Jake, “who knows an ass-load more than he was ready to talk about.”
“No shit,” said Ella. “And what’s this Emerson thing? He said ‘we have no connection with any of the Emerson people.’”
“I have no clue,” Wally said, feeling the rush of having another lead. “That name didn’t come up with the article about his business.”
“You’ve gotta confront this guy,” said Tevin, “and his brother.”
“No doubt,” Wally said.
The four of them set off early the next day and rode the Jline all the way to Jamaica—the end of the line—where they boarded the Long Island Railroad headed east. The two-hour ride to the Greenport station would leave them just a few steps away from the ferry to Shelter Island, where the Hatches’ house could be found. The four of them settled in for the ride, having most of an entire car to themselves so they could all take window seats.
Wally had experience in the Hamptons, having taken several family vacations on the beach over the years, but for the others the train ride was an eye-opener. The view along the way offered glimpses of sprawling beachfront properties and enormous mansions. Jake, Ella, and Tevin jumped back and forth from the right side windows to the left, pointing out homes that seemed to grow more ostentatious the farther up the coast they traveled.
Ella slid onto the seat beside Wally.
“You’ve stayed in houses like that?” she asked.
Wally looked out the window to what looked like a fifty-room behemoth on the shoreline.
Dark Eyes Page 8
