“Stay here!” Greer shouted at Wally as he blew past her on the heels of the two men. He vanished into Charlene Rainer’s office and Wally immediately disobeyed his order also: she stood up and ran.
As Wally reached the stairs, there were more gunshots behind her—Atley Greer and the Russians battling it out—but Wally did not turn to look. She hurried down the stairs, and when she reached the second-floor landing, she ran into Tevin, Jake, and Ella, themselves rushing upward, looking terrified.
“Wally!” Tevin shouted, relieved to see her unharmed.
“What the fuck is happening up there?” Jake demanded.
“Come on!” Wally said. “We have to go, now!” She hustled down the stairs at full speed, the others now racing behind her. They made it out the building and ran along 88th Street, but as they moved, they heard a variety of sounds behind them: more gunshots, muffled somewhat because they were going off inside the shrink’s building, then the sound of words being barked out in Russian, then the sound of footsteps descending the metal steps of a fire escape.
Wally and the others reached Amsterdam Avenue, more shouts and footsteps echoing along the street somewhere not far behind them. The crew continued south until they reached the corner where their bank building stood. They turned east along 87th and slipped into the rear passageway, where they used the key from the lockbox on the back door to get in their usual way.
Wally immediately dropped down to the cold tile floor of the bank, struggling to catch her breath. The bank was dark; the only light came from the streetlights outside, their glow spilling in through the soaped-up windows. Wally continued to breathe deeply, filling her starved lungs and waiting for the intense surge of adrenaline to drain from her system. She was trembling, and Ella was quick to wrap her in her arms.
“Oh my God,” Ella said. “Are you okay, Wally?”
Ella spotted something on Wally’s cheek—a spot—and reached to wipe it away. Her finger came away wet with a smear of blood, and Ella gave out a soft gasp at the sight of it. She showed the blood to Tevin, who was sitting right beside them on the floor, waiting for Wally to recover.
“What happened up there, Wally?” he asked.
Before Wally could summon enough breath to answer, Jake spoke—he was crouched near the window of the bank, looking out.
“They’re here,” he said in a near whisper.
Wally, Ella, and Tevin moved to the window and huddled beside Jake. The crew had scratched a few inconspicuous peepholes in the soaped-over surface of the glass, through which they could see out onto the street but not be seen themselves. In silence and darkness, they watched the street outside where the two Russians stood now, glancing in every direction, looking for them. The two men stalked about, looking frustrated as they checked some of the dark staircases that led to lower-level apartments and the recesses of other doorways. They looked up and down the street, perplexed.
“Who is this girl?” Klesko shouted with a sense of futility into the cold night air.
The words sent a chill down Wally’s spine. As she and the crew sat there, absolutely still and silent, she could not help but wonder what had become of Detective Greer. Wally had no special love for the cop, but he had almost certainly saved her life on the balcony outside Charlene Rainer’s office.
As the Russians continued their search of the street, obviously trying to imagine how Wally and the crew had so quickly disappeared, Alexei Klesko stepped to the bank window and pushed right up against the glass, trying to see through the soap into the interior; his face was only inches from Wally. She and the others kept absolutely still, knowing that any movement might catch Klesko’s attention. She looked into the man’s unseeing eyes, deep gray, just inches away from her own. …
“Ochee chornya …” Wally whispered.
“What?” Ella whispered back. “What does that mean?”
Dark eyes, Wally thought, but did not speak it out loud. Dark eyes, like mine.
Police sirens sounded in the distance. The two men abandoned their search and jogged east on 87th, away from the bank where Wally and the crew huddled together, breathless and trembling.
“They’ll be back,” Wally said. “We can’t stay here anymore.”
EIGHTEEN
It was just after eight in the morning when Klesko parked the stolen LeMans on 47th Street, just fifty feet east of the Hamlisch Brothers storefront. In the passenger seat, Tiger was about to get out of the car when the door to Hamlisch Brothers opened and a young man emerged from the shop, setting the alarm behind him and rolling down the metal security grate that covered the entire storefront. As the young man proceeded eastward along the sidewalk, he unconsciously tapped his right hand on the left side of his chest, indicating that there was something valuable in the lapel pocket of his simple black suit.
“This must be the young one,” Klesko said.
Tiger was concerned about Klesko’s mood. Though he had escaped any real injury, the episode at the Rainer woman’s office—the previous night—had left Klesko in a sullen, simmering rage. The fire that engulfed his pant legs had been more humiliating than anything else, but the outcome of the event was not at all what they had hoped for: the Rainer woman died before she could tell them anything about Yalena Mayakova’s whereabouts, and their pursuit of the unknown girl had ended with her mysterious disappearance into the night.
The failure of all this was not sitting well with Klesko, and Tiger knew that in this state of mind the man was capable of anything, even stupid eruptions of violence that might leave them exposed.
Their greatest hope for finding Yalena had been in finding either Benjamin Hatch or Charlene Rainer; now both of them were dead, and the Kleskos were no closer to finding their target. Their only potential lead was the young girl who they had found at Rainer’s office. Tiger and Klesko had no idea how she might fit into their search, but she was intriguing nonetheless. The girl was more capable and resourceful than a normal girl of her age—as demonstrated when she set Klesko on fire and then vanished without a trace—and there was the sense, on Tiger’s part anyway, that the girl was familiar in a way that he could not quite explain.
Did the girl have some connection to Yalena Mayakova? Tiger and Klesko did not know yet, but one possible source of information was Isaac Hamlisch, the young diamond merchant who had been gone on a buying trip to Europe when the Kleskos first visited his shop. It was Hamlisch who had listed the alexandrite stone on the international market—only two weeks ago, but to Tiger it felt much longer—and he could reveal the identity of the person who had brought him the stone. Now Hamlisch was back in New York, and walking alone on 47th Street toward the Diamond Buyers Club, one block away.
Tiger stepped out of the car and followed Hamlisch as Klesko started the engine of the car and pulled out into the street, which had almost no traffic at that hour. Once Klesko had pulled the car even with the young merchant, Tiger moved swiftly; he pushed up against young Hamlisch from behind, sticking the barrel of his gun into the man’s ribs.
“Easy,” Tiger whispered into the stunned man’s ear, and steered him onto the street, into the open door of the waiting car. Klesko had shoved the front passenger seat forward, so Tiger and Isaac slid straight into the back of the two-door muscle car. With the car door closed and the front seat folded back into place, the now terrified Isaac Hamlisch was secured beside Tiger in the backseat of the car.
“Oh God,” Hamlisch muttered.
“Relax,” Tiger said.
Klesko steered down 47th Street and turned south on Fifth Avenue, the muscle car’s powerful engine growling hungrily, even at the slow pace of Manhattan traffic.
“You are Isaac?” Klesko asked, peering back at the merchant with the rearview mirror.
“Y-yes …”
“You did purchase alexandrite, yes?”
The question clearly caught Isaac by surprise. “Oh … yes. One stone.”
“Look up with your eyes,” Klesko ordered him.
�
��Two weeks ago I bought the stone,” Isaac continued, but kept his eyes down, terrified of meeting Klesko’s penetrating gaze. “I took it with me to—”
“Look to me!” Klesko barked. Tiger encouraged Isaac’s cooperation with a gentle jab to the ribs with the muzzle of his gun, hoping as he did so that the man would not piss himself.
Isaac wisely raised his face so that Klesko could read his eyes.
“Tell who was it that brings you the stone,” Klesko demanded.
Isaac opened his mouth to speak but then hesitated, and no words came out of his mouth. Tiger saw this as an interesting development, and knew his father would also. Even with a gun placed squarely against his rib, Isaac Hamlisch was defiant. What would inspire this simple businessman to be so reluctant, so careless about his own safety? His hesitation could only mean that the identity of the person who sold him the stone was worth protecting.
A child, perhaps.
“Ah,” Klesko said, apparently agreeing with Tiger that Isaac’s hesitation was an answer in itself.
“A girl?” Tiger asked, his greater ease with English obvious as soon as he spoke up. “A young girl? Short blond hair?”
Isaac did not answer.
“There is nothing you can do for her,” said Klesko. “We already know, you see?”
“A girl,” Isaac confirmed, “and three others.”
The man’s eyes dropped down again, not in fear now but in an obvious gesture of shame for having given up the information.
“One stone?” Klesko asked. “Not cut?”
“One stone, uncut.”
“She said from where?” Klesko asked.
“From a family estate, she said.”
Klesko did not understand the term. He asked Tiger for a translation.
“Estate,” Tiger said. “Naslyedstvo.”
Klesko snorted contemptuously.
“And what did you pay for this stone?” he asked.
“Eight thousand dollars.”
“That is fair for market?”
“Yes.”
“Where can we find this girl?”
“I have no idea.”
Through the rearview mirror, Klesko’s eyes burned into Isaac, Klesko deciding whether or not Isaac was lying.
“She will come back to you?”
“I don’t know if she has more stones.”
“She gives you her name?”
“She signed documents. It’s the law.”
“Yes?”
“The name was Aretha Franklin.”
Tiger could not suppress a wry laugh. He could not help but feel a certain amount of admiration for the cunning of the mysterious girl, this petite, blond-haired Aretha.
“Not the real name?” Klesko asked Tiger.
“No, Father,” Tiger said, careful not to make Klesko feel mocked for his ignorance of popular culture. “Not her real name.”
They drove in silence then for nearly a minute, continuing south on Fifth, making better progress than usual in the sparse pre-holiday morning traffic. As the seconds ticked by, Tiger knew that Klesko was making a decision about the diamond merchant’s fate. It seemed to Tiger that Isaac knew this as well, but the young Hamlisch remained stoic.
“You will buy more stones if we bring them?” Klesko asked Isaac.
“Y-yes,” said Isaac, stammering a little. “Yes, I will buy more stones.”
“You will not speak of us to police?” Tiger asked.
“No.”
“If you speak,” Klesko said, “we will know this. We will find your family and kill them all. Look at me with your eyes …”
Looking sick with dread, Isaac lifted his eyes and met Klesko’s in the rearview mirror.
“You believe we will do this?” Klesko asked. “Kill them, every one?”
“I believe it,” Isaac said.
After a moment more of consideration, Klesko pulled the car over to the curb.
“Go,” said Klesko, reaching over to open the passenger side door. With a sense of relief, Tiger shoved the passenger seat forward with his foot and climbed out of the car, allowing Isaac to climb out as well. Tiger got back into the front seat and Klesko steered them back into the traffic, leaving Isaac Hamlisch behind.
“We find the girl,” Klesko said.
“Da,” Tiger agreed.
They turned west and drove to Tenth Avenue, then pointed north and headed all the way to 87th Street and Amsterdam, the corner where they had lost track of the girl and her friends the night before.
They scanned the area—this time in full daylight—trying to figure out how the children had escaped them.
“How do they disappear into the air?” Klesko asked as he and Tiger continued their search of the corner where the four teens had eluded them. “These are magic children?”
They had been forced to abandon the previous night’s search as the police descended on the area, but now it was daylight and the streets were back to normal business. As he had the night before, Klesko soon focused on the empty bank on the corner. He tried again to peer through the soaped windows, but without satisfaction. Tiger followed as his father moved to the narrow service walkway at the rear of the bank building, finding the rear fire exit. The men found something curious there: on the door handle hung a small combination lockbox, attached to the handle tightly enough so it could not be removed.
“There is a key,” said Tiger.
“Eh?”
“If you open the box with the code, there will be a key inside.”
And then Klesko understood: the bank space was empty and available for lease. The key was for realtors to gain access to the property. Klesko tugged at the lockbox, confirming that it was still fully attached and unbroken.
“If they entered here, they have the code,” said Tiger.
“How?” Klesko asked.
Klesko stepped to the first Dumpster near the door and lifted its top. The bin was less than half full. At least a dozen empty pizza boxes were stacked inside, plus three plastic grocery bags piled near the top, filled with trash. Klesko tipped the bags open and found crumpled wrappers for various kinds of snack food: chips, candy, popcorn, etc. He closed the Dumpster again and the two men moved out of the walkway, back to the sidewalk.
“This was her place,” Klesko said.
“No more,” said Tiger. “They would not stay.”
“They are gone,” Klesko agreed. “So. Why throw garbage away? They will never come back. Why make it clean? Who has code for getting this key and also makes this place clean?”
Tiger considered the question, but suspected that his father already knew the answer. Tiger followed Klesko to the front entrance of the bank space, where inside the window a placard was mounted. It read:
For Commercial Lease—7,000 sq. feet
Desmond & Green Realty
NINETEEN
The phone picked up on the first ring.
“Yeah.”
“Hey. This is Wally.”
“Little sister,” Panama purred. “What up?”
“You had another place for me to get an ID,” said Wally. “Could you give me that?”
“Not the Brighton?”
“No. The other one you said.”
“What? They mess with you in Brighton?”
Wally considered the question: Did they mess with me in Brighton Beach? They changed her life in Brighton Beach. Did that count?
“Long story,” she answered. “It’s fine. The other one?”
“Jersey City,” answered Panama. “You don’t like Russians, then fine, I give you some New Jersey Nigerian motherfuckers, see how you like that. You ain’t never find no Africans blacker than these. These motherfuckers black …”
Wally waited out Panama’s diatribe on the abyssal blackness of Nigerians until he finally coughed up the Jersey City address.
“What else goin’ on?” he said once he had dictated the address. “You gonna bring somethin’ in? More o’ those shiny expresso boxes?”
“That was a onetime thing,” said Wally. “But I need to ask you something about Rage.”
There was a moment of silence on Panama’s end of the line, and then a sigh. “I’m disappointed, little sister, you wanna get in some shit with Rage. You too good for his business, you want my opinion.”
“I’m not going to do business with him.”
“Then good.”
“He’s still moving party supplies to the clubs downtown?”
Another moment of silence on Panama’s end. “Who the fuck is askin’?”
“I am,” Wally said. “Do you remember Sophie? She used to be with us?”
“Little Sophie ain’t welcome aroun’ here no more. Used to be sweet, now crystal got her all fucked up. Think maybe she mulin’ for Rage these days.”
“She’s dead. Killed.”
“Okay,” Panama said after a pause. “That ain’t exactly shockin’ news, you see what I mean. ‘Tweaka chick goes into business with Rage, nex’ thing you know she found dead.’”
“Yeah,” said Wally. “Doesn’t mean I can’t be curious. You’ve got nothing for me on this?”
“What I got is a big slice o’ Panamanian wisdom: let it the fuck go. You hear me, little sister? Nothin’ good gonna come out of you holdin’ on to that kinda shit.”
The trip to Jersey City went smoothly enough. Tevin and Wally traveled alone, taking the New Jersey PATH train to Journal Square and walking two blocks to a warehouse doorway on Sip Avenue. The Nigerian crew lived together in their warehouse space, and a few of them were still asleep on cots when Wally and Tevin arrived at nine o’clock. The transaction was simple, especially compared to Wally’s experience in Brighton Beach: the Nigerians delivered a first-rate fake ID for two hundred dollars, no questions asked and no lives changed.
The deal included a musical bonus: ten tracks of music performed by the Nigerians’ own band, a Palm Wine combo called the Ghosts of Ilorin. The Nigerians downloaded the tunes onto Wally’s cell phone so she and Tevin could use their earphone splitter and listen to the tunes together on their ride back to Manhattan.
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