In for a Ruble

by David Duffy

  “ANDRAS!”

  “LET ME GO!”

  “NO! THAT’S NO ANSWER.”

  He pulled hard, twisting and squirming. My grip slipped. I reached around his knee.

  “LET ME GO!”

  “NO!”

  I got my legs underneath and pulled.

  He wasn’t giving up. He grabbed the window frame for leverage. Blood splattered from his slashed hands.

  Fuck this.

  I locked my left hand on his knee and reached for his belt with my right. It closed around leather and denim. I braced my feet against the wall and yanked with everything I had. He fell back into the room on top of me.

  “NO!” He was up in a flash clawing back for the window.

  I caught the belt again and pulled him back. He fell to the floor. I rolled on top. He kept fighting. I rolled him over and struck him across the face.

  “NO! LET ME GO. I DESERVE TO DIE.”

  He kept squirming, but I was forty pounds heavier and spent more time in the gym. I got his arms to his sides and pinned them with my knees. His legs kept kicking but to little effect. The carpet was stained with blood. His hands looked badly cut. Not long before someone came to investigate. Robert Klein’s cover, flimsy to begin with, was blown.

  The thrashing slowed. He was breathing heavily, strength spent. “You should … you should have let me jump.”

  “No way.”

  “Why?”

  He was still thinking, and his thinking was still focused on him. What makes kids—adolescents—so goddamned confident the whole world revolves around them?

  “I’ve already seen a lifetime of pointless deaths. We’ve got Irina to worry about, remember? I still need your help, for her.”

  He stared up for a moment, some sense returning.

  “Listen to me. We’re going to wash your hands. You’ve got glass in those cuts. Then we’re going to get help. You try one wrong move, you do one more stupid thing, I will knock you cold and leave you there, wherever there is. And that’ll be last call for Irina. You understand?”

  He nodded. He was scared and in pain.

  “Let’s go.”

  The sink ran red as we flushed blood and glass. The palms were shredded. He was lucky not to have severed fingers. I wrapped his hands in towels and grabbed a couple extra for the road.

  “Get your coat. We can’t stay here.”

  “But…”

  “Do as I say. You need medical attention. Move.”

  He got a wool coat from the closet.

  “Put your hands in the sleeves so they don’t show. We’re going downstairs, outside, turn right and right again on Sixty-first.”

  A man in a black suit with a silver name tag came off the elevator as we got on.

  “You hear anything unusual up here?” he asked. “Disturbance? Breaking glass?”

  “Nope.” I pushed the button for the lobby.

  “What room are you in?”

  “Eight-fourteen.”

  “Thanks.”

  The man hurried down the hall. The door closed. We made it through the lobby. An empty cab cruised East Sixty-first Street, and I hailed it. There was no time to check for Nosferatu or anyone else. I gave the driver an address on East Seventh Street and worked my cell phone as we sped downtown. Andras slumped against the door and didn’t say a word.

  * * *

  “Lucky kid. He’s lost more blood than’s good for him, he’s got a dozen stitches in each hand, and he’s fortunate he’s still got hands to stitch. Looks like he crushed a beer bottle in each one and refused to let go.”

  “Something like that,” I said.

  Petro Lutsenko, M.D., said, “I know. Don’t ask. Don’t ever ask.”

  He walked around his desk and sat across from me. A good looking forty-something man of Ukrainian descent with a large nose and smiling eyes, the looks a bit marred by a pair of unusually hairy ears. His father had been on the Cheka’s payroll for the occasional discreet medical repair when I was stationed here in the eighties. Petro had joined the old man’s practice, with his newly minted M.D. from NYU, and kept up the family tradition. For which he was well compensated. I’d been waiting a long hour while he treated Andras.

  “All built into the fee,” I said.

  “Speaking of which…”

  “On its way here.”

  “He’s resting and should keep resting for a day or two. I’ve given him a light painkiller and a sedative. I’m going to prescribe some antibiotics. What name…?”

  “Warren Brandeis.”

  He looked up from his pad. “Very funny.”

  I shrugged. “Not my joke. It’s a real name.”

  “If you say so.”

  It was. One of Foos’s straw men. The actual Warren Brandeis must have had left-leaning lawyer parents, which hadn’t mattered much when he dropped dead of a heart attack at age fifty-two. Foos had loaded a couple of bank accounts with twelve grand and given him three credit cards and a driver’s license, all of which were on the way to Lutsenko’s office along with a checkbook so I could pay the good doctor off. My picture was on the license. An SUV was waiting for Brandeis at Avis on East Eleventh Street. We were burning one of our better identities on Andras.

  Foos arrived and exchanged small talk with Lutsenko, whom he likes well enough to use as his own internist, while I wrote out a thousand-dollar check on Brandeis’s account. Foos agreed to wait while I picked up the car. I trotted through the cold streets, checking my rear periodically, but saw nothing. To be sure, I took a subway to Grand Central, the shuttle across town, the Seventh Avenue IRT back downtown and a cab to East Eleventh Street. If Nosferatu was following, he’d need help not to have lost me. On the other hand, he could be waiting back at Lutsenko’s office.

  I double-parked the Ford Explorer outside. The block was empty. Lutsenko brought Andras outside. His hands were wrapped in white gauze. He looked tired and unhappy. I got out and helped him into the car.

  “You’re going to have to deal with Leitz,” I said to Foos.

  He nodded. “Figured that.”

  “He’s gonna be pissed. Tell him it’s for the kid’s own good. Putting him at the Regency was asking for trouble.”

  “Figured that too. What do I say when he asks where he is now?”

  “You don’t have any idea.”

  “Has the benefit of being true. He might go to the police.”

  “If he does, tell him the Post will be digging into Walter Coryell and Franklin Druce by morning.”

  “He won’t like that.”

  “Tell him I’ll be in touch.”

  “That’ll make him feel much better.”

  * * *

  We got snarled in rush hour traffic. I kept an eye on the hundred cars behind me as they pushed and jostled for position on the way into the Holland Tunnel, where we’d all sit in place as the snake worked its way though its underground skin. If there was a tail, I had no way of spotting it, but I kept watch anyway. Andras leaned against his door, eyes closed. Traffic remained heavy along the turnpike extension until we reached the tolls at the junction of I-78. I took the interstate west thirty miles into New Jersey and switched for I-287 south. Another twenty miles and I exited with the neon sign for the Doubletree Hotel in sight. The hotel was close to the highway, surrounded by a few office parks and not much else. I bought a suite for the night, certainly less luxurious than the Regency, using my own name. We’d be gone before daybreak.

  We went up to the room. Inexpensive, functional, well used, and all the atmosphere of the office park next door. No chintz here, but plenty of polyester. Andras took off his coat and dropped himself on the sofa.

  “Now what?” he said.

  “Something to eat?”

  “Okay.”

  I called room service and ordered two steaks with fries, a Coke for him, and beer for me. I kept watch at the window, which overlooked the parking lot. A few cars pulled in, but their occupants appeared harmless. I found myself musing on what we a
ll did for luggage before the invention of the wheeled suitcase. Andras kept his thoughts to himself. Time enough to let those loose.

  The food came and we ate in silence. The steak was tough and tasteless, but I was hungry. I took heart in the fact that he ate hungrily as well.

  When he finished, he fell back against the sofa and said, “All right, you brought me to the middle of fucking nowhere. What do you want?”

  CHAPTER 43

  “Start with Uncle Walter.”

  “Asshole. I don’t want to talk about him.”

  “You’re going to have to. Sooner or later. To me or the police.”

  He shook his head.

  “You kill him?”

  “NO! He was…”

  He turned away.

  “He was what?”

  “I’m not going to talk about that.”

  “He was what, Andras? Dead when you got there?”

  He turned further until I was looking at the back of his head. The kid had spent his whole life overprotected by a rich father. The idea of vulnerability hadn’t sunk in.

  “Listen carefully.” I put the telephone on speaker and punched in Nosferatu’s number.

  “What the fuck now, dead man?” he said in English.

  Andras faced the phone.

  “Fuck your mother,” I said. “What are the ConnectPay servers worth to you, Karp?”

  “Your life—maybe.”

  “The kind of stupid answer I’d expect from a pidar gnoinyj. Try again.”

  The slang translates literally as “rotten faggot,” but as with so many Russian expressions (this one actually originates in the Ukraine), the meaning is much stronger. I was accusing him of being a passive homosexual fuck-bag with an acute case of the clap. No reason he should have a monopoly on the insults.

  “You pathetic pizda”—cunt—“I will make sure you swallow your own balls before I break your neck.”

  “That what happened to Druce? You kill him on purpose, or did you fuck that up too?”

  “I didn’t kill that petuh”—male jailhouse whore—“I didn’t need to. Oy’ebis’l!”—Fuck off!—“Why the fuck am I talking to you?”

  “The servers,” I reminded him.

  “I want them. And the kid.”

  “What kid?”

  “Don’t waste my time. You’re a zek, too stupid to live. The Leitz kid. Thinks he’s clever. Thinks he can fuck the girl and steal the money. He’s going to pay.”

  The voice was like ice. Just above a whisper. Andras sat frozen on the couch. I looked at him and put my finger to my lips.

  “Who do you want more, Karp—the kid or the girl? Maybe we can make a deal.”

  “No deal, zek. I’m going to take care of everyone—you too—in my own time.”

  “Guess I was wrong, then.”

  “You’ve been wrong your whole life, zek. Fortunately for you, it’s almost over.”

  A click and the line went dead.

  Andras stared at the phone then back at me. “Who … Who is that guy?”

  “The assassin. The one I told you about in the car. He means what he says. He’s been told to get rid of you and Irina both. He’s headed here—probably an hour or two away.”

  “Here?!”

  “Don’t worry. We’ll be long gone. Feel like talking about Uncle Walter now?”

  Andras walked around the room, animated, not stopping. Karp had gotten his attention, maybe even more than sister Daria’s note. Up until now, it had been some sort of game for him. All played out long distance, anonymously, through computers and the Internet. He could stay removed, in his own world, protected by his technical expertise and his rich dad. After he made three or four perambulations, I had the feeling the shell of protectiveness was crumbling.

  He was at the window when he turned back to face me.

  “Why didn’t you let me jump?”

  Cracking, not crumbling. He was still thinking about himself.

  “I grew up in a tough place. Too many people died. For no reason. Kids, parents too. Other parents fought to keep themselves and their kids alive. Most failed. Kids were left to fend for themselves. Man eat man. Man eat woman. Most of us ate whatever we could. That was the deal, every day. You learn the hard way about the value of life.”

  Blank stare.

  “You study history at Gibbet School?”

  “Sure.”

  “World War Two?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Concentration camps?”

  “Yes.”

  “Russia? Soviet Union?”

  He shook his head.

  Another strike against American education.

  “I grew up in a concentration camp, Soviet version. They were different, they weren’t about murdering Jews, but no less brutal. They were about murdering everyone. I saw more kids die than you have classmates. I’m one of the lucky ones. I made it.”

  It struck me I was using the same technique Batkin had on me—to the same end. We were both Chekists. Whatever works.

  “You were in a concentration camp?”

  I had his attention—finally.

  “That’s right. Labor camp. Gulag camp.”

  “Irina said her stepfather…”

  “Was too. Same deal.”

  “But he’s…”

  “He’s what?”

  “HE’S A PIG!”

  Maybe my history lesson was a mistake. He resumed his walk.

  “Andras, tell me about Irina. She’s a beautiful young woman. What’s the deal between the two of you?”

  He arrived back at the couch and fell backward on it, face held in bandaged hands. “She … We … Shit, you’ll never understand.”

  “Try me. You have to know by now I’m trying to help.”

  He shook his head. “No. You can’t.”

  “I think I can. Uncle Walter—he abused your sister. That’s what the note meant, right?”

  He looked up, pain penetrating every part of his face.

  “Where’d you get that note?”

  “It’s going to hurt worse if I tell you.”

  “Can’t hurt any worse.”

  I didn’t want to do this, but I needed him to trust me and open up. More pain, for him, was the price.

  “Uncle Thomas was the first to get there, right? First to find the body?”

  He snuffled. “I came in right after. It was…”

  “Horrible. I’m sure. Daria wrote the note before she … she used the gun. Thomas took it. And used it for years to blackmail Walter.”

  “Uncle Thomas? Blackmailed Uncle Walter? I don’t get it. What for?”

  “Thomas needed money. He spent … He spends more than he has. It’s an addiction, like any other. People do bad things, even in families. Maybe especially in families.”

  He shook his head violently. “I always thought Uncle Walter … I always thought … It was supposed to be…”

  “Thought what? What was supposed to be?”

  He shook his head again and buried it in the cushions.

  I took a deep breath. I didn’t want to say it, but no avoiding it now. I told myself it was for the best and hoped I wasn’t rationalizing.

  “He abused you too, didn’t he?”

  I’d hit home. He sobbed into the sofa. I let him cry. There was no comfort I could offer.

  After a while, I said, “It’s not your fault, you know.”

  He raised his head and looked at me, face red and stained with tears.

  “IT IS MY FAULT! I didn’t do anything to stop him.”

  “You can’t blame yourself for that. Nobody else will.”

  “You don’t get it. You can’t. He made me feel like I was special, you know. I realize it sounds sick now, but that’s how it works. It was our special thing. I knew it was wrong, but I didn’t want it to stop, because then I wouldn’t be special anymore. I didn’t know about Daria. I didn’t.”

  “It wasn’t your fault Andras. He manipulated you. The same way he manipulated your sister. And lo
ts of others. It was his disease. Not yours.”

  “NO! That’s not it. That’s not what I mean. You don’t know. YOU DON’T!”

  I had a bad feeling. “Okay. I’m listening.”

  His voice dropped to a whisper, as if he feared he’d be overheard.

  “Everybody knew. Mom and Dad. Aunt Julia. Everybody. Nobody did anything about it.”

  “That’s still not your fault.”

  “Yes it is—I didn’t make them.”

  CHAPTER 44

  We sat in the rented SUV, heater running, while Andras finished his story. He’d got most of it out upstairs before I announced it was time to move. Two reasons. We had a destination now—back to Massachusetts—and we’d have visitors shortly. I’d made it easy for Karp to trace us. I didn’t have a plan, just the gamble that if he was focused on me, I could stay a step ahead and protect Andras while we kept moving, and he’d have a harder time hurting anyone else, like the girl.

  As with many people who have held a secret for as long as he had—especially as painful as this one—it all came tumbling out once he started. The abuse, which had gone on for several years. The Christmas party when Julia had barged in, Walter’s hands in Andras’s underwear. The whispered arguments that followed, among his parents, his father and Julia, everyone but Walter. Andras was twelve years old. He understood they were talking about him, about him and Walter. What he didn’t understand was why nothing happened. Everything went back to the way it was before. Except he was no longer special to Walter. He hadn’t understood why, although he put it down to getting caught—and that was somehow his fault in his mind. He figured out some years later that Walter had been effectively exiled. He didn’t show up at holidays or family functions anymore, some excuse was made about how busy he was. That was how the Leitzes dealt with it. What Andras didn’t know, what no one apparently knew, according to him, was that Uncle Walter had already started on Daria and somehow managed to keep it up even after being banned. Andras suspected as much when Daria committed suicide, but there was no proof, and he kept his fears and accusations to himself.

  The suicide led to his mother’s breakdown and his parents’ divorce. She never said so, but it was clear to Andras that she blamed Leitz for everything that had happened. Andras was confused and frightened—his own experience and his family’s response, or nonresponse—still weighed on his young mind, as did his guilt over Daria. He was glad to seek refuge in boarding school, far away from the whole scene.