The Boy from Reactor 4

by Orest Stelmach

  “You see them anywhere?” the doctor said.

  “No. I don’t see anything.”

  “Me neither. I think we lost them.”

  A car spun out of Tenth Street behind them, tires squealing. As it straightened, Nadia caught its profile.

  It was a big old American sedan.

  CHAPTER 3

  VICTOR BODNAR SAT behind the simple wooden desk in his mock courtroom on Avenue A, listening to the sweet child. Back and hip aching, hemorrhoids burning like the time in the forced-labor camp—the gulag—when the guards chained him to a toilet bowl filled with kerosene-drenched rats and lit them on fire. None of the above killing him as much as the sight before him now.

  “Once I gave Misha all my money,” Tara said in broken Ukrainian, “he never called again. When I told him I was pregnant, he said I had to get an abortion or he’d have me and my baby killed. That if I told anyone about it, he’d have me killed. I don’t want an abortion.” She started sobbing. “Victor, I don’t want to die.”

  Victor pushed himself upright and gave her his handkerchief. “There, there, Tarochka,” he said. “How much money did you give Misha? And why did you give it to him?”

  “When my uncle died, I got a hundred thousand dollars in life insurance. Misha said he could double my money in one year with no risk. Something about gasoline arbitrage.”

  “And when you called to tell him you were in a family way, did you ask for your money back?”

  “Yes, but he told me the thing with the gasoline had gone bad and he’d lost it all.”

  Victor smiled like a cat that had just been told the wolf was dangerous. “Of course he did. Of course he did.”

  Four years ago, she was the doe-faced belle of the debutante ball. Now she looked like a malnourished slab of Slavic cheeks dipped in mascara-colored tears.

  “You have a job?” Victor said.

  She shook her head. “I was working at Macy’s, but Misha told me to quit. He didn’t want his woman working. Now they’re not hiring.”

  “Where are you staying?”

  “With my aunt. In her apartment. On Avenue B.”

  “Good. Go there. I’ll speak with Misha. I don’t think I’ll be able to get your money back, though. Misha is young, rich, and powerful. As you know.”

  “But you’re a powerful man, too, Victor.”

  “Thank you for saying that, Tarockha. But I’m afraid I’m a relic. The time for me and my kind has passed. Still, I promise that you and your baby won’t be harmed. That I guarantee.”

  “Thank you. Oh, thank you so much, Victor.”

  “Keep me informed. Now, wait outside for a few minutes. Stefan will make arrangements to send you some money to tide you over.”

  Tara protested, but Victor insisted. She hugged him. The experience left him dizzy. He longed for her to return as soon as she left. Worried that New York was unsafe for a young woman, especially one carrying a child. Dreamed of putting a bullet in Misha’s brain.

  Stefan, Victor’s most trusted adviser, came in. He’d been the open-weight alternate on the Soviet Judo Olympic Team of 1972, though no one in America knew that. In fact, there was no record of his existing in America. He’d snuck into the country on a freighter thirty-three years ago.

  “Wire ten thousand dollars into her bank account,” Victor said.

  “But the bank account is empty.”

  “Empty? The hell you say.”

  “We’re bleeding cash since they shut down our antiques business.”

  “How much do I have in my personal savings account?”

  “What?”

  “How much?”

  “About twelve thousand.”

  “Send it all to her.”

  “All of it?”

  Eyes shut, Victor remembered Tara’s mother when he first saw her, fresh off the boat, groceries spilling from the bottom of her paper bag on Avenue A. “Her mother used to bake pampushki for me.”

  “That will leave us with no money.”

  “Don’t worry about it. When I was fifteen, I was the best pickpocket in Kyiv. Maybe I’ll go to Grand Central and rob bankers on their way home from work. Do you think they’d even arrest me if I got caught?”

  “Hard to tell the thieves from the citizens these days.”

  “Just like home. Who’s next?”

  “The courier from Kyiv.”

  “Ah. Right. The courier. Give me a minute to use the bathroom. And pat her down. Twice. Then send her in.”

  CHAPTER 4

  THE DOCTOR YANKED the wheel to the right and thrust the car onto Eleventh Street, toward the heart of Alphabet City. The later the letter, the tougher the neighborhood.

  An SUV barreled down the street toward them.

  “Wrong way,” Nadia said. “It’s a one-way street the other way.”

  “I know.”

  The doctor mashed the pedal. The car surged forward, and Nadia braced herself.

  The SUV blared its horn and veered left beside a column of parked cars along the sidewalk. The doctor blew past it. He took a sharp right onto Avenue C and negotiated a maze of sequential turns. Nadia suppressed a wave of nausea.

  They hit a red light at the corner of Houston. An ambulance sped by them toward Seventh Street, lights flashing and siren blaring.

  No sign of the American sedan. There was no way that old heap could keep up. Nadia released her grip on the passenger door.

  “Where are we going?” she said.

  “Police station?” the doctor said, his hands loose around the wheel.

  “Right. Fifth Street. Between Second and Third.”

  “Got it.”

  “My name is Nadia,”’ she said. “Nadia Tesla. Thank you. Thank you for saving my life.”

  “You’re welcome. I’m Brad. Brad Specter.”

  He offered his hand, and Nadia shook it. While hers was limp and covered with a light sheen of sweat, his was strong and dry. He touched her shoulder and peered into her eyes with his cornflower blues.

  “Are you okay, Nadia? Are you hurt in any way?”

  Nadia shook her head. “No, no. I’m fine.” Her face flushed, and she turned away. She couldn’t remember the last time a man had looked at her with genuine concern.

  Specter turned right on Houston to double back toward Fifth Street. “What happened back there? Did you know that man? The one who got shot.”

  “Who? Oh, him. Uh, no, not really.”

  “Do you know his name?”

  “I never saw him before tonight.”

  “Huh. That’s bizarre. What did he say to you?”

  “Pardon?”

  “I saw him grab you and whisper something into your ear. What was that all about?”

  She’d forgotten all about that. Find Damian. Find Andrew Steen. They all—millions of dollars. Fate of the free world.

  “Just some random gibberish,” Nadia said. “He was in shock. I couldn’t understand a word of it.” Nadia gathered her resolve and looked at him. “What kind of doctor are you?”

  “ER,” he said.

  “Ah. That explains it.”

  “What?”

  “Cool under pressure.”

  He took a turn on Third Avenue, two blocks from Fifth and the police station.

  “Sorry for the beating your baby took back there,” Nadia said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Your car.”

  He laughed. “The computers are so sophisticated it drives itself. Even an idiot like me can look like a hero. It’s my first new car ever. No worries, really. It’s just a material thing.”

  Interesting perspective, she thought. Her ex-husband used to go bonkers when she dropped a crumb on the floor of his Volkswagen.

  Traffic slowed to a crawl. Specter took another turn.

  “Were you visiting someone in the East Village?” Nadia said.

  “Yep. My mother. I try to come down and spend Sunday with her a couple of times a month. We go to church in the morning, have brunch. Maybe go
shopping before she cooks dinner. I’m working tomorrow, so I came down today.”

  “You’re a good son.”

  “Hey, she’s my mom.”

  Nadia imagined what a first date might be like. The circumstances were all wrong for her to even go there. Milan was either dead or dying. But she couldn’t help herself. Something casual, maybe lunch at a French bistro and a matinee.

  He said, “Let me ask you. Just out of curiosity. You said the man who got shot spoke gibberish in your ear. What exactly did he say? The things people say in circumstances like that fascinate me.”

  A car ahead of them hit the brakes hard. Specter did the same. The lurch jolted Nadia. What had he just asked her? She looked beyond the car. Fifth Street was two blocks away. Funny, they kept moving but never got any closer to the police station.

  “You remember, don’t you?” he said, eyes on the road. “His exact words?”

  He was pushing that question too hard. Nadia reached between her legs and put her hand inside her bag. “Sure, sure,” she said. “But first, let me ask you a question.”

  “Okay. Shoot.”

  “What is an arteriography?”

  He laughed. “What?”

  “You heard me. What is an arteriography, and how is it done? They did it to my ex-husband. In the ER. Before he died. After his car crash.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Still laughing.

  “No, I’m not kidding you. Tell me what it is.”

  His laugh dissolved into a look of thorough confusion. “I don’t understand. What’s the problem?”

  “The problem, Dr. Specter, is that you don’t know how to check for artery damage, do you?”

  No answer. One beat. Still confused. Two beats. Confusion fading. Three beats. Neutral expression. Air in the cabin like nitro.

  Specter lunged across Nadia’s body and hammered the glove box with his palm. The lid fell open.

  A shiny silver gun in a black leather holster.

  Nadia whipped a canister out of her bag and blasted him with pepper spray.

  He screamed and slammed the brakes. The car stopped on command. His hands went to his face.

  Nadia jumped out the door. Raced toward First Avenue. She told herself not to glance over her shoulder. It would only slow her down.

  A yellow cab with a vacant light.

  Nadia shouted, “Taxi.”

  The driver slowed but didn’t stop. He’d heard her voice but didn’t see her coming down the street. He was rolling away.

  At the end of the sidewalk, Nadia didn’t bother looking both ways. She ran onto First Avenue.

  A car swerved to miss her. A truck hit the brakes to avoid the car. Horns blared.

  The taxi stopped.

  Nadia ignored the insults being hurled at her. She ran to the cab, jumped inside, and told the driver to take her to the police station on Fifth Street.

  She gave the driver a twenty-dollar bill for a six-dollar fare and didn’t bother waiting for change. Instead, she sprinted into the station.

  She told the desk sergeant she’d witnessed a shooting and wanted to report a crime. He took down some basic information and asked her to wait for a detective.

  Only when she sat down did she realize her hands were shaking.

  CHAPTER 5

  AFTER WAITING THIRTY-THREE minutes, Nadia was escorted to the squad room by a detective named Hyland. He was a sturdy veteran with suspicious eyes and love handles above the shirt collar around his neck.

  Nadia took a seat in a chair beside his workstation. Stacks of papers, folders, and nine empty Diet Coke cans covered his desk. A flyer promoted the NYPD Museum Car Show.

  She told him everything that had transpired that evening, omitting nothing. The problem was, the words coming out of her lips sounded preposterous, especially to a cop who worked Alphabet City. By the time she was done, Nadia could smell his disbelief.

  “Did you happen to get a license plate?” he said, twirling a pen that looked like a Montblanc except the black lacquer paint was peeling.

  “No.”

  “No as in nothing? Not even a partial? On either car?”

  “No, I’m sorry. When I was on the sidewalk, both cars were parked parallel to me. When I was in the sports car, we were moving fast. And when I got out of the sports car, I didn’t look back. I was running for my life.”

  “Right,” Hyland said, dunking the word in a vat of sarcasm as he looked down at his notes. “From the doctor who turned out to not be a doctor. Which you figured out when he kept asking you what the dying man whispered in your ear. Which was that Damian and Andrew—was it Stein or Steen?”

  “Steen.”

  “Right. Steen. Damian someone or other and Andrew Steen control the fate of the free world.”

  “No. That’s not what he said. He didn’t say they controlled the fate of the free world. He just said, ‘Fate of the free…’” Nadia’s voice trailed off. It didn’t matter what he had said.

  Hyland placed his pen on his notes with both hands as though laying it to rest in a casket.

  She sighed. “I know. I know how it sounds. Look, I’m not a good liar. I don’t even pretend to be. You must be a good judge of character after all your years as a policeman. Do I look like I’m lying to you?”

  Hyland tilted his head at Nadia and leaned back in his chair. “Have you been drinking tonight, Miz Tesla?”

  “No, I have not been drinking.”

  “Not one drink?”

  “No means no.”

  “Have you ever been arrested?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Have you ever been arrested and charged with a crime?”

  Nadia looked around to see if anyone else was listening. The other detectives in the room were on the phone or conducting their own interviews.

  “Yes,” she said.

  His eyebrows shot up. “What was the charge?”

  “Weapons possession.”

  “In New York?”

  Nadia shook her head. “New Jersey.” She told him how she’d inadvertently taken a bag with an old family gun to the airport.

  “What was the disposition of the case?”

  “I pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor disorderly-persons charge.”

  “When did this happen?”

  “March.”

  Hyland sat up straight. “Of this year?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re on probation now?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you have any weapons in your possession now?”

  “No, I don’t have any weapons—”

  “What about that pepper spray you used? Did you buy it in New York?”

  “No, I bought it at a sporting goods store in Connecticut. I gave my mother one canister and kept the other. Pepper spray is legal in New York.”

  “Not if it was bought outside the state. It has to be bought in New York State. If it was bought in Connecticut, you’re actually carrying an illegal weapon that is a violation of your probation.”

  “What? This is ridiculous. I came here to report a crime, and I told you the complete truth. A man got shot, for God’s sake. He got shot. And you’re worrying about where I bought my pepper spray?”

  “Oh. About the man you say got shot. Officers responded to a nine-one-one call earlier tonight. It was a muffled voice from an untraceable cell phone. Said a man had been shot on Seventh Street.”

  “That’s it,” Nadia said. “That must have been Specter calling in the shooting of Mr. Milan.”

  “Oh, I’m sure it was,” Hyland said with disgust, the kind honed by a lifetime of listening to lies. “In your mind.”

  “Pardon?”

  “There was no victim when our officers arrived. There was no man. There was no shooting. Some residents said they heard a car backfire a few times, and there was a crash. But both cars moved on. No one was shot, Miz Tesla. There was no body at the scene.”

  Nadia lost her breath. “What?”

  “The only crimes that have be
en committed here are yours. False reporting of a crime. Possession of an illegal weapon. Both are violations of your probation and could result in your immediate incarceration. Do you want to go to prison, Miz Tesla?”

  Nadia opened her mouth to fight, to argue with the fat bastard, but what was she going to say? Her head started to fall, but she caught it. Raised her chin, looked Hyland in the eye, and stood up.

  “Thank you so much for your time, Detective,” Nadia said.

  She started to leave. What if Brad Specter was waiting for her outside? She’d told him to take her here. He could be planning to kidnap her right now. She turned back. She didn’t mind pushing her luck.

  “Excuse me, Detective Hyland? Would it be possible for an officer to drive me home?”

  He looked at her like the principal who’d just shelled out detention instead of expulsion to the school sociopath.

  “How about the subway station at Astor Place?” Nadia said. “It’s a five-minute drive, at most. Please.”

  He waddled up to her and stuck his chins in her face. “I think you’ve wasted enough taxpayer money tonight, don’t you, Miz Tesla? And if you pull a stunt like this again, you’re going in. Do we understand each other? Have a nice evening.”

  When Nadia stepped outside, rain was pouring from the sky. Pedestrians scattered for cover. Head on a swivel, she sloshed her way to Third Avenue. All the taxis were occupied. The subway was the only way home.

  She hugged the curb to stay out of the shadows in case someone was waiting to kidnap her. Cars plowed through puddles. Water thrashed her shoes, clothes, and face. She soldiered on, wishing it were all a practical joke, uncertain if she would make it home alive.

  CHAPTER 6

  THE COURIER WORE an elegant black business suit a size too big for her wiry body. Her platinum-blonde crew cut shone in the dimly lit room. She could have been a former lingerie model or a ravenous zombie from a postapocalyptic world. For a Slavic woman trying to keep her figure past her thirties, it depended on the lighting. It didn’t matter. At his age, Victor wouldn’t turn either one away.

  A sealed bottle of vodka, two empty shot glasses, and a manila folder rested on Victor’s desk. The courier stood before him, a slim, rectangular object in her hand. It looked like a book or picture frame wrapped in simple brown paper. String hung loosely around it, and the paper had been dislodged when Stefan searched her for weapons.