Two minutes later, with the tire almost flat, Michael crawled to the back of the car, stood up, and made his way back over to the Fiesta.
When he reached the car, he dug into his pocket as if he was fishing around for car keys. He glanced over at the driver of the Ford. The man looked over. Michael pointed to the front tire on the Ford, mouthed a few words. The man just stared at him for a few moments, then rolled down the window.
“You’ve got a flat tire.” Michael said. He knew the man could not hear him.
The man opened the door. He was about Michael’s size, but younger. He was dressed in green camouflage pants and a black hoodie. Michael knew that once the man got out, he would only have a few seconds to act.
The man stepped out of the car, pulled the headphones out of his ears. He regarded Michael with suspicion. “What?”
“Your front tire,” Michael said, doing his best southern accent, the word tire coming out tar. “It looks like you’ve got a flat.”
The man considered Michael for a few more moments, then walked around the open car door. “Goddamn it.” He stood for a few seconds, hands on hips, as if willing the tire to inflate. He then reached into the car, extracted the keys from the ignition. He walked to the rear, opened the trunk. Michael sidled up.
“You want me to call Triple A or something?” Michael asked. “I got the Triple A.”
“I’m good,” he said, with a look that said back the fuck off.
At the moment the man turned his back on Michael, Michael slipped the pipe out of his waistband, and brought it down on the back of the man’s neck, pulling back at the last second. This was far from his area of expertise, and he didn’t want to kill the man. It was a mistake. The man grunted on the impact, and staggered away a few steps, but didn’t go down. He was strong.
“Motherfucker.” The man reached behind his head, saw the blood on his fingers.
Before he could turn around to face him fully, Michael stepped in, raised the pipe again, preparing to deliver a second blow, but when he brought his arm down, the man raised an arm to block it. He was fast. The man then wheeled around, shifting his weight, and caught Michael on the side of the face with a glancing blow. Michael saw stars for a moment. His legs buckled, but he maintained his balance.
When he recovered he saw the man reaching into the trunk, coming back with a handgun.
There was no time to react. Michael brought the pipe up and around as hard as he could. He caught the man on the bridge of his nose, exploding it into a thick mist of blood and cartilage. Michael saw the man’s eyes roll into his head. His legs sagged, gave out. He fell backwards, half-in and half-out of the trunk. The gun, a small-caliber revolver, fell from his hand onto the pitted asphalt of the parking lot.
And it was over. The man did not move.
For some reason, Michael was frozen with inaction. He was afraid he had killed the man, but soon got over it. He realized that he was standing in a motel parking lot, within sight of the avenue with a bloodied steel pipe in his hand, and a man’s body laying in the trunk of a car in front of him. He gathered his wits, his strength. He threw the pipe in the trunk, picked up the gun, stuffed in it into his pocket. He glanced around, turning 360 degrees. Seeing no one watching him, he pulled the spare tire and the jack out of the trunk. He then lifted the man’s legs, and maneuvered the body fully into the trunk. He closed the lid, grabbed the keys out of the lock.
Ten minutes later, with the tire changed, he got into the car. He found that he could not catch his breath. He glanced around the front seat. An MP3 player, a half-eaten Whopper, an unopened forty-ounce. The smell of cooked meat and blood made his stomach churn.
He opened the glove compartment. A pair of maps, a pack of Salems, a small Maglite. Nothing he could use. What he needed was a cellphone. He looked in the back seat, in the console. No phone.
He grabbed the keys out of the ignition, got out of the car. He walked around to the back of the car, opened the trunk. The man had not regained consciousness, but his face looked all but destroyed. Michael reached in, touched the side of his neck. He found a pulse. He began to pat the man down, searching his side pockets, his back pockets. He found a small roll of cash, a small bag of marijuana, another set of keys. But no phone. He tried to turn the man onto his side, but he was heavy, and a dead weight. He tried again. He couldn’t budge him.
Suddenly, the man began to moan. Michael reached further into the trunk, retrieved a long steel crowbar. He slipped it beneath the man, began to roll him over. The man coughed, spitting blood into the air.
“The fuck, man…” the man managed. He was coming to. And getting louder. Michael reached into the pocket of his raincoat, got out the now bloodied washcloth. He rolled it into a ball, stuffed into the man’s mouth.
Michael then went back to his task of prying the man’s body onto its side. After a few more tries the man rolled over. Michael reached into the pocket of his fleece hoodie, and found a cellphone, along with a few hundred in cash, and an ID that identified the man in the trunk as Omar Cantwell. Michael took the phone and cash, slammed shut the trunk, got back in the car.
With his hands surprisingly steady, considering what he had just done, what he was about to do, he opened the phone, punched in the numbers, and called Tommy Christiano.
Tommy fell silent. Michael knew enough to wait it out. His head throbbed, his eyes burned.
“Is he dead?” Tommy asked.
The truth was, Michael had no idea. “I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
He had told Tommy everything, beginning with the phone call from the man called Aleksander Savisaar.
“You’ve got to come in, man.”
“I can’t, Tommy.”
“You have to. This is getting worse and worse. How long do you think it will be before Powell adds it up?”
“This is my family, man. We can’t call in the cavalry. Not until I know the play.”
“You can’t do this alone.”
“It’s the only way.”
Tommy quieted again. Michael glanced at his watch. He had three minutes to get back inside the motel room.
“Powell just called here,” Tommy said. “She was asking about Abby.”
“What? Abby? Why?”
“She wouldn’t say.”
Michael tried to anticipate the course of the investigation. “What did she ask?”
“She asked about where Abby worked. About where she used to work.”
“What did you tell her?”
“I told her the truth,” Tommy said. “It’s not like she couldn’t get the information elsewhere.”
Michael tried to process it all, but everything seemed to bottleneck.
“What are you going to do?” Tommy asked.
Good question, Michael thought. “I’m going to go back into the room and wait for the call. Then I’m going to my house.”
“You’ll never get there in thirty minutes.”
“I’m going to try,” Michael said. “And Tommy?”
“What?”
“Promise me you’re not going to make a move.”
Tommy took a moment, perhaps weighing all the odds. “I’ll meet you.”
“No,” Michael said. “Look. I’ve got this phone. Have you got the number on that end?”
Michael could hear Tommy scribbling on a pad. “Yeah,” he said. “I’ve got it.”
“Okay. Just put your ear to the rail and call me the second you know something. If Powell gets any closer, you call.”
“Mickey,” he said. “You’ve got to -”
“I know, man. I know.”
Michael closed the phone, put it on vibrate, slipped it into his pocket. He listened. There were no sounds coming from the trunk of the car.
He looked into the rear-view mirror. The sight he saw there unnerved him. His face was dotted and streaked with blood, slightly swollen and bruised. He reached into the Burger King bag, pulled out a handful of napkins. He opened the forty-ounce, dampened the n
apkins, and did his best to clean his face.
He looked again. Clean enough. His ears were still ringing from the blow he had taken to the side of his face, his heart was pounding, his head ached. He said a silent prayer, put his hand on the door. He had sixty seconds to get into the room. He prayed his watch was accurate – that Kolya’s watch was accurate – and that he had not missed the call. He opened the car door, got out.
“Put your hands where I can see them!” the voice behind him shouted.
Michael spun around. Flashing lights dazzled his eyes.
He was surrounded by police cars.
FORTY
Abby could not wait any longer. Every second the girls were gone, every second she did not know Michael’s whereabouts, was another arrow in her heart. Keeping the gun on Kolya, she had made a number of phone calls. She had called the office and was told Michael had left for the day. She had called his cellphone and gotten voicemail. She had called a few of his haunts – the Austin Ale House, the Sly Fox. No one had seen him. She almost called Tommy, but Tommy would see right through her. Tommy would know something was terribly wrong.
She wanted to put an end to this, to see the reassuring presence of a police car in her drive, the calm, assured manner of detectives and FBI agents, authority figures who could take this out of her trembling hands. She wanted to hold her husband, her girls.
But unless she knew her daughters would be safe, she could not take that chance. She looked out the window for what was probably the fiftieth time in the past ten minutes.
“You know, he’s probably not coming back,” Kolya said. He was slumped in the upholstered chair in the corner, a chair that until recently had been a putty velvet. Now it was caked and streaked with deep brown blood. He was breathing through his mouth, which for him, Abby thought, was probably business as usual.
“Shut up.”
“You know what I think, Mrs ADA? I think he took your precious little girls and he hit the road. God only knows what he’s doing with them right this second. He’s probably -”
“I said shut the fuck up!” Abby pointed the. 25 at him. Kolya didn’t react. Abby wondered just how many times this man had had a weapon shoved in his face over the years. “I don’t want to hear another word. You don’t get to talk.”
Kolya acquiesced. For the moment. He shifted his weight in the chair, trying to find a comfortable position. Abby hoped he was never going to be comfortable for the rest of his life. Hopefully he would spend it in a prison cell.
Kolya looked at his watch. “Fuck this. I’m outta here.” He struggled to his feet.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m leaving.”
Abby tensed. “Sit down.”
Kolya stood, facing her, not ten feet away, his hands behind his back. “No.”
This isn’t happening, Abby thought. “I swear to God I will put a bullet in your head. Now sit down.”
Kolya smirked. “You a killer now? That what you are? A killer nurse?” He edged a few inches toward her. “I don’t think so.”
Abby backed up. She cocked the weapon. “Sit down. Don’t make me do this.”
Kolya looked around. “So, what’s stopping you? There’s no one here. Who’s gonna know it was cold-blooded murder?” He took another step. He was five feet away now. “All you gotta do is tell them I tried to jump your bones. They’ll believe you. You being a citizen and all.”
Abby backed up another inch. She was almost against the closet now. “Stop.”
Kolya stopped moving forward, his hands still behind his back. “You know what? I don’t think you can do it, Mrs ADA. I think you’re all talk. Just like your husband.”
“Shut up,” Abby said, her voice cracking. “Just shut up!”
Kolya took another small step forward, and suddenly there was another voice in the room. Somebody talking about how the lottery jackpot was up to $245 million, and how you too could be a winner. Somehow the flat-screen television on the dresser had clicked to life. Instinctively, Abby glanced at it. And understood. This was why Kolya had his hands behind his back. He had the remote. He was trying to distract her, and it worked. She only looked away for a second, but it was long enough for Kolya. He lunged across the room. For a short, stocky man he was incredibly fast.
Abby fell back against the wall, raised the gun, and pulled the trigger. Twice.
Nothing. The weapon didn’t fire. It was empty.
Once Kolya realized he was not going to be shot and killed in this suburban house in Eden Falls, New York, Abby saw the full animal emerge.
In a second he was on top of her. “You fuckin’ cunt! I’m gonna fuckin’ kill you!”
Kolya lashed out with his right hand, catching her high on her forehead. The blow knocked her back to the dresser, shattering perfume bottles, toppling pictures, dumping the television onto the floor. Before she could recover her balance Kolya grabbed her by the hair and dragged her to the bed. Abby kicked her feet, flailed her arms, trying to connect, but he was too strong.
“But first I’m gonna fuck your brains out.”
He threw her to the bed, slapped her a second time. This time the blow was more powerful, more expertly leveraged. Abby felt herself fall to the edge of consciousness. Still she fought. Kolya pulled out his small pocket knife. He cut her dress away from her body, tearing it off, flinging it across the room.
Abby, nearly insensible, tried to bring her knee into his crotch again, but this time he was prepared. Stars danced at the edges of her eyes, and she felt for a moment as if she was going to pass out. She tasted blood in her mouth.
Kolya leaned back, unzipped his jeans. He had a full erection. “You’re out of your fuckin’ league, bitch.” He cut her bra and panties away, climbed back on top of her, all the time keeping tight hold of her hair. Abby fought him as hard as she could, but she was overpowered.
He grabbed her by the throat, applied pressure. “You point a gun at me?”
Kolya spread her legs with his other hand, settled his heavy body between them. “You’re gonna like this, Mrs ADA. Too bad you won’t be able to tell your friends about it.”
As Abby felt the world pull away, she heard something click onto the bed next to them, something metallic. It sounded as if something had fallen from the ceiling, but she couldn’t be sure what it had been.
Kolya stopped for a moment, looked up at the ceiling, then at the bed. On it were five small-caliber bullets. Kolya looked into Abby’s eyes. And knew.
Before he could make a move, Kolya grunted once, a wet animal sound. Abby’s face was suddenly bathed in a warm, viscous liquid. Some of it went into her mouth and nose. The taste made her gag, making her head pound, but bringing her back from the edge. Her world went bright red.
It was blood. Her face was now covered in it.
In her near-delirium, Abby thought it was her own blood, but when she looked at Kolya, she saw that his face was frozen in a rictus of pain, the muscles on his neck were corded and taut. Something was growing from his throat. Something silver and flat. Kolya fell on Abby in a quivering lump, and Abby now saw the shape of a man standing at the foot of the bed.
It was Aleks. He had stabbed Kolya from behind, and now the spasming man was laying on top of her, the huge knife protruding from the back of his neck. A second later, Aleks leaned over, pulled out the knife.
“No!” Abby screamed.
With all her strength she pushed Kolya off her. He rolled onto the bed, onto the floor, both of which were now drenched with blood.
“What have you done?”
Abby scrambled to her feet, the world spinning out of control. She tore a pillowcase from the bed, balled it, and put it over the hole in Kolya’s throat. Blood pumped from the wound, soaking the floor beneath Kolya’s head. His body jerked once, twice, then fell still. Abby kept pressure on the wound, but she knew it was too late. He was dead.
Abby glanced at Aleks. He stood in the doorway to the bedroom. His face offered no expression. Not anger, n
ot remorse, not even satisfaction. He looked like a bird of prey, surveying his territory. Abby now realized Aleks had found her gun when he had been upstairs on his own earlier. He had unloaded it.
For a long time Abby couldn’t move. Then she realized her nakedness. She pulled one of the drapes from the rod, gathered it, wrapped it around her, the twin horrors of the past few minutes sinking in.
“Where… where are the girls?” she asked. Her voice sounded small, defeated, distant.
Aleks turned his head, looked at her. For a moment she wasn’t sure he knew who she was.
“Clean yourself up,” he said. “We are leaving in twenty minutes.”
FORTY-ONE
The police officer was nervous. He was young, no more than twenty-two or so. His partner was a little older. Maybe his FTO, Michael thought, his field-training officer. Once the older cop had assessed that there was no imminent danger in the parking lot of the Squires Inn, he had told the other two patrol cars they could move on.
The young officer had worked it by the book, first asking for identification, then patting Michael down.
Michael had explained who he was, and that he was here investigating a case. He hoped that, being from a smaller town, the kid did not know that, as a rule, ADAs did not really do any fieldwork. He did not.
The officer had looked at Michael’s outfit, perhaps wondering why a Queens County prosecutor was wearing maroon golf slacks and a raincoat that were both clearly two sizes too big for him. If he was wondering, he said nothing about it. But Michael knew the mindset, even for a young cop. Something was off. And when something was off, it did not right itself.
“And why don’t you have any ID, sir?”
“It’s in my golf bag,” Michael said. “I got this call about a witness going squirrelly on us and I just jumped in the car.”
The officer looked at the blue Ford, then back. He glanced at his partner, who just shrugged.
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