The Family Hightower

by Brian Francis Slattery

  But it’s messier for the rest of the organization, and it takes a day or two for the results of Sylvie’s plan to hit the papers. There are dead gangsters all over town. They’ve been killed every which way, found every which way. In an apartment block in Chisinau, someone is found in the doorway to a near-empty apartment. His skull has been smashed in, as though he were dropped on the tile floor on his head five or six times. A piece of his tongue is lying on the floor nearby, as though he bit it off one of the times he was dropped. The squatters in the apartment across the hall aren’t saying anything. In Balti, another man, who had a wife and child, is found in a field with a gigantic hole in the side of his head. Someone’s found burned alive in a car. Someone’s stuffed in an outflow pipe. Someone else is sitting upright at his kitchen table. The problem is that he’s tied to the chair and his throat is cut. The carving knife that did the work is on the table in front of him. There are no prints on the handle. The police have found twenty-six bodies already and are expecting a lot more. They see a rash of death inside the Wolf’s organization, like the sweep of a scythe, the rampage of some giant predator, from Moldova to Ukraine to Romania. Even a few deaths that might seem random otherwise: a man killed in Paris, two in London. Five in Berlin. It’s devastating—most of all, for the police, to their investigation. Almost all the information Sylvie gave them, in three days, has become the roll call at a morgue. The police have almost nothing to follow it up with, and someone at Interpol calls Agent Easton in Cleveland to tell them that they’ve been played. Agent Easton tries to call Sylvie, and when she doesn’t answer, goes to the house and shouts at the door. But Sylvie’s long gone.

  In time, the Moldovans get tired of living in a country run by criminals, and not in the way that Americans mean when they say that politicians are crooks, but for real, run by criminals, who do whatever they want, among themselves and with thousands of innocent victims, while nobody tries to stop them. In time, they vote some of the Communists back into power—well, they’re not calling themselves Communists anymore, but it’s the same people, just a few years older—because if nothing else, the Communists were good at security. The police get stronger then, the army gets bigger. Fifteen years later, legitimate capitalism still looks a little shaky. In the center of Chisinau, the bright signs for new stores are put up on old buildings that need a lot more money than the store’s making, as though capitalism is a thin layer over everything that you could peel off in maybe a week if you wanted to. But the crime isn’t as rampant or as obvious. There are far fewer guys in crew cuts and leather jackets strutting around like they own the place, which they used to do. Spring comes in the week before Easter, and the benches of the parks in the center of Chisinau fill with people. Old men in jackets and caps. Old women with their hair covered in scarves. Young people, the boys in tight jeans, the girls in high skirts. They don’t have jobs but they do have cell phones. They sit next to each other and everyone talks to people who aren’t there. Or they pair off and share headphones, or just neck for hours. In the afternoons, when the schools are out, the playground is full of children, the parents hovering near. Still almost no one goes out at night, because so little is open, but people know things are better. They start to think of the mid-1990s as the bad old days, though they’re too smart to consider themselves past all that now. This is Europe, and it’s been a rough century; it can’t afford to believe, like America still does, in the story where things always get better. Not with what they’ve seen. Not with what they know.

  But we’re still in 1995, and the Wolf is in Kiev, furious. He knows he’s been screwed, and it doesn’t take him very long to find out who did it. He has more information about Sylvie and Petey than the police do, and though he never made the connection between them before—there was no reason to—within a couple hours, he has. It’s more than a coincidence, he thinks, that Petey should get in trouble with him, and then his aunt descend on him. Mother hen stuff, he thinks. He has no idea why Sylvie would go so far, can’t grasp that Sylvie is trying to do much more than just bail out her nephew. It occurs to him that maybe the man he sent after Petey killed him already, and somehow the White Lady found out about it before he did. It’s possible. The truth, though, is that he wouldn’t understand what Sylvie’s doing even if someone explained it to him. This need to get the whole family out, to end things that started almost a century ago. Why would anyone want to do that? he would say. Can you do that? In about two seconds, he chalks up what Sylvie’s done to hysteria and sentimentality. It’s not a satisfying explanation. He knows the White Lady is tougher than that. But it’s enough that his brain can stop thinking about why and get down to the business of revenge.

  One of the Wolf’s boys—Pocketknife, remember him?—gets a call at one in the morning. He’s in a casino near the center of Kiev, at the bar, sipping on a neat whiskey. Watching the room. He likes being around gambling, but doesn’t like to put his own money down. The odds aren’t good enough for him; he’s too careful for that. Besides, he wants to be there with a loan ready when one of his friends goes broke over a game of blackjack and needs money. Not that he likes extorting money from his friends, he tells himself. He just likes them being in his debt, and it tells you something about what kind of life he leads, the kind of man he is, that the distinction matters.

  His beeper goes off and he checks the number, knows who it is. Heads toward the bathroom where there’s a payphone.

  “Pocketknife,” the Wolf says.

  “It’s me.”

  “You have heard about everything.”

  “Of course.”

  “Where do you stand?”

  “Do you still have money?” Pocketknife says.

  “Of course.”

  “That’s where I stand,” Pocketknife says.

  “Good,” the Wolf says, “because I have an expensive job for you. It’s because you did so well with that woman Petey was fucking. You have a good crew.”

  “What’s the job?”

  “To go to America.”

  “I don’t have to go,” Pocketknife says. “I have people I can call.”

  “I want you to do it yourself,” the Wolf says.

  “That will be more,” Pocketknife says. “There are engagements I will need to disentangle myself from, which will cost me.” Pocketknife is lying, and he’s pretty sure the Wolf knows it. But he also knows that the Wolf isn’t in a strong position to argue now. Why shouldn’t he use it to his advantage?

  “That’s fine,” the Wolf says.

  “Okay. The job.”

  “It’s three people, plus any witnesses. I don’t think any of them will put up too much of a fight.”

  “That’s what you said about that woman and she bit off a part of my man’s hand.”

  “You call that a fight?”

  “There were medical expenses involved,” Pocketknife says. “We understand each other, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where are the people?”

  “Two in Cleveland,” the Wolf says. “One outside of New York. In a town called New Canaan. Full of rich fucks, I think.” They both laugh, just for a second.

  “How much time?” Pocketknife says.

  “As soon as possible.” Then the Wolf sighs. “A week at the most. Call me when you’re done and not before. If I don’t hear from you in a week, understand, I may send someone else after you.”

  You don’t have anyone else, Pocketknife wants to say, though he knows it’d be counterproductive to completing this transaction. “I understand,” he says.

  They agree on a price. The Wolf starts low and Pocketknife bargains him up. They end the conversation as genteel as can be, as though they’re royalty or diplomats. On the way back into the bar, one of Pocketknife’s friends approaches him. Hey, can you spot me a thousand? I’m low. Sure, he says. We’ll talk terms later. He reaches into his pocket and smiles. Business is good.
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br />   And in the early morning, Feodor’s beeper goes off. It’s a number he doesn’t recognize. If it were a normal day, he would ignore it. But things are a little crazy right now.

  “Feodor. It’s the Wolf.”

  Feodor wants to ask how it is that the Wolf got his number, but he’s way too smart for that. “I figured I’d hear from you soon,” he says, as if they’re old friends. As if they’ve ever spoken before. The truth is that Feodor didn’t think the Wolf would sound like he does. Didn’t expect his voice to be so high-pitched.

  “You know what’s happened,” the Wolf says.

  “I’ve heard, yes.”

  “It’s that bitch the White Lady. She fucked me.”

  “How do you know it’s her?”

  “There’s no one else it could be.”

  “Uh-huh,” Feodor says, as noncommittal as he can sound.

  “I’m hoping you’re already thinking what I’m thinking,” the Wolf says, “that someday she’ll fuck you, too, hard, as hard as she can. And that it’s best if we just cut her out.”

  “Cut her out,” Feodor says.

  “Yes. Perhaps we could take the opportunity to merge our operations.”

  “I see.”

  “Yes.”

  Feodor can’t say he was expecting the last part. It isn’t something he and Sylvie have discussed. It’s not quite in the script. He wishes he had a minute, but he doesn’t.

  “I mean this with a great deal of respect,” Feodor says, “but what’s in it for me?” He lets the weight of the words sink in a little. They both know how vulnerable the Wolf is right now. There’s almost nothing left of the organization under him, and he’s teetering in the air. The Wolf names a very high price tag that surprises Feodor even more. He knew the Wolf was doing well, but he didn’t know he was doing that well. How is he making so much money? Feodor thinks, and then stops. Yes. The harvesting. The harvesting and God knows what else that Feodor won’t touch. Why did the White Lady ever get involved with that man?

  But it’s so much money, too. Enough that Feodor could get out himself, sooner than he planned. Stop and then buy a house on the Black Sea. Meet a nice young lady, have a family, and never think again about everything he’s done for the past ten years. It sounds nice. Very nice.

  “We should meet,” Feodor says.

  “Good. When?” the Wolf says.

  “Soon.”

  “Tomorrow night.”

  “Okay.”

  They agree on a place outside of the city, where no one’ll know who they are. Bodyguards are fine, as long as they wait outside and don’t draw too much attention. After they hang up, Feodor just walks around his office, pacing. He runs his operation out of an apartment he’s bought in one of Kiev’s newest buildings, a tower with some serious geometry on the top of it, triangles of mirrored glass. From the window he can see the curve of the Dnieper as it flows through the city, the traffic moving on the highway beside it. The bridge to the Hidropark. The Friendship Arch on the edge of the cliff. The red, yellow, and blue of the Ferris wheel and the circus tents beneath it. A bit of the blue and gold dome of St. Andrew’s Church. I love this city, Feodor thinks, but it’s making me old, too. He’s glad he has a day before the meeting. He needs some time to think.

  Chapter 20

  In Negostina, they’ve been up all night. Claudiu, Madalina’s father; Georgina, her mother; Alexandru, the neighbor who speaks English; and Petey Hightower. For three of them, it’s the worst night of their lives. Alexandru, who has to translate everything, who can’t find a way out and has to be there for all of it, won’t ever tell his wife or children a lot of what he saw, what he heard, beyond the barest facts. Look, I just should never have been there, he says. I felt sick, I felt dirty. That’s how much I didn’t belong.

  It starts with the revelation that Madalina’s gone. In his panic, Petey can’t remember a word of Ukrainian, and he’s never known Romanian. He says it in English, in the most evasive way he can think of—they took her—but Claudiu knows what he means. He tries to be quiet; even there, in the second that he realizes his entire life is coming apart, he’s thinking of Georgina, asleep two rooms away, and he tries not to wake her. But then his grief takes over. First he chokes on it. Then he wails, oh, oh, oh, and Georgina comes out in a nightgown. What’s going on, Claudiu? Looks at Peter. Who is this?

  For Petey, it feels like a nightmare, because he can’t understand what anyone is talking about. Claudiu says something to his wife. It’s short, only a little longer than what Petey’s told them so far, and Georgina’s eyes widen, her mouth opens. She keeps saying the same word over and over, and then breaks down and shrieks, followed by a long, stuttering breath that sounds like she’s drowning. They stand there in their kitchen, holding each other, and just talk and talk, crying and crying. They say a lot of things that make Alexandru realize that it’s as if he and the American aren’t there. The parents don’t care. Their despair has made them too honest for things like politeness. There’s only the annihilating truth. It goes on for maybe forty-five minutes, minutes that feel like hours, and then Georgina looks up, stares straight at Petey, startled, as if she’s just noticed he’s there, and asks him what happened.

  Petey tries to get out of it at first. I don’t know, he says, still thinking he can somehow avoid responsibility. He tells himself that in the strictest sense, he’s not lying to these people. He doesn’t know, not really, what’s happened to the woman he says he loves. She could be anywhere. They could have done anything to her. He tells himself he’s trying to protect them. But he’s not good enough a liar to sell that to Madalina’s parents. He gives Georgina a look he thinks will let her know that he wants to spare them. But Madalina’s mother is way too sharp for that. All she sees on his face is the hope that he can spare himself. She sees a boy trying to be a man and not knowing how much he’s failed. A stupid kid who’s turned the world sideways in his head, has convinced himself that it’s still right side up, and thinks he can convince everyone else, too. You disgust me, she thinks. And she’s going to let him know it. She looks at Alexandru.

  “What does he mean, he doesn’t know?”

  “I don’t know,” Alexandru says.

  “No. Ask him what he means. I want to force him to talk.”

  Alexandru asks, and Petey repeats himself. She doesn’t need the translation.

  “Well, what was she doing when he last saw her?”

  Alexandru asks Petey, and there’s a long pause. Then he says one word.

  “He says she was driving,” Alexandru says.

  “Where?”

  “Um. He says nowhere.”

  “Why?”

  “Because there was a car in front of her, and a car behind.”

  “Like a traffic jam.”

  “No, he says. No. Not like a traffic jam.”

  “Like what, then?” Georgina says. “Tell him also that I’m getting tired of guessing. Very, very tired.”

  She’s angry now, and looks at her husband, who’s getting angry, too. A tiny part of her almost feels sorry for this stupid American, this child who fucked her daughter and doesn’t know anything about anything. They’re going to rip him apart.

  Petey’s quiet again for another half minute and then starts talking. Alexandru asks him to say some things again, to slow down, to use different words. Georgina knows how bad it’s going to be by the expressions on Alexandru’s face. The surprise. The horror.

  “What did he just say? Tell us what he’s saying,” Claudiu says. There’s a growl in his voice. Something primal is coming out. Alexandru looks scared when he turns to Claudiu and Georgina. He slows down, tries to be as precise as possible. Tells them the whole thing. They came down from Madalina’s apartment, got in her car. Were surrounded, blocked in. Then these men came for them.

  “So he was in the car with her?” Claudiu says.


  “Yes, I think so,” Alexandru says. Checks with Petey and he nods.

  “How is it that he got away and she didn’t?”

  Alexandru turns to Petey and asks him the question. For almost a minute they watch him while he just stares at the floor.

  “Answer the question, you fucking piece-of-shit coward,” Georgina says. “You have the balls to fuck my daughter, you should have the balls to tell us what else you did to her.”

  Alexandru stares at her.

  “Tell him,” she says. “All of it.”

  “I don’t know if I can,” he says. “My English—”

  “Just do it.”

  Alexandru’s words are slow and careful, and after he’s done, Petey just looks at Georgina and starts crying. Talks more and more, blubbering and weeping, though he seems to be saying the same thing again and again.

  “What’s he saying?” Claudiu says.

  Again Alexandru stalls. He’s trying to find the words.

  “Tell us,” Claudiu says.

  “He says he ran. He jumped out and ran before Madalina could stop the car. That some guys chased him but he got away. But he heard Madalina say something, just as he was running away. Just as that bunch of men came down around her. She said: You sons of bitches. You fucking animals.

  A sound comes out of Claudiu that isn’t language. It’s a shriek, a roar. The sound of a man losing himself in his own rage. He seems to grow, until his head touches the ceiling. The air seems to darken around him. His hands come out and they’re claws. For the next few seconds, Alexandru believes that if Claudiu and Petey were alone right now, Claudiu would kill the American with his bare hands, bury his fingers in Petey’s body until he found the places where the muscles were weakest, then pull until they came apart. The arms, the legs, the chest. Somehow Claudiu would find a way into Petey’s guts, too, maybe with his nails, maybe with his teeth. Then, at last, the boy’s face and neck. If the police came after Claudiu was finished, they’d find the boy in pieces on the floor, know what color his intestines are. Know what the underside of his scalp looks like. Claudiu wants to do it all to Petey, so much, and Alexandru can’t do anything to stop him.