"Knock yourself out."
"Any other thoughts?"
"Honestly ..." Wally paused here, and Atley could see now that she was struggling to keep her emotions out of her voice. "The thing is, there are just so many things that happen. On the street, I"m saying. I"d guess it had to do with dope, but who knows?"
"Yeah," Greer agreed with a sigh.
There was a moment of silence between them. Atley studied the girl, and she stared right back at him.
"And you"re okay, Wallis?"
"Yes."
"Huh," Greer grunted, dubious. "Okay if I ask you one thing, just between us? I"m putting down my pen here." He clicked his pen closed and stuck it in his pocket.
"Whatever."
"What"s your plan?"
It was a moment before Wally answered, looking a bit defensive. "What do you mean?"
"I"ve been learning about you, Wally. I"ve been studying Wallis Stoneman 101. People say good things about you, which is not always the case with runaway JDs. I hear how smart you are. How resourceful. From what I can tell, whatever you set your mind to, you can do."
Wally sighed impatiently.
"So I"ve been thinking," Atley continued, "someone as smart and capable as yourself, my guess would be that you have some sort of goal in mind. A plan for your near future."
"Actually, yeah. I"m working on a project right now."
"What about Tevin and Ella and Jake?"
Atley saw just a flash of annoyance in Wally"s eyes. She was unhappy that he had gathered even this small amount of intelligence on her.
"What about them?"
"Are they included in this project of yours?" Atley asked. "Because I gotta tell you, Wally, I"ve read their files too, and their stories aren"t like yours. They"re vulnerable, always have been. If we"re not careful with them, they"re gonna end up like Sophie."
"Screw you. We can take care of each other."
"I see," he said. "Hey, here"s a question: what were you doing up on Shelter Island last week?"
The question obviously took the girl by surprise. Atley could see the wheels spinning in her head as she tried to figure out how he knew about her trip north. Her inability to fill in the blank really seemed to p.i.s.s her off.
"Do your job, cop," she said finally. "Find out who killed Sophie."
She turned and stomped off into the dense thicket of brush and vines, vanishing from sight.
THIRTEEN.
Tiger exited the package store on Jamaica Avenue and turned south onto a side street, pa.s.sing through a low-income neighborhood. Some teenage Hispanic kids-with lots of ink on their necks and arms-gave Tiger territorial stares but otherwise let him pa.s.s. After three blocks of walking Tiger reached the cheap motel and climbed the outside stairs to the second floor, entering the room at the far end of the building. All the room lights were off and the heavy drapes were drawn closed; Tiger had to wait a moment for his eyes to adjust to the darkness of the room.
"What you get?" Alexei Klesko"s voice came from one of the two queen-sized beds-he insisted that the two of them speak English, even between themselves. Klesko was stretched out on the bed, a plastic bag of ice resting between his eyes.
"Pills," said Tiger. "The whiskey you wanted. Some food."
Klesko slid the ice bag off his face and sat up on the bed. Tiger pa.s.sed him the small plastic envelope of Percocets that he had scored on a street corner. Klesko swilled three of them down with a heavy slug of Jack Daniels, then restored the ice to his forehead and lay back down. His headaches had started almost as soon as they had stepped off the fishing boat in Portland.
"This f.u.c.king light," Klesko had raged that first day. "This f.u.c.king American light hurts into the eyes."
Tiger pulled some bandages out of his shopping bag and started to work on Klesko"s leg wound, where the prison guard"s bullet had pa.s.sed clear through. Klesko had been taking antibiotics, and they seemed to be working despite his daily intake of whiskey. Tiger cleaned both sides of the wound, dabbing them with peroxide before he put on the fresh bandages. Klesko never flinched.
It wasn"t Klesko"s physical condition that worried Tiger. Aside from the constant rants against the "American light," there were mumbled curses aimed at nothing in particular and long, dark silences that sometimes took hours to pa.s.s. Tiger had started to worry that the years of captivity had warped the man"s brain; he could not imagine what Klesko had experienced during all that time in the old gulag. If his mind had been bent, though, the damage had done nothing to dull Klesko"s ruthless predatory skills; he had proved that during the escape from his Siberian prison.
And yet things were missing, signs of the bond that should have naturally existed between the two of them. Every year on his birthday, Tiger had received a letter from Klesko, awkward sentiments scrawled on a single page in the old man"s increasingly shaky handwriting. Those spare gestures had done their work-had kept Tiger hoping desperately for a reunion with his father and vigilant for the reappearance of the alexandrite stones-but the promise of a genuine connection with his father had gone unfulfilled.
In the days since the escape, Klesko had not asked for a single detail about Tiger"s life in Piter during the years of his father"s imprisonment. Tiger would have told him how he had moved from home to home among the lower echelon of the Dobrik mob, sleeping on floors and in attics, treated not as the son of the fabled Alexei Kles...o...b..t instead as a servant, and then, as he grew older, graduated into the role of enforcer, earning his keep on the streets of Piter, intimidating, maiming, and even killing in the name of the Dobriks.
Now, as he thought about the lost connection between himself and the old man, Tiger felt a painful emptiness inside, a sense of anger and resentment that caught him by surprise. Tiger wondered if redemption was still possible, if there was anything he could do to salvage the bond between himself and his father; he didn"t know how. Here in this strange country, thousands of miles from home, Tiger"s only choice was to keep faith, to hope that recovering the lost stones would somehow, in turn, restore the humanity that was now missing in his cold and distant father.
In the darkness of their motel room, Tiger could sense the painkillers working on Klesko-his breathing had slowed, and he had tossed aside the bag of ice. Tiger would let Klesko sleep for three or four more hours, and then they would be on the move again.
Their first stop in Manhattan-days earlier-had been 47th Street, where the side-by-side row of gem merchants stretched for blocks. Tiger"s own information had brought them here, information he had bought from a black market middleman in Prague. The Hamlisch Brothers shop was on the south side of the street, a few doors east of Avenue of the Americas. A red sign hung over the door. By that point, Tiger and Klesko had outfitted themselves in appropriate enough clothing-leather coats, collared shirts, dark blue jeans, and new boots-that the old gem merchant inside buzzed them through the door with barely a hesitation.
The Hasidic merchant had a long gray beard and side curls flowing down his neck and chest. He silently welcomed his customers by spreading his arms to indicate the vast selection of merchandise under his gla.s.s counters.
"Alexandrite," said Tiger. "You have a new stone." The old merchant"s eyes flickered slightly at Tiger"s accent, out of interest but not alarm.
"Ah," said the old man. "Yes. My nephew. He is not here."
"Your nephew?"
"The stone-it is not mine," said the old man. "My nephew Isaac manages his own stock. He is on a buying trip. Europe. He returns by the middle of next week. You come back for Isaac."
Tiger and Klesko stood in silence for a moment, each one processing the man"s words.
"You saw who brought the stone?" Klesko asked. "You know who came here with the alexandrite?" Something in his voice-his accent, which was thicker and more parochial than Tiger"s-triggered a tremor of concern in the merchant.
"No," said the merchant. "I was not here."
Tiger fixed his eyes on the merchant, considering whether or not the old man was telling the truth. He noticed that Klesko"s attention was fixed on the shop"s video security cameras-two of them-one high in each corner of the shop"s far wall. His father turned his head and looked back through to the shop"s front windows: the street outside was busy with foot traffic. Tiger watched, knowingly, as his father"s mind performed the cold calculation that governed every action of his life: What did he want? How would he get it? Who would try to stop him?
"These cameras," Klesko said to the merchant. "You have pictures for that day-"
"No," Tiger cut his father off. Klesko was visibly startled as he felt Tiger take hold of his arm with a firm grip, silencing him. "Your nephew returns Wednesday of next week?" Tiger asked the merchant amiably.
"Wednesday." The merchant nodded, with visible relief. "Wednesday or Thursday." The old man pa.s.sed a business card to Tiger. "You can call first for Isaac, to be sure."
Tiger gave the merchant a smile, then let go of Klesko"s arm and turned toward the shop door, opening it for his father to pa.s.s through. Klesko hesitated, his pale skin seething red with anger, before finally turning away from the merchant and heading back out to 47th Street, Tiger just behind him.
"He would not give us the video pictures by choice," Tiger said evenly, leaning in close to Klesko, "and then what would you do? You would take them? Here?" Tiger gestured to all of 47th Street, its gem shops numbering more than a hundred, security men and cameras and unfriendly faces everywhere. "No. The old man had an alarm b.u.t.ton under the counter. We must wait for this Isaac."
Father and son walked westward in silence, side by side. Tiger could feel his father"s rage as it surged within him. He knew that every cell in his father"s body was aching to punish Tiger"s insolence-to make the city a witness to his authority-but Tiger also knew better than to be personally wounded by his father"s anger. Klesko had survived all these years, on the streets of Piter and in prison, by being the strongest and most ruthless man in every situation; that instinct could not be turned on and off like a switch. So Tiger waited, patiently, and Klesko"s rage gradually subsided. Reason took its place. Tiger was right, after all, and Tiger was his ally.
"Da," said Klesko. "You are right. Good, Tiger."
Tiger flushed with pride but continued walking, making no response. He was warmed by the glow of Klesko"s approval, and yet ... a part of him sensed that this was a dangerous thing to need or want.
From the Diamond District they had traveled directly to the borough of Queens, stopping only to buy a pay-as-you-go cell phone. With Tiger behind the wheel of their stolen Pontiac LeMans, Klesko made calls to several contacts-old business a.s.sociates. The calls were brief. At the end of the third call, Klesko picked up his street map and found the location he was looking for. Ten minutes later Tiger steered their car into a parking s.p.a.ce in a run-down residential area of Queens. The address was a three-story tenement, and Klesko led them down and through an unpromising bas.e.m.e.nt door.
The long, narrow bas.e.m.e.nt s.p.a.ce was brightly lit, and along each wall were at least fifteen computer stations, manned by workers of various nationalities, their heads bent low over keyboards, eyes squinting at the computer screens in front of them. To the rear of the bas.e.m.e.nt was some sort of small manufacturing station, and as the men approached that spot, a tall, bony man with a shaved head turned to face them. His face went completely pale at the sight of Klesko, the reaction of a man confronted by a ghost.
"Ramzan." Klesko nodded slightly.
"Klesko ..." Ramzan mumbled some further response, his eyes flickering in various directions, first at Tiger, with dread, and then to the two exits of the bas.e.m.e.nt, a.s.sessing their potential for escape.
"You can help me," Klesko said. He handed Ramzan a small piece of paper. Ramzan nervously reviewed the list of several names on the paper, then regarded the panels of computers, anxious to choose wisely. He finally approached a young Korean man at one of the stations and handed him the paper.
"Find," Ramzan said in English. The Korean kid looked up at Ramzan, glanced once at Klesko and Tiger, then set aside his regular work and began typing furiously on his keyboard.
Meanwhile, Tiger turned his attention back to the small manufacturing station that had occupied Ramzan when they first entered the bas.e.m.e.nt: Tiger could see now that there was a credit-card-imprinting machine, plus shoe boxes full of credit card blanks and stacks of computer printouts full from top to bottom with account-number lists. Tiger gestured toward a side table, where freshly imprinted cards were stacked. Ramzan nodded and, without hesitation, grabbed a handful of the cards, presenting them to Klesko.
"Good limits," said Ramzan desperately, in English now. "Three thousand, five thousand. Three or four days only, then change cards."
Klesko took the cards, not bothering to respond.
"It was so long ago, Klesko," said Ramzan, trying unsuccessfully to disguise the fear in his voice. "It was not me. My deal was ruined also. I had to run also. ..."
Klesko ignored him, pocketing the counterfeit credit cards. Within minutes, the young Korean operator appeared beside them and presented Ramzan with the same sheet of paper, now with search results jotted down beside only one of the names on the list. Ramzan shot an angry look of alarm at the Korean, but the kid just shrugged; he could do no more. Nervously, Ramzan presented the information to Klesko, who perused the results: an address for Benjamin Hatch, the American teacher who had been Yalena Mayakova"s friend those many years ago.
The information had led Klesko and Tiger to Shelter Island, the former home of Benjamin Hatch. Hatch was long since dead, it turned out, but the two of them had waited in the cold, empty house until Hatch"s sons had returned home. They"d been very persuasive with the Hatches. Tiger and Klesko had spent the next three days tracking down the woman who the Hatch brothers had given up before they died. Soon, Klesko and Tiger would meet her in person.
FOURTEEN.
At the Bloomingdale Library, Wally grabbed an Internet station and brought up the Emerson School website. She typed in the default pa.s.sword that Nick had put first on his list-EmersonAlum-and was granted full access, just as Nick had predicted.
Fortunately for Wally, the school made an effort to help former students and faculty keep in touch, with contact lists and message boards that seemed to get updated on a regular basis. Wally scanned the faculty rolls and found that her hunch had paid off: Benjamin Hatch had in fact been employed at Emerson for three academic years. His last year of teaching coincided with the failed vodka-importing business described in the Wall Street Journal article. Most likely, Hatch had traveled to Moscow for the teaching job, but after a few years he had sensed an opportunity to make his fortune in the newly thriving Russian economy, quitting Emerson and setting his doomed vodka import scheme into motion.
The scenario was a guess on Wally"s part, and it still didn"t explain if or how Hatch had been connected to Yalena. Wally continued searching the site. There was a photo section with cla.s.s pictures stretching back many years, and Wally spent a half hour scanning the photos but didn"t come upon any faces or names that helped her. For one thing, there was no evidence that any Russian students were mixed in with the student body, so it was unlikely Yalena had been a student at Emerson.
Wally continued checking the faculty listings from the time Hatch had been employed at the school-maybe she could track down other former teachers who might have useful information. After a half hour of searching, Wally came upon a listing for a woman named Charlene Rainer.
Charlene Rainer. Wally had the distinct feeling that she"d heard that name somewhere before. She scoured her memory but couldn"t pinpoint it. On the Emerson site, Ms. Rainer"s position was listed simply as "counselor," and her bio included only her nationality (American) and the span of her employment. Wally immediately noticed that Rainer had left Emerson the same year as Benjamin Hatch, around seventeen years ago. That had been right around the time Wally had been born, and the coincidence was intriguing. If Wally could locate her, Charlene Rainer might have some useful information on Hatch or even Yalena. Wally navigated a separate browser window to the same Friend Finder site she had used to come up with the long list of Benjamin Hatches and, after paying the $79.95 again, entered Charlene Rainer"s name.
The results were as daunting as they had been for Benjamin Hatch. There were 141 Charlene Rainers throughout the United States, and many of them were within a realistic age range for someone who might have been working as a student counselor over eighteen years earlier-eighty-seven of them, in fact.
Wally had no luck remembering why Charlene"s name rang so familiar for her, and wondering over this question spurred other thoughts. Since opening the Brighton Beach file, Wally had begun to mentally review her relationships with the women in her life, even those with whom she had only casual contact, wondering if any of them could be her ... Wally"s real mother. She"s been watching over you, Ella had said upon reading the handwritten note from Yalena, and Wally had felt instantly that it was true. Was it possible that Charlene Rainer actually was Yalena Mayakova? Her heart raced a little at the possibility.
Wally could call all the Charlenes on the list, but that process had not helped find Benjamin Hatch and had taken the crew three whole days besides. No, Wally needed to further narrow down the list of Charlenes ... but how?
Wally thought about Charlene"s position at Emerson: counselor. What did that mean? Was she a career counselor, a college-admissions counselor, or what? Wally reexamined the faculty rolls and found other people specifically listed for those jobs, so the answer was no. Could Charlene Rainer have been some kind of in-school shrink? That seemed like a possibility, since students at Emerson would probably experience some adjustment issues after moving so far from the States. Wally a.s.sumed that the Emerson School would only hire a licensed therapist to shrink the children of the American diplomatic corps. A little research on Wikipedia led Wally to the American Psychology Board, a good place for her to start; the APB was the licensing inst.i.tution that certified the graduates of the nation"s best accredited schools.
Wally stepped out of the library and called the APB"s public referral number, which was answered by a woman with a business voice that sounded somewhere in between an airline stewardess and an exhausted nurse.
"Referrals," the operator said. "How can I help you?"
"You make referrals for therapists?"
"We offer referrals for licensed members of the American Psychology Board only," answered the woman. "If you"d like to read about the credentials of our-"
"No, thanks, I went to your site. The thing is, my mother is having some issues. A family friend recommended someone, but I misplaced her contact number."
"I can check to see if she is a member of the APB. What is the clinician"s name?"
"Charlene Rainer."
"Okay." Wally could hear the woman typing onto her keyboard. "I see we have four members by that name. ..."
Wally was annoyed. "You wouldn"t think there would be more than one."
"What"s your geographical area?" the operator asked. "We can probably find her that way."
"Can you give me the contact numbers for all four?" Wally tried to sidestep the geographical issue, since she had no idea where Charlene might be based.
"Of course. The first is listed in-"
"Actually," Wally cut the woman off as an idea suddenly occurred to her, "sorry for interrupting, but I think maybe I can narrow it down. Do you have information there for specific areas of expertise?"
"Yes, ma"am," said the operator.
"My mother"s native language is Russian. That"s why this particular therapist was recommended." Wally was taking a shot. If Charlene Rainer spent several years in Moscow, there was a good chance she came away with enough Russian to list it as a marketable skill on her resume.
"In fact," the operator answered after a moment"s perusal of the files on her computer screen, "one of the Charlene Rainers is proficient in Russian. Do you have a pencil and paper handy?"
"Shoot," said Wally, and jotted down the phone number and mailing address of the Russian-speaking therapist named Charlene Rainer. When she hung up, Wally looked at the notes in front of her, not knowing whether she should feel lucky or nervous; the address was on West 88th Street, in the Upper West Side between Columbus and Amsterdam, just a short walk from the empty bank where Wally and the crew were squatted.
Atley Greer stood on the balcony of the sixth-floor apartment, looking down on Riverside Drive.