In for a Ruble (37 page)

“Good-bye, Thomas. What time does the doorman get off?”

“WAIT! Okay. Go to the school, my locker. I’ll give you the combination. You’ll find what you want taped under the top shelf. No fucking good to me anymore.”

“Why do you say that?” I asked, although I knew the answer.

“You haven’t heard, smart guy? Walter’s dead. They found his body yesterday. You and Sebastian and Julia can all have a great time remembering what a wonderful human being that shit was. You can read the note at his funeral. I won’t be there.”

WEEK THREE: ALL IN

CHAPTER
40

Never underestimate the impact of boredom on a teenager. I didn’t experience any. My daily concern was getting through the day. The cold, the work, the guards, the whole system, even many of my fellow
zeks
—they all had it in for me. I wasn’t unique, they had it in for
everybody.
That was life, if you can call it that, in the camps. Whatever energy you managed was focused on making it to tomorrow. Looking back, I’ve often wondered why we bothered—tomorrow would only replay today.

Andras Leitz could not have come from a more different time and place, and holed up, as I came to find out, in a suite at the Regency Hotel, with only a TV for company—no one to talk to, no one to friend or tweet or text—he was bored. So, only somewhat to my surprise when I called him from the lobby, he told me to come up to his room. Of course, the news that Irina was on the run might have had something to do with it too.

*   *   *

I got lucky at Thomas Leitz’s school. A construction crew was collecting weekend overtime while they drank coffee and laid a new floor in the main hallway. They didn’t give me a second look when I told them I’d forgotten some lesson plans. I went from the school to the office and made a copy of the note Thomas had hidden for the last four years. It answered one set of questions and opened another. I put the copy in my wallet and the original in the safe. I walked home hoping I wouldn’t encounter the emptiness that was there. No more empty than I was used to, but all the more so because of what I’d hoped to find.

I could have called her. What would I say? I’m still working for your man, Batkin, because he has a hold on me I can’t explain? Ever hear of Beria? My father, Beria? She probably blamed me for Irina being on the loose as well.

I got the vodka from the freezer and spent a lonely evening thinking about Leitz and his family. I’d wandered into the middle of it, eyes wide shut, and had them opened to the horrors of the kind that can only be delivered by those closest to us. I’d grown up with a different set of horrors until I got the opportunity to join the enemy I couldn’t beat. But even today, I was still victimized—by my past and by Taras Batkin because he knew how much he could hurt. Stop, I told myself. You’re still a victim only because you allow Batkin to make you one. I could have called his bluff this morning. I still could. But I didn’t—and wouldn’t. I was afraid. I had the chance to right a thirty-year wrong, but not if Batkin blew it up before I even got started. Maybe Aleksei wouldn’t care. Hard to know, but I was scared to take that bet. So I’d sold a piece of my soul to Batkin—at least for the time being. I had the sense that the Leitzes had made a similar deal some years ago.

Beria put in a brief appearance, across the room, chuckling.

I know all about selling souls. You’ll get used to it after a while. We all do.

He didn’t leave when I told him to go away, but he didn’t say any more either.

As I sipped my vodka, I kept thinking that some event had set off the horrors of the Leitz family. The obvious candidate was the suicide of Sebastian’s daughter, Daria. Everything from Pauline’s breakdown to Marianna’s drinking to Thomas’s blackmail dated to four years ago. But I was guessing there was something else, something earlier, something that had been, in Thomas Leitz’s words, swept under the rug—an open wound growing more infected with each passing year. At some point, nothing short of amputation would cure it. Perhaps Sebastian and his siblings believed that the early death of their parents was sufficient tragedy for one lifetime, that they were entitled to bury any others. They were justified in doing whatever was necessary to avoid the heartbreaks that inevitably came later, as they do to all families.

My deliberations were punctuated with refills of my glass and checks of my watch and the hope that the next sound would be the chime of the elevator and the scrape of Victoria’s key in the lock. Beria shook his head.

No key by 9:30, and the Leitzes were growing foggy in a vodka haze, so I took myself and Lavrenty Pavlovich over to a brew pub at the Seaport that makes a passable burger and pretty good beer. Neither shed further light. When I got home, the apartment was still empty and I had the first unhappy premonition of what that emptiness could feel like if it lasted beyond the next day or two.

*   *   *

I went to the office early and worked the Basilisk. Irina had hit eight ATMs after she took off, withdrawing a thousand dollars from each as she made her way downtown. I’d spelled out the game plan for her, two nights ago in the car. The last withdrawal was on Canal Street—Chinatown. Not where I’d expect her to run. Unless …

In the last few years, low-priced bus service between New York and Boston has become a booming business. The Fung Wah Bus company was the pioneer, running hourly coaches from Chinatown to Chinatown. Irina wanted her car. That would give her freedom. I reached for the phone to call Gina and stopped. Too much time to get to Gibbet. There had to be a faster way.

Feeling a touch of the same satisfaction I used to get when I fed some Yasenevo desk jockey the kind of bullshit that would make his life miserable for a week or two, I called Philip Paine. Dragon Lady had been tamed, she put me straight through. He didn’t sound happy to hear from me.

“I need a favor, on behalf of Leitz and Batkin.”

“We’re not in a position to—”

“There’s a barn near your campus, on Martin Lane, right off Hayfields Drive. I want to know if there’s a car in it, a BMW Three Series with New York plates.”

“This is a very irregular request.”

“It’s important.”

“Do Ambassador Batkin and Dr. Leitz know you’re calling?”

His reliance on titles grated—if only because they slowed everything down. I ignored that and put down my bluff.

“Call them if you wish. I’ll hang on.”

An easy bet, and I won.

“What does this have to do with…”

I raised just to make sure. “It has to do with a group of students at your school who’ve been running a porn ring right under your nose. The Feds are aware of it, and I’m trying to make sure it doesn’t blow up in everybody’s face.”

A very long silence.

“
Pornography
?”

“
Child
pornography. A crime—good tabloid copy too.”

“Oh, my God…”

“You’ll get someone to check the barn?”

“Please … Don’t do anything. I’ll call right back.”

*   *   *

The car was gone, as I suspected. Paine peppered me with panicked questions, which I evaded. He grew increasingly excited until I hung up. I felt more guilty pleasure—akin to what the Germans call schadenfreude, delight in someone else’s difficulties. Paine should have kept better tabs on his students. In loco parentis, as he said.

With the cash and her car, Irina was going to be tough to track. My one link was Andras. I called Leitz.

“I need to talk to your son.”

“Not a good idea.”

“I’m not concerned with good or bad. I need to talk to him.”

“He’s in a safe place. Like you suggested.”

“I’m not going to give him up. He’s in a world of trouble—of his own making. I’m his best chance to get out of it, maybe in one piece.”

“The answer is still no.”

“He may feel differently.”

“You’ve been paid. You’ve gone to extra trouble, I’m aware of that. Tell me what you consider fair compensation, and I’ll consider it.”

Did he think I was shaking him down? Or was he trying to buy me off?

“How do I get in touch with your pal Konychev?”

He paused. “Why?”

“It could help your son.”

“I … I don’t know.”

“You have investors you don’t know how to contact? I find that hard to believe.”

“I know where to find his lawyers. I only met the man once.”

I wasn’t sure whether he was telling the truth, just being cagey, or outright lying. I didn’t have time to think about it.

“Talk to your brother recently?”

“Thomas? Why?”

“He had Nosferatu outside his apartment yesterday, he’s looking for your brother-in-law’s computers.”

“What would Thomas know about those?”

“He’s been blackmailing Coryell for the last four years.”

“WHAT? Thomas? Walter? Blackmail? What the hell are you talking about?”

“One of the things this is about. One of the reasons I need to talk to your son.”

“What blackmail?”

“I suspect it has to do with the death of your daughter.”

A long silence. Then a whisper. “Daria?”

“That’s right.”

Another silence. “Your services are finished. Don’t call again.”

I started to respond. But I was talking to a dead line.

CHAPTER
41

I’d told Leitz to take it away, but I asked the Basilisk if Andras was using his cell phone.

No deal,
it responded.

Okay, what’s Sebastian Leitz been up to?

Ah-ha,
the beast said,
you’re not as dumb as you look.

But Leitz was. For a supposed genius, he was rock-fucking stupid. He’d used his American Express black card to guarantee a suite at the Regency for a guest named Robert Klein.

I left a note for Foos to be on call before I caught the subway uptown. I spent most of the train ride cursing Leitz. Not just for his overprotective stubbornness, but his idiocy. The Regency was a well-known luxury hotel and exactly the kind of place a rich Wall Streeter would park his son. Worse, at Park and East Sixty-first, it was right around the corner from his mansion. Leitz probably figured—again foolishly—he could look in on the kid on his way to and from power breakfasts with his Wall Street advisers over fifty-dollar eggs in the Regency restaurant.

I called “Robert Klein” from the lobby. He shouldn’t have answered but he did.

“It’s Turbo—your chauffeur, remember? We need to talk, about Irina. I’m downstairs.”

“What about Irina?”

“She’s gone. On the run. What room?”

“My dad said…”

“I know what he said. I told him to say it. Things have changed.”

Silence.

“She’s in trouble Andras. Big trouble. You can help her. You may be the only one who can. I’m Foos’s friend, remember? Call him if you want.”

More silence.

Then, “Room eight-oh-one.”

*   *   *

He answered the door wearing jeans and a plaid shirt. He was tall in a way that I hadn’t noticed over the weekend, in my haste to get out of Gibbet. Almost six one, with blue eyes and a soft-featured baby face. His hair was curly, like his father’s, more brown than red, and cut neatly around his head. His eyes looked past me and darted up and down the hall, before he stood aside. I wasn’t sure who he was looking for, but I would have bet his bank account on his old man. We shook hands. His grip was firm enough, but uncertain, quick to let go.

A suite at the Regency was not the way I’d treat my son if I’d just found out he’d been running a porn ring, but Aleksei would say I had my own fatherly shortcomings. The living room reflected someone’s idea of what wealth should look like. Expensive wallpaper, striped fabrics, chintz pillows, solid, anonymous furniture. Three doors leading elsewhere, two bedrooms and a bathroom, I guessed. The kid standing in the middle of it looked out of place.

“Thanks for letting me come up,” I said, starting easy. “How’re you doing?”

“Okay, I guess.” He plopped on a striped couch. “To tell you the truth, I have no idea.”

“You’re going through a rough patch.”

“Yeah. What about Irina?”

“She’s run away, like I said. You heard about her stepfather, yesterday?”

He nodded. “It’s my fault.”

“I don’t know that. I want to hear your story.”

His hand sliced through the air. Tough kid. Or kid trying to play tough. “What else do you know about Irina?”

I settled in on an upholstered chair across from the sofa. “She took off right after the shooting, like she was waiting for a chance to run. She withdrew eight thousand dollars, went to Gibbet, and picked up her car. I think she had a destination in mind. I think you might know where it is. She doesn’t believe this—she thinks she’s smarter than he is—but if Karp, the assassin, finds her before I do, he’ll snap her in half like a little bird. I like his chances a lot better than hers. Any idea where she went?”

He put his head in his hands and said nothing.

“Andras—you can help her.”

“It’s all my fault.”

I had no patience for that self-pitying refrain, but I backed off to give him a chance to think.

“Tell me about the Players? Your idea?”

He shook his head. “It just happened, you know?”

“No. I don’t know.”

He shook his head again. “I can’t explain. It just kind of happened.”

I’d thought, perhaps, the events of the last few days would have been traumatic enough to make him want to talk. He wasn’t ready. Part me, the Cheka part, said sweat him, punish him, the kid was guilty, a child-criminal, criminal first. Would’ve worked, more than likely. Maybe he deserved it. Maybe we’d get to that. But not yet.

“How long ago? When did it start?”

He shrugged. “Few years.”

“Why? How? Who rented the place above the liquor store?”

He shrugged again. “We all did.”

“We?”

“Yeah. We.”

“Who’s we?”

“You already know that. If you don’t, then…”

The kid was thinking.

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why’d you do it?”