Текст книги "The Devil's Garden"

Автор книги: Richard Montanari

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Текущая страница: 6 (всего у книги 22 страниц)

Kolya tried to hold his gaze, but failed. He looked away. When he looked back, Aleks had the money out.

“I need the following things,” he said. “Do not write them down.” He then dictated a list, a list that included a fast laptop computer, a high-megapixel DSLR camera, a portable color printer, photo-quality paper, and a half dozen prepaid cellphones.

“You can buy these things now?” Aleks asked.

“Hell yeah.”

“Do you have a driving license?”

“Sure.”

“May I see it?”

Kolya hesitated, apparently not used to producing ID on demand. He then took out a bulky wallet, a scuffed leather billfold attached to a chain. He extracted his license. Before leaving Tallinn, Aleks had looked up New York licenses on the Web, had studied a JPEG of the document. Kolya’s permit looked genuine.

“Can you get me a license like this?”

“No problem,” Kolya said. “What’s the name and address?”

“I don’t know yet,” Aleks said. “When you come back we will take the picture. Then we will begin.”

As Kolya walked across the garage, he motioned to Omar, who emerged from the office. Moments later, the two men left the shop.

ONE HOUR LATER Kolya returned, four large bags in hand. While Kolya was gone, Aleks looked through every drawer and file cabinet in the office. He had all the information he needed on the young man – his home address, phone numbers, cell numbers, social security number, bank accounts. He had them all memorized. Although his recall was not quite photographic, he had an eidetic talent for recollection. His greatest faculty was thoroughness. He kept both his enemies and friends at hand. In his experience, one had the potential to become the other at a moment’s notice. Often, with no notice at all.

“Any problems?” Aleks asked.

Kolya shook his head. “Cash talks, bro.”

After unpacking the bags and boxes inside, Aleks booted the laptop. He got through all the opening screens, launched the web browser, and began to surf the Internet for what he needed.

He soon found the official documents he needed online, hooked up the printer, and printed them.

While the laptop battery charged, he unpacked the DSLR camera, a Nikon D60. He slipped in a high-capacity SD memory card and, when the battery held sufficient charge to take a few images, he had Kolya render five close-up photographs of him standing in front of a white wall. He hooked the camera up to the laptop, launched the image program, and printed off the photographs on high-quality, semi-gloss paper.

An hour later he was ready. He gave Kolya the trimmed photographs. “At some time today I will have the name and address I need for this driving license.”

Kolya nodded. “I’ll have Omar take this to my man and he’ll get it set up. All we have to do is call with the info and he’ll get right on it. We could have it within the hour.”

“Do you trust this man? This forger?”

“He did a lot of work for my father.”

This was good enough for Aleks. “Do you still have enough money to cover this?”

Aleks saw the slight hesitation in Kolya’s response. There was no question that there was enough money left over from what Aleks had earlier given the young man, but they were all thieves in this room. The hesitation spoke to instinct, more than reason. Perhaps involuntarily, Kolya’s eyes dipped to Aleks’s tattoos, and what they meant.

“I’m good,” Kolya said.

“Good,” Aleks replied. He slipped on his coat. “Are you ready to do this?”

Kolya shot to his feet. He held up a set of keys. “We’ll take the H2. Go to Queens in style, yo.”

Aleks unplugged the fully charged laptop, slipped it into its carrying case. “We need to make one more stop first. Are there places near here that sell hardware? Tools? We will need these things.” Aleks handed Kolya a list. Kolya scanned it.

“Home Depot,” Kolya said, handing it back.

Aleks took the list back, burned it in an ashtray. “Will they have all these things in one store?”

Kolya laughed. “Bro,” he said. “This is America.”

EIGHT

The Austin Ale House was famous for many things, not the least of which was its propensity to welcome any number of members of the Queens district attorney’s office in the front door, and discreetly help them out the back door a few hours later. Many times, when a major case was won, the DA’s office celebrated the victory in the bar/restaurant/Off Track Betting parlor on Austin Street.

The site was also famous – or more accurately infamous – for being the site of the 1964 Kitty Genovese murder, and subsequent legend. Kitty Genovese was a young woman who was stabbed to death in the parking lot, and cried for help as she crawled across the frozen asphalt toward her apartment. According to numerous reports, neighbors who heard her pleas failed to respond, although over the years this notion has come into question. Regardless, the syndrome had become part of the justice system lexicon, dubbed the “bystander effect” or, if you lived in Queens, the Genovese Syndrome.

None of this was ever far from the minds of the prosecutors, cops, and support personnel who elbowed the mahogany at the Austin. Over the interceding years, many a glass had been raised in the name and legend and memory of Catherine Susan Genovese.

Michael had driven Falynn Harris to her foster parent’s home in Jackson Heights. They had talked for nearly two hours. During that time Michael walked her carefully through the case, twice, and she had proven himself remarkably perceptive and bright, far beyond her fourteen years. Michael knew that if she had half the poise and strength on the stand, the defense would not shake a single branch.

But it was on the drive back to her foster home that something remarkable happened. Michael told Falynn about the murder of his own parents. It just seemed to come out in one long sentence. Except for Abby, he had never told another living soul the whole story; about his fears, his unrelenting grief, his anger.

Was this wrong? Had he crossed the line? There was little doubt in his mind that he had. But he knew why he had done it. He had one chance of putting Patrick Ghegan away for life, and that chance was Falynn Harris. He needed her to be not only intellectually engaged, but emotionally engaged.

When he finished his story, Falynn just stared at him. She dabbed her eyes while he was telling the tale, but now her eyes – although a bit red – were dry. She almost looked a bit matronly.

“What does that saying mean?” she asked.

“Which one?”

“The one your mom said to you right before, you know . . .”

Michael had told her about this, then instantly regretted it. It was something planted deeply in the garden of his soul, and he did not let many people in. “Zhivy budem, ne pomryom,” he said. “If we will be alive, we will not die.”

Falynn looked out the passenger window for a few moments. It had begun to rain. She looked back at Michael. “What do you think that means really?”

“I have a few ideas,” Michael said. “What do you think it means?”

Falynn gave him a beguiling smile. “I’ll tell you when this is all over.”

Michael nodded. He took out his small notebook, wrote on it. “This is my e-mail address and my cellphone number. You contact me whenever you want. Don’t even look at the clock.”

Falynn took the piece of paper. She unbuckled her seatbelt, leaned over.

“Is it okay to hug you?” she asked.

Michael smiled. “It’s okay.”

They hugged, parted.

As Michael watched her climb the steps, he knew everything was in place. She was going to testify fully against Patrick Ghegan, and the man who had killed her father was, at the very least, going away for life.

Michael Roman was going to win.

Life was good.

THE BAR WAS PACKED. The gathering was for retiring ADA Rupert White who, it was rumored, was getting ready to join a white-shoe firm on Wall Street.

Michael looked around the room. It was a who’s who of the movers and shakers in Queens politics.

For the first hour it was a standard roast – other prosecutors, defense attorneys, city councilman, judges, all recounting stories and anecdotes, PG-rated ditties that brought casual laughter and mild reproach from the ostensibly dignified Rupert White. In the second hour, after enough Jameson had flowed under the bridge of propriety, the vulgarity was unleashed, and the stories recalled a number of less-than-public episodes, including the time Rupert White was stalked by a disturbed juror from an old case and, of course, a cache of embarrassing inter-office romantic moments.

“As I live and breathe. Tommy Jesus and The Stone Man.”

The voice came from behind Tommy and Michael.

Michael’s nickname, The Stone Man, grew out of two sources. He originally acquired it because he was of Estonian descent, and a lot of the street people he knew in the early years – most of whom he prosecuted – had no idea what or where Estonia was. They couldn’t pronounce it. The second meaning came later, due to Michael’s reputation as an ace prosecutor. As he began to try and win the bigger cases, he had to square off against more and more hardened criminals, at least those whose defense attorneys were dumb enough to put them on the stand. Michael Roman, even in those heady early days, was unflappable, solid as a rock. Thus the Stone Man.

For Tommy, the nickname also had a dual meaning. Tommy Jesus came first out of the obvious. Tommy’s last name was Christiano. But his reputation in the office was one of a prosecutor who could take a dying or dead case, and bring it back to life, like Lazarus from the tomb.

Michael turned around. Behind him stood an inebriated Gina Torres. When Michael had started at the Felony Trial Bureau, Gina Torres had been a paralegal; a slender, leggy knockout, given to skin-tight business suits and expensive perfume. Now, a few years later, she had moved on to a private firm – they all did – and put on a few pounds, but they all landed in the right places.

“You look fucking great,” she slurred at Michael.

“Gina,” Michael said, a little taken aback. “You too.” And it was true. The café au lait skin, the shiny black hair, the pastel lipstick. That tight skirt.

“I heard you were married,” she said.

Michael and Gina had had a brief, sparking romance for a few months when he’d gotten to Kew Gardens. It ended as abruptly as it started. But Michael recalled every tryst, every coffee-room kiss, every elevator encounter. He held up his ring finger. At least he hoped it was his ring finger. He was getting hammered.

Gina leaned forward and planted one, hard and sloppy, on the mouth.

Michael almost fell off the stool.

She pulled back, ran the tip of her tongue over his lips. “You don’t know what you’re missing.”

When Michael was able to speak, he said “I kinda do.”

Gina slid her business card onto the bar in front of Michael, took one of the full shot glasses, downed it, then walked away. Every man at the bar – actually, every man at the Austin Ale House – watched the show.

Michael glanced at Tommy. For the moment, for the first time in his life, he was speechless.

“Dude,” Tommy said. “You’re my fucking hero.”

Michael picked up a napkin, wiped the lipstick from his lips. He drank a shot, shivered. “Abby’s going to know, isn’t she?”

Tommy laughed, sipped his drink. “Oh yeah,” he said. “They always do.”

NINE

On a busy street in the Astoria section of Queens, two men sat in an SUV near the corner of Newtown Avenue and 31st Street, beneath the rumbling steel canopy of the El. They had stopped at a Home Depot on the way, paying cash for a total of twelve items. The cashier had been Pakistani. Aleksander Savisaar wondered if there were actually any Americans in America.

Aleks took what he needed from the plastic bag, and put it in his leather shoulder bag.

The address they sought was a narrow doorway lodged between a funeral parlor and a store that sold pagers. The cracked stone steps and grimy door told Aleks that this portal did not lead to a flourishing enterprise of any sort. Next to the door was a verdigris-covered bronze plaque that read:

PEOPLE’S LEGAL SERVICES, LLC.

VIKTOR J. HARKOV, ESQ.

SUITE 206

They circled the block, then parked across the street. An aged sign in the window on the second floor declared Attorney / Notary Public. It appeared to be from the 1970s.

“Check to see if there is a back entrance,” Aleks said.

Kolya slipped on his sunglasses, glanced at the side-view mirror, and stepped out of the vehicle.

Aleks reached into the box on the back seat. Inside were a half-dozen prepaid cellphones. He extracted the printout from his pocket, one he had made at the Schlössle Hotel in Tallinn, the address and phone number of Viktor Harkov. He punched in the number. After five rings there was an answer.

“People’s Legal Services.”

It was a man, older, Russian accent. Aleks listened to the background noise. No sounds of anyone typing, no conversation. He spoke in broken Russian. “May I speak to Viktor Harkov please?”

“I am Harkov.”

Aleks noted an asthmatic wheeze in the man’s breathing. He was ailing. Aleks glanced at the bank on the corner. “Mr Harkov, I am calling from First National Bank, and I would like to – ”

“We do not have an account with your bank. I am not interested.”

“I understand. I was just wondering if I might make an appointment to – ”

The line went dead. Aleks closed the phone. The brief conversation told Aleks a few things, first and foremost was that, unless the man subscribed to call forwarding, Viktor Harkov was indeed in his office, and that he did not have a secretary or receptionist. If he did, she was not in the office, or perhaps she was in a restroom. By the looks of the building, the signs, and the fact that Harkov answered his own phone, he doubted it. Harkov may have answered the phone with a client in his office, but Aleks doubted this, too.

Kolya got back in the vehicle.

“There is a rear entrance, but you have to go by the back door of the Chinese restaurant,” Kolya said. “Two of the bus boys are back there right now catching a smoke.”

Aleks glanced at his watch. He opened his laptop. Within moments he got on a nearby wi-fi network. He entered the address for People’s Legal Services on Google Maps and zoomed in. If the image was accurate, there was access to the target building via a fire escape from the roof to the top floor. He pointed to the image.

“Is this still there?”

Kolya squinted at the screen. He probably needed glasses but was far too vain to get them. “I didn’t see it. I wasn’t looking up.”

Aleks had given the man a simple task, an undemanding reconnaissance of the rear of the building. He was clearly not his father.

Aleks knew he needed Kolya. But not for long.

“Wait here,” he said. “And keep the engine running.”

PEOPLE’S LEGAL SERVICES was at the end of a long hallway on the second floor. Aleks entered the building one door east of the building, and then taken the stairs to the roof. Once there, he crossed over and descended the fire escape and entered Harkov’s building on the fourth floor.

On the way down the back stairs, Aleks scanned the landings for surveillance cameras. He saw none. Still, as he entered, he put on a ball cap and pulled up the collar on his leather coat. He met no one.

When he reached the door to 206 he stopped, listened. From inside the office he heard the sound of a Russian-language radio program. He heard no other voices. He glanced both ways down the hallway. He was alone. He took a cloth from his pocket, turned the doorknob. The door opened onto a small, messy anteroom. To one side was an old pickled oak desk, covered with newspapers, magazines, and advertising flyers, all yellowed, all coated with the dust of months. Against one wall was a rusting file cabinet. The room was empty. As he had thought, there was no secretary.

Aleks closed the door gently behind him, turned the lock. When he appeared in the doorway to the inner office the man at the desk appeared startled.

“Are you Viktor Harkov?”

The old man looked at Aleks over the top of his filmy bifocals. He was lank and cadaverous, with thinning gray hair, a liver-spotted scalp. He wore a drab suit, tattered at the cuffs, a yellowed shirt and knit tie. The clothes sagged on his skeletal frame.

“The son of Jakob and Adele,” the old man said. “How can I help you?”

Aleks stepped into the inner office. “I am here to enquire about your services.”

The man nodded, looked Aleks up and down. “Where are you from?”

Aleks closed the door behind him. “I am from Kolossova.”

Color drained from Harkov’s face. “I am not familiar with this place.”

The man was lying. Aleks had expected this. “It is a small village in south-eastern Estonia.” He glanced toward the smudged windows. The buildings across the street had windows facing this office. He crossed the room, lowered the blinds, all the while keeping an eye on Harkov’s hands. He would be surprised if a man in Harkov’s world – a man with a sordid past of trafficking in human flesh – did not possess a firearm, a gun kept close at hand.

Aleks reached into his coat, removed a cheap, packable raincoat, no larger than a pack of cigarettes. “We have business, Mr Harkov.”

“And what business would this be?”

Aleks slipped on the raincoat and a pair of thin latex gloves. “In spring 2005 you brokered an adoption of two little Estonian girls.”

“I have been legal counsel for many adoptions. I do not remember them all.”

“Of course,” Aleks said. The subject was talking. This was good. If he said one thing, he may say another. He opened the shoulder bag, took out a roll of duct tape.

“How old are you?” Aleks asked. “That is, if you do not object to my asking.”

The man considered him for a moment, his deeply creased brow furrowed. “I am eighty years old on my next birthday. In three weeks.”

Aleks nodded. He knew this was a milestone Viktor Harkov would never reach. He did the math in his head. Viktor Harkov would have been too young to fight as a soldier in World War II. He was not too old to have been in a concentration or displaced person’s camp.

“And you?” Harkov asked. “How old are you?”

Lawyers, Aleks thought. He found no reason to lie. “I am thirty-three.”

Harkov took it in. “What are you going to do here today?”

“That depends,” Aleks said. “Are you going to answer my question? About the two Estonian girls?”

“I cannot tell you anything. This is confidential information.”

Aleks nodded. “With which hand do you write?”

Silence.

Aleks reached over to the desk, picked up a snow globe – a festive winter scene of what Aleks now knew was Times Square – and tossed it. The man raised both hands to catch it, favoring the right. He was right-handed. Aleks walked around the desk. He put his foot against the right wheel of the desk chair. Harkov tried to turn the chair, but was unable. Aleks took the snow globe from Harkov’s grasp. He then took hold of the man’s left arm, just below the wrist.

He wrapped duct tape around the man’s chest, his left arm, his ankles, leaving the right arm free. This arm he duct-taped to the chair, leaving enough room for the forearm and wrist to move. Enough room to write. He placed a pen in the man’s slack hand, a blank legal pad on the desk in front of him.

He finished by cutting off the man’s trousers and stained underwear. Harkov, naked now from the waist down, trembled in fear, but said nothing.

“Do you know Radio Moscow, Mr Harkov?”

Harkov glared at him, remained silent.

Aleks would bet that the old man knew Radio Moscow to be the official international broadcast station of the former USSR, the station that ultimately became the Voice of Russia. Aleks had a different meaning.

From his shoulder bag Aleks removed a pair of electrical wires, each about six feet in length, a pair of alligator clips, and a pair of large dry cell batteries. Harkov watched his every move with his tiny hawk’s eyes.

Aleks lifted the desk telephone, loosened the screws at the bottom, removed the plate, and hooked the phone up in sequence to the two large batteries.

He unspooled the wires, wrapped one wire around the man’s big toe – a wire that would act as a ground – and attached the other to the end of the man’s flaccid penis. Harkov winced at the pain, but made no sound.

“Some have called this the Tucker Telephone, out of respect and courtesy to its inventor, I suppose. To me it will always be Radio Moscow.”

Harkov struggled feebly against his restraints. Aleks could see bloodied spittle running from the corner of his mouth. The man had bitten his tongue.

“It really is quite ingenious,” Aleks continued. “Whenever this phone rings, it will send a charge through the wires, to your genitals. I understand it is quite painful. We used it often in Grozny, but then it was only for men who had been fighting for a cause, a cause they believed in.” Aleks took out one of his prepaid cellphones.

“You, on the other hand, are guilty of something far worse. You stole a child from its mother. In all of nature, this is punishable by death. I do not see why human beings should be any different.”

Aleks held up the cellphone.

“You can’t do this,” Harkov breathed.

“Two little girls, Mr Harkov. Where did they go?”

“I . . . I help people,” Harkov said. His body began to tremble even more violently. Sweat dripped from his brow.

“Have you ever thought for one moment that you might be destroying lives on the other end of your deals?” Aleks touched three numbers on his cellphone.

“These children are unwanted.”

“Not all of them.” Three more numbers.

“You don’t understand. People come to me and they are desperate for children. They give them good homes. A loving environment. Many people say they will help. I take action. I make a difference.”

“Two little girls from Estonia,” Aleks said, ignoring him. His finger hovered over the final digit.

Harkov thrashed in his chair. “I will never tell you. Never!”

“Moscow calling, Mr Harkov.” Aleks hit the last number. Seconds later the telephone on the desk rang, sending current along the wires.

A flash of orange sparks ignited Harkov’s pubic hair. The man screamed, but it was soon muffled by a greasy garage rag Aleks shoved into his mouth. Harkov’s body shuddered for a moment, then fell limp. Aleks lifted the handset, replaced it. He snapped an ammonia capsule beneath his nose. The man came to. Aleks pulled out the rag, got close to his ear.

“Tell me where the files are located. Two little Estonian girls. Little girls you had stolen from their mother’s womb. Girls you had a man named Mikko Vänskä spirit away in the night. I want to know the name and address of the people who adopted them.”

Nothing. Harkov’s head lolled on his shoulders.

Aleks shoved the rag back into the man’s mouth, dialed again. Again the phone rang. Harkov shrieked in pain. This close, Aleks could smell the cooking flesh. He also knew that Harkov’s bowels had released.

Another ammonia capsule.

Aleks walked to the window for a moment. Harkov mumbled something into his gag. Aleks returned, tapped the man’s right hand. Harkov wrote a scribbled word on the pad. Unreadable. Aleks hit redial on his phone. Another jolt. This time the tail of Viktor Harkov’s yellowed dress shirt caught fire. Aleks let it burn for a second, then doused the flame.

The office was becoming a landfill of offensive odors. Greasy flesh, burning hair, feces, sweat. Aleks pulled Harkov’s head back. The man’s face was bathed in perspiration. Aleks pinched the fleshy part of the man’s nostrils until he came back to consciousness.

“Two little girls,” Aleks repeated.

Nothing.

Aleks reached into the bag, pulled out a small alligator clip. He detached the clip from Harkov’s genitals, and connected the wire to the smaller clip. This he attached to one of Harkov’s eyelids.

On the desk was a photograph taken perhaps sometime in the 1970s, a picture of a thin, nervous looking teenaged boy.

“This is your son?” Aleks asked.

Harkov nodded slightly.

“If I do not find the people I am looking for, I will pay this man a visit. It is far too late to save yourself – indeed, the account of this day was written years ago when you crossed my path – but you have the opportunity, right now, to give me what I want. If you do, you have my word that no harm will come to him.”

Aleks removed the gag from the old man’s mouth, but Harkov said nothing.

Once more, Moscow called Viktor Harkov. The charge burned away the entire eyelid in a flash of bright blue flame.

Two minutes later, the old man told Aleks everything.

ALEKS FOUND THE files in the bottom drawer of the steel cabinet in the corner of the outer office. Inside the cabinet he noticed the remains of a long-ago forgotten lunch, a moldy brown paper bag dotted with rodent stool. In this tableau lived the horrors of old age, Aleks thought, of its infirmities and disease and trials, in here were the whispers of these days before death, a feeling he would never know, a . . .

. . . triumph over eternity in the moment he strides up the hill, the field of corpses thick beneath his feet, the screams of the dying a dark sonata in the distance. The stone farmhouse has taken many mortar rounds, its pitted façade now a defiant intaglio. Inside he knows he will find his answers . . .

ALEKS GLANCED OUT the window, at the street. Kolya sat in the Hummer, a pair of earphones in his ears. He smoked a cigarette. The world continued to turn. The world was not going to miss this man who traded in human flesh, who brokered children in the night.

Aleks turned back to the dead man, took out his knife, and finished his work.

BEFORE OPENING THE DOOR, Aleks looked at the documents. There were two files, two families with twin girls. Both were in the right time frame from four years earlier. Both were brokered through Helsinki. There was no further detail on the children, other than their gender and their date of passage to the United States.

And, most importantly, their names and addresses.

Before he stepped into the hallway Aleks turned back to the room. He had not touched anything without his gloves on. He had worn the plastic raincoat and his ball cap nearly the entire time. Although the offices were covered in dust, the path from the door to Viktor Harkov’s desk was swept clean. Aleks had not left shoeprints in the dust. Only the most sophisticated of forensic evidence gathering would reveal that he had ever been in these rooms, and even if a man like Viktor Harkov warranted such attention, Aleks would be long gone by the time he was identified.

Still, he had now committed murder in a country not his own. He could never undo this, or take it back. Everything had changed.

In Estonia he knew where all the bolt-holes were, had several identities in several safe houses along the Narva River. He knew how the police operated, how the politicians operated, who could be trusted, who could be bought. He knew the when, the where, the how and, most importantly, the how much. This was different. This was the United States.

He walked slowly down the hallway to the stairs. He did not use the handrail. When he reached the back door he used his shoulder to open it. The alley behind the building was empty. Moments later he rounded the corner and put the plastic bag containing the bloody raincoat and latex gloves in a trashcan.

When he slipped into the vehicle, Kolya considered him, but did not say a word. Aleks nodded. The Hummer pulled slowly into the stream of traffic.

THEY IDLED IN A PARKING lot of a McDonald’s. Aleks scanned the files. He wrote an address on a piece of newspaper, showed it to Kolya, who entered the address into his GPS system. Aleks committed it to memory.

“This is not far,” Kolya said. “Maybe one hour. Maybe less, depending on traffic.”

Aleks looked at his watch. “Let’s go.”

THEY LEFT THE CITY and drove along a magnificent river. It reminded Alex of the Narva. He looked around, at the tidy houses, the manicured lawns, the shrubs, trees, flowers. He could settle here. If this was where his Anna and Marya had grown up, they would be happy in Kolossova.

At just after six PM they found the address. The house was set far back from the road, barely visible through the trees, approached by a long winding driveway that snaked through the woods, bordered by early spring flowers and low undergrowth. There was a single car in the driveway. According to Kolya, it was a late model compact. Aleks did not know anything about current American models. They all looked exactly alike to him.

Except for Kolya’s Hummer. This was a gaudy, pretentious tank of a vehicle. It stood out.

America, Aleks thought. He lowered his window, listened. Nearby someone was cutting their lawn. He also heard the sound of a little girl singing. His heart began to race.

Was this Anna or Marya?

Aleksander Savisaar glanced at the gloaming sky. The sun would soon set fully.

They would wait for darkness.