Suddenly, the tiny room shook like a bowl of sugar-free Jell-O at a Weight Watcher’s convention. Pytór waited patiently as the after-boom of a jumbo jet faded away.
“Louis, my friend,” Pytór continued, his words rolling in a thick Ural accent, “you knew perfectly well snuffing the girl was, how shall I say it, an inevitable yet regrettable outcome.”
If the Russian was trying to calm his American counterpart, who also was in the business of supplying children for sex, he was failing miserably. Sex was one thing. Louis liked girl flesh too, but murder! He hadn’t bargained for murder.
Louis pushed the Russian away and stood. He resumed pacing the room, wringing his hands and cursing.
He thought, I gotta get out of this mess!
Pytór began to suspect he was losing his control over the American. Like Pytór, Louis loved the huge amounts of money he made catering to the depravities of wealthy men and women. The trouble with this American was, like others fed to fatness in a decadent and spineless society, he had a conscience. It was an intolerable liability in their line of work.
Louis stood with his back to Pytór. He looked down at the thin industrial pile carpet and shook his head.
“You just don’t understand, Pytór,” Louis yelled. “This is America! People go to jail or worse for killing people, especially little kids. Are you trying to get us killed?”
Louis turned and faced the Russian.
“Do you know what happens to guys who hurt kids when they end up in prison? Well, do you?”
Pytór Krevchenko studied Louis’s sweaty face. He offered a reassuring smile to his agitated cohort and said, “Believe me, Louis. No one is going to prison. Do not give the girl another thought. She was nothing, my friend, a bit of fun, that is all. Although Yuri told me she was a fighter to the end. She tried to scratch him, and the poor man had no choice but to cut the girl’s hands off, just so he could keep her an extra day without having his eyes gouged out. He said it was messy but effective.”
Louis turned as pale as the white shirt he wore.
Words from a Bible story he had read as a child kept jumping around in his head. Fragments, bits and pieces that didn’t mean anything, jabbed his memory. Gradually, they coalesced into “Woe be unto him who harms one of these innocents. For I tell you their angels in heaven always behold the face of My Father.”
Louis began to sweat even more.
Great, just fucking great, now I’ve got an angel mad at me!
Once more, Louis turned his back to the Russian. He couldn’t bear to look at the man who so calmly discussed murder for fun.
“What kind of people are you?” he whispered.
Krevchenko reached around Louis’s shoulder and handed his partner in sleaze, and now murder, a large whiskey.
“Here, drink this. You look as if you can use it. You know, my friend—you worry too much. No one will ever find her.”
“I wouldn’t bet the farm on that,” Louis said shakily. “She wasn’t just some throw-away street kid. Mike Bocalora is a big man in this town. These people have deep pockets, Pytór. Money is no object. They’ll never give up looking for her.”
Cloudy from multiple washings, the stubby glass still looked dirty. Louis stared at the amber drink and then downed it in one gulp. He went to the tattered sofa and slumped onto the worn cushions. Every aching nerve in his body seemed to bypass the alcohol’s dulling effect.
Pytór tried to mitigate his partner’s distress.
“Well, my friend, they will have to look very hard and very long. She’s buried in a radioactive waste dump in a place called Utah. It will be nine hundred years before anybody will look for her there.”
The Russian’s words melted into meaningless noise as Louis’s mind sawed back and forth, trying to see a way out.
Unable to reason the facts away, he admitted, “I don’t like this, Pytόr. I don’t like it at all. This is going to bring us all down!”
Pytόr shrugged and said, “Louis, you take this sort of thing too seriously. Children die every day, especially in Russia. I prefer to think of us as assisting in the process of natural selection.”
“Christ, you’re one sick bastard, ya know that? A monster. That’s what Yuri is, a monster, and… and you’re no better!” Louis spat.
Pytόr Krevchenko walked to the sofa, leaned in, looked the frightened man in the eye, and whispered, “Go to the mirror, Louis. Take a good look at yourself, my friend. We are all of us—monsters.”
From throat to butt, Louis’s guts were in full revolt, much like a man on death row in his last hour of life. He was sick, and the whiskey didn’t help his jittery stomach. He reproached himself silently as he poured out the last of the cheap alcohol. Why did I let Pytór talk me into getting the Bocalora girl for Yuri Barsukov? I should have known he’d do something like this, and now Barsukov is safe in Mother Russia, and my ass is left swinging in the wind!
Louis stared down into his glass for a moment. He put the untouched drink on a rickety side table and stood up. He staggered a few steps and headed to the bathroom. “I’m gonna be sick.”
Twenty-Seven
The Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul
VICTOR CAREW knelt in the half light of the tiny box, which to him felt like a coffin turned on its end, and said, “Bless me Father for I have sinned.”
Victor stumbled on the next line of the old rubric, it has been X number of days, months, years since my last confession.
A tense pause folded over him as he struggled to recall the last time he had ventured into a church, any church, much less a confessional.
“Go on, my son,” the voice behind the cloth-covered grill soothed.
No response.
“Are you there, my son?”
Victor whispered a quiet, “Yes. I’m here.”
“How long has it been since your last confession?” the voice prompted.
“I can’t remember.”
“A year?”
“More.”
This time the priest’s comforting tone carried a mild reproach.
“Two years?”
Victor Carew groaned.
“I said I can’t remember. Let’s just say it’s been a long time.”
“Then, my son, we’re going to be here for a while.”
The minutes stretched into a half hour, and Victor was still reciting a litany of wrongdoing that would have made a Mafia hit man look like a church social worker. His mouth was dry. His words faltered, finally fading into fractured phrases.
“My son, you’re stalling.”
“What!” Victor shouted his indignation.
He couldn’t see the priest’s indulgent smile through the thin black cloth that separated sinners from absolution.
The priest said, “I do this for a living, my son. I can tell when a penitent is confessing something in order to avoid a more urgent problem.”
“I see… yes, you’re right, but what I have to say may take a while longer,” Victor said, hoping the priest was as tired as he was and eager to end his soul-wrenching session.
“I have all the time in heaven,” assured the priest.
Victor’s hopes collapsed into a final admission.
“I’m here about my son… I mean, the two of us.”
“What about the sins you just confessed. Are they real, or not?”
“Yes, I’m ashamed to say they are.”
“Tell me about you and your son.”
“His name is Louis.”
Victor Carew slid back on his haunches. His thoughts tumbled backward into a maze of hazy memories, deformed by sadness. He wondered how to portray his son. Where should he start?
How do I compress a lifetime of care and loving a child so devotedly opposed to that love and care?
“You know, Father, when your children are little they step on your shoes. When they start to grow up, they step on your heart.”
“Is that how it is? Your son has hurt you?” said the priest.
&nbs
p; Victor let out a sad chuckle.
“I’m sure if you asked him, he’d say it was the other way around.” Victor’s voice trailed off with a sigh.
The priest considered this for a moment, then said, “Go on.”
“My wife nearly died in childbirth. As it was, the pregnancy wrecked her health… I mean she never fully recovered… not the way she was before. Anyway, I took care of Louis most of the time. We loved each other then, I mean when he was a youngster. Football games, Cub Scouts, then Boy Scouts, trips to the Baseball Hall of Fame… that sorta thing. Ever been to the Baseball Hall of Fame, Father?”
“No, I’ve never been there.”
Victor’s smile went unseen in the gloom of the confessional.
“It’s nice, real nice,” he murmured.
“I’m sure it is,” the priest said.
“Yeah, well anyway, I adored my boy. But then… there’s always a but in these things, isn’t there? Louis started to grow up, and he began to change, slowly at first. I guess I didn’t notice. After all, I was in a business expanding every day, which took up a lot of my time. It’s hard to know for sure. I ask myself if it was a combination of my work and having to take care of his mother at the same time, or his being a teen and not wanting the old man around that pulled us so far apart. Anyway, when he was around fifteen he got into trouble with the law. It was a minor thing. By that time, I had made a name for myself, so I was able to get him off without any arrest.”
“What was the trouble about?” the priest said.
“Oh, umm, he met some girl in Chinatown. He got fresh with her, and she made a complaint. I thought it was just a misunderstanding. Then it happened again with a different girl, but that time it was more serious. He, umm, got her naked.”
Victor hastily added, “He didn’t do anything, though. He said he just wanted to see what a girl looked like… you know, naked… and all.”
“What’s going on with him now? I assume something is very wrong with the two of you, or you wouldn’t be here. By the way, how old is Louis?”
Victor shifted around on his knees, trying to get more comfortable. The air in the confessional was stale. He began to perspire.
“Uh, Louis is thirty-six now.”
“Thirty-six!” The priest said, his tone clearly echoing his annoyance. “I thought we were talking about a child!”
“We are talking about a child! My child. A baptized child. A child of God and an heir to heaven, Father!”
Silence swamped the small space like a tidal wave.
Victor waited for the priest to respond. He probably thinks just because I’m here confessing I’ve forgotten my catechism!
The priest was unaccustomed to being lectured on the foundations of Catholic dogma. Usually it was he who retreated to such lofty rhetoric to prop up an argument.
“We’re both tired,” he said, chagrinned. “Can you come back tomorrow? I….”
“No.” Victor said flatly.
Earlier, he would have welcomed a reprieve from baring his heart, but now he had the bit in his teeth, and he wasn’t going to let go.
“Father, I need you now, and you know that I know you can’t refuse me confession, so let’s get this done.”
“Very well,” the priest said calmly, “you talk, and I’ll listen.”
After another heavy pause Victor continued, “I tried everything to reach Louis. The more I poured money and resources on him, the lower he sank into corruption. First, it was sex, then sex mixed with violence, and then drugs. Now he’s running a pornography studio! God help him, I’m sure it’s more than just movies.”
Victor looked around as if to assure himself no one was listening at the door.
“I’m no saint, Father. You don’t get to be as rich and as powerful as I am by playing Mother Teresa. But Victor Carew was always on the up and up. No illegal stuff. Never.”
Victor waited a moment to see if the priest recognized his name, or if he would offer a remark, something like… well done! Good for you, Victor.
When no affirmation was forthcoming, Victor said, “Father, I love my son more than my own life, more than all the money I’ve got or will ever have. He’s all I have in the world, all I truly care about. How can I help him? You’re a man of God. You pray to God all the time. Tell me what I have to do!”
The priest remained silent. Victor began to wonder if he had fallen asleep.
“Father? Are you there? Fath—”
“Have you told Louis you love him?” the priest said. “I don’t mean when he was a child, I mean recently, say, in the past month?”
Victor settled into a shamed quiet, answering in a voice barely audible, even to himself, “No, no.”
“Well, I’d say that’s the place to start. I don’t suppose he goes to Mass.”
“No.”
“If you came to Mass, do you think he’d come with you?” asked the priest.
“I don’t know. I could ask. I guess it would be a start, as you say. I’ll do anything to save my boy.”
“Well, you don’t have to make coming to Mass sound like torture.”
Both men laughed, breaking the tension that had grown between them.
Then the priest said, “You aren’t going to turn your son’s life around with one Mass. You have to leave that to God. And, Mr. Carew, don’t wait until it’s too late to tell your son you love him. He needs to know that now.”
“I will. I will.”
Satisfied, the priest raised his hand in blessing and said, “May the Almighty and Merciful Lord grant you absolution and remission of your sins, both known and unknown.”
Buoyant with renewed hope, Victor prayed, “Amen.”
Twenty-Eight
VICTOR CAREW left the basilica, hailed a taxi, and ordered the cabbie to take him to 13th and Samson Streets, where he walked the short block to McGillin’s Ale House. Victor was tired, weary in his mind and soul. Since the death of his wife, Alma, two decades before, he had dedicated all his energies to two things: creating a business empire, and keeping his wayward son out of prison. Many times, he tried to persuade himself that jail was just the thing Louis needed to sober him up and set him on a path to healing. In his heart of hearts, Victor knew his son was emotionally unbalanced, or perhaps even mad. Still, according to the priest, he had reason to hope everything would work out between him and his son.
McGillin’s was the oldest tavern in continuous use in Philadelphia. Steeped in traditions, sedition and revolution being just two of many, the tavern had been a meeting place for revolutionaries in 1776. A hundred years later, it was a hotbed of hatred against the British in Ireland. The joke was, if you entered McGillin’s on Saint Patrick’s Day, you’d better be Irish! Strictly speaking, the Carews hailed from Wales, but the bloodline, and the Welsh struggle against the English, was sufficient to admit him.
Victor pushed through the tavern’s thick oak doors and breathed deeply. The walnut bar stretched three quarters along the left side of the windowless room. An arm’s length from the bar’s rolled edge, backless, leather-clad stools, tanned emerald green, stood bolted to the floor. Rows of colored bottles were stacked against two crystal mirrors, their reflections shooting merry prisms around the room. Between the mirrors, a tintype portrait of Irish patriot Terrance MacSwiney, framed in somber black and swathed in the flag of the Irish republic, held a place of honor. Facing the bar, a wood fire burned gently in a brick and stone fireplace. The rush of cool outside air caused a wisp of pungent fumes to stray from the hearth and tangle with the smell of strong drink and beer. The warm air embraced Victor with a welcome that matched his mood. He slipped onto a barstool and smiled. He liked this place.
A redheaded bartender, appropriately dubbed Red, asked, “What’ll it be, Mr. Carew?”
“Hey, Red, give me a pint of Harp—and a phone book,” Victor replied.
“Comin’ right up, Mr. Carew.”
Victor looked around the half-empty bar and noticed two men who looked decidedly out
of place sitting at a corner table. Although listed as a national treasure, McGillin’s was, first and foremost, a neighborhood tavern. The local Order of Ancient Hibernians met here. Tourists, eager to see the place where volunteers collected bales of dollars to pay for Ireland’s struggle for independence, came too. The men at the corner table were neither of these.
When Red returned with the phone book and the pint of beer, Victor lifted his chin toward the two men huddled in whispered conversation.
“New around here are they, Red?”
“They’ve been in a few nights now. Not Irish, that’s for sure. One’s got a heavy Russian accent. The other one’s some sorta Arab type. Your son was just in here a while ago talking to ’em.”
“Really?”
Victor’s frown wrinkled his forehead. He didn’t like the sound of that.
Red moved off to pull another beer. Victor thumbed through the yellow pages until he located the section listing film studios in the city. He found no listing for LC Enterprises. He wasn’t surprised that a porn studio went unlisted, but he had hoped to save time by catching Louis at… what… work? Disgusted with this setback, he pushed the dog-eared phone book aside and proceeded to sip away his troubles.
I guess I’ll have to catch him at home. What the hell is he doing with Russians and Arabs? Victor wondered. Ah well, tomorrow’s another day.
ACROSS town, Louis Carew sat in the backseat of his limousine. His driver looked in the rearview mirror, waiting for instructions.
“Where to now, Boss?”
“Just drive around, Mario, I need to think a while.”
As the long black car moved off into light traffic, a soft drizzle began to fall.
While Mario drove aimlessly over the glistening macadam streets, Louis switched on the overhead reading light and flipped through a tattered notebook. He read the list of requirements Pytór Krevchenko gave him earlier in the day. The Russian known as Yuri wanted another girl, one of about ten or eleven years of age. The line written in red and underlined for emphasis, “no older than eleven,” jumped out at him. The highlighted words burned against his eyes like neon in the night… so many lives, so many nights.
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