by Jory Strong
Iosif remembered the way Oleg had dragged the woman from the strip club, forcing her to a faster pace, the hand around her arm surely leaving her bruised. How she must hate Oleg for his treatment of her, for what he'd made her do at the apartment.
An idea trickled in like the last bit of vodka into a glass. What if he, Iosif, were to find this woman and befriend her? She might tell him if she'd seen Viktoriya. She might recognize the man Viktoriya thought she was coming to America to marry.
Iosif's mouth went dry. It was crazy to think about going into the strip club.
But as the bus stopped and moved forward, stopped and moved forward, the idea returned time and time again. Who would know him? Who would know his face?
Only the two women in the Bride office had seen him. They would not be at a strip club. And he would not be so stupid as he'd been before, so quick to trust.
Fool. Stupid fool, to believe them because they'd acted concerned and caring. To give them the address where he stayed, thinking they really meant to help.
But there had been so many wedding pictures on the walls, some of them cut from newspapers. It was only after…
His heart was like a fluttering bird. Would Mallory stop searching if she knew about Oleg?
A bad man, the stranger who smelled of the desert and had eyes the color of green jade had said, stopping him blocks away as he hurried home with a sack of groceries. Oleg is mafia, Iosif. Go to the police. You must go to the police. And he had heeded this man who had listened, days earlier, to his worries and fears about his missing daughters and their mother.
I can do this thing. Oleg knows only a name. Oleg I will recognize.
Oleg's car he would also know.
Iosif transferred to another bus, then another after that one. In the dark anonymity his bravery rose. He could be the hero to his daughters. To Viktoriya.
The vision of it was sweet. A soothing balm to his heart and soul. He would do this thing. Cautiously. Carefully.
Before, he'd taken a taxi, paying the driver more than he could afford to park and wait, then follow Oleg and the woman. This time he made his way by bus, getting off a couple of blocks from the strip club.
He kept his head down as he walked, staying as far from the streetlights as possible. Fear tried to stamp out the bravery, but it was lessened when the parking lot came into view. There were twelve cars, none of them Oleg's black sedan.
Still, he did not rush to enter. He would wait and watch for a little while.
The red of neon lights next to the front door spoke to the type of men drawn to the club. On the left was the outline of a naked woman, on the right a drink glass.
They flashed.
Off. On.
Off. On.
Off. On.
And it was not the image of large breasts and curved buttocks that demanded his attention.
He trembled with the need for a drink. His heart became a fierce pounding in his head, like fists beat against a wooden bar, demanding service.
Or maybe his heart thundered a warning, telling him to turn away, to forget this plan of going inside. To give up the fantasy of finally being there for his daughters when they needed him, of showing Viktoriya he wasn't only a useless drunk.
Before doubt could turn him into a beaten man, he crossed the street and entered the club. A brutish man sat on a stool just inside the front door, muscled thighs open so one of the women could stand between them and dance slowly, her body bumping and grinding against his crotch.
The music was American. But the man spoke Russian, saying, "No cover, but you buy drinks or you leave. Pick where you want to sit, anywhere but the VIP section. The girls will tell you what things cost."
Iosif nodded, but the man's attention had already returned to the woman, his hands following, palming breasts so large they no longer looked real.
On stage, a dyed-blonde held on to a pole, legs spread, gyrating her hips and providing a view to a handful of men sitting close enough to shove money beneath the small triangle of her G-string. Other men were scattered among tables farther away, more interested in their drinks than the dancer.
Iosif crossed the room to a table shrouded in darkness, his shoes sticking to the floor as he walked. Almost immediately, a bare-breasted woman came to him, trying to entice him to pay for a lap dance and buy her a drink along with his own, but the prices she quoted made his chest tighten.
"Just drinks for now and talk." He could not tell if she welcomed the chance to sit on a chair rather than perform on a lap.
She left, returning with two drinks and setting the first in front of him before pulling a chair close and sitting so her thigh touched his.
Her perfume filled his nostrils, but it was not strong enough to eradicate the scent of alcohol.
His mouth watered and beneath the table he fisted his hands to keep from reaching for the glass. "I am Gregori." A necessary lie.
"I'm Lana."
A blue-winged butterfly marked her wrist and he wondered if it had once symbolized her hopes, the dreams that had brought her to America. "You are from Moscow?"
"Yes."
So many questions crowded his mind, but he did not want to scare her off or make her suspicious. He talked of other things instead, unimportant things, his words and hers drowned out by the presence of the glass in front of him.
Leave, he told himself. Yet the only thing that moved was his tongue as he licked dry lips, his throat as he tried to swallow down the need for alcohol.
"You're not drinking," she said, polishing off the last of the vodka he'd bought for her.
He brought a hand from beneath the table and saw in her expression that she thought he'd been fondling himself while he talked to her, a cheap substitute for a lap dance. He pushed the drink toward her, but she stopped him, using the tips of her fingers to halt the slide of the glass and send it back to him.
"If you don't drink, you'll be asked to leave."
It would be best if he left. But he could handle a single drink if it led to finding his daughters and Viktoriya.
His fingers closed around the glass. He tightened his grip, hoping the darkness of the club hid the tiny shaking of his hand and arm. He would ask Lana a question and by her answer, decide whether to stay or not.
"There was a woman here last night, she has brown hair, down to her waist. Do you know who she is?"
"It could be Luba, or possible Marya. Both worked last night. You don't like blondes? Should I have one of the others take care of you?"
"No. It is not that."
Careful. Careful. He needed to be careful about what he said.
Lana crossed her arms over her breasts, pouting as she glanced from the full glass on the table to his face. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the man inside the doorway slide from his stool, as if signaled to a problem.
Iosif lifted the glass, touched it to his lips, a shiver preceding a sip that turned into a flow of liquid down his throat as he closed his eyes and tilted his head backward.
The drink was not watered down. It opened the floodgates of unquenchable thirst.
He looked to see Lana on her feet. "Another?"
"Yes." He had to order another to stay in the club. He would let it sit on the table, a test to prove he controlled the vodka, and the vodka didn't control him.
Lana returned, sitting on his lap and lifting the glass to his lips. "I can make you forget you came here hoping to find Luba or Marya."
He drank. Downing the second drink as quickly as the first, justifying it as the cost of gathering information.
More drinks followed. He lost track of them. His care became the dwindling American dollars in his wallet and the crushing knowledge he was a failure as a man, as a father.
Lana hugged him when tears came to his eyes showing her the pictures. She told him he was a good man when he talked about coming to America to make sure Zinaida and Kseniya were happy. She rubbed his back at hearing they had disappeared along with their mother, and her touch
felt good after so long without having a woman to care for him.
"I'll get you another drink," Lana said, her face full of sympathy. "This one will be free. I will take care of it."
She left, pausing to speak to the man on the stool before going to the bar and returning with another drink.
Oleg smiled as he dropped his cell phone onto the seat next to him. Whores. But who was he to complain?
Tonight this business with Iosif would be done. Maybe he'd even reward Lana by telling Vadim she'd been useful for more than pussy and head, in case his boss felt like reducing her debt.
At a light he did a U-turn, heading in the direction of the club though he did not hurry. There was little pleasure to be had in beating a drunk to death, and Iosif's killing needed to be an obvious mugging, a case of a man murdered for pocket change.
It took him thirty minutes to reach the club. He did not bother to go inside or call ahead. They knew to watch for him.
He parked down the street. A minute passed. A second. And then the door opened and Iosif was expelled, a nothing of a man. Ordinary. A mouse.
Oleg watched as Iosif listed back and forth. Drunk beyond all control of himself and barely able to stand upright. Garbage to be disposed of.
There would be no witnesses to attest to the fact Iosif had ever been at the club. How he arrived in the first place, Oleg wasn't concerned with. Iosif was forgettable, a nobody in a city that cared only about those with money and power and fame.
Oleg reached down. A click signaled the trunk was unlatched. He watched as Iosif moved away from the club, a dead man staggering and lurching to his fate.
Only when Iosif had managed a short block did Oleg get out of the car and go around to the trunk. He preferred to kill with a thin blade, a weapon he'd grown fond of in a Russian prison. Used with skill, a man could walk away clean while his victim bled out internally. But that was too much precision, inconsistent with what he intended the police to think.
A mugging required fists or something else. He donned gloves. Iosif was not a man to waste his hands on.
Removing a baseball bat from the trunk of his car, Oleg smiled at the use he'd made of American sport. The car would hinder him and so he left it, following slowly, allowing his prey to pass shops closed for the night, to put distance between club and murder scene.
Iosif stumbled, caught himself, stopped. His eyes took in the sights around him but he could make no sense of them. Nothing looked familiar.
Once he could have drunk twice the vodka he had tonight and not been affected by it. Once…
Tears came, rolling down his cheeks.
Once he'd had a woman to come home to. Daughters who squealed Daddy and greeted him with open arms.
A sob choked him. He lurched forward as if he could leave the truth behind, but it clung to him like the smell of the strip club.
Tomorrow he would start again.
The thought of facing the temptation that would be all around him made panic swell in his chest. He touched the wallet in his pants, thin now, so very thin, and his panic grew. He had little money to offer Mallory.
Reaching an alley, he stopped, turned to look down it. This would do for the night. Enough light existed to see a cardboard shanty near a dumpster. Other pieces of cardboard were scattered on the ground to serve as sleeping pallets.
He entered the alley, thinking to claim one of them. When he reached the dumpster, he saw a homeless man curled in the cardboard box and felt relief. There was safety in numbers.
Some animal instinct made him look back and his heart crashed into the wall of his chest at the sight of the man who'd come into the alleyway. Oleg.
No! "Nyet!"
He ran, or tried to. His limbs wouldn't cooperate.
And then he screamed and went down as vicious pain streaked up his leg.
He tried to get to his knees only to have everything shimmer black with a wave of agony and nausea.
A blow struck his other leg, followed by one to his back.
He was blubbering, gasping, unable to scream for help.
Oleg's foot slammed into his side.
Once.
Twice.
And then a hand gripped him, forcing him onto his back to look at the face of a monster.
Failure and hopelessness descended. Old, familiar companions he'd dreamed of leaving behind.
Anguish swelled at the thought of Kseniya and Zina and Viktoriya, that Mallory might cease looking for them.
"Where are the DVDs?"
A flicker of hope was born, that they held some clue for Mallory. His anguish was overpowered by a strength he didn't know he possessed. He could do nothing to prevent his death, but he would not fail his family at the last by telling Oleg what he wanted to know.
Iosif gathered what thin shreds of courage he had. He'd met men like this one. They could be cold, merciless killers when it was business, but when it was personal, they were nothing but brutes, animal muscle and rage.
Swallowing down the sobs, Iosif replaced them with curses directed at Oleg's manhood and his intelligence.
His own screams interrupted the taunts as the bat struck repeatedly. Each blow coming faster and faster, until finally Oleg leaned down and the sharp pain of a blade plunged into his chest. Granting oblivion. Granting peace.
Oleg pulled the knife out and rammed it in again. Then a third time before reason took over. The more stab wounds the greater chance the authorities would think this was a personal assault instead of a random one.
He went through Iosif's pockets, pulling pictures and passport and wallet from then. Opening the wallet, he removed the contents before tossing it aside. There was a card among the dollar bills. A few steps and he found enough light to make out what it said.
M. Cassel
Missing Persons Found.
Bond Skips and Others.
Rage came, along with a shiver of fear, that Vadim would learn of his incompetence and strip him of position and privilege. He returned to Iosif, kicking the body in his fury, venting his anger until once again cooled by reason. If there was no paying client then there would be no work done.
His duties to Vadim allowed him plenty of time and freedom. He would watch the address on the card, to make sure whoever Iosif had spoken to went about their business without interfering in his.
Maybe he would recover the DVDs. Maybe he wouldn't. He would have to determine whether more effort was necessary.
Pocketing the things he'd taken from Iosif, he swept the alley with his gaze, eyes catching on a cardboard box. It shook slightly though there was no breeze.
Oleg contemplated it. Two bodies might draw attention from the press. Americans loved their stories about hate crimes and violence done to the homeless. But the possibility of Vadim learning he'd left a witness alive worried him more. He stepped forward, intent on taking care of this quickly and efficiently.
* * * * *
Chapter 11
Mallory stood in front of Viktoriya's watch. It was Alice-in-Wonderland large, its numbered face a seer's crystal ball.
Too late. Too late. Too late.
The words tick tick ticked in her head though there was no sweep of a second hand, no arms marking minutes or hours.
The watch's white face faded to the street she'd been on last night. Words were replaced by laughter, the raucous sound of the clowns at Austin's birthday party mingled with the jesters of her sire's court.
A dark car pulled alongside the curb. The passenger door opened.
Amanda Edson darted from an alleyway, stomping across the crotches of the two disabled pimps.
Blood pooled on the sidewalk beneath their heads and shoulders. A gaping smile opened on their necks and a husky female voice whispered, "Why fight instinct?"
A sensuous male voice murmured, "This world is better off without them."
Amanda reached the car, scrambling into it.
In her dream, Mallory lurched forward, through the clock, screaming, "No!"
&nbs
p; Too late.
Too late.
Too late.
The car sped away and she chased, baying, her body vibrating with the thrill of hunting, her limbs stretching with the desire to run on four feet rather than two.
In the darkened store and office-front windows her eyes reflected red.
She raced past the prostitutes she'd seen and spoken with.
A purple-haired scarecrow leaned against a wall, eyes glazed, a crack pipe in her hand.
The dark car stopped.
Something jettisoned through the window.
A doll in a blood-red dress hit the sidewalk.
Hunting bay became a wail of loss and failure.
Movement drew her away from the broken doll.
Fear surged through her at seeing Sorcha walking along the curb and holding a leash attached to a small zebra.
"No! No!"
Mallory's heart writhed in agony. Her screams echoed through the streets, blending with the laughter of clowns, with Bastian's voice.
You're too soft, Mal. Always have been. You'll fail because of it, then what will happen?
She surged forward, but already the dark car was pulling alongside Sorcha, a door opening, hands reaching.
Gone.
And she was eight again.
"Stop running off, Mallory!" her mother said. "I don't want to lose you."
"You won't."
She was an adventurer! A special investigator! A superhero! Not a baby who needed to hang onto the grocery cart!
She'd been here a million times, a trillion times, a gazillion times. How could she get lost in the grocery store?
A miniature woman dressed in a gypsy's costume peeked around the corner in front of Mallory. The dwarf lifted a stubby finger to her lips, her eyes twinkling.
Mallory suppressed a giggle and slipped away from her mother, rounding the bin of watermelons, thumping them as she went. Thump, thump, thump.
The instant her mother turned and started squeezing the peaches, she darted toward the aisle corner where the dwarf had been.
There! Ahead of her, at the door leading into the back of the store, where only employees went.