Walking dead ak-7

by Greg Rucka

  I stopped for a meal at a diner on the way back to my hotel because I felt I should, rather than because I had any appetite for it. There were multiple racks of free newspapers, nothing more than collections of ads, just inside the entrance, almost all of them telling me that women with names like Juliette and Morgana and Devyne would be happy to take my money to make me happy. A couple of the ads actually used words like "fresh" and "young" and even "barely legal."

  It made me think of Kekela, and then I was thinking of Tiasa yet again. When my meal came, I found I couldn't even bring myself to take a bite of it. I paid, left, picked up more water at a convenience store, and finally returned to my room.

  I didn't know what to do next.

  There were options, of course. Kekela had spoken of the "mongers" when we'd visited Rattlesnake, the men who frequented whores, who made it a game. There were mongers everywhere, certainly here in Las Vegas. With a couple of days, I could probably locate a few. With a couple of weeks, I could maybe earn their trust enough to find the specialists, the ones who knew where to find girls so young that, even in a state with legalized prostitution, they remained hidden.

  Or I could head back to Amsterdam. I could chase down Mesick, see if there was something I'd missed, something he had held back. I could go further, to Trabzon, and renew my acquaintance with Captain Celik, and hope to grab more time alone with Arzu Kaya. I could rewind the clock all the way to Georgia, and hope that Mgelika Iashvili knew more than he'd said, had one last crumb for me to follow.

  Or you could let it all go, I told myself. You could just walk away.

  But even thinking that, I knew that I couldn't.

  One month of chasing after Tiasa Lagidze had led me here. Four weeks that had shattered the life Alena and I had built for ourselves, and in so doing, had also destroyed the walls I had put between the man I had been and the man I had become. Iashvili had said we were the walking dead, Alena and I, and he'd been right, but not in the way he imagined. Like Bakhar Lagidze, I hadn't left my past behind; I'd tried to bury it, alive and kicking, and it had come back on me the same as it had come back on him. Ten men dead by my hand in Batumi and Dubai was the proof.

  Everything had brought me here, the same way it had brought Tiasa.

  Bakhar. Karataev. Arzu. Mesick.

  And one other person, at the end of the line. One person, and I didn't have the first idea where to look.

  Bakhar. Karataev. Arzu. Mesick…

  It hadn't just been any supply chain, I realized. It had been their supply chain. I'd thought that the connection had been between Bakhar and Karataev, that there had been nothing to tie Bakhar to Arzu. Yet there was Arzu connecting to Mesick, and Mesick saying he had brought girls to the U.S., to Nevada, before.

  I opened the laptop, brought up Vladek Karataev's files from his BlackBerry, began going through the entries in his address book one at a time. There was nothing that looked like a phone number for somewhere in the States, certainly nothing that looked like one for Nevada. I combed through them a second time, and got the same result.

  But there had to be a connection.

  Bakhar's little black book was in the messenger bag, where I'd left it, and I dug it out, started going through it again. Same thing, nothing with a U.S. area code, nothing that looked like a number for Nevada. I went back to the listings from the BlackBerry, began comparing each entry, one at a time, alphabetically.

  Under the, Bakhar had an entry, "Pretty." The number, at first glance, was for Ukraine, with a 380 country code prefix. The number ended in 207. When I checked Karataev's, I found an entry under the word krasivyj, which also meant "pretty." The numbers weren't identical; Karataev's first four digits were different. But like in Bakhar's book, the number ended in 207.

  Reversed, the number began 702.

  702 was one of the two area codes in use for the state of Nevada. I knew that, because it was on the goddamn telephone on the desk right before my eyes.

  I had two possible phone numbers for "pretty" in Nevada. Whoever the hell that was. If they were still in service. If they were real numbers. If they weren't actually for somebody or some establishment in Ukraine.

  Using the BlackBerry seemed like bad luck, like tempting fate, never mind how many times I had changed SIMs on the thing. I used the telephone on the desk instead, hit 9 for an outside line, and dialed the number from Karataev's listing, thinking that one would be the most current.

  It rang. Four times.

  Then a woman said, "This is Bella."

  "Bella," I said. "I understand you're the person to talk to if I'm looking for some company."

  CHAPTER

  Twenty-nine A month to the day from when Tiasa had been taken, I was once again on I-15, heading the same direction I had traveled the previous afternoon, but this time when I passed the turnoff to the drop site, I stuck to the freeway for another thirty miles or so. The sun was preparing to set, just beginning to bathe the desert in red and orange, when I drove into the town of New Paradise, following the directions I'd been given along Mesquite Avenue toward the northwest side of town. Lights were coming on, a few people emerging now that the temperature was beginning to descend toward tolerable.

  Calling the town New Paradise was potentially a contradiction in terms. A lot that I saw was obviously recent construction, streets of fresh pavement, and everything with a new coat of paint. A small casino, Paradise Rollers, anchored the main street on one end, new-school design with sweeping neon and elegant curves instead of a box with blinking lights. At the other end of the street was a well-watered and vibrant park, grass and trees and bushes and flowers. The water taken to maintain it could probably have irrigated a small third-world nation. It certainly all felt new.

  But if Tiasa were here, it sure as hell wasn't Paradise.

  There was an Albertson's at the corner of Mesquite and Sawtooth, the supermarket reasonably busy this time of day as people just off work stopped for groceries on their way home. I parked on the south side of the lot as I'd been directed to do, killed the engine. I'd been told no phones would be permitted, and so took the BlackBerry off my belt, stowed it in the glove box, and then waited. I didn't have to wait long.

  Less than a minute after I'd parked, a black Town Car pulled into the space next to me, the kind of vehicle normally used by car services. Its windows were tinted. I got out of my car, locked it up, and moved to the new one, climbing into the back.

  Inside were two men, one waiting for me in the backseat, the other behind the wheel. As soon as I'd closed my door, there was the thunk of the electronic locks.

  The man beside me was in his late twenties, Caucasian, with black hair. He wore blue jeans and a black fitted T-shirt, and from his biceps I could see he liked his barbell set. The watch on his left wrist was bulky and expensive, maybe platinum.

  "Mr. Twigg?" he asked, looking me over. I'd made a point, again, of trying to go with the right clothes for the occasion. Today that meant tan khakis and a short-sleeved polo shirt, the kind of thing a businessman closer to forty than to thirty would wear when relaxing. I wore a windbreaker as well, mostly to cover the stitches on my right forearm.

  "Yes," I said. "That's right."

  "Put your hands on the back of the seat in front of you, please, and lean forward."

  I nodded my understanding, did as directed. The pat-down was thorough and immodest, and when it was finished, he had my wallet, an envelope of money, and my hotel key card. He passed the card up to the driver, who immediately pulled out a cell phone and used the number on the key to dial my hotel. I could hear the driver speaking to whoever answered, asking to speak to a guest named Matthew Twigg. While he was doing this, the man beside me was going through my wallet, checking my driver's license and credit cards.

  "There's a Matthew Twigg at the Gateway Suites," the driver said, handing the key back. "No answer in his room."

  The one beside me replaced everything in my wallet as he'd found it, then opened the envelope. Inside were
fifty hundred-dollar bills, and he counted all of them before stuffing them back into the envelope. He handed the money up to the driver, then handed my wallet and room key back to me.

  "I guess you're who you say you are, Mr. Twigg," he said.

  "I don't know what to say to that," I told him.

  The man smiled, friendly. "Nothing you can say. Mike, we're good to go."

  Mike put the car in gear, and we started to roll. The man next to me offered his hand with a new smile, said, "Name's Bradley."

  I shook his hand. "Matt."

  "You can relax, Matt. It's not far."

  "I'm trying not to be nervous."

  "First time?"

  "Kind of. I, uh… I did something similar last time I was in Eastern Europe."

  "That where you got our number?"

  "From a guy in the Republic of Georgia," I said.

  Bradley's smile widened for a moment, almost to a laugh. "I hear that guy's a piece of work."

  "To be honest, he kinda scared the shit out of me."

  That earned a nod, and then Bradley sank back in his seat, apparently relaxing. I did the same, keeping one eye on what was outside the windows. We'd turned north, and, at first, I thought we were heading outside of town. We passed a New Paradise police car, parked outside of a strip mall Starbucks, then a school, then another strip mall. The driver, Mike, turned us east, onto a curving street called Oasis, and after half a mile we passed through an open gate, into a development of shiny new McMansions. Like the market in Vegas, the market in New Paradise had taken a hit. It was now dark, and I didn't see a single light burning in any of the homes.

  We wound through the empty streets, finally entering a cul-de-sac with five of the largest homes I'd seen yet. Three cars were parked here on the street, a Lexus convertible, a Porsche SUV, and a large Ford 4?4. The garage door opened automatically as we approached, and Mike parked us within. The door was closing before he'd shut off the engine.

  "Here we go," Bradley told me. "If you'll follow me, Mr. Twigg."

  I followed him, and Mike followed me. Mike was shorter than Bradley, but with much the same look, maybe even the same age, though his hair was a light brown, not black. I also noted that Mike was wearing a pistol in a holster on his hip. He stuck with us into a marble-floored hallway that we followed into the front hall of the house. A wide staircase in the center of the room split the space neatly in half, with hallways running off on either side, and an archway leading to a sunken living room to our right, what would've been the left if we'd entered through the overlarge front doors. There was nobody in sight, and I wasn't hearing anything but a distant stereo, playing classical music, what was maybe Chopin.

  Bradley took me down another hallway lined with framed black-and-white photographs, artsy pictures of children, some of them smiling, some on slides, some on swings, some simply staring into the camera. Wall sconces were placed regularly between them, throwing soft light up at the ceiling. At the end of the hall was a closed door, another sconce beside it. This one, I noted, was unlit.

  Bradley knocked and opened the door enough to lean in, saying, "Mr. Twigg is here."

  The voice that answered matched the one I'd heard on the telephone the previous evening.

  "Send him in."

  Bradley opened the door wide, closed it behind me as soon as I was through. He stayed outside.

  The room was fairly large, half home-office, half library. A large wooden desk with a laptop and cell phone, one chair positioned facing it. A couch to the side, leather upholstery. Bookshelves filled with tomes of identical spines, the kinds of books bought by the yard and not by the content. Two more framed photographs, still black-and-white, but more erotically charged: one of a dramatically lit woman's bare back, with just enough neck to see the dog collar she wore; the other of a man's hips, angled so his erection was apparent, a drop of fluid falling from its tip.

  The woman, Bella, wasn't what I'd expected. She might've been as young as mid-thirties, maybe as old as mid-fifties. Her hair was expensively styled in a way that made me recall Ia, Bakhar's wife, and similarly dyed, though hers was black, and Ia had favored blonde. She wore a navy blue blouse and long black skirt, and a string of pearls around her neck. Her shoes were black leather, low-heeled. Aside from the necklace, there was no other jewelry.

  She moved to greet me, smiling, and offered me her hand.

  "Matthew," she said. "Bella Downs, very nice to meet you in person."

  "Thank you," I replied.

  Bella Downs indicated the chair opposite the desk, then moved around behind it, taking a seat. Her hands stayed out of sight, and I thought of the unlit sconce outside. There was a switch, probably, something she could hit with a finger or a foot, that would turn that light on and bring Bradley and Mike running.

  "No trouble finding us?" she asked.

  "No, the instructions were very clear. Brad-Bradley?-has the money you told me to bring."

  "It's Bradley."

  "He searched me."

  "Of course. We're an extremely exclusive business, Mr. Twigg. We can't allow just anyone to come through our doors, especially people we know next to nothing about."

  "I understand. I just didn't think he'd search me. That's never happened before."

  "We're required to be more careful here than in Eastern Europe." Bella smiled again, and I nodded, thinking that I hadn't told her that on the phone, that the car had to have been bugged, and that she must've heard our conversation on the way in. "So, what can we do for you?"

  "I'm looking for a specific kind of girl," I said.

  "I should hope so. What do you have in mind?"

  "I'm not sure, exactly. I'd like to see what you have."

  Bella Downs shook her head, still smiling, but it was less friendly, more remonstrative. "That's not how it works here, Mr. Twigg. This is a specialty location, not the Mustang Ranch. You tell me what you'd like, and I will provide it for you."

  "See, I don't think I'm going to know what I'd like until I see her," I said.

  The smile thinned. "That's not an option."

  "I just want to see them."

  "Our girls are not for display."

  Behind me, I heard the door open.

  "Mr. Twigg is leaving," Bella Downs said, and now there was no sign of a smile on her face at all, not even its memory. "Please take him back to his car."

  "Mr. Twigg." I could hear Bradley approaching, his voice now almost directly over my shoulder. "If you'll come with me."

  I looked at Bella Downs, and she stared straight back at me, and I realized I'd blown it. Somehow, someway, I'd stepped wrong, had violated protocol. I had pushed too hard, or had said yes when I should've said no, or had stayed silent when I should've spoken. I didn't know. It didn't matter.

  "I'm sorry if I've offended you," I said. "I'm new at this and-"

  "Obviously," Bella Downs interrupted. "And now you're leaving. Goodbye, Mr. Twigg."

  I felt a hand on my shoulder, no squeeze, not very much pressure, even. Just its presence to let me know that my time here was up, and that if I wasn't willing to leave on my own, Bradley would be happy to assist me. Violently.

  "My apologies," I said again, and got to my feet.

  Bradley escorted me to the door, where Mike was waiting. He hadn't drawn his pistol, but his hand was resting on its butt, the intention clear. With the right timing, I could probably take them both, but the fact was that I still hadn't recovered from Amsterdam, and I wasn't certain what it would give me, anyway.

  I had more than I'd arrived with. I had the location. I could come back on my terms, in my time, and get what I was after.

  CHAPTER

  Thirty Mike and Bradley drove me back to the Albertson's parking lot without a word, dropping me off exactly where they had picked me up. I watched the Town Car pull away into the night, then unlocked my rental and climbed inside. I retrieved the BlackBerry, tucked it away, then started the engine and pulled out.

  On my way out of
town, a New Paradise police car fell in behind me, holding maybe three lengths back. It held the distance for almost two miles, until we were securely into the desert's darkness, and then hit its lights. I pulled off to the shoulder, slowed, and stopped. The cruiser came in behind, maybe three or four meters back. I left the engine running, watching in the rearview, leaving my hands on the wheel.

  The cop kept me waiting for almost two minutes, and I figured that was because he was running the plates. The interstate was quiet, very little traffic running in either direction. Then I saw another set of red-and-blues coming my way, flashing lights but no siren, another police car speeding out from New Paradise. This one pulled in close behind the first, and I could just make out an officer stepping out of the car in my mirrors.

  Then the cop driving the car that had stopped me got out as well and, together, the two of them approached my vehicle. I got a flashlight beam in the face, a hand motioning me to lower my window.

  "Problem?" I asked, already with a very good idea what that might be. As far as it went, I was running clean. I hadn't carried a weapon since I'd left Dubai, not counting Mesick's knife, and that was currently at the bottom of an Amsterdam canal. The papers for Matthew Twigg were watertight.

  "License," the cop said.

  I dug out my wallet and handed it over. When he took it, I caught a glimpse of the watch on his wrist. It was a Rolex, platinum, the same model that Bradley had worn. It occurred to me that I had yet to meet an honest cop wearing a platinum Rolex. I supposed there was always a first time.

  I didn't think this was going to be it.

  "Mr. Twigg," the cop said, handing my license back to me, "kill your engine and exit the vehicle."

  I unfastened the seatbelt, following his orders. "What'd I do?"

  "You were driving erratically, sir. Have you had anything to drink?"