Jack looked at the kid. “Mean anything to you?”
Thatë shook his head.
“Okay,” Jack said, “let’s move in.”
The restaurant, like many in Chinatown, was below street level. A flight of crumbling concrete stairs, dark with grease and city grime, led down to a glass door. A window to the right was filled with roasted ducks hanging by their necks on a series of metal hooks, mahogany-colored and glistening with fat. Below, metal trays held slabs of red-skinned spare ribs, ready for the fire.
Jack had thought about this foray long and hard; mainly whether or not he should take Alli. However, several factors were at play, all of them limiting his options. For one thing, he was reluctant to leave her behind in a strange house in a very bad neighborhood. Thatë was dealing in drugs. People like that were always targets of rivals or enemies. For another, he didn’t believe that Alli would allow him to leave her behind. Besides, she had proved herself in combat. He had to stop thinking of her as the introverted little girl he’d first met, incapable of taking care of herself. In the last year alone, she had grown by leaps and bounds. She needed to be taken seriously.
None of this, whether fact or rationalization, or some combination of the two, caused him to be any less concerned about her safety, but, for better or for worse, this was how it had to play out.
Inside, the restaurant was long and narrow, its Formica tables filled with Chinese families and a smattering of tourists busily consulting their travel guides for tips on what to order. No one paid them any attention, including the slim Chinese woman behind the cash register, who was drinking tea and sucking at her teeth. Waiters, exuding a cold frenzy, came and went between tables, laden with huge trays mounded with enormous dishes or piled high with platters of the dregs of murky, gelatinous substances.
“This way.” Thatë led them through the restaurant, into a narrow corridor that ended at the door to the toilet. Just before it, on the right, was a steep stairway that descended into the dank gloom of a subbasement.
The kid held out his hand and Jack gave him back his octagonal pendant, which he hung around his neck.
“You have the pin?” he said when Jack reached the head of the stairs.
Jack opened his hand. The pin he’d taken from Mathis, Twilight’s dead manager, gleamed dully in the center of his palm.
Thatë nodded. “You’ll have to show it.” As he began to descend, Jack reached forward and spun him around. “Don’t fuck with me, you understand?”
Thatë stared unblinkingly at him for a long, tense moment. Then he nodded curtly and continued his descent. His voice floated up from the semidarkness. “Keep the girl close to you at all times.”
“What the hell does he mean by that?” Alli said in a stage whisper.
They went down the stairs. Thatë was already at the bottom. He knocked on the door and, when it creaked open a crack, a gruff male voice said, “Hey, Flyboy.”
The kid had to show his pendant before the door opened wide enough to let him inside. The door had begun to close when Jack put his foot in the gap.
“Yeah? Whatta you want?” the voice said. It belonged to someone with a suspicious eye that looked him up and down.
Jack held up the pin with one hand, while with the other he held tight to Alli.
“I don’t know you.”
“Mathis sent me. He’s down with the flu,” Jack said.
“Fuckin’ flu.” He stared hard at Jack, then looked him up and down. “Mathis was going to bring Mbreti’s money. You got it?”
Mbreti meant “king” in Albanian. Jack tapped his breast pocket to indicate this was where he kept the cash.
“Then get your ass in here.” As with Thatë, the door opened just enough for Jack to slip in, Alli right on his heels.
The guard was a massive, dark-skinned man, Albanian or Macedonian, Jack suspected. His eyes opened wide the moment he saw Alli, and a huge smile played across his face.
“I approve of the form Mbreti’s money is in.” He waved them through with a hairy paw. His arms seemed as long as an ape’s. His low brow looked like an anvil.
Behind him, there was nothing and no one. Jack had been expecting a large ballroom teeming with people, but the space they traversed was as small and ill-lit as a dungeon. One bare bulb dangling from the end of a length of wire descended from the ceiling like a dripping stalactite. They passed beneath it, then came upon a shabby-looking door to what might be a broom closet. Instead, it opened onto a cavernous space that looked hewn out of the bedrock beneath the city. Gritty concrete steps led down to this space, which was loud with the shouting of male voices, blue-tinted with cigarette and cigar smoke, thick with the musk of human bodies. But gone were the crowds of people, the monster sound system blaring techno and trance. There were no outrageously dressed bodies slithering together. For that matter, where was the dance floor, the bar, the drugs?
Thatë had already gone down the short flight of steps, but Jack and Alli stood transfixed. In the center of the room, surrounded by perhaps a dozen men in shiny silk suits, a boxing ring had been erected. In the center of this, a mike descended from the ceiling. It was held by a young man, slim, well dressed, with slicked-back hair and the air of an entrepreneur. There were no boxers in the ring, no corner men handling their styptic pencils, buckets of ice water, and low stools.
Instead the atmosphere in the ring was woozy with sex, or, more accurately, bare female flesh. Lined up in front of the emcee were six girls—slim-hipped, small-breasted, blonde and brunette. All were naked. At least half of them, Jack estimated, were underage. They had their heads down, staring at the canvas between their feet. The slim young man started to speak in the rapid-fire jargon of all auctioneers, and that was when the actual business of the Stem sank in to Jack’s mind.
“Now, for our first cherry, we have a tender morsel indeed, fresh from the shores of Odessa.” The auctioneer stepped closer to the first girl on his right. “Only twelve years of age and guaranteed a virgin, good gentlemen, so with that premium in mind we’ll start the bidding at fifty thousand dollars.” He cupped the girl’s chin, lifting her head. “Just look at this cherry! Look into those blue eyes, regard that golden hair, the creamy skin. And, gentlemen, this cherry is guaranteed completely free of lice!” He continued on in this abominable and dehumanizing vein, as if he were selling Texas steers or Arabian horses.
In a trance, Jack descended the stairs, holding tight to Alli’s hand. Part of him wanted to get her out of here now, but another part knew that that choice was long past. Turning around now would only call unwanted attention to themselves. He reminded himself that they were here as part of a triple homicide investigation in which Alli was the prime suspect. They had to go forward.
At that moment, Alli whispered in his ear. Now that they were nearer to the action, he could see what had drawn her attention. All the girls had burns or welts marring their flesh. Some were clearly old, but others appeared quite new. The sight was almost too much to take in and, in fact, it was Alli’s presence that calmed him down.
“Now we’re getting somewhere,” she said.
At that moment, the auctioneer yelled, “The bid is against you, Sergei. No? One hundred twenty, then, going once, twice. Sold!” and pointed to a man in sunglasses lounging in one corner, arms folded across his chest.
A man appeared, climbed into the ring, and led the girl out. The auctioneer was about to move to the next girl, when his eyes caught sight of Alli.
“And what have we here?”
Heads turned as he pointed. “Mathis’s sub is here with something fresh, and by the look of her, what a load of fresh she is.” He beckoned to Jack and raised his voice to fever pitch. “Come on, bring that next cherry up here! I have no doubt she’ll fetch a pretty penny, sir, a pretty penny, indeed!” He moved to the front of the ring, taking his mike with him.
Alli clung to Jack, but the man who had escorted the first cherry out of the ring now reappeared and gripped Alli’s free arm
so hard she cried out. At once, Jack whirled and slammed an elbow into the man’s nose. Blood gushed as he went down. The auctioneer made a hand signal and two large men detached themselves from the shadows. One had drawn a Glock, the other was content with displaying his fists.
“She’s not going into the ring,” Jack said.
“The fuck she isn’t,” the gunman said.
Jack backed into him, trod on his instep with his heel, and, at the same time, brought the edge of his hand down on the gunman’s wrist. The Glock fell to the floor as the gunman grunted in pain, but almost immediately, the second man wrapped his arm around Jack’s throat.
“Make a move and I’ll snap your neck.”
Alli bent down, but the gunman stopped her from reaching the Glock by grabbing the back of her hoodie and dragging her back to her feet. While Jack watched helplessly, the gunman pushed and shoved her toward the ring. The girls stared down at her, shivering and glassy-eyed. But as the gunman began to manhandle Alli up the wooden steps, she tripped. As he reached down to pull her up, she delivered a backward kick to the pit of his stomach. He fell toward her and she twisted, taking the brunt of his weight on her right shoulder, which she twisted away and down, so that he fell against the metal rim of the canvas floor. She took his head and slammed the side of it down, then reached for his gun.
Turning, she aimed the Glock. The man tightened his arm around Jack’s throat.
“Let him go,” Alli said, “or so help me I’ll put a bullet into your brain.”
“By the time you do,” the man said, jerking Jack’s head around, “he’ll be dead.”
A deathly silence stole over the room. Even the glib auctioneer seemed struck dumb. Alli and the man continued to glare at one another. No one else so much as breathed. Jack had cause to wonder where Thatë was. The shock of being in the middle of a white slave trade ring had driven thoughts of the kid right out of his head. He could use him now.
Then, abruptly, a door in the rear of the room swung open and a voice said, “A Mexican standoff is to no one’s benefit.” A shadow filled the doorway. “Put up your gun and we’ll talk. No one’s going to get hurt, right, Evan?”
The big man nodded. “Whatever you say.”
“Ease off, Evan, and the girl will put down the gun, are we clear?”
“I’m not putting down anything,” Alli said.
The shadow in the doorway sighed. “Thatë.”
The kid stepped to Alli’s side. “You don’t want to shoot anyone,” he said. “That’ll just get both of you dead.”
“Tell him to let Jack go and step away more than an arm’s length.”
Thatë turned to the shadow in the doorway.
“Do as she asks,” the shadow said.
Evan slid his arm away and Jack took a long, gasping breath, then began to cough.
“Go on,” Alli said, waggling the barrel of the Glock.
She tracked Evan with the gun as he backed up. When he was a sufficient distance from Jack, she turned the Glock on the shadow in the doorway. “Now we—”
The word froze in her throat as Thatë pressed the muzzle of a .25 to her temple. “Put it down.” When she didn’t move, he said, “It may be a little gun but it’s loaded with Tokarev brass-cased bullets, corrosive, Berdan-primed, 87-grain lead core. In other words, full metal jacket ammo that, at point-blank range, will blow half your head off.”
Alli sighed and, at the same time, glared at Jack, as if to say, Another betrayal. I told you so. She lowered the Glock until it was pointing at the floor. The kid took it from her.
“Thatë,” the voice said, “now bring them to me.”
* * *
“I MUST say I’m intrigued by you, yes, I am.”
The man who was now their host in the small, closeted room off the auction site was speaking directly to Alli in heavily accented English. He ignored Jack entirely, even though Jack and Alli were standing side by side. Thatë, the .25 handgun still in his hand, stood with his back pressed against the closed door.
The room, which seemed claustrophobic, held a heavy antique desk, a single chair, a task lamp. No telephone, nothing so much as a paper clip on the surface of the desk. On one wall hung a horizontal painting, far too large for the space, titled Korab, depicting in exacting detail the spine of ice- and snow-capped mountains beneath a piercing blue sky.
The man tapped an exceedingly long forefinger against his lips. “You’re a tiny slip of a thing, but you burn oh so brightly.”
He was tall, with square shoulders and the slim hips of a dancer. He leaned back against his desk, hands in the pockets of his striped trousers, but his torso was bent forward, his head at the end of its stalklike neck thrust forward. His eyes were huge, slow, and cunning, in the particular way of evil. Like a reptile’s eyes, they seemed to drink in everything with a single glance. He had a nose that looked as if it had been broken more than once, and ruddy skin like badly tanned leather. His priestly fringe of prematurely white hair was so out of place it was difficult to reconcile with the rest of his face.
“What’s your name?” he said.
“Alli.”
“Ah, well, I know that name.”
Alli shook her head. “How could you possibly?”
“A reasonable question.” He considered for a moment. “I believe you’ve earned the right to know. My name is Dardan.”
Alli gave a small, involuntary gasp.
“That’s right.” A smile like a scimitar curved his lips. “You’ve heard my name, as well.”
He walked to the wall with the painting and, taking it off its hooks, set it onto the floor. There was, incongruously, a window, which the painting had hidden. Dardan flipped a switch and hard light flooded the room on the other side of the window.
Alli cried out and put her hands against the glass. “Oh, my God!”
Through the window, Jack saw a young girl, blond and exquisite, her porcelain skin perfect and bloodless, laid out on a black bier. Her skin was pearl white, her bloodless lips bluish in the harsh illumination. Flecks of blood were strewn through her hair.
“Alli, you know this girl?” Jack said.
“Arjeta!” Alli cried.
“Arjeta Kraja?” The mystery girl who had been with Billy Warren at Twilight, the one everyone was searching for.
“I see you know her,” Dardan said. “She had been my plaything for some months, but then…” His voice trailed off and he shrugged.
Jack rounded on him. “Then what?”
At last, Dardan looked at Jack. “It was a bad idea to bring her.”
“Bad particularly for your men outside,” Jack said. He produced his ID. “This doesn’t look good for you.”
Dardan shrugged. “Thatë will not hesitate to shoot you in the back.” He craned his neck. “Isn’t that right, Thatë?”
“It certainly is,” the kid said, brandishing both the Glock and the .25.
Alli turned away from the window, and again her eyes cut to Jack to show her displeasure. They were red-rimmed, but she had not shed a tear.
“You wouldn’t harm a federal agent,” Jack said. “The glare of that spotlight would wrap up your dirty trade and put you permanently out of business.”
“But, no, I think not.” Dardan wagged his forefinger. “Because, you see, I’m protected, Mr. McClure. Even the death of a federal agent cannot harm me. The resulting investigation will be deflected … elsewhere.” He shrugged. “So you see, I can do with you whatever I wish. However”—he pushed off the edge of the desk—“it’s this little hellion—that’s the right word isn’t it?—that interests me.”
As he approached Alli, his hands came out of his pockets. He ran a finger down her cheek, tracing the jawline, then plunging the tip between her lips. She made a sound in the back of her throat and pulled away.
“Don’t.” Dardan held a switchblade, which now swung open, its long blade gleaming. The edge approached Alli’s throat. “I propose to entertain myself with her, Mr. McClure, while
you watch. Sounds like fun, no?”
Jack touched Alli on the right hip and she swung away from Dardan. Jack launched himself forward. Instinctively, Dardan swung the knife, aiming for Jack’s face. Jack came in under the blade, struck Dardan a powerful blow that rocked him back against the desk.
At once, Jack was on him, pinioning the wrist of his knife hand, bringing his knee up into Dardan’s groin.
Alli whirled around to confront Thatë, but to her astonishment, he hadn’t pulled the .25.
Still, she was compelled to say, “Don’t.”
Thatë held his empty hands up. He grinned at her.
Behind her, Dardan had managed to free the knife, which slashed through Jack’s jacket and shirt, questing to slide between his ribs. Jack felt the blood running hot down his side as he struck the inside of Dardan’s left knee. The knife blade missed its mark, but Dardan slammed his fist into Jack’s solar plexus, doubling him over.
Dardan slammed him against the edge of the desk and Jack, dazed, slid to his knees. Dardan reached down and began to draw the blade across Jack’s throat. The pain cut through Jack’s wooziness and he jammed the heel of his right hand against Dardan’s wrist as he tilted his head back. The knife passed directly in front of his face. Jack, struggling for purchase, slipped and, in desperation, and grabbed the base of the blade. As the edge sliced into the meat of his palm, he shoved the point back and up. It passed just above Dardan’s cheek and punctured his eye. He screamed. Jack pushed the blade deeper, burying it in his head. Then he slumped down, his heart hammering in his throat, the adrenaline surging so strongly he thought he would retch.
Then Alli was prying the body off him, pulling him to his feet, drawing him away.
“Fuck me.” Thatë was staring at Dardan’s corpse.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” Alli said without knowing who she was addressing.
A sudden hammering at the door brought the kid out of his trancelike state. “I know a way.” He came away from the door. “But you must promise to take me with you.”
His eyes were big around. Jack, regaining a semblance of composure, could tell that he was terrified. “What is it?” he said, as the hammering continued on the other side of the door.
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