The Boy Who Stole From the Dead

by Orest Stelmach

  Nadia sat down and smiled. “Yes. Why do you ask?”

  “You looked very serious when you came back into the dining room.”

  “That’s what people used to say when I was growing up.”

  “That you looked too serious?”

  “No. Is everything all right.”

  “Behind every serious face is a child who wishes she’d had more fun growing up.”

  “She?”

  Simeonovich piled some caviar on a piece of toast. “He. She. We are similar, you and I.”

  Nadia laughed. “I’m sorry. I don’t see that.”

  “You’re thinking about money,” he said. “You shouldn’t. Money doesn’t define the man. But now that you’ve brought it up.” He pulled an envelope out of his pocket. “Here’s a check for your work. A billing rate of four hundred and seventy-five dollars per hour for twenty-two hours worked. Plus a bonus of four thousand and change to make it an even fifteen thousand dollars.”

  Nadia envisioned real estate tax and tuition bills getting paid. “That’s very generous but what’s the bonus for? I didn’t do anything to deserve it.”

  “You did everything to deserve it. But did you hear what you said? That’s what we have in common.”

  “What? Earning more than we expect on a deal?”

  “No. Distrust of the person on the other side of the table.”

  He handed Nadia the envelope. She took it. Nadia usually savored a sense of accomplishment whenever she got paid but this time she experienced something more. A greater sense of pride. One of the richest men in the world had just paid her. And he’d paid her more than he owed her.

  “I don’t distrust you,” Nadia said.

  “But you don’t trust me either.”

  Nadia considered his words. “They’re not the same thing, are they?”

  “No. They’re not. Why are you here in Lviv? It has something to do with the boy, doesn’t it?”

  “No. I’m sightseeing with my brother.”

  “Now that’s insulting. I deserve a better lie than that.”

  Nadia smiled. He was right. He deserved a better lie. But he’d caught her unprepared, and it was too late now.

  “If you trust me with the truth,” he said, “if you tell me what you’re looking for, I can help you.”

  It was tempting, Nadia thought. The resources. The power. “Why?” she said.

  “Why trust me?” he said.

  “Why do you care?”

  He stared at her. His face softened. He kept staring. Nadia felt her breath shorten.

  “Obviously it can’t be that I’m fond of you. After all, I barely know you.”

  “Obviously,” Nadia said.

  “This man Valentin. And his friends. They have a less than savory reputation in some circles. They are remnants of old Russia. Of the Soviet Union and the lawless transition that followed. If I were to get some evidence of criminal acts, I could put a stop to them. I could make them pay for prior sins.”

  “What sins? What criminal acts?”

  “Oh, so now you are curious?”

  Nadia shrugged. “You brought it up. I’m just asking.”

  “Rumors. Myths. It’s hard to separate them from reality sometimes. One wouldn’t want to libel a fellow countryman, especially a group that together is every bit as powerful as I am. But if a man had evidence…”

  He’s Russian, Nadia reminded herself. And he could be lying. The living members of the Zaroff Seven could be friends of his. She remembered her uncle Damian’s final words to her. With foxes we must play the fox.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Nadia said. “But I’ll certainly keep my eyes open during the rest of my stay.”

  Simeonovich sighed. “You do that. Now, have some of this caviar. If you won’t trust me, at least let me feed you. Before you go back out there among the wolves.”

  CHAPTER 48

  THE CALL CAME later that night as she lay awake in bed pretending sheep were counting her.

  A man with an endearing voice. The kind that sold flowers to women at the hospital to supplement his income during medical school.

  He spoke proper Ukrainian. He apologized. Said it was a big misunderstanding. They’d lifted the wrong man. They had no business with her or with Marko. They’d mistaken them for some other Teslas.

  He put Marko on the phone. Her brother sounded wonderful. Healthier and more sober than ever. One of his abductors was a woman, he said. A real looker. Vanessa from Odesa. She had a university degree with dual majors in nursing and massage. She loved motorcycles, green cards, and America. Her life ambition was to marry a strip club operator with a trigger temper. Nadia imagined how happy their mother would be when she heard her son was engaged. And to a proper Ukrainian beauty no less.

  Then the endearing man delivered the good news. Nadia was right. There was a connection between Bobby and Valentin. It would illuminate the events the night of the murder and prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Bobby was innocent. The man didn’t get into the all-too-important specifics but promised an explanation so convincing the judge would release him immediately. With the court’s apology.

  The endearing man said he had one last question before hanging up. Had she conquered her ethnic bias and accepted the billionaire’s Russian heritage? Did she realize he was smitten with her? Had she made the proper decision to go for it?

  Nadia scolded him. That was three questions, she said.

  No, the man said. They were all the same question.

  Yes, Nadia said.

  Yes, she was going for it?

  Yes, they were the same question.

  The torrent of good news lulled her to sleep.

  She awoke an hour later, in the heart of darkness, to the sound of the real phone ringing, whereupon she received a simple set of instructions consisting of nine words. It was delivered by a gruff and somber man speaking course Russian.

  Then he hung up.

  CHAPTER 49

  LAUREN DEBATED WHETHER to approach Johnny Tanner or Iryna first.

  She considered Johnny. Her odds of coaxing the truth about Bobby’s background from his lawyer were zero. The probability she’d get him to slip up about Nadia Tesla’s current location was no better. The man was a defense attorney. Confidentiality defined his livelihood. He woke up suspicious. He distrusted authority and people who asked questions. Attempts to trick him would be a waste of time or worse. They could jeopardize her life. She didn’t know who Victor Bodnar was but her gut told her he and his twin protégés were dangerous men. Johnny Tanner had spoken to him as though he knew him. The risks of approaching him outweighed the benefits.

  Lauren imagined paying a visit to Bobby’s girlfriend, Iryna, at the bakery in Brighton Beach where she worked. She’d studied the girl’s Facebook page. A classic beauty. Not too Slavic the way some Russian girls looked, with sunken faces and narrow eyes. She looked like the innocent type who loved to bake cupcakes and watch hockey. Pictures lied, though. And girls lied. Lauren wondered about her real personality, her true motives. She had a genuine hankering to find out, except her gut told her that was a waste of time, too. At the first mention of Bobby or Nadia, Iryna would clam up right away. To earn the girl’s trust, Lauren would have to pose as a person of authority. Like a cop. And she was still rational enough to realize that was more likely to land her in jail than glean any information.

  She was also concerned that Victor Bodnar had dropped the girl’s name. It was as though he was encouraging Lauren to go see her, which told Lauren she should do otherwise. It didn’t smell right. She had an eerie sense he was trying to manipulate her.

  The answer was neither. She shouldn’t approach the lawyer or the girlfriend. Both visits were losing propositions. There simply had to be a better plan of action. There had to be a more promising source of infor
mation.

  A mother, Lauren thought. A mother was the best source of information about anyone.

  Lauren found the address in the White Pages. She drove 120 miles to a small town in central Connecticut called Rocky Hill. She pulled into an old condominium complex in the late afternoon. Parked in a small lot across the street from a corner unit.

  She rang the doorbell. The curtain over the front door window parted. Lauren felt a person’s eyes upon her. The front door cracked open. A chain prevented it from swinging wider.

  An elegant woman with short gray hair opened the door. Lauren recognized the family resemblance.

  “Mrs. Tesla?” Lauren said.

  “Yes?”

  “Nadia’s mother?”

  “Who are you?”

  “I’m Lauren Ross. Nadia’s friend from New York. I’m sure she’s mentioned me to you.”

  “How could she mention you to me when she never calls me? You’d think a daughter would call her mother at least once a week.”

  “Well, she’s been busy. What with the trial and all.” Lauren lowered her voice. “I know the boy’s story. I know he’s from Ukraine and he got into the country through Alaska. I know about Bobby.”

  “You know about Adam?”

  Lauren hesitated. “Yes. I know all about Adam.”

  Nadia’s mother frowned. Gave Lauren a once-over. By the time she was done she was glaring. She’d blown it, Lauren thought. The hesitation had cost her.

  “I don’t know who or what you’re talking about,” Nadia’s mother said. “Good night.” She swung the door shut. A bolt slid into place. A door chain rattled home.

  Lauren returned to her car.

  Adam, she thought. Bobby Kungenook was the boy’s alias. His real name was Adam. Forty minutes and thirty-two miles later a question occurred to Lauren at a rest stop on the Merritt Parkway.

  What were the odds his last name was Tesla?

  CHAPTER 50

  NADIA CHECKED OUT of the Leopolis Hotel the next morning. She took the #170 express train departing Lviv at 7:00 a.m. It arrived at Kyiv Central Station at 11:55 a.m. That left her with four excruciating hours to kill before meeting with the men who had Marko.

  She ate lunch at Varenichnaya #1, a restaurant that specialized in Ukrainian dumplings. She’d eaten there last year, when she arrived in Kyiv for the first time. They offered twenty different kind of varenyky. She ordered three filled with potato and farmer’s cheese, and two stuffed with black cherries. She dabbed sour cream on the potato and cheese dumplings, and spooned cane sugar onto the cherry ones. She ate as slowly as she could to savor every bite. The meal distracted her. For those fifteen minutes she was able to leave the real world and relive what few pleasant childhood memories she had. Varenyky were a cornerstone of those memories. Whenever her mother made them from scratch, her father never shouted at the dinner table.

  After lunch she walked a few blocks to Saint Sophia Cathedral. Aesthetics and religion drove her to the destination. A campus of white buildings covered an entire city block. She sat outside on a bench and stared at the cathedral. Green and gold cupolas topped a maze of turrets. A man once told her green was the color of genius and gold was the color of dreams. Nadia wasn’t sure about that, but the architecture soothed her soul almost as much as the comfort food. She’d been an altar girl growing up. When in trouble, we return to the sanctuaries of our childhood, she thought.

  Inside, she studied frescoes and mosaics from the eleventh century. With an hour left, she kneeled down in the church and prayed. She prayed for Marko and Adam—it wasn’t right to use his false name in a place of worship—and for her parents, too. She prayed for Johnny and that there was one good Russian oligarch among the lot of them, and that he might be a man she knew. She prayed she’d survive the night.

  Kyiv Central Station. 4:00 tomorrow. White Lexus. Wear pants.

  Those were the nine words. Those were her instructions. It was the latter two words that struck fear in her heart but also gave her hope. The need for pants suggested physical exertion. She couldn’t imagine any other reason for the order. Exertion implied action. Action meant she and Marko would have a chance. Otherwise they would have let her wear a skirt and killed her at their leisure.

  She returned to the train station at 3:55 p.m. and waited in front of the entrance. Five minutes later a white Lexus SUV with tinted windows pulled in. A young driver—at least six-foot-six—climbed out of the car and opened the rear passenger door. Nadia walked up to him. He cracked a smile to reveal four golden front teeth and bowed like a gentleman. He took her bag to stow in the storage area and motioned for her to sit in the back.

  Nadia slid into the back seat. The rawboned man from Lviv sat beside her. She wondered if he was one of the Zaroff Seven. If not, he surely worked for them.

  “Welcome,” said the rawboned man. He smiled, too. “Seat belt, please.”

  The driver climbed back inside the car. He pulled into the exit lane and waited for a gap in the traffic.

  “Where are we going?”

  “We are going to a place where all your questions will be answered.”

  “Is my brother there? Where is he? Is he all right?”

  “Your brother is fine. You must realize. If we wanted to kill you, you’d be dead by now. I know that you have many questions. About Ivan Valentin. About his son. We want to give you the answers you’re looking for. But on our terms. In our theater.”

  “What terms?”

  He pulled a translucent orange prescription vial out of his jacket pocket. Handed it to Nadia. There was no label on the vial. It contained a single pill. He unscrewed the cap to a bottle of spring water and offered it to her.

  “The price of admission,” he said.

  “To what?”

  “Our theater.”

  “What theater?”

  “You know what theater.”

  Irradiated trees, buried homes, and an abandoned Ferris wheel flashed before Nadia’s eyes. She stared at the pill with fear and revulsion. If she took it, she might awaken permanently incapacitated or prepared for torture. Taking the pill was insane. And yet, she knew she had no choice.

  “You want answers? Take that pill and you will get all the answers you want. It’s a form of benzodiazepine. Like the Xanax so popular in America. You will wake up in a few hours in perfect health. You have my word as a gentleman.”

  “Why is the pill necessary?”

  “You’ll find out when you wake up. You must trust me. I know that’s very difficult, but if we wanted to harm you that would have already happened. Don’t you agree?”

  Words from the mouth of Karel’s killer and Marko’s kidnapper shouldn’t have reassured her, yet for some reason they did. “Where will I wake up?” she said.

  He smiled. “In the front row.”

  She opened the vial. Let the purple pill slide into the palm of her left hand. If she thought about it too much, she might lose her nerve. She remembered Marko slugging her abductors with his makeshift club on the Appalachian Trail.

  A person is defined by her actions. Make your own decisions, and be accountable for them.

  She popped it into her mouth and washed it down with water.

  At first she didn’t feel anything. Five minutes passed. The Lexus glided along a main thoroughfare. Another five minutes passed. Still she didn’t feel any different. If Nadia had been able to focus she might have recognized the street. But she couldn’t. The drug wasn’t working. She didn’t feel sedated. If anything she felt more agitated.

  Panic gripped her. What had they tricked her into taking? A chemical had entered her bloodstream. What was it? She glanced out the window.

  A sidewalk. A smattering of pedestrians. If she opened the door and jumped out, people would hear her scream for help. Someone would come to her aid. Maybe there was a cop nearby.

&nbs
p; She found the latch to open the door. Considered reaching for it but changed her mind. She sank deeper into the leather instead. Stretched her legs their full length. Everything was going to be all right, she told herself. This is what she had to do. All she needed was to rest her eyes for a moment. If she rested her eyes, she’d have enough strength to overcome any obstacle.

  Her eyelids pressed together. She drifted asleep.

  CHAPTER 51

  SATURDAY MORNING DEVELOPED in slow motion for Johnny. The water in his shower took five minutes to heat up and the line for coffee at the gas station wound out the front door. Traffic snarled. The guards at Rikers kept joking around while he stood waiting for someone to sign him in. Nothing happened quickly enough. That was because today was the day. Today was the day the kid would fess up and give Johnny the ammo he needed to make Nadia’s dream come true.

  As soon as the guard brought him into the room, Johnny could see the apprehension in Bobby’s face. Only the kid knew exactly what Johnny was about to hear. And by the tension in his eyes and the tightness in his lips, Johnny knew it was coming from a place he’d tucked away and hoped to never revisit. This was going to be some serious shit he was about to hear. Unlike anything he’d ever heard before in his life. He could feel it in his gut. And after eleven years of representing career criminals, his gut rarely deceived him.

  They sat opposite each other at the table. Johnny put his briefcase beside his chair. Not on the table. He wanted nothing but clean slate between the two of them.

  “To understand what happened on Hart Island,” Bobby said, “you have to understand what happened in Chornobyl first.”

  He didn’t pronounce it the way Americans did. He didn’t call it Chornobyl. He softened the consonants. Put the accent on the third syllable. “Chor-no-BEEL.” Proper Ukrainian, Johnny thought. Ukrainian, Russian, English, didn’t matter. The word rolling off a person’s tongue never failed to creep him out. It was the name of a place where a lot of people died without any violence. Without ever seeing the enemy that killed them.