“Gas forced air. One of the only buildings on the block to have it. We’re lucky. The owner takes care of the place.”
“Who owns it?”
“A lawyer. Lives in Wisconsin. Retired.”
Georgia peeked into a closet, looked into the bathroom, and stood in front of the living room window. The view was of a similar building across the street, barely concealed by the branches of an elm or ash. She turned around.
“You said there was only one apartment available, but I couldn’t help noticing there were two empty slots next to the buzzers in the vestibule.”
McCune folded her arms. “Yes, well.” She went quiet.
Georgia picked up on it. “Well, what?”
McCune’s lips tightened. Then she cleared her throat. “We got a nice Mexican couple on the lease, but they have another place in Prospect Heights.” McCune paused. “So every once in a while, some of their cousins stay here for a few days. You know what I mean?”
Georgia knew. The unidentified apartment was a crash pad for illegals. She gazed at McCune.
McCune shrugged. “What am I gonna do? We need the income.”
Georgia frowned.
“Don’t worry,” McCune cut in. “This is a safe place. I ain’t never had no trouble. Me and Joey make sure of that.”
Georgia doubted that a woman who couldn’t remember who said what when could know trouble if it hit her in the face.
“Any hint of it, in fact, they’re out,” McCune was saying.
Georgia ran a hand across her forehead.
McCune took it as disapproval. “Look, we even have a kid here… her mom wouldn’t be here if she didn’t think it was safe. I babysit her sometimes.”
At some point during their conversation, McCune must have decided Georgia would be a good tenant. She was selling her now.
“A single mother?” Georgia asked. “Which apartment?”
“Second floor. Claudia Nyquist. Single woman.” McCune flashed her a smile. “Works at a hospital.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, Evanston Hospital. Think she’s in the computer department.” She motioned toward Georgia. “Just like you. I can put you in touch with her if you want.” McCune looked hopeful.
“That might be a good idea,” Georgia said.
“And there’s a contractor here too…you know, a remodeler. Nice single man. I keep thinking he and Claudia ought to go out. But she don’t seem interested. Maybe you?”
“What’s his name?”
“Bill Tuttle.” McCune proceeded to tell her all sorts of things that made Tuttle sound like the most boring man in the world.
“Who’s the fourth tenant? I thought I saw an Asian name.”
“Oh. They’re a Chinese couple. Just got here. Mr. and Mrs. Wong. Nice people. Not much English, though.” McCune smiled. “So what do you think? You like it?”
Georgia made sure to be slow to reply. “I’m not sure.”
“Well, better make up your mind. The place will go fast. Let me get you an application.”
“Sure.”
They went back downstairs, where McCune retrieved an application from her apartment and handed it to Georgia. She stuffed it into her jeans pocket and headed to the front door. As she was just about out, McCune asked, “How did you come to hear about this place?”
Georgia pretended she hadn’t heard. She waved as she jogged to her car.
Chapter 51
At home Georgia started in on some due diligence. Organizations had such vanilla names for spying. “Due diligence” sounded way more respectable than “surveillance” or “intel.” It was professional, nonjudgmental. Even though they were all the same activity.
She disqualified the Mexican couple whose names weren’t on the nameplate, as well as the Chinese couple whose names were. She hoped she wasn’t profiling, but the Mexicans didn’t live there, and the Chinese had just arrived. She didn’t think they would have business with Chad Coe. But she did make a note to try to identify the names of the Mexican couple’s “cousins.” Who knows what they were using the apartment for? It could be worth a return visit.
Then she started in on Claudia Nyquist, who did have a paper trail. Divorced for two years, she’d been upside down on her mortgage in Des Plaines and had to move when the bank took it back. She was currently a data administrator at Evanston Hospital. Had Chad Coe handled her divorce? Helped her with the fallout from the house? Or was she working with him on the baby ring?
The contractor, Bill Tuttle, was as boring on paper as Mrs. McCune made him sound in person. No debts. Only two credit cards. Two bank accounts, one personal, one business. A pickup truck, used. Unmarried. In his forties. Not much else. She decided to skip him for now.
Then she Googled the Northbrook doctor Chad Coe visited before he drove down to Skokie. Dr. Richard Lotwin was from Long Island and had gone to NYU for his undergraduate degree, Chicago Medical School for his MD. He had a wife and two kids. Nothing out of the ordinary. Until eight years ago. He’d been operating on a patient who died at Newfield Hospital while on the table. Lotwin, the anesthesiologist, and the hospital were all sued for malpractice. The case was determined to be a “bad outcome” rather than negligence, and the insurance companies settled it.
But a few years later it happened again, this time to a young boy of twelve who was in for a routine appendectomy. Something went terribly wrong, and the boy, Antonin Tunick, died. Lotwin’s medical license was suspended, and he was fired.
Georgia went to the Illinois Clerk of the Circuit Court’s website, entered the boy’s name, and searched the full docket file. Nothing came up. There was no mention of any lawsuit connected to Antonin Tunick, no settlement, no reprisals.
Odd.
She Googled the boy’s name. His mother came to the US from Russia when the boy was a baby. A single mother, she lived in Northbrook. Georgia couldn’t help but think the woman had bad karma. If she’d stayed in Russia, her son might still be alive. Not because Russian doctors were so great, but at least she wouldn’t have run into Richard Lotwin.
So why didn’t the mother file a malpractice suit? Georgia was surprised an ambulance-chasing lawyer hadn’t contacted her; the story triggered some media attention. Surely a lawyer would have taken the case on contingency, especially with Lotwin’s prior history. But there was nothing.
What’s more, she couldn’t find anything about a relationship between Lotwin and Chad Coe. She rocked back in her chair. Both Lotwin and Coe had been rejected from their respective professions. Did they meet at some twelve-step program? Or one of those “second-life” programs for people who needed a fresh start?
Whatever their relationship, Georgia needed more. But searching for those connections seemed to be taking her farther away from Savannah, not closer. Then again, what had she expected? A map with neon signs that led directly to her? PI work could be slow going and murky. What would she advise a client in her situation? She’d promise to keep digging until she’d exhausted all leads or tied up loose ends.
She leaned forward and rubbed her palm across her forehead. She thought about tracing Chad Coe’s phone records, but she didn’t have his cell. And if he was involved in sex trafficking or black market babies, the calls she’d want to trace would likely have been made from burners. She’d have to find another way forward.
Chapter 52
Savannah—Nine Months Earlier
A week after she got off the bus in Chicago, Vanna didn’t care where she was or what she was doing. The first three days—at least she guessed that’s how long it was—Lazlo made her do things, some of which she’d never done before. She tried to resist and even bit him once or twice, but he retaliated by slapping her so hard her ears rang. At least he took a shower once in a while and made her do the same. When he wasn’t raping her, he was on his cell talking in what she learned was Russian.
At some point another woman and man showed up. The woman was rail thin and had short, spiky blond hair; the man was tall and s
kinny, with a buzz cut and stubble. Vanna started to tell them she was a prisoner, that she was hungry and exhausted and wanted to go home, and that Lazlo ought to be behind bars. But the man clapped his hand across her mouth as soon as she started and shook his head.
“Soon you happy,” he said in broken English.
Vanna wanted to bite his hand, but she couldn’t reach it with her teeth. After trying unsuccessfully a few times, her cries diminished to whimpers.
Meanwhile the woman rummaged inside a leather bag that looked like a Marc Jacobs rip-off and fished out a small makeup kit. After unzipping it, she took out a packet of tinfoil, a syringe, and a butane lighter. She barked out an order to Lazlo in Russian, and he brought over an empty glass. She unwrapped the packet, tapped some white powder into the glass, mixed it with water, and put the flame underneath the glass.
Vanna knew what it was. She’d snorted heroin back in Colorado, even smoked it once. But she’d never shot up, even though Dex had told her it was a whole different trip. Her expression must have indicated that she knew what was happening, because the man with his hand across her mouth arched his eyebrows.
“You stop cry now?”
She nodded. He removed his hand. She stayed quiet.
Once the mixture bubbled, the woman picked up a syringe. Vanna swallowed. Was this for her? The woman gazed at her, appraising. Then she drew the mixture into the syringe and motioned with her other hand. It smelled like a box of Band-Aids.
Vanna scooted across the bed. The woman turned to Lazlo, who nodded. Then she took Vanna’s hand, turned it over so her palm was up, and rubbed the vein that went from her wrist to her elbow. When it popped up, swollen and blue, she smiled. “Okay.” The woman held her wrist and plunged the syringe into Vanna’s vein.
It took only a few seconds. First came a rush that flooded her body, spreading into every crevice and pore. But it was different from meth or ecstasy. Instead of energy, intensity, and speed, Vanna felt an overpowering warmth and looseness and calm. Then a feeling of weightlessness. She was no longer on the bed. She was flying above Lazlo, the man, and the woman. Seconds later, a euphoric gravity pushed her gently back on the bed, but Vanna didn’t mind. She was perfectly content, a warm blanket protecting her. She wasn’t asleep and yet she was in a dream, a dream that numbed all pain. She didn’t have a care in the world.
She was aware of what happened next, but it was all mellow and warm and loving. First she fucked the man; then the woman fucked her. Then Lazlo fucked her; then all of them were fucking one another. Her world ended at the edge of the bed, but it was okay. She might have been a prisoner, but if this was how it felt, she’d stay a prisoner forever. Never before had she felt so loved, so cherished.
Chapter 53
Savannah
After that Vanna didn’t care about anything except junk. Lazlo and the couple were generous, allowing her to shoot up whenever she wanted. Each time she went to that place, it was bliss. The world was rosy, and she had her rightful place in it. She even wished happiness for her mother. Her poor mother, who would never know the joy that could be hers.
A couple of weeks later the blonde showed her how to shoot up between her toes. Better, the woman said. More hygienic. No one wanted to see tracks on a girl’s arm. There was plenty of skin down there, and she told Vanna she could alternate toes. By the time she got through the skin between them, the punctures on the other foot would have healed and she could start over again. Vanna giggled.
It was sometime during the third week, about the middle of April, that things changed. Still holed up in the fleabag hotel, Vanna hadn’t been outside in weeks. Sometimes she forgot she was in Chicago. Lazlo was gone most of the time now, but he left her with a goon, though not the man who brought her dope. This was a guy with a gun, who reeked of body odor and foul-smelling cigars, and banged her whenever he could tear himself away from the TV.
He’d grunt when he came and fall asleep afterward, but mostly he ignored her, as if she was nothing more than a lump of flesh, there to service him. Once in a while he brought her a sandwich or fries, but between the junk and the lack of regular food, Vanna could feel her ribs sticking out. When Turdball napped—of course he snored—she thought about calling room service or ordering a pizza, but they’d disconnected the phone, and the door was double locked. Once in a while, when she was coming down, she thought about taking his gun and turning the tables on him. But he slept with it holstered around his middle, and there was no way she could get it without waking him.
The periods between shooting up were getting longer, and she needed dope more often. But the couple came only once a day. Sometimes they left her an extra hit, which the goon used as a reward after he screwed her. They wouldn’t let her shoot herself up, even though she’d watched how they prepared it and knew she could. But as long as she could get to that warm, loving place, she didn’t much care who did it or how she got there.
Between the highs, though, she began to feel a gnawing, empty sensation. Sometimes she was restless and broke out in a sweat. She began to lift the shade and peer out the window. The view was limited: a dreary brick building across the alley with a Dumpster against the wall. But if she angled herself at the edge of the window, she could see a scrawny tree in the backyard and a fire escape leading from the window to the ground.
She wheedled and pleaded with Turdball. “Isn’t there a park nearby?” she asked. “Can we go out for a walk? It’s boring here.” But he pretended he didn’t understand English and raised the volume on the TV. Which started to piss her off. Vanna didn’t like to rely on anyone. And yet she was dependent on the couple who brought her dope, and when they didn’t show up, she had to fuck Turdball to get it. She began to plan an escape.
The logistics would be tricky. The woman had taken her clothes, even her mother’s jacket. Vanna usually lay around in a bra and panties, sometimes one of the men’s dirty Tshirts. Assuming she could escape, how to score was another problem. Although not as thorny. She was in Chicago; there was H all over the place. She knew what to do—it wouldn’t be much different from what she’d done back home. The biggest challenge would be getting away and finding some clothes.
She convinced herself that once she was out on the street, someone would help her. She knew how to repay them, and once that happened, she’d be on her way. She went to the window, raised the shade, and looked out. The tree in the backyard across the alley was budding. Which meant it was spring, and warmer. She studied the fire escape, trying to calculate how much time it would take her to climb down.
She lowered the shade, went back to the bed, and pretended to shiver. “My feet are cold. You got any socks?”
When he returned a blank stare, she pantomimed putting on socks.
He gazed at her as if considering it. His hand crept to the gun. Then he shook his head.
Shit. Did he know what she was planning? She lay back against the pillow, if that’s what you could call the hard lumpy material, oily and smelly from so many heads resting on it. Turdball glanced at his watch. He was probably figuring out if he had enough time to fuck her again before the couple showed up. For the first time since, she welcomed his interest. Maybe he’d fall asleep afterward. She smiled in what she hoped was a seductive way. He got off his chair.
Luck was with her. Afterward he did fall asleep. Once he started snoring, Vanna sprang into action. She slid off the bed and quietly opened the closet door. A thin, dusty blanket lay on a shelf. She draped it around her and tried not to think about how many men had come on it. She crept to the window and unlocked it, but as soon as she started to raise it, it squeaked.
Even though the TV was still on, Vanna froze. Turdball snorted and shifted but didn’t wake. Carefully, slowly, she raised the window. The subsequent squeaks weren’t as loud, and the noise from the TV muffled them. Once it was open wide enough, she scrambled onto the fire escape. The first thing she did was fling the blanket to the ground. Then she started down. She knew she should have close
d the window but didn’t want to waste time. She just prayed she would be fast enough to get away.
At the bottom of the fire escape was a gap of about ten feet between the last rung and the ground. She climbed down and let go. She fell, twisting her foot, but forced herself to get up. Her ankle hurt like hell, but she kept going. She snatched the blanket, threw it over her, and limped toward the back of the hotel. Even though the sun was shining, it wasn’t as warm as she’d hoped. She wouldn’t be able to stay outside for long. She needed shelter. Someplace to hide.
She remembered the Dumpster alongside the building in the alley. That would be the last place anyone would think to search. And while the idea was, on its surface, disgusting, the truth was she probably wouldn’t smell much worse than she already did. She hobbled along the fence line of the hotel’s property. She was sure she’d seen a gate to the alley, but now that she needed it, she couldn’t find it. Where was it? Panic rolled through her. She didn’t have much time. Turdball must be awake by now.
She gazed up and down the length of the fence. No gate. She’d been so sure it was there. Was it just something she’d imagined? A heroin dream to give her the illusion of freedom? She had to find another hiding place. Maybe in the basement of the hotel. Every building had a basement. She shuffled to the back door of the hotel, thinking she would slip inside and take the stairs down.
Instead she ran into Turdball. He was aiming his gun at her chest.
Chapter 54
Tuesday morning blew in a deep azure sky painted with fluffy white clouds that seemed to augur spring, but the air was still frigid enough to numb Georgia’s fingers. She was back at Chad Coe’s house in Riverwoods, cupping her hands around a thermos filled with coffee. Coe was beginning to irritate her; she had plenty of suspicions about the guy but nothing concrete—except that he owned a warehouse that had housed a trafficking ring, at least temporarily. Even if he didn’t know what the place was being used for, he had to know the people he rented it to weren’t your fine, upstanding citizens.
Nobody's Child (Georgia Davis Series) Page 15