Nobody's Child (Georgia Davis Series)

by Libby Fischer Hellmann

  As if to complete the surroundings, she spotted a huge Rottweiler at the far end of the room. His brown markings matched the rug and walls. He raised his head, scrutinized Matt and Georgia, sniffed, then lowered it again. Had it not been for a series of track lights on the ceiling that cast a glare over everything, the room would have been gloomy and claustrophobic, and with the dog, even dangerous. And to make it even more threatening, two additional bodyguards hovered at the other end of the room.

  But the most bizarre aspects of the man cave hung on the walls, and she soon figured out what Matt had meant earlier. The walls were an homage to singer-songwriter Barry Manilow. A framed autographed poster of Manilow hung on one section of paneling, a framed collection of concert tickets on another. A leather jacket encased in a plastic or glass case hung on another wall, accompanied by an eight-by-ten black-and-white photograph of the singer in, presumably, the same jacket. More photos festooned the other walls, some with Manilow’s arm around an elderly man with thick white hair. Georgia bit her lip to avoid a grin. The only section of wall that wasn’t a tribute to the singer was filled with an ornate gold crucifix.

  Under the crucifix sat a La-Z-Boy recliner, upholstered in brown leather, with two chairs in front. Reclining in the chair was a big man with a shock of white hair that rivaled Boris Yeltsin’s. Like his wife, he wore an expensive-looking warm-up suit, but his bulged in all the wrong places. The man in the Manilow photos.

  He appeared to be a benevolent grandfather until you looked at his hands. Rough and calloused, with stubby fingers, those hands told Georgia he could, and probably did, do all manner of things. At the moment they were folded in his lap, and he was watching Matt and Georgia with sharp eyes that belied his casual pose. Indeed, his presence was so powerful it seemed to blot out the rest of the room. Even the Barry Manilow displays faded into the background. Georgia understood why they called it the throne room.

  He pointed an index finger at Matt.

  “My wife says you back,” he said in a gravelly and thickly accented voice.

  “She has a good memory.”

  “I tell you not to.”

  “You did. But I’m not here for me. And I’m not a cop anymore.”

  He shifted his gaze to Georgia. “You cop?”

  She shook her head.

  “So why you here?”

  Matt gestured toward Georgia. She took a breath. The basement smelled of dog, boiled cabbage, and sweat.

  She got to the point. “I think a gang from your part of the world is running a baby ring, trafficking women to get them pregnant and then adopting the babies out.”

  Chapter 80

  The Russian mobster’s eyes narrowed. She could hear the bodyguards shift behind her. “Why you care? Not your beezniss.” Business.

  Georgia gestured to the chair. “May I?”

  He shrugged. Georgia figured she had about a minute before he threw them out. Or worse.

  She and Matt sat in the chairs in front of the recliner. They weren’t much more than folding chairs, rigid and uncomfortable. Purposely, of course. Make the supplicant uneasy.

  “So who run this ring?” the man asked.

  Georgia glanced at Matt, then back at him. Was she being played? He had to know. Carefully, she said, “That’s why we’re here. I think it’s someone you know.”

  The man raised his hands, palms up. “You think I tell if I do?”

  Georgia nodded. “I do.”

  He canted his head. “Why I tell you?”

  “Because I think he’s cutting into your turf. Again. And you want him out of the way.”

  Her comment elicited an intense look. He narrowed his eyes. “Go on.”

  Georgia told him about the man who’d been gunned down in Evanston a few weeks earlier. “I kept wondering why it was so public. You know, when you guys don’t get along, bodies turn up in ditches. Or the lake. But this was right out in the open. On an Evanston street.

  “After a while I wondered if the guy who was killed was informing for you. That you were running a double?”

  “Who you think running this gang?”

  She hesitated. Then, “Vlad.”

  He blinked and folded his arms. She could sense the bodyguards behind her go on alert. Even the dog picked up his head.

  She was on the right track.

  “How you know?”

  “I saw him.” She told him about the Capron farm. “Look—uh—sir—” She didn’t know what to call him. Neither Matt nor he had told her his name. But his features softened almost imperceptibly at her words. She took it as a good omen. “If I’ve been able to piece together this much, the cops will too, at some point, and they’ll be coming after you, even if you’re not involved.”

  The softness vanished, and a suspicious glare came over him. “And you will make sure they know.”

  She raised her palms, mimicking the same gesture he’d made just a moment ago. Two could play this game. She heard Matt’s sharp intake of breath. She wasn’t sure where her courage was coming from, but she barreled on.

  “At the very least there will be a mountain of shit thrown your way. And”—she hesitated—“my sister is mixed up with them.”

  He leaned forward. “You sister?”

  She nodded and explained the note that had been stuffed in her mailbox, the DNA test she’d done. “She’s pregnant, and she needs my help. I want to get her out. And I’m pretty sure the man who delivered the note was the guy gunned down in Evanston.”

  Boris—she decided to call him that, at least to herself—lifted his eyebrows.

  “So you go in with heem”—he yanked a thumb at Matt—“and get her out.”

  “He’s not involved. It’s just me. That’s why I’m here. I need backup. But I don’t want to involve the cops.”

  His eyebrows arched higher.

  “They’d screw it up. Everyone will end up dead. Including my sister.”

  He deigned to give her a slight nod.

  “But I can deliver Vlad to you. And if you or your krysha get involved, you’ll be able to take him out. Consolidate your turf. Maybe even add to your lines of business.”

  Boris leaned back, grabbed the handle at the base of the recliner, and pushed it forward until he was sitting upright. Suddenly, he was three feet closer, almost on top of Georgia. She swallowed. If he was trying to intimidate her, he was succeeding. She heard the bodyguards moved closer.

  “No baby ring,” he said firmly. “No is steady beezniss. Babies is problems. Need to put up women. They cannot work. No drugs. Is too much—how you say—out of pocket. Plus the women, they go crazy. They want escape. Even keep babies. No. Not good beezniss.”

  It was Georgia’s turn to raise her eyebrows. He knew a lot more than he had let on. Was he already getting a cut? She couldn’t ask; he’d never admit it. She had to use her final card.

  “I haven’t told you everything,” she said slowly. “Whoever is running it has an extra business on the side.” She told him about the human transplant organs.

  He was quiet. Then he inclined his head, his expression flat. “How you know?”

  She shrugged, but his knowing expression indicated she might have given him too much. If Boris was involved in the ring, or knew who was, he might realize what a threat she posed to the operation. She would leave this room a marked woman. She wouldn’t know when or how, but they would come for her.

  No. She wouldn’t—she couldn’t—live that way, no matter what the consequences. She figured she had one final shot. She decided to go for broke. “So, sir, or whatever you call yourself. What proof do I have that you’re not part of it?”

  He leaned forward in the recliner and stared at her. Shit. She’d blown it. He was going to destroy her. Maybe shoot her right here and now. She held her breath. She sensed Matt doing the same. He must have been shitting his pants.

  But then Boris did something totally unexpected. He cracked a smile. “Because you still alive.”

  She let his words rol
l over her, then let out a breath. He was right. She chose her next words carefully. “Does that mean you are not in league with Vlad?”

  Boris templed his fingers. “What you think?” Always a strategic move to answer a question with a question.

  She glanced at Matt. He nodded. “I think he’s a monster. At least he was ten years ago when I dealt with him.”

  Surprise spread across Boris’s face. “What happen ten years ago?”

  “You remember when his network fell apart? When Max Gordon was taken down?”

  Boris nodded.

  “That was me. And another person.”

  “You?” He frowned as if he couldn’t—or wouldn’t—believe her. Then he shook his head. “I help finance. I lose much money.” He waved a dismissive hand. “Banks. Skyscraper. Is all fake. I never trust him.”

  “I watched Vlad kill his wife. Then jump into the Chicago River. He went back to the Ukraine.”

  Boris nodded. “I hear he back.”

  “He is.” Georgia was telling him something he already knew. “I saw him.”

  The man’s shoulders hunched as if he was about to sigh. “You know, of course, he is worse kind of bad. He play with people. Like cat with mouse before it pounce.”

  Georgia nodded. “He may be setting me up.” She explained how she’d been able to find the warehouse, Chad Coe, Zoya, and Claudia Nyquist. “He’s letting me get close to my sister. I’m good, but not that good. He’s setting a trap. He wants revenge.”

  Boris kept his mouth shut.

  “Just tell me one thing. The man he gunned down in Evanston—he was your man, wasn’t he? Vlad was sending you a message. Toying with you, too. Or trying to, right?”

  Boris kept his mouth shut, but a calculating, measuring look came over him.

  “Look, I want my sister alive. And we both want this bastard gone,” she said. “I can bring you to him. But I need help.”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Hey, I risked everything to come here. I’ve told you what I know. Please. Give me something.”

  He gestured to the Manilow jacket on the wall. “Is bad timing. I go show in Vegas. He like my son, you know. I know him for years.”

  Georgia glanced over her shoulder at the jacket, then at the crucifix. “Then you know what a crime against nature it is to kill a young woman.”

  Boris shifted uncomfortably.

  “Here’s what I propose,” she went on. “I will set a time for your men to meet me out at the farm. It will probably be within the next twenty-four hours. I’ll call you—or one of your krysha, if you’re at—out of town.” She just couldn’t say the words “at a Barry Manilow concert.”

  “I’ll wait for an hour; then I’ll go in. If they don’t hear from me within a few minutes, it means I got in trouble. The likelihood is I’ll be dead, but I don’t matter. I want your men to get my sister out alive.” She paused. “Then do what you want to Vlad.”

  “An eye for an eye,” Boris said.

  “A sister for a sister.”

  Boris didn’t say anything for what seemed like forever. Georgia wondered what he was thinking. Finally, he said, “Here is number you call. When you ready.”

  She nodded and handed him a card with her number. “Just in case you need it.” She leaned back in her chair. “So does that mean we have a deal?”

  Boris smiled enigmatically. “Maybe yes. Maybe no.”

  She gritted her teeth. She’d have to be satisfied with that.

  Chapter 81

  “Holy shit. You were amazing! We could have been killed!” Matt said. They had stopped at Max’s, a popular deli on the North Shore, famous for its kosher-style-but-not-really-kosher food. “I couldn’t believe your—um—balls.”

  “That’s me. Balls of steel,” Georgia said.

  He grinned.

  She smiled back. “Honestly, I was shaking in my shoes. At one point I thought he was gonna off me right then and there.” She scanned the menu, which was a tall multipage laminated book. “I hate these things. There are way too many choices. How can you possibly decide?” Georgia went on. “I couldn’t believe the Barry Manilow shit. Was that for real?”

  “A hundred percent. In fact, it’s worse since I was there. He’s obsessed.”

  “How did it start?”

  “No idea.” He paused. “Wishful thinking?”

  That brought a giggle from Georgia. It felt good to laugh with Matt. It had been years. In fact the entire day so far had been almost surreal: her reunion with Matt, the visit to the Russian Mafiya boss, now lunch at Max’s. She was about to tell him when the waitress, a middle-aged woman in black pants and white shirt, brought over a bread basket and a bowl of sliced pickles.

  “So what’ll it be, kids?” the waitress said in a tired voice.

  Georgia ordered matzoh-ball soup. Matt ordered a corned beef sandwich. She wanted to tell him Benny’s were better but resisted.

  After they ordered, Georgia picked up a slice of pickle. “I couldn’t figure out how well he knows Vlad.” She bit into the pickle. “A guy like him has to know pretty much everyone in the—uh—community, don’t you think?”

  Matt’s tone was sober. “They all know each other. And you’re right not to trust him. They’re bad people. Even him.”

  “I get it.”

  “Were you bullshitting back there?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “That stuff about the Russian mob guy killing his wife.”

  She leaned back. A flicker of annoyance shot through her. “Not at all. Happened down near the old Sun-Times building.”

  “How did you get involved?”

  “You remember Ellie Foreman?”

  Matt frowned. “Video producer, right?”

  Georgia nodded. “Someone sent her a videotape of a woman being murdered. She turned it over to us. Former Superintendent Olson let me work the case. I found out the vic had been in his clutches.” She took another slice of pickle. “The asshole was into all sorts of shit. Running hookers, drugs, small arms deals. Then he got involved with a Realtor.”

  Matt’s features hardened.

  “Don’t worry. It wasn’t Stuart Feldman.” She heard the edge in her voice. She and Matt had broken up after he fell in love with Feldman’s daughter, Ricki.

  “Damn! Where was I?”

  Georgia hesitated just a beat. It was always about him, she thought. Aloud she said, “Who knows? Israel probably.”

  “Ahh.” He picked up a bialy, slathered it with butter, and bit into it. “So what happened to him? Where’d he go?”

  “They dragged the river but never found a body. I heard he went back to the Ukraine to nurse his wounds.”

  Matt chewed his bread. Georgia picked up another slice of pickle. The waitress brought Georgia’s soup and made a big deal of putting it down. Georgia was aware of Matt watching and smiling as she wolfed down the pickle. They were her favorites. Did he remember?

  “A lot can happen in a few years, Georgia,” he said.

  She got the sense he wasn’t just talking about the Russian Mafiya. She looked over. Gray hairs were threaded through the black curly waves she knew so well. Still. She steered the conversation back to Boris.

  “So do you think he’ll back me?”

  Matt considered it. “Depends on how he analyzes the situation. But I do know one thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You made an impression. I don’t think a woman has ever talked to him like that.” He cleared his throat. “You made an impression on me, too.”

  Chapter 82

  “You’ve changed.”

  She stiffened. “People do.” She needed to change the subject. She didn’t want to deal with what she suspected was coming. “By the way, you ever hear of a doctor named Richard Lotwin? Used to be a surgeon. Maybe he still is.”

  Matt shook his head.

  “He was accused of malpractice. Twice. Both times at Newfield. Maybe ten years ago.”

  He frowned
. “Wait…I think I did hear something about that. Wasn’t he dumped from the hospital?”

  “Right.”

  “Why? I mean, why do you want to know?”

  “It’s something I’ve been working on.”

  “Something to do with this?”

  She stopped talking then, and spooned soup into her mouth. The waitress brought Matt’s sandwich and gave them a peculiar look, as if she wasn’t sure what their relationship was. Georgia returned the look. The woman retreated.

  Matt picked up half of his sandwich. He looked Georgia up and down, then put the sandwich back on his plate. “I was wrong, you know.”

  Georgia let a beat of silence go by. “About what?”

  “You never told me the way you felt. I never knew where I stood.”

  That was a crock of shit, she thought. They had been lovers. They’d lived together almost a year. He was supposed to know how she felt.

  “You always kept things bottled up,” he added.

  What was he doing? Trying to rewrite history? He had dumped her for Ricki Feldman. It had nothing to do with communication.

  Or did it? Even if it did, what did it matter? It was yesterday’s news. If it made him feel better to think she was at fault, so be it. She knew the truth. She started to open her mouth to say something to that effect when an image of Jimmy floated into her mind. Communication skills. Jimmy. She hadn’t called him back.

  Damn Matt. He had a point.

  She put the spoon down. “I—I was dealing with all sorts of things.”

  “Like whether you wanted to be a cop.”

  She nodded. “And a Jew.”

  “I should have known when you started taking conversion lessons,” Matt said.

  “It never occurred to me I’d have to spell it out.”

  “I was an asshole.”

  “Yes, you were.” She waved her spoon. “But that’s in the past.”

  He looked at her, his face wide open. “What are you saying?”