The Boy from Reactor 4

by Orest Stelmach

  “And Evan’s experience in the nightclub business—”

  “Tending bar at Club Revolution?”

  “What we really want to do is open a disco in London.” She tugged on his cardigan sweater. Her eyes moistened and twinkled.

  Kirilo sighed. “If it’s a disco you want…”

  She hugged and kissed him again. They discussed the wedding invitation list before she said good-bye.

  Kirilo sailed to the sitting room next door to his office so he could watch her leave. The opportunity to look out the window and see his baby in a candid moment would be gone in six months.

  Beyond his crushed-shell driveway, the turquoise water of Yalta Bay shimmered against the soaring backdrop of the Crimean Mountains. Resorts and spas sprang from the dense forest that surrounded the sandy beach.

  Two equally skinny girlfriends waited for Isabella beside her Mercedes. Kirilo rotated a lever to open the window.

  “Look what I got,” Isabella whispered. “Somewhere My Love” started up again as she pulled the old-fashioned white pearls out of the case. “He wants me to wear them at the wedding.”

  One of the girls exploded with laughter. The other one looked at the jewelry as though it were a dead rat.

  “Oh my God. You’ll look like…one hundred years old. You’re not going to, are you?” the second one said.

  “Hell no,” Isabella said. “These crappy strands. They’re so old and unreliable. They can snap for no reason. What can you do? Accidents happen.”

  They climbed into the car. A chorus of giggles erupted. The engine roared to life and drowned them out as the car sped away.

  Kirilo’s vision went black. He collapsed against a wall and slid down to the floor. He wrapped his arms around his knees and focused on breathing.

  He stayed in that position for an indeterminate amount of time. Two different men came by and asked him if he was okay. He didn’t bother to look at them. He just told them to fuck off.

  Eventually, the stench of a thousand rotten eggs threatened to suffocate him. He wobbled to his feet and closed the window. After marching back to his office, he screamed his adviser’s name.

  Ten seconds later, Pavel burst inside, breathless. His most trusted adviser had a doctorate in chemical engineering and was a member of the Institute for High Temperatures.

  “What’s wrong, Boss?” Pavel said.

  “The fucking Black Sea. Seventeen waterways shitting all over us. Some Riviera. They don’t have this in France, you know. They do not have this in France. Remind me why I should be happy about this stench?”

  “It’s hydrogen sulfide. Energy of the future. Once the commission decides it’s usable, the distribution concession should come our way. Assuming you and the commissioner are still business partners.”

  “He’ll be seated at my table at Isabella’s wedding.” The mere mention of her made him wince. “Have you heard from Puma?”

  “No. It’s been twenty-four hours.”

  “Then she’s dead. And the bitch is still alive. Victor Bodnar is still alive. That’s not acceptable. Not acceptable at all.”

  Pavel lowered his head.

  A hurricane wind shook the villa.

  Kirilo frowned. “The helicopter?” He checked his watch. It was 5:30 p.m.

  Pavel cleared his throat. “You have dinner with Steen. Andrew Steen. The money manager in Kyiv.”

  “That shifty-eyed prick.”

  “He’s meeting a man from America on a delicate matter, and he needs protection.”

  Kirilo reached into a drawer for his battery-powered cattle prod. “Don’t we all?”

  CHAPTER 22

  CHESTNUT TREES LINED Baseina Street. White-and-pink blossoms burst from thickets of fernlike leaves. The air smelled of spice and jasmine. Nadia couldn’t imagine living anywhere other than in America. Her father had pounded it into her head that she was the luckiest girl in the world to be born in the USA, and Nadia firmly believed it, as much now as she had then. But if there were a short list of alternatives, much to her shock, Kyiv might actually be on it.

  The brief thought faded as Nadia wandered back toward her hotel. Her only lead was dead. Why would the woman who had promised to help Damian give him the wrong phone number? Why would she vanish without leaving a forwarding address? Clementine Seelick was acting as though she had lied to Damian, as though she didn’t really mean to help him.

  A crowd bustled at the Palats Sportu, a metro station built in the shape of a stadium. A babushka sold dried meat, cheese, fruit, and nuts from a pushcart at the corner.

  “Sunflower seeds?” she said, waving a bag at Nadia.

  “No, thank you,” Nadia said.

  She put her head down and hustled past the old woman. Guilt and shame washed over Nadia. Should she have bought a bag? The poor woman probably relied on the extra income to survive.

  Nadia kept walking. The crowd thinned.

  A man emerged grinning from behind a chestnut tree. He looked twentysomething, with a day’s growth over suspiciously gaunt cheeks. He wore a neat blue sports jacket with gray slacks and shiny cowboy boots.

  “Hey,” he said to Nadia in heavily accented English, as though they were friends. “How are you?”

  Nadia ignored him, but he caught up to her.

  “You British or American?” he said.

  “How can you tell I’m a foreigner?” she said in English.

  “You answer babushka. A local not so polite. Local just walk by.”

  He tripped over something on the sidewalk and brushed against Nadia’s side. She recoiled.

  “I practice English. Is okay?” He pulled a lighter out of his right pocket.

  Nadia kept walking.

  He pulled something out of his left pocket and lit it. Took a drag.

  The smell of weed invaded Nadia’s nostrils. She glanced at him with shock. Picked up her pace and turned.

  A man and a woman blocked her path. They wore jeans and black Windbreakers over athletic physiques.

  “Police,” the man said in Ukrainian. “Stop. Both of you.”

  They flashed IDs and badges. His was gold, and hers was silver.

  The policeman grabbed Nadia’s pursuer by his shirt collar. “Still dealing drugs to tourists, Kolya?”

  “It was her marijuana,” he said, pointing to the extinguished joint by Nadia’s shoe.

  “That’s a lie,” Nadia said in Ukrainian.

  The two cops glanced at her sharply when they heard she spoke the language. The policewoman blocked her path. She stayed on her toes as though she expected Nadia to run.

  “Passport,” the policeman said.

  Nadia opened her purse and gave him her passport. He studied and returned it.

  “Let me see your bag,” he said.

  Nadia handed him the bag.

  “My partner is going to search you,” he said. “Just take it easy and do what she says. You got nothing to worry about if it’s like you said.”

  The policewoman told Nadia to raise her arms. She patted Nadia’s pockets. Reached into the left one and pulled out a small bag filled with white powder.

  “That’s not mine,” Nadia said, outraged. She looked at the dealer. “This guy brushed up against me a minute ago. He must have slipped it into my pocket.”

  The policeman studied the bag of powder. “We all know Kolya deals in cocaine, don’t we, Kolya?” He smacked the drug dealer in the head. Turned back to Nadia. Her purse was still in his left hand. “This is very serious. We are going to arrest you and take you to the station. Unless you’d like to pay the fine right here.”

  “Fine?” Nadia said. She realized they could be thugs scamming her. She didn’t live in New York for nothing. “I’m not paying any fine. Go ahead. Arrest me. I want to call the American embassy.”

  “Look,” the policeman said, pulling her purse out of the bag, “we’re getting cash out of this one way or another. Why do you have to be such a bitch? You want to get hurt? Is that the thing? Are you the ki
nd of woman that likes to get a beating?”

  An SUV screeched to a halt beside them on the street. All eyes went to the road.

  It was a black Porsche Cayenne. A man stepped out of the vehicle. He wore a thin cashmere mock turtleneck, pleated slacks, and fine Italian loafers. He moved with the confidence of a bullfighter.

  “What’s going on here?” Brad Specter said in fluent Russian.

  The policeman frowned. “Who the hell are you?” he said, switching from Ukrainian to Russian. “Passport.”

  “You’re the police?” Specter said.

  “That’s right.”

  Specter looked them over. “Really. You two…You two don’t look like police. Show me your badges.”

  No one moved or said a thing. The man and the woman looked at his Porsche and each other.

  Specter stepped closer. “I understand,” he said, nodding sympathetically. “We all have to make a living. Leave now and I’ll spare your lives. I won’t have all three of you shot tonight.” He reached out with an open hand for Nadia’s bag.

  Kolya, the supposed drug dealer, stepped back. He tapped the man on the arm and motioned for the woman to retreat with him, as though he were in charge.

  The man defiantly stood his ground. “Spare our lives? Fuck you, asshole. You don’t even know our names.”

  “I don’t need your names,” Specter said. “I know your faces.”

  The man swallowed deeply. He handed Specter the bag. Backpedaled slowly and joined Kolya and the woman. They turned and hustled toward the metro station.

  “What are you doing here? When did you get here?” Nadia said.

  Specter walked calmly to Nadia and returned her bag to her. “Please get in the car, Nadia. Your life is in danger.”

  “I’m not going anywhere with you. How did you know they weren’t cops?”

  “Cops don’t hassle Caucasian tourists anymore. And if they did, they’d be wearing uniforms.”

  “How did you get here so fast? I had a head start.”

  “I was on the KLM flight with you.”

  “What? But I…I searched the entire cabin. Even business. How could I have missed you?”

  “I was in the backseat by the bathroom and the galley. I could duck into either when I saw you move. And you didn’t have a head start. I was tailing you the entire time. I saw you and your friend in Central Park. The guy with the ponytail.”

  “Why did you stop to help me?” Nadia said.

  Specter hesitated. “Just doing my job. Protecting Misha’s investment. Who lives at Yaroslaviv Val?”

  “Ask the super.”

  “I did.”

  “Then you should know who lives there.”

  “He wouldn’t tell me. I’m a foreigner, and I don’t speak Ukrainian. He said if I want to speak Russian to go to St. Petersburg and slammed the door in my face.”

  “Yeah, he does that.”

  “The man who got shot on Seventh Street,” Specter said. “He said something else to you, didn’t he? I could tell at Victor’s. I could tell you were holding back.”

  Fate of the free world.

  “No. I said it like it was.”

  “Why did you run? Why did you piss Misha off? Don’t you understand that the way you’re playing it now, you’re dead no matter what?”

  “Until he finds Damian, Andrew Steen, and the money, he needs me. I have the only lead. Which means you need me.”

  “What did the man who got shot really whisper in your ear?” he persisted. “Who told you Damian is alive? Who lives at Yaroslaviv Val? If you tell me, I’ll help you get out of the country and get lost for a while. Eventually, Misha will move on to something else and forget about you. We’re like that. Sicilians, they remember and hunt. Ukes, we let go and move on. Tribal difference. Our ancestors suffered ten centuries of oppression. Letting go and moving on is in our genes.”

  “Why would you do that for me? Why would you help me?”

  Specter paused and looked away. “So I don’t have to do what I’m supposed to do once we find the money.”

  “What are you supposed to do if you find the money?”

  He turned back to Nadia with a blank expression on his face, the same one he’d shown her in Victor’s courtroom when he first walked in.

  “Kill you.”

  CHAPTER 23

  ANDREW STEEN, THE gray-haired elder statesman who wore tailored British suits, didn’t rattle easily, in Kirilo’s experience, but he was fidgeting in his seat tonight.

  “For the third time,” Steen said, “I don’t have any clients named Tesla. I have a very profitable business. Why would I possibly lie?”

  The evening had begun well but was deteriorating quickly. After a pleasant dinner at a steak house, Kirilo invited Steen and Misha to an old section of Kyiv called Podil. Curved streets wound around churches, cathedrals, and antique merchant homes. The River Palace was a private casino in a fancy old mansion constructed with marble columns. Sculptures of crocodiles, frogs, and nymphs surrounded the house as though they’d crept out of the nearby Dnipro.

  Steen, Misha, and Kirilo reclined in crushed-velvet chairs in the soundproof VIP room, overlooking the seven gaming tables through a one-way window. The bodyguards, lubricated with bottles of vodka, busied themselves at the blackjack tables below.

  Kirilo had the VIP room prepared for a business meeting beforehand. The temperature was cold enough to store fur, just in case tempers boiled over. A Eurasian minx in a conservative black suit served drinks. Kirilo chose horilka, Ukrainian whiskey. Misha drank vodka. Steen chose Coca-Cola Light and turned the color of a beet.

  “I apologize, gentlemen,” he said. “I can’t consume any alcoholic beverages because of certain medication I’m taking.”

  It was a lame excuse and a sign of weakness, Kirilo thought. The man couldn’t hold a single drink.

  When they first arrived, Kirilo decided to sit back and enjoy the sparring for a while. Now, however, he sensed it was escalating toward physical violence. Just as well. Misha Markov reminded him of a handsome British television presenter he’d always wanted to pummel.

  “Let’s see your client roster,” Misha said.

  “That’s out of the question,” Steen said. “It’s confidential. Look, you’re obviously an important man. I respect you. The last thing I need is for you to make life difficult for me.”

  Misha said, “You’re a Jew in Ukraine. You don’t need me to make life more difficult for you.”

  “Hey.” Kirilo wagged a finger at Misha. “You’re a guest here. Watch your language.”

  Misha’s grin widened, giving him the look of someone who needed psychiatric care. “Don’t wave your finger at me, doob.”

  Kirilo’s ears rang. Doob was the word for “oak,” and Russian slang for “dumb Ukrainian.” Arrogant Muscovite pig. “Hey, moscal,” Kirilo said. “Did you just call me a doob?”

  “What?” Misha exaggerated a look of horror. “No. You must have heard me wrong. I would never call you a doob. You’re the son of my father’s slaves. My father would never hire dumb slaves.”

  Kirilo burst out laughing, trying his hardest to sound genuinely entertained.

  “Andreyu,” he said to Steen, using the familiar version of his first name. “Would you step outside for a moment and give us some privacy?”

  Kirilo escorted Steen to the door and closed it behind him.

  Misha grinned as Kirilo circled around him, pretending to be going to the bar for a refill of horilka. Instead, Kirilo wrapped his arm around Misha’s neck. Secured it in a choke hold.

  “Fight me and I’ll snap your neck in half,” Kirilo said.

  Misha froze, the grin finally off his face. Kirilo applied pressure to the carotid arteries. Misha gripped the crook of his arm with both hands but didn’t fight him.

  “You’re going to pass out in twenty seconds,” Kirilo said. “And then I’m going to teach you a lesson in manners, moscal.”

  “Thank you,” Misha stammered.

>   Kirilo eased up on the pressure and laughed. “What did you say? Did you say ‘thank you’?”

  Misha struggled to form words. “Thank you…for the privacy. I knew you’d come through for me.”

  Kirilo reapplied the pressure. “Come through for you? What are you talking about?” Kirilo burst with laughter. “Listen to this moscal.”

  Misha tapped Kirilo’s arm with his fingertips. The tapping was so gentle, born of such confidence, that Kirilo eased up out of sheer curiosity.

  “Your cousin,” Misha managed to say.

  Kirilo eased up some more. “What?”

  “I know your cousin in America. He goes by the name of Victor Bodnar.”

  Kirilo released his grip.

  Misha took a deep breath and rubbed his neck. “The courier you sent with a gift didn’t do so well.”

  “You know my cousin?”

  Misha sat up. All traces of the shit-eating grin were gone. “He trusts me. I’m sure I could arrange an unexpected reunion between the two of you.”

  Kirilo stepped aside. Let his pulse slow and digested Misha’s revelation. “Interesting,” he said, circling to Misha’s front. “You know, you are a resourceful young man.”

  “So who is this Tesla you’re looking for?” Kirilo said. “What’s his first name?”

  “Damian.”

  “Damian Tesla? Huh,” Kirilo said. “I knew a man by that name once, but he died.”

  “He’s alive,” Misha said.

  “Impossible.”

  “It’s true.”

  “Are you sure we’re talking about the same man?”

  “This Damian was well-known in certain circles. His business associates died in an accident involving a truckload of hot asphalt.”

  Kirilo was struck dumb. “I’ll be damned. The ten million dollars.”

  “Exactly. I know his niece. She was recently told Damian is dying and has ten million dollars for her. I can offer you ten percent to help me find it. And a reunion with cousin Victor.”

  “Twenty percent.”

  “Done. We just need to be certain that Steen is telling the truth.”

  “He is. If he knew something, he would have told me.”