She catches sight of a young waiter she knows called Ramzan and he waves at her but is too busy helping clear up to come to the door. Just last week he caught her eye down at a new bar off Ocean Parkway but by the time she'd shaken off the attention of an unwelcome punter he'd vanished. Her friend Grazyna says she should stay away from Ramzan, says he's a Chechen and she'd do well to remember how much Oleg hates Chechens. But Lu doesn't give a shit; Oleg can go fuck himself. Ramzan is tall, thin and handsome with kind eyes. He looks like the type of guy who would take care of her, maybe change her life for ever and get her out of this hellhole. Nose pressed to the glass, she watches Ramzan help one of the cleaning women move a table so that she can wipe beneath it and she feels a stab of jealousy. Fuck him, then. Lu Zagalsky waits for no one. She fishes in her purse and pulls out some crystal amphet; it'll help take the pain away. As she gears up, her punter-radar alerts her to a guy about to use the ATM next to Primorski's.
'It's broken,' she calls to him.
'Excuse me?'
'It's broken,' she repeats, with no trace of her native Russian. 'It's always broken.'
'Oh damn!' He takes off his glasses and returns a gold credit card to his wallet. 'Do you know where the next one is?'
'Yeah, sure. East end of the Avenue,'bout three blocks down,' says Lu, scenting an easy final trick of the night. She puts her hands on her hips. 'I can show you if you promise to spend some of it on me.'
The man seems shocked and embarrassed. He glances up and down the street, looking as though he wants to, but doesn't really know what to say or do. 'Well – errm – I don't know. I mean, I-I've never done anything like that before. I'm not certain, I m-mean…'
Lu moves closer to him. First-timers are always an easy hit. Get them over the initial flushes of nerves and later on they'll show their gratitude with a big handout – in more ways than one. 'Don't worry, mister, I'll look after you,' she says, moving closer to him. 'You got a car?'
He takes a step back and answers nervously, 'Yes, yes I have. There.' He points vaguely to some boring four-door Hyundai that no one under ninety would be seen dead in. Poor schmuck probably hasn't had exciting sex with his wife in twenty years. Lu almost feels sorry for him. 'Twenty dollars hand relief, fifty dollars oral, a hundred dollars for the lot,' she says, as though waitressing in a diner and reading out the specials.
'But, but…' he stammers, 'I don't have any money. I j-just told you that.'
'Hey, don't sweat. I know that,' she says, running her fingers down the lapel of his old blue suit jacket. 'Look, you give me a ride and I'll show you to the ATM, then you can give me another ride – you get my meaning?'
'Y-yes. I understand,' he says, fumbling for his car keys, almost dropping them. They walk in silence to the car and he pops the doors open with the automatic zapper. They climb in. He fires up the engine, pulls on his seat belt and turns to her. 'I'm a l-little afraid of accidents. Would you please put on your seat belt, miss?' he says, leaning over and pulling the strap out for her. 'First rule of the road, better safe than sorry, always buckle up.'
18
Sofitel Hotel, Florence, Tuscany From the moment Jack awoke, he was chasing time.
He stumbled to the bathroom, nursing the mother of all hangovers. He'd badly overslept and had less than two hours in which to meet Orsetta, find out about the case she wanted help with and then catch a train back to Siena. It was going to be tight.
Showering and shaving took fifteen minutes and he arrived in the restaurant with his skin still stinging from aftershave. Orsetta was sitting in a corner, sipping a cappuccino and reading a newspaper.
'Morning. Anything good in there?' he said, taking a seat opposite her.
'Buon giorno,' she replied, without looking up. 'Unfortunately there is never anything good in Italian newspapers.'
Jack knew what she meant. He used to read the crime-packed American papers solely as a means of keeping track of 'the enemy'.
A waiter appeared and he ordered black coffee, juice and some chopped fruit and yoghurt. It wasn't what he wanted, but he knew that he'd reached the age when he could no longer eat a cooked breakfast and not expect it to show up somewhere on his waistline.
Orsetta folded her newspaper and was putting it down when she noticed printing ink on her fingers. 'Looks like I'm being processed,' she joked, holding up her hands.
'Always good to have a set of dabs on file,' said Jack.
Orsetta rubbed her hands on a napkin, then dipped into a black calfskin document bag at her feet. She produced a weighty A4-sized Jiffy bag and then folded her arms over the top of it and looked intently across the table.
'What?' asked Jack, sensing her hesitation.
'Yesterday, you said you might need persuading to help us. Do you still feel that way?'
Jack was dry-mouthed and when he spoke his voice was as rough as gravel. The booze had left him dehydrated and he hoped the juice and coffee would come quickly. 'And yesterday you admitted you were checking me out to see that I wasn't a "cabbage case". Do you still think I might be?'
The word 'cabbage' made her laugh again. 'Touche,' she said and slid the package across the white linen tablecloth.
'Heavy,' he said, weighing it in one hand. 'Okay if I read this on the train and call you later?'
You need to call Massimo,' she answered. 'He's put a personal letter in there for you. As I said last night, he really wanted to come in person, but is out of the country.'
Jack's coffee, juice, fruit and yoghurt arrived. Within seconds he'd drained half the orange, letting the waiter move away before picking up the conversation. 'BRK's victims are always women on their own. Their typical age is mid-twenties and his MO is always to be "subtle" rather than "snatch". Believe me, this guy probably has charm. We've never had sightings of him abducting his victims, or trying to abduct them. We presume he grooms the women, maybe even seduces them. We suspect he lures them into an area where they feel safe with him, and then he strikes.'
'Premeditated and organized.'
Precisely. He's an organized killer, a planner, never taking unnecessary risks, never making foolish mistakes. He's the kind of guy that measures twice before cutting wood. Probably measures three times before cutting flesh.'
Orsetta drank her cappuccino, noting the seamless way he'd lapsed into the lexicon of murder, while mundanely mixing plain yoghurt into his chopped fruit. 'We only have one victim, a young woman from Livorno, a town on the western shoreline of the Tyrrhenian Sea. In this case there is also no evidence of the victim being forcefully abducted. We also believe our offender falls into the organized category, but it is too early in the investigation for us to say that he has not made mistakes or left clues. I hope in this respect our offender is different from yours.'
Jack finished chewing, then added, 'BRK dismembered all his later victims and scattered pieces of them in the sea, like a kid throwing bread to gulls. By the time we'd discovered what the fish hadn't eaten there was nothing for Forensics to go over, they couldn't come up with anything other than rock salt and barnacles.'
'I'm really glad I've already eaten,' said Orsetta, grimacing. She glanced at her wristwatch. 'I am afraid I am due back in Rome. In fact, I am overdue back in Rome. I hadn't planned on staying last night so I really must go.'
Jack wasn't buying her need to rush off. He suspected she was anxious to avoid any potential awkwardness between them.
'Hey, if last night I opened up doors to places you didn't want to go, then I'm sorry. Maybe we both should have known better than to play such games, eh?'
Orsetta managed a thin smile. 'Indeed we should. You know, what you said – well, it was right. I am avoiding commitment. But right now, I need to.'
Jack put his hands up to let her know that she didn't need to explain herself, but he could tell that she wanted to anyway.
'I was in a relationship for four years. I thought I was in heaven. I thought he was the great love of my life. Well, it turns out that he was the love of an
other woman's life as well, and had been for nearly ten years. Probably more than one other woman, if truth be told.'
'I'm sorry. Please forgive me for bringing all that up; I'm sure it was painful.'
'Of course,' said Orsetta. 'You're completely forgiven, providing, that is, that you are going to agree to help us.'
'I am,' said Jack. He tapped his hand on the case notes she'd passed to him. 'I'll read these this morning and I'll call Mass and tell him he'll have my preliminary profile within a few days.'
Orsetta folded a ten-euro tip in with the money she'd left to settle the breakfast bill. 'You have to promise me one thing, then,' she said, standing up and gathering her things.
'Sure,' Jack said, dropping his napkin and rising to say goodbye. 'What's that?'
Orsetta smiled. 'If you come to Rome to see us, then next time dinner is on me, and we stay away from the mind-games, yes?'
'I'll look forward to it,' said Jack. He gently took hold of her shoulders as she leant towards him and they kissed each other on both cheeks.
'Ciao,' she said, and left him with a smile that could light up New York, and a waft of peach perfume that could jump-start a dying heart. After she'd gone, he couldn't help but put his hand to his cheek where her lips had been.
19
Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, New York Lu Zagalsky glances over at the frightened punter in the driver's seat and wonders if she's wasting her time. First off, the loser can't get money out of the ATM machine, now he wants her to buckle up to travel less than a mile on a damned nearly deserted road in the middle of the goddamn night. Chances are that the sucker won't even be able to get it up and will then refuse to pay. 'Whatever,' she says, deciding to give it a go and clunking the belt into place. She slides some gum into her mouth and chews noisily as he cruises east down Beach Avenue.
'Vy goyoreeteh po rusky?' she asks, keen to check if he knows any Russian before she starts hurling any serious insults his way.
'I'm sorry. Say that again?' the driver says politely, his hands never leaving the wheel, his eyes fixed safely on the road.
'Just wanted to know if you spoke Russian,' says Lu. 'Lots of guys round here do, it's pretty much a Russian neighbourhood, you know?'
'Okay, I see,' says the guy, checking his speedo, making sure he doesn't break the thirty miles an hour barrier. Jeez, it's been a while since Lu has seen anyone as strung up and hung up as this punter.
'No, no, I don't speak any Russian,' he adds. 'I'm an accountant, just working down here at the moment, that's why I'm a bit lost.'
Suddenly the punter gets a whole lot more interesting. I mean, Lu tells herself, whoever heard of a poor accountant? Let him pull a ton of paper out of the ATM, get him somewhere he can take his pants off and then do a runner with the cash and maybe his wallet too? The plan sounds a good one. Hardly original, hookers have been working it for years. Nevertheless, it's still surprisingly effective, especially on a dumb ass ebanat like this one.
'Next left,' says Lu, pointing through the windshield. 'See the electronics store on the corner?'
'Yes, yes, I see it,' he says, leaning forward and squinting.
'Left there, then the next ATM's'bout a hundred yards down on the right.'
Ebanat! she says to herself as he indicates way too early, slows almost to a stop in order to round the corner and then takes an eternity to park at the kerb. She's seen grandmas drive faster than this jerk.
'I'll only be a minute,' he tells her, flapping the door shut as he heads to the cash machine.
Within seconds, Lu has the glove locker open and is scanning it for anything stealable. Shit, man, the guy doesn't even have a CD worth taking! Just car documents and a squeegee for the windows. Lu clicks the compartment shut as she watches him turn around from the machine, put his wallet away in his jacket and return to the car. 'Thank you,' he says, politely. Very boringly, he puts his seat belt on again, checks the handbrake and starts the engine.
'Okay, mister,' says Lu, her patience about to snap. 'Now you're all cashed-up, let's go some place and spend some of it on me. You got a hotel nearby?'
'N-no,' he says, his nerves showing again. 'I've got a rental, off Fillmore, other side of the Marine Park. Maybe you c-could come back there?'
'Maybe I c-could,' she says cheekily. 'You know the way?' she adds, not certain this guy knows the route to his own shoelaces, let alone how to get home.
'I th-think so,' he stutters.
'Good, then let's get rollin'!' she says, trying to whip up some urgency. 'It's not too late to give you a night you'll never forget.' She shoots him her sexiest smile, the one that melts even Oleg, but she doesn't detect even a flicker of warmth on his face as he coldly clunks the column gear-shift into Drive and pulls away.
Lu stares out of the side window and neither of them speaks much as the bright lights of the Beach fade behind them. After about ten minutes she sees signs for Fillmore and Gerritsen and in the yellow headlight beams she spots houseboats tottering on stilts and dozens of shabby moorings in need of paint and varnish. Somewhere between Gerritsen and East 38th her last punter of the night turns the car into a rundown driveway cut through overgrown bushes and overhanging trees and comes to a stop.
'We here?' Lu says, surprised that he's completed the task without any further checks, delays or complications.
'Yes, please wait a minute,' says the driver, pressing some automatic key fob that opens a big up-and-over metal door to a double garage. He slips the car into Drive again, nudges it slowly in and automatically lowers the door.
Lu's out of her seat and out of the car before the garage door's even come down. She wants to get this over with as quickly as possible and then catch a cab out of here. More than anything though, right now she wants the washroom. He flicks on a light and she blinks at the brightness.
'I have a key, I just have to find it,' he says, slowly inspecting several brass and steel keys on some kind of ring.
'Here it is,' he finally announces, then negotiates a route around the front of the car to a connecting door from the garage to the kitchen of the old house.
More lights come on and Lu looks around. Not much to the place: a tacky old kitchen dog-legs into a crummy living area with an old three-piece suite, a fireplace and dirty white rug but no TV. Lu has never been in a house that doesn't have a TV; in fact, she didn't think such places existed. 'Hey, can I use your john?' she shouts to him as he locks the back door linking to the garage.
'By the front entrance, or there's one upstairs,' he says, nodding to the open wooden stairs that climb from the far corner of the lounge.
Lu goes for the downstairs john. While she's in there, she tries to work out how much he's good for. The house is a disappointment, there's no sign of a wife around, and that means no jewellery. The guy had to stop for cash, so there's probably nothing more than loose change on his bedside table; maybe, if she's lucky, a watch or some gold ring or neck chain, though he didn't look like the type to wear anything that expensive. She makes up her mind that the best bet is to sting him for a special 'overnight' rate, on account that she agreed to come back to his place. Five hundred bucks for the rest of the night, that's what she is going to ask him for. Or at least that will be her starting price. She guesses that if he's an accountant, then probably the only thing he's good at is figures, and that means he may want to bargain her down a bit. Yep, start around five hundred dollars, Lu; if you're smart, you might end up with two fifty to three hundred.
She finishes off, flushes the toilet and runs water in the sink. Staring into a mirror over a dirty glass shelf, she sees her eye-shadow and liner are smudged and the whites of her eyes are starting to look bloodshot. Hardly a picture of beauty, but what the fuck, this ain't no Hollywood audition, and the weak-spined mudak out there with a hard on ain't goin' to be saying no to what she's offering. Maybe, if all goes well here, then tomorrow she'll give herself some time off, rest up a bit and cut Oleg a slice of tonight's extra cash as though she'd been out on her
early shift as usual.
Lu powders some shine off the bridge of her nose, kisses her newly lipsticked lips together and opens the door, ready to demand her five hundred bucks and put up with anything the useless little creep wants in return. 'Okay, mister, it's playtime!' she shouts, heading back into the lounge.
From behind her, a rope noose is slipped over her head and jerked viciously back. Ludmila Zagalsky is swept from her feet and crashes head first to the ground, her fingers clawing as the rope bites and burns into her neck, choking off all air from her lungs.
'Welcome to Spider's web,' says a cold and stutter-free voice from above her.
20
Florence, Tuscany The railway station in Florence was a cauldron of heat, cooking a human minestrone of travellers from all over Europe. Tempers boiled as tourists bumped and banged into each other, searching for directions to their trains. Finally, streams of people surged, spilled and dribbled down their chosen platforms, squeezing into the baking-hot carriages.
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