Part 11 (1/2)
”Knock yourself out.”
”Any other thoughts?”
”Honestly ...” Wally paused here, and Atley could see now that she was struggling to keep her emotions out of her voice. ”The thing is, there are just so many things that happen. On the street, I'm saying. I'd guess it had to do with dope, but who knows?”
”Yeah,” Greer agreed with a sigh.
There was a moment of silence between them. Atley studied the girl, and she stared right back at him.
”And you're okay, Wallis?”
”Yes.”
”Huh,” Greer grunted, dubious. ”Okay if I ask you one thing, just between us? I'm putting down my pen here.” He clicked his pen closed and stuck it in his pocket.
”Whatever.”
”What's your plan?”
It was a moment before Wally answered, looking a bit defensive. ”What do you mean?”
”I've been learning about you, Wally. I've been studying Wallis Stoneman 101. People say good things about you, which is not always the case with runaway JDs. I hear how smart you are. How resourceful. From what I can tell, whatever you set your mind to, you can do.”
Wally sighed impatiently.
”So I've been thinking,” Atley continued, ”someone as smart and capable as yourself, my guess would be that you have some sort of goal in mind. A plan for your near future.”
”Actually, yeah. I'm working on a project right now.”
”What about Tevin and Ella and Jake?”
Atley saw just a flash of annoyance in Wally's eyes. She was unhappy that he had gathered even this small amount of intelligence on her.
”What about them?”
”Are they included in this project of yours?” Atley asked. ”Because I gotta tell you, Wally, I've read their files too, and their stories aren't like yours. They're vulnerable, always have been. If we're not careful with them, they're gonna end up like Sophie.”
”Screw you. We can take care of each other.”
”I see,” he said. ”Hey, here's a question: what were you doing up on Shelter Island last week?”
The question obviously took the girl by surprise. Atley could see the wheels spinning in her head as she tried to figure out how he knew about her trip north. Her inability to fill in the blank really seemed to p.i.s.s her off.
”Do your job, cop,” she said finally. ”Find out who killed Sophie.”
She turned and stomped off into the dense thicket of brush and vines, vanis.h.i.+ng from sight.
THIRTEEN.
Tiger exited the package store on Jamaica Avenue and turned south onto a side street, pa.s.sing through a low-income neighborhood. Some teenage Hispanic kids-with lots of ink on their necks and arms-gave Tiger territorial stares but otherwise let him pa.s.s. After three blocks of walking Tiger reached the cheap motel and climbed the outside stairs to the second floor, entering the room at the far end of the building. All the room lights were off and the heavy drapes were drawn closed; Tiger had to wait a moment for his eyes to adjust to the darkness of the room.
”What you get?” Alexei Klesko's voice came from one of the two queen-sized beds-he insisted that the two of them speak English, even between themselves. Klesko was stretched out on the bed, a plastic bag of ice resting between his eyes.
”Pills,” said Tiger. ”The whiskey you wanted. Some food.”
Klesko slid the ice bag off his face and sat up on the bed. Tiger pa.s.sed him the small plastic envelope of Percocets that he had scored on a street corner. Klesko swilled three of them down with a heavy slug of Jack Daniels, then restored the ice to his forehead and lay back down. His headaches had started almost as soon as they had stepped off the fis.h.i.+ng boat in Portland.
”This f.u.c.king light,” Klesko had raged that first day. ”This f.u.c.king American light hurts into the eyes.”
Tiger pulled some bandages out of his shopping bag and started to work on Klesko's leg wound, where the prison guard's bullet had pa.s.sed clear through. Klesko had been taking antibiotics, and they seemed to be working despite his daily intake of whiskey. Tiger cleaned both sides of the wound, dabbing them with peroxide before he put on the fresh bandages. Klesko never flinched.
It wasn't Klesko's physical condition that worried Tiger. Aside from the constant rants against the ”American light,” there were mumbled curses aimed at nothing in particular and long, dark silences that sometimes took hours to pa.s.s. Tiger had started to worry that the years of captivity had warped the man's brain; he could not imagine what Klesko had experienced during all that time in the old gulag. If his mind had been bent, though, the damage had done nothing to dull Klesko's ruthless predatory skills; he had proved that during the escape from his Siberian prison.
And yet things were missing, signs of the bond that should have naturally existed between the two of them. Every year on his birthday, Tiger had received a letter from Klesko, awkward sentiments scrawled on a single page in the old man's increasingly shaky handwriting. Those spare gestures had done their work-had kept Tiger hoping desperately for a reunion with his father and vigilant for the reappearance of the alexandrite stones-but the promise of a genuine connection with his father had gone unfulfilled.
In the days since the escape, Klesko had not asked for a single detail about Tiger's life in Piter during the years of his father's imprisonment. Tiger would have told him how he had moved from home to home among the lower echelon of the Dobrik mob, sleeping on floors and in attics, treated not as the son of the fabled Alexei Kles...o...b..t instead as a servant, and then, as he grew older, graduated into the role of enforcer, earning his keep on the streets of Piter, intimidating, maiming, and even killing in the name of the Dobriks.
Now, as he thought about the lost connection between himself and the old man, Tiger felt a painful emptiness inside, a sense of anger and resentment that caught him by surprise. Tiger wondered if redemption was still possible, if there was anything he could do to salvage the bond between himself and his father; he didn't know how. Here in this strange country, thousands of miles from home, Tiger's only choice was to keep faith, to hope that recovering the lost stones would somehow, in turn, restore the humanity that was now missing in his cold and distant father.
In the darkness of their motel room, Tiger could sense the painkillers working on Klesko-his breathing had slowed, and he had tossed aside the bag of ice. Tiger would let Klesko sleep for three or four more hours, and then they would be on the move again.
Their first stop in Manhattan-days earlier-had been 47th Street, where the side-by-side row of gem merchants stretched for blocks. Tiger's own information had brought them here, information he had bought from a black market middleman in Prague. The Hamlisch Brothers shop was on the south side of the street, a few doors east of Avenue of the Americas. A red sign hung over the door. By that point, Tiger and Klesko had outfitted themselves in appropriate enough clothing-leather coats, collared s.h.i.+rts, dark blue jeans, and new boots-that the old gem merchant inside buzzed them through the door with barely a hesitation.
The Hasidic merchant had a long gray beard and side curls flowing down his neck and chest. He silently welcomed his customers by spreading his arms to indicate the vast selection of merchandise under his gla.s.s counters.
”Alexandrite,” said Tiger. ”You have a new stone.” The old merchant's eyes flickered slightly at Tiger's accent, out of interest but not alarm.
”Ah,” said the old man. ”Yes. My nephew. He is not here.”
”Your nephew?”
”The stone-it is not mine,” said the old man. ”My nephew Isaac manages his own stock. He is on a buying trip. Europe. He returns by the middle of next week. You come back for Isaac.”
Tiger and Klesko stood in silence for a moment, each one processing the man's words.
”You saw who brought the stone?” Klesko asked. ”You know who came here with the alexandrite?” Something in his voice-his accent, which was thicker and more parochial than Tiger's-triggered a tremor of concern in the merchant.
”No,” said the merchant. ”I was not here.”
Tiger fixed his eyes on the merchant, considering whether or not the old man was telling the truth. He noticed that Klesko's attention was fixed on the shop's video security cameras-two of them-one high in each corner of the shop's far wall. His father turned his head and looked back through to the shop's front windows: the street outside was busy with foot traffic. Tiger watched, knowingly, as his father's mind performed the cold calculation that governed every action of his life: What did he want? How would he get it? Who would try to stop him?
”These cameras,” Klesko said to the merchant. ”You have pictures for that day-”
”No,” Tiger cut his father off. Klesko was visibly startled as he felt Tiger take hold of his arm with a firm grip, silencing him. ”Your nephew returns Wednesday of next week?” Tiger asked the merchant amiably.