Traffyck (13 page)

When Nikolai Kozlov returned to his office with approval to view the contents of Aleksandr Shved’s car, he said Chief Investigator Boris Chudin had been difficult. Although Chudin was a hardliner, Janos knew Kozlov wished to exaggerate the favor being granted.

As Janos inspected the evidence room basket of material from Shved’s car, Kozlov sat beside him, yawning. Food wrappers came out of the basket first. Shved loved food, and food loved Shved—all 115 kilos of him. Janos opened and looked at each wrapper should there be a note jotted down inside. There were food remnants, which fell to the floor, making the basement room smell of stale onions.

“I have a gruesome thought,” said Kozlov. “Shved ended up like the saying. You are what you eat. He ended up looking like fried meat, well-done.”

Instead of responding to Kozlov, Janos kept digging. The only interesting items were a list of names and a rubber banded pile of maps and travel brochures. The list contained twenty-one names, none of which Janos recognized. Next to each name was a date, some dates going back several years, some more recent. He copied the names and dates into his notebook.

The maps were for the Carpathians, the Black Sea region, Byelorussia, and the Chernobyl region. The brochures were for mountain lodges, Black Sea resorts, various campgrounds, and Chernobyl tours. There were no notes on the maps or the brochures. Because these were not the kinds of vacations Shved had ever expressed interest in, Janos copied the name, address, and phone number off each brochure while Nikolai Kozlov fell asleep.

By the time he finished, it was 5:30. He called Mariya Nemeth’s number once more, but still she was not there. He had not eaten since breakfast and decided to stop on the way to her apartment. By that time, she should be home, unless she cycled the streets at night.

In Chicago, except for the occasional car speeding past, the street outside Lazlo Horvath’s window was silent. Perhaps the excess amount of tea he’d had earlier in the evening kept him awake at 1:30 in the morning. The sign on the Humboldt Ukrainian Restaurant across the street had been turned off hours earlier, and it was dark in his room, the only light coming from his clock radio and the charging light on his cell phone. As he stared at the glowing light, the cell phone began ringing. And when he opened the phone, he saw Janos’ name displayed.

“Janos.” Lazlo coughed. “I am not asleep.”

“I felt you were awake.”

Lazlo sat up in bed. “Then we are one.”

“Yes, we are one.”

Lazlo turned on the table lamp and sipped cold tea to clear his throat. “I am glad you called, Janos. All of our aunts, uncles, and cousins have been asking if you are in good health.”

“I am,” said Janos. “The innumerable aunts, uncles, and cousins on this side of the world have also been inquiring about your health, both physical and mental.”

“My mental health is always in question.”

Janos laughed. “We Gypsies have mental capabilities, but questionable mental health is the flip side of the coin.”

Because of the way he spoke, Lazlo knew Janos wanted advice, but needed the phone conversation to be vague should anyone listen to it now or in the future. The reason they used cell phones instead of e-mail was because it was harder to be vague in e-mails.

Lazlo switched to Hungarian. “Have you a project you wish to speak of?”

“Of course not,” said Janos, which Lazlo knew by his tone meant the opposite. “I wanted to speak of a play I saw in Kiev several nights ago. It was in one of the underground Podil theaters that have sprung up. A woman loses her husband and discovers he has, in English, the
checkered
past. It seems he was involved with young people, and as you know there are many young people who wander the streets these days and sometimes … you know.”

“Yes,” said Lazlo. “I know. They are spelled out in ads on the Internet. You can have yourself a wife, permanent or, in English,
one-nighters.”

“They also advertise in newspapers,” said Janos. “Have you read the latest from Ukraine? I wondered if you saw the story about the fire near Zhulyany Airport.”

“Yes, in the Ukraine-American newspaper,” said Lazlo.

“On another topic,” said Janos. “Do you recall an old comrade, Aleksandr Vasilievich?”

“I know who you mean,” said Lazlo, not wanting to use Shved’s name.

“He was also near Zhulyany Airport. I say,
was
near the airport for a reason.”

“I understand,” said Lazlo. “What was he pursuing?”

“It relates back to my earlier mention of street wanderers. The owner’s wife is suspicious, Aleksandr Vasilievich was there, and two are dead. Also, Arkady from Darnytsya was an associate of the owner.”

“If I recall correctly, Arkady had ambition beyond his position. I can quote you his favorite person if you like.”

“Please do,” said Janos.

“Listov.”

“Correct,” said Janos, and now Lazlo knew Janos was referring to Arkady Listov, the militia investigator from Darnytsya, whose specialty at one time was skimming money from traffickers of young people.

“So now, my dear Janos, you wish my opinion.”

“Yes.”

“Is the wife sincere?”

“Attractively so. Inspector Svetlana Kovaleva insists she resembles the Hitchcock movie-era Kim Novak.”

Lazlo thought for a moment, knowing that a software program might be imbuing the pause with great significance. “I have enjoyed many Hitchcock films on American television. And since Kim’s hair color is my favorite and yours, to me, I can only say, life is short, but short can sometimes be eternal. One must be careful of extended family.”

“Thank you,” said Janos. “I will be sensitive and vigilant, as you say.”

After both of them gave their usual finale of offering greetings to boundless relatives, who did not exist, they hung up.

Lazlo turned off his lamp and lay back on his flattened pillow. When he said “extended family” to Janos, Lazlo meant to be careful of the Russian Mafia, who had confronted Lazlo here in Chicago when he’d assisted in the release of a young woman from the Cheetah strip club in Detroit. If it had not been for his FBI connections, Lazlo might have disappeared in the Illinois River.

As he lay awake, Lazlo could only hope he had given Janos the correct advice. If not, the world would provide him yet another reason to … But no! There was still Ilonka in Kiev, his only living relative. As long as she survived, he would fight on.

CHAPTER
TEN

With her legs outstretched in the van for what seemed hours, but was probably minutes, they tormented her, describing snakes and lizards. She tried to scream, but the gag muffled her. She pulled at the straps on her ankles, lifting herself from the floor of the van, but the man to her right pressed down on her. She contorted her face trying to move the blindfold so she could see, but the blindfold was tied tightly. Finally, in desperation, she tried to urinate, but every muscle in her body had contracted and even this was impossible.

At one point she almost fainted, until she felt her muscles relax. This awakened her with an explosion, which lifted her from the floor of the van despite the man trying to hold her down.

“Whoa!” said the man between her legs. “For a little girl you are strong. Perhaps we will send you to a Czech Republic brothel where they know how to control strong ones.”

“Mariya is not a little girl,” said the man to her right. “And we are not Moldavian traffickers. Mariya is a smart woman who knows right from wrong. Am I right, Mariya?”

The repetition of her name was overpowering. When she nodded, the man between her legs giggled like a boy and asked, “Do you wish to play the beast?”

The other man did not answer. Instead, she felt it. The creature—the serpent—was at her! She tried one more violent lift and felt the creature drop away before coming back. And then finally, she realized it was the man’s hand.

To endure, to survive, she recalled another time of desperation.
A young woman of twenty working in a Mafia club
. For years, she had tried to block it from her mind, and now she recalled it in order to protect herself. If she could endure humiliation of the past, if this was all they wanted, if they did only this and let her go…

The man to her right pushed her shirt up to her neck and lifted her bra. He massaged her breasts while the other man tried various fingers in her. She concentrated on her breathing, slowed her breathing, and relaxed herself to passivity.
You are playing with fire
, she thought to herself.
I am Kimmy the dancer, and I will kill you if you touch me!

The man massaging her breasts moaned, and she felt the weight of his head on her rib cage. Moans became words. He said, “Forgive us; we are simply babes in the woods.” This frightened her even more—asking forgiveness while raping her?

She felt her heart beating, and her chest ached from trying not to breathe hard. The back of her throat was filled, choking her, and she realized she was weeping. She tried to cough through the gag in her mouth. If she wept enough, would she suffocate and die?

The door at the back of the van opened suddenly and quickly. Both men let go of her. She felt the cool evening air sweep across her. She swallowed to clear her throat, and waited. It was silent for several seconds. No one moved, but she knew the two men were still there. And she knew someone was at the back door of the van looking in.

Then a woman’s voice, soft yet angry, said, “Get out!”

The two men left without touching her, the van lifting slightly as they jumped to the ground. She heard the sharp sound of a slap, then another. She felt something brush against her calf as someone climbed in and closed the door.

“I am sorry it happened this way.” It was the woman who had chased the two men out. A young voice. A young woman with power over two insane men.

The young woman removed the ankle straps and helped pull up Mariya’s shorts. She said, “I must leave your hands tied.” The woman’s face was close, and Mariya smelled a citrus perfume. The woman fixed Mariya’s bra and pulled her shirt down. “I am not supposed to speak with you, but there is something I must say. You can answer by shaking your head.”

Mariya waited.

“If you do not want to listen, I will leave.”

Mariya nodded her head.

“Good. I need to tell you they do not usually act this way. Do you understand?”

Mariya waited a moment and then nodded again.

“Good. I knew you would understand.” The young woman rested her hand on Mariya’s shoulder. “Rumor has it hell is hot. But sometimes it is really quite cool, especially at night when the stars come out. You will not be harmed. Simply listen to what you are told.”

After the woman left the van, the man who had been to Mariya’s right was back. She recognized his voice. He moved behind her and grasped her hair, pulling her head back as he shouted into her ear.

“Investigation of your husband’s death will stop! If you continue, everyone will know of his perversion! Everyone will know what he did to children! If you continue seeing the Gypsy or pursuing this matter, we will come for you! We are the protectors of children, Mariya! We are everywhere! Tell no one what happened here!”

The man pulled her head back hard. “Do you understand?”

When he let go, she nodded slowly. But deep in her soul, she vowed she would get even. She nodded and prayed, for the first time in years, for help from God. She would know what this was about! She would set them on fire the way they’d set Viktor on fire!

The man left the van, she heard mumbling, and he was back a minute later, speaking calmly. “It is time to return home. Think of yourself as an urchin snatched from the path. Remember what I said, and watch for
traffic.”
The word was in English, but spoken with the exaggerated pronunciation
trafeek
, or
traffyck
, the way Ukrainians sometimes said
byznis
when criticizing one who takes profit from the despair of others.

After a long pause, during which Mariya wondered if she really would be let go, the man spoke again as if they were having a normal conversation, as if she had said something and he was simply responding. “Your husband Viktor was a recruiter, Mariya. Countless young people suffered because of his
traffyck.”

The front door of the van opened and closed, the engine started, and the van began moving. When the man removed her blindfold, a light from the ceiling of the van blinded her momentarily. Except for red carpet on the floor, the walls of the van were white and bare. The man put on another blindfold before she had a chance to see anything else. This blindfold was rubber. She could feel it and smell it. When he untied the gag, she opened and closed her mouth, licked her lips, cleared her throat, made ready to scream, but waited. While the van was moving, no one outside would hear.

“I am using the spare inner tube from your bicycle bag,” said the man. “Unless you want a mouthful of rubber, close your mouth and keep it closed. You also left your cell phone in your bag, and we see you have no missed calls. This is too bad, Mariya. It proves we are more powerful than you realize. Say nothing! Investigate nothing! Or we will be back!”