“Jesus, Art.”
“Yeah.” I felt sick.
“Masha Panchuk waited tables for your pal, Anatoly Sverdloff,” he said.
“Give me a cigarette.”
Bobo handed me the pack along with his lighter.
“Fuck it, Artie, didn’t Sverdloff mention this?” said Bobo. “He didn’t tell you one of his girls was missing?”
“Why would he? Maybe he didn’t know. Maybe she was a temp.”
“Don’t be so defensive, but you have to figure by now someone maybe called him about it, Sverdloff, I mean. Right? Or you want to do that?”
“He’s on his way to London. He didn’t have anything to do with Masha Panchuk’s murder.”
“You want to hang onto that raft, like they say, Artemy?”
“Fine. I’ll call him,” I said.
“You trust him, right?”
I lit the cigarette and handed him back his smokes and the lighter.
I worked my phone, I made some calls, nothing. I turned to Bobo.
“Find Dravic, if you can,” I said. “He was supposed to meet me at the house the club uses as an office, he wasn’t there, I just tried him on the phone, there’s no answer. I called the club, nothing. Now I’m thinking he was scared, but of what? Scared because he promised to give me some stuff on Masha Panchuk? Did someone overhear us talking at the club?”
“Sure,” said Bobo. “I will work everything,” he said formally, his English sounding as if he had learned it in school, his Russian accent more pronounced now. “I will be taking everything into consideration, of course, Artemy.”
I knew that Bobo Leven would get into everything, he was tenacious, relentless, one of those cops, even at his age, who never let go. At two in the morning, he’d still be at his desk doing the paperwork. Before the other guys got into his station house, he’d be combing his computer, and then when they arrived, he’d bug them for scraps of information. The phone would be permanently attached to his ear, he would be calling, asking, bribing if he had to. I had known a few cops like Bobo. It wasn’t just that he wanted to make a name for himself, it was who he was, what he lived for. Everything would come under scrutiny, he would talk to everybody, Albanians, Jamaicans, Mexies, Serbs, Russians, and he would go through every detective report on crazy people, on thugs who sliced people up, on the kinds of knives they used, and if they also used guns, and he would read medical reports, and reports on duct tape, fibers and feathers, anything he could get his hands on.
Every single homicide pattern that was anything like the case would be worked by Bobo; so would cold cases he kept in a bottom drawer.
Moving around, he would get to Starrett City, Brighton Beach, looking at how people had been mugged, sliced, killed. He wanted this case, and he would go without sleep, night after night, until fatigue made him crazy.
“I’m going back to the city,” I said, but Bobo didn’t answer; he was already on the phone, already tracking Tito Dravic.
In my car, I studied the picture of Masha I had with me, I stared at it hard as if it would give up some secret, and without warning a faint finger of panic crawled up my neck. The thing I hadn’t seen, the thing I didn’t want to see.
But I had to look. And I looked, and the face stared back at me.
If some creep had snatched Masha Panchuk, and Masha had worked at Tolya’s bar, was it Masha the creep really wanted? Was it a mistake? Were they looking for someone else? Somebody connected to me? Somebody who scared Tito Dravic bad?
Masha Panchuk, in the picture I held, was tall with short platinum hair. It had been taken the month before.
The face looked back at me, and in it, there was the resemblance. To Val. She looked like Val. Val’s hair had been short and blonde, too. Only recently had she let it grow out; only recently had she let it go back to her dark red.
Had I missed this? How? Did I fail to see it because I didn’t want to see it?
I started the car, I drove like crazy back to Brighton Beach, to Val’s office, and when I got there she was gone. I called her. Val? Val? Answer the phone!
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Val?
All the way home, I called, I put my phone on redial, and when I got to my block I barely noticed that Roy Pettus was leaning against the wall of the Korean grocery on the corner. Holding a bottle of Coke, he saw me pull up. I put my phone away.
“Hello, Art.”
“Roy. You following me?”
He looked at his watch.
“Nope, just hoping you might be coming home before I have to go back to New Jersey,” Roy said who was wearing a suit, the jacket too big, the collar of his shirt too tight. “You give my offer some thought?” he said. “You okay, Artie? You look shook up.”
“What offer?”
“Coming in with us.”
“No thanks. I’m helping out on a homicide. I’m busy.”
“The Russian girl, right? I could give you some stuff on this, help you finish it up.”
“What kind?”
Leaning forward, his head jutting out of his tight shirt collar, he reacted fast, and said, voice low, “This personal with you at all, Artie? You have a stake in this case?” He stuck his finger into his collar like he was suffocating. “God, I feel like a horse’s ass, suit and tie, haven’t been in a get-up like this for years since I left the city.” He adjusted the jacket. “It’s too damn hot for this.”
“You want to come up to my place?” All the time we were talking, I strained to hear my cellphone. Call, I thought. Val?
“Thanks. That would be fine,” Pettus said. “I won’t stay long. Just need to cool off.”
Upstairs at my place, Pettus removed his jacket carefully, folded it neatly on a kitchen stool, sat down on another one and asked if he could smoke. I said sure and got him a cold Coke, which he asked for, confessing he was addicted to the stuff.
I put a glass and an ashtray in front of him, then checked my messages and my e-mails, while he watched me, guessing how frantic I was, that I was waiting to hear from somebody.
He concentrated on his drink, but I knew he was looking around, watching me, taking a good look, appraising my place, me, how I lived. It was what he had wanted, maybe even why he had been waiting for me on the street in front of my building.
“Nice place,” he said.
I got a beer from the fridge, sat opposite him and said, “Thank you.” And waited.
“Tough living in the city these days. Expensive.”
“Roy, let’s skip the small talk.”
“Just wanting to help.”
“Spit it out, Roy, you’re still wanting me to go to London, spy on the Russians there, get involved, is that it? If so, please don’t follow me around and bug my friends, it doesn’t make me feel comfortable at all.”
“Like I said, I’m sorry about that,” said Roy. “We’re in trouble,” he said, as the phone rang, and I bolted from the kitchen to answer it. It wasn’t Val.
“Not the call you’ve been waiting for?” Pettus added mildly.
I didn’t answer, just said, “What makes you so sure I’d be good at this stuff, this whatever you call it? Intelligence. Isn’t that the polite term, Roy? Isn’t that what Bush calls it every time he wants some more money to bug our phones? It’s all just bluster, it’s just the fucking Russians rattling their missiles and stamping their feet.”
Pettus crushed out his smoke, got up, loped across my loft, admired some photographs on the wall, looked at my books, picked one out and examined it. I couldn’t see the title. From one of the big industrial windows that faced the street, he looked at the building opposite mine. He turned to me.
“I am really sorry for not coming to you straight,” he said. “I don’t know what got hold of me. I need your help. We need you bad. It’s that simple. I can’t think of anyone else I can ask, or trust.”
Climbing back on the stool, he put his elbows on the counter, asked if he could have another Coke and smiled, as if at his own pathetic addiction to the soda.