“And this is a way of getting to him, through Val? But why here? And who the fuck is they?”
“I’m just trying to think about the Russkis all living over there in London, all the secret stuff, state killings. Man, Lenin would be jumping up out of his grave and clapping his blood-soaked hands. I know, man, I remember. My parents were devoted. They believed.”
I grabbed his arm. I was panicky.
“I’m telling you something here,” said Lippert. “I’m thinking this out. If they got to Valentina, they’re after her father. She’s an American. She lives in New York. They’re not coming this far for a girl who likes helping out with orphans. I think she’s alive,” said Lippert. “Listen to me. I don’t think she’s dead. I think they want something out of her. You need something to drink?”
“No.”
“Artie, man, I’m going to make some very discreet phone calls to guys who retired and don’t have an ax, and who owe me. Okay? You listening?”
I nodded.
“You’ve been to her apartment.”
“Yes.”
“So you have keys, right? She lives with her old man, doesn’t she? Go wait for her. Wait for a call. I’ll work this, I swear to you, I know how it is with you and Sverdloff.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“What’s the thank you bullshit?” said Sonny. “I’m on it. It will be okay.” For Lippert this passed as extreme optimism.
“Art, man?”
“What?”
“If Roy Pettus wants something from you, make a trade for information about Valentina. He has connections even I can’t touch. Tell him you’ll do whatever, if he gets Valentina Sverdloff back. Call him and go wait for her. She’ll turn up there, or the creeps who took her will call looking for her old man, I know it. Give me a couple hours,” he said. “You want me to go with you?”
I shook my head.
“Then go.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
When I got to Sverdloff’s building, there was light in the sky, and already people were coming out of the elevator with their dogs, two little rat dogs, a big Lab, somebody with a suitcase holding the door open, and I couldn’t wait, I just bolted up the stairs, the endless-seeming flights of stairs, running faster and faster, until my legs burned and I couldn’t breathe, and all I could think about was Valentina and Tolya and how I had failed, I could see them in my mind’s eye, could see the girl Masha Panchuk too, the blue eyes staring up out of her duct-tape shroud, and when I slammed into the apartment, Bobo Leven had just arrived, had just got to the place, and was waiting there in the living room, to tell me that Valentina Sverdloff was dead.
“Where is she?”
Bobo nodded towards her room.
I was already moving towards Val’s apartment, towards her room, but Bobo put out a hand to stop me. Wait, he said. Wait for me.
“Tell me.”
“One of my guys found some of Masha Panchuk’s stuff, it had been buried near the playground, behind a derelict gas station. I was looking for you when Lippert called and said you were on your way here.”
“And?”
“There was a part of a pink dress, a high-heeled sandal, and a little gold purse with Masha’s clothes, there was a card inside.” He gave it to me. It was Valentina’s card. “I think they killed Masha because she had this card, and she looked like Valentina. They killed the wrong girl the first time. Somebody figured it out,” Bobo said.
“I came here, and the door was unlocked, Artie, and inside is Valentina Anatolyevich Sverdloff, this lovely girl, she is there.” He lapsed into bad English, and switched to Russian. “I am so sorry.”
“When did you get here?”
“Few minutes,” he said.
I started for her room.
“Please, do not go in that room alone. Please.”
I told Bobo to wait. I looked at the card he had given me, and then I went into Val’s place, through her living room into her bedroom.
On her bed, Val looked asleep. Unharmed. Her feet were bare. There were no marks on her face or legs or arms so far as I could see. She was pale, composed, expressionless.
On the floor near the bed were wrappers from the Antistatic brushes I’d seen earlier in her darkroom, but I couldn’t deal with anything now, all I could do was look at her. I sat down beside her on the bed.
Her hands were crossed on her chest. Her eyes were shut. The thin gold chain with the cross was around her neck. I tried her pulse. I put my fingers on her neck. I leaned close to her mouth. There was no breath.
I picked up one of the hands, and it was still soft, still pliant and soft and smooth, a young girl’s hand except for the missing finger. She hadn’t been dead long, as far as I could tell. Maybe I got to the apartment an hour too late. I had left my watch at home. I was going crazy.
How long did I sit in there? Eventually Bobo came into the bedroom and leaned over and took her hand out of mine. I rubbed my hand across my face.
“What should I do, Artie? Tell me how I can help,” he said.
“What time is it?”
“Four minutes after nine in the morning,” said Bobo, and I asked him to check flights to London.
I couldn’t tell Tolya about Valentina by phone. I had to go. I had to be there. It would kill him, but if it didn’t, at least he could hit me. He could blame me for failing, for not taking care of her, he could at least take it out on me, if he wanted.
“Artie?”
“Just stay here, okay? I want you to stay here until I leave.”
He looked up from his BlackBerry.
“You can get a non-stop, JFK, get you into London around six tomorrow morning.”
“Do it.” I tossed him a credit card. I figured there was enough for a cheap ticket on it.
“If Sverdloff calls?”
“By the time I get on the plane, it will be night-time in London. I hope to God he’s still playing golf in Scotland, or at some fucking party. Try to fend him off. Tell him I’ll be in touch. Tell him I’m calling any minute. Just give me a little time, can you do that? Try to stay here with her, don’t call anyone.”
“Of course.”
“After I go, just do what you have to, Bobo. It’s your case now. This is yours. You work this like you were hanging onto a twenty-storey building by one fingernail, you get me? Find him.”
“I don’t know how to work this without you.”
“You know plenty. You’ll solve the thing, you’ll find out who killed Panchuk, and you’ll find out who killed Val. I have to go. The same creep killed them both. He killed Masha thinking she was Valentina, then he killed her.”
“I don’t know.”
“I’ll call you? I have to get my passport, some other stuff.” I felt very calm and cold. “Lippert will help you, he’ll do it for me.”
Before I left, I looked at Valentina again, and I understood.
Somebody who had loved her had killed her. The killer had suffocated her and then put her on her bed, hands crossed to make it look as if she was only asleep.
Standing next to me, Bobo put out his hand to shake mine, and this formal unlikely gesture moved me, and I choked up before I ran down the stairs and out to my car.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
On the way to the airport, I made one stop.
Roy Pettus was at a hotel on Lex, a Radisson so new you could smell the carpets. A girl at the desk gave me his room number after I badgered her and I went up to the ninth floor and banged on his door.
“It’s open,” Pettus called out, and I went in.
It was a nondescript room. The furniture was new and ugly. There was no sign Roy Pettus had been here except for the leather suitcase he was packing and the smell of Camels.
He snapped shut his bag, sat in one of a pair of small armchairs and gestured to the other one.
Pettus crossed one leg over the other. He wore pressed jeans, a white shirt and the cowboy boots.
I couldn’t sit. I started for the door, then turned around. I hated the idea of being in hock to Pettus.
“I can trust you?”
“Yes,” he said.
“You have to keep your mouth shut. I need you to help me keep the media off this. I need time. I need ten hours of time. I don’t know who else can call in that kind of favor.”
“Go on.”
“Valentina Sverdloff is dead.”
“Tolya Sverdloff’s daughter?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Somebody left her in her own bed. Last few hours. I was there earlier, she wasn’t there, I went back, she was there.” I stared at him.
“How?”
“She was probably suffocated. Somebody put a pillow over her face.”
“While she was asleep? Somebody who had access to her place?”
“I think so.”
“I am sorry,” he said. “I offer you my condolences, and also to Mr Sverdloff,” he added in that peculiar old-fashioned way.
“Tolya doesn’t know.”
“Where is he?”
“London,” I said.
“What else can I do for you?”
He got up, went to the bathroom, returned with a glass of water and handed it to me. He looked at the bag I had put on the floor.
“You’re going to London to tell her father?”
“Just the media, please. Just make sure it’s kept quiet until I tell Tolya. That’s all. If that’s possible. Is it possible? Roy?”
“I can try.”
“Thank you.”
“You think somebody went after her to get at her father?”
“Yes. Maybe. If they did, then he’s in trouble. I have to go over. I have to tell him first, I have to do it in person. You understand that?”
“Of course.” He put out his hand. “I’ll see what I can do, Artie. I’ll try to help you. How old was she?”
“Twenty-four this week.”
“Same as my girl,” he said. “When are you leaving?”
“Soon.”
“I’ll be in touch,” said Roy Pettus.
“Thank you,” I said.
He shook my hand, walked me to the door, watched me go down the hall towards the elevator.
After I left, I realized Pettus had not asked me for anything in exchange. He didn’t ask me for favors, he didn’t propose I go to work on some Joint Force or attach myself to the Brits, get him intelligence, or spy on Sverdloff, he didn’t ask anything at all, just patted me on the shoulder and shook my hand.
But in Pettus’ mind, I was now his, I was in his play, maybe only with a walk-on part. He had wanted me in London, and he was getting what he wanted, I thought as I boarded the plane that evening. He never asked, never said a word, it was enough for Roy Pettus that I needed him. In some way, he’d ask for a payback, in some way, some time, and by the time the plane took off it felt like a threat.