“I don’t know how to swim. The end of the island where I got dropped off was open fields. There were a couple of monuments, but mostly it was one huge field. It turned out this is the northern end. They started the cemetery there, and they’re working their way south as they run out of room. There aren’t any headstones. Just mass, unmarked graves. But when I looked north I could see buildings and trees. And so I understood right away. I’d landed in an open field with no cover, while he was starting out with places to hide. To survive, I had to even the playing field. To even the playing field, I had to use the only advantage I had.”
“Which was?”
“Speed. My father once told me that most people are right handed, so when there’s a choice to be made between a left and right entrance—say, to a cinema—seventy percent of people choose the right one. Valentine’s right was my left. So I ran up the far right side of the island as fast as I could. There was a tree line and some buildings in the center of the island. I ran toward some brick buildings. I ran for about half a mile. Maybe a little more. Two and a half minutes, maybe a little less. There was no way Valentine could have been moving as quickly. No way. I knew that.”
“The only question was whether he was playing the game fair or not.”
“It didn’t matter. I needed to run for cover no matter what. There’s a main road that goes up and down the middle of the island. Then there’s a web of abandoned streets around. Grass growing through cracks. Just like the Zone. The first building I ran into must have been a place where they stored records. There were stacks of files. All over the place. Thousands of them. The second one was a chapel. The third one was a shoe factory. That’s where I hid.”
“In a shoe factory?”
“That’s what I thought it was. Turns out it was part of a woman’s psychiatric hospital. Something to keep them occupied while they did their treatment. There was a huge room filled with shoes. Huge. Every color and type of woman’s shoe you could imagine. They were piled more than a meter high. I took off my left basketball shoe and buried it in the pile far away from the door. And I put it in a place where it would have lined up if a person was hiding under the shoes.”
“That’s why you were wearing one shoe when you showed up at the police station.”
Bobby nodded. “I waited outside along the north side of the building, back against the wall. I could see north, east, and west. There was no way he could approach me without my seeing him. Unless he went into the building coming from the south.”
“And you’d hear him coming.”
“I did hear him coming. Once he went inside I could hear him moving through the shot-out window. The room with the shoes was at the back of the building. Once he was halfway in the building, I knew he’d go through the rest of it. And I knew once he saw the man’s shoe sticking out he’d spend some time lining up his shot. Then he’d have to plow his way through the shoes to see if he’d killed me. So I slipped away really quiet.”
“Slipped away? Slipped away to where?”
“The southern end of the island. My mission was to get past him and stay out of his line of fire. If I got past him, then I could use my speed to get to his boat.”
“And he had a boat?”
“Yes. A little power boat. He had it tied to a fence post on the south end shore. I took it to South Street Seaport. It had a glove box. Like a car. In the glove box was the rental agreement for the boat.”
“Which had his name and address.”
“It did. I took the subway to the Meatpacking District where he lives. What I’d done by escaping from Hart Island was give myself the element of surprise. And the last thing Valentine would be expecting was to run into me on the way home. So I found his apartment. I waited in a dumpster in an alley on a street that was the shortest route from the subway. Odds were high he’d have to pass it on the way home from the subway.”
“What if he’d taken a cab?”
“Then I would have been out of luck that night. But eventually he would have passed that dumpster. And I’m patient. I learned patience in the Zone, especially the night with the hunters. Eventually I would have gotten my chance. But I got lucky. He took the subway that night. It’s what I would have done. A cab leaves a trail. And he already did that with the two boat rentals.”
“And then what?”
“I surprised him. He had just enough time to pull his knife out to defend himself but then I tackled him. I used my screwdriver and that was it.”
“So technically you pulled your screwdriver first?”
“No. He aimed his rifle on me on Hart Island first.”
“Good point.”
Johnny’s conscience eased. If Victor Bodnar had convinced the witness to stretch the truth and swear that Valentine had drawn his weapon first, it was the truth in spirit.
“What happened to the bat?” Johnny said. “The bat you took to Hart Island?”
“I was actually hiding in the dumpster. I needed both hands to get out. To go up and over the top. There was no way I could have moved as fast as I needed to and gotten the bat out. I forgot all about it and left it there.” Bobby took a deep breath and exhaled.
Johnny reflected on what he had just heard for a moment. “So you didn’t have a date with Iryna.”
“No.”
“And that’s why your only call from prison was to her. To tell her to back up your story you were meeting in the Meatpacking District on a date.”
“Yes. To hide the part about Hart Island, for fear someone connected to Valentine from Russia would come after Nadia.”
“Why would you be concerned about that? How did you know Valentine wasn’t just acting on his own?”
“I didn’t. But when you grow up in Ukraine, you understand that powerful men work in packs. There’s never just one of them. They’re all tied together, and they all have connections to the government. So I had to be careful and assume the worst. I had to assume someone else might come after me and my family. And Nadia’s all the family I have.”
The kid sounded sincere. His comments, heartfelt. “I’m going to do my best to keep your real identity a secret,” Johnny said. “Nadia’s been digging into Valentine’s background. If she found any evidence that he was a nutcase, a reckless guy with a history of violence, that’ll help. Where’s the letter you got when you landed on Hart Island?”
“In the Long Island Sound.”
“Good. Let’s review the truth, or our best guess of what it was, and then what we’re going to tell the district attorney. Truth first. Valentine saw your picture or video on the Internet. Probably the Gáborik race in Lasker Park. He went to the hockey game to see you in person. He probably followed you before and knew Iryna was your girlfriend, or maybe he figured it out from Facebook. Maybe he hadn’t talked to his father yet, didn’t have the orders to avenge his mother’s death. He just went to the hockey game angry and lost his cool. Then maybe he spoke with his father on his deathbed. Maybe not. Either way, he accepted responsibility to kill you. Then things got serious. Events occurred the way you described.
“The district attorney doesn’t need to know any of that. All he needs to know is that Valentine hit on Iryna, she told him to take a hike, and he got pissed off. She said number four was her boyfriend, and he confronted you after the game. Why? Because he had that kind of personality. He called you from London and said he would hurt your loved ones if you didn’t agree to meet. You met outside his apartment. He pulled a knife, things got ugly. That part is true, mind you. We won’t get into any of the rest unless it becomes necessary. I’ll bet his boat rentals were cash transactions. He might have had to show ID but there’s no credit card record. No one’s going to find out about them unless they go to the docks looking for them.”