It took me awhile, but when I eventually uncovered his game, I’d threatened to expose him to a sitting grand jury. The threat was potent enough to secure a promise that I’d eventually be transferred to Homicide — my long-term goal from the day I stepped through the doors of the Academy — and that we’d meet in public from time to time. About the PBA and its whispering campaign he could do nothing.
Working for the Chief of Detectives, Sarney had the kind of juice I’d need if I took the case in a different direction. Unidentified victims are not all that rare in New York, certainly not rare enough to attract attention from the press. True, the media occasionally takes up the cause of a Jane Doe, but cops who reach out to the media without the backing of the job’s Public Information Office pay a heavy price. Bill Sarney could get me that backing. All I’d have to do is beg.
Almost from the minute my hands cut the water, I’d been making an attempt to banish Adele from my thoughts. By then I knew she wouldn’t return, as promised, by the weekend. On Monday, her mother was scheduled to undergo an endoscopy, a procedure that requires the insertion of a tube through the mouth and into the stomach. Leya Bentibi was beside herself, not least because Jovianna insisted that she make a living will.
Adele could not simply desert her mother. Right? So there was nothing to consider. That’s what I told myself, and I almost made it stick. But then, as my stroke became ragged, an image of Adele rose, unbidden, to hang before my eyes. Adele was sitting in the lobby of North Shore Hospital, her face a mask of bandages, her ski jacket matted with dried blood. I’d come to pick her up after an overnight stay because her husband was in Dallas on a business trip that could not be interrupted for so mundane a task.
Adele had been sitting with her back straight and her head up when I entered the hospital, enduring the frank stares of all who passed her by. I fell in love with her at that moment, with her pride, her defiance. You could kill her, but you couldn’t break her. A few days later, when she came to me, when I felt her breasts against my chest and tasted her lips, I knew there was no going back. If I lost her, I’d pay a price until the end of my days. Twenty minutes later, after a quick shower, I tried to call Conrad on his cell phone. If I could talk to anyone, it was Conrad, who knew me better than I knew myself. But Conrad was somewhere off the coast of Alaska, on a cruise with his girlfriend, Myra Gardner. He was reachable only when the ship was in port, which it apparently wasn’t because I was transferred, after a single ring, to his voice mail. I started to leave a message, then abruptly hung up. There was no point.
NINE
By Monday, I was in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Brighton Beach, popularly called Little Odessa. Upwards of one hundred thousand Russians and Ukrainians, most of them immigrants, are packed into Brighton Beach, enough to spill over into the communities of Gravesend and Sheepshead Bay. On the little shops along the streets and avenues, the signs are most commonly written in Cyrillic, and more business is conducted in Russian than English. There are grocery stores in Brighton Beach, no larger than bodegas, which carry ten brands of pickled herring and a dozen of caviar.
The weather remained hot throughout and I was grateful for the deep shadow cast by the el on Brighton Beach Avenue as I made my rounds. My pitch to these Russian shopkeepers differed only slightly from my approach to the Poles of Greenpoint. I told the Russians that I was sure my victim came from Russia or the Ukraine, a white lie that netted me zilch, though I managed to post fliers in a number of businesses. Adele called me that evening, a few minutes before I entered the Nine-Two. Her mother’s endoscopy had revealed a small gastric ulcer that would be treated with antacids and a course of antibiotics. No surgery was foreseen, now or in the future. All concerned were relieved.
Besides a muttered, ‘Uh-huh,’ I made no comment. I was waiting for Adele to say that she was coming home. Instead, she turned the conversation to the case.
‘I set up that meeting with Dominick Capra. He says you should call in the morning and let him know where to meet you.’
It took me a moment to remember that Capra was an agent with the Immigration amp; Naturalization Service. ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I’ll call him.’
‘Corbin, don’t be so negative. He thinks he can help you.’
‘I’ll definitely call him. So, when are you coming home?’
Adele sighed and I knew the answer: no time soon.
‘I need to think,’ she told me. ‘I have to take a look at my life. I have to take a look at the fact that every day I go out to a job I hate. Do you remember when I told you that I didn’t want to live a trivial life? Well, that’s exactly what I’m doing. I’m not saying you, Corbin. You’ll never be trivial. You don’t have it in you. But I’m saying that I need time to think. Time and space.’
This carefully prepared speech presented a line of reasoning familiar to Harry Corbin. You’re perfect, darling, the story goes, but my life is fucked up in every other way. So I’ve decided to leave you. That way I won’t be conflicted.
At noon on Tuesday, I met INS Agent Dominick Capra at Pete’s Tavern near Gramercy Park. About my age, Capra was short and wide-shouldered, with a thickened nose red enough to hang on a Christmas tree. That nose reddened still further when he chugged a double bourbon within minutes of his arrival.
‘Be a sport,’ he said, the fumes on his breath thick enough to ignite, ‘and spring for another.’ And another, and another, as it turned out.
Adele had cautioned me about Dominick Capra, and for good reason. Capra was obsessed with the criminality of the new immigrants and the threat they posed to the nation. He spewed bigotry with every breath.
‘First of all, there’s no Russian mob,’ he told me at one point. ‘What you got in Brighton Beach is a Jewish mob. And it’s bigger than the fuckin’ wops ever were.’ At another, he declared, ticking the items off on his fingers. ‘There’s a Rumanian mob, a Bulgarian mob, an Israeli mob, a Nigerian mob. There’s mobs from ten different parts of China. Hell, you could just make a list of the world’s busted-out countries and there’d be organized criminals emigrating from every fucking province.’
I didn’t react to Capra’s tirade, probably because my concentration was still focused on my little talk with Adele. But then Capra surprised me with something relevant and my focus shifted abruptly.
Illegal immigrants, he pointed out, aren’t hermits and they don’t live in caves. They live in ordinary communities, most commonly among individuals they knew in their home countries.
‘Bottom line, Harry, even if she was illegal, she should have been reported missing. This is especially true for your ex-commies. Before they’re here a month, the kids are in school, the family’s on Medicaid and they’re collectin’ food stamps. They know all the tricks and they’re not afraid of authority.’
‘What could I say, Dominick? I keep in touch with Missing Persons on a daily basis. If there’s anyone out there who cares about her, they’re keeping it to themselves.’
‘I believe you, Harry.’ Capra’s head swiveled back and forth, until he caught the attention of a waiter. Then he raised his glass. ‘Por favor.’ Finally, he turned back to me and said, ‘Look, you got two possibilities here, one pretty remote. Let’s take the remote one first. You don’t see much of this in the US, but every day, thousands of girls from across the third world are drawn into the sex trade against their will. Some are lured into it with false promises and some are purchased from their parents. Either way, these girls become virtual slaves.’
Capra tilted his head back and brought his glass to his mouth, draining the last few drops of Jim Beam. Then he grinned. ‘How’d ya like to be sold by your parents in Vietnam, taken to a mining camp in Burma, then forced to screw twenty guys a day? For nothing, right? You’re not even gettin’ paid.’