Orest Stelmach - The Boy Who Stole from the Dead

Victor bowed. “Good luck.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll find him.”

“No. I meant with your conscience.”

Lauren smiled and tried to ignore the comment. She didn’t have time to wrestle with the past.

As she climbed down the steps to the street, the contents of her bag shifted to one side. She paused at the base of the stairs to adjust the position of her computer. When she reached in and grabbed it, the metal felt hot to her touch.

That made no sense, she thought. It hadn’t been sitting in the sun and she hadn’t used it for two hours. But it was hot.

Someone else must have turned it on.

Victor’s other nephew. The one who’d been reading the men’s magazine. He must have snuck in and turned it on.

Lauren raced to the Starbucks on Second Avenue. She bolted inside and booted up her computer. There was a way to check if someone had logged on recently. There had to be. But she had no idea how to do it.

Lauren logged in. She asked herself why anyone would want to hack into her computer. Her address book, she thought. It contained passwords for certain websites but they were coded in a manner only she would understand. Is that what Victor Bodnar was after? Were the nephews identity thieves? She had nothing else valuable on her computer. Nothing of any great personal meaning. Nothing of any professional interest to anyone—

Except for the video.

She searched for the video clip of the first time she saw Bobby Kungenook play hockey. It started when an opponent checked him hard into the boards. Bobby fell. But instead of getting up and rushing back to prevent a goal, he paused to pick something up off the ice. A locket tied to a necklace that had come loose from around his neck. Right away Lauren was certain there was something special about that locket.

She didn’t know how to figure out if someone had accessed her computer, but she knew how to tell if someone had opened a file. She let the cursor hover over the file containing the video clip and right-clicked the mouse. Scrolled down to “get info” and clicked again.

The file had been opened eleven minutes ago.

Lauren slammed the laptop shut. Didn’t bother to log out. Didn’t bother to power down. Just sat there stunned. How did Victor Bodnar know to look for the video? Obviously he didn’t. But the minute she showed up asking questions about Bobby Kungenook, Victor made sure one of his nephews got a look at her computer. The video was easy to find. Lauren had labeled it “B.K. Hockey.”

She took three deep breaths. A simple exercise her mother had taught her. Her mother had used it to fight stage fright. And camera fright. And husband fright. Her mother. How she wished she was here with her now.

The conclusion was simple. Victor Bodnar was connected to Bobby Kungenook.

Lauren stored her computer back in the bag. She hurried back to First Avenue along St. Mark’s Place. Tucked her body behind the corner of the block. If Victor came out of his apartment halfway down the block, she’d see him. And she’d be able to pull back before he saw her.

She checked her watch. Seventeen minutes had elapsed since she’d left Victor’s apartment. Barely enough time to watch the video clip, discuss it with his nephews, go to the john—old men were always going, weren’t they?—and make his next move. The odds were in her favor he was still in the house. What if one of the nephews came out? She’d let him go, Lauren decided. Victor Bodnar was a man who got other people to do what he wanted them to do. If the video clip spurred him into action, he’d be making the move himself.

Lauren decided she would wait for him.

And see where he led.

ACURTAIN SHIELDED the light from the kitchen window. Victor finished watching the video of the boy everyone called Bobby Kungenook for the third time.

“That’s enough,” he said. “I’ve seen all I need to see.”

The Gun’s fingers flew over the keyboard. A few seconds later he closed the electronic notebook.

It was amazing, Victor thought. The communists would have never had a chance if these gizmos existed in the days of the Soviet Union. They couldn’t have deceived the population the way they did. Information would have travelled too easily.

“You were right all along,” the Ammunition said.

“The locket must be money,” the Gun said.

“Any idea what’s in the locket that makes it so valuable?” the Ammunition said.

“What’s inside the locket isn’t what makes it valuable,” Victor said. “There’s nothing but a dream inside the locket.”

“A dream?” the Ammunition said.

“Yes. A dream you are both living, though you probably don’t even realize it. Forget about the contents of the locket. I have seen the contents of the locket. The money is not inside the locket. The money may be the locket.”

“How can that be?” the Gun said. “Gold, platinum. It’s not big enough for the metal to be worth that much.”

“It doesn’t look like a queen’s treasure or an antique,” the Ammunition said.

“The locket was supposed to contain a priceless formula,” Victor said. “That I know because I was one of the men who chased it halfway around the world. That’s what the boy’s father told Nadia Tesla. It didn’t. But I saw a piece of jewelry recently that made me think. What if it was somehow inscribed under the gold? What if the boy’s father was actually telling the truth? What if there really is a formula? Two things we know for certain. First, his father was the greatest thief I ever knew. If there were a man capable of stealing such a treasure, he was the one. If there were a man devious enough to hide it in such a way, he was the one. Second, we need to acquire the locket.”

“But where is it?” the Gun said.

“We know it’s not in his apartment,” the Ammunition said.

“Indeed,” Victor said. “If it were yours, where would you keep it?”

The boys answered in unison and without hesitation. “Around my neck.”

“Which means what?”

“It’s in storage in prison,” the Ammunition said.

Silence fell over the table for a moment. Victor allowed the boys to digest the implications of what had been said.

“We have to get it out of there,” the Gun said.

The Ammunition said, “Which means we have to get him out of there.”

Victor smiled. “And how are we going to do that?”

“We buy a few more cops,” the Gun said.

The Ammunition frowned at him. “This is America. You may be able to buy your way out of some things but not a murder charge. Be serious.” He turned to Victor. “No. We have to get him out the hard way.”

“And what way is that?” Victor said.

A light flickered in the Gun’s eyes. “The legal way,” he said.

“We have to play chess,” the Ammunition said.

Victor put his hands together slowly and clapped three times. “Bravo.” He stood up and headed toward the closet.

“Why did you tell the reporter that Iryna is dating Bobby? Why would you risk letting her get close to Iryna?”

“It’s public information. Iryna and Bobby are on this Facebook abomination together. I told Lauren Ross what she already knew, or was going to find out. By doing so, I won her trust. And his name is not Bobby Kungenook. He is Damian Tesla’s son from Korosten. Born in Chornobyl to a prostitute from Alaska. His real name is Adam Tesla. He is Nadia Tesla’s younger cousin.”

Victor slipped into his light overcoat. It was made from virgin wool. He stole it from an American oil tycoon named Hammer in a hotel lobby in Kyiv forty-two years ago.