Orest Stelmach - The Boy from Reactor 4

“Yes, I have it.”

“Because he doesn’t like to be dropped.”

Tara laughed and tightened her grip. “Yes, Victor. I have it.”

Victor let go of the strap. His hand fell to his side, still clutching an imaginary strap. He handed her a second bag that contained some food, the cat’s favorite toys, and its vaccination history.

He cleared his throat. “I’ll be right back. I’m going to get a porter to help you with your suitcases.”

Victor walked away. He resisted the urge to turn back. To tell her how much joy she’d brought him the three times he’d seen her. Instead, he found a man in a red cap pushing a trolley. He gave him twenty dollars and asked him to help Tara board the train early. Afterward, Victor did not return to say good-bye to Tara.

Instead, he circled the waiting area until he found an intense young woman in a business suit typing away like a nutcase into one of those small phone-like contraptions everyone is obsessed with these days. She was sitting in a corner against a wall. Perfect. Victor slipped behind a support beam, removed his right arm from its jacket sleeve, and replaced the coat around his shoulder.

He sat down beside the woman. She paid no attention to him. With the sleeve of his jacket hanging by her side as it normally would, Victor slipped his right arm around her waist. He dipped into her purse, rummaged around, and lifted her wallet. The entire exercise took ten seconds.

Victor tucked the wallet inside his jacket and sauntered out of the waiting area. He looked around. The police weren’t rushing from their booth toward him. No one sounded an alarm.

He wiped a trace of sweat off his brow. Just like the old days in Kyiv Central Station.

“Excuse me, miss,” he said, after returning to the waiting area. “I think you dropped this.”

The startled young woman took her wallet and thanked him profusely. Victor bowed slightly and walked away.

He still had it. After all these years, he still had the edge. Good.

He was going to need it.

NADIA CLIMBED THE hilltop to the carousel in Central Park at 10:00 on a crisp morning. A smattering of children gathered with their nannies and parents at the ticket window. A vendor sold popcorn and cheap T-shirts featuring a prancing horse. People crisscrossed the path below toward the skating rink or the zoo.

Nadia’s optimal course of action was obvious. Still, she was having trouble picturing herself on a plane, landing in Ukraine, and walking the streets of Kyiv. She spoke the language well enough, but she’d be a stranger in a foreign land. She needed the money to solve her troubles, though, and now that its mystery was wrapped in her family history, she couldn’t resist the temptation to see it through to her ancestral homeland.

She found her attorney, Johnny Tanner, waiting on a bench. She’d met him a year ago when she accidentally walked into an airport with a gun in her bag. Johnny had gotten the charges reduced to a misdemeanor. A fine and probation. He wore a ponytail, a black pinstripe suit, and a look of unequivocal dread.

He started reading from a file as soon as Nadia sat down.

“Misha’s full name is Mikhail Markov,” Johnny said. “Thirty-eight. Born in Moscow. Immigrated at age seven. Grew up in Brighton Beach. He’s been investigated for gasoline sales-tax evasion, prostitution, extortion, murder, and selling a Russian submarine to the Colombians. Two priors for assault. Did six months at Mohawk Correctional.”

“Extortion and murder,” Nadia said, swallowing hard. “What about Victor Bodnar?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing.”

“Brad Specter?”

“Master’s degree in art history from Rutgers. Convicted of fraud for selling art forgeries. Did two years in Mohawk at the same time as Misha.”

At the carousel, a homely girl and her young father climbed atop a pair of emerald-and-silver horses with cherry tongues hanging out of their mouths.

“I have to find the money to pay these people,” Nadia said. “There’s no running away from them.”

“You’re kidding yourself, Nadia. Once they start squeezing, they’ll never stop.”

“No, you’re wrong. The old man, Victor Bodnar, he’s different. I don’t know why, but I trust him. They just want to be compensated for their antiques business in their own sick and twisted way.”

“You really believe that?”

“Yes. But I hear you. I may be wrong. So I’m going to try it my way. If I find the money to pay them and they keep squeezing, then I’m going to the cops. In the meantime, I have to follow this trail on my own. If they’re with me when I find the money, there’s too big a risk they’ll kill me and take everything. Whatever it is, cash or commodity, I have to bring it to America, make it my own, and then pay them. Otherwise, I’m as good as dead.”

An organ-based version of “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head” started up. The carousel began to turn.

Johnny said, “So you really want to go through with this?”

Nadia watched the carousel. “I have no choice.” It was a snap decision, the kind that had made her career on Wall Street, based on a decisiveness she’d inherited from her father.

“As your attorney, I have to advise against this. You should go to the police and the FBI and tell them what happened. That business with the stolen-art ring was dangerous last year. But this thing… with these people…”

“I appreciate it, Johnny, but my mind is made up. I’m going to get that money before anyone else does.”

“Your next meeting with your probation officer in Jersey is in twenty-five days. Be sure you’re back by then.”

“Twenty-five days? Please. In twenty-five days, I’m treating you to a hamburger and fries at the fast-food restaurant of your choice.”

Johnny managed a smile. “You big spender, you.”

The carousel spun round and round. The little girl stayed two lengths behind her father, unable to catch up to him no matter how much she willed her horse to run faster.

VICTOR SAT AT his usual table, watching exhaust billow from a black SUV through a window beside the entrance to Veselka. Two of Misha’s men sat in the front seats, pounding raspberry blintzes. Inside the restaurant, two other bodyguards sat at the counter across from the dining room, downing pints of pilsner. They blended in with a cross section of New York City: students, artists, lawyers, bureaucrats, and businesspeople.

“Amazov can’t make it,” Misha said, reading from his infuriating little electronic device. “He wants me to fill him in later.”

Misha put the device aside. A sizzling kielbasa appetizer cooled on his plate. He reached for a pickle and studied its texture and color as though judging a contest. He bit off the end and chewed quickly.

“Not bad,” Misha said. “Good garlic. Good crunch. They must have aged it in cold water, not hot. Good spices.”

Victor grimaced. “You eat pickles with kielbasa?”

“I eat pickles with everything, man. Major flavor with zero calories. You can’t beat it with your rhythm stick.”

Victor shook his head and sipped his coffee. They were seated at a table for four in the far corner, Victor with his back against the wall. Misha’s plate smelled of spicy pork and garlic. Victor hadn’t eaten for twenty-four hours and still wasn’t hungry.