Джеймс Паттерсон - Lost

She stared down at the tourists rushing around on the street below. Hanna liked living in the De Wallen District of Amsterdam, the old town quarter, because of the nice apartment buildings and safe streets. Tourists loved to tell people back home that they’d wandered through the red-light district and looked at the canal from Oudezijds Voorburgwal, just below her window. There were even organized tours of the red-light district, with guides and everything. The guides always said how great the young girls in the brothels had it. How they chose their own hours. Took only the customers they wanted. Didn’t mind showing off their bodies in the windows. The charade made Hanna sick. She knew what these girls really went through. There was no glamour in prostitution. Not unless you controlled a whole stable of prostitutes.

But the tourists ate it up. They’d take photographs around the sex shops and tell their friends back home about how they’d seen real-life prostitutes. Big deal. Amsterdam was a city that had historic sites in every form, but all the tourists wanted to talk about was legalized marijuana and prostitution.

Hanna had just finished speaking to someone in the United States. She made a quick calculation in her head and realized the six kids she’d been trying to smuggle into the U.S. had cost her about eleven thousand euros so far, and that wasn’t even factoring in Hans’s expenses and salary. She didn’t like letting him sit in jail in Miami, but she wasn’t in a position to bail him out. She hoped he’d understand.

There were other issues with the failed operation, the load. She’d borrowed money to cover expenses and then had essentially gone into business with Emile Rostoff, a local Russian gangster who had more than fifty thugs working for him in and around Amsterdam. But Hanna had heard that was a fraction of the men Emile’s older brother, Roman, employed in Miami. The two were known as the Blood Brothers for reasons Hanna preferred not to think about. She had seen what happened to people who disagreed with the Rostoffs—missing ears, severed fingers, and scars from beatings. The local criminal population was a walking advertisement for why you shouldn’t cross the Russian gang.

One of the worst punishments Hanna had seen was meted out to a young woman who hadn’t paid her “tribute” to the Rostoffs to sell heroin to tourists and who’d mocked a Rostoff lieutenant. Now she had Emile Rostoff’s initials carved in her cheeks, one letter on each side, and the end of her nose was missing. The girl was a tourist attraction all by herself.

Now Hanna had to explain to these same people why she couldn’t make a payment on her loan.

Hanna turned and saw the three young women she employed as administrative assistants staring at her. She understood the fear in their eyes. The loss of the kids was a major blunder. Someone on her staff was responsible. Someone had talked too much.

She knew it wasn’t Janine, who had been with her the longest. And it wasn’t Janine’s sister, Tasi, who was an airhead and therefore not given much responsibility. That left Lisbeth.

Hanna could tell by the way Lisbeth’s eyes darted around that she knew she was the focus of Hanna’s rage. Lisbeth had made all the flight arrangements, so this was her fault. Now she was going to learn a lesson about owning up to one’s mistakes. Hanna had rescued Lisbeth from prostitution, taught her some basic clerical skills, and given her a life without strange men accosting her every night. But Lisbeth had screwed up somehow, and Hanna couldn’t have that.

At thirty-five, Hanna was a lot older than these girls. Sometimes, she felt almost like their mother, and occasionally, parents had to punish their kids. She started slowly. She held Lisbeth’s gaze as she started walking across the hardwood floor of the enormous room to where the twenty-one-year-old sat.

Hanna said, “Lisbeth, did you hear about the cockup in Miami?”

The young woman shivered and nodded. The expression on her pixie face showed her fight against tears. “I know Hans was arrested. I don’t really know anything else.” Lisbeth brushed her blue-streaked brown hair out of her eyes.

“Don’t I pay you to know what’s going on?” Hanna kept advancing.

“I made the flight arrangements and ensured the kids had all the right paperwork.”

“And spent plenty of my money doing it. Now that’s all gone. We have nothing to show for it. This is a business. We need cash flow. Especially now. How do you think I should handle this?”

“I…I…I mean, I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”

Hanna reached down, snatched the girl’s long multicolored hair, and jerked her out of the seat. The rolling office chair spun from the force of it. Hanna dragged her across the floor to the balcony.

Lisbeth said over and over, “Please, I didn’t do anything wrong.”

Hanna released her when they were both on the balcony. She said, “Who did you tell about the trip?”

“No one, I swear.”

Hanna repeated the question slowly. “Who did you tell?”

The girl started to cry.

The tears made Hanna snap. She grabbed Lisbeth by the shoulders and shoved her so that she was dangling over the brass railing of the balcony. Hanna held on to her belt, leaving the girl suspended upside down six stories above the cobblestone sidewalk.

Hanna said again, “Who did you tell about the trip? Was it the Russians? Did you speak to the police? You’d better start talking or the last sound out of you will be a scream on your short trip to the ground.” She relaxed her grip so the girl slipped a little bit more.

Lisbeth was crying and screaming now. “I swear I didn’t tell anyone!” She begged for mercy, then mumbled several Hail Marys and another short prayer some priest had probably told her would protect her. He was wrong.

Chapter 9

HANNA LOOKED DOWN at the terrified girl dangling off her balcony. She wasn’t sure what to do with Lisbeth, but at least she was getting her message across. Her other two assistants would be much more careful in the future.

Hanna heard the chime that told her the inside door between the apartments was open. That meant her daughter, Josie, was home from school. With some effort, she pulled Lisbeth back onto the balcony. She straightened the girl up and brushed her hair out of her face. Lisbeth kept sobbing.

Hanna said, “Shut up, you stupid cow. Don’t let my daughter see you upset.”

Lisbeth nodded nervously and wiped her nose with her bare hand.

Hanna pulled the girl close and said, “I was going to drop you, but I changed my mind. Maybe you aren’t completely useless.” She kissed Lisbeth on the forehead. “You know I love you girls. Now go get cleaned up.”

Lisbeth scurried off to the powder room as Josie and Hanna’s brother, Albert, who often walked Josie home from school, came in.

Josie trotted out to the balcony. Hanna gave her a quick hug and told her to do her homework before they went out to dinner. She watched as the twelve-year-old scampered back to their apartment, high-fiving her uncle on the way.

Hanna had needed to see a little gesture like that to calm her down. Thank God her brother was such a help.

He joined her on the balcony, where she explained the disaster in Miami.

Albert shrugged his broad shoulders and said, “Just the cost of doing business.”

“I know you’re not involved in the finances of the business, but the money I was going to make from those six kids would have covered a lot of our debt to the Russians.”

“I told you not to borrow money from the Russian mob. Emile Rostoff doesn’t fool around. He and his brother are big on messages. He sent one to the guys in Aalsmeer who were making their own meth instead of buying from him. Two of them were skinned and then dumped on the sidewalk in front of the apartment where they were cooking the meth. They were still alive and screamed for five minutes until paramedics arrived. It was a mercy they died on the way to the hospital. There’s still a bloody outline of their bodies on the sidewalk. That’s a serious message.”