Walter Mosley - Known to Evil

"You could have gone to my office."

"I called but you were gone. Twill said I could wait here and that you would come. He said I would know you, as I know Dimitri."

Even with my years of experience, something about her made me want to trust the girl.

"So," I said. "Tell me about Gustav."

After a moment's hesitation she said, "He is pimp," in crisp, matter-of-fact language.

"And?"

"My brother is sick," she said. "My younger sister was too young to help. My mother was alone, and a man came to me and said that I could come to America and do… what I do for three years and then, after I made his partners a million dollars, I will be free. I send money home and sleep with old fat men."

The buzzer to the front door sounded and my son's school friend Bertrand Arnold rushed in. He pressed the elevator button and concentrated on the door as if to hurry the car along. His being there could have been for any reason. After all, he was my son's friend; he had come to the house before looking for Dimitri.

He could have had any number of reasons for being in my building.

But the choices became somewhat limited by the bouquet of wildflowers nestled in the crook of his right arm. He was probably waiting around the corner. Maybe he and Katrina were to meet somewhere nearby but now that I would be late they might get a few kisses in before I came home.

"He lied to me," Tatyana was saying. She was facing away from the elevator door.

If Bertrand glanced to his right he would have seen me sitting there, staring at him. But the young suitor's attention was somewhere else.

When the door slid open he rushed in, all hormones, fear, and maybe love.

"… when I told him that I wanted him to do what he promised, he had a man named Vassily beat me and rape me."

"Tatyana," I said.

"Yes?"

"That's a beautiful name."

"Thank you," she said, wondering.

"How did Dimitri get mixed up in all this? I mean, my son has a good heart, but if I were in your position he'd be the last person I'd turn to for help."

She lowered her eyelids and smiled. This young woman and I were equals, at least in her estimation. She might have been right.

"I was very worried. You could see it on my face. He asked me what was wrong and I was so upset that I told him. I had to talk to someone. Dimitri said that he knew someone who might know a place for me to hide until we could do something. I was scared and I didn't know anyone but professors and students… and Gustav's whores. Dimitri introduced me to your younger son. At first I thought he was just a boy, but then Twilliam brought me to a house in the Bronx and then out to a beach house on Long Island. He told me that if I was his brother's friend that he would help me. He said that if I left New York with Dimitri he could go to you and that you would know what to do."

I was thinking about my wife and her younger boyfriend, about Dimitri and this tiger he had by the tail. Aura's boyfriend was trying to demolish my whole life, and Ron Sharkey wanted to apologize to the woman who had destroyed his everything.

"How are you and Dimitri living?" I asked.

"I had money hidden in a gym locker at school."

"Where is D right now?"

The beautiful child from Minsk inhaled and held the breath.

"If you don't lie to me," I said, "about anything… I will help you."

"He doesn't want me to tell you," she said. "He told me not to come here. Right now he thinks I am getting clothes from a girlfriend of mine."

"Where is he?"

"Please," she said. "I promised I would not tell you."

"Why would he think that you would tell me anything if you're at a girlfriend's house?"

"Twilliam told him that men came here after him. He said that you figured it out. I told him that I would call you."

"Why didn't you?"

"Because Twilliam told me to meet you… not on the phone."

"Twill's a teenager."

"He is man." She knew the right diction, I was sure, but this Russian phrasing brought her point home.

I smiled. I had to. Twill was slight of build but he left a footprint like Tyrannosaurus rex.

"You won't tell me?" I asked.

She didn't reply.

Her green dress was made from raw silk, her cream-colored jacket might have been merino. Tatyana wore no hose, and her dark-brown shoes were sensible, designed for walking-or running.

She was the right girl in a long life of wrong days; the kind of woman that made you wish everything was different-somehow.

Twill was right. Tatyana's intentions toward my son were meaningless compared to what he would learn from her.

"How many girls does Gustav have?"

"Always less than twenty. Sometimes as little as twelve."

"Is there a place where he keeps them?"

"They work out of a building in the East Village, but they live above the pool hall," she said. "On the fourth and fifth floors. He is protected. There is a policeman who comes there."

"What's his name?"

"Saul Thinnes. He's a captain."

I liked straight talk with the Russian. It felt rare, like plain truth in advertising, a contract with no fine print, or honesty in politics.

I nodded. She understood that I had a plan. She also knew enough not to ask me what that plan was.

"What do you want from me?" she asked.

I shook my head slightly. This caused her brow to furrow, reminding me of Hush.

"It's for Dimitri," I explained.

"Do you want something for him?"

"No."

Again she scrutinized my face, this time looking for danger.

"Sometimes," I said, "things just don't make sense. They happen and we are left to deal with the results. You are one of those things. I am, too."

This explanation seemed to quiet Tatyana's unspoken trepidations. She smiled.

I squelched the urge to kiss her.

"Take D down to Philly for a few days," I said. "No more than three. Things will be fixed when you get back."

She nodded and stood but I remained seated.

"Aren't you going upstairs?" she asked.

"I'm gonna sit here and think for a while."

The conversation with Tatyana had lasted all of a dozen minutes.

I intended to leave right after she did. There was nothing I really needed from the apartment. And unless I wanted a very uncomfortable situation I couldn't go there, anyway.

But it was cold outside and my mind was preoccupied with the minefield I'd wandered into over the past few days.

Almost reflexively I took out my cell phone and entered the letters A-U-R. Then I hit the green button.

"Hello?" she said.

"Hey."

"Leonid," Aura Ullman breathed. "I'm surprised."

"Bad time?"

"You can always call me," she said, and for the briefest of moments the weight of my life was lifted. I noticed that my headache was gone.

"Thank you."

"Why are you calling?"

"Just wanted to say hi, I guess."

"No."

"What? I can't call to say hey?"

"You never do. What's going on with you?"

"Too many jobs at once. Trying to make your boss's rent is a bitch."

"Do you need to talk?"

"Yeah, but I don't have anything to say."

That bought me a brief span of silence.

After a bit she spoke up again.

"Tell me one thing," she said.

"What?"

"Anything."

"Okay. Dimitri's fallen in love and run off with a high-end call girl and her pimp wants her back. D's gone and his mother wants him back. Twill's got all the plates spinning and I have to catch them one by one before they crash. And that's the least of my troubles."

"Can I help?"

"You already have."

That was what I had been looking for, the turn in the road. It wasn't some clue or confession, threat by the police or flash of intuition about what exactly the crime or who the culprit was. It wasn't even a revelation about my feelings for Aura. I already knew that I loved her. My problem was the crack that had been opened when she told me about Toller. The pain I felt there was what was throwing me off.