Lynne Heitman - The Pandora Key aka The Hostage Room

“Exactly.”

“Earn it by-”

“Mostly murder. The other thing is you can also get killed if you get a tattoo you didn’t earn. How do you think they keep track of who has what tattoo? Do they have a database or something? They would probably need some kind of a special scanner.”

“I don’t know, Felix.”

“How come you’re interested in vory, Miss Shanahan?”

“I’m scheduled to meet one tomorrow. I think he might have been the man who took Harvey. He might be a little ticked off at us.”

There was a long silence. Felix was hardly ever speechless. It was unnerving.

“I’ll be all right, Felix. Bo will be there.”

“Oh, I wasn’t worried about that. I was just wondering…can I come with you?”

A PHONE WAS RINGING. THE SOUND WAS LIKE A PATIENT, persistent worm burrowing ever deeper into the apple that was my consciousness. The ringing stopped. Maybe I was dreaming.

I opened my eyes, and I was looking at the elaborate tinwork that was the ceiling of Harvey’s office. What had apparently been quite an elegant feature back in the day was just one more thing Harvey couldn’t take care of. The sun streaming in through the east-facing windows illuminated the tarnished and discolored condition. It was in need of a good polishing or…whatever one did to maintain a tin ceiling. Why had I never noticed before?

I had fallen asleep sitting up. When I tried to lift my head from the back of the couch, my neck muscles objected fiercely. I was trying to gather my wits when the ringing started again. It was my ring tone, but the sound was muffled. I followed the sound to the crevice between two couch cushions.

“Hello?”

“It’s time to go.”

“Bo?”

“The meeting is set. Tishchenko is waiting for us.”

Crap. I sat up straight and nearly knocked my laptop to the floor. I’d forgotten about the meeting. That was one of my wits I had failed to gather. “Where are you?”

“Out front.”

I wobbled to my feet and peered through the front window. The way the light hit the hood of his silver Mercedes, it seemed pretty early in the morning. “What time is it?”

“Seven.”

“Seven?” I rubbed my eyes.

“He is a busy man. He will not wait long.”

Right. Busy doing what vory do at seven in the morning. Maybe getting a new tattoo. “All right. Just give me a second to check on Harvey. I’ll be right out.”

I hung up and searched for my shoes, black leather lace-ups with thick soles that were kind of clunky and a little hard to misplace. I looked under the couch and behind the desk and found them under the side table next to the wingback. As I put them on and tied them, I wondered what the dress code might be for meeting a vor. Jeans, a polo shirt, a windbreaker, and clunky work shoes were all I had to offer.

I found a clean shirt upstairs in a spare dresser where I kept a few essentials. Harvey was facedown in bed with one arm flopped over his head. I couldn’t see his eyes, but I could hear him snoring. Next stop was the medicine cabinet. I went with four ibuprofen for my stiff neck and a Pepto-Bismol chaser straight from the bottle. Then I went to the kitchen and poured a glass of grapefruit juice to wash away the filmy pink residue. Feeling marginally fortified, I grabbed my backpack, took a deep breath, and headed out the door to my first-ever breakfast meeting with a Russian mobster.

The name of the café was Grigorii’s. It was in a part of town I had never been to and saw no reason ever to visit again. Bo got out of the car, straightened his jacket, and buttoned it. He looked as if he’d gotten himself spiffed up for his first Communion. It wasn’t anything overt, but he wasn’t his usual awe-inspiring self. It made me nervous.

There wasn’t much to Grigorii’s. It was a dim space that smelled of bacon grease. The foam tiles that made up the low ceiling were stained with brown water blossoms. The predominant feature was a long bar along one wall. The tables had no cloths, and the chairs had no padding or upholstery. It had the look of a campus coffee bar but the feel of something else. Something defiant and political, as if the place itself resented even being in the United States. Almost an entire wall was draped with a yellow and teal flag, which I assumed was Ukrainian. Another wall was adorned with yellowed newspaper articles affixed with brittle Scotch tape. They emanated from a solid center like a newsprint sunburst. I was willing to bet they were not from the city section of the Boston Globe.

Every once in a while, a harsh blast of laughter would issue from a corner where a group of men who hadn’t shaved in a while sat around one of the larger tables. It wasn’t the fun kind of laughing but the edgy and wicked and loud kind. There had been an eruption when we walked through the door.

I leaned in toward Bo. “How do these men…how are women treated in this culture?”

“Not well, but they respect strength wherever they see it. I know of one Ukrainian hit man who took his wife along to do his murders.”

“Great.” I felt much better.

The opposite corner of the place was occupied by a wiry man sitting in a corner by himself reading a newspaper and smoking. He probably knew that smoking in a restaurant was against the law. He seemed to have mighty powers of concentration.

Bo approached the man behind the bar and spoke to him in a language I didn’t understand. I didn’t know if Bo spoke Russian or if the other man spoke one of the languages from the broken country of Yugoslavia. Either way, they communicated just fine.

As the bartender watched, Bo took the.357 from his shoulder holster and laid it on the counter. The two of them looked at me. I followed Bo’s lead and laid down my Glock, which looked puny next to Bo’s howitzer. The bartender tilted his head toward the smoking man. We were allowed to pass.

When we got to the booth, Bo did the talking. Again, I couldn’t understand, but it felt like some kind of tribute. He gestured first to himself and then to me. I tried to look less terrified and more honored, but it was hard, because at close range, Drazen Tishchenko was a terrifying man.

He looked to be in his late forties or early fifties, with a face made by God but substantially rearranged by man. His nose was too thick, his mouth was a grim, crooked line, and his ears seemed to be too low on his head, as if someone had grabbed them by the lobes and yanked. Most disturbing were the tattoos. They slithered out from under the collar of his tight black V-necked sweater, up both sides of his neck, and into his hairline. They covered both his forearms and even his hands and fingers. If murder was how you earned your badges in this Boy Scout troop, then Drazen Tishchenko was an Eagle Scout.

But I didn’t need the tattoos to tell me he was a killer. He told me with his eyes. I looked into his eyes and felt the value of my life drop to nothing.

“Step out,” he said in English. He made a motion with his hands as if he were reeling me closer. “Do not be afraid of me.”

I stepped forward so that I was next to Bo instead of behind his right shoulder. “Thank you for seeing us.”

“Do you speak Russian like my friend Djuro?” It took me a second to realize he was referring to Bo by his given name.

“I’m sorry, I don’t.”

“We will speak English, then, so you will understand. Please, sit with me.”

Bo and I sat on one side of the booth, Tishchenko on the other. I slipped in first, giving Bo the outside in case he had to make a quick move. It didn’t matter. If he did, we were both dead. Undoubtedly, everyone in the place was armed and dangerous and belonged to Drazen.