Orest Stelmach - The Treachery of Russian Nesting Dolls

Then I hit the panic button, stepped back outside, and waited.

Footsteps pounded toward me. They came from inside the apartment building, just as they had when the Turk first appeared in my office after the landlady pressed the panic button as a demonstration. I turned from my doorway and saw someone entering my office through the inner door.

He was the Turk’s young protégé.

Someone slammed me from behind.

I stumbled, teetered, took aim for the bed and landed face first on the mattress. The sheet smelled deliciously crisp and clean with a faint scent of a floral garden. The outside door closed behind me. I knew I’d just become a prisoner in my own office and yet here I was, marveling at the diligence of the window prostitutes’ cleaning service. The things I noticed at the most unlikely times never ceased to amaze me. I wondered if the wiring in my brain was off.

As I rose to my feet, I heard a deep voice bark instructions from behind. The protégé scampered out of the room and closed the door behind him. I recognized the Turk’s voice. I knew it was he who’d given the orders even before I turned around.

The sight of the Turk jarred me nonetheless. It wasn’t his rawboned structure or the gargantuan size of his head, but rather his constantly seething nature. Menace oozed from his pores and left one wondering how many miles his engine could log before it expired.

He locked the door from the inside and stood with his back to it. In the event I needed to leave immediately, I would never get past him. The only escape was through the interior door, and that assumed it wasn’t locked.

The Turk opened his hip-length leather jacket and started to undo his belt.

“What are you doing?” I said.

“Preparing to get paid.”

“What?”

“Preparing to get paid,” he said. “You came back here. You’re not really a professional. You dressed up like the dead girl so you were probably working for her family, trying to find her killer. Am I right?”

He was right, of course, but I didn’t admit that to him. I was too shocked by the realization that I’d underestimated him so badly.

“Surprise, surprise, American woman. The Turk is not as stupid as he looks.”

He dropped his pants, stepped out of them and tossed them onto the bed. I tried not to glance at his mostly bare lower body but my eyes went there of their own accord. Hair on top of hair on surprisingly spindly legs, black leather underwear in the finest Speedo tradition, and of course, the requisite bulge that he probably thought was a major turn-on. I suppressed a surge of bile, and finally, a surge of adrenaline told me I’d better do something fast.

I made the time-out sign. “Whoa, my strong and handsome friend. Stop right there.” I picked up his pants and tossed them back at him. “Put those back on.”

He crossed his arms over his chest and let the pants fall to the floor. “I will answer your questions only if you pay me.”

I tapped my bag, which miraculously still hung off my shoulder by a strap. “Of course I’ll pay you.”

“Not that way.” He grabbed his crotch. “You must pay me the way a woman who rents this room should know how to pay.”

“But I’m not that woman. You said so yourself.”

“That’s not what I said. I said you’re not really a professional. But you did rent the office. So you should act like a professional. You should pay me like a professional.”

“You want me to act like a professional?” I said. “Okay. I’ll act like a professional.”

The Turk smiled and nodded.

“I understand that Amsterdam is very protective of its prostitutes,” I said. “That the local government has instituted anti-discrimination laws for the protection of legal sex workers. For instance, if a sex worker were to be denied a loan at a bank, and that bank were found to have discriminated against her profession, it could be found guilty in a Netherlands court of law. At this moment, I’m a legally employed sex-worker. You understand that, right?”

The Turk’s eyes narrowed, as though he agreed but didn’t like the direction in which I was headed, or the confidence with which I was navigating my path.

“What if I filed a complaint? There must be a way I can file a formal complaint against a man who’s supposed to be protecting me, the legal sex worker, but instead has tried to force himself upon me twice?”

“That is a lie.” The Turk raised his finger and pointed it at me. “I have never tried to force myself on you. I have never touched you.”

“I beg to differ. I think it was you who just pushed me in here and locked the door behind him. It will be my word against yours. I can get a billionaire and a dozen CEOs to swear in court my word is bond. How about you?”

He paused to process what I’d just said.

“Put your pants on,” I said, “and let’s do some business.”

He seethed for a moment, long enough for me to pray the interior door wasn’t locked if I needed to run.

“What business?” he finally said.

“You’re not as slow as I thought but you’re far from Formula One material. I ask, you answer, I pay cash. That kind of business. Good enough?”

He gathered his pants around his waist. I took the sound of his zipper moving northward to be a response in the affirmative.

“Tell me about your relationship with Iskra,” I said.

“Relationship?” He shrugged. “What relationship? She worked. I protected. Sometimes I sampled the merchandise. At first I paid, but after a while, she got a taste for the Turk, and I didn’t have to pay.”

I cast a skeptical look at him. “In case I didn’t state the obvious, you lie, you don’t get paid. So let’s start over. Sometimes you tasted the merchandise. Meaning you paid her for sex?”

“No. I asked her to read the lines on my hand and tell me my future.”

“Why did you stop paying her for sex? What do you mean she got a taste for the Turk?”

“She got a taste for the Turk means she got a taste of this.” He tapped his heart.

“What is that supposed to mean? That you didn’t fall in love with her, but she fell in love with you? Are you kidding me?”

He scoffed. “Love? Love is for the very rich and the very poor, for those who are bored because they have a lot of money, and those with no hope because they have no money.” He thumped his fist against his chest again, like a Catholic begging forgiveness for his sins. “Iskra got a taste of what it was like to be with a real man. Not in bed. In life. I protected her. I took care of her. And I didn’t judge her. I didn’t ask her for anything that she didn’t want to do for money. And so…” He nodded as though his implication were clear.

I was starting to wonder if I was missing something obvious. “Yes? And so?”

“And so she hired me.”

His answer took my breath away. That was not a proposition I’d even contemplated.

“Hired you to do what?” I said.

“To protect her.”

“From what?”

“Not what,” he said. “Who.”

“She was scared of someone?”

“Not scared. Terrified.”

“Did she tell you who?”

“No.”

“She didn’t mention a young man?” I said. “A young man named Sasha?”

“She did not name names.”

“And what kind of protection did you provide, exactly?”

“I walked her home after work. She said she was no longer comfortable being out at night alone.”

“And you did this for her in exchange for sex?”

The Turk nodded. “Twelve times.” He shook his head, a longing etched in his face. “That girl was unbelievable. She didn’t have sex with you. She was sex. She had that gift. You touched her and she melted. There was no acting in her. The first time she put her mouth—”