Джеймс Паттерсон - The Red Book

“Mr. Harney,” he says, still with the heavy accent. Mee-ster .

“Pavlo, thanks for seeing me,” I say.

His eyes glance at the bag hanging from my shoulder. He couldn’t have thought this was a social call.

We shake hands. “This isn’t about you,” I say. “I just wanted your help on something.”

“How could it be about me?” His eyes widen, his hands spread. “I am committing no crimes.”

I wonder if that’s true. Finding work, straight work, after a felony conviction is ridiculously hard. The probation officer thinks he’s a cook at a Polish restaurant in Broadview. I’m sure he is. I just doubt that’s his only source of income.

He shows me into the first room, painted a bright yellow, family photos decorating the walls, many of them black-and-white, most from his homeland. If memory serves, Pavlo came to America in his teens, in the midseventies.

We take two chairs by the window, separated by a small pedestal table that looks like a relic from his childhood. He’s made coffee. Feels like it would be impolite to decline, so I accept a cup, even though I’m sweating from being outside for only two minutes.

“I’m trying to get an identity on a young woman,” I say. “Late teens, possibly early twenties. They have her from eastern Europe by way of her DNA. The FBI thinks she was a victim of human trafficking.”

Pavlo nods, his brow furrowed, but I don’t know how to read him. I doubt he was ever into that kind of activity, but I suspect he knew people who were, once upon a time. He probably still does. But that doesn’t mean he’s going to tell me.

“This is all off the record, Pavlo,” I say to put him at ease, if he’s worried about blowback for cooperating. I slide half a dozen glossies out of an envelope and hand them to him, hoping to give him an attack of conscience.

I nod toward the photos. “That woman didn’t do anything wrong. She’s an innocent victim. She deserves a proper burial, Pavlo.”

His expression eases. “And this is not all,” he says.

“Come again?”

“You wish to identify this girl, yes, but you wish for more than this. You wish to find out who used her.”

“Busting up a human-trafficking ring isn’t my assignment,” I say, but he’s not convinced. Say what you want about the guy, Pavlo’s no dummy.

He looks down at the top photo, a gruesome close-up of Jane Doe’s face. “Ah, how young she is,” he mumbles. He flips to the next one, panned back farther, a waist-up shot, part of the battered porch. “This I never did. Girls, never.”

“I believe you,” I say. “But you have good ears, my friend. If girls from eastern Europe were coming over here, it would be the Russian mob, right?”

“The Russian mob.” He says it like it’s a joke. “There is some …organization, yes. But you must know this, Mr. Harney. There are…freelancers?” He flips to the next photo and grimaces.

He’s right. There isn’t much organized crime anymore, only small pockets of Italians and Russians trying to score in their tiny fiefdoms. But girls and drugs never go out of business. Someone’s doing it.

“If you are looking for names, Mr. Harney, I cannot give them to you.” He flips to the next photo. “Not because I won’t.” He flips to the next one. “But because I—”

He stops midsentence, his eyes glued to the photo. It’s the close-up of the woman’s leg, the tattoo of the black flower above her ankle.

“I…cannot help you,” he says.

“You recognize that tattoo,” I say.

“I do not.” He hands me the photos. I don’t take them at first, but he shakes them. “I cannot help you.”

“Pavlo, it’s off the record.”

The color has drained from his face. His eyes have an intensity I’ve never seen. This guy took five years with a polite smile. The look on his face now, you’d think he was staring at the Angel of Death. “No, I—I do not know anything to tell you. Please. You must leave,” he says. “Please go now.”

Chapter 38

“YOU CAN see yourself out,” says Pavlo. He heads out of the room. I follow him through the kitchen and out his back door, the sweltering heat again.

“Nobody will know it came from you,” I say, stepping onto his back porch, passing a dingy gas grill, a hot tub covered with a tarp. “Just give me a lead.”

“I have no lead to give you.” He stops walking, standing in his lawn, his back to me. “This is the truth. I do not know the names of these people.”

“But you know about them,” I say. “The black flower. The lily,” I say, thinking of what Rodriguez called it.

The answer is yes, but he hasn’t said it yet.

“They brand their girls,” I say. “Why do they do that?”

I have a feeling I know the answer to that, too, but he’s giving me nothing so far.

“Pavlo, please.”

His shoulders rise and fall, his back still to me. His head turns to the side, so I have his profile. “I say the truth when I tell you I do not know who they are. I only know that they are organized, and they are protected.”

Protected. That can only mean one thing. And it explains why they brand their girls.

“People have died,” he goes on, “trying to investigate them. They will kill. Just for asking questions, they will kill.”

“I’ll take my chances,” I say.

He turns to me. “But I will not.”

“Who died?” I ask. “Give me the names of the people who asked questions and got killed. There must be an investigation opened. Your fingerprints won’t be on it. I’ll just be a cop opening a cold case.”

He considers that. Shakes his head, just his general anxiety, I think, because his eyes have drifted off. He’s thinking.

“There was a lawyer,” he says.

“A prosecutor?” I say. “An assistant state’s attorney? A federal prosecutor?”

He shrugs. “Lawyer is all I know.”

“And that lawyer was murdered,” I say. “In Chicago?”

Pavlo closes his eyes and nods.

Okay, so that would be a big deal, if a prosecutor in Chicago were murdered. There would be a file opened, no question.

“Can you give me any specifics?” I ask. “His name? Any dates?”

He shakes his head again. “No, I do not believe there would be any specifics. There was no…investigation.”

“Why not?”

Pavlo runs his hand over his bald head. “I tell you that these people are organized. They are very smart. I…” He puts up his hands. “I have said too much.”

“Why wasn’t there a murder investigation, Pavlo?”

“Please, I must go. I have work.” He walks back up on the porch, tries to pass me. “If I do not go to work, they revoke my probation.”

I put my hand on his chest. “Why didn’t the police open a mur—”

“Because they did not think it was a murder,” he spits out. “Now, please.”

He tries to pass. I push him back.

“What did they think happened?” I ask.

He sighs, looks away. “Suicide,” he says.

It was staged as a—

Seeing colors before my eyes. My hands shaking, my throat closing up, dry as sand. “Was the lawyer a…man or woman?”

Pavlo Demchuk looks at me like he’s seeing a ghost. I know how he feels. “I know nothing else. I do not know her name.”

Her name. Her name. My heart pounding so hard I can’t breathe.

“This was several years ago. I was still in Stateville. I only hear things, Mr. Harney. Please. Please, Mr. Harney—”

I grab Pavlo by the ear. With my free hand, I draw my weapon, place the barrel against his forehead. “What was her name?” I shout. “Tell me her fucking name!”

He cowers, his knees buckling. “Linder…I do not know this. Linder-something. Linderman? I do not know, Mr. Harney! Please, I swear to you I do not know…”