“Might he?”
“Very likely. But I can help you out. Run interference. Keep you informed of what he’s up to. But I would expect to be compensated accordingly.”
“Of course,” Strazdas said.
“Are we agreed, then?”
A knock at the hotel suite’s door.
“Hold on,” Strazdas said.
He went to the living area, put his eye against the peephole, and saw the distorted shape of Herkus waiting in the corridor. His nostrils tingled in anticipation. He opened the door, and Herkus rushed inside.
Strazdas brought the phone back to his ear.
Silence.
“Hello?” he said.
Nothing. He stared at the display for a second before remembering that Herkus had entered the room.
“That idiot brother of Sam’s tried to take me,” Herkus said, pacing.
“What?”
“I went to get your stuff from Rasa’s dealer, but Mark Mawhinney was waiting for me. He fucked it up, so I finished him. Rasa’s dealer must have set me up.”
“Where’s my coke?” Strazdas asked.
Herkus stopped pacing. “Didn’t you hear what I said?”
“Yes, I heard,” Strazdas said. “Someone tried to hurt you. Where’s my coke?”
Herkus stood with his mouth open, his arms wide.
Strazdas threw the phone at him, shouted, “Where’s my coke? I sent you to do one thing for me, just one —”
He would never have believed Herkus could move so fast had he not seen it before. Strazdas’s feet left the floor, his throat gripped in the big man’s thick fingers, his back slammed into the wall.
“Listen to me,” Herkus said, his breath hot on Strazdas’s face. “I almost got my fucking guts sliced open by one of the morons you do business with while I was trying to get your coke. Do you think it’s going to stop there? Those brothers had friends. Those friends aren’t going to let it go. And sooner or later someone’s going to mention your name to the cops. This thing has gotten out of hand. We need to get out of this shit-hole of a city right now. You can have all the coke you can snort when we get to Brussels, but right now, we need to get away from here. Do you understand?”
Strazdas tried to pry Herkus’s fingers from his throat, but they were too strong, like stone. He croaked, and Herkus loosened his grip.
“Get your hands off me,” Strazdas said.
Herkus let go and backed off.
“Sorry, boss, but we need to get out of here.”
Strazdas coughed and walked to the couch. “Did you find the girl?”
“No,” Herkus said.
“Then we don’t go anywhere.” Strazdas sat down. “When she’s dead, then we can go.”
“Forget about her, she’s—”
“I promised my mother,” Strazdas said. “I keep my promises. You should do the same. You promised to bring me some coke.”
Herkus shook his head. “Christ, listen to yourself. Four people are dead and all you can think about is your coke?”
Strazdas wanted to say yes, all he could think of was the coke, but his right mind held the words back. Instead, he said, “I’m sorry for the deaths. All the more reason to track down the girl. It’s her fault. She caused all this.”
Herkus took a piece of paper from his pocket and dropped it in Strazdas’s lap. It was an envelope bearing a sketch of a bearded man.
“What’s this?” Strazdas asked.
“He was the last one to talk to the girl,” Herkus said, taking a vodka from the minibar. “Rasa told me he visited her yesterday morning, but the girl said he only wanted to talk. He gave her a necklace with a cross on it.”
“You think he knows something?”
Herkus downed the vodka in one gulp and hissed. “Maybe. Maybe not. But he’s all we’ve got to go on.”
“Then find him,” Strazdas said. He held the envelope out. Herkus took the paper. “Boss, I’ll do whatever you want, you know that.”
Strazdas did not answer.
“Anything you say, I’ll do it. But please, at least think about it. If the cops don’t come for you, the Loyalists will. If I’m out looking for this girl, I can’t protect you. You’ve got to get out of here. I’ll stay and look for her, but you go to the airport, get the first plane to Brussels you can.”
“No,” Strazdas said.
“Think about it.”
“No.”
Herkus nodded. “All right,” he said. He studied the sketch. “If this man visited the whorehouse in Bangor, he’ll have visited others. I’ll ask around, but I have to be careful. There’s one man I can trust. I’ll go see him.”
He turned and walked for the door.
“Herkus,” Strazdas called.
Herkus stopped, his shoulders slumped. He looked back. “Yes, boss?”
Strazdas touched his nose.
“I’ll see what I can do,” Herkus said.
26
THE ACHE EBBED and flowed behind Galya’s eyes. At times it felt like the heavy blankets held her down, at others like they carried her aloft on some warm updraft. Her consciousness came and went this way for what seemed like days. Deep in the waking part of her mind, she knew it must have only been a few hours.
When at last she could lift her eyelids, they let in a painful sliver of weak light. She closed them again, but not before she took in a little of her surroundings.
A darkened bedroom, but not the one she had been held in for almost a week. This was somewhere different. But where?
Then she remembered.
The hot blood on her hands, fleeing through the night, cold tarmac tearing at the soles of her feet, the white van and its strange, kind driver coming for her.
The coffee and the sour-sweet smell of the buttermilk shandy. Galya’s stomach flexed at the memory of the odor, and she rolled to the edge of the bed, the blankets knotting around her legs. She retched, bringing up only thin splashes of a dark and bitter liquid.
The coffee he had given her.
Had it been drugged? Or had she simply been so tired that she could remain awake no longer? She was still fully clothed, save for the shoes she had stolen, so she hoped he hadn’t touched her.
Galya sat up in the bed, but the pain followed her movement, shifting inside her skull. She brought her palms to her temples.
When the pulsing in her ears abated, she held her breath and listened to the house.
Quiet, not even the ticking of a clock.
She pushed the blankets away and lowered her bare feet to the floor. The coarse fibers of the carpet tugged on her tender skin, and the sting caused her to hiss through her teeth.
In the dimness, she picked out the features of the room. Decades-old floral wallpaper, peeling at the corners. A cheap chest of drawers against the wall. The air smelled of damp and something lower, something faded.
