hitching, and she wept. A low moan that sounded as if it started in her belly, worked its way up through her torso, and escaped her throat as a strangled whine. Heavy tears dripped from her cheeks into her lap. She opened her hands beneath them, as if trying to save them from being lost to the fabric of the dressing gown she wore.
Lennon stood, though he had no idea what to do next.
Instead, Susan did it for him. She pushed the coffee table out of the way, kneeled in front of the girl, and opened her arms. Galya fell into them, buried her head between Susan’s shoulder and neck.
“It’s all right, darling,” Susan said, her breath stirring the fine blonde hairs on Galya’s head. “You’re safe here. No one’s going to hurt you anymore.”
Lennon’s and Susan’s eyes met. Hers brimmed, a deep understanding in them, and he wondered how she knew about this kind of pain. He wanted to say something, thank you, anything, perhaps to touch her, but he could only stand with his arms at his sides, his tongue useless behind his teeth.
A movement on the other side of the room saved him from his own inadequacy. He turned his gaze there and saw Ellen and Lucy peek out from the hall that led to the bedrooms.
“Merry Christmas,” he said.
The girls slipped in, unease on their faces as they saw the strange guest.
“You came back,” Ellen said.
“Course I did,” Lennon said, knowing it had been anything but certain that he would keep his promise.
Ellen didn’t reply, but crossed the room and hugged his thigh.
“Has Santa been?” Lucy asked.
Lennon cleared his throat, smiled, and pointed. “Have a look and see,” he said.
He followed the girls to the Christmas tree, brushed Susan’s neck with his fingertips as he passed. She brought her hand up to meet his and allowed him a weary smile.
The girls had already begun sorting through the gifts as he lowered himself to the floor between them. Ellen wormed into his lap and set about unwrapping the packages she’d found. She and Lucy giggled and squealed and compared their presents, showing each other the bright boxes and cooing over the contents.
They each found Barbie dolls with various outfits— Lennon and Susan had colluded on this point—and they set about freeing the plastic figures from their packaging.
As Ellen adjusted the doll’s arms into a satisfactory pose, Lennon remembered the one she had when she first came back from Birmingham with her mother, more than a year ago. It had been naked, its hair straggly, but she loved it anyway. He wondered what had happened to it.
Ellen leaned back into his chest and whispered, “Who is she?”
“She’s someone Daddy needs to help,” Lennon said. “She’s had a bad time, so we’re going to look after her just for today.”
“I dreamed about her,” Ellen said.
“Did you?”
“There was a bad man,” Ellen said. “He wanted to hurt her.” At one time, Lennon would have been shocked at Ellen’s understanding of things that should not concern her. But he had learned over the last year or so that she had a way of knowing things that she should not.
“He’s going to jail,” Lennon said. “He can’t hurt anyone.” Satisfied at his answer, Ellen got to her feet and crossed the room to where Susan dabbed Galya’s cheeks with a tissue. Ellen took Galya’s hand.
“Come on,” she said.
Without a word, Galya stood and allowed Ellen to lead her back to the tree, taking tiny shuffling steps on her tattered feet. She sat down on the floor between the two girls as Lennon looked on.
Ellen pressed the doll into Galya’s hands. “Lookit,” she said. “You can change her clothes.”
She selected a dress and showed it to the visitor.
Galya smiled and said, “It is very pretty.”
Ellen chose a trousers suit. “What about this one?”
“Is pretty also,” Galya said.
“But which one’s nicer?” Ellen asked.
“The dress,” Galya said.
Ellen handed her the outfit, and Galya began undoing the clasps, her tongue between her teeth, a child’s concentration on her face.
Lennon left them to play.
74
ARTURAS STRAZDAS DIALED the number again.
Still no answer.
“Bastard,” he said after the tone. “Call me back, you fucking bastard.”
He dropped the phone on the bed. The room felt much smaller than it had yesterday. He had slept for perhaps an hour and dreamt of Tomas lying on a slab, his blank eyes staring upward forever, and no one to bury him but Herkus. Except Herkus couldn’t do anything for Tomas because he too was dead.
Strazdas had woken with a feeling of weight on his chest, and he had lain there unable to scream for long minutes. When he could move, he rushed to the desk in the living room and pressed his nose to the glass top, inhaling whatever traces of powder still lay there.
He’d been trying to phone his contact ever since, and the bastard would not answer. Two hours had passed, and the sun cast a milky white light through the clouds that covered the city. Strazdas opened the window and gritted his teeth against the icy air that flooded in and around his naked body. He stood still and upright, goose pimples spreading over his skin, until he convulsed with the cold.
The phone rang. He grabbed it.
“Where have you been? Why haven’t you answered, you fucking—”
“Arturas,” she said.
He sat on the edge of the bed, his legs weakened by her voice. “Mother.”
“Have you forgotten me?”
“No,” he said.
“Have you forgotten what you promised me?”
“No,” he said.
“Then talk to me.”
He tried to find the words, but could not.
“Talk to me,” she said again, a hardness in her voice that dislodged a memory he preferred to keep nailed down, not free to roam his mind, crashing into the things he thought he knew. He covered his genitals with his free hand and brought his knees together.
“My driver is dead,” he said. “A madman killed him.”
“Your driver does not concern me,” she said. “I am only concerned with the whore who killed my son.”
Strazdas felt pressure in his bladder. “The police have her,” he said.
He listened to silence for a few seconds before she said, “You will take her from them.”
“My contact will deal with it,” he said.
“I don’t care how you do it,” she said. “Just know this: you will not return to me until you have done what I have asked. Do you understand?”
A deep, itching heat gnawed at his groin, his bladder burning for release. “I understand.”
“Good,” she said, and hung up.
He dropped the phone and ran to the bathroom, the first drops escaping him before he could reach the toilet bowl. A shiver coursed through him as he closed his eyes and listened to the sound of water on water.
When his bladder was empty, he showered, the tap set as hot as he could stand it. He returned to the bedroom and retrieved his phone. Daylight had taken hold outside while he’d been gone. He dialed the contact’s number one more time and waited for the answering machine.
“One hundred thousand for the whore,” he said.
Less than a minute later, the contact called back.
“It’s difficult today,” he said.
