Val?
In my head I saw Val like Masha Panchuk, suffocating inside the hot sticky tape, dying slowly somewhere on the fringes of the city, in a desolate park surrounded by dirty needles, or out by the water where gulls picked over garbage for their breakfast.
Did the killer who murdered Masha Panchuk take Val?
I was paralyzed. If I called her friends, there would be questions and Tolya would hear. By now I would have settled for almost anything, even a call from some creep to say she had been kidnapped. How much? Money was easy. If it was only money, it would be okay.
I called her and called her until I was hoarse.
Val?
“I saw her.”
It was later that morning when Bobo called. “It was Valentina,” he said. “It was her.”
“Where?”
“Artie, I saw her. I saw Valentina, I really see her, it’s okay, everything is okay.”
“Where?”
“I see her from my car window on 52nd Street, way over near Eleventh Avenue, Hell’s Kitchen, she goes around the corner on this red Vespa, she has a red scooter, right? Artie?”
My knees seemed to buckle. I didn’t care about anything else. I didn’t care about any of it, except that Val was okay. He had seen her. Bobo had seen her. I got out my phone and called Tolya.
“Jesus Christ, Artyom, what’s all the excitement?”
“Nothing. Nothing. I just saw Val on a red Vespa. You should make her wear a fucking helmet, or something. It’s dangerous.” I was out of my mind, I hardly knew what I was saying.
“Listen, I know this, asshole, but they wouldn’t leave off until I bought it, an early birthday present.”
I left the apartment, went out, and started to walk. I walked to the river. Had Bobo really seen Val? Was it her? I started to worry. I needed to see her myself, so I walked. How many hours did I walk around the city after that? I went up to Hell’s Kitchen, I went everywhere I knew Val went. As far as I knew. How much did I know about her? I didn’t know she had a red scooter.
Maybe it hadn’t been her at all? Bobo had only glimpsed her.
Why didn’t she answer my calls? It was after midnight now and I was feeling crazy.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Tuesday 2 a.m.
Even at two in the morning, Sonny Lippert was awake. Maybe Lippert could help. I could trust him.
He had opened the door to his apartment in Battery Park City. Rhonda Fisher, his wife, was asleep, but as always, Lippert was awake reading, listening to music. Out of his sound system, the real thing, turntable, tubes, came “Somethin’ Else”, a great Miles track with Cannonball Adderley and Art Blakey. Sonny was in sweatpants and a t-shirt. In his hand was a glass of single malt.
“Can I get you one?” he said. I shook my head. “But you didn’t come here for a drink.”
“Valentina Sverdloff disappeared, no calls, no nothing. I was supposed to meet her on Sunday night. I can’t reach her.”
Lippert turned off the music. He put his drink down. He was brisk.
“Who else knows? Please, sit down.” Sonny sat on the edge of the leather sofa, and I sat on a chair.
“Bobo Leven.”
He shrugged.
“You didn’t bother to tell me this before now?”
“I didn’t want the media.”
“You think that’s all I do, I call the fucking media, man?”
“You like the publicity, Sonny.” I said. “I’m sorry.”
“Any connection with the dead girl, what was her name, on the swing? Panchuk?” Suddenly Lippert was sharp as ever.
“The dead girl, Maria Panchuk worked at Sverdloff’s club, Pravda2, over on Horatio.”
“I know where it is.”
“Panchuk looked like Val. Somewhat like,” I said.
“You think they did Panchuk by mistake?”
“I don’t know. Maybe they wanted both. Maybe Panchuk was an early warning.”
“Because of Valentina’s father?”
“I think she was into stuff she shouldn’t have been.”
“What kind?”
“Kids.”
“You’re crazy, man,” said Lippert.
“Christ, Sonny, no, but Val helped out at women’s shelters in Russia, and with little kids, orphans, abused girls, she sends stuff over, she goes there, she gets in their face, the officials. I’ve seen the letters,” I said, thinking of the files in Val’s closet.
“A big mouth like her father.”
“Sonny, listen, I’ve never said this to you before, I’m desperate. This girl is like my own family. I know you don’t like Sverdloff, but that doesn’t matter. I have to find her before Tolya Sverdloff finds out and sends in his guys who will fuck it up worse and get her killed. I’ve been everywhere, and I have not one fucking idea what I’m doing. I’m running on empty here, and you have to help me.”
“Calm down, man,” he said, and put his hand on my arm.
I grabbed hold of his shirtsleeve. “Please, Sonny,” I said.
“I’ll help you.”
“Thank you. I need a smoke.”
Lippert fished a pack out of his jacket pocket, and passed them over. “I was supposed to quit. I can’t.”
“I’ve never been so lost before, Sonny. I keep turning up stuff that has nothing to do with Valentina, or even with Panchuk, the dead girl. I got a Serb club manager scared off bad enough after I talked to him that he left for his mother upstate and maybe to Belgrade. This guy knew Masha, better than he let on, I think, but his alibi checks out.”
“Where’s Sverdloff?”
“In Scotland.”
“Jesus! What for?”
“Golf. I don’t know. He left for London Sunday morning, and now he’s playing fucking golf.”
“Let’s just focus on the Sverdloff girl, okay? Let’s just work that, Artie, man, you with me? Forget the rest for now, leave the rest to the others. Take me through everything,” Sonny said, and I told him everything.
“I was in London a couple times,” he said.
“What?”
“Yeah, London, you said Sverdloff was in a hurry to get back to London.”
“Sonny, Jesus, man, a girl is missing and you’re going to give me a travelogue.”
“It’s related. I’m thinking Sverdloff goes to London where his daughter doesn’t want him going, and Roy Pettus wants you in bloody London. To keep an eye on Sverdloff, maybe? Maybe that’s the part he didn’t mention.
“It’s a weird country, man, really weird,” said Sonny. “They major in spy shit. Your pal Sverdloff is not the most fucking transparent guy I ever met. I gotta think this thing with his kid is all about what he’s been doing, making money in London, stealing money, doing stuff with people he shouldn’t be doing it with.”
“And this is a way of getting to him, through Val? But why here? And who the fuck is they?”
“I’m just trying to think about the Russkis all living over there in London, all the secret stuff, state killings. Man, Lenin would be jumping up out of his grave and clapping his blood-soaked hands. I know, man, I remember. My parents were devoted. They believed.”
