“In Ukraine I was farmer. My family is poor. I don’t have skills here, in America. Yavorsky is evil fuck but he pays good money, so I can help family in Ukraine.”
Mio moved silently back the way she’d come. “Good night, Levko,” I said, turning to leave. “Monday, 9:00 p.m.”
He hadn’t noticed Mio leave and was briefly confused when he saw that she was no longer leaning on his car. He opened the door, but hesitated before getting in, scanning the garage, looking for her. When he saw her standing next to the elevator, their eyes locked for just a second before he scrambled into his car and drove away.
•
Karla had had a couple more drinks in our absence, so Tony drove us back to Sacramento. I sat up front, Karla and Mio rode in the back. We were hardly on the bridge crossing the bay before Karla was asleep. She had leaned over to lie down with her head on Mio’s lap. When I looked back, Mio was absently stroking Karla’s hair. She looked my way briefly, her face expressionless, then turned her eyes back to the night.
I knew Mio was neither sentimental nor the least bit maternal. One night, many years ago, I had watched while she drank the blood of two of the cutest little six-year-old twin girls. Her only comment after she was finished was that even their blood tasted identical. She often expressed affection for humans with whom she maintained various relations, but as far as I could tell, her behavior was part of a general strategy of resource management, rather than an expression of genuine affection. All of which made me wonder what was behind the camaraderie that seemed to have developed so quickly between her and Karla. I also knew that any discussion of the matter would be at Mio’s instigation.
Karla woke up as we were arriving back in Sacramento. I told her I’d be needing her services again sometime toward the end of the coming week, and I would give her a call. She moved up front to drive when Mio and I got out at the footbridge. On the walk back to the house, Mio asked if I wanted her to accompany me to Pollock Pines. She had told me earlier she was planning to leave Sunday evening, so I said it wasn’t necessary. As things turned out, it was probably just as well that she was leaving.
Chapter 19
At nine o’clock on Monday evening, I was standing near the lobby entrance of the Hyatt when Levko drove up in his BMW. If providing financial assistance to his family back in Ukraine was a hardship, it wasn’t preventing him from cultivating his image here in the States. He saw me and stopped at the curb, hardly looking at me when I got in.
From downtown Sacramento, Pollock Pines was less than an hour’s drive up Highway 50. The night was clear and cold. California was having another dry year. It was the middle of December, and there was hardly any snow in the mountains. We drove for fifteen or twenty minutes before Levko spoke.
“Your woman friend?” he said.
I wasn’t sure at first if it had been a statement or a question. “She left last night, to Mexico, on business. Were you hoping to see her again?”
He made a little choking sound. “After tonight, I will not see you again, right?”
He’d had some time to think since Saturday. I wondered how close he’d come to not showing up. “This isn’t so bad, is it, just taking me for a drive?”
“You do not know Yavorsky. He is nut case. Really crazy when he is mad. If he knew I showed you Pines Guy’s house, I think maybe... I don’t know... it would not be good for me.”
Levko seemed genuinely concerned, but I didn’t think there was much danger of Yavorsky finding out what we were up to. Levko, I assumed, felt the same way, otherwise he would have put up more resistance. “Does he know you’re here, in Sacramento?” I asked.
“No. It is my day off. He does not watch so close.”
“Then there shouldn’t be any problem.”
There wasn’t much traffic on I-50 at that time of night. The commuters had all long since returned to their little castles in the foothills. I hadn’t been in the Sacramento area long enough to witness the spread of its suburban communities, but the process is similar everywhere. Once a city’s more centrally located areas have reached a density that either leads to over-congestion and decay or prohibitive property values, or both, the new money moves to the periphery. The periphery expands outward with each migration, spawning larger and more expensive homes. Developers market these communities to appeal to egos delusional with new wealth. The communities offer a kind of landed-gentry fantasy that appeals to the young, upwardly mobile professionals eager to display their superiority through flamboyant possessions. They can sleep soundly in their gated communities, safe behind their high-tech security systems, confident that their neighbors, though they my be borderline psychotics, are not dangerous in virtue of disparities in wealth.
The night grew colder as we climbed out of the valley. Levko made another in a series of fine adjustments to the car’s heater. Watching him drive, it was clear he was emotionally attached to his car. There was the obvious ego aspect of it, using the car to project his self-image; the sexy side of power, speed, luxury craftsmanship. But there was also the more tangible, tactile side of operating the car. The physical manipulation of its various parts brought the car’s power under human control and gave the machine its symbiotic seductiveness. It was, I suppose, an ideal choice as a status symbol. But if cars didn’t exit, something else would have served
