Londongrad

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Standing near my car, I opened the package I had taken from the house in Brighton Beach and found a videotape, and a few sheets of paper. I scanned them, and then yelled for Bobo Leven who was climbing into his car. He shut the door and jogged over to me. I held out a piece of paper. He took it, read it, grunted.

“Jesus, Art.”

“Yeah.” I felt sick.

“Masha Panchuk waited tables for your pal, Anatoly Sverdloff,” he said.

“Give me a cigarette.”

Bobo handed me the pack along with his lighter.

“Fuck it, Artie, didn’t Sverdloff mention this?” said Bobo. “He didn’t tell you one of his girls was missing?”

“Why would he? Maybe he didn’t know. Maybe she was a temp.”

“Don’t be so defensive, but you have to figure by now someone maybe called him about it, Sverdloff, I mean. Right? Or you want to do that?”

“He’s on his way to London. He didn’t have anything to do with Masha Panchuk’s murder.”

“You want to hang onto that raft, like they say, Artemy?”

“Fine. I’ll call him,” I said.

“You trust him, right?”

I lit the cigarette and handed him back his smokes and the lighter.

I worked my phone, I made some calls, nothing. I turned to Bobo.

“Find Dravic, if you can,” I said. “He was supposed to meet me at the house the club uses as an office, he wasn’t there, I just tried him on the phone, there’s no answer. I called the club, nothing. Now I’m thinking he was scared, but of what? Scared because he promised to give me some stuff on Masha Panchuk? Did someone overhear us talking at the club?”

“Sure,” said Bobo. “I will work everything,” he said formally, his English sounding as if he had learned it in school, his Russian accent more pronounced now. “I will be taking everything into consideration, of course, Artemy.”

I knew that Bobo Leven would get into everything, he was tenacious, relentless, one of those cops, even at his age, who never let go. At two in the morning, he’d still be at his desk doing the paperwork. Before the other guys got into his station house, he’d be combing his computer, and then when they arrived, he’d bug them for scraps of information. The phone would be permanently attached to his ear, he would be calling, asking, bribing if he had to. I had known a few cops like Bobo. It wasn’t just that he wanted to make a name for himself, it was who he was, what he lived for. Everything would come under scrutiny, he would talk to everybody, Albanians, Jamaicans, Mexies, Serbs, Russians, and he would go through every detective report on crazy people, on thugs who sliced people up, on the kinds of knives they used, and if they also used guns, and he would read medical reports, and reports on duct tape, fibers and feathers, anything he could get his hands on.

Every single homicide pattern that was anything like the case would be worked by Bobo; so would cold cases he kept in a bottom drawer.

Moving around, he would get to Starrett City, Brighton Beach, looking at how people had been mugged, sliced, killed. He wanted this case, and he would go without sleep, night after night, until fatigue made him crazy.

“I’m going back to the city,” I said, but Bobo didn’t answer; he was already on the phone, already tracking Tito Dravic.

In my car, I studied the picture of Masha I had with me, I stared at it hard as if it would give up some secret, and without warning a faint finger of panic crawled up my neck. The thing I hadn’t seen, the thing I didn’t want to see.

But I had to look. And I looked, and the face stared back at me.

If some creep had snatched Masha Panchuk, and Masha had worked at Tolya’s bar, was it Masha the creep really wanted? Was it a mistake? Were they looking for someone else? Somebody connected to me? Somebody who scared Tito Dravic bad?

Masha Panchuk, in the picture I held, was tall with short platinum hair. It had been taken the month before.

The face looked back at me, and in it, there was the resemblance. To Val. She looked like Val. Val’s hair had been short and blonde, too. Only recently had she let it grow out; only recently had she let it go back to her dark red.

Had I missed this? How? Did I fail to see it because I didn’t want to see it?

I started the car, I drove like crazy back to Brighton Beach, to Val’s office, and when I got there she was gone. I called her. Val? Val? Answer the phone!