The Boy Who Stole from the Dead

CHAPTER 32

LAUREN CLIMBED THE stairs above a clothing boutique named Cry Wolf and rang the doorbell. The door opened within five seconds, as though Victor Bodnar was expecting her. A strikingly handsome young guy with short blond hair let her in. He said hello with a thick Russian accent. As he closed the door behind her, his short sleeve inched up to reveal part of a tattoo. A girl with snakes for hair. Poor guy, Lauren thought. Still in his early twenties but he already held the opposite sex in low regard.

“Please allow me to escort you to the kitchen,” he said. “Mr. Bodnar will visit guests in his kitchen.”

He bowed, turned, and led the way. As though that wasn’t weird enough, when they walked past the living room on the right, she spotted his clone reading one of those soft-core men’s magazines with some actress on the cover. They were identical twins. Had to be. And to top things off, the twin stood when he saw Lauren and gave her his own little bow.

“Good morning, madam,” he said.

Not gay, she thought. Just super polite. A little odd, but there was nothing wrong with that. Lauren had a healthy respect for eccentricity.

The kitchen looked like an insane asylum for a chef. It was entirely white, with linoleum and appliances from the 1980s. Not a speck of dust or dirt. Toaster, microwave, and cookies jars perfectly centered and standing at attention.

The kid pulled the chair out for her at a small circular table. Lauren thanked him and sat down, put her bag on the adjacent chair. Who would have thought? One Russian kid had more manners than all the men at the Sports Network combined.

She heard footsteps. Coming rapidly down some stairs. Too fast and too many to belong to one person.

A tuxedo cat appeared in the kitchen. Tail up. It studied Lauren. Her mother had been a cat rescuer. Never fewer than two in the house. Lauren slid her chair out and patted her legs. The cat trotted forward and jumped onto her lap. It arched its back to accept Lauren’s pets.

“Damian, leave the young lady alone.”

Lauren twitched. The cat flew off her lap.

A short old man stood in the doorway. He was dressed in vintage immigrant tweed. He was unremarkable in every way. And in that way, he was remarkable. He seemed as though he could blend with air. There was something relaxing about him. Lauren felt immediately at ease.

He introduced himself as Victor Bodnar.

“Vodka?” he said. He reached into a pantry and pulled out a bottle and two glasses.

“No,” Lauren said. “The last time I had a shot things didn’t turn out so well for me.”

The creases in his face deepened. Lauren feared she was insulting him, but too bad. She’d learned her lesson on Little Diomede Island.

His disappointment vanished as though he could read her thoughts. “A wise move,” he said. “Drinking in the morning is never a good thing. But sometimes an old man needs a little encouragement to get through the day.”

He poured himself a shot and raised the glass in her direction. “Na Zdorovya.” He knocked it back, and sat down across the table from Lauren.

“Mr. Obon said you once mentioned a boy named Bobby Kungenook to him,” Lauren said. “I’m a reporter—”

“Obon says nice things about you. I love young people. So nice to meet a new one. Tell me some things about yourself first. Indulge an old man, please.”

Lauren took a breath. She sensed if she refused she wouldn’t get anywhere. “What would you like to know?”

“Where were you born?”

“Hawaii.”

“What is your father’s given name?”

“Remy.”

“Where was he born?”

“Mississippi.”

“Do you have any brothers or sisters?”

“I have a sister.”

“When you were a child, did you play with dolls or other girls?”

“Neither. I didn’t have any friends. Or dolls.”

His eyes narrowed to slits. “Whose voice from childhood do you miss the most?”

Lauren didn’t know why she was answering him honestly except that there was something compelling about him. And therapeutic about the moment. “My mother,” she said, her voice cracking.

“And where is your mother now?”

“She’s gone.”

Victor nodded sympathetically. “And if I offered you a clear conscience or ten million dollars, which would you choose?”

Lauren remembered getting the phone call from her father on her mother’s last day. He hadn’t been home the night before. Another starlet, no doubt. He told Lauren her mother wasn’t answering her phone. When Lauren called her mother a minute later, there was still no answer. She should have left the house immediately.

“That depends,” she said.

“On what?”

“If a clear conscience means I get my mother back.”

Victor held her eyes with his for a moment. Then he reached out and patted her on the arm.

The buzzer to the door sounded. Victor turned his head to listen. Footsteps from the living room to the front door. A deadbolt slid open. More footsteps. People walking into the apartment. More than one person. One of the twins said something in Russian or Ukrainian, but no one answered.

Victor fixed his collar. He stood up and took a deep breath, as though preparing for something that might tax his constitution.

“Forgive me, please,” he said. “I forgot I had an appointment. Stay right there. This won’t take long.” He started out of the kitchen and stopped. “Sometimes I’m asked to help resolve disagreements in the community. Two guests have arrived. Enterprising types. They’ve asked for my help to resolve a business dispute. Why don’t you come to my courtroom as an observer?”

“Courtroom?”

“Yes,” Victor said, as though there were nothing peculiar about his calling a room a courtroom. “You might find it interesting.”

The reporter in Lauren asserted herself. She was up even before she said yes. A voice inside her told her to be cautious, but the reporter within her silenced it. If Victor Bodnar resolved disputes in the community, he might be the type of man who knew everything about everyone. Including Bobby Kungenook. If that was the case, her best course of action was to flatter and play along with him. She grabbed her oversized bag from the floor.

“I don’t allow bags in the courtroom,” Victor said. “Everyone must follow that rule, I’m afraid.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t have an X-ray scanner or a metal detector.”

Lauren waited for him to laugh, chuckle or grin to show he was kidding. He didn’t do any of those things. Instead he stared at her bag and waited. Lauren lifted her wallet and computer out of her bag.

“The wallet, yes,” Victor said. “The computer, I’m afraid not. No cell phones, no electronic devices of any kind. I can assure you your computer will be safe inside this kitchen. There are only my nephews here. I trust them with my life.”

No phones or electronic devices, Lauren thought. The parties to this dispute were starting to pique her interest. Lauren slipped the computer back in the bag.

Victor eyed the purse. “If you give me your word there is no weapon or tape recorder, I won’t insult you by asking to look inside.”

She was the one who chuckled. Popped the purse open and unzipped the change compartment. Tilted it toward Victor so he could see inside.

He grimaced, as though mortified she was being subjected to such scrutiny, and threw his right hand up in disgust for good measure. But he still snuck a look inside.

“This way to the courtroom,” he said.

He turned and headed up a narrow flight of L-shaped stairs. Lauren followed. Victor’s earlier words resonated. He called the two parties to the dispute “enterprising types.” His obsession about recording devices suggested something sensitive was going to be discussed. His concern about security meant the visitors to his courtroom could get violent. Probably had been violent in the past.

What if by “enterprising types” he meant criminals? What if she was walking into a mock courtroom where mob disputes were resolved? Obon said that Victor Bodnar made his fortune in the food business. He didn’t look like any baker, farmer, or grocery store operator she’d ever seen. What was she walking into?

Not a nice little story. A great story, Lauren thought. One that could catapult her out of the sports section and onto the front page.

The stairs opened up to a second floor with a narrow corridor and three doors. She followed Victor into what she guessed was originally a bedroom. It contained a rectangular wooden table with two empty chairs on one side, and three chairs on the other. The parties to the dispute sat on the latter side with an empty chair between them. It looked like an imaginary boundary, a buffer to prevent an accidental elbow that might lead to fisticuffs.

Except the parties to the dispute were grandmothers in Sunday dresses. One wore white gloves, the other a black hat to match her dress. The one with the white gloves held a cane. The other wore a hearing aide. At first Lauren wondered if it was a joke. But then she studied the expressions on the women’s faces and she knew that for them, it was no joke at all.

One of the nephews marched into the room. He stood beside Victor, who turned to Lauren.

“We must speak Ukrainian. But my nephew will translate for you.”

Victor gave a speech. His nephew bent down on one knee and translated into Lauren’s ear.

“We’re here to settle an argument. One person has been harmed. The other person is accused. The wronged party is demanding compensation from the other for lost income. This is a courtroom. Verdicts are final. There is no appeal. Punishment if you don’t follow the court’s verdict will be quick and severe. Do both of you agree to be bound by this courtroom? The verdict and the sentencing?”

Both women nodded.

“Very well,” Victor said. He stood up, moved to the other side of the table, and sat down in the empty chair between the two women facing Lauren. He grasped one woman’s hand with his left, the other’s with his right. “You both grew up in the same village in Ukraine. Together you’ve served the best hunter’s stew in town in your little restaurant for over twenty years. How did it come this far?”

“She’s a philistine,” one said. “She wants to use cabbage instead of beetroot and add lemon to the borscht.”

The other one bristled. “We get a customer asking for this every week.”

“Who cares what the customer asks for? If he asked for turpentine in a glass, would you serve it? Only Russians use nothing but cabbage. Only Russians add lemon to their borscht. I will not serve Russian dishes in my restaurant.”

And so it went on for ten minutes. Eventually Victor persuaded them to compromise on adding the Russian version of borscht to their specials.

“A good host is a humble host,” Victor said. “He puts his guests’ desires above his own. And a Ukrainian restaurant should maintain its purity. There’s enough confusion about Ukraine and Russia.”

Victor’s nephew escorted the women out.

Lauren followed Victor back to the kitchen. She returned her wallet to her bag, which was exactly where she left it.

“That wasn’t what I expected,” she said. “Why the concern about security and electronic devices to resolve a dispute between two cooks?”

“Disputes in my courtroom involve all sorts of people. I found it best to keep a consistent set of rules and apply them to everyone. That way there’s no risk of an unpleasant surprise. People aren’t always who they seem to be. Now, what was this boy’s name again? The one you asked Obon about?”

“Bobby Kungenook.”

A light came on in his eyes. “Ah, yes. Bobby Kungenook. I remember that name.”

“You know him?”

“No. My daughter does. She runs a bakery in Brighton Beach. Her protégé, a girl named Iryna, is dating him. Or was, at least. You know how kids are. And now that the boy’s in jail—I must have mentioned it to Obon the next day.”

“What is your daughter’s name? Where exactly is her bakery?”

Lauren got the address for Tara’s bakery.

“Have you seen his guardian, Nadia Tesla, recently?” Lauren said.

Victor frowned. “Who?”

Lauren studied him. He appeared genuinely confused. “Nadia Tesla.”

“I’m sorry. I’ve never met anyone by that name.”

Lauren grabbed her bag and thanked Victor for his hospitality and help.

Victor bowed. “Good luck.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll find him.”

“No. I meant with your conscience.”

Lauren smiled and tried to ignore the comment. She didn’t have time to wrestle with the past.

As she climbed down the steps to the street, the contents of her bag shifted to one side. She paused at the base of the stairs to adjust the position of her computer. When she reached in and grabbed it, the metal felt hot to her touch.

That made no sense, she thought. It hadn’t been sitting in the sun and she hadn’t used it for two hours. But it was hot.

Someone else must have turned it on.

Victor’s other nephew. The one who’d been reading the men’s magazine. He must have snuck in and turned it on.

Lauren raced to the Starbucks on Second Avenue. She bolted inside and booted up her computer. There was a way to check if someone had logged on recently. There had to be. But she had no idea how to do it.

Lauren logged in. She asked herself why anyone would want to hack into her computer. Her address book, she thought. It contained passwords for certain websites but they were coded in a manner only she would understand. Is that what Victor Bodnar was after? Were the nephews identity thieves? She had nothing else valuable on her computer. Nothing of any great personal meaning. Nothing of any professional interest to anyone—

Except for the video.

She searched for the video clip of the first time she saw Bobby Kungenook play hockey. It started when an opponent checked him hard into the boards. Bobby fell. But instead of getting up and rushing back to prevent a goal, he paused to pick something up off the ice. A locket tied to a necklace that had come loose from around his neck. Right away Lauren was certain there was something special about that locket.

She didn’t know how to figure out if someone had accessed her computer, but she knew how to tell if someone had opened a file. She let the cursor hover over the file containing the video clip and right-clicked the mouse. Scrolled down to “get info” and clicked again.

The file had been opened eleven minutes ago.

Lauren slammed the laptop shut. Didn’t bother to log out. Didn’t bother to power down. Just sat there stunned. How did Victor Bodnar know to look for the video? Obviously he didn’t. But the minute she showed up asking questions about Bobby Kungenook, Victor made sure one of his nephews got a look at her computer. The video was easy to find. Lauren had labeled it “B.K. Hockey.”

She took three deep breaths. A simple exercise her mother had taught her. Her mother had used it to fight stage fright. And camera fright. And husband fright. Her mother. How she wished she was here with her now.

The conclusion was simple. Victor Bodnar was connected to Bobby Kungenook.

Lauren stored her computer back in the bag. She hurried back to First Avenue along St. Mark’s Place. Tucked her body behind the corner of the block. If Victor came out of his apartment halfway down the block, she’d see him. And she’d be able to pull back before he saw her.

She checked her watch. Seventeen minutes had elapsed since she’d left Victor’s apartment. Barely enough time to watch the video clip, discuss it with his nephews, go to the john—old men were always going, weren’t they?—and make his next move. The odds were in her favor he was still in the house. What if one of the nephews came out? She’d let him go, Lauren decided. Victor Bodnar was a man who got other people to do what he wanted them to do. If the video clip spurred him into action, he’d be making the move himself.

Lauren decided she would wait for him.

And see where he led.