Dark Dreams (13 page)

And the husband? He was supposed to be dead. Maybe yes; maybe no. Jana had to find out about him as well. And she would have to do it herself.

Chapter 21

I
t was time to visit the club advertised on the card taken from the dead Guzak brother. They drove to Gorkého, parking near the Gremium, the café where Sofia and Jana had met to discuss the sex scandal that Sofia had found herself in. Since the Gremium was a favorite hangout of Sofia’s, as well as of a number of other politicians, Jana stepped inside to see if she might be there.

A Klezmer band was playing Yiddish tunes, a small audience clapping in time to the music. Jana scanned the customers. They were having fun. She wanted to stay there, to hear the music, to laugh, to simply feel good. But it was impossible tonight. Jana went outside. Seges, in a first for himself as far as ambition went, was already four doors down the block, in front of the sex club.

The club was dark. A new steel gate barred the entrance. The wind had pushed bits and pieces of paper and other debris through the grating in front of the entrance. It had not been swept in some time. The place was definitely closed down. Even the posters on the walls advertising “Theatre Erotique,” “Sex Between Women,” and “Lap Dancing” were starting to peel.

Seges was pleased. Perhaps he could go home early.

“Locked tight!” He pulled on the bars to show how closed the club was.

Jana stepped close to the gate and discovered a small slip of paper tacked to the door inside the bars. She read it with the aid of her flashlight, turning back to Seges when she was through.

“Back to the Gremium. They left a referral to Medzil, the manager of the café.”

Seges followed Jana, reluctantly bringing up the rear as they trudged back to the Gremium. The band was even louder now, the clarinet leading the group. Jana and Seges went to the counter where the cashier-manager was counting the money in the till. The customers quickly surveyed the two police officers; then, satisfied that nothing traumatic was about to happen, turned back to the band. The manager reluctantly looked up from stuffing money into the register.

“I hope you’re having a profitable evening,” Jana ventured.

“They”—he indicated the band—“have a following, so they bring in a decent crowd for a weekday.”

“Good. You’re Medzil?” Jana inquired.

“Yes.” He pushed a menu toward her. “An evening coffee?” he suggested. “We have good strudel. There’s a new baker who was trained in the old school. Very fine.”

“No food, thank you. Just a few questions. The strip club down the street has closed. It has a card on the door referring people here to you for mail delivery.”

The manager nodded; then he reached under a counter to pull out a bag, which he emptied on the countertop. “I never gave them permission to use this place as a mail drop. Nobody has come to pick up their crap. You can have it all if you want.”

Jana picked up the mail without bothering to answer, thumbing through the envelopes. “Lots of bills.” She opened a number of the envelopes to make sure that they were, in fact, bills. They club owners had not paid their debts for months back. There were no envelopes with contents of a personal nature. Not unexpected. Who sends personal letters to a strip club?

“I think the owner is a Gypsy,” offered the manager. Anyone who didn’t pay his bills in Slovakia was immediately labeled a Gypsy. “What do you expect from people who go into the business of selling sex?”

“Did they sell sex?”

“Clubs like that always sell sex. A couple of the young ones were all right, but the others had already gone saggy.”

“You were inside the club?”

“Once. They ran out of food and asked for a delivery of pastry. I charged extra. All they had to do was walk the few steps to pick up what they wanted, and they asked for a delivery. Stupid.”

A young couple came up to the counter to pay their bill. Jana turned her back, watching the audience while Medzil dealt with the couple. Two waitresses were working, one older, the other a very pretty young woman of perhaps seventeen or eighteen. Both of them were very industrious, bustling between the tables, the young one only pausing to clap with the audience when the Klezmer band finished a number. On a hunch, when the young woman came over to the pastry case and picked out a slice of Linzer torte for a customer, Jana approached her.

“I’m Commander Jana Matinova. Please put the cake back. I’d like to talk to you for a moment.”

The waitress’s body went rigid; her eyes took on the look of a frightened deer. Jana took the pastry out of her hand and put it back into the case, sliding its door shut.

“There is nothing to be afraid of. I am not enforcing immigration laws. We’re investigating a larger crime.” Jana looked to the back of the café, then over at the manager. His demeanor had changed, Medzil seeming almost as nervous as the waitress.

“I need a place to talk to this young lady. Is there an office in the back?”

He nodded.

Jana told Seges to wait by the front door, took the young waitress’s arm, then walked her to the back, through a curtain and past the kitchen into a small, cramped office. There was a tiny desk, a tiny filing cabinet, and one chair in the middle of the room.

“Please sit down,” Jana told the waitress. “You’ll be more comfortable.”

Instead, the waitress put her back against the wall and slowly slid to a squatting position.

“I’m not going to arrest you, if that’s what you are afraid of,” Jana reassured her. There was no response. Sixteen, Jana thought, seventeen at most. Jana sat down on the floor close to the girl, keeping her voice soft and non-threatening.

“Please don’t be afraid. I’m sure you have a reason to be fearful, particularly of a police officer. To my own amazement, I found out early in my career that people were afraid of police, even when the people needed their help. That’s not good for us, and not good for you. So, please don’t be apprehensive. I have a few questions for you. I hope you’ll feel comfortable enough to answer them. Please tell me your name.”

“Karina,” the young woman eventually murmured.

“Karina. A nice name.”

“Thank you.” The young girl looked up at Jana, studying her face. “You’re not here to enforce the immigration laws?”

“No.”

Karina let out a sigh and started to relax. “It’s a hard floor.” Karina gave Jana the barest semblance of a smile.

Jana shifted to make herself more comfortable. “You are right. It’s hard.”

Karina’s smile became wider.

“I watched you outside,” Jana told her. “You were having people point to the menu to tell you what they wanted. I can also hear a foreign accent when you speak Slovak. If you have a hard time understanding what I say, please tell me and I’ll try to find another way to communicate. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Judging by your accent, you’re from Ukraine. Right?”

Karina hesitated.

“There’s no harm in telling me.”

“Yes.”

“Kiev?” Jana suggested.

Karina shook her head.

“Where, then?”

“Kremenchuk.”

A connection.

“When did you come here?”

“Four months ago.”

“Of course you’re here illegally?”

After a long hesitation, Karina nodded.

“Am I right in believing that this isn’t the first place that you’ve worked in Bratislava?”

Karina nodded again.

“Please tell me where else you’ve worked.”

Karina shook her head very determinedly.

“Then I’ll tell you where I think you worked. You were a ‘hostess’ in the strip club down the street.”

Karina shuddered, clutching her knees to her chest, putting her face on her knees.

“It was very hard for you.” Jana stroked the girl’s hair. “Selling your body is a hard way to make a living.”

Karina began to cry, tears rolling down her face.

“I’m sorry I made you think about it.”

“That’s all right,” Karina got out, wiping her tears away. “No, it’s not all right. I hated it.”

“Yes. But you’re here illegally. And they threatened you?”

“They hit me; they hit me over and over again. I had no place to go. They said they’d kill me and bury my body, and no one would ever know about it because there was no record of my being here.”

“Yes, that’s how they do it most of the time. They keep their girls scared.” Jana took the waitress’s hand in hers, squeezing it to give her reassurance. “Tell me about Kremenchuk. You were taken from there, across the border, by certain people. I’d like to know if you’ve ever heard the name Guzak.”

Karina stiffened.

“The two brothers, right?” Jana said.

“ . . . Yes.”

“The younger one is dead. Did you know that?”

Karina nodded. “It was on television.”

“Do you have any idea where in Bratislava the older one has come to roost?”

“No.” Karina’s voice was barely audible. “He was the worse of the two.” She thought for a moment. “They were both bad.”

“So, it’s not a terrible thing that the young one is dead. You understand, that doesn’t mean that he should have been murdered. What matters now is that I have to find out who killed him. That’s my job. Do you have any idea who killed him?”

“Everyone at the club hated both brothers.”

“But it wasn’t ‘everyone’ who killed them.” She paused, patting the girl on the hand. “I’ll tell you how it was with you in Ukraine: You wanted to get out of a bad life in Kremenchuk. Some people offered to help. Maybe you even paid them. The brothers were the ones who ran you across the border?”

She nodded.

“When you were traveling to the border, things got even worse.”

She nodded again. “The first night, the older one climbed on me. Then the other brother.”

“Yes, very bad,” murmured Jana. “No one should go through that.”

“No one,” murmured the girl.

“Then you were brought to the club and put to work?”

“Yes.”

“The manager of the club, do you know where he is?”

Karina hesitated.

“I won’t tell anyone that you told me. I swear it.”

Again, hesitation. “I don’t know where he lives. He did have a woman. The girls had a small party at her apartment once.”

Jana pulled out her notebook, wrote down the address that Karina gave her, then got to her feet, helping Karina to hers.

“The manager here, Medzil, is he good to you?”

“Please don’t make trouble for him,” Karina pleaded. “He gave me shelter; he gave me a job. He’s nice to me.”

“He lets you keep the money you earn?”

“Always. And I don’t have to share my tips, like the other waitress.”

“Does he force you to have sex with him?”

“No.”

“But you’re having sex with him?”

Karina nodded. “He’s kind of like my boyfriend.”

Jana doubted that. For the manager, it was probably sex in exchange for a place to stay and for work. Should she turn the manager in? If she did, she would have to reveal what she had learned from the girl in her report, and she’d promised not to. If Jana revealed the young woman’s identity, she would be in worse shape than she was now. They’d force her to go back to Ukraine, and lord knows what problems lurked for her there.

People made accommodations in their lives, and who was Jana to say what was right or wrong? Medzil, at least, was not pimping her. Jana decided to do nothing about the situation. She wrote her own home telephone number on her business card and gave it to Karina with instructions to call if she needed any kind of assistance, escorted the girl out of the room, and walked her back to her station.

“You can go back to work.”

The girl mouthed a “Thank you” at Jana. Jana walked over to the manager, who was still nervous about what she might have found out, and even more nervous about what she might do about what she had discovered.

Jana leaned close to him. “If you are mean to that girl in any way, I’ll find out, and then I’ll come back here and make you pay and then pay some more. Do you understand me?”

“I haven’t done anything,” he insisted.

She grasped his shirt, pulling him forward.

“I asked if you ‘understood.’”

“ . . . Yes,” he gulped.

“Good.” She let him go and walked out of the cafe, Seges trailing after her.

“I don’t like the customers at that café,” said Seges.

“That’s because you lack perception, Seges,” said Jana.

Chapter 21

J
ana and Seges left the café and drove directly to the address that Karina had supplied. The word would get back quickly to the girlfriend of the erotic club’s manager that they were looking for her. Of course, Seges felt that their haste was unnecessary.

He did not complain about the need to talk to the woman, because he knew Jana would be all over him. Instead, he complained about the danger of the icy streets, the lack of sufficient streetlights, the fear of getting into accidents, his aches and pains, his wife’s moans about his late nights, all grievances geared to get Jana to change her mind about where they were going, until she finally told him to shut up. Her tone of voice brooked no argument. Seges kept quiet until they got to the address, an old apartment building on Cintorinska in the northeast section of Bratislava, an area of small gray stores and even grayer buildings.

They parked directly in front, Jana leading the way into the foyer. After they entered, Seges’s first words were to curse bitterly because the elevator was not working, not an uncommon event in buildings this old. They climbed the stairs to the fifth floor. Jana tuned his complaints out, thinking instead of what she needed to accomplish when they arrived at the apartment. It would not be easy to get the girlfriend to talk about her lover. Jana would probably need some type of lever to pry the information out of her.

The fifth floor of the building was like the neighborhood, stained and colorless. An uneasy Seges drew his gun as the two of them walked down the torn and dirty hall carpet. Jana quietly told him to put it away. Seges began objecting. Jana was forced to raise a finger for silence as she paused to listen at the door of the woman’s apartment. Music played inside.

“There are illegals inside. There is an off chance that there may be problems when one of them comes to the door. If the music is turned off before she gets here, then take your gun out and stand to the side.” She pointed at the doorjamb. “If she leaves it on, there’ll be no immediate trouble. She thinks she’s safe.”

The music stayed on. A woman’s voice came through the door, querulous, asking who they were.

“Jana Matinova. Karina at the Gremium told me to look you up. She said we might be able to work together.”

The slide-lock on the door rattled, the door opening, the woman’s eyes getting big as she saw their uniforms. She tried to close the door but was not fast enough. Jana’s foot was already in the way, her shoulder forcing the door aside.

“Hello,” said Jana amiably, walking past the woman and into the apartment. Seges took the woman’s arm, escorting her into the apartment with them. Three other woman were inside, in varying degrees of undress, frightened at seeing police officers. They wanted to run, but there was no place to go.

“I am not from immigration, ladies. No arrests for that tonight. So, please, all of you sit down.” None of them complied. Jana raised her voice. “I said sit down!” They sat, and Jana’s voice returned to normal. “Thank you, ladies.”

She prowled through the other rooms, making sure no one was hiding. There were two very messy bedrooms, each with clothes strewn around. A small kitchen with a minuscule stove was cornered next to a bathroom, which had clotheslines strung across it with wet underthings laid over the lines to dry.

When Jana walked back into the living room, Seges was eyeing the women, particularly one of them who had no top on. Jana told him to wait outside in the hallway. Reluctantly, grumbling under his breath, Seges left. Jana nodded to each of the women as Seges closed the door behind him.

“Let’s relax, ladies.” There were no other chairs, so Jana pulled over an end table, removed the cigarette-butt-filled ashtray set on top of it, and placed the ashtray on the arm of a tattered couch. She then sat on the table.

“We’re now just friends together.” She looked over to the woman who had opened the door. “You’re Andreea?”

There was a reluctant nod.

The music was still on; glasses and several half-full liquor bottles were scattered around.

“A pleasure meeting you, Andreea.” She widened the focus of her attention to include the other women. “I hope your little party was fun.” She looked at the woman who was still topless. “If you want, you can get a blouse for yourself. Just come back here after you’ve put it on.” The woman darted into one of the bedrooms. Jana waited for her. The woman quickly came out, having grabbed a sweater. Before the woman could sit, Jana pointed to the radio. “It’s hard to talk when there’s music playing. Please, turn it off.” The woman turned the radio off, then stood there, unsure where to go. Jana motioned her back to her chair.

“If I were off duty,” Jana talked, trying to relax the women, “I might even share a drink with you. However, I’m on duty. That means just business today. Did you all work at the Theatre Erotique before it closed down?” Jana eyed each one in turn. “I don’t want to be impatient, but I’ve had a long couple of days and I’m tired, so if I have to pull the answers out of each of you I will probably lose my temper. Do we all understand that? I want to see some nods if you do.”

There were slow nods of agreement from all of the women.

“Very good! You see, I told you we’d be friends.” She looked back at Andreea. “You all share this apartment, but only one of you rented it. That person would assuredly be a Slovak. That means it was you, Andreea. Correct?”

“ . . . Yes.”

“How long have you had it?”

“Four months.”

“Where were you born?”

“Poprad.”

“And the other girls, where’d they come from?”

There was silence.

Jana heaved a sigh of exasperation. She focused even more pointedly on Andreea.

“If I speak to the others in this room and I find that they have accents that are not Slovak, I’ll have to assume that, in fact, they’re not Slovak, and that they’re here illegally. In that case, I’ll probably be forced to arrest them as aliens who are in this country without permission. All of them will unquestionably be deported if I take them into custody. So, it’s up to you, Andreea, to speak for the group. Their lives depend upon your speaking truthfully. Do we all understand that?” She looked to each of the women. They understood the stakes, and eyed Andreea to make sure she knew, too.

“Andreea, I asked you a question. Please answer it. All of the girls are illegals, part of the group brought in for the club to use, true?”

Andreea finally nodded.

“And it was your job to ‘take care’ of them? To make sure, in their time off, that they didn’t play the game for themselves, work the streets, cut into the club’s percentage; or perhaps to help them avoid ‘difficulties’ that might bring unwanted attention to the club. Right?”

“ . . . Yes.”

“The manager of the club was your boyfriend?”

Andreea remained silent. Jana’s eyes swept around to the other women in warning.

“I don’t think your friends are going to like you any more if you force them to speak.”

Andreea quickly shot a glance at the other women. “Tell her!” one hissed, looking daggers at Andreea.

Andreea looked down at her bare feet; Jana waited her out. Andreea finally mumbled, “Yes, my boyfriend.”

“What’s his name?”

“ . . . Veza.”

“And where is Veza?”

She looked up, a small look of triumph on her face.

“He went to Kiev. Yesterday. So he’s gone.” Andreea saw the skeptical look on Jana’s face. “Ask them.” She motioned at the others. “They know he left.”

“It’s true!” the woman in the sweater said. “He is a son-of-a-bitch. I hope he dies there.”

Jana looked back at Andreea.

“Your friend hopes your boyfriend dies. Do you?”

Andreea shrugged. “Whatever happens, happens.”

“It sounds like he needed to leave Slovakia very quickly. Why?”

“He left. I didn’t ask why.”

“Did it have anything to do with the Guzak killings? Perhaps with the brother that’s still alive? The older one?”

The breathing of all the women seemed to momentarily stop. Jana looked at them one by one, knowing, even before she looked, that the Guzak name had frightened them. Jana went back to questioning Andreea.

“Did your boyfriend kill the younger brother and his mother?”

“ . . . I don’t think so.” She looked directly at Jana. “He’s a coward. He’s the kind of a man who only beats a woman if he’s sure she won’t hit him back.”

There was a murmur of agreement from the other women.

“So he fled because was afraid.”

“ . . . Yes.”

“Of who?”

“Others.”

“What others?” Jana pressed her. “Give me their names.”

“I don’t know.”

The woman in the sweater spoke up again.

“All of us talked about it. She doesn’t know. None of us know.”

Jana got up, then walked to a coffee table where there were a few scattered papers. She picked up a piece without any writing on it, then handed it, along with her pen, to Adreea.

“Write the address and telephone number in Kiev where your boyfriend is heading.”

Andreea scribbled an address and phone number down on the paper, then handed the pen and paper back to Jana.

Jana looked at it, then passed it over to the woman in the sweater.

“Tell me if it’s the correct address. Be very careful. If it’s the wrong telephone number, if even one letter or number on the address is incorrect, I’m sorry to say our immigration people will come back here and you all will be in deep trouble. It’ll mean jail, then you go back to your countries quicker than quick.”

The rest of the women quickly gathered around the sweatered woman, chattering in several languages, none of them Slovak. The woman in the sweater took Jana’s pen and made several corrections on the paper, then handed the items back to Jana.

“Now it’s okay.”

“Thank you.” She looked at Andreea, who was again busy studying her bare feet. She had tried to mislead Jana. “Bad, bad girl,” Jana chided. “He isn’t worth it.” Jana looked at the other women. “I’m glad that I’m not suspicious and that I didn’t need to ask for your identity papers.” Jana looked at the woman in the sweater. “As for you, you are obviously a Slovak.”

As Jana walked into the hall, Seges immediately began his litany of complaints. Most of all, he whined about being deliberately sent away from the interview.

“They wouldn’t have talked to me while you checked out their breasts.”

“I would’ve made them talk quicker.”

“You would have made them sullen and angry, not talkative.”

He continued to complain, wearing Jana down. She decided to end the discussion.

“In the morning,” Jana told him. “I’m very tired, and if you irritate me too much I’ll unquestionably use my sidearm to shoot your tongue off.”

The rest of the evening was blissfully quiet.