Devil's Keep (17 page)

“The Russians don’t like unanswered questions,” Totoy had said. “It makes them nervous.”

Now another foreigner was showing up, and Andropov was practically coming apart.

“Get up to the front and intercept him,” he was saying in her earpiece. “If it’s about the girl, take him into your room. Don’t let him question the staff. String him along. See how much he knows.”

She was already out of her office, turning toward the door.
Calm down,
she wanted to tell Andropov.

Although it would depend on what they were hiding down on the island, she thought. Maybe they had good reason to be nervous.

The foreigner entered from the landing at the top of the stairs. About forty-five or fifty, dark-skinned, black hair flecked with gray. He wore a loose Hawaiian-style floral-print shirt that marked him as a tourist for sure.

Magda stepped between him and the woman at the front desk who usually handled any stray visitors.

“I wonder if someone can help me,” he began. A quiet voice with a soft accent that sounded vaguely British. “I wanted to ask about a girl. Actually, it would be a boy as well.”

He was taking a snapshot from the front pocket, ready to hold it out to her. She needed just a glance—not even that—to know who he was talking
about.

She took the snapshot from him and smoothly reached for his elbow, moving him along as she said, “Yes, yes, of course. Why don’t we go into my office? It’s much more comfortable.”

Markov hauled Ronnie into the ops room, sat him in a swivel chair in front of a monitor.

“Who is he?” Markov said.

The boy squinted.

“I can’t see,” he said.

The boy’s face was swollen and bruised, his lips split. His eyes were nearly shut.

“Don’t screw with me,” Markov said.

Ronnie leaned close to the monitor.

“No, it’s too small. I really can’t see.”

It was one of the small monitors, maybe six inches across. Markov patched the feed into one of the bigger screens, off to the side of the console. He grabbed the boy by the shoulders and shoved his face toward it.

“Still too small?”

“No. I can see now.”

“And?”

“I don’t know him,” the boy said. “Please don’t hit me. But it’s true. I’ve never seen him before; I have no idea.”

Andropov was standing at the console, listening to the conversation in Magda’s office.

“He has a photo of you and your sister,” Andropov said. “Where did that come from?”

“I don’t know how he got it.”

“Must be a real mystery,” Markov says.

“Yes, it is,” the boy said. “It’s a mystery.”

Markov hit him across the face, a backhand blow that knocked the boy off the chair, down to the floor. He lay there, curled up, arms crossed over his face.

The two Russians turned away from him. They were watching the visitor’s image on the monitor, listening to his voice, understated and polite.

“I’m just a friend of the family,” he was saying. “The mother is distraught, you can imagine. I want to help any way I can.”

He spoke so quietly that the mics in Magda’s office almost didn’t pick it up. Markov had to crank the volume all the way up just to make out the words.

“I don’t know about the two in Tacloban,” Markov said. “But this one’s nothing. Totoy will know how to deal with this pussy.”

Andropov watched the monitor for a few seconds, and nodded.

“Yes,” he said. “This one’s for Totoy.”

She was lying. Stickney knew it from the start.

First it was the picture, the way she had almost jumped at it when he brought it out, snatching it out of his hand before she had even taken a good look. Then, here in the office, she had passed it back to him—still having taken no more than a glance—and said, “I’ve heard her name, but I’ve never seen her.”

“We run a legitimate business,” she was saying. “We send approximately fifty workers abroad every
week, to jobs they would never find on their own. Manila is just a stopover for them. We try to take care of them while they’re here, but of course we can’t be responsible for every one.”

“Of course. And the boy—”

“I’ve never seen either of them.”

“That’s a shame,” Stickney said.

“But if I think of anything, I’ll be in touch. Your phone…”

“No phone. I’m just a visitor, you know.”

“Staying at which hotel?”

“I’m not sure. I moved out of my first one this morning, and my travel agent is booking another for me.”

“How long will you be in Manila?”

“It’s indefinite,” Stickney said.

“Perhaps you’ll have a chance to enjoy our nightlife. My club is popular. Come by some night.”

She took a business card from a holder on her desk, jotted on the back, and passed it over to him. The card was bright red, stamped
IMPIERNO
in gold lettering.
Full
C
ompliments,
she had written on the back, above her signature.

She said, “Show that to the manager, you’ll be well taken care of. We have many beautiful performers.” She gave a dry laugh. “Marivic isn’t one of them, I promise. But you’re welcome to see for yourself.”

Stickney got up to leave, and she quickly rose to follow. She stuck close, interposing herself between him and the office workers. She held the door open for him and then stood at the landing and watched
him all the way to the bottom of the stairs.

She was still standing there, watching, as Stickney opened the door and went outside.

Elvis Vega was standing beside the Nissan when Stickney got to the sidewalk on Amorsolo Street. Vega went to open the passenger door for him, but Stickney stopped and turned toward the old woman with the newspapers. She ignored him as he stood there, and Stickney hunched down, putting himself at her level.

He said, “I know it’s a waste of your time, people bothering you when all you want to do is sell papers. But I need your help for a moment. It won’t take long, and it’s very important.”

She turned her head and looked at him, eye to eye, for the first time.

“It’s all right,” she said.

Stickney showed her the snapshot.

“Have you seen this boy?”

She gave it a long look.

“Yesterday. He was standing where you are now. He asked for the same place you asked.”

“You mean Optimo.”

“Yes.”

“And then?”

“He went back there. The same place you went. I didn’t see him after that.”

“Thank you very much,” Stickney said.

He stood up and started to walk toward Elvis Vega.

Two cars, both sedans with tinted windows, pulled up fast and parked in the street in front of him. Doors
swung open; three men got out and came toward Stickney—one straight at him, the other two swinging around to cut him off, left and right, as he stood on the sidewalk. One of them wore a loose white over-the-waist dress shirt, short-sleeved, a style Filipinos call
polo barong.
Stickney caught the blue steel muzzle of an automatic pistol below the hem of the shirt, poking through the tip of a holster.

One of them flipped open an ID wallet for half a second to show a badge and ID.

He said, “Philippine National Police. Come with me, please.”

They hustled him to the first car. After a quick, professional pat-down, they levered him into the backseat and closed the door behind him.

The car moved out, down Amorsolo Street.

Across from Stickney on the backseat was a man in his late forties. Acne scars. Impassive half-hooded eyes. His thick lips seemed poised to snarl. Stickney thought that assholes didn’t necessarily look the part. But when they did, the effect was something to behold.

”You have your passport, I hope,” said the man with the pockmarked face.

Stickney took it from the pocket of his trousers and handed it over.

He paged through it, found the entry stamp.

“You work fast. You’ve been here less than a day and a half, already you’re in the kind of trouble that can wreck your life.”

“I’ve done nothing wrong,” Stickney said.

“What you’ve done is immaterial. What you
could
have done—that’s what matters. We’re a friendly nation, but certain offenses by visitors can’t be overlooked. Pedophilia, that’s twenty years hard. Drug smuggling, that’s death. You understand?”

He reached into Stickney’s shirt pocket for the photo that he must have known was there. He took it, held it, flicked a corner.

“How are you acquainted with these teenagers?”

“I’m not,” Stickney said. “I never met them.”

“I see. But you have their photograph. And you’ve been harassing citizens—upstanding individuals—allegedly on their behalf. I’m sorry, this is not credible. Most tourists, the day after they arrive, they’re sitting on a beach.”

“That was my plan after I cleared up a couple of questions.”

“You should have gone there directly.”

He handed the passport back with his right hand. Stickney took the passport. As Stickney reached back to put it in his pocket, the left hand of the scar-faced man swung in a short, sharp arc toward Stickney’s midsection. He was holding a sap, leather-bound and about six inches long.

Stickney saw it but couldn’t block it. The corner of the sap caught him mid-chest, around diaphragm level. An instant later Stickney was on the floor of the car, his arms wrapped around his torso, with the sensation that his guts would spill out if he didn’t hold them back.

The man leaned close and spoke softly into
Stickney’s ear.

“You’re out of your element. You and your friends. Yes, I know about your two friends in Tacloban. This is not your business, and no good can come of pursuing it. You have a chance now to leave the Philippines. You should go while you can. Otherwise, I promise, you’ll regret that you didn’t take my advice.”

Stickney caught movement at the periphery of his vision. He turned his head to see the man with the pitted face swinging the sap again—not hard, just another well-placed tap at the base of the skull.

He was out before his face hit the floor.

Elvis Vega watched as the three men hustled Stickney off the sidewalk. It happened too quickly for Vega to help. He was about to shout, maybe try to distract them, but when he saw the wallet flip open, the badge gleaming, he knew that it would have been a mistake.

Still, he felt obligated. When the two cars drove off down Amorsolo Street, carrying Stickney away, Elvis Vega got into the Nissan and started to follow. While he drove, he called Edwin Santos on his cell phone:
Eddie should know about this,
he thought.

Eddie’s number rang and rang.

At first three other vehicles separated the Nissan from the two sedans Vega was pursuing. But within the next couple of blocks, the other cars turned off, and Vega found himself behind the second of the two police vehicles.

For a couple of blocks Vega drove close to the
cops, trying to see what was happening with Stickney.

But he realized that he was driving too close, seemingly too interested, when one of the police in the car ahead turned in his seat and threw him a look of casual menace.

Vega slowed and dropped away and turned off at the next intersection.

Sorry,
he thought.
But better you than me.

When Stickney regained consciousness, he was at the side of a road, a back street. The smell of rotting garbage was strong, and he saw that he was sprawled beside a pile of trash. He wondered how long he had been out. Long enough to attract about a dozen curious young children, who stood across the road, staring.

Stickney sat up and took inventory. The passport was in his shirt pocket. Wallet, gone. Cell phone, gone. He had no money. Not a dollar, not a peso or a centavo.

His pockets were empty. He tried to remember what else he had been carrying. It came to him in a couple of seconds.

Hotel key card.

Gone.

The hotel name had been on the back of the card. So they would know where he had been staying. They could find Arielle.

He got up, walked toward the children. They looked ready to scatter as he approached.

“I need a phone,” he said. “Anybody? Please?”

The tallest, a boy about twelve or thirteen, spoke up first. He was a skinny kid holding a basketball that was nearly worn smooth, and he wore an oversize singlet that said
PUREFOODS HOT DOGS.
He took an old Nokia from his shorts and held it out. “Text only, okay?” the boy said.

“Sure,” Stickney said.

He took the phone, and paged to the text-messaging screen. It asked for a number. Ari should be told, he thought. Ari first.

Ari’s number…

Old training taught that if it mattered, you committed it to memory. He had used Ari’s number exactly once, when he had keyed it into his own phone’s contacts list.

He closed his eyes and summoned it.

With about eighty percent confidence.

He tapped out a message:

Blown. Bail now. Rspnd asap. Stick

He handed the phone back to the boy, and said, “Can you wait for a minute? I might get an answer.”

“Okay,” the boy said.

Stickney felt dizzy. He sat with his back against a power pole. His head was roaring.

The boy stood nearby and said, “You from the States?”

“Yes,” Stickney said.

“Do you know LeBron James?”

“No, but I’ve seen him play.”

“Lebron is the best.”

“How about Kobe?” Stickney said.

“Kobe rocks, but LeBron is the man.”

Stickney sat and waited for the phone to ring. His head hurt, his elbows and one cheek were scraped and sore. He guessed that he had been dumped hard from the car.

He felt old and silly. He was unprepared for all this. For the past ten years he had been living a placid existence among the redwoods in Mendocino, absorbed in his sculpture and writing, among people whom he knew and trusted. It was a contemplative life without peril or jeopardy. After his Bravo service he had needed peace—had craved it—but the years of tranquillity had left him unprepared for the way the world really behaves.

The boy stood beside Stickney for a couple of minutes. No call yet from Arielle. Stickney thought,
Shit, probably screwed up the number.