Traffyck (18 page)

It was still early morning, and Janos drove around for a time, making sure he had not grown a tail. He called Lazlo’s niece Ilonka, but she was not in, so he left a message, saying Lazlo seemed in good spirits when they last spoke and he would keep in touch.

At militia headquarters Janos found Svetlana Kovaleva at her desk with three young male investigators who looked at him as if he had crawled out of a vat of mackerel. Svetlana got rid of the three with a simple tilt of her head and a single word. “Business.”

Janos sat in the chair next to her desk. He could smell men’s cologne.

“Is the odor for your benefit?” asked Janos.

“Of course. But more important, I heard about Mariya Nemeth’s abduction. How is she?”

“She is a strong woman. What is the rumor here?”

“You probably know it already,” said Svetlana. “No physical evidence that anything happened. Inspector Nikolai Kozlov says he’ll check her story, but the insurance is an overriding factor. He thinks she knew her husband was planning to set a fire, and by putting the blame on someone else, she assumes she will get the money.”

“Has Kozlov passed his theory on to Chief Investigator Chudin?”

“Yes. The chief investigator says he wishes to see you. Word has most likely reached him you are here.”

Svetlana stood with him and pulled a slip of paper from beneath the phone on her desk. She handed him the slip. “I have further information on the tan Zhiguli station wagon. It was turned in at Metro Vehicle Rental’s Borispol Airport location late yesterday. Here is the name and address given by the woman who rented the car. She paid cash.”

“Does Nikolai Kozlov know about this?”

“I told him about it last night,” said Svetlana. “He seemed unenthusiastic, and when I called the manager at Metro he said nothing about being questioned.”

Janos put the slip of paper in his pocket. “Kozlov is not Sherlock Holmes.”

“He is not,” said Svetlana. “Perhaps if the militia investigation stalls, you should dig deeper into Kiev’s fabric.”

“An informant?” asked Janos.

“Of course,” said Svetlana. “When the time is appropriate, contact Comrade Strudel. He will know what information flows in Mafia circles. As you taught me years ago, the Mafia has ears everywhere in Kiev, and Comrade Strudel lives in their ear canal.”

“Have you contacted him recently?”

“I have, Janos. But our promise to one another stands. Comrade Strudel belongs only to you and to me.”

Chief Investigator Boris Chudin sat at his desk poking at frizzy curls of hair above his forehead. There were more curls on Chudin’s skull now than when Janos had last seen him. Obviously Chudin had undergone additional hair transplant sessions. It was widely known Chudin was fanatical about his appearance. His obsession was most apparent when female militia recruits arrived. Janos remembered when Svetlana joined the unit. Chief Investigator Chudin had gone mad, enduring several sessions at a tanning spa and purchasing new suits. Janos pitied Chudin because his attempts to appear young and active were not limited to appearance. On several occasions, Chudin had rushed to an active crime scene, usually an armed person with hostages, and risked his life so he might appear on Kiev television and poke at his transplants.

Chudin waved his hand for Janos to close the door, waited for him to sit, and stared at him for a moment before speaking. “So, tell me, Janos. How do you get yourself into these situations?”

“They come to me, Boris … or should I call you Chief Investigator?”

“Boris is fine,” said Chudin, taking a straight-stemmed pipe from a rack on his desk.

“When did you switch from cigarettes to a distinguished-looking pipe?” asked Janos.

“Some time ago,” said Chudin, beginning the elaborate routine of cleaning and filling the pipe. “The guard at Mrs. Patolichev’s apartment said you were there late last night. Did you extract information beyond that of Inspector Nikolai Kozlov’s report?”

“I did not see Kozlov’s report.”

“But you were there during questioning,” said Chudin, lighting his pipe.

“She gave additional information concerning the ages of the kidnappers. Although they acted younger, she guessed they might have been in their twenties.”

“Did Mrs. Patolichev tell you anything else?”

“She does not use her married name. She prefers Mariya Nemeth.”

“Very well. Did Mariya Nemeth add anything else?”

“She says there was something spoken by the young woman concerning the young men not normally acting as they did with, and I quote, ‘us’—which implies another young woman was there.”

Chudin placed his pipe in a wooden holder on his desk. “Was that all?”

“Yes.”

Chudin fingered his curls. “I’m wondering if this is all fakery.”

“Your hair or Mariya Nemeth’s story?”

Chudin frowned. “Perhaps I should suspend my cooperation with you.”

“I apologize, Boris. I was reacting to the assumption my client is lying.”

“A logical assumption, Janos, especially regarding an ex-stripper who marries the owner of a pornography business. The building burns down with him inside, a gas can at his side, and there is a sizable insurance policy. The insurance company questions the claim, and next she is kidnapped by invisible young people and conveniently dumped blocks from home.”

“I was there when she arrived, Boris. I believe her.”

“Perhaps she is an actress.” Chudin waved his hand. “Janos, you were always a moody fellow who followed his instincts. I think this time you are wrong.”

“What about the car that followed her at the airport?”

“A car follows her out of the airport with hundreds of other cars, and this is important?”

“The car is back in Kiev after I followed it many kilometers out of the city. It is a rental, probably under a false name.”

“Janos, I know you are a skilled investigator. But there is not enough to build a case. With no case, I cannot keep the guard on Mariya Nemeth.”

“How long will you keep it on?”

“Until the end of the week. If more pressing matters evolve, I will let you and your client know before the guard is removed.”

“Thank you.”

“One more thing, Janos. I suppose because of your office being bombed, the SBU has made inquiries.” Chudin smiled. “How are your wounds?”

Janos stood, pulled gently at the seat of his slacks. “Several pieces of glass are still beneath the skin. Who at the SBU is interested?”

“Yuri Smirnov at the Kiev office,” said Chudin. He picked up his pipe, puffed at it, but it was out. “Janos, you must be more careful about implicating priests in the Moscow Patriarchate of the Orthodox Church, or SBU deputies. A Mafia exists, and there are complex interconnections among high officials. When you associate Father Rogoza with the source of explosives, neither the Mafia nor the SBU is pleased.” Chudin stood. “I’ve said enough, Janos. Good morning.”

Before Janos left, Chudin poked at his hair, smiled as he became aware of it, lit his pipe, and disappeared behind a cloud of smoke.

A clerk at Borispol Airport’s Metro Vehicle Rental office said the young woman who returned the tan Zhiguli station wagon was perhaps twenty, had straight black hair, a thin face, and no makeup. She wore a blue sweatshirt and loose-fitting jeans. After returning the car, the woman took a bicycle from the station wagon and rode away. The clerk considered this odd because of heavy traffic around the airport. The clerk said the bicycle was violet in color.

The name used on the rental car form was Stella Putin. The address was in Darnytsya, and the car had been rented for three weeks. When Janos followed his GPS to the Darnytsya address, he found an empty lot.

On his way to see Investigator Arkady Listov, whose office was in the Darnytsya militia district, Janos called Mariya to ask how she was.

“I am somewhat stiff, probably from being hung in the van like aside of beef.”

“You should see a doctor.”

“No,” said Mariya. “But I’ll take another hot shower.”

“Has anyone called?”

“Arkady Listov. He said you were meeting him for lunch.”

“Did he say anything else?”

“He wanted to know if there was anything he could do. I told him you had agreed to take the case. He said if I felt I needed a private investigator, you were one of the best.”

“How kind of him. I hope he has information to help me live up to his claim.”

“Janos, I’m glad you stayed with me last night. I needed someone here.”

“Would you like company tonight?”

“Yes,” said Mariya, without hesitation.

“I’ll bring dinner. Before I go, I have one more question. I only saw your bicycle at night, in the shadows, and then in the hall in your apartment. It was difficult to see its color.”

“Violet. It was the only one like it in the store.”

“One more thing,” said Janos. “Does your bicycle have an odometer?”

“Yes,” said Mariya. “It’s mounted on the front wheel.”

“Would you be able to tell if some kilometers were logged on the odometer during the time you were being held in the van?”

“I never thought of that,” said Mariya. “It has a reset button, and I always reset it to keep track of the distance on my rides. Wait a second.”

Janos put down the phone for a moment and swerved to avoid a stalled truck. When he picked up the phone, Mariya was already on.

“Janos?”

“Yes, I’m driving in traffic. Go ahead.”

“The odometer is at 40.7.”

“Forty kilometers? How much of that did you put on yesterday?”

“All of it.”

“You rode forty kilometers in one afternoon? Do you always ride that far?”

“Not always,” said Mariya. “It’s my way of burning off tension. But about the question you asked, I’m not sure. I think there could be an extra few kilometers.”

“Do you watch it that closely?”

“When riding, one keeps track of kilometers, and thinks,” said Mariya.

“Is it possible someone else might have put on the extra kilometers?”

“Yes. In fact, I’m almost certain of it. Why?”

“I’ll tell you about it tonight.”

“Will this dinner you are bringing be included in your bill?”

Janos laughed. “No, as they say in America, we will eat it on the house.”

Because he still had time before his meeting with Arkady Listov, Janos pulled into a parking space and took out his notebook with the numbers he’d copied from Aleksandr Shved’s “Adults Only” file. The first two numbers he called were other adult bookstores in Kiev. The proprietors of both stores were smooth-talkers unwilling to cooperate with a private investigator.

The three other numbers he called puzzled him. They were private residences, and he tried to present himself as a public official, asking how long the person had lived at the address and other personal information. Two were women, seemingly hardened toward unsolicited calls. What was unusual, however, was they did not immediately hang up. Instead, they kept asking what he wanted. And the way they asked, with anguish in their voices, he felt they expected something from him, perhaps information concerning them.

The man he called kept interrupting and demanding his name. Finally, Janos said, “Aleksandr Shved.”

“What?” asked the man.