Moonlight Mile Part 34

Kenny handed over a Taurus .38 and Tadeo forked over a FNP-9. Pavel put the two shotguns and two handguns in a black canvas bag on the floor.

Yefim finished his sandwich and wiped his hands with a napkin. He burped and we all got a nice blast of peppers and vinegar and what I think was ham.

"I got to get to the gym, Pavel."

Pavel looked up from the bag as he zipped it closed. "You look fine, man."

"I feel I lack discipline."

Pavel took the bag over to the kitchen and placed it on the small countertop beside the stove. "You look fine, Yefim. All the ladies say so."

Yefim smiled broadly at that, his eyebrows raised as he mock-primped his hair. "I'm George Clooney, eh? Ha ha."

"You George Clooney with big Russian c.o.c.k."

"That's the best George Clooney to be!" Yefim shouted, and he and Pavel and Spartak all roared with laughter.

The rest of us stood around looking at one another.

When Yefim stopped laughing, he wiped at his eyes and sighed and then clapped his hands together. "Let's go see Kirill. Spartak, you stay with Sophie."

Spartak nodded and pulled back the black curtain on another living room. This one was bigger than the one we were leaving, fifteen-by-twenty was my guess, and the walls were all mirrored. A long purple sectional formed a U. The sectional must have been custom-built, because its sides ran the length of the room. The center of the room was bare. Above our heads, and reflected in the mirrors, was a TV, this one playing a Mexican telenovela telenovela. Above the sectional were shelves, dozens of them, and all those shelves were filled with more Blu-Ray players and iPods and Kindles and laptops.

A thin man with a huge head sat beside a dark-haired woman in the center of the sectional. The woman had a kind of stricken madness in her face that drew you to her in helpless, morbid fascination. Violeta Concheza Borzakov had been beautiful once, but something had eaten away at her, and she was only thirty or thirty-two, tops. Her sunset skin was lightly dimpled all over, like the surface of a pond at the beginning of a light rain, and her hair was the blackest black I'd ever seen. She had eyes so dark they almost matched her hair, and something resided in them that was both frightened and frightening; a butchered soul lived back there, abandoned and agitated. She wore a charcoal newsboy cap, a black silk crewneck under a gray silk wrap, black leggings, and knee-high black boots. She watched us come like we were cuts at a steakhouse being wheeled to her on a cart.

Kirill Borzakov, meanwhile, wore a white silk sweats.h.i.+rt under a white cashmere sportcoat, tan cargo pants, and white tennis shoes. His silver hair was cut tight to his huge skull and the pockets under his eyes came in layers of three. He smoked a cigarette with the kind of loud, liquid smacks that made you never want to smoke a cigarette, and flicked the ash in the vicinity of an overflowing ashtray by his right hand. Beside the ashtray was an open compact mirror that sported several small b.u.mps of cocaine. His gaze was impersonal. It had been at least three decades since empathy had crawled in there and died. I got the feeling that if my chest burst open and Lenin himself stepped out of it, Kirill would continue smoking his cigarette and glancing up at the Mexican soap opera.

Yefim said, "Ladies and gentlemen, Kirill and Violeta Borzakov."

Kirill stood and walked around us, inspecting his collection of chattel. He looked at Kenny and Helene and then over at Pavel.

Pavel took Kenny and Helene by the shoulders and sat them down at the foot of the sectional on the left side. Kirill c.o.c.ked his head at Pavel again, and a second or two later, Tadeo was pushed onto the couch beside Helene.

Kirill walked around me in a slow circle. "Who are you?"

"I'm a private investigator," I said.

A sucking noise as he took a drag off his cigarette and flicked the ash onto the faux-oak floor. "The private investigator who find the girl for me?"

"I didn't find her for you."

He nodded at that, as if I'd said something sage, and took my left hand in his. "You didn't find her for me?"

"No."

His grip was soft, almost delicate. "Who you find her for?"

"Her aunt."

"But not for me?"

I shook my head. "Not for you."

He gave me another nod as he wrapped his fingers around my wrist and ground his cigarette out in my palm.

I'm not sure how I managed not to scream. For half a minute, all I could feel was a fat ember burning through my flesh. I could smell it. My mind went black and then red and I flashed on an image of the nerves in my hand hanging like vines as smoke curled up them.

While he burned me, Kirill Borzakov looked into my eyes. There was nothing to see in his. No anger, no joy, no thrill that comes with violence or the elation of absolute power. Nothing. He had the eyes of a reptile sunning itself on a rock.

I grunted several times and exhaled through gritted teeth and tried to block images of what my hand must look like by now. I flashed on my daughter, and for a moment that calmed me, but then I realized I'd brought her into this moment, this polluted violence and sickness, and I tried to remove the image of her from my head, tried to will her away from this depravity, and the pain pulsed twice as strong. Then Kirill dropped my wrist and stepped back.

"See if this aunt can make your skin grow back."

I flicked the dead cigarette b.u.t.t from the center of my palm as Violeta Borzakov said, "Kirill, you're blocking the TV."

The coal was black now, on its way to ash, and the center of my palm looked like the top of a volcano-puckered and red, the burned flesh peeled back.

On the Mexican soap, the music swelled and a beautiful Latina in a white peasant top turned on her heel and stalked out of an earth-toned room as the lights went down. The next thing we saw was a commercial with Antonio Sabato Jr. hawking some kind of skin cream.

I would have paid a thousand dollars for that skin cream. I would have paid two thousand dollars for that skin cream and an ice cube.

Violeta took her eyes off the TV. "Why is the bambina bambina still with the little girl?" still with the little girl?"

Amanda turned so they could see the handcuffs.

"What is this s.h.i.+t, Yefim?" Violeta sat up and leaned forward.

Yefim's eyes widened. He seemed frightened by her. "Mrs. Borzakov, we bring her to you as promised."

"As promised? You're weeks late, pendejo pendejo. Weeks. And do you you bring her, Yefim, or was it these people?" She waved in the general direction of Kenny, Helene, and Tadeo. bring her, Yefim, or was it these people?" She waved in the general direction of Kenny, Helene, and Tadeo.

"It was us," Kenny said from the couch. He gave Violeta a wave that she ignored. "All us."

Kirill lit a fresh cigarette. "You have your baby now. Go get her and be done with this."

Violeta slinked toward Amanda like a water snake. She peered at Claire and then sniffed her.

"Is she intelligent?"

Amanda said, "She's four weeks old."

"Does she talk?"

"She's four weeks old."

Violeta touched the baby's forehead. "Say 'Ma-ma.' Say 'Ma-ma.' "

Claire began to cry.

Violeta said, "Ssshhh."

Claire cried louder.

Violeta sang, "Hush, little baby, don't you fret. Momma's gonna make you a ..."

She looked around the room at us.

"Mockingbird?" I tried.

She thrust out her bottom lip in a gesture of acceptance. "And if that mockingbird don't fly, Momma gonna buy you a ..."

Another look for the room. Claire continued to wail.

"Corvette," Tadeo said.

She frowned at him.

"Diamond ring," Yefim said.

"That doesn't rhyme."

"And yet I am sure it is correct."

Claire's wailing hit a new pitch, the banshee-shrieking Amanda had mentioned.

Kirill, sitting on the couch, snorted a line of blow off the compact mirror and said, "Make her stop."

Violeta said, "I'm trying." She touched Claire's head again. "Ssssshhhhh." She hissed it, over and over-"Sssssshhhhhhhh! Ssssssshhhhhh!"

This did not make things better.

Kirill winced and snorted another line. He placed a hand to his ear and winced harder. "Shut her up."

"Ssssssshhhhhhhh! Ssssssssshhhhhhh! I don't know what the f.u.c.k to do. You said you would hire a nanny."

"I hire hire the nanny. But I don't bring her here. Shut her up." the nanny. But I don't bring her here. Shut her up."

"Ssssssshhhhhh!"

By now Tadeo and Kenny both had their hands over their ears and Pavel and Yefim made various faces of discomfort. Only Helene seemed oblivious, her eyes on the DVD players and the iPods.

I said to Amanda, "Pacifier?"

"Right pocket."

I held my hand by her pocket, looked at Yefim. "May I?"

"s.h.i.+t, my friend, absolutely."

I reached into Amanda's pocket and pulled out the pacifier.

"Ssssssshhhhhhhhh!" Violeta was screaming it now.

I pulled the plastic cover off the pacifier, movement that drove a spike into my burned palm. My eyes watered and widened, but I reached over Amanda's shoulder and plopped the pacifier into the baby's mouth.

The volume in the room immediately plummeted. Claire sucked the pacifier back and forth against her lips.

"Better," Kirill said.

Violeta ran both palms down her cheeks. "You have spoiled her."

Amanda said, "Excuse me?"

"You have spoiled her. This is why she screams like this. She will learn not to do that."

Amanda said, "She's four weeks old, you f.u.c.king moron."

"Don't swear in front of the baby," I reminded her.

She met my eyes and hers were bright and warm. "My bad."

"What did you call me?" Violeta looked back at her husband. "Did you hear her?"

Kirill yawned into his fist.

Violeta stepped in close to Amanda and stared at her with those ravaged eyes of hers.

"Cut it off," Violeta said.

"What?" Yefim said.

"Cut it off her."

"You cannot cut those cuffs," Yefim said. "Burn them off, maybe."

Kirill lit a new cigarette with the b.u.t.t of an old one, squinting around the smoke. "Then burn them off."

"We'll end up burning the girl."

Violeta said, "Not if you cut off her hands."

Yefim said, "Mrs. Borzakov?"

Violeta kept her eyes on Amanda, their faces so close their noses almost touched. "We'll shoot her first. Then we cut off her hands. Then we find a way to take the handcuffs off the bambina bambina." She looked back at her husband. "Yes?"

Kirill was looking up at the TV. "What?"

"Escuche! Escuche!" Violeta slapped her own chest. "I'm here, Kirill." She slapped her chest again, harder. "I exist." One more slap. "I live in your life." Violeta slapped her own chest. "I'm here, Kirill." She slapped her chest again, harder. "I exist." One more slap. "I live in your life."