The Boy Who Stole From the Dead (25 page)

“What do you want me to do?”

“Don’t panic. She was in Ukraine and Russia last year, yes?”

“That’s what Border Control said.”

“And there was a watch list on her passport when she was in Russia. Who put it on and then took it off?”

“The deputy minister of the interior.”

“Call him. Tell him I said hello. See if you can trace her steps from the moment she landed in Kyiv last year. This time she didn’t go anywhere except Simeonovich’s office. Who else does she know in Ukraine? Whom did she meet with last year? Remember the urgency. She is the boy’s guardian. The boy killed Valentin’s son. She will pay. It is a matter of honor. Call me back in an hour.” The General glanced at the partitioned area. “Make it two hours.”

He hung up.

As a rule, the General shut his cell phone off whenever he was busy with the fulfillment of his dreams. This time, however, he kept it on. News of this Tesla woman was starting to qualify as such.

He marched to the side wall. Took a deep breath, pulled the partitions apart, and stepped back to eye his prize. He lost his breath.

She lay fully assembled on a table next to the carrying case in all her glory. The Nosler Model 48 Professional. Satin black composite stock. Match-grade stainless steel barrel. One piece steel-hinged floor plate. Magazine release in the trigger bow for fast reloading. In the trigger bow, he thought. How ingenious. How intoxicating.

The General lifted the rifle off the table and held it for the first time. 3.4 kilograms of pure ecstasy. Expensive, though. Three thousand American. But that was a good thing. Quality never came cheap except with tramps and traitors. The rifle was sub-moa, which meant he would be able to shoot a grouping of bullets approximately one inch apart at one hundred yards. To help him achieve that goal, the General had purchased some high end glass, a Schmidt and Bender scope. He caressed the barrel. He named all his rifles after women. He would call this one Nadia.

The ballroom featured curtains and a stage but it was actually a shooting range with proper ventilation and reinforced walls and roof. Seven stations faced seven targets. The General brought the rifle and carrying case to the center station. He doubled up on ear protection. First the plugs followed by the earmuffs.

He loaded the rifle, assumed a balanced shooting stance, and acquired the target. It was a hundred meters away.

The General fired. Afterward, he retrieved the paper target.

There was a hole in the woman’s head.

CHAPTER 36

N
ADIA STARED INTO
the barrel of the gun. The woman was serious. The mere mention of a World War II ghetto gave her instant credibility. She had witnessed horrors beyond Nadia’s comprehension. Who knew what she’d done to survive? Shooting a stranger dead in broad daylight was unthinkable to most people. But to a mother with such a background who thought she was protecting her son, not so much.

“My name is Nadia Tesla. I met Karel at the café outside the power plant in Chornobyl last year. I told him I was a journalist but he knew better. He knew I was there to see my uncle who’d sent me a message to America that he had something valuable. Something very valuable. Karel took me to see my uncle, and then he showed me wolves.”

“You say your name is Nadia Tesla? What did my son call you? Did he call you Nadia? Or did he call you
Panna
Tesla?”
Panna,
with a pause on the ‘n,’ was the Ukrainian word for Miss. “I raised my Karel to be a gentleman. I’d like to know if I succeeded.”

Nadia sensed it was a test. “He didn’t call me by either of those names. He called me Nadia-
Panya
.”

She raised her chin and studied Nadia, as though for the first time. “Oh. So you’re that Nadia Tesla.”

Nadia’s father had used that line all the time. Nadia could see his lip curling up as he said it. She knew she was out of harm’s way. It was a classic, old-school Ukrainian line that implied the given person was one of the good guys.

“Who are your parents? Where are they from?” Karel’s mother said.

“My father was born in Bila Tserkva. My mother was born in Kyiv. They moved to Lviv when they were teenagers. Then they immigrated to America. My mother’s retired. My father passed away when I was thirteen.”

She waved the gun at Nadia. “What are their names,
kotyku
? Their names?”

“Maxim and Katerina.”

She studied Nadia again. “Oh. Those Teslas.” She turned and put the gun in a drawer.

Nadia didn’t bother asking if Karel’s mother knew her parents. She knew the answer was no. She’d asked their names to make sure they didn’t stir a memory. A bad one, Nadia suspected.

“Is Karel here?” Nadia said.

“No. Karel is gone.”

“Where did he go?”

“Have you had breakfast yet? When did you get into town?”

She insisted Nadia sit down at the kitchen table. For the second time since Bobby had been arrested, a woman with a gun served her tea. If there were a third time, Nadia was certain it wouldn’t go so well.

Nadia explained that she’d flown to Kyiv on business, and come to Lviv to see her parents’ adopted hometown.

Karel’s mother poured water into cups. “What religion are you? Orthodox or Catholic?”

“Catholic.” Nadia remembered the Mezuzah. “Why do you ask?”

“Because if you had said neither, that you are an atheist, that would have told me something about you.”

“What would it have told you?”

“That you are like my son.” She smiled. “He was born a Jew but became a scientist. He only believes in that which he can prove. Though he’s searching. He’s questing. He’s trying to find a being higher than the equation.”

She served tea with rugelach and poppy seed cake. Nadia started with the poppy seed cake. She could never resist it. This one had raisins and nuts and melted in her mouth. Nadia sensed that Karel’s mother was as lonely as she was wary. Her best approach to find Karel was to continue the conversation and be sociable.

“I noticed the castle up the street with the star of David on it,” Nadia said. “What is that building?”

“That was the Jewish hospital,” she said. “It was dismantled in 1965. Now it’s a tourist destination.”

“Why was it dismantled?”

“Because it had fallen apart. It was no longer necessary after the war because the Jewish quarter ceased to exist.”

“What do you mean, ceased to exist? You’re still here, right?”

“Yes. I’m still here. In 1939 before the war, there were one hundred and twenty thousand Jews living in Lviv. In 1941 that number grew to two hundred and twenty thousand. Refugees from Western Poland. That was half the city’s population. Today there are only two thousand of us left.”

Nadia didn’t know what to say. She knew what the Nazis had done. Everyone knew. But the Nazis had been gone for more than half a century.

“The first daily Yiddish newspaper in the world, the
Lemberger Toblat
, was published in Lviv in the nineteenth century, when it was under Austrian rule. Lviv was a center of Yiddish literature. Ukrainians and Jews who lived in Lviv got along very well. Until the cooperatives came.”

“The cooperatives?”

“Ukrainian communities consisted mostly of farmers. Jewish communities consisted mostly of shopkeepers and moneylenders. When the farmers pooled their resources to buy and sell products without a middleman, it created tension. Many Jewish people lost their jobs.”

“Did any of your family survive the war?” Nadia said.

“No. My parents were shipped to Belzec in May, 1942. That was four months after my only brother was hanged to death from the gallows the Nazis set up in the town square. He was part of the armed Jewish resistance. His last words were ‘the sun still shines.’ He was captured by the SS paramilitary death squad, who were assisted by the Ukrainian auxiliary police. Most Ukrainian kept to themselves during the war. But some didn’t. That was the second of two major pogroms in Lviv. You know what a pogrom was?”

Nadia shook her head.

“A legal riot against Jews with the full support of the law.”

“Horrible. How did you survive?”

“The resistance hid me. I was passed on from sanctuary to sanctuary until the war ended. The Nazis never found me. I was one of the lucky ones.”

Nadia took a bite of rugelach and sipped her tea. “I need to find Karel. I need to ask him some questions about things that went on in a place I cannot talk about. It’s a matter of life and death for someone I love.”

“He went on a pilgrimage to Zarvanytsia.”

Nadia had never heard of the place. She shook her head.

“It’s a small village in Ternopil. It’s known for its miracle-working icon of the Mother of God.”

Nadia frowned. “But I thought he was—”

Karel’s mother raised her eyebrows. “Jewish?”

“No. A scientist.”

“He is. But as I said, he’s searching for something more.”

Nadia stood up and thanked her for her hospitality. She started toward the door.

“He said you might show up here some day, you know.”

Nadia wheeled. “He did? When did he say that?”

“When he retired and moved here. About seven months ago. He’d bought the building years before in preparation for retirement.”

“Why would he have thought that back then?” Nadia asked the question aloud, even though she was asking herself.

“Because he is Karel. His father was one of the scientists that worked on the Manhattan Project. He is a special boy. He sees the future.”

CHAPTER 37

 J
OHNNY
T
ANNER CLIMBED
into the elevator with his clients on the fourth floor of the Superior Court building in Elizabeth, New Jersey. It was only 9:15 a.m. but Wednesday was already turning out to be a good day.

He’d gotten the charges dismissed against the James brothers. Both in their forties, lifelong criminals. After a five-year stint in Mid-State, they’d given up crime and opened a car wash in Newark. But their probation officer demanded ten percent of their monthly gross. When they refused, she planted a kilo of heroin in their bedroom during a monthly home inspection. They were arrested. Johnny called the cops and shared his suspicions. They arranged for another client of his to wear a wire. When the probation officer demanded ten percent from that client, too, the cops arrested her. A judge released the James brothers this morning.

“That was the shit, Johnny,” one of the brothers said.

“Free car wash for life,” the other brother said. “Towel dry and tire shine still cost you á la carte, though. You know what I’m saying.”

“No problem,” Johnny said. “My tires always shine. No matter what the weather.”

Outside, afternoon clouds hung low. The air smelled of exhaust. Pedestrians lollygagged past the Furniture King and the Bargain Man. They would scatter before night fell. This was a town where the police secured their cruisers’ steering wheels with the Club. Anything could be stolen, anyone could be robbed at any time. That’s why Johnny loved Elizabeth. The streets pulsated with their own heartbeat. They teemed with real people who had real problems. It was the place he loved to call home.

His next appointment was at Rikers Island with Bobby. If the day’s momentum continued, the kid would explain why he thought Nadia’s life was in trouble. He looked close to cracking. He hadn’t said anything yesterday when Johnny visited, but he wasn’t his cool self anymore. He’d fidgeted in his seat, taken deep breaths, and looked like a stick of Ukrainian dynamite ready to blow. All Johnny needed to do was figure out how to light the fuse.

Johnny walked two blocks to the lot where he parked his car. A vintage Monte Carlo SS. It was rude, crude, and could not be subdued. He passed an old Lincoln Town Car parked on the side of the street. The only reason he noticed it was because of the two blond twins sitting in the front seats. They eyeballed him the whole way. Didn’t bother to hide their interest.

Johnny’s guard shot up. Something was wrong. And then he saw him. Leaning against Johnny’s Monte Carlo, sucking the last bit of nicotine out a cigarette, looking like the most harmless man in the Tri-State area.