The Pandora Key (11 page)

“He is Ukrainian. From Kiev. People confuse them, but they are not the same.”

“What’s the difference?”

“Most people fear the Russians. The Russians fear the Ukrainians. The Ukrainians fear no one.”

Worse than a Russian. Excellent news. “Borders notwithstanding, would this guy be considered a member of the Russian
mafiya
?”

“Not a member. A leader. Tishchenko is a
vor
.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“Vor v zakonye.
It’s Russian. It means…” His large forehead showed the effort as he searched for the words in a language not his own. “I do not know how this is said in English, but it is a brotherhood.”

“Of criminals?”

“Yes.”

“Like the Italian mafia?”

“Worse.”

“Is he like a mafia don?”

“Much worse.”

“Worse how?” I wished he would just give me the bullet on these guys so I wouldn’t have to keep pulling it out of him.

“They come from worse. They come from murder and blood. From the gulags and the work camps. It makes them hard, the things that happen to them and the things that they do. It makes them strong. The strong kill the weak. That is where the power comes from. The last man standing is a
vor
, which makes him a very powerful man.”

“And we just pissed one off.”

“Yes.”

I had one of those how-did-I-ever-get-
here
flashes. I didn’t get them much anymore, and when I did, I was able to trample them down. I was here because I chose to be here. But I hadn’t signed up for Ukrainian mobsters. I got up and started to pace.

“Those men we killed, the ones who came in here and took Harvey, were they his men, this…what’s his name?”

“Tishchenko. I’m sure they were. Former KGB…Spetznas…Russian police…Soviet Army. He has all of them. It could have been any of them.”

“This guy isn’t here, is he? He’s not in Boston.”

“He is here now. He came to talk to Harvey Baltimore, which is why we found him unharmed. Tishchenko hadn’t spoken to him yet.”

“Why…” I was having a little trouble breathing. “Why would someone like that want to talk to Harvey?”

“I couldn’t find that out.”

“Okay.” I made myself sit down and tried to channel all the energy to the exercise of my brain instead of my feet. “Let’s think about what we know. Harvey’s ex-wife, Rachel, came here yesterday out of the blue and sent me on a wild goose chase, which got me out of the house and left her alone with Harvey. That’s when they took him.”

“Do you believe she set him up?”

“It looks that way, but I don’t know why she would have. He would have gone anywhere with her if she just asked.” A new thought was occurring. “Maybe they took her, too. Maybe they only took Harvey to get to Rachel, or because he happened to be here in the way.”

“Why would they take her?”

“It all comes back to this company Betelco. I told you about Fratello, right? This embezzler who disappeared? Fratello’s wife told me Rachel brought Russian partners into Betelco.”

“There are no such things as Russian partners,” he said. “Only victims waiting to be.”

“That’s pretty much what she said. This Tishchenko must be one of those partners. Maybe he’s really looking for Rachel.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I do know that Tishchenko is looking for something or someone. He tore Susan’s house apart and threatened to kill her children. And now Rachel is missing, at least to me. Harvey claims not to know where she is.”

Bo sat there nodding while I rattled off the facts as I knew them. I wasn’t sure whether he derived as much benefit from hearing them as I did from saying them out loud. It helped me organize the bits and pieces into a coherent story. Well, a story. I sat back in the chair. “Somewhere in all this might be a private military firm called Blackthorne, but we hope not. And Fratello might have been hijacked. That’s all I know.”

Bo tapped his big fingers on the couch’s wide armrest. The thumping seemed loud in the quiet room. He pushed forward on the seat and assumed the tilt of confidentiality. He didn’t speak until I did the same. Other than Harvey asleep in his bed and Radik patrolling outside, we were completely alone, yet he still insisted on the cone of silence.

“There is a way,” he said. “But it is dangerous, and we must move carefully. You must think about whether you want to be involved with this man.”

“With Tishchenko?”

“Yes.”

We were very nearly touching noses at this point, close enough that I could see his pores. “Do you know him?”

“We have a professional relationship.”

“Then can’t you talk to him? He’s the one who started this. He took Harvey. He should recognize our right to come and take him back, shouldn’t he?”

“It does not work that way.”

I hesitated to ask the next question. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer. “Are you afraid of him?”

There was no hesitation from him. “I would be a fool not to fear him. So would you.”

“What would—” My tongue wouldn’t work right. My body, generally smarter than my brain, had already chosen its course. “What would I have to do?”

“We must go and see him. He knows where we are. It is best to go to him before he comes again.”

My chest, already tight, was getting to the point of shutdown. “What would happen if I said no?”

“He will come again, but this time he will come for us all.”

“Then what choice do I have?”

12

BO HAD OTHER BUSINESS TO ATTEND TO, SO HE TOOK off and left me pacing around the big house. I checked on Harvey several times. He never moved.

Timon had joined Radik for guard duty, so I didn’t have to worry about the house being safe. That left me free to devote all my energy to worrying about my meeting with Tishchenko. Before he’d left, Bo said he would set something up for the next day. The sooner the better, he said. Easy for him to say.

I went back to Harvey’s office and turned on his computer. It would take a while to get fired up. I checked my watch. I felt as if I’d lived three days in the past twelve hours, and yet it was just after midnight. I thought about calling Dan again but then remembered that Felix had left me two messages. It never bothered Felix to get a phone call in the middle of the night, so I dialed him up.

“Hey, Miss Shanahan. You’re up late.”

“We found Harvey. He’s home, and he’s fine, thanks to you. He was exactly where you said he would be.”

“That’s awesome news. Tell him I said hi when you get a chance.”

“I will. I hope you called because you found Rachel.”

“No, but I’m working on that. The medicine she’s taking is Thyroxine.”

“Great.” Apparently, the Walgreens firewalls were as porous as expected, at least for Felix. “What does that do?”

“Well, the thyroid hormones, thyroxine and triiodothyronine, are tyrosine-based hormones produced by the thyroid gland. They act on the body to increase the basal metabolic rate, affect protein synthesis, and increase the body’s sensitivity to catecholamines, which is, like, adrenaline. An important—”

“Felix.”

“It gives her thyroid a boost. Nothing serious.”

“Have you tried her husband yet?”

“I didn’t get this until a few hours ago. I think it’s probably too late for a real pharmacist to call, but I didn’t know what time zone he’s in because if he’s out west, then I could totally call him, or I could have two hours ago. I could call him in Hawaii if he’s there. But now it’s kind of too late to get him anywhere.”

“Sorry, but I couldn’t have helped you anyway. I don’t know where he is.”

“That’s cool. I’ll just call him tomorrow first thing.”

I watched Harvey’s desktop laboring to snap to. It reminded me that Felix had a T3 connection. “Are you at home?”

“Yes.”

“Can you do a quick search for me?”

“Sure, go ahead.”

“Look up something called the
vors
.”

“Like V-O-R-E-S? V-O-A-R-S?”

“I don’t know.” I used the heel of my hand to rub my left eye and then my right. “Throw some options into Google with
Russia
and
Ukraine
, and see what comes up.”

He started doing the Felix Thinking Song as he moved through his searches and scanned his screen. It was like being on
Jeopardy
. I got up and started to wander so I wouldn’t fall asleep. Felix didn’t seem ever to sleep. Before he went wireless, I used to find him by following the cables through his apartment. He didn’t own a desk, and he liked moving around to work, on the theory that some spots in his living space were luckier than others. The luckiest spot of all was the balcony. He was probably there, slumped in a chair so that all you could see from the back were the tips of his spiky hairdo peeking out. Dan had made him cut off the bleached tips he had sported in Miami. No employee of his was going to look like “some fucking birthday cake.” Even without the outward manifestation, Felix was still the accidental anarchist, the kid whose irrepressible enthusiasm and daffy hyperintelligence led him inevitably to places he shouldn’t be to do things no one was supposed to be able to do.

“This is really interesting shit, Miss Shanahan.”

Felix had never used to cuss until he started working for Dan. Since I had introduced them, I felt vaguely responsible for his corruption. On the other hand, the reason I had met him in the first place was that he was a gifted hacker.

“What’s interesting?”

“Vors v zakonye.
It’s Russian for ‘thieves in law,’ and they’re the real power inside the red
mafiya
. Did you know that in Russia they spell
mafiya
with a
y
?”

“Thieves in law?” No wonder Bo hadn’t been able to translate. I didn’t even know what it meant in English.

“From what I can tell, they’re like, um, the Justice League of criminals in Russia.”

“The Justice League?”

“Oh, yeah.” His tone changed entirely as he gave his full attention to filling the void in my education. “To be in the Justice League, you have to be Superman or Batman. The best of the best. Not just a hero but a superhero. Green Lantern or the Martian Manhunter. You have to be smarter and stronger and more powerful than the bad guys. Except in this case, they’re, you know, the bad guys. The worst of the worst, I guess. Not the Justice League but—”

“The
vors
. I’m following you.”

“
Vory
. More than one is
vory
. They live by their own code. That’s why they’re called thieves in law.”

“What are their laws?”

“Um…”

I had made it to the kitchen, which was dark except for the dim light over the stove. The china cups, saucers, and teapot I had washed were still sitting on the counter, exactly as I’d left them.

“Well, it goes without saying that you can never rat out one of your brother
vory
, but you also aren’t allowed to work. In the old Soviet Union, if you got caught on any of the official work rolls, they’d kill you.”

I opened the cabinet where Harvey kept the china service and stacked everything away.

Felix went on. “You couldn’t serve in the army. Basically, you couldn’t serve the interests of the state in any way. The only way you’re allowed to make money is to steal it. Or play cards. Did you know the most revered criminals in Russia were the pickpockets?”

“I did not know that.”

“Me, neither, but it’s true. And here’s the really bad news. Since the Soviet Union fell, the Russian
mafiya
and the
vory
have gone global. They’re like Microsoft, spreading their brand of evil all over the world. They can’t be stopped.”

“Do you see anything there on tattoos?”

“Tons. Tattoos are a really big deal with these people. First of all, you can’t just get tattooed with something because you think it’s, like, really cool. You have to earn one before you can have it, and the more you have, the more respected you are.”

“Like Boy Scout badges.”

“Exactly.”

“Earn it by—”

“Mostly murder. The other thing is you can also get killed if you get a tattoo you didn’t earn. How do you think they keep track of who has what tattoo? Do they have a database or something? They would probably need some kind of a special scanner.”

“I don’t know, Felix.”

“How come you’re interested in
vory
, Miss Shanahan?”

“I’m scheduled to meet one tomorrow. I think he might have been the man who took Harvey. He might be a little ticked off at us.”

There was a long silence. Felix was hardly ever speechless. It was unnerving.

“I’ll be all right, Felix. Bo will be there.”

“Oh, I wasn’t worried about that. I was just wondering…can I come with you?”

13

A PHONE WAS RINGING. THE SOUND WAS LIKE A PATIENT, persistent worm burrowing ever deeper into the apple that was my consciousness. The ringing stopped. Maybe I was dreaming.

I opened my eyes, and I was looking at the elaborate tinwork that was the ceiling of Harvey’s office. What had apparently been quite an elegant feature back in the day was just one more thing Harvey couldn’t take care of. The sun streaming in through the east-facing windows illuminated the tarnished and discolored condition. It was in need of a good polishing or…whatever one did to maintain a tin ceiling. Why had I never noticed before?

I had fallen asleep sitting up. When I tried to lift my head from the back of the couch, my neck muscles objected fiercely. I was trying to gather my wits when the ringing started again. It was my ring tone, but the sound was muffled. I followed the sound to the crevice between two couch cushions.

“Hello?”

“It’s time to go.”

“Bo?”

“The meeting is set. Tishchenko is waiting for us.”

Crap. I sat up straight and nearly knocked my laptop to the floor. I’d forgotten about the meeting. That was one of my wits I had failed to gather. “Where are you?”

“Out front.”

I wobbled to my feet and peered through the front window. The way the light hit the hood of his silver Mercedes, it seemed pretty early in the morning. “What time is it?”