Dead and Gone - Andrew Vachss [52]
“I understand,” I said, wondering how many ransom notes she’d typed in her young life.
“Yes? Then you must decide how much you wish to tell me.”
“I have to make a call first.”
“Of course,” she said, curling her sleek legs under her and pulling the computer into her lap.
It took a few hours for the cell-phone relay to connect. Finally, I got Mama on the line.
“Mama, I need to know: how far can I trust this woman? You said you didn’t know her.”
“Not know her. She know me.”
Meaning: Gem knew her by more than mere reputation—she knew people who knew Mama personally. And what Mama was capable of.
“Is that enough?”
“She make call, earlier. Ask about you, why you call me ‘Mama.’ ”
“She called you?”
“No. Call friend. Pao.”
“She’s Cambodian, then?”
“Yes, Cambodian. All same with Pao. This girl, Gem, Pao call her ‘Angkat.’ Girl easy to find. Anytime. No problem. What you tell girl, she not tell anyone, okay?”
“Okay, Mama. Thanks.”
“Watch everyone,” she said. And hung up.
Pao was a Cambodian woman who ran a network like Mama’s. I’d only met her once, at the restaurant. I couldn’t begin to guess her age, any more than I could Mama’s, but I knew they went way back. Mama had told me “easy to find.” Meaning, if Gem double-crossed me, there’d be no place for her to hide … and she’d know it.
When I went back into the living room, she was still on the couch, as if I’d been gone minutes instead of hours. I sat down in the armchair and said, “Do you want to hear the story?”
She got up without using her hands, like smoke rising from a cigarette. She took a couple of steps toward me, then dropped to her knees, clasped her hands, looked up at me expectantly.
“There is a Russian couple,” I said, not looking directly at her. “Man and wife. From Chicago. They had a child. A son. He was abducted when he was around four years old. Disappeared without a trace. There never was a ransom note. No body was ever found. They never heard a thing. A lot of years passed.
“Then, one day, they were contacted by a man who said he had their boy. The man wanted to exchange him for money. A lot of money. The Russians, they were immigrants. Nervous. Didn’t trust the police. So they went to a gangster. A Russian, like them, in New York. He hired me to handle the transfer. I was there, with the money. A kid got out of the ransom truck. At least it looked like a kid—it was dark. But it was a trap. The kid shot me. So did some others. They ran away, thinking I was dead.
“It took a long time for me to heal. Then I went to see the man who set it up for me to make the transfer. He told me that the Russians had insisted on me for the job. So whoever was lying in wait, they knew I’d be the one coming. I’m who they wanted to kill. It was never about a ransom payment—it was a murder setup.
“The Russians don’t live in Chicago anymore. They have someone there who keeps up a front for them, but all their mail is forwarded here. To Vancouver, I mean.
“I need to talk to them. I don’t know what they look like. Or where they live—the Vancouver address is a mail drop. I figure, if I … if you … write them a letter, in Russian, I might be able to get them to come out in the open.”
She knelt there quietly, deep dark eyes on me, waiting. When she saw I was done, she blew out a long stream of breath, a cleansing act like yogis do. Then she asked, “You wish to find out who wanted to have you killed?”
“That’s not past tense. If they knew I was alive,