Spider - Michael Morley [23]
‘God damn it!’ he shouted, finally reaching the limit of his patience.
Howie stood up and headed to the Men’s room. Not only because he’d drunk so much coffee that he desperately needed a leak, but also because he needed to buy himself a little more thinking time.
He freshened up and returned painfully slowly to his desk, almost as though he was afraid of getting back there. Instead of sitting down, he chose to stand behind his swivel chair, his sausage-fingered hands drumming on the top curve of the seat, his eyes locked on his desk monitor.
‘God damn!’ Nothing had changed. It was still as disturbing as it had been the first time he’d seen it.
The computer showed three clear shots.
Shot one was of a cardboard box.
Shot two was of Sarah Kearney’s decapitated skull.
But it was shot three that was making Howie curse out loud in an empty room. Full frame on the flat screen was the address on the box, the very thing that had made airport security scan the package and alert Howie’s office. In black felt pen were the words ‘Fragile. For the attention of Jack King, c/o the FBI.’
PART TWO
Monday, 2 July
17
Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, New York
Cops always say that when it comes to hookers, a year on the street puts ten on the face. By that score, Ludmila Zagalsky is twenty-five going on one hundred and thirty. In truth, Lu’s bearing up slightly better than the maths predict; though two abortions and a drug problem that would shame even the wildest of rock stars don’t bode well for the future.
Lu’s been out on the streets since she was fifteen. Her latest pimp is a Russian called Oleg, who has pretty much most of the Beach Avenue business to himself. Oleg’s a brute of a man, a mountain of lard with tattooed forearms the size of a bull’s back legs and a big round shaven head that’s as attractive as an overripe pumpkin. But he doesn’t beat her, not like her drunken mother used to, a grizzled Muscovite jealous of her daughter’s beauty. And he doesn’t come into her bed ‘to be close’ like her stepfather used to. It’s true that running away from Moscow and working for Oleg wasn’t the brightest move she ever made, but it sure as hell was better than the alternative. Lu had turned tricks to save for the airfare out of Russia and she’d been turning them ever since. She breakfasts every day on a couple of ‘E’s; chugging them back like most people do coffee and pastries. They keep her sane as she sets about the soul-destroying work of being violated and abused in return for rent money and little more. She starts around lunch and finishes whenever her last mudak – some sick, dumb asshole – has paid his cash, hauled himself off her and got out of her sorry life. Her first shift is Coney Island Avenue, down to 6th and 7th. At the end of that she meets up with Oleg around six p.m. and ‘cashes out’. Sometimes, if she’s earned more than her daily target take, he buys her a burger and beer before slapping her ass and sending her back to the street. Second shift sees her strutting her stuff down Beach Avenue, usually in red stilettos and not much else. If the cops from the 60th Precinct move her on, then she hits Riglemann Boardwalk down on the east side, heading out to Chambers Square.
Right now, at just gone one a.m., she’s feeling blasted. Minutes after emptying her purse for Oleg and heading home, she gets a pull from some City dude cruising in a gold Lexus. She ends up jerking him off and keeping the cash for herself – man, it will cost the perv a fortune to clean that leather. Anyway, she’s got two fifties tucked away for just ten minutes’ trade and that’s damn near a record for Lu. Most of the working girls say she’s cheap, a shluha vokzalnaja – a train station whore – but lately Lu’s been rolling in the big tricks and feels she’s on the way