Skin Trade (27 page)

Sighing, Momo returned and ordered apple strudel.

“So,” I said.

“I love the movies, honestly, I love them. Westerns. Cop movies. All my life.” He smiled. “I hate Jerry Lewis, in case you're worried.”

“I didn't ask about your taste in movies. We've done that. I get it. You love American movies.”

“You think this is a cliché? French guy who loves American movies?”

“So it's not a cliché. It's yours and yours alone. You're unique.”

“Thank you.”

“Stop stonewalling.”

“What's this stonewalling?”

I kept my mouth shut.

Momo said finally, “The girl behind the billboard came from a town called Visno. There've been other killings, other women, same town. We think whoever killed the little girl beat up Lily. There were some similar marks.”

“DNA confirms, you have that?”

“Yes.”

“The kid was raped?”

“Yes.”

“Martha Burnham?”

“Yes.”

“The semen matches, the DNA?”

“Yes.”

I said, carefully, “What about Katya Slobodkin?”

He looked at the table. “None of your fucking business.”

“Where the fuck is Visno?”

“It's up on the Bosnia-Serbia border. There was a lot of fighting around there. Gangs ran it. This turd Zhaba comes from Visno, he grew up there, he pimps for women he knew in the town. Them, other women who come from the East, Ukraine, Russia. He runs them into Western Europe.”

“He's a pimp.”

“Yeah. And an enforcer. You can get anything in Bosnia. Drugs. Weapons. Women. The only successful multi-ethnic business is crime.”

“I figured for sure we were looking at Russians in the beginning,” I said.

“You thought. I didn't think. Maybe you always think about Russians. In Paris it used to be North Africans. Then they started coming in from the East, like I said. Russian, Ukraine, Belorus, Rumania. Some of them eleven, twelve years old. We couldn't stop it. After the Balkan shit it got worse because the gangs were vicious, there were no cops, nothing to get in their way.
Fucking UN couldn't do a thing. NGOs either. Pricks like Zhaba are just the muscle, but they don't care who they murder – girls they deliver, cops, it doesn't matter. They get on a truck or a plane or in a car and hightail it back to whatever the fuck hole they come from. These are countries who do not care to help us extradite. We can't touch them.”

“I'm listening.”

“We couldn't even get close there were so many of them. Then we started seeing signatures in certain assaults, especially if the girls escaped from particular clubs or out of the territory of the guys who controlled them. In this case, it was a hammer. Someone broke the girls' fingers.” He paused. “And the hair.”

“Like Lily.”

“Yes. I mean there are a hundred towns, dozens of gangs, in some places like Kosovo there are foreign troops but no local cops at all. All we've done is turn these places into free-fire zones for the criminals. The gangs are the new government. With a specific place like Visno, we can start focusing on one gang, one creep. It was the kind of detail that could give us access. It's like a can opener. You can get a little leverage, put a name and a face on it.”

“Like Zhaba.”

“That's how we identified him. We started tracing the girls who came from Visno. You helped a lot.”

“He's a Serb?”

Momo said, “He's part Serb, part Croat, even had a Muslim grandfather. Which makes it worse, you know? A guy who pimps for women from his own town. That's how it works; they work on women they know or know
about, and bring them in, move them around. Like produce to market. This is corporate Europe, Artie, the free market. The Russians, who are at the top of the tree, already got web sites to market girls. The best women, they move them on to America, service the guys who make the big bucks. We're talking billions.”

“Why don't you pick him up?”

“He's not easy. Zhaba moves fast. I'm waiting.”

“Waiting for fucking what?”

“Until he does something that leads me to his boss.”

“I'm going to Visno,” I said suddenly.

“There's no one there.”

“You've been?”

“This gets out and my kids don't eat, OK?”

“OK.”

“I've been there.”

“You didn't find him.”

“No.”

“He has a base there?”

“Maybe. I don't know.”

The waitress brought the strudel and put it down. She had a powdery face and dark circles under her eyes; her thick brown hair was done up in braids.

Momo ate a piece of the strudel, put his fork down, muttered “Stale”, then said out of the blue, “I worked on prostitution in Paris, I took some leave to look at international stuff. The boss said I had to quit, the economics were wrong. Trade relations were more important and a lot of countries were angry because we were interfering over this business of prostitution. I didn't agree.”

“You stayed on your regular job as far as the brass knew because it gave you access? You pretended you were a good boy?”

“More or less.”

“But you went freelance.”

“Yes. I had a friend. He worked for the War Crimes Tribunal in the Hague. He was a homicide cop from Lyons, and volunteered to take me through some of the shit that went down during the Bosnian War. There were bad people on both sides, but these Serbs, they were monsters. I met some of the women. People were investigating this stuff one case at a time, one murder at a time, it was taking years.”

“What happened to your pal?”

Momo picked up his hot chocolate. “Someone executed him. He made too many enemies. He was at the site of a mass grave doing the forensics, and someone came up behind him and strangled him and pushed him into that hole in the ground with the corpses.”

I listened.

“You know what got me started in the beginning though, Artie? I wonder if they have any chocolate cake.” He looked for the waitress.

“What?”

“I was undercover once in some horrible place near the Bois de Vincennes that was a front. It was full of sad little girls, all under-age, boys too, you could get a little boy there, and there's a customer, a middle-aged jerk with a Pierre Cardin tie on. He says, ‘The place to go if you want a really good time is Kiev. There's everything under the sun you could want.” Sex tourism, it's his
thing. He says this. He doesn't care they're moving these women around like cattle. He doesn't give a shit. He wants a good time. You go on vacation, you deserve sun and sex. I got so pissed off I volunteered for the international job.”

“Which is how you met your friend that died.”

“Yeah.”

“Why didn't you tell me all this before?” Momo didn't answer.

“You didn't trust me?”

“I didn't tell you because when I saw you with Lily I didn't think you could necessarily take it.”

“You thought I was cracking up. I want to go.”

“Visno's a shit-hole.”

“I don't care.”

“It isn't easy.”

I leaned over the table. “I need to see.” I slid the picture of Zhaba across the table.

Momo said, “How did you get this picture?”

“A friend gave it to me.” I looked at the picture. I had to be sure. “This is definitely him?”

“Yes.”

“You're sure?”

“Sure I'm sure. We both know it's him. You want me to tell you his brand of condoms? I'm sure.”

“What's his real name?”

“He has several names.”

“Tell me one.”

“Boris Zhabovich is the one I hear most. Sometimes Ratko. Sometimes Zultan. Sometimes Bob.”

“Bob?”

“Bob, Pierre, Franco, Werner, all names, any names, every country. Europe is one big happy family.”

“What about his last name?”

“Whatever he needs. Russian. Serb. Croat. Bosnian. Austrian. He doesn't give a fuck what you call him. But I need him out there, Artie. Eventually he's going to do something stupid again, and big, and I'll be there, waiting for him, and the rest of them.”

“You want him for bait.”

“Yes.”

“You don't give a shit about him.”

“Sure I do. But there's bigger.”

We were going in circles. “Who?”

“I don't fucking know.”

I yelled at the waitress. “Hey, Miss, gimme another one of those nice beers, OK?” I was talking loud. People in the coffee shop looked offended, which was the point.

Momo smiled. “Artie?”

“Yeah?”

“You really think if you make a lot of noise, you'll flush him out?”

“I don't know.”

He wiped his mouth on a paper napkin, unfolded his jacket carefully and put it on. “You want to take a walk?”

I told the waitress to forget the beer and put some money on the table. “Where are you staying?” I asked Momo.

“I have a cousin who runs a hotel on the edge of town. It's a dump, but it's free. They make a living. They claim Stalin spent the night. The Pensione Schonbrunn makes
this big deal that Stalin slept there, but my cousin claims the old bastard stayed at his place too.”

“You mean tourists go because they think Stalin slept in the bed?”

“Why not? Stalin was a celebrity.”

“Shit, it's cold,” Momo said when we were outside.

I didn't answer.

“I don't know this guy Tolya Sverdloff, Artie, but he's a good friend for you. He's been with Lily every minute, you know.” We started walking in the frozen night. “He sleeps in her room.”

We walked fast because it was cold; we walked away from the center of Vienna, beyond the center and the Ring Road, beyond the neon, past a white building with a gilded Art Deco dome. After that, we threaded our way through a market, the stalls shuttered up tight, and eventually came to a subway station. A couple of benches stood outside. We sat down. I was so cold my eyebrows froze, but I owed Momo Gourad and I didn't ask any questions. He had been watching my back. He'd kept his boss off me. He did what he could for Lily.

“You can get more sympathy for a bunch of veal calves being shipped out of England than for women,” he said, looking around.

There was no one on the street.

“You meeting someone?”

“Yes.”

A harsh wind blew, and I looked at Momo. “It's him, isn't it?”

“I made a connection with a cop here I used to know. I'm not sure. We put out a line. We promised him he'd
be meeting a guy with big money. It was worth a try. Christ, it's freezing.” He blew on his hands and pulled down the ear-flaps on his Russian-style hat. Then he took out a pack of cigarettes and bent double to light one. “You think we're a little old to be squatting here in the dark, Art? You think Clint ever does this shit?”

“Clint Eastwood is an actor, man.”

“You know what I mean.”

“No, I do not think Dirty Harry ever gets his pants wet sitting on outdoor furniture by a subway station in Vienna.”

“I'm glad you made Zhaba bleed up on the German border,” he said. “I was really pleased when I heard. I have no moral confusion about this at all.”

The wind whined. I looked at Momo. “You knew?”

He hesitated. “You hear things.” He looked at his watch again.

I said, to cheer him up, “Gene Hackman in
French Connection,
he stood around in the shitty weather a lot.”

We sat on the bench, talking about movies and smoking Momo's French cigarettes that made me cough.

“So, Momo, you met Katya how? On the job?”

He grinned. “Yes. Before she left Russia, she was a doctor who did forensic work, but it paid her shit and she wanted out. I met her once, but I told you, didn't I? She got screwed up in some deal trying to get herself out, and there was some bad stuff when they stole her passport. She won't talk about it, but she had a rough time. Then she called me. I remembered her and I said I'd help. She came to Paris. You like her?”

“I like her,” I said.

“She thought she was safe in Paris, but they came after her.”

“When?”

“A year ago.”

“They hurt her because of you, your work?”

“Yes.”

I thought about me and Lily. “I'm sorry.”

“I love her.” Like a kid, he blurted it out.

“I figured.”

“You think I'm nuts, falling in love with a Russian hooker, don't you?”

It was important to him, so I said, “No.”

“You like her?”

“I like her a lot.” I felt guilty as hell about Katya. I wanted to tell him, wanted him to absolve me; I'd done enough damage. I bit my tongue.

We waited. I knew Zhaba wasn't coming.

“Let's get the hell out of here,” Momo said finally. “We'll start again in the morning.”

There were no cabs. I didn't want to get in an empty subway train and neither did Momo. In a train, you were trapped. We'd started to walk when we heard a car behind us. We ran like crazy, turning a corner where we banged into a Pizza Hut. I could smell the sauce. I could see the lights inside.

Exhausted, I shoved through the door, looked behind me and saw Momo dragging himself up the street. In the restaurant, four teenagers were drinking coffee, the remains of a pizza on their table. They looked up, then went back to the coffee.

“Momo?” I turned around.

He was gone. I ran outside. I could see him in the distance, sprinting towards me. He had seen someone and disappeared down a side street, now he was back, running in my direction. I yelled out “Momo”, but the words were sucked away by the wind, and a few seconds later I heard the shot.

“What happened?”

Momo shook his head. “I was running, and someone took a fucking pot-shot at me. I couldn't see.”