CHAPTER 30

That evening Scott and I sat across from Oksana Sutin’s building in a rented black Hummer, watching a black Lincoln idling in the parking lot. I was behind the wheel while Scott rested in the passenger seat holding a Walther PPK.

“Where did you get that?” I asked.

“Chinatown.” He narrowed his eyes as he looked at me. “Speaking of Chinatown, did you go see my massage therapist yet?”

“Not yet.”

“Go see her. Lian will take care of that problem with your neck.”

“Speaking of problems, any word from back East?”

“Nah. If Pop and my brother, Chris, are still alive, then the feds are hiding them good. Cashman called me last week. He said Nico Tagliarini’s men are scouring Brooklyn looking for me.”

“No one knows you’re here except Milt?”

Scott shrugged. “Someone always knows something.”

The black Lincoln finally pulled out of the parking lot onto Diamond Head Road in the direction of Kahala. I waited a bit then started the engine and followed.

“What was the alias listed on your Eastern District indictment again?”

Scott chuckled. “Scotty Two Dicks.”

“How the hell did you get that name?”

“’Cause my first hit, right, Nico told me to go out and whack this stronzo who ripped him off and to bring back his dick. So that’s what I did. Only Nico had been fucking with me. So there I was, standing in a room full of wiseguys with a prick in my hand. When the laughing died down, I asked Nico, ‘Well, what do you want me to do with this?’ Nico stared at me for like two minutes straight, then said, ‘What the fuck do I know? Now you got a backup. Hey, everyone, say hello to Scotty Two Dicks.’

“Few days later Nico sees my brother, Chris, in the steam room, yada yada yada. Nico comes out and declares that Chris is hereafter to be known as Chrissy Half-Cock.”

“Harsh.”

Scott shrugged. “I guess. But he was still better off than Benny Brown Dick. Benny earned that name during a ten-year stretch at San Quentin.”

As soon as the Lincoln turned off the main road, I killed my lights, and Scott readied his weapon. The door to Iryna Kupchenko’s apartment was now dead-bolted and she was accompanied by an armed driver at all times. So Scott and I unfortunately had no choice but to get creative.

“This is as isolated as it’s gonna get,” Scott said. “Let’s do this.”

I gunned the engine and jumped into the lane reserved for traffic heading in the opposite direction. I passed the Lincoln on the left, then immediately swerved in front of the Lincoln and slammed on the brakes.

The Hummer’s tires screeched. The Lincoln’s tires screeched. The Lincoln struck the Hummer from behind and the impact flung me hard into the steering wheel. I spent a moment thinking I’d cracked a few ribs and resented Scott for suggesting we disconnect the airbags. Fortunately, my adrenaline quickly diffused the pain and prepared me for the next phase of the operation.

“Ready?” Scott said.

“Ready.”

I threw off my seatbelt as Scott did his, then we opened our doors and leapt from the Hummer, Scott with a pistol in his hand, me with a blackjack.

I stepped over to the rear door on the Lincoln’s driver’s side and swung the blackjack at the window, smashing it to pieces just as the butt of Scott’s pistol did the same to the window up front on the passenger’s side.

I heard Iryna scream as Scott hollered, “Don’t you move, you cocksucker,” to the driver. I opened the door and grabbed Iryna by the forearm as Scott got into the Lincoln. I dragged her gently toward the Hummer, then stuffed her inside, telling her to climb over the console into the passenger seat. I climbed in after her, turned the key in the ignition, and started to drive, leaving Scott and the Lincoln and its driver behind.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Iryna was yelling at me. “You are going to go to jail for this, you bastard!”

I remained silent. I knew that no one in her position—a prostitute with no visa—would possibly chance going to the cops.

“What in hell do you want from me?” she cried.

“Answers,” I said with feigned calm. “Just some answers.”

*   *   *

“What we all hope for is to make it to United Arab Emirates,” Iryna said, taking a drag off a long, thin cigarette and ashing out the window as we drove. “To somewhere where there is money, like Dubai or Abu Dhabi. Some of us make it there or to Bahrain or Qatar. But most of us are not so lucky.”

I steadied the Hummer and glanced at Iryna, who for some reason looked thinner than when I’d first seen her. Or maybe she just appeared more fragile sitting next to me in this motorized monstrosity.

“Where were you taken from?”

“I was not taken.” Anger seeped into her thickly accented voice. “Nobody grabbed my hair like a caveman and dragged me onto a ship. I was brought here.”

“Okay, where were you brought here from?”

“From Odessa. It is a city in southern Ukraine. We girls, we go down to the port at night and stand around and wait for a car. When a car comes, we pose in the car’s headlights as the pimp leans into the window and negotiates price. Usually two of the two or three dozen of us are chosen. We hop into the car and get driven away. Far away from Odessa. And, believe me, this is a good thing.”

I believed her. I’d read an article in Time not too long ago about the international sex trade, how Odessa had become a hub for women from the poorest parts of Eastern Europe following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Women from Russia, Ukraine, Romania, and Moldova fled their homes to cross the Black Sea from Odessa to the Arab states and Western Europe.

But they weren’t forced and didn’t need to be. After decades behind the Iron Curtain, these women were entirely ignorant of the outside world and desperate for opportunities. The process was completely voluntary. These women weren’t fed lies or manipulated through trickery. They knew precisely where they were going and what they’d be doing when they got there.

Still, only someone with the hardest of hearts wouldn’t feel sorry for them.

“So, who is it who brought you to the United States, to Hawaii?”

Iryna shook her head and smirked. “You must be so crazy. Because you do not seem so stupid.”

“I’ve been beginning to think I’m a bit of both these past few weeks. But I’m something else too, Iryna. I’m tenacious. I will get my answers, even if it means you and I have to drive around this island nonstop the next five days and nights. Even if costs me twenty grand in gasoline because this goddamn Hummer gets a quarter of a mile to the gallon. And if all else fails, I’ll drive us right to the federal building in Honolulu and put you into the hands of my good friend in Immigration, Special Agent Marc Dalton.”

Iryna shrugged her stick-thin shoulders. “If I tell to you this name, Mr. Corvelli, you might as well shoot me.”

“I don’t think so.” I turned past a sign for downtown Honolulu. “From what I’ve read and from what you’ve told me, having you hauled back to Odessa would be a far worse punishment than killing you.”

“You are right on that,” she said, sighing.

“So what’s it going to be, Iryna. Just a name and I’ll never tell a soul where I got it.”

Her chin dropped into her chest. “He is German-Irish,” she said quietly. “He calls himself Gavin Dengler. I have met with him just yesterday, so he is still somewhere on the island.”

“Gavin Dengler,” I said aloud. “Okay, I’m going to pull over now. When I do, you’re going to give me a complete description of him. You’re going to tell me where I can find him. Then I’m going to drive you home. If your answers are entirely truthful, I promise you’ll never see me again.”

She swallowed hard and swiped at a tear. “That is something I can promise you, too.”