PAVLO DEMCHUK was a thug, but he was a thug with a sense of honor and dignity. When I put the cuffs on him almost eight years ago, he wasn’t exactly giddy with joy, but he didn’t complain, didn’t whimper, didn’t beg or plead. There was a sense of resignation about him, as if he knew this day would come but hoped it wouldn’t come so soon.
After he pleaded guilty to one count of running an illegal gambling establishment over in Portage Park—but before he was sentenced—I went to visit him in the lockup. I had a real hard-on back then, hoping to make detective, and I wanted the mobsters above him on the food chain. I thought Pavlo could give me that, because Pavlo knew everybody; his uncle had been one of the top Russian mobsters in Chicago, and though Pavlo never reached those heights or even tried to, he had his finger in plenty of things, and I suspected that very little happened that he didn’t know about.
Pavlo was a perfect gentleman, complimenting me on my police work, readily admitting to his own involvement, but he smiled politely when I asked him about anyone else. “I understand your curiosity, but I will not speak of others,” he kept saying in that thick Russian accent. I went through my routine: I could talk to the prosecutors; we could reduce the hell out of your sentence; why would you protect people who didn’t even bond you out when you were arrested—the full charm offensive.
Over the three trips I made to the lockup, always with some version of that same pitch, Pavlo’s expression never changed. He just nodded, let me say my piece, and politely declined to say anything further. I came to respect the guy, even admire him—at least how he handled adversity.
He got five years with his priors. He’s out now, but still on MSR, so I knew the address on his sheet must be current. I called ahead to make sure he was home.
Pavlo lives in a bungalow in Norridge, a decidedly middle-class neighborhood full of A-frames and Georgians on small plots, not far from Harlem Irving Plaza. Pavlo is standing at the door when I pull up. It’s been years, and I don’t know what I expected, but he’s aged more than I would’ve thought. I remember the bald top, but the sides were bushy and dark; now they’re snow-white and cut tight. His stomach used to hang over his belt; now he’s svelte, unnaturally so, which makes me think of illness.
“Mr. Harney,” he says, still with the heavy accent. Mee-ster.
“Pavlo, thanks for seeing me,” I say.
His eyes glance at the bag hanging from my shoulder. He couldn’t have thought this was a social call.
We shake hands. “This isn’t about you,” I say. “I just wanted your help on something.”
“How could it be about me?” His eyes widen, his hands spread. “I am committing no crimes.”
I wonder if that’s true. Finding work, straight work, after a felony conviction is ridiculously hard. The probation officer thinks he’s a cook at a Polish restaurant in Broadview. I’m sure he is. I just doubt that’s his only source of income.
He shows me into the first room, painted a bright yellow, family photos decorating the walls, many of them black-and-white, most from his homeland. If memory serves, Pavlo came to America in his teens, in the midseventies.
We take two chairs by the window, separated by a small pedestal table that looks like a relic from his childhood. He’s made coffee. Feels like it would be impolite to decline, so I accept a cup, even though I’m sweating from being outside for only two minutes.
“I’m trying to get an identity on a young woman,” I say. “Late teens, possibly early twenties. They have her from eastern Europe by way of her DNA. The FBI thinks she was a victim of human trafficking.”
Pavlo nods, his brow furrowed, but I don’t know how to read him. I doubt he was ever into that kind of activity, but I suspect he knew people who were, once upon a time. He probably still does. But that doesn’t mean he’s going to tell me.
“This is all off the record, Pavlo,” I say to put him at ease, if he’s worried about blowback for cooperating. I slide half a dozen glossies out of an envelope and hand them to him, hoping to give him an attack of conscience.
I nod toward the photos. “That woman didn’t do anything wrong. She’s an innocent victim. She deserves a proper burial, Pavlo.”
His expression eases. “And this is not all,” he says.
“Come again?”
“You wish to identify this girl, yes, but you wish for more than this. You wish to find out who used her.”
“Busting up a human-trafficking ring isn’t my assignment,” I say, but he’s not convinced. Say what you want about the guy, Pavlo’s no dummy.
He looks down at the top photo, a gruesome close-up of Jane Doe’s face. “Ah, how young she is,” he mumbles. He flips to the next one, panned back farther, a waist-up shot, part of the battered porch. “This I never did. Girls, never.”
“I believe you,” I say. “But you have good ears, my friend. If girls from eastern Europe were coming over here, it would be the Russian mob, right?”
“The Russian mob.” He says it like it’s a joke. “There is some…organization, yes. But you must know this, Mr. Harney. There are…freelancers?” He flips to the next photo and grimaces.
He’s right. There isn’t much organized crime anymore, only small pockets of Italians and Russians trying to score in their tiny fiefdoms. But girls and drugs never go out of business. Someone’s doing it.
“If you are looking for names, Mr. Harney, I cannot give them to you.” He flips to the next photo. “Not because I won’t.” He flips to the next one. “But because I—”
He stops midsentence, his eyes glued to the photo. It’s the close-up of the woman’s leg, the tattoo of the black flower above her ankle.
“I…cannot help you,” he says.
“You recognize that tattoo,” I say.
“I do not.” He hands me the photos. I don’t take them at first, but he shakes them. “I cannot help you.”
“Pavlo, it’s off the record.”
The color has drained from his face. His eyes have an intensity I’ve never seen. This guy took five years with a polite smile. The look on his face now, you’d think he was staring at the Angel of Death. “No, I—I do not know anything to tell you. Please. You must leave,” he says. “Please go now.”