Yefim said, “Ladies and gentlemen, Kirill and Violeta Borzakov.”
Kirill stood and walked around us, inspecting his collection of chattel. He looked at Kenny and Helene and then over at Pavel.
Pavel took Kenny and Helene by the shoulders and sat them down at the foot of the sectional on the left side. Kirill cocked his head at Pavel again, and a second or two later, Tadeo was pushed onto the couch beside Helene.
Kirill walked around me in a slow circle. “Who are you?”
“I’m a private investigator,” I said.
A sucking noise as he took a drag off his cigarette and flicked the ash onto the faux-oak floor. “The private investigator who find the girl for me?”
“I didn’t find her for you.”
He nodded at that, as if I’d said something sage, and took my left hand in his. “You didn’t find her for me?”
“No.”
His grip was soft, almost delicate. “Who you find her for?”
“Her aunt.”
“But not for me?”
I shook my head. “Not for you.”
He gave me another nod as he wrapped his fingers around my wrist and ground his cigarette out in my palm.
I’m not sure how I managed not to scream. For half a minute, all I could feel was a fat ember burning through my flesh. I could smell it. My mind went black and then red and I flashed on an image of the nerves in my hand hanging like vines as smoke curled up them.
While he burned me, Kirill Borzakov looked into my eyes. There was nothing to see in his. No anger, no joy, no thrill that comes with violence or the elation of absolute power. Nothing. He had the eyes of a reptile sunning itself on a rock.
I grunted several times and exhaled through gritted teeth and tried to block images of what my hand must look like by now. I flashed on my daughter, and for a moment that calmed me, but then I realized I’d brought her into this moment, this polluted violence and sickness, and I tried to remove the image of her from my head, tried to will her away from this depravity, and the pain pulsed twice as strong. Then Kirill dropped my wrist and stepped back.
“See if this aunt can make your skin grow back.”
I flicked the dead cigarette butt from the center of my palm as Violeta Borzakov said, “Kirill, you’re blocking the TV.”
The coal was black now, on its way to ash, and the center of my palm looked like the top of a volcano—puckered and red, the burned flesh peeled back.
On the Mexican soap, the music swelled and a beautiful Latina in a white peasant top turned on her heel and stalked out of an earth-toned room as the lights went down. The next thing we saw was a commercial with Antonio Sabato Jr. hawking some kind of skin cream.
I would have paid a thousand dollars for that skin cream. I would have paid two thousand dollars for that skin cream and an ice cube.
Violeta took her eyes off the TV. “Why is the bambina still with the little girl?”
Amanda turned so they could see the handcuffs.
“What is this shit, Yefim?” Violeta sat up and leaned forward.
Yefim’s eyes widened. He seemed frightened by her. “Mrs. Borzakov, we bring her to you as promised.”
“As promised? You’re weeks late, pendejo. Weeks. And do you bring her, Yefim, or was it these people?” She waved in the general direction of Kenny, Helene, and Tadeo.
“It was us,” Kenny said from the couch. He gave Violeta a wave that she ignored. “All us.”
Kirill lit a fresh cigarette. “You have your baby now. Go get her and be done with this.”
Violeta slinked toward Amanda like a water snake. She peered at Claire and then sniffed her.
“Is she intelligent?”
Amanda said, “She’s four weeks old.”
“Does she talk?”
“She’s four weeks old.”
Violeta touched the baby’s forehead. “Say ‘Ma-ma.’ Say ‘Ma-ma.’ ”
Claire began to cry.
Violeta said, “Ssshhh.”
Claire cried louder.
Violeta sang, “Hush, little baby, don’t you fret. Momma’s gonna make you a . . .”
She looked around the room at us.
“Mockingbird?” I tried.
She thrust out her bottom lip in a gesture of acceptance. “And if that mockingbird don’t fly, Momma gonna buy you a . . .”
Another look for the room. Claire continued to wail.
“Corvette,” Tadeo said.
She frowned at him.
“Diamond ring,” Yefim said.
“That doesn’t rhyme.”
“And yet I am sure it is correct.”
Claire’s wailing hit a new pitch, the banshee-shrieking Amanda had mentioned.
Kirill, sitting on the couch, snorted a line of blow off the compact mirror and said, “Make her stop.”
Violeta said, “I’m trying.” She touched Claire’s head again. “Ssssshhhhh.” She hissed it, over and over—”Sssssshhhhhhhh! Ssssssshhhhhh!”
This did not make things better.
Kirill winced and snorted another line. He placed a hand to his ear and winced harder. “Shut her up.”
“Ssssssshhhhhhhh! Ssssssssshhhhhhh! I don’t know what the fuck to do. You said you would hire a nanny.”
“I hire the nanny. But I don’t bring her here. Shut her up.”
“Ssssssshhhhhh!”
By now Tadeo and Kenny both had their hands over their ears and Pavel and Yefim made various faces of discomfort. Only Helene seemed oblivious, her eyes on the DVD players and the iPods.
I said to Amanda, “Pacifier?”
“Right pocket.”
I held my hand by her pocket, looked at Yefim. “May I?”
“Shit, my friend, absolutely.”
I reached into Amanda’s pocket and pulled out the pacifier.
“Ssssssshhhhhhhhh!” Violeta was screaming it now.
I pulled the plastic cover off the pacifier, movement that drove a spike into my burned palm. My eyes watered and widened, but I reached over Amanda’s shoulder and plopped the pacifier into the baby’s mouth.
The volume in the room immediately plummeted. Claire sucked the pacifier back and forth against her lips.
“Better,” Kirill said.
Violeta ran both palms down her cheeks. “You have spoiled her.”
Amanda said, “Excuse me?”
“You have spoiled her. This is why she screams like this. She will learn not to do that.”
Amanda said, “She’s four weeks old, you fucking moron.”
“Don’t swear in front of the baby,” I reminded her.