The Guest Room(51)

We heard someone on the stairs, and it sounded like Yulian. So quick like bunny I took a tissue from the box we always had to keep by our beds and wiped her cheeks. “You’re just homesick, baby Crystal,” I whispered. “We’ll talk later.”

And we did. Sonja and I both talked to her. Sonja even offered to ask Inga about the two of them switching rooms, since Sonja’s room had that window that looked out on the street and Crystal’s just looked out at smelly alleyway. But we couldn’t cheer her up.

…

If you had met Crystal, you’d see why Sonja and I always wanted to look out for her. She was thirteen when they took her. And she was even smaller than the rest of us. Not even four feet and eight inches tall when she started and not even five feet when they killed her. She was the one they sold to the men who wanted the girls that looked like children. Who were shy. She was the one they dressed like she might still be going to school. She had to wear blue jeans or pink corduroy overalls. While they bought us black and red lingerie for work, they bought her white underpants with Disney princesses and Tinkerbell on the front. On the crotch.

…

Sonja had blue eyes that always looked a little possessed—even a little demonic—and hair they bleached so white that at first it felt like straw and some even fell out. That was crazy scary two weeks for her. This was my Sonja. It was Sonja and me against the world some days, and it was Sonja and Crystal and me they wanted in America. That’s how much they liked us—and how good we were at what we did.

And, yes, it was Sonja who, one night in a beautiful house near New York City, went berserk like Xbox demon. We had talked about getting away. We had even fantasized how, but that was usually just to cheer up Crystal. I never thought we would actually do it.

But then that night Sonja and I learned they had killed Crystal, and that was last straw for my Sonja. Me? I just went a little numb. But some part deep inside Sonja just said no more. No f*cking more.

Besides, she knew things I didn’t. She knew what Crystal had done. And she had overheard Pavel and Kirill that night at the party.

So while her timing might seem insane, it made sense. It made sense especially if you were Sonja. Yes, she went bitchcakes with that knife when there were witnesses—all those men at the party for the bachelor. But she went crazy in a place where it would be harder for Pavel to defend himself. (Kirill, too.) If she didn’t succeed, would Pavel and Kirill actually kill us with all of those witnesses? Wouldn’t they at least wonder if some of the men would defend us?

Besides, she believed that Pavel and Kirill were going to murder her and maybe me, too, after the party. She’d heard them talking that night. She couldn’t wait until later. There might not even be a later.

And so we were off. In some ways, we were the most naive girls in the whole world about everything except sex and makeup and clothing and the New York Post. (Once we got to Manhattan, I read them the New York Post like it was the Bible and we were nuns. We studied Page Six. We looked for stories about pop stars and reality people and, of course, The Bachelor. They had told us to read a newspaper and we sure did.) But it had been a long time since we were free—in some ways, never.

Never.

And maybe we weren’t really free, even then. After all, we were terrified. We were afraid of practically everyone. The Russians. The police guys. This was not like that day long, long ago when I was still in Yerevan and I was packing for Moscow. When I thought I was about to become a ballerina. This was not about the future at all. This was just about trying to find ways to be invisible. To stay alive. To not be killed like our poor baby Crystal.





Chapter Nine


The conversation Tuesday night was infuriating and brief. Richard texted Philip for Spencer Doherty’s cell and then went outside in the dark to call the son of a bitch. He stood in his driveway, occasionally staring up at the light in the master bedroom from which he was exiled.

“You f*cked the girl in my daughter’s bedroom! You left your goddamn rubber there! What the f*ck were you thinking!” he said the moment Spencer answered his phone.

“Not your girl,” said Spencer. “I f*cked the blonde. So chill, okay?”

“My girl? I don’t have a girl! I have a daughter, and—”

“Look, I was drunk. I don’t know what I did with the condom. If I dropped it someplace stupid, I’m sorry. Blame it on the tequila.”

“You’re an ass, you know that?”

“Are you finished?”

“Am I finished?”

“Are you finished getting medieval on my ass about something that really doesn’t matter? I kind of assumed you were calling to tell me how I was getting my twenty-five grand. Whether you were going to drop off a check at the hotel or make me meet you someplace for it.”

“How can you look at yourself in the mirror?”

“Think about it another day. Maybe two. But screaming at me and insulting me only makes me less…patient. And it makes me focus on how much I’m really going to need. So, that twenty-five grand? It just became thirty.”

“Already you’re asking for more? How did I know you’d do that? Is it because you’re such a pathetic, sexist loser?”

“Just words, buddy. Just words. So, here are the only ones you should be thinking about: I will ruin you. I really will. I’m in survival mode. So make no mistake: I…will…ruin…you. Sleep on ’em, okay?”