Chapter 3
BOGDAN
At two in the morning, the party is over and a woman's coat is still hanging downstairs.
Klim Belyaev stands across my desk with his phone in his hand.
He brought me the first report before midnight, while there were still guests to question and rooms to search.
Now the dance floor is empty, the staff have checked every place a drunk woman might fall asleep, and Colette, Beatrice's friend, has stopped calling her phone long enough to cry.
“Nothing?” I ask.
“Nothing inside. Two of my men are checking the streets again. Colette says she'd never leave without telling her.”
The bone-white skull mask lies beside my elbow, one satin ribbon trailing over the edge of the desk.
I lift it out of the way as Klim sets down his phone.
On the screen, a woman in silver wings smiles beside the costume display.
Her mask hides most of her face. Someone has taken the picture from slightly below, giving her wings the full height of the club behind them.
“Beatrice,” he says. “Twenty-nine. Colette gave us the photograph.”
Earlier, I admired the work that went into those wings. The woman who made them stood beside me at the bar, explaining how she'd kept the supports light enough for dancing. I can still hear her amusement at the idea of charging me more.
The painted edge of my mask digs into my palm. I set it down and look at Beatrice's smile again. She vanished from my building, and I can't tell Klim how she left it.
My office overlooks the main room through smoked glass, but from the desk I can see only the top of the nearest chandelier.
Blackened bronze branches hold dozens of small bulbs above an empty booth.
I had the glass fitted so I could watch the floor without spending every evening with people who wanted something from me. Tonight, the view is useless.
The room behind it cost more than my first freight depot.
Pale stone surrounds the fireplace, and the long leather sofa facing it was made to fit the wall.
A bank of locked cabinets holds the property papers for two clubs and the freight company.
Visitors tend to look at the cabinets before they sit down. Luka Zaitsev looked at the view.
He wanted a share of everything beneath it.
Hours ago, he sat opposite me and called his demand a partnership. A portion of my club income, access to my freight routes, a say in which men oversaw them. In return, his crew would stop troubling businesses that dealt with mine.
I refused him. He left with the same men he'd brought, all of them walking, which was more courtesy than the proposal deserved.
Now my security chief has a missing guest and a photograph. I don't like the proximity of those two problems, but I won't mistake it for proof that they're connected.
“Where was she last seen?”
“Going into the side corridor with a man dressed as a worker. One of the costume women saw them. She told the front desk when Colette started asking.” Klim picks up his phone. “We have their contact details. They stayed to help look, then left. Colette's still with the officers downstairs.”
“And the man?”
“Black clothes. Skull mask. No name.”
I look at my painted bone-white mask on the desk. A skull mask gives me almost nothing. Half the room wore a face that wasn't theirs tonight. We advertised that privilege, charged for it, and filled the building.
“Show me the corridor footage.”
Klim's mouth tightens. “That's why I came up. The camera at the rear service door stopped recording during the event. We're checking the unit.”
The cup beside my hand holds the espresso I forgot to drink. I take a mouthful anyway. It's cold and bitter, leaving a sour edge against my tongue, and I set it down harder than I intend.
One camera doesn't cover the building. There are others above the entrance, the bar, the main floor. The rear one covers the door at the end of the service wing, where deliveries arrive and workers carry things the public never sees.
It's also the camera I need now.
My phone vibrates against the stone desktop. Kirill's name fills the screen.
I answer on speaker while I reach for my jacket. “Tell me.”
“Both depots are quiet,” he says. “No visitors, no trouble with the trucks. Luka's men haven't approached anybody else.”
Kirill Uvarov runs the freight side of my operation.
The company on the paperwork is Volkov Freight.
The men collecting protection money under its name belong to my bratva.
Kirill knows which drivers can be trusted with a late delivery and which captains will start a fight because they're bored.
When he tells me the depots are quiet, he's checked them himself.
“Keep the night crews where they are. I need Klim here.”
“I've heard. How much are you giving the police?”
Klim watches me as I pull my jacket over my shoulders.
The lining slips cool against my wrists.
There are legitimate contracts in this room that make us a great deal of money, and there are arrangements a detective would find considerably more interesting.
Kirill has spent years helping me keep those parts of the operation separate.
“The guest records and the footage,” I say. “Anything that helps them find her.”
“They'll ask about more than a guest.”
“Then they'll ask.”
He goes quiet. Through the phone, I hear a door close, followed by the scrape of something dragged across concrete. He's at one of the depots, working while other men sleep. I trust him with that business. He can disagree with me without forgetting whose decision this is.
“I won't lose a woman because we're worried about questions,” I tell him. “Keep the freight moving. Call if Luka changes his mind about leaving us alone.”
“Understood.”
I end the call and leave the mask on the desk.
In the corridor outside my office, the music has been replaced by the sounds of closing.
Glasses touch in a tub below us. A wheel squeals as someone moves a bin across the floor.
From the gallery, I can see the silver moons still turning above the platform, although nobody is looking up at them anymore.
The staff have left the costume display in place.
Without the crowd, its small size surprises me.
Two women filled that corner with enough color and movement to draw people away from the bar.
Now a folded cape lies beside the booking cards, and the sign promising October stands over a table with one empty glass on it.
I stop at the top of the stairs. Below, a member of staff speaks softly to Colette near the front desk. Her shoulders shake. The pale coat remains on its hanger behind her, its belt almost touching the floor.
She expects her friend to come back for it.
I want to give her that ordinary ending. An angry apology, a dead phone, someone embarrassed about how much trouble she's caused. I've dealt with enough disappearances to know how quickly men settle for the explanation that makes their own night easier.
“Has she eaten?” I ask Klim.
“She wouldn't take anything.”
“Keep someone with her. If she wants to go home, we arrange a car.”
He sends a message as we go downstairs. I turn toward the side passage before Colette looks up. Until I have something useful to tell her, my presence would only make her search my face for an answer.
The staff corridor narrows beyond the fitting room.
Velvet gives way to painted walls, with long scuffs at the height of the garment racks.
Someone has pushed the racks into their marked storage space, leaving a clear route to the turn.
The shoulders of an empty costume knock together as we pass, metal hangers tapping against the rail.
A few hours ago, I walked this stretch holding a woman's hand.
I glance at the bathroom door. It's shut, the crooked sign showing vacant.
I remember red satin sliding beneath my palms and the way she pulled me to her.
My hand tightens at my side before I make it relax.
She found the state of the room funny, and I liked that she laughed before checking whether I'd find it funny too.
There was no calculation in it that I could see, no careful attention to my surname or to the men waiting upstairs. For a little while, I was a stranger whose tailoring she'd inspected and whose invitation she'd declined because her friend needed help.
I want to see her again. The thought is inconveniently clear, even here.
Klim continues toward the turn, and I follow him. The bathroom falls out of sight behind us.
At the rear of the building, the ceiling lowers around old pipes painted the same gray as the walls. A yellow safety stripe marks the edge of the loading threshold. The reserve-store door stands open from the search, showing shelves of boxed decorations and the backs of stacked chairs.
The air is cooler here. Damp cardboard gives off a sour smell beside the recycling cage, and rainwater darkens the concrete beneath the loading door. When I bought the warehouse, this wing was almost the only part that didn't need rebuilding. Its usefulness mattered more than its appearance.
Klim stops short of the camera.
The housing hangs at an angle above the restricted service door. A piece of its clear cover lies on the floor beneath it. The lens points toward the wall, where a fresh pale mark breaks the older paint.
My shoulders draw so tight the jacket pulls across my back. Somebody struck this camera and left it pointing at the wall.
“Nobody touches it,” I say.
“They haven't. I stopped the staff coming through when we found the cover.”
I step to one side, keeping clear of the fragment.
The camera is above easy reach, but the working space beneath it holds everything a busy venue uses to move equipment.
Whoever damaged it didn't need to enter a private office or pass my desk.
Tonight there were people in this wing with legitimate reasons to be here.