Chapter Fifteen
THE LIGHTS OF ATLANTIC City glitter along the boardwalk, as bright as day. We finally get out of the taxi in front of the Taj Mahal hotel, both of us sleepy and stretching from the long trip.
I look at my watch. It’s about fifteen minutes after nine. She’s late.
“I guess I can take it from here,” Lila says.
Yawning, I take out a pen, her pen. The one she was writing on her leg with. I write my number on her arm, right above the top of her glove.
She’s watching with half-lidded eyes as ink marks stretch across her skin. I wonder what it would be like to kiss her now, under the streetlight, with my eyes open.
“Let me know when you’re okay,” I say softly instead.
She looks at the number. “Are you going back?”
I shake my head. “I’ll stretch my legs and get something to eat. I’m not going anywhere until you call.”
She nods. “Wish me luck.”
“Luck,” I say.
I watch her walk off, a swagger in her stride, toward the hotel entrance. I wait a couple of minutes, then I start through the doors into the casino.
Inside I inhale the familiar smell of stale cigarillos and whisky. The machines sing and clank. Coins clatter in the distance. People hunker over the slots, big plastic cups in one hand and tokens in the other. Some of them look like they’ve been there a long time.
Two security guys peel away from the wall and start in my direction.
“Hey, kid,” one of them calls. “Wait a sec.” They probably figure I’m underage.
“Just leaving,” I say, and push through the back door. The sea air stings my face.
I stalk down the worn gray planks, hands in my pockets, thinking of Lila upstairs with her father. When I was a kid, Zacharov was a shadowy figure, a legend, the boogeyman. I met him maybe three times, and one of those times was while I was being thrown out of his daughter’s birthday party.
He laughed, I remember that.
At the back of the Taj Mahal a few old women lean over a railing, throwing something onto the sand. Some guys in tracksuits smoke near the entrance, calling to women as they pass. And a man in a long cashmere coat and silvery white hair looks out at the sea.
I touch my pocket with my phone in it. I should call Grandad, but I’m not ready to make excuses.
The white-haired man turns toward me. Glancing around, I notice two huge guys trying to look inconspicuous near a taffy shop window.
“Cassel Sharpe,” Mr. Zacharov says, slight accent making my name sound exotic. Even though it’s already dark, sunglasses cover his eyes. A fat, pale red stone glitters in the pin on his tie. “I believe a phone call was made to me from your cell phone.”
Turns out Mom was right about landlines after all.
“Okay,” I say, trying to act casual.
He looks around as if he’ll be able to pick her out of the crowd. “Where is she?”
“Up in the room,” I tell him. “Where she said she was going to be.”
There’s a deep-throated yowl, and I turn suddenly, my body jerking. My muscles hurt. I forgot how sore they already were.
Mr. Zacharov laughs. “Cats,” he says. “Dozens of feral cats under the boardwalk. Lila always loved cats. You remember.”
I don’t say anything.
“If she was in the room, my people would have called.” He tilts his head and slips a gloved hand into his pocket. “I think you are playing a game. Who did you get to pretend to be my daughter on the phone? Were you going to ask me for money? This seems like a very stupid game.”
“She said to meet her alone.” I lean toward him, and he holds out a gloved hand to stop me from getting too close. One of his goons heads toward us. I lower my voice. “She probably saw one of your people and split.”
He laughs. “You are a pathetic villain, Cassel Sharpe. A real disappointment.”
“No,” I say. “She really is—” The big guy jerks my arms back and up, hard.
“Please,” I gasp. “My ribs.”
“Thanks for telling me where to hit,” the guy says. His nose is permanently bent to one side. He’s a living stereotype.
Mr. Zacharov pats my cheek. I can smell the leather of his glove. “I thought you might turn out more like your grandfather, but your mother spoiled all you boys.”
That makes me laugh.
The guy jerks my arms up again. They make a sound like they’re popping out of their sockets, and I make a different kind of sound.
“Daddy.” Lila’s voice, pitched low and oddly menacing, cuts through the noise of the boardwalk. “Leave Cassel alone.”
Lila steps up from the beach. For a moment I see her as he must, half ghost and half stranger. She’s a woman, not the child that he lost, but her cruel mouth is identical to his own.
Besides, there can’t be that many people with a single blue eye and a single green one.
He blinks. Then he takes off his sunglasses slowly. “Lila?” He sounds as brittle as glass.
The guy relaxes his grip, and I jerk away from him. I try to rub some feeling back into my arms.
“I hope you trust your men,” she says. Her voice breaks. “Because this is secret. I am a secret.”
“I’m sorry,” says Mr. Zacharov. “I didn’t think you were real—” He reaches out gloved hands toward her.
She just stands there, bristling, like she’s fighting something wild inside her. She doesn’t go to him.
“Let’s get out of here,” I say, touching her arm. “We’ll get this sorted out in private.”
Zacharov looks at me like he can’t quite remember who I am.
“Inside,” I say.
The two big guys in long coats seem relieved to have something to do.
“People are looking,” one of them says, putting his hand on Mr. Zacharov’s back and steering him into the casino.
The other glances at me warily. Lila takes my gloved hand and gives him a cold look that I’m grateful for. He backs off, hanging behind us as we head into Taj Mahal.
I raise my eyebrows at Lila.
“You have a real talent for getting your ass kicked,” she says.
No one questions us as we walk across the casino floor and get into the elevator.
The raw emotion on Zacharov’s face is something private—something I know he wouldn’t want me to see. I wonder if I should try to leave, but Lila’s gloved hand is clutching mine hard enough to hurt. I try to keep my gaze trained above the elevator doors, watching the numbers go up and up and up.
In the suite there’s a wood-paneled wall with a single flat screen, a leather divan, and a bowl of fresh hydrangeas on a low table.
The place is enormous, cavernous, with massive windows open to show the expanse of ink black ocean beyond.
One of the big guys throws his coat over a chair and lets me see the guns strapped underneath his arms and across his back. More guns than he’s got hands.
Zacharov pours pale liquid into cut glass and throws it back. “You two want a drink?” he says to us. “Minibar is full of Cokes.”
I get up.
“No,” he says. “I am your host.” He nods to one of his men. The man grunts and moves to the refrigerator.
“Just water,” Lila says.
“Some aspirin,” I say.
“Oh, come on,” the guy says as he hands over the glasses and the pills. “I didn’t hurt you that bad.”
“Nope,” I say. “You didn’t.” I chew three aspirins and try to lean back against the pillows in a way that doesn’t make me want to scream.
“You go down to the casino,” Zacharov tells the guys. “Win some money.”
“Sure thing,” one says. He gets his coat again and they head slowly for the door. Zacharov looks at me like he wants to ask me to join them.
“Cassel,” he says, “how long have you known the location of my daughter?”
“About three days,” I say.
Lila narrows her eyes, but I figure there’s no point in hiding that.
He pours himself another drink. “Why didn’t you call me sooner?”
“Lila just showed up out of nowhere,” I say, which is basically true. “I thought she was dead. I haven’t seen her since we were both fourteen. I was just following her lead.”
Zacharov takes a sip from his glass and winces. “Lila, are you going to tell me where you’ve been?”
She shrugs slim shoulders and avoids his gaze.
“You’re protecting someone. Your mother? I always thought she’d taken you away from me. Tell me you got fed up with the old—”
“No!” Lila says.
He’s still lost in the thought. “She practically accused me of having you murdered. She told the FBI that I said you were better off dead than with her. The FBI!”
“I wasn’t with Mom,” Lila says. “Dad, Mom had nothing to do with this.”
He stops and stares at her. “Then what? Did someone do . . .” He leaves the sentence unfinished and turns toward me. “Did you? Did you hurt my daughter?”
I hesitate.
“He didn’t do anything to me,” Lila says.
Zacharov touches a gloved hand to my shoulder. “Your mother’s appeal is coming up, isn’t it, Cassel?”
“Yes, sir,” I say.
“I’d hate to see anything go wrong with that. If I find out—”
“Leave him alone,” says Lila. “Listen to me, Dad. Just listen for a minute. I’m not ready to talk about what happened. Stop trying to find someone to blame. Stop with the interrogation. I’m home now. Aren’t you glad I’m home?”
“Of course I’m glad,” he says, clearly stricken.
I touch my sore ribs without thinking. I want another aspirin, but I don’t know where the guy put the bottle.
“I’m trusting you for her sake,” he says to me, and then his voice softens. “My daughter and I need to talk. We need to be alone—you understand that, right?”
I nod my head. Lila is looking out at the black water. She doesn’t turn.
Zacharov takes his wallet from inside his jacket and counts out five hundred dollars. “Here,” he says.
“I can’t take that,” I say.
“I’d feel better if you did,” he says.
I stand up and try not to wince while doing it. I shake my head. “I hope you didn’t have your heart set on feeling better.”
He snorts. “One of the boys will see you home.”
“I can go? Really?”
“Don’t kid yourself. I can pick you up like a dime off the sidewalk anytime I want.”
I want to say something to Lila, but her back is still to me. I can’t guess her thoughts.
“I’m having a little party on Wednesday at a place called Koshchey’s. A fund-raiser. You should come,” Zacharov says. “Do you know why I like Koshchey’s?”
I shake my head.
“Do you know who Koshchey the Deathless is?”
“No,” I say, thinking of the strange mural on the ceiling of the restaurant.
“In Russian folklore Koshchey is a sorcerer who can become a whirlwind and destroy his enemies.” Zacharov touches the glittering pin on his chest. “He hides away his soul in a duck’s egg so he can’t be killed. Don’t cross me, Cassel. I am not a safe man to make your enemy.”
“I understand,” I say, and open the door. What I understand is that Lila and I are on our own and we don’t even have a plan.
“And, Cassel?”
I turn.
“Thank you for bringing my daughter back.”
I walk out the door. As I wait for the elevator to come, my phone rings. I am so tired that it seems a huge effort to take it out of my pocket.
“Hello?” I say.
“Cassel?” says Dean Wharton. He doesn’t sound happy.
“I’m sorry to be calling so late, but we just got the final call from one of our board members on the West Coast. Welcome back to Wallingford.
We got the report from your doctor and the whole board voted.
We’d like you to remain a day student on a probationary basis, but so long as you don’t get into any more trouble, we may consider letting you return to the dorms for your senior year. ”
I smother the ironic laughter that threatens to crawl up my throat. My con worked. I can go back to school. But I can’t go back to being the person I thought I was. “Thank you, sir,” I manage to say.
“We’ll expect to see you tomorrow morning, Mr. Sharpe. Since you’ve paid through the end of the year, please feel free to eat breakfast and dinner in the cafeteria.”
“Monday morning?” I echo.
“Yes, tomorrow, in the morning. Unless you have other plans,” he says dryly.
“No,” I say. “Of course not. See you tomorrow, Dean. Thank you, Dean.”
One of Zacharov’s guys drives me home. His name turns out to be Stanley. He’s from Iowa and doesn’t know practically any Russian. He’s not good with languages, he says.
He tells me all that when he lets me out in front of my house.
Even though he made me sit in the back of the town car with the tinted privacy divider up, I guess he could see more than I thought.
I guess he watched me unbutton my shirt and brush my fingers over the bruises purpling the skin over my ribs, testing each bone for give.
I’m not guessing that just because he was so friendly when we got to the house—he also gave me his entire bottle of aspirin.