Page 40 of The Mad Don
Fabiano taps the screen and turns it so we can both see.
The file is short. It’s a field surveillance photograph, three weeks old, taken in a city I recognize asBratislava. A man in his late twenties is leaving an apartment building. Tall. The line of the jaw is not quite right but close. All I can clearly make out is dark hair and a thin frame.
Who is this? What does he have to do with her? Was this another man lurking at her side?
Fabiano says. “Kirill has six men on the ground in Bratislava. They have been working in the city for two months. Inquiring about a man matching this physical profile.”
He swipes, and another image appears — the same man at a cafe. Then a third image, closer, the face partially obscured by a hand holding a coffee cup to his mouth.
“The name?” I ask.
And who is he to her?But I decide not to be hasty with that question.
“Christov Volkov.”
I sit with it.
Christov.
She said the name in the study.I have a brother too.
I thought she was lying to get away from my wrath. I guess I was wrong, she does have a brother. A missing brother, Kirill, is helping her to find.
Is this why you’re so loyal to him?I think.It’s quite easy to buy your loyalty, huh?
I look at the photograph again.
“And Kirill is looking for him.”
“On her behalf, I would assume.”
I lean back in the chair.
I take the cigarette out of my mouth without lighting it, and I roll it between my fingers.
So, she had been telling the truth in the study. I do not know what to do with that.
I set the cigarette down on the edge of the desk.
“What else?”
Fabiano hesitates and swipes again. The screen changes to a different layout, a list of database queries, returns, and nulls.
“This is what bothers me, Don Mondi. We pulled every standard registry we have access to. Birth records, citizenship records, tax records, and records from three countries: Italy, America, and Russia. She has no entries. Not a single one.”
I look at him.
“None?”
“None in Russia. Not in any neighboring state. Not under that name, not under any of the seven alternate spellings we tried, not under any patronymic combination consistent with a Christov Volkov. She does not appear to exist.”
I stare at the screen.
“Il Pakhan tiene il suo guinzaglio molto stretto,” I say to myself.
The Pakhan keeps his leash very short.
She is invisible; she has no passport that traces back to a person, no birth certificate, so she has no past anyone can pull on. She is, in every sense, Kirill’s property. He can keep and do away with her as he pleases.
