…
Sonja, it would turn out, was full of surprises. When we got off the train in New York City, we took the shuttle to the Times Square. There she bought us blue and red knit caps for a New York football team to cover our hair, and sunglasses at a late-night souvenir shop. She bought knapsacks for this football team, handing me one.
Then we went to a twenty-four-hour store and bought two cell phones that were called “prepaid.” She said they were “burners.” We hadn’t had cell phones since we had been abducted, but sometimes we’d used Catherine’s or Inga’s or even one of the men’s. So we knew how much they had changed. But I was still impressed that Sonja knew that “burners” were the kind we wanted, because no one would know who we were or where we were. There was no contract, she said. We would use them and throw them away. Then we would buy more. She didn’t let me come into the store with her, because she didn’t want the man behind the counter to remember seeing two women together. She wore the knit cap but not the sunglasses, since sunglasses after midnight would look suspicious.
“We’re going to get hotel rooms—but in two different hotels,” she said. “People will be looking for us together.” She said the knapsacks were so it would look like we were tourists when we checked in, not courtesans hiding from our bosses or police guys.
“We look like schoolgirls,” I said. “Not tourists.”
She thought about this for a second and then said, “We do. Sort of. We look like we’re runaway stripper girls, maybe. That’s good. If we don’t like the hotels, maybe there’s a place we can find for runaway girls.”
She was right about how we looked. Schoolgirls don’t wear black thigh boots and miniskirts. We hadn’t put our stockings and garter belts back on when we left. She was wearing a thong, but neither one of us was wearing a shirt or a blouse under our leather jackets.
“Let’s just get off the street,” I said. “Any hotel is good hotel.” I knew they wouldn’t be nice places because we weren’t going to use Pavel’s and Kirill’s credit cards. We needed the sort of hotel that would take our cash and wouldn’t care who we were. “Okay? I’m really scared.”
“I know, Alexandra dear,” she said. “I am, too.”
“But tell me what you know. I have to know.”
“About Crystal…”
“Yes. About Crystal. Why did they kill her? Why were they going to kill us?”
She looked at one of the huge, blinking video billboards, alive even at this hour of the night. They were crazy hypnotic. Then she turned back to me. “Crystal had dude five days ago who turned out to be police guy.”
“Oh, fuck.”
“I know.”
“But he didn’t arrest her?”
She shook her head. “She had him again two days ago. He didn’t want sex. He wanted her to help him trap Yulian. Inga. You know, all bosses.”
“They’re too smart. Never happen.”
“He promised her she’d be okay. We’d be okay.”
“He was lying. We’d go to jail for sure, too.”
“She believed him.”
“She was crazy then. Crazier than you even.”
“I know. But think of how unhappy she was. Think of how much she wanted out. How she dreamed of being rescued.”
I nodded. I remembered.
“And Yulian had hunch about Crystal. He had Pavel follow police guy second time he came to the town house—after he left. When Pavel told Yulian he had guessed right and dude was police guy, that was it for Crystal.”
“Oh, God.”
“And Crystal had told me all about this! Asked me for my advice. I told her to tell police guy nothing, but she was into him. Believed him. So into him, she offered to wear a wire. Only reason she didn’t was because he wouldn’t let her. Said that was way too dangerous and she was way too young.”
A part of me thought this was almost funny: Crystal was old enough to fuck American johns but too young to wear a wire. But obviously nothing was really funny to me that night.
“So Yulian—”
“He beat Crystal until she confessed,” she said. “And then…well, you know what they did after that.”
“And you?”
“Police guy never came to me. I hadn’t been asked. But Crystal had told me too much, and Pavel had a feeling I hadn’t snitched on her. I said I didn’t know anything, but he didn’t believe me. He said I could no longer be trusted.” She reached out to me and held my arms in her hands. “Look, I don’t know for sure they were going to kill you. But I overheard what they were saying about me tonight. It was when they were in kitchen. And if they killed me, how could they not kill you? How?”
This was almost too much news to absorb, and I am smart enough girl that I can absorb a lot. When she felt me shivering the tiniest bit, she rubbed my arms like it was January in Moscow. Then she even gave me a small smile and said, “These blocks have strip clubs.” She let go of me and pointed first at one near where we had bought the knit hats, and then down a street where she said there was another. “And there was also one by the Empire State Building, yes?”