Dark Eyes Part 6

"There are a few places where young people in your daughter's situation will appear from time to time. Wallis dropped in at the Harmony House in Midtown last week, and one of the counselors there pa.s.sed her my card."

Claire was silent for a moment, deep in thought.

"You haven't made much progress, then ... with the Manetti girl's case? What was her name?"

"Sophia," Atley said. "People call her Sophie, on the street. Unfortunately, most of our leads have gone cold. Our best shot is to have someone come forward with information to trade, and there's a pretty good chance of that. We just don't know if that will happen tomorrow or a year from now."

"If you would keep me posted on her case, I would appreciate it. I realize the girl and I have no real connection, but ..."

"I understand," said Greer, and he did. The victim was not Mrs. Stoneman's daughter, but she could have been.

SEVEN.

It had been a strange week for the crew, beginning with Wally's encounter in Brighton Beach and then their visit all together to the Hamlisch Brothers shop. There had been skepticism about the contents of the Brighton Beach file-on Jake's part especially-but the value of the alexandrite stone had gone a long way toward convincing them that the contents of the file were the real thing. Of course, the specialness of the stone raised more questions than it answered. Why had Yalena included the stone with the Brighton Beach file? Was it just a gift for Wally, or did the stone have some significance beyond its use as currency? Wally had no idea.

Eight thousand dollars. Eighty Benjamins, crisp and clean, far more than any of them had ever seen in one place. Wally was anxious to get started on her search, but the opportunity to spoil her friends was irresistible. Unlike Wally, the others in the crew had led lives full of sadness and violence and deprivation, and Wally now had the means to make them feel special. She decided to put off her quest for just a few days; the four of them would have a weekend full of indulgence.

The surprise was, spending money was harder for the crew than they imagined it could be. They needed almost nothing, day to day, and owning things just slowed them down. Jake and Tevin had ridiculously campaigned for a Wii video game console, and the girls humored them enough to make the trip to an electronics store on Broadway to check it out.

"What are we supposed to do with one of these?" Ella asked as they stood in the video game demo s.p.a.ce of the Midtown Best Buy. "Lug it from squat to squat?"

"That's what shopping carts are for," Jake said.

"Actually, no it's not. And that screen is like seven feet across."

Wally stood by and let them duke it out-that was always half the fun, anyway. Ella's common sense won out, of course, and the guys had ended up just playing the demo machine for a couple of hours until a beefy pair of security guards suggested that it was time to move on.

The four of them did make some purchases. Ella had been coveting a pair of shiny new combat boots, and a trip downtown to a military surplus store fixed that, also netting a few thermal layers for everyone's outfits. The girls refreshed their supply of mascara and trashy nail polish. They pa.s.sed by a western wear store, which Tevin and Jake could not resist. They went inside and both bought real cowboy hats-Stetsons. They made it half a block down the street before Jake saw his own real world reflection in a store window.

"Oh man! I look like a douche!" he howled his buyer's remorse out loud, ignoring the looks of amused pa.s.sersby.

"Me too!" Tevin had to agree. "That had to be some kinda trick mirror in the store. We were robbed."

"Why didn't you two say anything?" Jake asked the girls with an accusatory look.

"I think you both look great," Wally said with a straight face, but then her eyes met Ella's and they burst out laughing.

"You guys suck," Jake said.

The guys went back and returned the hats to a testy salesclerk. At a motorcycle-chic boutique in the Village, Ella bought a good-looking leather vest and Jake bought a studded leather belt by the same label. At an expensive outdoor supply shop, Tevin got a stylish messenger bag with reflecting straps. Wally picked up a colorful striped watch cap, very warm, but her biggest gift came from seeing the glee in her friends' faces as they treated themselves.

They saw a couple of bad 3-D movies and ate like pigs, four meals each day, until even Ella seemed to lose interest. They went ice skating at Rockefeller, which was fun but insanely crowded. By Sunday afternoon, when the weekend of splurging was starting to feel anticlimactic, Wally had an inspiration; they jumped in a cab and headed for Madison Square Garden.

"The Knicks?" Tevin guessed, hopeful.

"Nope." Wally kept them in suspense.

They reached the Garden and Wally led them to the ticket booth, where a video screen was playing a preview of the Cirque du Soleil show called K, which seemed to be about futuristic s.p.a.ce pirates. Wally had good memories of their performance called O, which Claire and Jason had treated her to for her eighth birthday.

"Oh, h.e.l.l no," Jake said. "Nothing with guys in tights."

"Trust me," Wally said, and bought four good seats.

The show was mesmerizing. Jake's complaining stopped from the first explosive moment of gravity-defying action, and the staging of the show was unlike anything they had seen before, better than any special effects fantasy film because it was actually happening right in front of them. Even the corny outfits-lots of colorful jockstraps and feathers-seemed appropriate. By the time they walked out of the theater, the four of them were smiling and feeling as though their weekend had been perfect. Wally was grateful for how well things had ended; the next morning her energy would be focused squarely on the search for Yalena, and she was counting on the help of her friends.

Early Monday morning, Wally turned her attention once again to the contents of the Brighton Beach file. She was determined, this time, to keep her emotional responses to the items in check and try to view the file with scientific objectivity. As the others looked on, she laid the items out on the floor of the lobby and went over each piece closely, disappointed again by their terrible condition. In many cases the bad quality was due to water damage, but not all: some of the older doc.u.ments had faded so badly that they were illegible. Most were in Russian anyway, and although she could afford to hire a translator, she doubted the ancient doc.u.ments would have much relevance in the search for her mother. If her interpretation of the letter was correct, the contents of the file were meant to fill in blanks in Wally's own history, not help locate Yalena.

Wally came to the two stapled pages that looked like a photocopied newspaper article. "There's stuff still legible here."

"That name ..." said Tevin, reading over Wally's shoulder. A partial line was still clear and un-smeared on the page, revealing what looked like most of a name: -amin Hatch. "I bet that first name is Benjamin. Benjamin Hatch."

"Hold on a second ..." said Jake, and he disappeared out the emergency exit, returning a few seconds later with a stack of newspapers tied together with string, probably bound for the recycling Dumpster. Jake ripped through the twine-his athlete's muscles kicking in-and went through the pile, pulling out one example of each local paper. "We don't know if the article is from a New York paper, but we can find out."

"Right," said Wally. "Smart, Jake."

"See how much I have to offer, Wally?" he said with a wry look. "I'm not just pretty and powerful. I have a brain, too."

"You've really opened my eyes here, Jake," she answered. "Keep it up."

Wally and Jake were often tied up in some sort of power struggle, but when it was time for him to step up for the group-or her-she had always been able to count on him. It made Wally feel grateful that he was pitching in to help now, however skeptical he was.

She held the fragment of the newspaper article up to each of the local papers in turn-the Times, the Post, the Voice, the Daily News, the Journal-and the type and format clearly matched one.

"Wall Street Journal, definitely," Ella declared.

"We can check their archives at the library," Tevin said.

They reached the Bloomingdale Library by ten o'clock and were first in line for an Internet terminal. Jake and Ella went to kill time in the periodical section, while Tevin went with Wally to her a.s.signed computer, where she logged on to the Wall Street Journal archives. She searched for Benjamin Hatch and soon there it was, an article in the Small Business section of the Journal, May of 1992. It was a human-interest story mostly, relaying the experiences of entrepreneur Benjamin Hatch, who had tried to start an import-and-export firm in the new (back then) post-Soviet Russia. Hatch had encountered many problems, citing outdated business practices and corruption.

Hatch was described as a native New Yorker and former teacher. According to the article, Hatch's business idea was to buy and relabel an inexpensive brand of vodka, popular in Russia but unknown outside the country. The packaging would be upmarket and s.e.xy, and the advertising campaign would play on the idea that the vodka was a fresh, undiscovered treasure from behind the Iron Curtain. By the time of the article's appearance, Hatch's scheme had already fallen apart, though he gave very few details on the causes for his failure.

It was still unclear what connection there was between Hatch and Wally's Russian mother, Yalena, or if he would know anything about how to find her. But there had to be a reason, Wally figured, why the Journal article on Hatch had been included in the Brighton Beach file. The only way forward was to find Benjamin Hatch and ask him. A Google search for Hatch yielded no results, other than the same Journal article, so Wally made the decision to spend $79.95 at one of the Internet's Friend Search sites, which basically amounted to online stalking. The results came up within seconds, but unfortunately the search located 183 Benjamin Hatches of appropriate age (thirty-five and older) living in the U.S., many in far-flung destinations, including Hawaii and Alaska.

"Too many Benjamins," Tevin said. "Never thought I'd see the day."

Wally and Tevin met up with Ella and Jake outside the library and gave them a look at the long list of Benjamin Hatches.

"d.a.m.n," Ella said, perusing the long list. "So many."

Wally pulled out her new cell phone. "Panama says I've got over a thousand minutes on here."

Mentioning Panama's name reminded Wally that he had been her initial connection to the Brighton Beach shop. Panama was wired in with most every black-market operation in the city, so Wally made a mental note to question him about the place later on.

The crew headed back to the bank and began calling all the numbers, the phone's charger plugged into an outlet on the bank floor the entire time. They took turns at it, relay style, reading off a script like telemarketers. "h.e.l.lo, may I speak to Benjamin Hatch? h.e.l.lo, Mr. Hatch, I'm calling on behalf of a friend, Yalena Mayakova. No? Sir, by any chance did you ever live or do business in Russia or the Soviet Union? h.e.l.lo?"

The process went on for three full days, not because the actual calls added up to that but because of the inevitable hang-ups, multiple re-calls that bordered on hara.s.sment, and extended games of phone tag played back and forth across various time zones. At one point, Wally had to run out to a local cell phone kiosk to buy two thousand more minutes. She found herself fighting a sense of futility-in both herself and the crew-as the process wore on.

In the end, not one of the numbers or addresses had yielded a connection to the Benjamin Hatch they were looking for.

"s.h.i.t," Wally had said when they finally reached the last name on the list, a Ben Hatch Jr. in Flagstaff, Arizona. He did not know Yalena Mayakova and had never traveled outside Arizona, though he had plans to do so when he was old enough to drive.

"I'm gonna go to the Sommers-Bausch Observatory in Colorado," said Ben Jr., age nine. "They have a twenty-four-inch telescope and they let people look through it."

"Wow," Ella said, impressed. "Do you watch the sky in Flagstaff?"

"Sure," said Ben. "I have my own telescope, which is smaller than the Sommers-Bausch, but I can see a lot from my backyard."

"Cool," said Ella.

At that time, Ben's father-Benjamin Hatch Sr.-took the phone from his son and confirmed that he had never heard of Yalena Mayakova, either, and had also never been to Russia. Ben Jr. bugged his father to let him back on the phone with Ella but Ben Sr. said "no" and hung up. That call marked the end of the three-day labor with not a single valuable lead to show for their effort.

The crew put on their coats and headed out of the bank, bound for a j.a.panese ramen shop on 86th Street, where they were eager to spend more of the money from the gem sale. They ate their noodles at the counter, mostly in silence as they contemplated other ways to track down Hatch.

Wally considered a short list of people who might be able to help with her search, but it was frustrating because each was unacceptable for their own reasons. First there was Claire, who was smart and resourceful but would have a meltdown if she found out Wally was looking for her birth mother. The second person who came to mind was Claire's lawyer, Natalie Stehn, who was the most calm, together person in Claire's life and seemed to be pretty hooked up, resource wise. But Claire brought Natalie tons of real estate business, giving her the kind of income that bought loyalty; Wally figured Natalie would most likely rat her out to Claire.

The last idea Wally had was the best, by far, coming to her as a slap-on-the-forehead obvious solution. Wally wolfed down the last of her noodles and threw her bag over her shoulder.

"I think I have something," she said to the crew, and they were happy enough to let her go alone. Three days of wasted time on the phone had burned them out.

EIGHT.

The address was a third floor walk-up, just across Lexington Avenue from the 92nd Street YMCA. There were several shops on the ground floor, including a mom-and-pop doughnut shop, so the air carried the delectable aroma of sweet dough being deep-fried.

Wally felt hopeful as she climbed the stairs to the third floor and walked to the last door in the hallway. On the wooden door there was a small logo-the silhouette of a bear-and printed underneath it, THE URSULA SOCIETY. Everything about the location was low-key, nothing that would attract undue attention in this dark corner of the Upper East Side. Wally knocked gently before opening the door and stepping inside the small office, where an elderly man, in his mid-eighties at least, wearing a gray suit and tie, looked up from behind the computer monitor on one of the office's two desks. The second desk was empty.

"h.e.l.lo," said the man behind the desk, with a slight Australian accent. "May I help you?"

"Uh ... I spoke to a woman the last time I was here," Wally said, not looking forward to explaining her story to someone new. "An Asian woman. Her name was Carrie?"

"Yes," said the man, and gave a slight nod toward the empty desk at the other side of the small room. "Carrie is in graduate school these days, so her hours here are very irregular."

"Oh."

"I'm sure I can take up where Carrie left off. I'm Lewis Jordan."

"I'm Wally." Wally sat down in the guest chair opposite Lewis. "Wallis Stoneman."

Lewis typed Wally's name into his computer. "We're just beginning the process of digitizing our files, but we've begun with the most recent and are working our way backward, so yours might be on ... yes. Here it is. Wallis Stoneman."

Lewis was quiet as his eyes scanned the file on his monitor. Wally noted that unlike most folks over the age of sixty, Lewis seemed completely natural using the computer.

"I see you first came in almost three years ago," said Lewis as he continued reading the screen, "and last checked in two years ago?"

"Yeah, two years is about right," Wally replied, suddenly feeling negligent. "Should I have been-?"

"Not at all," Lewis said.

Three years earlier, Wally had read an article about adopted people-of all ages-who were actively searching for their birth parents. One resource mentioned by the article was the Ursula Society, described as a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping adoptees with particularly difficult searches. Wally had come in on her own-without Claire's knowledge, of course-at the age of thirteen. She had met with a young Korean American woman named Carrie, who had taken down Wally's particulars and started a file for her. Carrie's search had come up empty. For several months after that, Wally had called in on a regular basis to check on any progress, but the answer had always been negative and eventually Wally had stopped calling.

"I'm afraid there's been no change to your case," Lewis said. "But I promise we will continue looking. Was there some new information you wanted us to add to your file?"

"I have a name," Wally answered. "Someone who may have known my mother in Russia. The thing is, I've tried every way I can think of but I can't find him."

"I see." Lewis considered this development, a guarded look on his face. "I could use a cup of tea. Black or green?"

"Uh, sure," Wally said. "Black." She had seen a mood change in Lewis and guessed this did not bode well for her.

Lewis boiled some water in a plug-in teapot, then poured it into cups with the earthy-smelling tea bags. Wally watched him. There was a forlorn quality that seemed to hover around him. Maybe it was the work. No doubt the Ursula Society experienced far more failure than success.

"Hot," he said as he handed Wally her tea, then he sat back down.

"Thanks."

"There's a line, Wallis," Lewis began after a moment. "What we have access to ... the information, the various kinds of resources ... it's a very sensitive situation."

Wally nodded. Carrie had explained this to her in very vague terms, several years earlier, but the thrust of it was that the Ursula Society achieved its successes through unconventional resources that were outside the boundaries of what was generally available, or even the boundaries of the law.

"Over the years we've arrived at some important guidelines that govern what we are willing to do and what we are not."

"Okay ..." Wally said, remaining hopeful.

"Here's what I can do in this situation. You supply me with the name of the source; I'll track it down and see if your source is interested in cooperating. If so, then good. If not, we walk away."

Wally considered this, fighting a sense of disappointment.

"I think I get it," she said. "People come in here and make up stories, sometimes? To find someone they're looking for, but for different reasons?"

"It's happened." Lewis nodded. "With terrible consequences. Imagine a violent criminal using us to locate an enemy. Or an abusive husband lying about his situation so that we'll help track down his wife, who is in hiding. These are extreme examples, but-"

"I'm not doing anything like that. ..."

"I believe you," said Lewis, "but as I say, the rules are strict for good reason."

Lewis read the impatience in Wally's face when he gave her this final word. "This process can be frustrating."

"Yes," Wally said. "It's just, your rules seem pretty unimportant to me right now."