Two guys went to a club, chatted up a woman,then left. Six of them used to be enrolled at BU and lived or hungout in a dorm. NBD. Students drop out of college all the time. Thatthey’re from Russia isn’t a crime. We checked, and all of them arehere legally. We have no doubt those on the student visas willleave soon since their status has changed. Something simple as thatto trace wouldn’t go unnoticed, and these guys do not want to be onour radar. They’ll leave and new men will come in. The continuoussupply of members of theBratvacoming from Russia seemsendless. Unless and until one of them tries to enter the countrywith a different passport than the first one they produced, wecan’t stop them from coming.
So we wait.
Adam – a team member and my partner in thisoperation – and I were relieved from our surveillance of theMelrose house at 20:00 hours.
I’m home now, and the first thing I do isgrab Flower’s letter, lie on the sofa, and tear open the envelope.Five minutes later, I’m in front of my laptop researching – likeeveryone else does – psychologists who specialize in middle andlate-stage adolescence in the Northeast.
I can’t believe she’s that close to me. Ialso can’t believe eleven states make up the Northeast. The totalpopulation of these eleven states is fifty-six million people.
The densest in the US.
Of course.
I grew up in a small town in central Oregon –population two thousand. I went to college in Eugene – populationabout one hundred seventy thousand. I worked in Portland,population about six hundred fifty-five thousand. While Bostonproper isn’t much bigger than Portland population wise, the Bostonmetro area is home to about five million people.
To say the odds of finding Flower fast arenot good is a fucking understatement.Shit.New York Statealone has over twelve thousand licensed psychologists. I’m nothingif not determined, but tonight I’m wiped. The past two days havebeen intense and I’ve had no sleep in nearly forty hours.
I take Flower’s letter to bed and read it acouple more times. She’s cute, and she’s a tease.
Perfect.
With her on my mind, knowing she’s no morethan a few hundred miles away, I drop into a dreamless sleep.
Hey babe,
Too bad TLC won’t let you send me cupcakes.I’m with Boo. Anything left over is mine. I like it all: cakes,pies, cookies, and pastries. I can’t bake worth a damn, but my momis a good cook and loves to bake. She had three guys in the house,and her mission was to make sure we were well fed. When we wereteenagers, she used to tell my brother and I we were eating her outof house and home, but she made sure there were always cookies or acouple of pies around for us to dig into.
Think I covered the whole Ziggy situationalready, but to underline it, she needs to calm the fuck down.
The falafel was good. Yours sounds better.When I go back, I’ll find out where the folks that own the placeare from. Somewhere in the Middle East, but I’m not sure whichcountry.
Here’s what I found out about the girl:she’s home with her folks recovering, and she dropped out ofcollege. I hope knowing she’s doing better gives you some peace ofmind.
I haven’t had a chance to watch Good WillHunting, but I will, and I’ll let you know what I think.
Once you get your acreage, you should have agreenhouse so you can enjoy flowers year-round. My dad built anenormous greenhouse for my mom, and even though I’m not intogardening – too many years of having to pull weeds and mow the lawn– even I think her greenhouse is something else.
Now, about that flirting… You’re good at it.Keep doing it.
Ross
What I can’t tell Flower is that according toJessica’s cardiologist, while the prognosis about her heart is“cautiously optimistic,” she may have suffered “mild cognitivefunction loss” due to the suppression of her heart at the onset ofthe overdose. In other words, too much time passed between theheart attack and when the EMTs got her on oxygen. Now, this brightyoung woman has to work with neurologists and therapists for whothe fuck knows how long to see if she can recapture what her brainlost. I don’t know the extent of it, but her speech is slurred, andshe doesn’t remember certain words. The good news is she’s young,and the brain’s amazing. I have to hold on to that every day tokeep from doing something that will cost me my career and put me inLeavenworth for the rest of my life.
A VSD, Victim Services Division, member hasbeen assigned to Jessica and her family, who live in a small townoutside Pittsburgh. We’ll receive updates, but we’ve been told notto expect miracles, and that if there are improvements, they’lltake time.
All this shit rolls around my brain as I’mstuck in this car surveilling the house in Melrose. Activity issporadic. Some days, all eleven of these fucking assholes are theretogether, which we figure means they’re plotting and planning. Oneof them must be the go-between for whoever’s running this shit showand the soldiers on the ground. We haven’t been able to establishwho the “senior” man is, but everyone in that house is beingfollowed.
So far, only the two who approached Benitaare hitting the clubs. The rest are trolling the over one hundredcollege campuses in and around Boston. No surprise why theyselected here. The pickings are ripe for their brand of humantrafficking.
What we wouldn’t give to have ears insidethat house. But we know, and it sucks, the AUSA, Assistant USAttorney, assigned to our case told us she wouldn’t even botherasking a judge for a “listening” warrant. The fact that the threeguys who roofied Jessica and Sky have been seen with six of the menin that house falls far short of the legal threshold necessary fora warrant.
As a watcher, I don’t mind stakeouts as muchas other agents, but I have to admit, the work is tedious, and ittakes a toll on the body. Sitting for long periods of time,especially for big guys who are used to working out regularly,causes serious muscle cramps. Peeing into Gatorade bottles – wideropenings – is a necessity since we have to be as close to invisibleas possible.
Staking out the house may be coming to anend. It looks like we caught a break. One of the homes across thestreet, and three houses down from the Russians, is a rental thatwill be vacated this weekend. We’ve secured the house, and we’removing in on Wednesday, the first of November. Adam and I are “therenters.” We’re posing as a married gay couple, which should makeother men coming and going from the house less suspicious. Benitawon’t be at the rental for obvious reasons. She’s following one ofthe guys who didn’t approach her, and when she’s in work attire,trust me, she looks nothing like she did that night.
I’ve got to pack up my clothes and Dopp kit.I won’t be going back to my place until the surveillance is over.My bills and regular mail are being forwarded to a P.O. box inCambridge. I’m not giving up Flower, and I changed my mailingaddress with TLC to a P.O. box in Saugus.
Another angle I’m working that may yieldsomething is to talk to Natalia Surkis, who under an assumed namewas hiding from a Providence mobster named Ivan Demko in Fiddler’sRest, my hometown. She worked with my mother, of all things, atGusk’s Hardware. Natalia approached me at a family dinner about hersituation with Demko. At the time, I worked for Portland PD,assigned to the area FBI Terrorism Task Force. I passed the matterover to Skip, who was already in Boston, and he put together a casethat resulted in Demko and his crew being incarcerated or deported,depending on their immigration status.