“She asked for a name,” he says. “Not a passport. Just something clean.”
He gives me the name.
I memorize it and leave.
I don’t stay. I close it, lock it, and leave it exactly the way she meant me to see it.
I check into a hotel under a name I’ve already burned once before and don’t bother unpacking. I spend the night going through old logistics contracts, drivers assigned to secondary routes, men who knew how to pick someone up without being noticed. When I can’t stare at paper anymore, I go down to the bar.
The bar’s on the first floor. It smells of old smoke and warm alcohol. Men crowd the tables, shoulders turned inward, conversations kept close to the glass.
Pyotr sits near the back, loud, glass in hand, one leg hooked around the table like he owns it. He’s a mid-level council fixer, a handler with too many stories and a mouth that doesn’t know when to close.
He says her name first. He brings up widows who don’t listen, and women who walk away from “protection”, and he says they need to be taught better. He smiles as he says it, slow and ugly, and he keeps his eyes on me the whole time.
“Pyotr,” I say. “Watch it.”
He scoffs. “You’re afraid? It’s the truth.” He turns to the others. “He’s afraid of the truth.” Some smile. Most don’t.
“You’re drunk.”
He stands and swings. It’s clumsy, and late.
My shoulder takes the hit. His glass tips and shatters.
I don’t wait. I grab him and drive his head into the table edge. The crack is loud enough to shut the room down. He drops and doesn’t rise. Blood runs out from under his ear and stains the floor. Chairs drag back. Voices die halfway through sentences. Nobody moves, because everyone understands what they just saw.
By the time the first man moves, I’m already at the door, coat in hand, pace steady.
I leave cash on the bar, enough to cover what I drank and the trouble, and I don’t wait around for anyone to decide what theysaw. Outside, I call the hotel desk and tell them I’m checking out early, then I hang up before they can ask questions. I drive back to my apartment because it’s the only place left that still feels like a fixed point, even when everything else keeps moving.
Morning’s already in the streets when I get there. Before I go inside, I cross to the bakery, order a coffee I don’t want, and keep my voice casual.
“Did Ana stop in yesterday?” I ask, keeping it like it’s routine.
The owner says he saw her yesterday, catching a taxi, in a hurry but calm. I don’t press him, because ‘taxi’ doesn’t narrow anything down, and she’d know that. I start calling the ones I trust.
Outside, I lean against a post like I’m killing time, keep my face neutral, and call Anton Belov. He picks up because he can’t afford not to. Years ago, someone framed him for a job he didn’t do. I broke the man who set him up. Anton remembers that clearly.
Anton runs drivers, and he knows long-haul routes, late-night transfers, and the kind of terminals where people disappear into crowds and paperwork doesn’t get checked twice.
“She didn’t need a private ride,” I tell him. “She needed to vanish into traffic.”
He says, “Text me what she looks like and the time,” and I send him a photo and the bakery owner’s estimate.
“She didn’t go south,” he says after a while. “Too many eyes. North makes more sense. No one asks questions.” I hear keys tapping while he checks northbound terminals and driver logs, the lines that ran late, and the places where someone bought aticket with cash instead of tapping a card. He doesn’t ask who she is. He already knows better.
Anton says he needs two days, because what he’s seeing isn’t a clean route, it’s a trail that keeps breaking and restarting. He tells me he’ll have a better read once he runs more records and lines up the camera times with the driver logs. I don’t like the wait. Two days is distance, and Ana doesn’t stop moving. I tell him yes and end the call before either of us says too much.
I walk back to the apartment, and the cleaning woman is mopping the entryway when I come in. She looks up, recognizes me, and nods.
“How’s your wife?” she asks.
“Why are you asking?”
She lifts one shoulder. “She looked pale the other day, and she said she was going to the doctor. Dr. M, the clinic near the square.”
I don’t answer her. I go straight out and head for the clinic.
