Victory Square Read Online Free PDF Page B

until only a few were left when the grating bell sounded. He nodded at a brunette. “Excuse me, where is the main office?”
    “There,”
she said, exasperated.
    Directly behind him was a door labeled OFFICE. He let himself inside.
    A heavy woman sat at a wide desk, talking into a telephone. Behind her were two doors, PRINCIPAL and VICE-PRINCIPAL. TO Gavra’s right was a line of four chairs, and in two of them sat a boy and a girl, teenagers. The boy was pale with prematurely thinning red hair he’d foolishly chosen to grow long. The girl gripped the boy’s hand, looking like a stunned model, with long blond hair and eager eyes that locked on to him. He smiled.
    “Need some help?” It was the woman at the desk. She covered the telephone mouthpiece with her palm.
    “Uh, yes. I’m looking for my cousin. Lubov Shevchenko. He teaches math.”
    He heard a gasp and turned to see the girl whispering to the boy, who nodded.
    “Cousin, huh?” said the clerk. “What’s your name?”
    “Viktor Lukacs.”
    “Well, Mr. Shevchenko has a class right now.”
    “I don’t want to interrupt him,” Gavra said quickly. “When will he be finished?”
    The woman thought a moment, wrinkling her nose. “I think Mr. Shevchenko’s running detention today. Is that right, Jennifer?”
    The girl nodded. “Last detention of the year.”
    “Yes, so he’ll get out around five thirty. Want to leave a message for him?”
    “He’s not expecting me until next week. I want to surprise him.”
    The boy said, “I don’t think Mr. Shevchenko likes surprises.”
    “Yeah,” said Jennifer.
    “Mind your own business, you two,” said the clerk. “You’re in enough trouble as it is.”
    Gavra picked up Marlboros and a ham-and-cheese sandwich from the Brandermill Plaza and learned from the pimply cashier that the name Brandermill referred to not just the plaza but the whole wooded area that bordered it. “It’s a housing development” she told him between smacks of her chewing gum. “Ain’t no
project.
Got its own lake, restaurants, sports club, and all these shops here. Ain’t no reason to leave. It’s just like a town.”
    On the drive back, Gavra was struck by the similarity—in theory, at least—between the Brandermill development and Tomiak Pankov’s New Towns, those vast concrete estates where reassigned farmers were moved in order to man newly constructed factories. The difference, of course, was that people chose to move to Brandermill.
    He parked in the same spot again, ate the sandwich (which was delicious), and waited in the car, smoking. Occasional adults emerged from the front doors, found their cars, and drove away. A woman with horn-rimmed glasses frowned at him when he tossed a butt out the window, but he ignored her. Later, two teenage boys came out, throwing punches at one another and laughing, then raced at full speed through the lot.
    His plan was simple: find Shevchenko and then follow him home. There, he could take control of the man in privacy and get the answers Kolev had been unwilling, or unable, to share.
    At four thirty, the grating bell sounded again. Students poured out. Older ones tossed bookbags into pickup trucks and small Japanese cars. Teachers patiently shouted at students to slow down, wished them a Merry Christmas, or reminded them to do this or that over the holiday. The Subaru beside Gavra’s window was owned—or at least used—by a tall kid who dribbled a basketball on his way to his car, stopping as he unlocked it to glare at Gavra.
    “The fuck
you
looking at, faggot?”
    Gavra considered pulling the gun on him. He could use a laugh. Instead he gave the kid the same cold look he’d once given a pe-dophilic murderer in 1982 just before he plunged the guy’s head into a toilet.
    By five, the last of the buses were turning onto the road, and the parking lot had emptied of all but ten cars. In a half hour, Lubov Shevchenko would finish with his detention class.
    Gavra slipped the P-83