“Don’t be a stupid fool,” the lady said. “The arrangement has been made.”

“We will return the one thousand. We will not take the nine thousand,” Katra said.

“The ship has sailed,” the woman said.

The disagreement between the woman and the Kovac family was noisy, Patrik says, but brief. The woman was stern and cold and actually spit on the floor.

I take his hand and say, “This is a very bad lady.”

Then Patrik says quietly, “But we are also very bad, to make this evil arrangement.”

I shake my head no. I ask if anything else happened.

“Only when the bad lady is walking out the door.”

“And what was that?” I ask.

“She say, ‘Don’t try to change things. If you do, no matter what you want or what you try to do, we will find a way to get Katra’s baby.’”

And so they did.

Chapter 32

Chapter 32

IT TAKES ABOUT THIRTY minutes for Patrik Kovac to unload his entire story of Katra’s pregnancy and the Russian couple. It must be frightening to tell. It is frightening to hear. But once it’s ended, I know I have to get in touch with either Leon Blumenthal or Rudra Sarkar or both.

Patrik, tears on his face, still trembling, comes with me to Sabryna’s apartment. As always, I walk inside without knocking. Sabryna clicks off the television, and all three of them look at me nervously. Their curiosity is, of course, completely understandable.

“There’s no time to explain everything. I promise I will. I’ll also say that the news is not good. But we might end up okay,” I say. “Right now I have to get back to the hospital. Like I said without saying, this is big stuff.”

“Isn’t it always?” says Willie, with a touch of childlike sarcasm.

“No. This really is,” I say. “Sabryna, can Willie stay here?”

“Doesn’t he always?” says Sabryna, with a touch of adultlike sarcasm.

Then Sabryna turns her attention to Patrik. She says, “And I’m supposing that you’re going to be here, too?”

Kovac looks at me for the answer to Sabryna’s question.

“He could use a better cup of coffee than mine, probably with a big shot of Jameson in it. And see if he wants a plate of Lucky Pot.”

Then I look at Patrik Kovac and say, “You’re not really a true American until you see a Yankees game in the Bronx and have a nice big soup bowl full of Lucky Pot.”

Understandably, Patrik looks confused. But I don’t have time to run with my joke. I need to talk to one of those dozens of law enforcement personnel sitting around at my hospital doing nothing. I take out my cell phone and call the GUH main line.

Eventually someone says, “Gramatan University Hospital. How may I help you?”