So he checked. And, in fact, White Deer had a population of 362. What were the odds that White Deer’s only Wilsons, Jack and Erica, were related?
It cost a dollar a minute to make a telephone call from the Esplanade, so Burke bought a phone card at a kiosk near the river. He stood in a Plexiglas bubble that didn’t do much to inhibit the cold wind, and tried to figure out how the hell you made an international call. The Cyrillic lettering was not a big help. It took him four tries to get the call through and by that time, his hands had turned to stone.
“Hel-looooo,” crooned the voice that answered. An old woman, Burke guessed, from the timbre of her voice.
“Hi!” Burke shouted. “I’m trying to reach Jack!”
“‘Jack’? I think you have the wrong number!”
“Wait-wait-wait-wait-wait!” Burke pleaded. “I’m in a phone booth in Belgrade.”
“Lucky you. I love Maine!”
Burke took a deep breath. “Look,” he said, “I’m trying to get in touch with a man named Jack Wilson. I got your name off the Internet. You were the only ‘Wilson’ in White Deer, so… you know anyone named Jack Wilson?”
“There was a Hazel Wilson on Elm, but she’s dead, four years. Maybe five.”
“I’ve got an address,” Burke told her.
“Well, that’s the ticket!”
“Maybe not. It’s just a post office box.”
“Oh.” There was something cautionary about the way she said it.
“Excuse me?” Burke said.
“Let me guess… is that Box two thousand?”
Burke fumbled open the sheet of paper that Novakovic had given him. “As a matter of fact-”
“Well, that’s your problem right there. If it’s Box two thousand, that’s the prison. All the inmates get their mail there.”
Burke didn’t know what to say. “It’s a prison?”
“They call it a federal correctional institution. Most of us, though, we just call it Allenwood.”
CHAPTER 25
A plump woman stood behind the roping, wearing a pantsuit so closely fitted that she appeared to have been upholstered. She beamed a welcoming smile and held aloft a hand-lettered sign: ROMANTIC TOURISTS.
Jack Wilson joined the men around her, a collection of nervous males who joked too much and avoided eye contact. He’d tried to pick them out on the plane from New York, and he’d nailed all but one. As a group, they displayed the physical and social liabilities (bad skin, obesity, a piercing giggle, a stutter) that you might expect of men who’d surfed their way into the arms of Madame Puletskaya, their Internet matchmaker. Men who were shopping for a wife and willing to pay the freight.
Wilson was odd man out. For one thing, he was conspicuously good-looking. And while he hadn’t been with a woman in years, there was a time, before his incarceration, when they had flocked to him. His easy athleticism and dark good looks made his youthful poverty ingratiating, his ratty cars adventurous, and his brilliance at math and science – which might have seemed nerdy – interesting. Thanks to Mandy, he had the cowboy manners of the Sundance Kid, all Ma’am and Sir. He shook hands with a firm grip, looked folks in the eye, and never made excuses. Sharon, his Stanford girlfriend, had guided him through the mysteries of advanced cutlery, taught him the proper way to consume soup, conveyed a knowledge of wines and the ways of a valued houseguest. In her way, she’d polished him up like a piece of rough.
Wilson studied his traveling companions. They were really rather ordinary-looking. A cynic might suppose that they were there to get laid, but that wasn’t it. Not really. There were easier and less expensive ways to do that. These men had flown halfway around the world, while submitting to the rigmarole of a staged courtship. Why? Wilson guessed that their resort to an Internet matchmaker was for much the same reason as his own. Like himself, they knew what they wanted, and whether from shyness or impatience, they were unwilling to look for a lover in the conventional ways. On the flight over, he’d met two of Madame Puletskaya’s clients. The first was a fifty-four-year-old businessman who owned a lumberyard in Michigan, had never been married, and figured, “It’s now or never.” The second was younger and suffered from an illness he didn’t identify, but which, he said, was certain to kill him. “What I really want,” he said, “is a kid. Someone to carry the name. So it isn’t like I didn’t leave nothin’ or no one behind.”
Wilson faced the same dilemma as these other men. He didn’t have the time or patience for seduction or courtship. Filling in the blanks for Madame P. suited him just fine, a choreographed courtship that required no thinking, planning, or endeavor.
1. Flowers
2. Letters
3. Chocolates
4. Lingerie
5. Telephone calls
6. Visit
7. Marriage
He understood that the “Ukraine Brides” would not be so readily available – would not have their photos on the Internet, would not be willing to leave home and family – if they were not desperate to escape a hopeless future. So it was that a beautiful and well-educated woman like Irina was, if not for sale, on offer. Not to anyone, of course. She had the power of rejection. But Wilson guessed that if push came to shove, she’d probably accept most of the Americans now standing in the lee of the formidable Madame Puletskaya.
As for Irina’s appeal, well, she had it all. Even more to the point, once she was in Nevada, she’d be in a foreign country, thousands of miles from home. Which is another way of saying she’d be totally dependent on her husband, having no friends and nowhere to turn if and when the relationship went south.
She’d be his. Really his.
“Ah, Mr. Wilson,” Madame P. oozed now, grasping his arm. “I recognize you instantly.”
Wilson glanced around at the others. “Was it my name tag?” he deadpanned, gesturing to the red-rimmed HELLO badge stuck to his lapel.
Madame Puletskaya looked alarmed until she realized this was a joke. Then she broke into peals of girlish laughter.
“This one,” she said, giving him a poke in the arm, “such a comic. He’s looking even more handsome than his photograph. I promise!”
Wilson shook his head in a self-deprecating way. Madame P. counted heads, then efficiently swapped her welcome sign for a clipboard, extracting it from a huge, red tote bag. She checked off names in a methodical way, looking back and forth from the name tags to her clipboard.
“All here!” Madame P. enthused, herding them toward the airport exit. “Now to van.” They walked out the automated front door, rolling their suitcases.
“We’re like sheep,” one of them muttered.
“Baaaaa,” said Wilson.
A nervous eruption of laughter. As if this was one of the funniest things any one of them had ever heard.
A big man, wearing a FUBU T-shirt, tossed the suitcases into the van’s rear compartment, then spoke into a cell phone. Madame P. tried to open the van’s sliding door. Wilson stepped forward to help, earning another peal of delight from Herself. “So strong, too,” she said.
Wilson rolled his eyes. “Most of us are outstanding with minivans.” More laughter. Christ, Wilson thought, it’s like I’m Chris Rock.
“Well, we’re all here – so let’s get going,” Madame P. said, suddenly in a hurry. She jammed her clipboard into her tote. Turning to the back of the van, she smiled. “Surely, you must be tired and need to nap and freshen up before this afternoon’s tea with the ladies. Two o’clock,” she said. Then she beamed a smile and wagged a finger. “Don’t be late.”