The Doomsday Girl

by Dave Stanton

  He lay sprawled across the dirty floor, unconscious. He’d wake to a massive headache and a searing pain every time he took a breath, but I had no doubt he was deserving of far worse. As I peeked out the window to make sure no one was watching, my main regret was that I couldn’t take him with me and subject him to a full interrogation.

  I stood over his inert body and dialed Cody’s number. “I need you to call your lady friend from LVPD,” I said.

  “What? Abbey’s coming to the Plaza. Why don’t you meet us here?”

  “Cody, listen to me. I’m at Towne Auto Salvage, out in north Vegas. I found a man I believe is an African national, probably here illegally. He says the little girl is still alive, which means the Volkovs kidnapped her.”

  “How do you reach that conclusion?”

  “The Volkovs own this business. They’re letting the African stay here. He also basically admitted he was involved in Jeff Jordan’s murder, and Bur Jordan’s too.”

  “Who?”

  “Jeff Jordan’s father. The police need to pick this guy up right away. I can’t wait here.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because, goddammit, I busted him up, and I also don’t want the Volkovs to know who I am. They got that little girl.”

  “Okay, calm down. I’ll call Denise. Where is this guy?”

  “In a trailer in the far corner of the yard, back behind the European cars.”

  “I’ll tell her to send a car right away.”

  I left the junkyard, trying to move swiftly without drawing attention. I made it to my truck without incident and drove down the street, then hung a U-turn and parked about a quarter mile away on the opposite side of the road.

  Ten minutes went by and no police car, marked or unmarked, arrived. My eyes were glued to the front of the junkyard. As soon as the man in the trailer regained consciousness, he’d take off, if he was thinking clearly. But I’d left him hogtied, so he’d be stuck there unless he could get free on his own, or get some help.

  Another ten minutes went by and the only car I saw was one leaving the junkyard. It was a compact pickup truck, and when I viewed it though my binoculars, I could see there was only room in the cab for the two men inside, and no person was in the gateless bed.

  I called Cody again.

  “What’s up?” he asked.

  “What did Denise say?”

  “That she’d send a couple of plainclothesmen.”

  “When?”

  “As soon as she could.”

  “That could mean maybe today, maybe tomorrow.”

  “Look, Dirt, these murders didn’t happen in Vegas, so this is not an active case here. There’s only so much Denise can do. You want me to drive over and we’ll make a citizen’s arrest?”

  “Let me think about it,” I said.

  We hung up, and I went to my address book and found the cell number for the Sacramento-based CIA man I knew. Greg Stillman was everything I expected a federal agent to be; patriotic, professional, disciplined, wound tight, and disdainful of all outside his world. But in our brief interaction some months ago, I’d provided information helpful to him, and he’d shown a begrudging respect. He’d even made a call on my behalf and helped me out of a sticky situation with a San Jose assistant district attorney.

  I was sure I could raise Greg Stillman’s interest by telling him I knew who killed Bur Jordan. The CIA would be here within an hour or two, and they played by their own rules, which meant they could use whatever interrogation tactics they wished. The problem with that was, once the Volkovs knew the noose was tightening, they’d view Mia Jordan as a liability. If they were caught with her, that meant a kidnapping charge, and implication in at least one murder. Rather than risk that, they’d kill her and bury the body where it would never be found, out in the boundless desert.

  My mouth went dry, and I stared out the windshield. I’d just worked over the African, and Vegas PD was on the way. I don’t know why I was worried about the CIA rousting the Volkovs. The damage was already done.

  Of course, I was assuming the Volkovs still had Mia. That was blind hope on my part. They could have already sold her to the highest bidder. She could be on a boat in the middle of the ocean, on her way to stock a sheik’s harem. Or, she could be shackled in some rich pervert’s basement, where she’d be subjected to abuse that would ruin her for life, if she survived it.

  I squeezed my eyes shut and clenched my teeth. “Think,” I said out loud. Then I opened my eyes and saw a car approaching. It slowed at the entrance to Towne Auto Salvage. It was a tan, late model American sedan. Before it could turn in, I flashed my lights twice.

  The car stopped, then drove forward. It came up alongside me, and the passenger window lowered. Inside were two men wearing button down shirts, their eyes hidden behind sunglasses. The passenger flashed a badge at me.

  “Dan Reno, private investigations,” I said. “I’m investigating a kidnapping and two murders, one in Utah, the other in California. Looks like the Volkovs are involved.”

  “Why?” asked the passenger. His face was beefy and red, his nose bulbous. Curly gray hair grew from his ears and tufts protruded from his collar. When he talked, I saw white food particles jammed between his teeth.

  “Because they’re housing a man I think is an African national. Both the victims had their arms hacked off, and when I questioned him, he didn’t deny doing it.”

  “Arms hacked off?” said the driver, a gaunt man of indeterminate race. He removed his sunglasses and leaned forward to stare at me.

  “That’s right. It’s a trademark of African militias.”

  The driver blinked and squinted as if the sun was in his eyes. “The FBI know about this?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “Sounds like their jurisdiction,” the other cop said.

  I took a deep breath and tried to swallow a surge of impatience rising from my gut. “He’s an illegal alien suspected of two murders. I can give you the details. Don’t let him slip through your fingers. Bring him in, then you can call the Feds.”

  The passenger window whirred, and I watched it close. The two detectives spoke for a minute, shaking their heads and frowning. Then the window lowered again, and the beefy cop said, “Tell us exactly where he is.”

  ******

  After watching the cops drive into the wrecking yard, I called Cody.

  “Cops show?” he asked.

  “Yeah. After they grab the African, I’ll need to go with them and provide a statement.”

  “Right. Abbey wants to talk to you.”

  “Put her on.”

  “Hi, Dan,” she said.

  “What’s up?”

  “The fat Russian is Igor Volkov. He’s Serj Volkov’s uncle. He’s been in the U.S. for five years. He’s got a green card, but he’s not a citizen.”

  “Any arrests?”

  “Just one, for tax fraud. But the government couldn’t make it stick, and the charges were dropped.”

  “Huh,” I said.

  “But get this—in Russia, they called him Igor the Butcher, because he and his crew firebombed an enemy’s house and ended up killing three women and five children.”

  “That was in his jacket?”

  “Yup. I also tried to find links to real estate ownership, but couldn’t find anything for the Volkovs. Then I looked at Cafe Leonov and Red Square. They’re both owned by corporations.”

  “No surprise,” I said, hearing the disinterest in my voice.

  “Are you going to follow them around this evening?”

  “Maybe.”

  “What time?”

  “I don’t know yet,” I said. “Could you put your dad back on, please?”

  “You’re welcome for the info,” she said.

  A moment later, Cody said, “What’s the deal?”

  “You got plans again tonight?” I asked.

  “No, I don’t think so. Probably not. I’ll tell you about it later.”

  “You in the mood for Rus
sian food?”

  “I don’t know. Is it any good?”

  “Probably not,” I said.

  “Call me when you’re done at the police station.”

  I sat in my truck, watching the entrance to the auto wrecker. I figured the LVPD detectives would have to bring the African in if he couldn’t provide identification papers, or otherwise prove he was here legally. As an illegal alien, he would have no rights, which meant he could be held indefinitely without charges. The police would have no obligation to grant him a phone call. It could be a few days before the Volkovs realized he was missing.

  “Wrong,” I muttered, chiding myself for the fallacious assumption. Someone at Towne Auto Salvage would surely call the Volkovs and tell them the African had been apprehended. My main concern was the middle-aged man I saw working the adding machine in the adjoining room. If he was dealing with numbers, he was likely a Volkov operative.

  I still didn’t understand the links between a Russian crime family, an African national, a CIA man who worked in Africa and Russia, and his son, a building contractor with fringe political beliefs. I didn’t yet know how the two murders, uncut diamonds, gold coins, and the kidnapping of a young girl fit together. But there was one thing I was sure of, and that was the clock was now ticking faster for Mia Jordan. If the Volkovs were still holding her captive, and decided to dispose of her, her blood would be on my hands.

  I turned on my radio and tried to relax, then switched it off. It had been fifteen minutes since the detectives entered the wrecking yard. It was a long walk to the trailer, and it would probably be another five or ten minutes before they reappeared, after which I’d follow them to the police station. Once we were in route, I could call the FBI, or the CIA, and apprise them of the situation. They could meet us at the station and conduct a full interrogation of the African. In a best case scenario, he may even know what happened to Mia, and hopefully where she was being held.

  At that moment I saw the tan sedan emerge from the parking lot. I grabbed for my binoculars, but they turned toward me, and as they got closer, I could see the back seat was empty. I stepped out of my truck and waited for them.

  The man with the curly gray hair opened the passenger door and stood looking at me. His torso was bearlike, the shoulders rounded and massive. He had no neck and his head was shaped like a squat pumpkin.

  “No one was there,” he said.

  “At the trailer?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Did you find any clothes?”

  “Nope. Dishes, cups, silverware, but no clothes.”

  I looked past him at the fence along the street. “I’ve been sitting here since I visited him. He didn’t come out.”

  “What did you say your name is?”

  “Dan Reno.”

  “Well, here’s a tip for you, Reno. Sometimes, crooks use back doors.” He brought his meaty hand down hard on my shoulder and chuckled. “Got to always remember the back door.”

  The driver climbed out of his seat and stood grinning at me over the roof. “Aren’t you partners with Cody Gibbons?”

  I didn’t reply, and his grin faded. “I’ve heard you two are a real circus act,” he said. “Like something out of the freak show.”

  “Don’t waste our time again,” the burly cop said, as he got back in the car. His partner did the same, then he revved the motor and dropped the shifter into drive. The sedan jolted from the shoulder, the tires spitting dust and gravel and leaving me in a cloud of dirt. I walked out of the cloud and watched the car grow smaller on the long, straight road, until it was no longer visible.

  “Thanks a lot, guys,” I said.

  I got back in my truck, spewing curses, and hit the ignition. Then in a sudden flash, without my permission or forethought, my temper erupted. Adrenalin surged in my chest, and I could feel my face distort as if in a windstorm. I flexed my arms and legs and brought my fist down on my padded dashboard and heard something break. Then I stomped the gas pedal and roasted my tires off the dirt, my fingers clamped like a vice on the steering wheel. I roared down the highway, hitting a hundred before I eased off the pedal, then I punched it again up to 110, my mind blowing steam like a locomotive on its last run, as the pressure of my job and sobriety finally erupted like a dormant volcano.

  After a minute I blew out my breath and let off the gas. I smiled crookedly, and I was sure if anyone witnessed me at that moment they would have thought I was a lunatic. I slowed to a normal speed, but I felt loose and unhinged, as if I was careening down a rutted trail, brakes failed, suspension shot, bouncing off the walls, demolishing whatever lay in my path. It was a feeling I recognized from certain episodes in my past; when I destroyed my marriage after first killing a man, when I ran into a burning house and found only corpses, and when I was thrown in jail for running over a San Salvadorian gangbanger who nearly killed Cody.

  I pulled over and skidded to a stop. My first instinct, and what I’d always done after a meltdown, was to run to a whiskey bottle. I could always regain myself after a few drinks. Besides, I was a good drunk, a happy drunk, and I hadn’t really abused the privilege since my divorce. I was younger back then, less self-aware, less mature. When I first became a private investigator, I had thought there was something noble and romantic about swilling eighty-proof in dive bars, as if the nature of my profession justified it. It was a great rationale for the fact that I just plain liked to drink.

  I sat with my eyes closed. I could be in a bar in ten minutes, and five drinks later my commitments to Walter and Lillian McDermott and Melanie Jordan would seem like a distant abstraction, something that could surely be postponed for a day or two. I could call the FBI and CIA from the bar and they’d take care of the African and the Volkovs. And Mia, she’d already been missing for almost two months, so why sweat another couple of days?

  I got out of my truck and stared northward. The air was dry and a cold wind kicked up a plume of dust. I could see past a hardpan field to the freeway, where the cars looked small and insignificant. Beyond the interstate was hundreds of miles of nothing but high, mountainous desert, barren and blown with tumbleweeds. I stood staring into the horizon for a long minute. There was a stark, foreboding beauty to the land, elemental and unforgiving, as if a reminder that we were all just temporary visitors.

  When I dropped my head, I saw a tiny, solitary desert flower next to my boot. It had an orange center and purple petals and was no larger than a quarter. How it survived this long into the winter, I had no idea, for there were no other flowers nearby. For some reason, it lived while the others died. I bent down and studied it.

  “Resilient damn thing,” I said. I went and got a plastic bottle from my truck and carefully poured water around the flower’s base. I watched the water sink into the dirt, and when it quickly dried, I poured some more. Once the earth absorbed the last of it, for reasons I didn’t contemplate, I felt calm again.

  I returned to my driver’s seat and ran my fingers over the small dent my fist had left on top of the dashboard. Then I checked my GPS. The African had escaped and probably had help. He was likely still at the wrecking yard, maybe hidden in the backroom with the bean counter. If not, and he had left through the back of the lot, he would have had to climb a fence and walk almost half a mile to the next road. Doing so with a broken rib would have been very difficult. But not impossible.

  I drove until reaching an intersection, then made a couple of lefts until I was behind the wrecking yard. This would be the ‘back door’ street the LVPD detectives alluded to. It was a nothing road, long and narrow, its only purpose to link two busier streets. To either side were desolate fields, no buildings, no trees, no obvious places to hide. There was no traffic on this road, not a single car. I drove its three-mile length, then back again, and saw no one.

  ******

  It was 3:30 by the time I made it to my hotel. I went up to my room and called Cody.

  “How’d it go?” he asked.

  “It didn’t,” I replied.
“The cops said the African had bailed.”

  “Shit. I should have come out there.”

  “Don’t worry about it. I’m gonna go do some Dumpster diving. Want to come along?”

  “Where at?”

  “The Café Leonov.”

  Cody was waiting in the lobby when I came downstairs. He wore a gray UNLV sweatshirt that barely fit his massive torso, and his beard was trimmed to the point that it looked like only a few days growth.

  “New look?” I asked, touching my face.

  “It’ll grow back.”

  “Denise’s idea?”

  “How’d you know?”

  “Just a guess.”

  We walked through the door leading to the garage. “Yeah, she said something about kissing a man with a beard. So I shaved it.”

  “You got your gear bag in your car?” I asked.

  “Yeah, over here.” Cody pointed, and I saw his maroon 1990s Toyota Camry parked at the far side of the lot.

  “We had dinner at this fancy Italian joint over at the Palazzo. Four or five martinis later, we ended up in my room. I blame the booze.”

  “For what?”

  “It was like we were both sex-starved. A total frenzy. There was no stopping it.”

  I laughed. “Did you tell Abbey?”

  “What? Why would I do that?”

  “Don’t you think she should know her father’s having a relationship with her boss?”

  “She knows already. I mean, she knows we’ve gone out,” he said, as we walked through the garage. “Christ, we went at it like teenagers, all night long, up against the wall, bent over the chair, looking out the window at The Strip. She’s got a great body, and I swear she couldn’t get enough.”

  “But no date tonight?”

  “Well, I think she felt a little guilty. The whole time she’s saying, ‘We shouldn’t be doing this’, and ‘I’m not usually like this.’ It got funny, she’s panting and moaning and loving it to death, and she’s saying, ‘Please don’t get the wrong impression.’ At one point I burst out laughing.”