Wolf's Vendetta

by Craig MacIntosh

  “Of course, Dimitri. What can I do for you?”

  “I need the package.”

  “If Verlov finds out—”

  “Anton, how long have we known each other? Tell me, have you fallen under his spell, too? I thought the man who could frighten you had not yet been born. Was I wrong?”

  A sheepish grin from the bearded giant. “Forgive me.”

  Ivanov dismissed the apology. “Forgiven. Now, bring me the package.”

  “Of course. Wait here.”

  Ivanov dragged himself to the club’s brick wall, leaned against it, and waited, anger replacing his waning strength. The pain in his foot flared, making him irritable. He didn’t have to wait long. Anton returned, a shoebox under one arm. He handed it over to Ivanov without speaking.

  “Flag a taxi for me, Anton.”

  “No problem.” A gypsy cab pulled to the curb, spilling a quartet of club-crawling locals. The Azerbaijani told the driver to wait. Signaling Ivanov in the shadows that his ride was ready, Anton held the cab’s door and then took up his station at the club’s entrance, his eyes on Ivanov’s silhouette in the car’s rear window.

  From the back of the cab, the shoebox on the seat next to him, Ivanov directed his driver down the street where Helinski’s cousin lived.

  “Slow down but don’t stop,” he said.

  Studying the scene told him nothing. Helinski’s relative lived on the top floor of a three-story, rust-colored brick building unchanged since the fifties. No one lingered in the lighted, ground-floor entrance hall with its bank of mailboxes and ancient elevator.

  Ivanov said, “Keep going.”

  He gave the man another address three streets over and got out mid-block in front of a tiny bungalow dwarfed by neighboring apartment units. Nursing his crippled foot, Ivanov dragged himself up the sidewalk to a waist-high iron gate guarded by hedges. He rang the doorbell, then pounded on the doorframe. A porch light flicked on. A stout, robed matron peered at her visitor from the safety of her door—Lydia Simonev, Levich’s housekeeper.

  Throwing up her hands in recognition, she waddled to the storm door, opened it, and welcomed Ivanov with a hug. “Dimitri. What brings you to my doorstep at such an hour?”

  “Ah, it’s a long story, Lydia. May I come in?”

  She took him by the elbow and ushered him into her crowded living room. “Da. Of course, come in. I have not seen you for what, almost two weeks now.”

  “The boss had me on a job.”

  “Oh, da, you go to California, eh? Please, sit.” She showed him to an overstuffed chair.

  “How did you know I was in California?”

  “I am a piece of furniture with ears, Dimitri. I go about my day and no one pays attention to me. I hear everything and say nothing.”

  “The keeper of secrets, eh?”

  “It is not my business to speak of such things. But for you…”

  Ivanov sank down, his left foot stiff. Glancing down, Lydia clucked. “Ah, what is this? You are hurt, yes? You have troubles?”

  “A truck ran over my foot.”

  “I don’t think a truck does this, Dimitri.”

  He laughed despite the pain. “A very large truck, perhaps?”

  “Never mind,” she fussed. “You want me to help you?”

  “Perhaps. I want to ask you a favor, okay?”

  Fussing like a mother hen, she said, “Of course, Dimitri.”

  “I need to speak to the boss.”

  “So, call him. Better yet, come by his apartment in the morning.”

  “That’s a problem for me. I have come back from California early.”

  Arms folded across her ample bosom, her eyes narrowed in a disapproving scowl. “I know what you are thinking, Dimitri. You worry about Verlov, true?”

  “Yes. I don’t think I can see the boss without seeing Verlov first.”

  Levich’s housekeeper filled another chair, her frown intact. “Yes. You have to talk to Verlov. Everybody has to talk to Verlov these days. You have been gone two weeks and even you will have to talk to Verlov first.”

  “Why this change?”

  “I think Boris Levich is not the same, Dimitri. Something has happened to him. Perhaps a stroke, eh? He listens to Verlov, no one else. Soon, I think I will no longer be able to fix meals for the boss. Maybe he gets a new housekeeper. Someone young, eh?”

  “You’re still young, Lydia.”

  The gray-haired woman blushed, waved away the compliment. “I want things to be the way they were. I think one day I will finish fixing dinner and Verlov will tell me not to bother coming in the next day.”

  “I’m not sure where I stand now either,” said Ivanov.

  “The boss always has a spot for you in his heart, Dimitri. You are like a son to him all these years.”

  “That was before Verlov, Lydia.”

  Throwing up her hands she said, “Yes, this is true.”

  “Can you get a message to the boss for me?”

  “Of course. I will do this. Do you have a letter or something like this?”

  “I give you a phone number for him to call me. But only when Verlov is not at his side. You understand?”

  “Of course. Tomorrow when I bring him his lunch I will tell him.”

  Ivanov handed her a piece of paper. “No. Don’t speak of this. Just give him this. My number is written there. Tell him I have to talk to him about California.”

  “Yes, I can do this, Dimitri. Trust me.”

  Taking her hands in his, Ivanov locked eyes with her. “This is very important, Lydia. My life depends on Boris Levich calling me at this number.”

  Pocketing the note, she said, “I will do it.”

  Ivanov rose unsteadily. “Now I must go. I have other errands to run.”

  “Have you eaten?”

  Ivanov shook his head. “I knew you would ask. No, I have not eaten.”

  She pushed herself to her feet and hooked her arm in his, gesturing toward her cramped kitchen. “Then stay and have some potato soup. It’s fresh. And I have bread, made this morning with my own hands. You’ll stay to make an old lady happy.”

  “If you insist.”

  “I do indeed. Boris Levich can wait. Verlov can wait. They can all wait until tomorrow. Come, Dimitri. Let me spoil you. After you eat we must look at your foot, eh? You can’t travel far in that condition. Maybe you sleep on the couch if you like, eh?”

  “Maybe I should. Thank you for your hospitality.”

  “I think maybe you will put things right, Dimitri.”

  Chapter 66

  Morning arrived with a gift: a light fog blown out to sea shortly after sunrise, a clear sky, and a phone call from Detective Mike McManus. McFadden took the call in his den.

  “Hey, Sam. We found the white van,” said the cop.

  “Great work, Mike.”

  “To be honest, it was pure luck. The kind of break we needed.”

  Reggie wandered by, wrapped in a white terrycloth robe, her hair damp. She blew a kiss to McFadden from the hall and got a wave in return.

  He asked McManus, “What can you tell me about the find?”

  “The plates matched that partial we had. Someone dumped it at one of those park-and-ride lots near LAX. They must have had a flight to catch. Probably thought no one would notice the van for a couple days or maybe a week.”

  “Who found it?”

  “One of the lot guys. He was double-checking license plates on their master sheet. Spotted a big guy in the back, dead.”

  McFadden imagined the scene.

  “The LAPD got there, confirmed the sighting, ran the plates, and called. I’m making a leap here, but if I was a betting man I’d say this guy was one of Kurskov’s killers.”

  “How so?”

  “The van, of course. The medical examiner thinks he’s been dead for at least twenty-four hours. We think this fits within the timeline for Kurskov’s beating.”

  “Any ID?”

  “No details yet. I’m going u
p today to nose around. We should know more by the end of the day.”

  “Appreciate your keeping me in the loop, Mike.”

  “If this pans out,” said McManus, “it might mean the other killer, or killers, caught a flight to parts unknown. It could also mean they’re gone and you’re out of the crosshairs.”

  “Or it could be a decoy to get us to let our guard down.”

  McManus said, “We won’t pull the patrol from your house if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  “Glad to hear it. Reggie feels safer having your people around.”

  “Don’t blame you. Okay, that’s it,” said McManus.

  “Thanks for the call.” McFadden put down the phone and looked out the kitchen window at Wolf doing underwater laps. Better let him know what the cops have found. Hope he’s not involved with the airport thing. McFadden thought, Don’t ask, don’t tell. Isn’t that what Wolf said yesterday?

  Chapter 67

  The following day, feeling confident about the investigation’s progress, McFadden, Reggie, and Wolf attended Kurskov’s funeral. The slain man’s family was there as well. The cops salted mourners at the church and cemetery with plainclothes officers. With nothing amiss, the next day McFadden put in a full day’s work at his business. His hand had been sorely missed. In the wake of Kurskov’s death employee morale had suffered. At a mid-morning meeting McFadden and his two partners rallied staff. Sharing what he could about the hunt for Kurskov’s killers, McFadden answered questions. The mood began to lift noticeably.

  Late in the afternoon, McManus stopped by McFadden’s office to update details about the department’s findings. After preliminaries, he changed gears.

  “I’m going to speak candidly, Sam. Normally, we don’t lay it all out there when we’re in the middle of investigating a

  homicide like this. You can appreciate why we can’t share everything we find. It’s a process. A lot of it is speculation. Some of it rabbit trails and some of it useless leads from the woodwork. We do a lot of sifting to get it right.”

  “I understand,” said McFadden. “At this stage you’re still in the exploratory mode. I get that.”

  McManus nodded. “That being said, I can tell you off the record what we do know.”

  “If you want me to reassure you of my silence, you have it.”

  “Good. The department appreciates what you’ve done for us with your facility here and we think you deserve some special consideration.”

  “Appreciate the sentiment, Mike.”

  “We ID’d the body in the van near the airport. The dead man is Alexi Budnov. Not exactly a choirboy. Guy had a record. Loan-sharking, gambling, and assault. He was a driver for the late Leonid Shurkov.”

  “Who’s Shurkov?”

  “A bad actor. Has ties to the rats’ nest in Brooklyn’s Brighton Beach.”

  McFadden said, “Sounds like you’ve stumbled on the Russian mob.”

  “No doubt. Both these guys are long known to be part of the Russian Mafiya according to the LAPD. Budnov was an enforcer. Not to disparage the dead, but people I talked to up there said he was a bit of a dim bulb. Originally a glorified errand boy, he rose through the ranks to provide muscle for Shurkov.”

  “You said, ‘The late Leonid Shurkov.’”

  McManus said, “I did. This is the odd part of the puzzle. Budnov worked for Shurkov. Now both are in the morgue. LA County Sheriff’s deputies found Shurkov dead yesterday just a few hours after Budnov was identified. Shurkov had a printing shop in Van Nuys. One of his workers called the cops when she found him. They’re looking for a lone assassin.”

  “Maybe one of their own wanted them silenced,” said McFadden.

  “Hey, these assholes knock off each other all the time. Kind of a territory thing, you know. Convenient for the good citizens of the county. Thins the herd, but it’s a paperwork headache for the cops.”

  “So the van was the connection, right? How’s all this play into our situation?”

  “This gets ugly. Crime scene techs working the van found pieces that didn’t belong to Budnov. They’re guessing whoever killed Budnov was wounded during the hit. We’ll know eventually if they’re right when lab results come back. Might take a while.”

  “Any security cameras at the parking lot?”

  “They have some video. I haven’t seen it yet. Shurkov had cameras as well. LAPD is checking both feeds. The feds are bound to get involved at some point because of the proximity to the airport. The terrorism angle, you know. Plus, they’ve been tracking the Russians. It’s turning into a can of worms. Crazy right now. Wish they hadn’t come this far south to ruin our day.”

  “And Kurskov’s.”

  “How true.”

  “So you’re telling me it’s no longer being considered a home invasion gone bad.”

  “Absolutely. It’s a no-brainer.”

  “These guys are obviously connected to Kurskov’s murder because of the van,” said McFadden. “But what’s the common factor here?”

  “We don’t know how this got started. We have Budnov’s body in the van and Shurkov’s murder on the heels of that killing. It’s come full circle for those two but that’s all we have. That’s why it’s crucial to figure out what Kurskov was working on. Any new ideas?”

  McFadden hedged. “His wife said he was looking at something on his computer. Whatever it was must be connected to these deaths.”

  “No way to restore his hard drive. We think his killers must have taken something with them. Any other ideas what he was doing?”

  “You asked that before. My answer is the same: Gary Kurskov was a contract employee. He had lots of outside projects. Was pretty secretive, you know. This had to have something to do with the Russian mob. Why else would they target him?”

  “Okay. Just thought I’d ask. The mob’s interest is a given but the question remains: why?” McManus got to his feet, held out a hand to McFadden. “If you think of anything that rings a bell, call me.”

  “Will do. Thanks again for sharing this with me.”

  “Keep it to yourself, Sam.”

  From behind the indoor range’s tinted, soundproofed glass walls, Wolf watched the detective say goodbye to McFadden in the lobby. With the policeman gone, he resumed firing. McFadden entered the outer sound lock, donned a pair of earmuffs, and went into the range to stand behind Wolf. The SEAL fired the Beretta’s remaining five rounds at a silhouette fifteen yards away. Wolf lowered the pistol, dropped the earmuffs around his neck, and pushed a button on the partition’s wall to his left. The hanging paper target flew to him along an overhead track—the silhouette’s shredded center testimony to his marksmanship.

  McFadden removed the earmuffs. “Nice tight group,” he said.

  Wolf smiled. “Practice makes perfect, Sam.”

  “McManus just left.”

  “Caught your goodbye. Did he leave in a good mood?”

  “I think so.”

  With just the two of them in the range, Wolf took the Beretta to a long bench at the rear of the room to disassemble and clean it. McFadden pulled up a stool next to him and watched.

  “Mike’s a good guy, though I never really know what he’s thinking.”

  “Cops are always fishing,” said Wolf.

  “Maybe. He brought me up to speed on their investigation.”

  “Care to share?”

  Wolf ran a cleaning rod through the Beretta’s barrel as McFadden replayed the detective’s report, complete with warnings about possible video recordings of Shurkov’s killing. Unconcerned, Wolf rubbed oil on the pistol’s machined parts and floated an idea. “Maybe it’s time to pay a visit to Agent Smathers and his disagreeable partner. See if I can smoke them out about what the feds are thinking.”

  “The less said, the better, Wolfman.”

  “True. But it’s good to know what your enemy is thinking.”

  “They’re not the enemy.”

  Wolf reassembled the Beretta. “Figure of speech.”
/>   “Right.”

  “Seriously, I think I should drop in to calm our friends before I go east.”

  McFadden said, “This is the first I’ve heard about your going back east. What gives?”

  “Nash thinks it would be an education to go with him on his rounds. He’s arranging interviews in New York. At first, I told him I’d pass, but the more I think about it…”

  “You’d be in harm’s way, Wolfman. Urban warfare.”

  “Been there before, Sam. Remember Najaf, Falluja?”

  “Not the same and you know it.”

  “Two reasons to go. One: I’d have Nash’s back. His editor is interested. He’s got the scent of a good story. And two: I want to see this tale published. I want to head off this proxy war if possible. Who knows, maybe between the two of us we could flush Kurskov’s other killer who seems to have slipped the net.”

  “Wishful thinking. Even the cops don’t know for certain the person who shot the guy in the van was part of the team that killed Kurskov.”

  “I admit that’s a leap of faith but it makes sense. They might have had a falling out. Or maybe one of them was killed to keep him quiet. Who knows how these guys operate?”

  “Leave it to the FBI.”

  “Hey, we’ve both dealt with evil people before, Sam. We know how they think, how they act. I’m not going there with my eyes shut, you know.”

  “I don’t like it.”

  “Didn’t think you would. But you and Reggie need your space back.”

  One of McFadden’s instructors poked his head in the range to say he had two clients waiting. Wolf put the Beretta in a case. The pair continued the conversation in McFadden’s office, out of earshot.

  “Look at the upside,” said Wolf. “I’ll talk to the feds before I go. That will take the spotlight off you. With Shurkov and his watchdog dead the playing field has shifted. I’ll say this…I think the action heads back east to Little Odessa. My instinct tells me that’s the viper’s nest.”

  “Where you will be at a disadvantage.”

  Putting a hand on McFadden’s shoulder, Wolf said, “I’ve got a friend in New York who owes me. I’ll call in the chit. Plus, I’ll have a seasoned guide, an interpreter to break trail.”

  “Nash’s a writer, Wolfman, not a fighter.”