"Can't deport them if we can't prove they're guilty of anything," Alexa answered. "The one time we actually tried, it was squashed by INS in Washington with instructions not to pursue our case."
She leaned forward, picked up a cracker, and spread some cream cheese on it. Then she put it tentatively, in her mouth and chewed. Everybody watched.
"That's excellent," she exclaimed.
"Our street Intel puts Iggy and Sammy in L. A. since 'ninety-five," Broadway said, picking up the story. "The Petrovitches started out as finger breakers, but were so good at it that within three years, they were promoted to authorities, or brigadiers."
I must have looked confused so he clarified.
"That's like an enforcer. In 'ninety-eight, these two guys staged a bloody coup and took control of the entire L. A. branch of ROC. When I say, bloody, I mean like in, 'the streets ran red.' Rumor has it that Iggy is the boss. He was also some kind of covert assassin for the KGB during the Soviet Union. He does the thinking, and Sammy, with his ghoul's face, does the wet work. During their coup a few years back, we were pulling dead Reds outta every drainage basin in L. A. But like their code instructs, nobody talked or stepped up. We couldn't prove the Petrovitches were behind the slaughter."
"Then how can you be certain they did it?" I asked.
"Negative physics," Broadway said. "Somebody creates a vacuum and you wait to see who rises. The Petrovitches rose like the cream in a root beer float. After they became pakhans, or supreme bosses of the Odessa mob here, everything quieted down again. They started branching out and taking over legitimate businesses, usually by some kind of threat or extortion."
We all sat and thought about this while a hoot owl, way up the canyon chanted his mournful cry.
"Okay, I'm gonna jump to a not very tough conclusion," I finally said.
"Get froggy," Emdee smiled.
"I've read some gang briefings, and I understand the Russian mob is very big on gas tax scams. But to run them you need to pump gas, and that means you need to own service stations. The Petrovitches couldn't strong-arm Boris Litvenko, so they killed him and forced Marianna to sell the six Texacos. Then Sammy shot Martin Kobb when he started looking into his uncle's death and got too close. A week ago, he gets Andrazack with the same gun. That means Sammy still has that five-forty-five stashed somewhere."
"Yeah, but how do we find it?" Broadway asked.
I looked over at Alexa. "You could have Financial Crimes open up a gas tax investigation on Patriot Petroleum, I'll bet a year's pay it's a Petrovitch company. Make the warrant for financial records, but tell the judge to write it as loose as he can. It needs to be served on Sammy's home office as well as his business. Once I get in, I'll push the edges and see if I can find that pistol."
"I'll do my best," she said. "But there's no probable cause. I may not be able to find a judge who will write the paper."
"In the meantime, give the three of us permission to talk to Stanislov Bambarak," I said. "Sammy's an unguided missile, but I bet Bambarak's got big problems with the Petrovitches. The Russians are supposed to be our allies now. Maybe it's time to put that theory to the test."
Chapter 49
Stanislov Bambarak agreed to meet us at his house in the Valley at nine the following morning. We arrived in Broadway's blue Chevy Caprice and pulled into the driveway of a beautiful California Craftsman house on Moorpark Avenue bordered by beds of colorful red and white impatiens brimming behind well-trimmed hedges.
We rang the doorbell, and a few minutes later heard heavy footsteps coming down the hallway, followed by the sound of latches being thrown. The massive wood door swung open and Stanislov Bambarak greeted us in the threshold, holding a long-necked watering can. A wrinkled Hawaiian shirt and stained khaki shorts draped his mammoth body like a badly pitched tent. Watery brown eyes inventoried us carefully.
"Ah," he finally said, letting out a gust of breath ripe with the tart smell of breakfast sausage. "Da vafli zopas.
"Flying assholes," Perry translated, and smiled. "You gonna let us in, Stan, or you just gonna stand there and insult us?"
Stanislov stepped aside. Then he held up the watering can and said, "Been feeding my pretties." This mystifying remark was delivered in perfect tally-ho English, courtesy of some Black Sea KGB spy school where he'd trained so he could infiltrate MI-5 in Great Britain.
Without further discussion, he turned and limped down the hall toward the back of the house. The screen door to the porch was open and he led us across a manicured lawn, past a brand new Weber barbeque with the sale tags still attached. We followed him into a greenhouse that took up most of his backyard.
Glass walls coated with sweet smelling condensation drove the temperature up over ninety. The hothouse shelves were stacked four high, and held hundreds of orchids in every size, shape, and color. A worktable at one end of the shed served as a splicing area where Stanislov was grafting exotic hybrids.
He pointed with pride at a particular plant. "Grew that Pirate King Crimson Glory for the orchid festival in Bombay. Bloody first place."
I tried to appear interested and impressed, but so far I had absolutely no feel for this guy. So I looked to Roger for help.
"What can you tell us about the death of Davide Andrazack?" Broadway said, sledgehammering the question with absolutely no preamble.
"I'm a cultural attache working to get the Leningrad ballet and symphony booked into the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion for the season. That's all I'm focused on right now."
You're a cultural attache like I'm a proctologist," Emdee said, showing him a set of brown teeth, but no humor. "You went to his funeral. We got the pictures. So fuck you and your cover story. Keep it up and you'll be picking pieces of my boot outta your ass."
I thought they were misplaying this guy, coming on way too strong. Stanislov had diplomatic immunity and wasn't going to crumble because of threats or fear of an arrest. But maybe that was the reason for Emdee's performance. Either way, we were already off on this game of bad cop, so I just shut up and listened.
Broadway continued. "For the last month Eddie Ringerman and Bimini Wright have been pulling bugs out of secure computers. They think you and your embassy guys are planting them."
Stan picked up an orchid. "The only bugs I worry about are mealy bugs and spider mites." He showed us some outer leaves with holes in them. "Bloody hard to kill what you can't see."
"But you could see Davide Andrazack. How hard would it be to kill him?" Broadway challenged.
"Such an unsophisticated question belittles you, Detective."
"There's an old rule in murder cases," Broadway pressed. "A lot of killers seem drawn to the funerals of their victims."
"I used to have some espionage connections," Stanislov allowed. "I don't deny I had a few run-ins with Davide, but it was a long time back. I went because I don't like crossing people out of my Rolodex unless I'm absolutely certain they've actually passed on.
"Sounds like horseshit," Broadway said.
Stanislov set the orchid down. "Mr. Broadway, you and I have had minimal contact over the three years I've been here. I know you believe that I'm some sort of deadly agent, doing bloody what all. But I'm just a boring cultural attache who grows orchids, while trying to foster our Russian culture in America. If sometime, you were to have actual information and not just idle threats, I might make a transaction and trade with you. However, I'm not going to risk my residency in your country because you come over here blathering a bunch of nonsense and accusing me of a clumsy murder that we all know I'm way too smart to commit."
"Bimini Wright thinks all this has something to do with her 'Eighty-five Problem," Emdee said.
"Ms. Wright is a lying, round-heeled twat who shagged half my Moscow bureau."
Sweat was beginning to trickle down my back as I stood in the hot greenhouse. Roger and Emdee weren't getting anywhere with their bulldog approach, so I decided to try another angle.
"What about Samoyla and Igor Petrovitch?" I
asked. "Our department has a very thick file on them. Some people in our counterintelligence unit actually believe that they work for you."
"I don't believe I've heard of them. Are they involved in the arts?" His expression didn't change, but there was a smile in his wet, brown eyes.
"Blood artists," I said. "And if we ran them through a CIA check, your name would start popping up everywhere. But it's all ancient Kremlin stuff. I don't think they quite fit this new calling of yours. They probably make too much trouble for a man of your obvious refinement. I think you might hate the trouble they cause for your own people over here."
His eyes gave away nothing, so I went on.
"Maybe there's a way we could take care of some of that for you. Arrest the Petrovitchs and ship them off to some slam dance academy, where they'll remain permanently incarcerated."
He stood very still. "Finally, in all this hot air comes a useful idea," he said. "I have wondered many times, why your country let these two mobsters stay. Of course, when you examine it, there can only be one answer. Somebody important is profiting from their activities. If I were you, I might look into that."
"You haven't answered my question," I said.
"Your question is a political conundrum with many permutations. If you care to be more specific about how we might cooperate on such a project, then yes, maybe I'm interested. It's got to make sense, however."
Broadway looked at me and shook his head slightly. Stanislov saw it.
"No?" he said, then set down his watering can. "Okay, if that's everything, I have a dance audition at ten-forty."
He turned and led us out of the greenhouse to the front door. I stopped him before he showed us out. "Sammy and Iggy both live in expensive houses in Bel Air. There must be lots of money coming in to afford those ten-million-dollar spreads. What businesses are they in?"
"They take what isn't theirs."
I thought it was all he was going to say, but then he added: "By the way, they don't just have those two houses in Bel Air. The Petrovitches also own a villa up at New Melones Lake in central California. I've often thought that if that lake were dredged, it would give up the bones of many disillusioned people."
Chapter 50
That pretty much sucked," Broadway complained. "Maybe if you hadn't taken out your street baton and started raising knots on his head, we would a done a little better," I countered.
"Don't let the fey Brit accent fool you," Roger cautioned. "Bam-Bam killed his share of cowboys. He's deadly as an E-Street gangster. You gotta go at him head-on. Besides, it's almost impossible to role-play spooks with political immunity. He probably wasn't going to give us squat anyway."
Perry nodded, chewing on a toothpick. The three of us were sitting at a concrete picnic table on the long wooden pier that stretched out from the beach into the ocean at Santa Monica. The structure included an amusement park and restaurants, which were almost empty at this hour of the morning. A ten-foot hurricane break from a storm in Mexico was rolling in, pounding the sand, slamming against the concrete pilings. Not that we were overly paranoid, but we chose this location because even with a powerful directional mike, it would be next to impossible for the feds, or anyone else, to record our conversation over the crashing surf.
"I'm open to suggestions," Roger said. He had bought a hotdog from a vendor and was peeling back the paper.
"You know what this feels like?" I said. "Feels like everybody is holding a piece of the same puzzle, but we're all so locked into security concerns, the bunch of us will never put the damn thing together.
"We need to bring these people together. The Russians, Israelis, and the CIA. Get them all talking to each other and to us."
"You ain't gonna get Bam-Bam Stan and Bimini Wright in the same room together 'less you turn off the lights, and give 'em both switchblades," Emdee drawled.
Roger took a big bite of the hotdog and added, "Their rivalry is personal. Goes all the way back to the eighties in Moscow."
"What if we start the bidding by throwing something useful on the table? Give them a couple of good pieces of our Intel."
"You're loadin' the wrong wagon, Joe Bob. We ain't got nothing they want," Perry said.
"We got the ballistics match on the five-forty-five automatic that could end up putting Sammy behind two murders. If Stanislov wants to get rid of the Petrovitches like he said, that gun could do it."
"You nuts? We can't give these people that part of our case." Broadway stopped chewing and his mouth fell open in astonishment.
"Close your fuckin' mouth," Perry said. "Bad enough I gotta look at ya without watchin' that mess a chaw get goobered."
Broadway swallowed and shook his head. "If we give that information to Stanislov, and it turns out he was lying and the Petrovitches really are working for him off the books, then that murder weapon gets dumped in the ocean and we'll never make our case."
"I didn't say it was perfect, but we need to find a way to unstick this."
Broadway threw the half-eaten hotdog in the trash. Apparently, I'd destroyed his appetite.
"They won't come to a meeting, no matter what we give 'em," he finally said.
"We don't know that," I persisted. "Look, we're out of moves, and with Homeland circling us, we gotta set up something fast."
Suddenly, Perry snapped his fingers and we both turned.
"How 'bout we call in your Uncle Remus," he said to Roger.
"We don't have a warrant to plant a bug, and he won't wire one up without court paper. I ain't ready to put my badge in Lucite," Roger said, referring to the department's practice of encasing a cop's badge in a block of plastic as a souvenir to take home after he left the force.
"Not plant a bug, dickhead. I'm thinking Remus should just turn one of his old ones back on."
"Who the hell is Uncle Remus?" I asked.
"Ain't named Remus," Broadway said. "That's just what this gap-toothed cracker calls him. He's talkin' about my Uncle Kenny. He's an electronic plumber for the National Security Agency in L. A. When NSA gets a warrant to plant a bug, Kenny and his technical engineers do the black bag job; go into the location at midnight and plant the pastries. These boys are real craftsmen. Dig up floors and run fiber-optic cable all through the walls. Got electronics so small, the lenses and mikes are no bigger than computer chips. They plaster everything up, paint it over, and leave the space just like before. In less than eight hours, they got the place wired up better'n a Christmas window and you'd never know they were ever there."
"So how does that help us?" I asked.
"After the cases go to court, most of this shit is never pulled out," Broadway explained. "It's usually too dangerous to go back and remove the hardware, so they just turn it off and leave it. Uncle Kenny's got deactivated bugs in buildings all over town. The beauty of Perry's idea is, maybe since the bugs are already in place, we don't need a warrant to turn one back on." He looked at Emdee.
"It's a unique concept, untested by law," Perry answered. "Who knows? I'm saying we don't."
"I still don't get it," I said, wondering how random bugs in buildings around town helped us.
"Since the bugs ain't where the Petrovitches are," Perry said, grinning. "All we gotta do is get the Petrovitches to the bugs."
Then he told us what he had in mind. It was smart but also risky. There was no way our bosses in the department would ever sanction it. That meant we'd have to run a dangerous operation off the books without LAPD backup.
We sat on the pier feeling the warm sun and the thundering surf.
Finally, I stood and said, "Okay, but if we're gonna do this, we need to find somebody to watch our six."
"Except, we can't go to Alexa, Cubio, or Tony," Broadway said. That means we've gotta get these intelligence agencies to help us."
"We can't have dickwads and liars holding our back," Emdee argued.
"We've got no choice," I said. "Sooner or later, we're all gonna be dead anyway."
Chapter 51
I'd
been away from home way too long, and tomorrow was going to be a busy, dangerous day, so I decided to sleep in my own bed tonight and make love to my wife. I also wanted to sit down and have a long talk with Chooch.
I exited the freeway on Abbot Kinney Boulevard, then glanced in my rearview mirror. Coming down the off-ramp several cars back, was a familiar vehicle. A white Econoline van.
Zack?
I doubled back, made two quick rights, and came around behind it. But the van took off, accelerating up the street. It shot through a light just as it was changing, and I got totally blocked. I never got close enough to read the plate. All I could do was watch in frustration as the taillights headed back onto the freeway and disappeared.
Almost immediately, my mind started to deconstruct the incident. I hadn't actually seen the driver or plate number, so how did I really know it was Zack? How many white Econoline vans were there in Los Angeles anyway? And here's a big one. How could Zack know I'd be on that freeway at that exact time? Wasn't it more probable that it was just some random white van that sped up to beat the light?
I was trying to smooth it over, to make it go away so I wouldn't have to deal with it. But somewhere deep down, I already knew the answer.
It was Zack and he was coming after me.
I approached my house from the Grand Canal sidewalk, pausing to look around before opening the white picket gate and heading across my backyard. If Zack or the feds were following me, coming home could be a major mistake, but I needed to be near the people I loved and who loved me. I moved to the sliding glass porch door and found it locked. Just as I getting ready to go around to the front and use my key, Delfina appeared in the living room holding Franco in her arms. She spotted me through the glass, ran across the carpet, and opened the slider.
"Shane," she said, leaning forward and kissing my cheek. "I'm so glad you're out of the hospital! But Alexa said you wouldn't be coming home."
"Changed my mind."
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