Brighton Beach: A Kurtz and Barent Mystery (Kurtz and Barent Mysteries Book 5)

by Robert I. Katz

  Moran rolled his eyes. “The Slavs supposedly have mostly round faces, pale skin and light brown to blonde hair, but plenty of other people in Europe have those same characteristics. Then there’s the Mongolian influence. Russia was conquered by Genghis Khan and the Mongols. There was a lot of raping and pillaging. Some Russians, particularly those from the Eastern part of the country, do look at least vaguely Asian.”

  “Oh,” Kurtz said. “So, did these guys look vaguely Asian?”

  “Actually, he didn’t get close enough to get a good look. Mostly, it was the way they walked.”

  Kurtz frowned. “And what does that mean?”

  “Nothing that would stand up in court, that’s for sure. Russian mobsters tend to be a tight knit group. A lot of them served in the military. They’re disciplined and they’re tough. When they walk down the street, they expect other people to get out of their way.”

  “That’s not much to go on,” Kurtz said.

  “No. Arnie freely admits that he was making an inference when he said they looked Russian. Also, there are a lot of Russians in Williamsburg.”

  “So, what would Russian mobsters be doing in that particular neighborhood?”

  “Nothing good, that’s for sure,” Barent said, “but the bottom line is that we have no idea.”

  Chapter 12

  A phone call to someone who has nothing to do with the case could not possibly be construed as interfering with a police investigation. Kurtz told himself this, trying to believe it. He drew a deep breath, stared down at the phone and frowned. The phone seemed to stare back at him. The palm of his hand itched. Finally, he drew a deep breath, picked it up and dialed.

  “Hello?”

  Kurtz cleared his throat. “Sylvia? It’s Richard Kurtz.”

  “Boychik,” she said. “What can I do for you? You want to buy a nice apartment? Maybe a little house in Brighton Beach?”

  “No, thanks. I’m calling about something else.”

  “Oh?”

  “A few nights ago, at dinner, you mentioned something about Donna Ryan. You said that she was Russian.”

  “Donna? No. Her parents are Russian. Donna was born here. All of their kids were.”

  “Okay. You also said that the Russian community was close-knit.”

  “Did I say that? It’s true, but I don’t remember saying it.”

  “Anyway,” Kurtz said, “who can I talk to about the Russian community?”

  There was silence on the line for a long moment. “Why? What’s going on?”

  “Probably nothing, but I need some information on Russians in Williamsburg.”

  “Somehow, I’m not liking this.”

  Somehow, neither was Kurtz. “I’m sorry. I can’t tell you anything else.” He could, of course, but somehow, he felt that he shouldn’t. Probably because the whole thing was far-fetched and stupid.

  “Any particular part of the community?” Sylvia asked. “Doctors? Lawyers?”

  Mobsters, Kurtz thought. He didn’t say it. “Just the community,” he said. “The community in general.”

  “Let me make a few phone calls,” Sylvia said. “I’ll get back to you.”

  “So, my son, what can I do for you?” the priest, wearing priestly robes and sharp gray eyes, gave Kurtz a wide smile.

  Kurtz usually tried to limit Thursdays to a half-day in the office. He preferred to keep Thursday afternoon free for other pursuits. It occurred to him that he had never before stepped foot in an Orthodox Church. The thought made him a bit uncomfortable, as if he had somehow been letting somebody down. Maybe God.

  “I got your name from Sylvia Hersch,” Kurtz said.

  “The realtor? She sold me my house.”

  “She told me. She also told me that you could give me some information about the Russian community.”

  The priest’s name was Robert Kamenov. He looked younger than Kurtz had expected. According to Sylvia, he was well known and highly respected, a possible future candidate for Orthodox Catholic Bishop of New York and New Jersey.

  “He knows everybody,” Sylvia had said. “Whatever you need, he can help you.”

  When Kurtz had first arrived, the priest had introduced himself as ‘Father Bob.’ He had a small, comfortable office with a window looking out on a garden. A picture of a smiling, dark haired woman surrounded by three children sat on the corner of his desk. The Church, Saint Basil’s, was a small but well-kept building in a middle-class section of Williamsburg, which was a well-to-do neighborhood in Brooklyn, close to the border with Queens.

  The priest raised his eyebrows. “What sort of information?”

  The bad kind, Kurtz thought. “General information.”

  The priest sat back and thought about that for a moment. “General doesn’t tell me much of anything. I could talk forever. Are you interested in the condition of Verushka Popovich’s arthritis? How about Vladimir Medbedev’s recent purchase of a used Volvo?”

  “No,” Kurtz said. “Not exactly.”

  “Well, then, you’re going to have to be a bit more specific.”

  The trouble was that Kurtz didn’t know Father Bob. He didn’t know if he would keep his mouth shut and he didn’t know whose side he was on; but he was a priest, and one who did supposedly care about the well-being of his flock.

  “How big is the community?” Kurtz asked. A nice nondescript way to start.

  “How, exactly, are you defining the community?” Father Bob sat back in his seat and frowned at the little garden. “There are approximately 700,000 people who are at least marginally Russian in New York City. Many of these were born here and consider themselves fully American. Many speak Russian but are actually Ukrainian or Georgian or from one of the other former republics of the Soviet Union.”

  “How about in Brooklyn?”

  “There are a lot in Brooklyn. A hundred-thousand or so.” The priest blinked at him. “Have you heard of Little Odessa?”

  Kurtz had heard the term but he knew nothing about it. He nodded.

  “It’s a neighborhood in Brighton Beach. It used to be mostly Jewish. Today, it’s mostly Russian, primarily recent immigrants, though many of these are also Jewish. About a third of the population doesn’t speak English. Once they get acclimated, learn the language, get jobs and have some money, they tend to move out.”

  “Williamsburg?”

  “Williamsburg. Staten Island. Queens.” The priest shrugged. “Podunk. Wherever.”

  “How much crime is there?”

  Father Bob gave him a long look. “People sometimes think of America as a violent society, the Wild West and all that. In reality, the crime rate in the United States as a whole is somewhat below average for the industrialized world. However, there is tremendous variation in these statistics. The crime rate among the various communities in the United States tends to be similar to that of the country of origin. The crime rate among Russians living in America is similar to the crime rate in Russia, which is, on average, considerably higher than that of the United States as a whole.”

  Father Bob sighed. “My parents came here when I was six. I barely remember the old country, but I do remember my parents’ frustration, their sense of anger and despair. There was no hope in the Soviet Union, no way to provide a better life, for yourself or your kids, not unless you could get out. One of the things about Communism is that it breeds the most selfish people on Earth. In Russia, it was every man for himself. Nobody had much of anything beyond the minimum needed to stay alive, and sometimes, not even that. Everybody was jealous of their neighbor. They hoarded whatever they could.

  “Communism is dead, but the ravages of Communism remain. Now, the oligarchs are in charge, Putin and his cronies. For a little while, under Yeltsin, it seemed like Russia might make the transition to a pluralistic, democratic society, but not anymore. The rule of law means nothing in Russia, nothing at all, and it’s still every man for himself.

  “Yes,” Father Bob said, “the crime rate is pretty high.”

&n
bsp; “Who?” Kurtz said. “Who runs it?”

  Father Bob frowned. “I thought you were a surgeon.”

  “I am,” Kurtz said. “I’m also a police surgeon.”

  “So? Police surgeons aren’t police. They’re surgeons. Why are you asking this?”

  In for a penny, Kurtz thought. “One of my patients, a police officer, was recently shot. It’s suspected that the assailants are Russian. I would like to understand what’s going on.”

  The priest’s face grew pensive. “What was that old saying? Curiosity killed the Kurtz?”

  “Oh, that’s funny.”

  Father Bob chuckled, then he shook his head. “Your colleagues in the police department are going to know a lot more than I do about who’s who in the Russian mafia.”

  This was most likely true, Kurtz thought, but Barent and Moran would probably be reluctant to tell him. “I thought that a local, someone who was actually living and working in the community, might have some special insight into the problem.”

  Father Bob looked at him like he thought Kurtz was delusional. “Are you serious? Nobody in their right mind wants anything to do with those guys. It’s a good way to not-so-quietly disappear.”

  Kurtz gave a half-hearted grin. “Who are those guys?”

  “You are serious, aren’t you?” Father Bob shook his head, then rose to his feet, walked over to a cabinet and pulled out a bottle. “If I’m going to talk about this stuff, I need a drink? You want one?”

  “Sure,” Kurtz said.

  “Scotch? Bourbon?”

  “Either one.”

  “Scotch, then.” Father Bob poured a generous amount into two highball glasses, hesitated, then poured a little more. He handed one glass to Kurtz then sat back down behind his desk. “So,” he said, “where to begin? First of all, there have always been outlaws in Russia. In the days of the Czars, when almost everybody was a peasant and dirt poor, those who robbed from the rich were regarded as popular heroes. The public admired them. Eventually, these outlaws organized into groups with their own codes of conduct, mostly don’t betray the organization or you’ll get your throat slit.

  “Lenin, after the revolution, tried to wipe out the gangs but he wasn’t very successful. Stalin exiled thousands to the gulags, where the criminal element organized themselves and in many cases, virtually ran the camps. During World War 2, amnesty was offered to those who would fight, and so many of the criminals not only gained their freedom, but also military training and an entrée into the military hierarchy. After the war, the gangs continued to grow. Eventually, they ran the black market, which greased the wheels of the so-called ‘secret economy.’ The government stores were often nearly empty of goods but if you wanted some coffee or a nice steak, maybe a bicycle or even a TV set, the black market could provide it. The government tolerated them. Associations between the gangs and government officials were common, even expected.

  “After the collapse of the Soviet Union, thousands of ex-military and KGB offered their services to the gangs. Within a few years, organized crime, the oligarchs, virtually ran the Russian economy, and so it remains today. Russia is a criminal state. In a very real sense, Vladimir Putin is the richest and most successful crime boss in history. His tentacles reach everywhere.

  “The so-called Russian mafia is an extension of the Russian government. Nobody knows where one ends and the other begins.

  “The Italian mafia wasn’t too different, back in the day. It also had ties to corrupt officials in Italy, gaining recruits and financial backing from the home country, but their reach and extent never compared to that of the Russians. The Russian mob is far larger and more organized. The local crime bosses are by no means independent. They are the neighborhood branches of a world-wide organization.” Father Bob looked down at his glass, took a large sip and sat back in his chair. His face was grim. “This is not to say that rivalries do not exist. They do. The politics are Byzantine. Who is on top, who is rising, who will be stabbed in the back, who will be in charge next year or even next week are impossible to predict.”

  Father Bob gave Kurtz an amused grin. “Does this answer your questions?”

  Kurtz, who had known almost nothing of this, took a sip of his own Scotch. It was excellent Scotch but he barely tasted it. The story that the priest told was…appalling. “So who is in charge?” he finally said.

  The priest made a clicking sound between his teeth. “On your own head be it,” he said. “A few years ago, if you had gone to the Bronx and you asked some random guy on the street who is in charge of the Italian-American mob, they would have told you, it’s John Gotti. Everybody knew this, including the cops and the Feds. Proving it to the satisfaction of a jury was a very different matter, so Gotti went on for years, in and out of prison, mostly on minor charges. The Dapper Don, they used to call him. The guy was a New York celebrity.

  “Russians, we like to keep things closer to the vest. A guy like Gotti would be regarded as not quite serious, almost a clown, a dangerous clown, but still…” The priest grinned. He looked down at his glass, which was almost empty. “You want some more?”

  Kurtz put his hand over the top of his glass. “No, thanks.”

  Father Bob shrugged and poured another finger of Scotch into his own glass. “Still, you can’t keep these things a secret, not entirely. We know who has the biggest house. We know who has armed guards patrolling the grounds. We know whose kids go to private schools and always travel with a bodyguard. Also, of course, we know that these things can be deliberate red herrings. The real bosses may be living quietly in some apartment somewhere, anonymous, the spider at the center of the web. This we do not know. Or at least, I don’t know, and I most certainly do not want to know.”

  “Okay,” Kurtz said. “I get the disclaimer. So, who is the one who has armed guards and whose kids always travel with a bodyguard?”

  Father Bob grimaced. “There are a few. What relationship there might be between them, I have no idea. The names that you hear are Alexei Rugov, Sergei Ostrovsky and Iosif Kozlov. They all live in Brooklyn, not too far from here, in Brighton Beach. They all have large, tough looking men in their employ and they’re all apparently very wealthy.”

  “Thanks,” Kurtz said.

  Father Bob grunted. He sipped his Scotch and stared out the window at the garden. He seemed disinclined to say anything more. Kurtz, for his part, had run out of questions. After a few moments, the priest muttered to himself, “Ah, well…” and turned to Kurtz. “Will there be anything else.”

  “No,” Kurtz said. He put his empty glass down on the desk and rose to his feet. “No thank you.”

  Father Bob peered up at him. “A word of advice,” he said. “Don’t ask too many questions. Too many questions asked of the wrong people can get you killed.”

  “I understand,” Kurtz said. “Thanks again.”

  “This hernia is killing me.”

  The cop’s name was Gregory Samms. He was middle aged and not in the best shape. There was still muscle underneath the fat but Gregory Samms had not been spending as much time in the gym as he used to. A hernia was indeed bulging out of the cop’s groin, swollen and faintly red. Gingerly, Kurtz palpated it. Samms sucked in his breath.

  “How long has it been like this?”

  “You mean, how long have I had the hernia?”

  “How long have you had the hernia and how long has it been painful and red?”

  “I’ve had it for about six months. It’s been like this for a couple of days.”

  “Okay,” Kurtz said. “Here’s the story. This hernia is incarcerated, meaning that you have a piece of bowel that’s stuck inside the abdominal wall. I can try to push it back in but that might not work and even if it does work, it’s not going to stay in for very long, not unless the weak spot in the abdominal wall is repaired. What’s worse, an incarcerated hernia often strangulates, meaning that the blood supply gets cut off. The bowel dies. Then you die.” Kurtz raised his eyebrows. “When you said it was ‘k
illing you,’ you weren’t kidding. This is not a pleasant way to go.”

  Gregory Samms blinked at him.

  “You need surgery,” Kurtz said. “You need surgery now. Not next week. Not tomorrow. Now.”

  Gregory Samms gulped. “Okay.”

  Fifteen minutes later, Samms was on his way to the ER. Kurtz had already made the arrangements and spoken to the surgeon on call. Samms would be in surgery within the hour.

  He took a quick twenty minutes for lunch before the nurse showed his next patient into the office. Albert Morelli was a malingerer. According to what Kurtz had been told, Morelli had always been a lazy cop, the sort who went through the motions but never put himself out there. He was thirty-seven years old, had been a cop for fifteen years and had never risen beyond the rank of patrolman. His lack of ambition was almost legendary. That didn’t mean that he never got sick, however.

  Morelli had adhesive capsulitis, otherwise known as ‘frozen shoulder.’ It was a poorly understood condition where the joint capsule became inflamed, causing pain, stiffness and ultimately, immobility. Morelli had first noticed pain a couple of months ago and now he could barely raise his left arm above his waist.

  “Any recent trauma?” Kurtz asked.

  Morelli shook his head.

  Frozen shoulder was more common in trauma and was more often found in association with diabetes, also in women and those over forty. Morelli had no predisposing factors whatsoever, but none of that mattered. He still had a frozen shoulder.

  “Nobody knows the cause of this,” Kurtz said. “It usually gets worse until the shoulder and arm are completely immobile, and then it begins to go away. The whole process can take up to three years.”

  “Three years…I can’t work this way.” Morelli’s eyes grew round. A tremulous smile crossed his face.

  Kurtz could almost see the implications sparking through Morelli’s devious little brain. “No, but you won’t be able to do anything whatsoever with the arm. That includes fishing and golf. The arm will be stuck to your side and it will hurt if you even try to move it.” Morelli, Kurtz already knew, liked to play golf and he loved to fish. “Basically, you’ll be stuck in front of the TV.” Kurtz smiled. “Nothing to do but talk to the wife.”