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

by Robert I. Katz

  “I have nothing to say,” Albert Morelli said.

  His union rep, a hard eyed fellow cop named Alice Boyer, plus his lawyer, a thin guy in a dark gray suit, named Eric Cantrell, sat next to him. Across the table sat Jason Blair, two other officers from IA, Ted Weiss and Abby Blake.

  Abby Blake’s eyes flicked to Ted Weiss, who nodded. Abby Blake gave Eric Cantrell a truly evil little smile, the smile of a woman who knew that she held all of the cards. “So, let me summarize,” Abby Blake said. “We have a total of 347,752 dollars deposited into your account over the past four years by a party or parties unknown. You were smart enough to pay taxes on that money. We will acknowledge that it is not illegal to receive funds from an un-named source; however, it is prima facie evidence of, at the least, corruption. This is certainly sufficient evidence for your separation from the force.

  “We have also identified an account in the Bank of New York, registered to one Wanda Morelli, your wife, that contains an additional 222,472 dollars. It is unclear how that money was received. Neither you nor your wife have ever paid any taxes on that sum.” Abby Blake peered at Eric Cantrell over the top of her glasses. “Tax evasion, as I’m sure you realize, is a felony.

  “In addition, we have been recording your most recent phone calls. One call, made two days ago to a number that could not be traced, was rather cryptic, giving only a date three days hence, a specific time and a location at a residence in Brighton Beach. Another, again to a number that could not be traced, also gave a second date and time, and a location in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Both of these dates and locations correspond to planned raids by the Narcotics Squad.” Abby paused and squinted down at her notebook. “You might be interested to know that in both instances, the information that you transmitted was deliberately left for you to find. No actual raids were planned for those dates or at those locations.”

  Albert Morelli sighed. Alice Boyer, the Union rep, frowned and gave Morelli a disgusted look. Eric Cantrell shook his head.

  “Okay,” Albert Morelli said, “so what’s the deal? Why are we even talking?”

  “Cooperation plus evidence of sincere contrition might go a long way toward mitigating your sentence.”

  Morelli looked at his lawyer, who gave a rueful smile. “Cooperate how?” Cantrell said.

  Morelli interrupted. “It doesn’t matter how,” he said. “If I talk, I’ll wind up dead. Forget it.”

  “Forget it?” Abby Blake said. “You sure about that?”

  Morelli shook his head sadly. “Yeah. Forget it.”

  Abby Blake shrugged. “Oh, well. It never hurts to try. Then I guess we’ll see you in court.”

  “You’re rather quiet this evening,” Lenore said.

  Kurtz blinked at her. “Huh?”

  “Never mind,” she said. “You’re obviously thinking. Keep thinking.” Lenore, sitting in an easy chair, went back to her book. She was reading the latest Harry Potter.

  Frankly, none of this made any sense. There were too many players doing too many obscure and pointless things. Or so it seemed. Fictional detectives were fond of saying that they did not believe in coincidence, but in real life, coincidence happened all the time. Real life did not follow a convenient story arc. Real life often made no sense.

  Still, whether it was fiction or real life, criminal masterminds were rarely in the habit, or so Kurtz imagined, of doing things that made no sense. Somewhere, somebody had an actual motive, a reason for doing whatever it was that they were doing.

  Love and money, or so his police friends often said. In the end, those were the only real motives. There was revenge, of course, but revenge was spurred on by hatred and hatred was a perverted form of love. Political crimes? Terrorism? Maybe, Kurtz thought, but terrorism was caused by fidelity to a cause—love, in other words, in this case, love of an idea, love of a vision of what life could and supposedly should be like, if only the golden, glorious new way of organizing society could be made real.

  Somehow, Kurtz doubted that Alexei Rugov and whoever had tried to kill him were motivated by such a vision. No, he remembered what Father Bob had said to him. Nobody in Russia had enjoyed living under Communism. Kurtz recalled a line he had once read, supposedly the ruminations of a Soviet worker: “They pretend to pay us and we pretend to work.” Life in the Soviet Union had been a charade, a Potemkin village all the way down. It was every man for himself in the good old USSR.

  Love or money? Mobsters, obviously, were in it for the money. And if love happened to be your thing, enough money could buy an awful lot of it.

  Still, Kurtz thought, you couldn’t discount love. It was too soon to discount anything.

  A Russian mobster had tried to kill Arnie Figueroa. That was a fact. You had to start with the facts.

  Albert Morelli had been in contact with a person or people who he refused to name, was in fact on their payroll. Probably, these were Russians. Arnie Figueroa had seen him with said probable Russians and since then, there had been two distinct attempts on Arnie’s life.

  Alexei Rugov, a Russian mobster, had been poisoned with carfentanil.

  Mitchell Price, a stockbroker, had been drugged with heroin spiked with alpha-methylfentanil and then had his throat slit by his jealous girlfriend.

  Steven Hayward and his wife, known drug dealers, had been murdered in a particularly violent and gruesome way.

  Alejandro Gonzales, a Mexican drug dealer who had been dealing primarily heroin spiked with carfentanil, and Andrew Fox, a known associate of Steve Hayward, had been killed by professional hit men from out of town, who had also chosen to put bullets into the legs of a group of drug addicted suburbanites, supposedly sending a message to somebody, a message that may or may not have been received, but probably had been.

  What else?

  Oh, yeah…poor Steve Ryan and his sad, pathetic suicide, who had been married to Donna Ryan, who was employed by a corporation that was about to “merge” with the Rugov Corporation, which was owned by Alexei Rugov, who had been deliberately poisoned with carfentanil.

  Then there were Iosif Kozlov and Sergei Ostrovsky…where did they fit in? From the outside, Rugov, Kozlov and Ostrovsky seemed much the same. Same gender, same nationality, similar background, not much to tell them apart. From Kurtz’ point of view, which one was one on top and who was doing what to whom was a matter of complete indifference. So long as they stayed far away from Kurtz and the people he cared about, they could prey on each other all they wanted.

  All pieces of a puzzle, but too many pieces were missing, and the pieces that they had didn’t fit together.

  His head was beginning to pound and he had a hernia and a gallbladder scheduled for the morning. He glanced at his watch. “I’m going to bed,” he announced.

  Lenore put down her book and stretched. “I’ll join you,” she said.

  “Thank god,” Kurtz said.

  “This is probably bullshit,” Barent said.

  Kurtz looked at him. “You got anything better to do?”

  Barent shrugged. “Not at the moment.”

  The sky was cloudy but the temperature was warm, steamy even. Summer in the city. It was Kurtz’ favorite time of year. A little gust of wind swirled around their feet as they entered the lobby, walked over to the elevator and rose to the twenty-fourth floor.

  Kurtz had briefly entertained the notion of coming here by himself, knowing that Barent would most likely think the whole idea absurd, but while Kurtz had very occasionally in the past acted without as much restraint as might be prudent, he was not going to step all over an actual police investigation…not that it was much of an investigation.

  Still, having the imprimatur of the NYPD made it all so much more official. Richard Kurtz, MD and amateur detective could be ignored, or even laughed at. The police couldn’t.

  A secretary greeted them in the lobby, glanced at the appointment calendar on her computer screen, smiled and buzzed them in. “Second office on the left,” she said.

  The door was
already open. A large man with short black hair going gray and sharp blue eyes stood up from behind a glass and metal desk as they walked in. “Officer Barent? Doctor Kurtz? I’m Jeremiah Phelps. Please sit down.” They shook hands. Kurtz and Barent sat.

  Jeremiah Phelps was the fourth generation of his family to run Hotchkiss and Phelps, his great-grandfather, Jonas Phelps having founded the company along with his best friend from the class of 1937 at Yale, Charles Hotchkiss. Jeremiah Phelps’ father, Jeremy Phelps, had bought out the last heir of Charles Hotchkiss back in 1985.

  “So, what can I do for you?” Phelps asked.

  Barent smiled and glanced at Kurtz, who cleared his throat. No sense in beating around the bush. “Tell us about this merger, with the Rugov Corporation.”

  Phelps gave an abrupt nod. He sat back in his seat, glanced out the window and sighed. “You see that?” he said.

  Kurtz blinked. “Not offhand. No.”

  Phelps’ lips twitched briefly upward. He waved his hand out the window. “New York. Manhattan, the heart of the greatest city in the history of the world.”

  Tokyo and London and a few others might be able to dispute that claim. “So?” Kurtz asked.

  “So, New York is expensive. Everybody wants to live here. Everybody wants to work here.” Phelps gave them a tired grin. “If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere. Right?”

  Kurtz cautiously nodded. Barent merely observed, a faint, interested smile plastered on his face.

  “You don’t get it?”

  “You’re implying, if I understand you correctly, that there’s a lot of competition in the world of investment banking, and that maybe your finances are not what they used to be?”

  Phelps cocked his head, stared out the window and sighed. “Exactly,” he said. “There’s always been a lot of competition in this business, but the recent economy has been difficult for us to negotiate. The country never really got over the last crash, and after a fairly tepid recovery, the GDP has been trailing off again for the last couple of years. The business environment is slow, not the worst that it’s ever been, but slow. On top of that, some of the investments that the company made in the not so distant past have not paid off like we hoped.”

  Kurtz pondered this. “What investments might that be?”

  Phelps rolled his eyes. “Ordinarily, we respect the confidentiality of our clients, but since the companies involved are already bankrupt, there isn’t anything left to respect. First, there was a corporation called Underground Projects. They had a proprietary method for repairing underground pipe. Obviously, it’s a lot cheaper to repair underground pipes than it is to dig them up and replace them.”

  “What happened?”

  “Their process worked, but it turned out that the repairs broke down after about two years and needed to be done again. It wasn’t cost effective. They went bankrupt and we lost our investment.”

  “Tough one,” Kurtz said.

  “I’ll say.” Phelps nodded. “And then there was Triangular Solutions. They had a test kit for diagnosing over fifty different conditions with a small sample of blood. It didn’t work. They knew it didn’t work, but they played us for fools. We lost a bundle. They’ve been indicted. Fraud, among other things. And finally, there was Enron.”

  Kurtz stared at him. Barent winced.

  “You invested in Enron?” Kurtz said.

  “Enron was named ‘The Most Innovative Company in America’ six years running by Fortune Magazine. We weren’t the only ones who got scammed.” Phelps sighed. “Not our finest moment.”

  “So, you’re in trouble,” Kurtz said.

  “Yes,” Phelps said simply, “we’re in trouble.”

  “And where does Rugov fit in?”

  Phelps shrugged. “We need money. Rugov has money.”

  Kurtz glanced at Barent, still listening with the same faint smile hovering over his face.

  “Alexei Rugov is a criminal. You must know that.”

  “The Rugov Corporation may be involved in illegitimate business. I wouldn’t know, but it’s a legitimate corporation. Sometimes,” Phelps said, “you don’t have a lot of choices.”

  Jeremiah Phelps, and his father and his grandfather before him, had been doing this for a very long time. Not very well, apparently.

  “What’s the deal with you and Rugov? Specifically?”

  “Pretty simple. They’re buying us out. The terms are good. None of us are going to starve.”

  “But you’ll no longer be associated with the company?”

  Phelps grinned. “I will be, actually, in an advisory capacity, for which I will be paid a small, pro-forma salary. Rugov seems to feel that it will be good for the firm’s image to keep somebody named Phelps on the payroll.”

  “You’ll be a figurehead.”

  Phelps shrugged. “Yes.”

  “How do you feel about that?”

  Phelps grinned. “Not as bad as you might think.” He spread his hands to the side. “Look, I’m rich, and the buyout will make me richer. I’ve been thinking of retiring, anyway. Frankly, at this point? I’m tired of beating my head against a wall. I couldn’t care less.”

  “What about the other partners? And the staff?”

  Phelps hesitated. “Rugov is a holding company. Their business dovetails very nicely with ours, but there’s a lot of redundancy. The employees have been apprised of the situation. About half have been told that their services will be retained, if they want to stay. About half of the remainder have already left. The rest of them are looking.”

  “And the partners?”

  “As I said, bought out. A few have been offered shares in the new corporation, in lieu of money, the ones that Rugov wants to keep around.”

  Barent cleared his throat. “Which ones are those?”

  “Ken Fischel, Dave Mahoney, Beverly Levinson and Donna Ryan. The young, smart ones.”

  “The ones who had nothing to do with Underground Projects, Triangular Solutions or Enron?” Kurtz said.

  “Yeah. All four of them advised against all three investments. Donna in particular, was pretty vehement.”

  “What do you think of Donna Ryan?”

  “Donna.” Phelps smiled. “Donna is our star. She’s brilliant.”

  “Lucky that she’s staying then.”

  “Very lucky. We almost lost her, recently.” Phelps shook his head, his expression troubled.

  Kurtz blinked. “How so?” he said.

  “She was negotiating with Halligan and Spence, in Scottsdale. Then her husband committed suicide.”

  Barent sat up straight in his chair. His look of vague disinterest suddenly vanished. “I don’t understand,” he said. “What does her husband’s suicide have to do with Donna Ryan and Scottsdale?”

  Phelps looked bewildered. “Didn’t you know? Steve Ryan had accepted a position with a private plastic surgery group in Scottsdale, Arizona. It seems he had been having some problems at his current institution and wanted a clean start. Donna wasn’t too thrilled about it but she wasn’t willing to break up the family and she liked her husband. A lot of rich tourists in Scottsdale. Go away on what’s been billed as a skiing vacation and come back a few weeks later with a new face.” Phelps shrugged. “It was a good opportunity.”

  Kurtz drew a deep breath, his head spinning. Barent gave an almost inaudible chuckle.

  Phelps looked back and forth between Barent and Kurtz. “You didn’t know that?”

  “No,” Kurtz said, “we didn’t.”

  “The plot sickens,” Kurtz said.

  A faint summer drizzle splattered against the windshield as Kurtz drove. The drizzle reflected his mood.

  “Not exactly evidence,” Barent said.

  “A motive, though.”

  Barent nodded. “A motive isn’t evidence. The body’s been cremated. We can look at the note again. I doubt we’ll find much.”

  “You’ve told me in the past that a lot more people than we think get away with murder. Isn’t that so?�
��

  Barent frowned at him. “About thirty percent of the murders that we know about are never solved. Then there are the ones that we only suspect, and the ones that we don’t know about at all. Somebody dies and it’s assumed to be an accident or natural causes.” Barent shook his head. “Steve Ryan has just been moved from category three to category two. We have no evidence of anything, and at this point, I don’t know how to get any.”

  “Great,” Kurtz said. “That’s just fucking great.”

  Chapter 26

  “Ironic, is it not?” Alexei Rugov said.

  Alexei Rugov, having been unconscious and on a ventilator for two days, had finally woken up and been released from the hospital, as had Natasha. Natasha, the would-be heroine of the moment, sat at his side. Irina, knowing better than to complain about her temporary reduction in status, sat across the table from them both.

  Vasily Lukin appeared worried.

  “Nothing to say?” Rugov shrugged. “This man Kurtz saved my life. It would hardly be fair to kill him now.”

  “Did he save your life? Or did he almost take it?”

  A forkful of scrambled eggs paused halfway to Rugov’s lips. He blinked. “You are suggesting that this was some sort of elaborate charade?”

  “His presence there, a surgeon, a man trained to deal with medical emergencies, is certainly a coincidence, and the attempted murderer has vanished.”

  “You don’t like Richard Kurtz,” Rugov stated.

  “My personal feelings are irrelevant. He’s nosing about in things that are not his business.”

  “True,” Rugov said. He swallowed his eggs and patted his lips with a napkin. “Very true, indeed.”

  “Make no sudden movements,” the voice said.

  Really? Did people really say that, outside of the movies or bad TV shows? Unfortunately, despite the absurdist nature of the situation, something hard was poking Kurtz in the center of his back.

  Kurtz had already had a long day, having removed two gallbladders and an infected perirectal abscess, and then repaired two hernias. It was evening, the sun just beginning to set on the horizon and Kurtz had been trying hard to unwind, going for a little jog after work. Now this.