by Larry Flewin
We dumped everything onto a table and started going through it. File folders, newspapers, magazines, photos, all of it to do with the old country, and recent events therein. After a couple of shushes from some ancient chess players at the next table we found something, or at least Velma did. All I really did was watch her in action and wonder why the hell I'd left her in the first place.
She slapped a thick file folder down on top of the pile and whipped it open. Right on top was another picture of my man, and details on his life right down to the colour of his underwear. He was some kind of party official or bureaucrat back in old Mother Russia. His name was Zaharischuk, Darius Zaharischuk, probably Polish or Ukrainian, so it made sense then that he would hide out here. There were a lot of Poles and Ukrainians over here more than willing to welcome, and hide, a fellow lost soul.
Once through the immigration process, many of them changed their names, sometimes three and four times, before making it official. A lot of past can disappear with a sharp pencil and a little extra cash, and I figured my guy had done the same. Question still was, why. Murder across the pond couldn’t be the only reason, once you got over here they tended to forgive and forget, you were somebody else’s problem.
Velma read the details out loud, with me hanging over her scented shoulder like a vulture. This guy had the job of tracking down lost or stolen items that belonged to very wealthy and long-gone families that used to run the old Russia. Everything from the kitchen sink to grandma’s gold-capped teeth. Any and all such items recovered, she read, were to become the property of the state, and placed in their capable hands for safekeeping for the good and future of all the working peoples of Mother Russia. The article made for a hell of a read, and credited Darius with digging up a lot of loot buried in somebody’s backyard.
Velma continued to dig while I scuffed the carpet and gave this new information some thought. This guy was connected to the two most important letters of the alphabet, J for jewellery, and G for gemstones. Anybody with half a brain knows that J and G go well together with E for easy street, especially if you know what to do after you’ve pocketed everything.
So, I posed a question to the redhead. She pursed her lips before answering, and then it all came out in a rush. “
What it really means is that all these things are locked away and never seen again. I know it says for the good of the people but all they’re really doing is locking it up somewhere. It’s not that they don’t trust themselves, it’s just that they don’t trust the people, you know, the ordinary citizens. Like you and me. “They are so afraid that what happened to the Romanov family.” She took a deep breath and sat back.
“The who family?”
“The Romanov family, the people who ruled Russia before the revolution in 1917.”
“Ah, right.” “Anyways the new leaders in Russia, the Communists, are so afraid that the supporters of the Romanov's might try to kick them out that they are doing everything they can to stop that. That means getting rid of anything that might remind people of the old days.”
“Out of sight, out of mind. Makes sense. If they don’t remember the old days they won’t want them back so quick.”
“And that’s what makes them so dangerous. They don’t care who or what, if they think you are a danger……”
A good reason for running away, and a very expensive one at that. You couldn’t get this far without greasing more than a couple palms, especially if you have an entire country chasing you. What do you bet ol’ Darius had forgotten to lock up the safe one night or neglected to mention the bags of gems he’d found? If that was the case, it might explain why Michael was involved. A double-cross maybe, or a deal gone sour.
That was the good news. The bad news was I had to tell Velma I wasn’t staying. She pursed her lips at the news, and I could see the fire in her eyes as she digested the fact that I had come all this way just to lie to her again. The usual line I gave everybody was the client was in a hurry and paid well for speedy results. But since she knew it so well I was surprised she didn’t take a swing at me, or worse yet start crying.
She sighed heavily, as she always did whenever I left her like this. There's not a lot of room for sentiment in my line of work and she knew that, she always had. But like most dames she stayed faithful to the cockamamie idea that someday I’d come around to her way of thinking and be the man in her life. Well, I wasn't ready to settle down and fly a nice safe desk just yet. Too many things needed finishing and Michael was one of them. We might have been friendly enemies, but it wasn't going to stay that way forever.
This was a big town, with a big heart, and big problems. We were going to get in each other’s way once too often and then it would be all over for one of us. I intended to get in the first shot when it that happened.
She wouldn't let me keep the bio, it was university property, but she insisted on making me some notes. And for that I gave her a big hug and a kiss and told her I wouldn't be gone so long this time. She seemed to understand and watched me with that wistful lost soul look of hers. She knew better.
CHAPTER SIX
The next day dawned bright and early. For the first time in a long while I woke up feeling better than when I’d dropped off. It got better when I found I didn’t have a doorman anymore, guess the overtime was too much. The only item on today’s agenda was to flush my mystery man out of cover. I figured he was in town and in hiding, so I just had to get to find, drag him into the light and wait for little missy to come calling. After that he could play hide and seek to his heart’s content.
He wasn't too hard to find. Even if he didn’t own a car, a driver’s license was easy to get and would make him halfway legit. You had to have a known address for those, one the authorities could kick down later should they decide to say hello. Try paying for the privilege with fake cash and see where it gets you, especially if she’s the Police Chief’s niece.
My cute little contact at the Department of Motor Vehicles sweetly informed me that less than a dozen names starting with the letter Z had registered in the last six months. The addresses slipped off her tongue as sweetly as her kisses.
They were mostly street addresses, with a couple I recognised as rooming houses. I was looking up names with a Z because of a simple memory trick, using the first letter of your last name to start your new name. Change it three for four times and you were as good as gone, and only God and I could track you down. Keeping that one letter would be the key to your sanity, the one reminder of who you really were.
Part of finding him also assumed that he’d be working a telephone. He’d be needing some new friends, and maybe stay in touch with a few of his old ones. That way he could fence what he had and buy a deeper hole to hide in. They weren’t exactly a dime a dozen, so any address with a line running to it got special attention. You knocked on that door with a bit more care.
House number four on the list was in the southern end of town. There was nothing fancy about the place, just a five-window front porch with steps leading up to it, a screen door off to the side, and a heavy wire mesh fence out front. The yard next to it was all vegetable garden, and I couldn't help but notice that the garage had a certain boxcar look to it. I'd seen a lot of fences, garages, and even kitchens made with stuff that belonged elsewhere. And number four had a telephone line running to it.
The front door was open, the screen door flat against the outside. From what I could see, the inside door looked a little worse for wear, like maybe someone's foot had opened it. I came up the steps quietly and gave a little listen by the screen door. There was no sound at all, which never felt right. My instincts were screaming at me to take cover, but I ignored them because I knew I was too late. Somebody, and probably more than one, had already been and gone.
I let my piece lead the way, and just walked in. The place was a mess alright, what hadn’t been slashed or smashed was kindling. The extent of the damage suggested that they had been thorough but hadn't found anyt
hing. Like me, they weren’t sure what to look for, so they’d wrecked the place to be sure they hadn’t missed anything.
It was the groan that made me jump. You don't expect a room that's just been frisked to start groaning, but the pile of newspaper in front of me did just that. I resisted the impulse to put a bullet in it and eased some of the paper aside with the toe of my shoe. And what did I find under the classifieds, but the very man I’d been looking for. Zane, according to his license application, but mom had called him Darius Zaharischuk.
He didn't look too good. You never do when you're dying, and I was pretty sure he was. With all that red stuff soaked into his shirt and pants, they had probably bounced him around the room a few times looking for the same answers I was. Fists are a lot quieter than bullets.
I've been with enough dead and dying to know that the last few seconds are always the worst. They always seem to be surprised that the end is near, and they haven't got the time to tell you what's really on their minds. It usually comes out as a couple of words, and it usually doesn't mean a whole hell of a lot, but they seem to feel better knowing that they've tried. Then they relax, and it’s all over.
Zane was the same way, but too far gone to say anything. All he could do was look surprised and cough up blood. I knelt down beside him looking for any other signs of life. He stared back at me, unmoving.
"Hey, pal,” I said. “Don't tank on me now. I need to know what you told them. Did you say anything, anything at all?”
Nothing. I shook him to get his attention.
"Look, pal, they're after me too. And I'm probably next. You understand that? Can you hear me? C'mon, say something. Anything. Damn it." I dropped him back on the floor in disgust, got up and lit a smoke. I looked back over at him, trying to figure if there was a way to make a dead man talk. He was still alive, barely, and I couldn't swear to it, but I think he was smiling, almost like he was glad to see me.
Then he moved, ever so slightly but he moved. Just his right arm, and it shook with the effort before dropping to the ground. I tried again, down on one knee beside him, turning his face towards me and staring him straight in the eye, looking hard for anything he might say.
“Look pal, I gotta know what’s going on here. I got Mad Mike all over me and you’re the only one who knows why. You gotta help me out here, tell me what the deal is, why does he want you.” Nothing more than a blink. I took a deep breath and started in on him.
“Look, I know all about the murder in England, and the jewellery scam and how you’ve been skimming a little off and fencing it here and there, and I’m pretty sure the murder’s why you’re hiding out over here but I gotta know one thing. I gotta know what Michael’s part is in all this. Is he fencing the stuff for you, is that it? Is he getting a cut, or did he promise to hide you? Lemme guess, you got here on his ticket and then you double-crossed him by hiding from him, too. But you had to have help, you couldn’t do it alone, especially in a new country. That means there’s somebody else, isn’t there! Somebody else is in on this. Who is it? Ya gotta tell me.”
By now I was an inch from his face, with the light of recognition in my eyes. Funny how things sometimes come together when you least expect it. Here I am trying to pry a little information out of a dying man, and suddenly the whole thing begins to make sense. It wasn’t him that Michael wanted so much as his partner in crime, the one on the inside. The somebody else close to Michael who knew what was going on and was trying to cut him out. The same person little missy really wanted found.
He coughed, blood dribbling down his chin, soaking his shirt collar. His right arm moved again, index finger aimed at the wall off to his right. It was as if the wall was somehow to blame. I looked over to where he was pointing, but there was just empty space, cluttered with what was left of his life. Nothing that had appealed to his friends, and even less so to me. I tried explaining that to him, but it was too late. He wasn't listening anymore.
He seemed frozen in time, just pointing and waiting, like maybe he was going to suddenly wake up and answer all my questions. I didn't think that was very likely, but I couldn't exactly ignore him either. He had been the prime interest in my life lately, and still had the answers I needed. It was just going to take a little longer to figure them out. I left him lying there, still half buried in the papers, and started nosing through the rubble. Didn't take me long to find what I wasn't looking for. Money. Small bills mostly, but fifty bucks was fifty bucks. Whatever Michael was looking for was more valuable to him and his goons than cash. I was certain I was on the right track now, one or two steps ahead of him, but in the lead.
I kept poking around, trying to figure what would make one guy pass up fifty smackers, and another die with a smile on his face. Then I remembered Gran. Her place had been much like this one, old and musty, full of religious gewgaws, and very little money. She took to hiding it around the house, especially when grandpa retired and took up drinking his pension as a hobby.
Under the carpets, behind the sofa cushions, in envelopes behind pictures on the wall, and so on. Anyplace she could find it and he couldn't, so at least they could eat. And as soon as I'd figured that out, I became her favourite nephew, always dropping in for a visit and a meal. She’d find an empty envelope and complain about her bad memory, but I figured better me than Grandpa. That took me back a few years, and then brought me right back again.
He wasn't Gran, although he was on his way to meet her. I hoped they'd be happy together. But I took my cue from her and started nosing around the walls more carefully. On the floor, just beyond the reach of his bony fingers, were the remains of his art collection, glass smashed, frames bent, pictures mangled.
There was nothing unusual about any of them, old envelopes taped to the back all ripped open and empty. I toed them around for a bit, hoping for some inspiration, but nothing came to mind. I wandered into the kitchen to see if anything there might be of use or inspiration.
The contents of the room were all over the floor, broken crockery mixed with the contents of the icebox crunching underfoot. A partly full bottle of apricot brandy huddled in a corner. Not exactly to my taste but it promised to take the edge off and kick my brain to a higher gear. It seemed to think straighter when not entirely sober.
The sink sat under a large picture window with a grand view of the backyard. It wasn’t much to write home about, just your average fence and trees and flowers, a gardener he wasn’t. I was working the last dregs of the brandy when Gran struck again, bless her.
When is a picture not a picture, when it’s from a magazine? They were the poor man’s art gallery, frames filled with landscapes, portraits, and other colourful items cut from popular magazines. They gave the place a little class and gave the walls something to do. And Gran was real good at, always looking for something interesting to hang on the walls and hide stuff behind.
It occurred to me that all the pictures I’d kicked around were cut from magazines, all but one. That one was a drawing, a pencil sketch of a fence, trees, flowers, a birdbath, and not much else. It was on a good quality paper and could have been anybody’s back yard, but held up to the window, was remarkably similar to this one. If that was so, I’d just found the next piece of the puzzle, and gained a little ground.
There was one difference, the birdbath. The artist had stuck it right out front so you couldn’t miss it. That was the good news. The bad news was there going to be no time to check it out. There was a crowd gathering out front.
That's the trouble with friends and neighbours, the least little sign of trouble and they start getting up a posse of big knives and loud voices. The kind of voices that could attract a lot of attention, like the local beat cop. I didn't need him nosing around here anymore than I needed them, but who could blame them. This dump had probably seen more traffic in the last coupla hours than all of last year, and none of it friendly.
I left, quickly and quietly, out a side door, through the garage, and down the back lane
. I put a gallon of coffee-flavoured gasoline to use, by midnight I was so wide-awake I almost didn’t need my flashlight. I went straight to the birdbath, and five minutes later at the bottom of a shallow hole, I found an old tin money box, the kind they used at church bazaars for keeping what little money they made. Wasn’t very big, or very heavy, but held out a lot of promise.
And then the night tried to kill me. A single shot woke up the night, shattering the peace and quiet and ricocheting off the tree over my head. A .38 by the sound of it and fired at close range. Luckily, whoever it was had probably heard me more than seen me, but with all the time in the world to set me up, he’d missed.
The next two shots, fired in rapid succession, missed because I ducked and rolled away to my right. I fired twice in return, stopped and held my breath, waiting for the shooter to make another move. He didn't. I kept my gun aimed at the sound of footsteps running off into the night until I was sure, then I got up and retrieved my prize. Lights started to come on here and there, along with the loud voices of scared women waking up their husbands. I beat it before the posse gathered for an encore.
While I’d been away, my home had become a little tidier. Someone had done their best with what little I had and put it all back. Mrs. Chen. She would get this motherly instinct once in a while and take it out on my office, or me. I figure it had something to do with those two greasers I bounced out of her place a coupla years back. Two slick haired torpedoes tried to put the squeeze on her for a little protection money. After I showed them how a fire escape works, from two floors up, they never returned. I guess this was her way of saying thanks.
I took a seat at my desk, placed my prize in front of me, and looked it over carefully. Didn’t look to be anything special or out of the ordinary, so I fished out my picklocks and sprang it open. It was stuffed full of crumpled up newspaper, and at the bottom, a small bundle wrapped in cloth. The papers were local, I glanced through them but nothing jumped out at me, so I put them aside and pulled out the bundle.
