by David Duffy
Surprise, then realization. “Sh… shit. My computer. You were in my apartment? Wh… wh… who are you?”
“I get paid to find things. And people.”
“But who… Oh, I kn… know. My mother.”
“Actually, your father. He’s worried about you. They both are.” I gave Polina the benefit of the doubt.
“I don… I don’t have anything m… m… more to say.” She started to close the door.
“Your dad’s in a tough spot, Eva. You know he was arrested?”
That stopped her, for a moment. “What do you m… m… mean?”
“He’s being charged with some heavy crimes—at the bank. He says he can beat them, but the last thing he needs right now is to worry about you.”
“Who t… told you? My m… mother?”
“He did.”
She thought about that. She clearly cared for Mulholland, but maybe not enough. She pushed on the door. “Sor… sorry.”
“Wait.” I put my foot in the way. I didn’t want to do it like this, but we were going to get to the subject sooner or later, and there was no good way to tell her. “Bad things happened in that loft Wednesday—before I got there.”
“What? Wh… what are you talking about? Wh… wh… what kind of things?”
“Alexander.”
“Wh… wh… what about him?”
“I’m sorry, Eva. He’s dead. Somebody killed him, Wednesday night. I found the body.”
The blue eyes got big with fear and shock, then tears. I had the sense she knew already, on some level, but that didn’t make confirmation any easier to take.
I said, “I’ll tell you what I know if you let me in.”
She shook her head. “I d… d… don’t know you.”
“Of course not. You’re right. I’ll be downstairs, in the lobby. Take your time. I won’t make you go home or anywhere else you don’t want to. Like I said, I just want to talk. I’m sorry.”
I removed my foot, and the door closed softly. I sounded like a fool, but every messenger does, saying they’re sorry when they know they can’t do a damned thing to help.
I stayed a minute outside the door, listening to the sobs. When they didn’t stop, I went downstairs, wondering how long to wait and what to do when I reached whatever deadline I decided on.
Twenty minutes later I hadn’t made much progress, and had started thinking about Eva’s stutter and whether it was connected to her disfigured thighs, when Gina called again.
“You owe me—big-time. I’m in Stamford.”
“What’s wrong with Stamford?”
“It’s in fucking Connecticut.”
“You’re from Ohio, what’ve you got against Connecticut?”
“It’s not New York. Anyway, this is weird. One girl got off the train in Mamaroneck. Another in Greenwich. Striped Shirt and the other chick got off here. They split up, I stayed with Stripy. We’re doing a tour of ATMs. She’s at her third now. I can’t get close enough to see for sure what she’s doing, but I think she’s both taking money out and making deposits. Spends about ten minutes at each one. Strange, huh?”
“She choosing them at random?”
“She keeps consulting her BlackBerry. Whoops, we’re on the move again. Want me to call you back?”
“I’ll hang on.”
A few minutes passed before she came back on the line. “Another bank. Chase, second one on this trip. We’ve hit B of A, a credit union, FirstTrust, and Citi. How can one chick have so many accounts?”
“They’re not hers. Stay with her and let me know where she goes when you get back to town. Call whenever, I don’t care how late.”
“Whenever? Hey, I’ve got a date tonight. You don’t think she’s gonna—”
“I think the last stop on that train line is New Haven.”
“New Haven! Goddammit, Turbo, I—”
I closed the cell phone before her invective could cross the atmosphere. The elevator door opened. Eva stepped out and looked around until she saw me. She was dressed simply in jeans and a purple T-shirt, no makeup.
“Is this okay?” I asked as she approached. The eyes were puffy but still clear. “We can go somewhere else if you want.”
She shook her head and took the seat next to mine. In a few hours, the lobby bar would be a throng of loud music and postworkday revelers, but now it was almost empty.
“Would you like something? Coffee? Cup of tea?”
She shook her head again. “T… t… tell me about Alexander.”
“I will. You tell me something first. You really don’t remember anything about Wednesday?’
She shook her head. “I w… w… went to the loft—I kn… knew he was coming home. He’d t… tol… told me, but n… n… now I realize he forgot. He’s like that sometimes—sp… spacey.” Tears filled her eyes as she realized she’d used the present tense. She tried to shake them away. I went to the empty bar and returned with a stack of cocktail napkins. She used one to dab her eyes.
“I g… g… got there, and he was kind of nervous, j… jumpy. He said it h… h… had been a b… bad flight. I thought tha… that was the reason. Th… th… then the buzzer rang, and he said it was a g… guy he needed to talk to—b… business. He said to wait in the b… b… bedroom. I… I thought I’d take a shower, it was so hot and m… m… muggy. Tha… tha… that’s all I remember.”
“Until the hospital.”
“Y… yeah. I woke up, I didn’t know wh… wh… where I was, how I got there.”
“And you didn’t take anything? Any drugs?”
“N… n… n… no. I don’t do drugs.” She stated it as a fact, not a protest.
“You used to, right?”
“N… no. I smoke some grass. B… b… big deal. You’ve been talking to m… my mother. She’s got no c… clue, n… never has.”
“What about the rehab?”
She didn’t register surprise that I knew. “Tha… that’s her, too. She p… panics over everything. Smoke a joint and you’re h… h… hooked on heroin. It’s easier to go along, s… sometimes.”
It might have been the stutter—damned hard to fake—but I believed her. “You were totally out of it when I found you Wednesday. Blotto. Roofies, the doctors said.”
“I know. They t… told me, too. But I didn’t… I’d never touch something like that. That’s c… c… crazy.”
I still believed her. “Could Ratko, I mean, Alexander have—”
“No! He’d n… n… never. We w… were…”
Now she was protesting. I didn’t believe her, and she didn’t believe herself.
“Did he give you anything to drink? There was a can of Diet Coke by the bed.”
She thought for a minute. “Yeah. I w… went back to the bedroom, and he c… c… came back after me, w… with the Coke. Said I looked d… dehydrated from the heat.”
“Did you drink it?”
“I g… g… guess so, y… yeah.”
“He drugged you, Eva. I’m sorry to say that, but it’s the only way it makes sense.”
“B… but w… w… why? We were f… friends. We w… w… w… He loved me!”
She all but yelled the last part, another protestation. She caught herself and looked around, afraid to draw attention. No doubt she’d loved him.
“Where’d you meet him?”
She shook her head. “T… t… tell me what happened. At the l… l… loft. You s… said you would.”
“You’re right, I did. I got there around eight forty-five. I found two men in the hall outside the bedroom—Alexander and your grandfather, your biological grandfather.”
“Wha… what?”
“You recognized him. He scared the daylights out of you. Why’s that?”
“Grandpa? He was there?”
“That’s right.”
The fear was back. She pushed her chair away from the table. “I have to go.”
“Wait.” I took her hand, gently, but ready to hold on if she tried to run. “He’s not h
ere now. He can’t hurt you. Don’t you want to hear the rest of the story?”
She tugged a little, then relaxed and pulled her chair back. “Okay.” She started to sit, then straightened again. “W… wait. How do you kn… know my grandfather?”
“I’ve known most of your family for years, long before you were born.”
“H… how?”
“We all used to work together—in Russia.”
She backed away. “That m… means you w… w… were…”
“Don’t worry. Not anymore. I live here now. I work for myself. I took you out of there, remember? I didn’t leave you with him.”
She sat down slowly, still unsure.
I went on with the story. “Ratko was already dead. Iakov was wounded. There were bullet holes in the bedroom door. I think you heard the shots, got the gun, fired through the door, and someone fired back at you. There were two more bullet holes in the wall behind the bed. I think you must’ve hit whoever it was, because I could find only one bullet hole in the hall.”
She shook her head. “I d… don… don’t remember.”
“Don’t be hard on yourself. Rohypnol is a powerful amnesiac. You were aware something was going on, something that frightened you. So you got Ratko’s gun.”
“Why do you keep calling him Ratko?”
“His real name was Rad Rislyakov. People here called him Ratko Risly because he looked like Dustin Hoffman in the movie Midnight Cowboy. Any idea who could’ve shot him? Or your grandfather?”
“No.”
“You know he gambled?”
“S… sure. B… but he said he w… was over that.”
“You believe him?”
“Y… yes.” She seemed sincere.
“When you were with him, did he ever seem nervous or afraid? Like someone might hurt him?”
“No. I n… n… never n… noticed anything like that.”
I still believed her.
“Did you know he had an apartment in Chelsea?”
She paused, then shook her head. I wasn’t sure she was telling the truth.
“When did you meet?” I asked.
“W… wait. Wh… wh… what were you doing there—at the l… loft?”
“Looking for Ratko.”
She shot me a look just short of “Duh!”
“Sorry—but if I tell you, you’re not going to like it.”
She didn’t hesitate. “You’ve already d… done the w… w… worst you can d… do.”
I was trained to keep people talking. Coax, probe, know when to apply pressure. Work the psychology. Take advantage. Manipulate hopes, fears, and insecurities. I used to assuage my conscience with the assertion that it was all in service of a cause. The cause turned out to be bullshit, but at the time it was still a cause. Now? Why was I ripping up this girl’s life? She’d already spent most of it a trauma victim. Her boyfriend—that’s how she thought of him—had been using her. I’d more or less exposed that part of him. Now I had the chance to show her what a thoroughly nasty shit he was and drag her mother into the muck at the same time. Eva had never done anything to me, at least consciously, probably never done anything to anybody. I could’ve—should have?—walked away and left her to pick up the pieces. Instead I pushed ahead with the demolition, as I knew I would. If you’re afraid of wolves, don’t go into the forest, as we say.
“You know what phishing is?”
She nodded slowly.
“Ratko—Alexander—phished your father. About four months ago. He bugged all the computers in the apartment. He found something he was using to blackmail your mother.”
“She t… t… told you this?”
“No. She tried to keep it a secret. She’s still trying. You know Ratko was an identity thief. You worked his UnderTable account.”
She looked away and back again. “He said… he said it was a victimless c… crime. Credit cards, b… bank accounts, they all have in… in… insurance.”
“So some nameless insurance company is going to pay your hotel bill here.”
She looked away again. “Okay. He sh… showed me once. He was sh… sh… showing off. It was the f… first time I ever used it. I needed m… money, s… someplace to go.”
“Why not home?”
That got me the “duh” look again.
“Why’d you run from the hospital?”
She hesitated, then looked away. “I was scared.”
“Of what?”
She didn’t answer and kept her eyes away from mine. “How much tr… trouble is my d… d… dad in?”
“A lot. Yet he’s worried about you more than anything. Probably do him a ton of good to see you.”
She nodded at that.
“What frightened you at the hospital?”
She looked at the floor.
“What did you mean by that note, the one in your apartment—‘You should have left me with Lena’?”
The shriek was muffled by the sob that came right on top of it. “N… nothing.”
“We both know that’s not true. You told your mother the same thing the last time you had a fight.”
She turned jittery, fearful. “Who told you that?”
“Your father.”
“I w… want to g… g… go now.”
She was halfway out of her chair, eyes darting left and right, around me. Her entire demeanor changed—from sorrowful and curious to caged and cornered. I was losing her. I took one more shot.
“Did you know Ratko worked for your father, your real father?”
“Whaaa?!” She swung back toward me, every inch of her trembling.
“What’s the matter?”
She shook her head violently as she backed up, knocking over her chair. She was out of my reach before I could stand.
“Eva—”
She bolted, straight out the front door. By the time I got to the street, she was half a block away, up Park Avenue, running fast. I let her go. I wasn’t going to catch her, and I’d lost her even if I did. But what was she running from, other than her entire family?
Three people could possibly shed light on that. Two of them hated my guts. A phone call confirmed Iakov was still at Mount Sinai. I caught a cab uptown.
CHAPTER 24
Another call. Gina said, “You have no idea how much you owe me.”
“He wasn’t your type anyway.”
“What? How the hell do you know?”
“If he was, he’d go to Stamford, pick you up.”
“New Haven, God damn it! Like you said. I follow Stripy back to the station, she gets on a train, joins up with the other chicks, now we’re all in fucking New Haven. Same thing there. The group split up, I stick with Stripes. We’re at our fifth ATM now.”
“Stay on her. She’ll head back to New York soon.”
“That a promise?”
“Trust me.”
Gina was still cursing as the cab pulled up at the Madison Avenue entrance to Mount Sinai. I paid the driver. Lachko’s men tried to block Iakov’s door, but I pushed through. He was awake, sitting up in bed, reading the Economist, looking much the same as yesterday.
“Why didn’t they release you?” I asked.
“Tomorrow morning, they say now. Don’t ask why, no good answer. One more night. I hate this fucking city.”
“How do you feel?”
“Fine. Ready to get out of here.”
“Tell me straight this time, what were you doing at Greene Street?”
He closed the magazine and put it on the bed beside him as he looked me up and down. “Is this an interrogation?”
“Not by choice.” I took a shot. I might lose a chess piece, but I’d gain information whether I was right or wrong. “You lied the other day. Rislyakov was helping you find Polina. But he crossed you. He found her, but he tried blackmailing her instead.”
“I don’t know anything about blackmail.”
“He gambled. He needed money.”
“I had the sense he was up to something. He flew ba
ck here before I could get to him, so I came over.”
“But you didn’t kill him?”
“What I told you Thursday was true. Someone shot both of us. Could have been you.”
I ignored that. He was playing his own chess game. “So what business does the Cheka possibly have with Polina?”
He smiled. “Where is she?”
“You first.”
He gave me a look I hadn’t seen in twenty years. The same look I got the day he called me in after I’d reported that Lachko was stealing. “I don’t know where your loyalties lie anymore, Turbo.”
“I still owe you everything. That hasn’t changed.”
“What about the Cheka?”
“I was reminded just the other day, there are no ex-Chekists.”
“You prepared to trade?”
“I can’t give you Polina.”
“Why not?”
“I gave her husband my word. He’s my client.”
“Why do I care about him?”
“You don’t. I do.”
He shook his head.
“I’ll help you as much as I can, short of that,” I said.
His face softened—a little. He didn’t like it, but I held the stronger hand.
“Polina stole a great deal of money. Six hundred million dollars—1998 dollars. Must be over a billion now.”
“Stole? From the Cheka?”
“She and Kosokov. I told you they were lovers. They had a business, with Lachko. Real estate, buying and selling apartments. Kosokov was the financier. They made a lot of money, but it wasn’t enough for her—or him. They were made for each other. Two most venal people I ever met.”
I wondered where he’d put his own sons on the venality ladder. “You never stopped watching her, did you?”
He just looked up at me. During the Disintegration, he was the one who told me she was sleeping with my fellow officers at Yasenevo. I never asked how he found out. I didn’t need to.
“We used Kosokov’s bank. I couldn’t stand the bastard, but he had the Yeltsin connection, and in those days, that was useful. He almost went bust in ’98, or so we thought. Turns out the bastard was playing a double game, financing the Chechens with our money. Why, I have no idea, except he was making a pretty kopek in the process. He was also moving money abroad as quickly as he could. He had a partner in the Chechen venture, a man named Gorbenko. I’ll admit to you now, in the privacy of this room, we covered up a lot about that piece of shit. He was one of ours, a true traitor—drunk, gambler, whoremonger—how he rose so high is an embarrassment. The Chechens turned him. Kosokov killed him, we know now—a falling-out among thieves. But if he hadn’t, we would have. I would have pulled the trigger myself.”
