Tonight I Said Goodbye

by Michael Koryta

  He gave a tight smile. “Call me Thad,” he said. “Or Agent Cody.”

  He put the leather case back in his pocket and looked from Joe to me as if expecting further reaction. A look at our faces told him he wasn’t going to get it, so he nodded and sat down.

  “You gentlemen been in business long?” he asked, crossing his legs at the ankles after smoothing the crease in his slacks.

  “Same office for nineteen years,” Joe said.

  Cody raised one eyebrow. “Really?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Cody glanced at Swanders and then said, “What’s the point of lying to me, Mr. Pritchard? You’re not exactly getting off to a great start.”

  Joe dropped his feet to the floor and pulled his chair up to the desk. “What’s the point of asking questions you already know the answers to, Agent Cody? And I don’t give much of a damn what kind of start we get off to, considering you weren’t asked to come here. If you’ve got something to talk to us about, why don’t you start talking? Otherwise, I’ll be on my way to get some dinner. It’s late, and I’m a grumpy old man who likes his food.”

  Swanders snorted and turned to Cody. “Told you.”

  “Told him what?” I asked.

  “Told him you fellas might be difficult just because you feel like it.”

  I grinned at him. “That’s the beauty of being self-employed.”

  Cody cleared his throat and gave us a pained expression, as if maybe he’d picked up a splinter from the stadium seat.

  “I apologize, gentlemen.” He nodded at Joe. “There was no need for me to start off by asking questions I already know the answers to. And, yes, I’ve got something to talk to you about.”

  “Our rates are pretty reasonable,” I said. “But if you’re wanting us to crack a challenging case that has you FBI boys stumped, the retainer fee is going to be sizable. We run the risk of damaging our reputation by hanging out with Bureau boneheads.”

  Cody pointed his index finger at me and opened his mouth to snap off a quick retort but then stopped himself. He tucked the finger back into his fist and dropped his hand to his lap, then turned his head to the ceiling and exhaled heavily, like he was releasing tension and coming to peace with himself before assuming a yoga position. I thought for a minute he might roll right onto the floor, stand on his head, maybe, or strike a swan pose. He kept his eyes on the ceiling for a few seconds and then rolled his head back down, smiling now.

  “I’ll tell you what,” he said. “How about we put a spotlight on you two, give you ten, maybe fifteen minutes for the comedy routines? You can take shots at my employer, my wife, my mother, whatever. When you’ve completed the first act, I’ll applaud real politely, and then maybe we can get down to business.”

  Kraus laughed, and Joe shrugged. “Let’s just get down to business, Cody.”

  He nodded, then leaned down and opened his briefcase. He withdrew a manila folder and took four eight-by-ten black-and-white photographs from it. He spread them on the desk, facing us. I immediately recognized two of the men in the pictures; they were Rakic and Krashakov, the Russians I’d spoken with earlier in the day. The other two I didn’t know. One was a heavyset man with a thick mustache, fleshy chin, and small dark eyes. The other was younger, with dark hair, a goatee, and a nasty scar across his left temple.

  “Recognize them?” Cody asked.

  I nodded. “These two,” I said, pointing at Rakic and Krashakov. “I don’t know the others, though.”

  Cody leaned back in his chair and studied us. “How did you two connect those men to Wayne Weston?”

  “Who says we did?” I said.

  He sighed. “Gentlemen, I thought we were past this stage.”

  I looked at Joe, and he nodded, indicating that I was free to talk. We were being paid to bring the case to a conclusion, and the FBI had resources that could help us do that. There was no sense in stonewalling them or acting like we were competing with them.

  “April Sortigan,” I said, looking at Kraus. “She turned out not to be such a dead end after all. Sortigan told me Weston had asked her to do background checks on three men. She gave me the names, and we started to check them out ourselves. From what I’ve gathered so far, they’re foot soldiers for the Russian mob.”

  “Who told you that?” Cody said.

  “We’re investigators,” I answered. “We investigated. Now, do you want to tell us what this is all about?”

  He nodded. “The Russian mafia in this city—and in the rest of the country—is growing,” he said. “It’s the most powerful organized crime syndicate in the world; nothing else even comes close. They have ties to eighty percent of the banks in Russia, so money laundering is no problem, and now they’re spreading their claws across the globe. Cleveland is one of those new destinations.”

  He jabbed his finger at the man with the fleshy face and the mustache. “That is Dainius Belov. He’s the don of the Russian mob in this city, and it doesn’t pay to underestimate his power. He’s got more weight than any of the Italian gangsters in this city ever dreamed of.” He pointed at the photograph of Krashakov. “Alexei Krashakov is one of Belov’s lieutenants. Rakic and Malaknik work closely with him. They’re a little too wild for Belov’s liking, so their power is limited, but they’re busy boys. They’ve got ties to heroin, cocaine, insurance scams, prostitution, illegal weapons trafficking—you name it, they’re involved.” Cody’s voice had taken on a haggard, weary tone, and I thought he’d probably spent too many hours poring over photographs of these guys, looking for a way to bring them down.

  “We’re particularly interested in the weapons trafficking,” he said. “These guys are moving some serious contraband through the city, and we intend to stop it. Assault rifles, machine guns, and hell, even missiles. And they’re very good at it. They’re very good at all of it. Because they’re pros. Half of Belov’s boys were special forces soldiers in Afghanistan in the eighties. Some of them even have ties to the KGB. We’ve got a task force working on them, a joint effort between Bureau agents and CPD detectives.” He sighed. “And, so far, I’ll admit that we’re not having much success.”

  “How’s Wayne Weston involved?” Joe said.

  Cody slid the photographs together and tapped them on the desk, straightening their edges before returning them to the manila folder.

  “We’ve had wiretaps on these guys for months,” he said. “Some of them we’ve had for years. A week before Wayne Weston was murdered, his name was heard in one of our taped conversations. The Russians speak guardedly on the phone, and the context of the remark was hard for us to distinguish. However, it appeared they found Weston to be a problem, or a nuisance, that’s for sure. A few days later, he was dead, and his family was gone.”

  “And you think they’re behind it,” Joe said.

  He nodded. “We’re almost sure of it. We just need to prove it.”

  “Any idea how they’re connected?” I asked.

  Cody shook his head. “Not yet. We were prepared to open a preliminary investigation into Mr. Weston after his name came up on our wiretaps. Then he was killed, and it became a more urgent matter.”

  “Then he was killed,” I echoed, and looked at Swanders and Kraus. “So you no longer believe Weston was a suicide?” They didn’t respond, and I asked, “Did you ever believe he was a suicide?”

  “Don’t blame them,” Cody said. “The initial investigation of the scene made it look like suicide was probable. Then we got wind of it and stepped in to, um, aid the investigation. The police were asked to stick with the suicide story for a while to keep the Russians relaxed.”

  I pointed at Swanders. “So the gambling angle was bullshit from the beginning, eh?”

  He shrugged, and Kraus grinned. “Hope you didn’t waste too much time with that,” he said.

  “Wasted just enough,” Joe said dryly. “So why put us in the loop now? Because we’re not quite as stupid as you’d hoped?”

  Cody smiled. “I wouldn’t have phrase
d it like that, but, basically, you’re right. We were content to let you chase whatever leads you had as long as you didn’t get in our way. But when you showed up on Rakic’s front porch this afternoon, we realized we couldn’t let this continue.”

  “You’re watching the house?” I said. He nodded, and I said, “The green Oldsmobile, right? With the South Carolina plate?”

  Cody raised his eyebrows and shook his head slowly. “We don’t have anyone in vehicle surveillance.”

  “Oh, come on,” I said.

  “No, really,” he answered. “I won’t disclose the location of our surveillance team, but we don’t have anyone in a car.”

  I looked at Joe. “That means they rented a house,” I said. “These Russians are more important than we thought.”

  “What’s this car you were talking about?” Swanders asked. “Someone else was watching the house?”

  “And talking to the neighbors,” I said. “Flashing a badge and saying he was a cop. Called himself Detective Davis.”

  “You kidding me?” Swanders sat up, not happy about this at all. “Some asshole is talking to those neighbors and pretending he’s one of us? Who the hell is he?”

  I shrugged. “If he’s not FBI, and he’s not a cop, it would probably be worth finding out.”

  “Did you get a good look at the car?” Cody asked.

  Joe nodded. “I’ve got the plate number and some photographs. I assume your surveillance team will have him, too.”

  “I’ll ask about it,” Cody said. “Mind if I use your phone?”

  Joe slid it across the desk to him, and Cody called someone and asked about the green car. He nodded grimly and hung up.

  “They saw it,” he said, “but they said it’s gone now. They’ve got the plate number, and I told them to run a check on it. Apparently he was on the street for about an hour and then left. Never got out of the car.” He chewed on his lip and stared at the phone. “I don’t like this.”

  We didn’t speak for a few seconds, and then he shook his head and grunted, tearing his thoughts away from the phony cop and bringing them back to us.

  “Now, would you tell us what happened between you and Rakic and Krashakov today, Mr. Perry?”

  I told them. When I finished the story, Cody looked at Swanders, a question in his eyes, like maybe he thought—or hoped—I might be making it up just to mess with him. Swanders shook his head and sighed.

  “You pretended to be going door to door for charity?” Cody said.

  “You took twenty dollars from them?” Swanders said.

  “For AIDS research?” Kraus said.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “I suppose,” Cody said eventually, “it could be much worse.” It was the type of statement you might hear from a man who’d just been told his cancer was fatal only in ninety percent of its occurrences. “I’m not happy with that interaction, but it could have been worse.”

  “It could have been avoided easily enough,” I said. “If Swanders and Kraus had been straight with us in the beginning, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

  “Hey,” Kraus said, “the FBI’s been calling the shots here. They told us to blow you off, so we blew you off. Nothing personal.”

  “It’s nothing personal,” Cody agreed. “But we needed this to be quiet. And now that you’re involved, we can’t allow you to jeopardize this investigation.”

  “So you plan to order us off the case?” Joe asked.

  Cody frowned. “I’m not ordering you off the case. I’m just asking you to avoid engaging these men. We want them to be relaxed. The more relaxed they are, the more likely they are to make a mistake. And then we’ve got them.”

  “Not to be a wet blanket,” Joe said, “but it doesn’t sound like you’ve got shit.”

  The frown remained on Cody’s face. “We don’t have much,” he said, “but we plan to change that. For now, we’re concerned with Wayne Weston. Our investigators haven’t been able to find any sign that the man was a legitimate private investigator. He was licensed with the state, of course, but there’s no indication he ever accepted clients. We’ve found numerous stories of clients who went to other agencies in town after being turned down by Weston.”

  “You’ve got no idea who he was working for?” Joe asked.

  “None. Do you?”

  Joe’s eyes flitted in my direction briefly, and then he nodded. “Jeremiah Hubbard.”

  “Jeremiah Hubbard?” Cody echoed in astonishment.

  Joe explained what we knew, including the details of our visit with Hubbard, as well as the checks from various Hubbard-owned companies that Weston had cashed. Cody listened thoughtfully, and I could tell the idea that Hubbard was somehow connected to the Russians wasn’t a pleasing one to him.

  “We’ve got hundreds of names of people believed to be Belov associates,” he said when Joe was through. “Hubbard has never come up, nor any of his people.”

  “If he’s associated with Belov, he’d definitely want to keep it under the radar,” Joe said. “Hubbard’s about as big a man as there is in this town.”

  “No kidding,” Cody said. “He’s the legitimate version of Dainius Belov.”

  We all sat in silence then, as the wind whipped around the building, making the old windowpanes rattle. Another cold front was sweeping in, driving out the small touch of spring that had settled during the day.

  “How long have you had surveillance on Rakic and Krashakov?” I asked.

  “Several months.”

  “The night Weston was killed?” I said, letting the rest of the question hang unspoken.

  Cody shook his head. “They were home,” he said. “That doesn’t mean they didn’t authorize the hit. It just means they didn’t carry it out personally.”

  “What do you think happened to Weston’s wife and daughter?” I asked.

  Cody leaned forward, braced his forearms on his knees, and looked at the floor. “Several years ago,” he said, “when the FBI was trying to bring down John Gotti in New York, their wiretap picked up a conversation in which one of Gotti’s thugs was threatening an associate. He also warned this man about crossing the Russian mob, which was apparently involved somehow. He said, ‘We Italians will kill you, but the Russians are crazy—they’ll kill your whole family.’ ” He kept his eyes on the floor.

  “So you think they’re dead,” Joe said.

  “Yes,” Cody said. “I think they’re dead.”

  CHAPTER 9

  IN THE six months prior to Wayne Weston’s murder, Jeremiah Hubbard had been a busy man. In late fall, he began to buy property in the river district downtown known as the Flats, and he announced his intention to build an “entertainment plaza” to rival anything found in New Orleans or any other river town. It would feature a five-star restaurant, two nightclubs that would host the nation’s top performers, and a sports bar. The whole thing would be built along a beautifully landscaped river walk, and Hubbard promised it would become the hottest destination in the city. The Flats had already been transformed from an area of dingy warehouses and blue-collar bars into a popular nightlife district, but Hubbard’s plan would take that to a new level. The only problem with this idea was that his vision was ten years late. Real estate prices in the Flats had soared as the area was rebuilt, and now it was going to cost Hubbard significantly more money.

  In February, he took a great step toward his dream when he acquired three lots of prime property from a man named Dan Beckley, who owned a small restaurant, a gift shop, and a parking lot in the Flats. Beckley had initially balked at the idea of selling out to Hubbard, but he settled a few weeks later, apparently for much less than his initial asking price. Hubbard already owned some of the adjoining property, and he was now much closer to his goal. His next mission was to acquire property on either side of his current holdings. To the north, his property was bordered by a seafood restaurant that was pricey, well known, and always busy. It wouldn’t be an easy deal for anyone to swing, even Hubbard. To the sou
th, Hubbard’s land met a strip bar called The River Wild: A Gentlemen’s Club. It had been in existence for about six years, and the owner reportedly was making a good profit and had no interest in selling. The bar had received some unfavorable publicity a few years back, when an underage and intoxicated kid wandered away from his fraternity brothers, fell off the deck, and drowned in the river. It hadn’t hurt the club’s business, though. Nothing generates a steady cash flow quite like lap dances, apparently.

  The newspaper reported February meetings between Hubbard and the owners of both the seafood restaurant and the strip bar, but negotiations hadn’t gone well. Hubbard accused the owners of “outlandish” asking prices; the owners said if Hubbard didn’t want to put up the cash, he was out of luck, because they were in no rush to sell. At the end of the month, it was still a stalemate.

  Joe and I learned all this studying Amy’s faxes early in the morning. Cody’s visit the night before had effectively put an end to our surveillance of the Russians, but there was no reason to stop moving on Hubbard. We decided to begin by talking with Dan Beckley.

  I made a few phone calls and learned that Beckley had purchased a laundry and dry-cleaning operation in Middleburg Heights after selling out to Hubbard. He apparently had an office in the back. We drove to Middleburg Heights.

  Beckley’s shop—E-Zee Kleen—was in a small strip mall on the west side of Pearl Road, just past the Bagley Road intersection. I pulled the truck into the lot and parked while Joe stared at the sign and sighed.

  “What the hell is the matter with people?” he said.

  “What?”

  “E-Zee Kleen? Can you tell me what the point of that is? Is there a reason he can’t spell it correctly?”

  “It has more pizzazz that way,” I said. “Catchier.”

  He gave me a withering look. “Spare me.”

  We went inside. Two women were loading laundry into the washing machines, and a short Chinese man was at the counter, talking in an agitated voice with the clerk, a bored-looking middle-aged woman. Joe and I stood behind him, waiting. He was ranting about a rip that had appeared in a suit he’d left to be dry-cleaned. The clerk was explaining that she couldn’t help him if he didn’t have a receipt and the supposed damage had occurred six months earlier, as he said. This was not the response he’d been seeking, and he let her know that for about five minutes while Joe and I grew increasingly impatient. Eventually, Joe cleared his throat and spoke over the man.