by Jeff Abbott
Paige nodded. “To Galo and Rey, at least. But that’s not the good stuff…while Galo and Ricky were in college, some of those kids who had beaten up Ricky, they ended up dead.” Her voice lowered. “Four of them. In a year’s time.”
“What?”
Paige’s usually steady voice wavered. “One in a car accident, he burned to death, up near Fort Lauderdale. One died from a drug overdose in Las Vegas. Two murdered, never solved. Those two had their throats cut in separate incidents. I mean, maybe it was a coincidence. Bad neighborhood, kids who had already been in a lot of trouble. But still.”
“But Ricky had left that behind. Why risk it?”
“Because certain kinds of people can’t ignore certain kinds of hurt and pain. Maybe it was the Varela influence, but Galo and Ricky were never even questioned. Please be careful. Please.”
And I tried to imagine Galo involved in four murders. He’d seemed crushed by being involved in one killing. Or maybe he was just very good at wearing a mask, putting on a look of contrition. But this was information Paige got me that Jimmy and Mila couldn’t have, not as quickly.
“Thank you,” I said.
“You know who killed Steve,” she said. “Don’t you?”
“I might be close. And I think maybe you should get out of town for a while,” I said.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Paige said.
“It’s gotten very dangerous for me. And that means people might come looking for me, and they might come here if they learn that I own Stormy’s. At least stay away from the bar.”
She took a long sip from her drink, a thoughtful look on her face.
“I’m close to finding out what I need to know to put them away,” I lied. “I’ll tell you everything then.”
“All right. You know, I miss the library terribly. I miss helping people. This made me feel useful again.”
“It’s not the same as the library, but if all this works out would you ever be willing to run this bar?”
“Yes,” she said. “I think I’d like that a lot.”
“I promise you, I’ll do my best to make that happen.”
“Aren’t you’re the owner?”
“Yeah. I just have to survive,” I said, and I tried to laugh.
“Well, do, don’t try,” she said in a prim librarian-stereotype voice.
We laughed. It sounded forced. “I need to make a couple of phone calls,” I said. “Will you please excuse me?”
“I’ll go help your friend Mila. I do like her, Sam. She’s properly mysterious,” Paige said, and she went downstairs.
I quickly repacked a small bag, tossing out the dirty clothes from Puerto Rico. I started up the computer, opened the browser, and opened the link to the Daniel cam. My son, asleep in his bed, his little mouth softly moving, maybe nascent words trying to get out. I wondered about his dreams. I watched him for five minutes and thought: You have to do better than this. He shifted in his sleep and opened his eyes and looked right at me and then he closed his eyes again and went back to sleep.
I closed the tab, erased the link from my browser history. I always do that. No one can know I ever look at him. Then I took Lavrenti’s gun (no one had searched me on the FastFlex flight, being with a Varela) and I went downstairs. Paige was chatting up some customers with a new energy—a natural—and Mila stood by the bar.
“You’re off to New York?” she said, glancing at my bag.
“Yes,” I lied.
“I’ll take care of things here with the Varelas. This is for the best, Sam.”
“It’s the best for Jimmy and the Round Table,” I said. “They’re not just a bunch of rich folks wanting to do good, are they?”
No one was near us. She could have ignored my question. She didn’t. She looked at me and with everything we had survived together it was the most nakedly intimate moment of our friendship. She said, very quietly, “No, Sam. I don’t know what they are but I don’t think they’re just a bunch of rich folks trying to do good.”
I believed her. Even though she was married to Jimmy, he had not told her everything.
“You be careful,” I said. “And please keep Paige out of trouble. She’s been a huge help to me.”
She glanced at my carry-on. “That’s a small bag for New York.”
“I have clothes and gear at The Last Minute.” Just like here, I had an apartment above my Manhattan bar.
“All right. Be careful.”
“You too.” I almost wanted to tell her the truth. That I had no intention of leaving Miami. But I didn’t.
I walked out to my car and drove to Cori’s house. This time the guard at the station to the neighborhood had my name, was expecting me, and waved me through.
46
NO ONE ELSE came out to greet me on the driveway, just Cori. She got into the car with her bag and slammed the door.
“What’s the matter?” I said.
“Just drive.”
“Where?”
“I told everyone we would go to New York, like you suggested,” she said. “I made us a reservation at a hotel over on Key Biscayne.”
“What’s the matter?”
“They’re back.”
“I know.” I told her about Ricky and Nesterov’s house and the hospital.
She dragged a hand through her dark hair. “You understand I’ve known him most of my life. The shocks just keep coming.”
“He might not be working for someone outside. He could be doing your brother’s bidding.” And I told her about what Paige had found out.
“My brother had nothing to do with those deaths. I know him. You don’t. He had nothing to do with it.”
“So it’s just Galo’s closest friend that’s the crazy one. You’re right, that doesn’t reflect on him at all.”
“I know Galo. You know Galo, I mean, you saw how he reacted to…shooting that man. That’s Galo. The real one.”
“Okay, Cori.”
“Don’t you dare pretend to know my brother,” she said.
“I won’t. Did you find anything at the house?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“Let’s just get to the hotel.”
We drove across the Rickenbacker Causeway to a stunningly gorgeous shoreline hotel on Key Biscayne, checked in, and went to the room. Cori took a Coke from the minibar and then she handed me a printout from her luggage.
“Kent had a listing on his computer of many of the donors to Help with Love. He also had a list of charities and organizations that I in turn funnel money to in developing countries.” Her voice was calmer. “Now. Most of the organizations I work with, they get funds from lots of other charities. These, though”—she’d marked them with a yellow highlighter—“these don’t. I am their only donor, apparently, according to the notes in Kent’s file. I checked out every group I send money to and I established that they had other donors when I started working with them.
“Sam, these recipients lied to me. Kent had their financials. How…how can that be? No charity can survive on a single donor.”
“The obvious answer is your family is funneling money to these people. They’re not charities.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. But this has to tie in to their smuggling.”
The anger was back in her voice. “I wanted to do good, Sam, I wanted to help people, and they’ve used me.”
“I’m sorry, Cori. I am truly sorry.”
I picked up my car keys, checked Lavrenti Nesterov’s gun.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m going to talk to Zhanna’s father. I think he can shed light on this.”
“I’ll go with you,” she said.
“I think I’d better go alone.” I pointed at the printout. “Can you figure out any kind of pattern in the payments? We need to know where your charity’s money is going. Can you do that remotely?”
She nodded. “I brought my laptop.”
“See what you can find out.”
“Be careful of Sergei. I like him, but now I don’t trust anyone.”
“Do me a favor. Call him and tell him I’m coming. Tell him I’m your friend, trying to protect and help you.”
“But…”
“I have an idea on how to approach him.”
She smiled. “He loves coffee. That’s how you approach him.”
I kissed the top of her head and she hugged me. And then I left.
47
I DROVE UP to Sunny Isles, a northern neighborhood with new gleaming towers along the shoreline. I noticed roughly ten seconds after I crossed its borders that there were a couple of shop signs in Russian to go along with the English. I decided to take Cori’s halfhearted advice and pulled into a shopping center with a Starbucks on the corner. I went in and got two decafs and while waiting in line heard three different conversations in Russian: two guys on cell phones—one asking a question about what to put into a PowerPoint for tomorrow’s investor presentation, the other pleading with his girlfriend for a second chance. In a corner, two women sipping at waters discussed a new American movie, but in rapid-fire Russian. At least in this part of South Florida, the Russians had landed.
The address wasn’t fancy—first floor in a solid brick building. A much grander apartment complex with Italianate architecture stood across the street. The rains had come, quickly, then moved on, and large puddles glistened in the moonlight.
I knocked at the door and a short, powerfully built man answered. “I’m here to see Mr. Pozharsky,” I said. “I think I’m expected.” He opened the door wider, no expression coloring his face. I gave him one of the coffees, said “Decaf,” and he nodded his thanks. He gestured me inside.
The apartment was large but the furnishings were old, scuffed a bit. A signed Willie Nelson poster loomed above the television.
I heard a motorized hum and I turned.
Sergei Pozharsky—Zhanna’s father—sat in a wheelchair. The photos of him I’d seen, in Paige’s research into the founding days of FastFlex, were pre-crash. In those he was tall, blond-haired, handsome. He would have been good on a Soviet propaganda poster, ready to harvest wheat with a red scythe, arms uplifted in fervor. Now he looked shrunken, broken. His legs were gone. Scar tissue began at his hairline and went down to his jaw and three seconds later I realized this was post-surgery: this was the improved version. One eye was covered by a patch. But he had thin, delicate fingers, the kind that must have been masterful on the controls of a jet, strong hands. He was wearing dark jeans, the empty legs sewn shut, and a Miami Heat T-shirt.
I thought, in a jolt, of the burned man who’d taught me so much about going inside.
“You are Cori’s friend,” Sergei Pozharsky said. His voice was raspy, like I’d heard on the phone.
“Yes, sir,” I said.
He offered his hand and I shook it. He smelled vaguely of talcum powder and medicine and mint.
“I understand you like coffee, so I brought you a decaf,” I said.
“Thank you.” His Russian accent was noticeable but not thick and clumsy.
The attendant—Sergei dismissed him with “Thank you, Julio, we’ll be fine”—vanished into another room and I could hear the murmurings of a television.
“So,” Sergei said, and his jaw worked in kind of a funny way, like it hadn’t been reset quite properly. “Why does a friend of Cori’s want to see me?” He didn’t sip at his coffee, and I realized he had no intention of doing so.
“I want to make you an offer, sir.”
“An offer. I am no longer a businessman,” he said. “I read books and listen to Willie and watch the silly people on the reality TV.”
“It’s about the Varelas,” I said.
He glanced at the door where the attendant had disappeared. “Rey pays for my care. He takes very good care of me.”
I spoke in Russian. “That’s good to know.”
His mouth worked and he answered in his native tongue. “Cordelia did not say you spoke Russian.”
“Just enough to get by. Here’s the deal. I know you know the guy sent to kidnap Rey in Puerto Rico. I want to know who he works for. I won’t hurt you, harm you, nothing. I just want to know.”
A man who made his living smuggling weapons and contraband into African war zones was not going to be easily rattled. He coughed, he laughed, very softly. “I like you,” he said.
“Well?”
“And if I tell you nothing?”
“Then I will tell Zhanna that you have been in touch with the people who don’t want her to have the job running the smuggling at FastFlex.”
“My daughter and I are not close.”
“But you’d like to be.”
He studied me with the good eye. “Why are you so sure?”
“I think the Varelas’ problems stemmed from a business relationship gone sour. It’s you. I kept wondering who the enemy was, and the enemy was obvious. The business partner driven out. The husband whose wife was taken from him. The father whose daughter prefers another man as her dad. I think you’ve bided your time, Mr. Pozharsky. And now that Rey is sick, losing his grip on reality, you’ve decided to make your move.”
His ruined face was very still. Then he scratched at his nose and I saw a hint of a smile. “What do you want from me?”
“Information. Are you the man behind the kidnapping attempt and sending Marianne and her thugs to Puerto Rico? Are you Mr. Beethoven?”
“I like Willie Nelson, not Ludwig Van,” he said. He glanced again at the aide’s door, even though we were speaking Russian. “Not here. I know a good place to talk. Down the street. Private.”
“Yes, sir.”
“‘Sir.’ So polite. Cori said you were in the Canadian Army. I was an officer in the Soviet Air Force.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I like Canadians,” Sergei said. “They are not afraid of the cold weather. Here, such babies, it drops into the sixties and they cry and put on old minks.” He switched to English. “Julio! My friend and I going to café for blinis. Back soon.”
Julio opened the door and studied us. “Is everything okay?”
“Yes, fine. Fine. I think this young man can push a wheelchair. We’ll be back soon.”
He wheeled himself into his bedroom and returned in a nicer shirt and a blazer jacket. He had his pride. I wheeled him down to the elevator. “I don’t like Julio,” he said. “He works for the Varelas, not me.”
“You could fire him.”
“And they could bribe his replacement to spy on me.”
“I guess you couldn’t ask Zhanna for help,” I said.
He gave no answer. We headed outside and I pushed his wheelchair along the wide curve of the road, back toward the shopping center where I’d stopped at the Starbucks. There was a restaurant there, open twenty-four hours. St. Ekaterina’s Café. There were a few others at the tables, finishing long workdays. He spoke in quiet Russian to the waitress, who looked tired and hopeless and yet managed a wan smile.
“So,” he said, after our tea arrived.
“I want to protect Cori. If you’re gunning for the Varelas, leave her alone.”
“I have no wish to harm Cori.”
I wasn’t sure I believed him. He was connected to Nesterov, who was connected to the Colombians. But I didn’t want him to know I knew all the links in the chain.
“I can understand why you hate her father. He married your ex-wife and your daughter sidled up to him. But you hate your daughter too? Why don’t you want her running the underside of the business?”
“Would you want your child involved in such work?” he said quietly.
Our food arrived and we both smeared butter on the thick rye, then sliced the sausage and settled the little discs in the butter. We chewed on the open-faced sandwiches.
“I never got used to American bread.” Sergei closed his eye in bliss.
“To answer your question, no, I wouldn’t want my child involved in such work.” And I thought, my heart cracking wit
h terror, of Daniel deciding to follow in my footsteps. Doing what I did. I couldn’t know about it, I’d never sleep again. He couldn’t know what I did.
“Are you all right?” Sergei said. “You look ill.”
“I just want to know why you sent Nesterov.”
He swallowed a chunk of the sausage. “You assume I sent him.”
“He was in contact with you. You’re really not Mr. Beethoven?”
“That’s his contact’s name? No. Do I look like I am coordinating some big operation against the Varelas? I sit in a wheelchair all day and watch TV.”
“Why was he in contact with you then?”
“If I tell you,” he said, “you will go to the Varelas because you will be trying to earn the points with them. If I don’t tell you, you will tell them anyway.”
“Just tell me. If you help me, I’ll help you.”
“How? Grow back my legs, my face, my eye?”
“I’ll help you get your daughter back.”
He said nothing for two whole minutes, thinking, chewing, slurping at his tea. “You’ve seen Zhanna. She attaches herself to whoever is the most powerful. First it was me. Then when I was a remnant of the father she remembered it was Rey. When she came to see me in the hospital I heard her whisper to her mother that I smelled funny now. I could hear the disdain in her voice. Disdain, instead of a daughter’s love or mercy. She will start sneering at Rey soon, as his mind crumbles. It’s not coincidence that he begins to fade and she attaches herself to Kent.”
“Is Kent the power behind the throne, then?”
“She believes so. She wouldn’t have a chance with Galo. Too much dislike there.”
“Why is that?”
He shrugged. “They’ve spent too much time around each other. They’re not blood but they had to act like they were.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Two teenagers, forced to live together…must I draw a picture?”
“Are you saying they had a relationship? A physical one?” I thought of the comments Cori had made about surprises to Galo in the context of talking about Zhanna. And comments that Zhanna and Galo had made. Galo insisting more than once that Zhanna was not a blood relation. Hints of a fracture, but also hints of intimacy. I’d thought they were a couple back at the Or nightclub. She’d slapped him and stormed out. Then I thought I was wrong. I wasn’t.
