Russian Roulette

by Austin Camacho

  “I understand,” Hannibal said. What woman is ever good enough in a mother’s eyes?

  “Do you?” she asked, her voice rising. “Do you? Do you know that Hamed saw her father beaten to death by this gangster Tolstaya? This man was married, but he wanted this Viktoriya for himself. One of her jilted suitors was a hired killer. Hamed even suspected her of having an affair with one of her college professors. Hamed is as likely to have been killed over this slut’s affections as he is to have died for money.”

  Hannibal closed his eyes and silently counted to ten. When he opened them he was looking past the outraged mother facing him. The random bits swirling in his mind had just settled into a pattern as puzzles always do if you push the pieces around long enough. But this time, the pattern had little to do with organized crime.

  “Viktoriya Petrova has been at the center of this whole affair from the moment I was dragged into,” he said, almost to himself. “but men rarely kill for a woman’s affection. Besides, I can assure you, just from the methodology, that your son’s death was not the work of any professional assassin. And the gangster, Boris Tostaya, is in the end stages of a nerve disease called ALS. He simply is not strong enough to have chased your son down and shot him, even if he could have somehow found him.”

  “And the professor?” Mrs. Barek asked.

  “Actually, he has no morning classes,” Hannibal said, “And his schedule appears to be pretty flexible. It hardly makes any sense. But the pattern. The pattern is there.” Hannibal jumped to his feet, an abrupt move that caused Mrs. Barek to draw back. “I’m sorry ma’am, but I need to go now. I have no proof but if what I suspect turns out to be true, then the Russian Mafia is the biggest red herring in history, and the danger might not be over after all.”

  “You mean this girl Viktoriya, don’t you?” Mrs. Barek said. “If she’s the reason my Hamid is dead, then I would be glad if the worst happened to her. But it is more important that my son’s killer be brought to justice. If you manage this, the government of Morocco will be very grateful. And this mother will be personally grateful and will reward you for your diligence.”

  “Let’s talk about that after we’ve proven who the killer is,” Hannibal said. He hesitated, not sure of the proper way to end this interview. Should he take her hand again? Bow? Maybe if he simply asked to be excused, that would do.

  Fatima Barek solved his problem by simply waving him out of the room. “Go and do what you have to do. I hope that if you are able to find the truth, you will contact me through the embassy. I need to know.”

  Hannibal nodded, pushed his Oakleys back into place, and hurried out of the embassy, stopping only to collect his Sig Sauer automatic. He had a feeling that he might need it soon.

  -34-

  Hannibal’s tires squealed as he locked up his brakes and jerked to a stop in Jamal Krada’s driveway. In the thirty seconds or so after he pushed the doorbell, he tapped his foot and his body shook as if it was idling roughly. His thoughts during the short drive had been dark and chaotic, as he reviewed and fumed about the many tiny clues he had walked past in the last few days.

  When Nina Krada opened the door, her eyes flared wide. Hannibal realized that she had never seen him in any state but calm and friendly. Well, that was a pattern he was about to break.

  “I’m sorry,” she said in her meek voice. “I’m afraid Jamal is not in right now. Is there a message?”

  “Don’t worry,” Hannibal said, pushing the door open. “You’re the person I really want to talk to anyway.” He took five or six steps toward the living room before he realized that Nina was still standing at the door. He turned to see her flushing, her eyes darting left and right. His eyebrows rose, forming a question.

  “Mr. Jones, I am not permitted to have visitors when my husband isn’t at home,” Nina said. “Please, if you could come back when he is…”

  Hannibal stepped toward her and she shrank back against the door. “You put up with that bullshit?” he asked. “He’s really got you, hasn’t he? Well, you answer my questions and help me get the story straight, and maybe, just maybe, I can free you from him.”

  “Free me? No, Mr. Jones, I love Jamal.”

  “Do you?” He went into the living room and dropped onto the sofa. “Well, what I want to know is, how much does he love you? Tell me about Jamal’s relationship with Viktoriya Petrova.”

  Nina followed but stopped at the center of the living room floor. Barefoot, in a shapeless neutral color shift, she could have been a Nigerian child in a television commercial asking for donations. She raised her fists in front of her chest but they were too small to provide much defense.

  “There is nothing to tell. She was one of his students.”

  “I see,” Hannibal said in a softer tone. “And weren’t you one of his students?”

  Nina nodded, her lower lip covering its upper sister in what looked like a childish pout.

  “And what happened? Is what Eric Van Buren told me true?”

  Her head snapped up. “You spoke to Professor Van Buren at UVA?” After Hannibal nodded her shoulders seemed to drop farther than shoulders can. “Then you know what happened.”

  “Maybe, but I need to hear it from you. Did you…fall in love?”

  “You don’t know Jamal,” Nina said, as if that explained something. When she saw it didn’t, she said, “Jamal is a very intense man. He loves a woman so much that she can’t help but love him too. He was a powerful, influential man on the college faculty and I was just a lowly freshman come to America from Algeria.”

  “You dated,” Hannibal said. “And things went too far, maybe?”

  “No, I wanted it. I wanted him. I wanted his…” the next word caught in her throat, choking her. With her elbows still pressed to her ribs she pointed toward the kitchen. “May I get some water?”

  Hannibal waved toward the kitchen and she shuffled off with short, quick steps. He stood and followed at what he hoped would seem a safe distance to her. He stood at the entrance to the room while she pulled a bottle of water from the refrigerator and drank a few swallows.

  “Stop me if I go wrong,” Hannibal said. “You two were together, but not officially. Professor-student relationships are rather frowned on. But it’s impossible to keep such things secret. When you became pregnant, everyone knew who the father was.”

  “He did the honorable thing and offered to marry me,” she said, standing a little straighter than before. “But to the college that was no solution. They cast him out.”

  “Imagine that,” Hannibal said. “So he found a position up here but still made you get rid of the baby?”

  Nina spun on him with grief and hurt fighting for space on her small face. “No! He could never. It was me. I could not carry the baby. I lost it. I failed him.”

  Her legs seemed weak, making Hannibal realize how raw the wound he just touched still was. He helped her into a chair at the table. He wanted to comfort her, to protect her, to make her feel safe, but he also knew that if his guesses were right, time might be short.

  “You’ve done your best to make a good home for him, I can see that,” Hannibal said. “But you need to be honest with me. He couldn’t stop looking at his younger students, could he?”

  Her eyes met his and for the second time that day he felt the need to remove his glasses. He wasn’t sure what she was looking for in there, but she appeared to find it.

  “The black-haired girl,” she said with unexpected venom. “She was so… white. But he loved her from the first.”

  Hannibal sat facing her, holding one hand. “But you were stuck here at home, alone, right? He came and went as he pleased. You knew nothing of what he did when he left here.”

  “Ahh, but I knew his students,” Nina said. “I saw them all at his parties when they all but ignored me as you would a serving girl. But I saw them. And anyone who saw her with him could see what was between them. At least, until she met that other student, Gartee. I guess she wanted an African man, but thi
s one was closer to her age.”

  “By then it was too late,” Hannibal said. “He did to her what he did to you, but she decided not to keep the baby. I know she had an abortion. But there was no way for anyone to know who the father was.”

  “There was no doubt in her mind,” Nina said.

  “Why would you say that?”

  “She said so when she called the other day,” Nina said, smiling at some private joke. Hannibal sat back, mouth open.

  “She called here?”

  “Oh, those two have never lost touch,” Nina said. “I know that if he could ever make her his, he would leave me. He can’t, but they still talk.”

  “They talk, and you listen.”

  Nina leaned in very close. Hannibal could smell her sandalwood scent and something else. Was that alcohol on her breath?

  “She called after she learned of her mother’s death. She accused Jamal of killing her parents to cover it all up. They knew the baby was his. She thought he would be thrown out of a second college if it became public knowledge that he had misused another student, this time while he was married. She thought he would kill for that.”

  “I’m not so sure he wouldn’t,” Hannibal said. “But how could her parents know? No way she’d tell them.”

  Nina leaned even closer and this time he was sure of the smell. She was a lonely daytime drinker, one who could keep her secrets but could share them at the right time. He knew a fraction of a second before she said it.

  “Me,” she said, waving a finger at him. “After she had the abortion, I called her father and told him his precious daughter had just killed his grandson.” In response to Hannibal’s shocked expression she added, “Didn’t he have a right to know?”

  “What did he say?”

  “Well, he was not a stupid man, for a Russian.” Nina said. “He said he already knew who the father was, and that the bastard should be ashamed of touching a girl that young at his age. Say, would you like some sherry?”

  Once she broke through her normal screen of secrecy, Nina was getting quite relaxed. Hannibal shook his head no, still considering her words. Did Nikita ever know the truth? Or had he assumed that Boris was the culprit? That would explain Nikita flying into a violent rage at the suggestion that Viktoriya go traveling with Boris. Boris would respond with equal violence. Nina’s helpful selfishness may have been the catalyst for Nikita’s death.

  “You don’t think there’s any way Jamal had anything to do with Nikita’s death, do you?” Hannibal asked, watching Nina stretch up on tiptoe to reach into a cabinet above the refrigerator. When she came down she was clutching a long-necked bottle.

  “I don’t really know. But I did hear that Vikki’s father died the very next day.”

  “Well, at least he probably didn’t have a chance to share that awful news with his wife,” Hannibal said.

  “Oh, she didn’t know,” Nina said, pulling down two water glasses. “She was completely surprised when I called her.”

  That news, shared so casually, chilled him to the marrow. “You needed to tell her too?”

  “Her own fault,” Nina said, carefully filling two glasses. “The little whore shouldn’t be calling my husband. This time I think she called to tell him she might get married, just to make him jealous.”

  “So for that, you called Raisa Petrova and told her that her daughter had an abortion.”

  “Oh, I think she knew that much,” Nina said, sipping her sherry. “But she had no idea that Jamal was the father. She didn’t sound all that upset, but she swore she would be talking to him. And in fact, she did call him the very next day. I heard them talking.”

  “What day was this?”

  “Well let me see.” Nina swallowed half her drink, and seemed to be counting some objects floating in the air in front of her. “Saturday.”

  Raisa Petrova had called Jamal Krada on the day she died. Hannibal could imagine the scenario. After Nikita’s death, Boris gave her money, and later Dani Gana had set up regular payments to her from his African bank to impress her and please Viktoriya. But both those income streams had stopped. Raisa had a flair for blackmail, and she must have tried to put the screws to Krada. Hannibal’s breathing stepped up its pace and he could feel the hair on the back of his neck rise.

  “And has Viktoriya called again?”

  “She calls almost every day,” Nina said, waving the glass in his face. “She gets scared, she gets worried, she calls my husband to make sure he knows how to get to her.”

  Which would explain how someone could find Dani Gana when he would not have told anyone his whereabouts. Money or no, Jamal would have wanted to eliminate the competition. And in Hannibal’s experience, once a man has killed, it gets easier to find an excuse to do it again.

  “She called here again this morning,” Nina said, and the creepy feeling on the back of Hannibal’s neck grew more intense.

  “Nina, does your husband own a gun?”

  “Oh, yeah,” she said, taking a sip from the glass she had poured for Hannibal. She looked startled when he grabbed her arm, making her spill the drink.

  “Show me. Now.”

  The fear returned to her eyes. She moved with haste, as she had been trained to do when a man spoke to her. She led him to the linen closet just outside the bedroom. Under a stack of towels lay a brightly colored cardboard box. Hannibal absorbed all of the copy. This was the original box for a Ruger Mark III pistol chambered for the Hornady .17 Mach 2 rimfire cartridge. The gun had a stainless steel frame, an 8-inch stainless steel fluted heavy barrel and checkered cocobolo thumb rest grips. This was a target shooter’s toy. Only an idiot would buy such a thing for personal defense. But in an emergency, any concealable gun would do the job.

  “Son of a bitch,” Hannibal said. “The murder weapon.” But when he pulled the lid off the box, he found only the empty impression of a pistol. The chill was back, walking his spine. He turned to Nina, almost panting as fear crept up on him.

  “Where is Jamal Krada now?”

  -35-

  During the high-speed drive to Viktoriya’s motel, Hannibal was locked in a heated argument with himself. The smart money was on calling the police. Of course the smart money put Ivanovich in jeopardy and might scare Krada enough to drive him underground. Hannibal had to see that man in jail. Actually, if what he believed was true, he had to see that man in the electric chair.

  The lot was almost empty at midday, but he knew three people who would be home. After shutting off the car he sat for a minute to center himself and bring his blood pressure down. It wouldn’t do to rush in, agitated and short-fused with a man like Ivanovich standing guard.

  Cooler, his story clear in his mind, Hannibal got out of his Volvo. He took three steps toward the motel building before he realized that someone else might have already made the mistake of approaching the room in some unacceptable manner.

  Hannibal could see a man on the second-level balcony, standing at the door to the apartment where Viktoriya and Dr. Sidorov were supposed to be hiding in safety. The man raised his hand as if to knock but before he could, Aleksandr Ivanovich popped out of the door to the left and in three long strides was beside the newcomer. He drove a fist into the man’s side, bounced the man’s forehead off the door, and shoved him inside.

  Hannibal had a pretty good guess of who it was, and sprinted up the stairs to the second floor. When he reached the door he called out his own name before trying the knob. It was unlocked and he pushed in, to find himself staring into the barrel of Ivanovich’s pistol.

  “Be cool, Aleksandr,” Hannibal said, raising his hands. He stepped back, using his shoulder to push the door closed, then paused to take in the situation. Yakov Sidorov was in the chair beside the round table, almost exactly where Hannibal had left him. But now his veined hands gripped the arms of the chair. Viktoriya crouched on the far side of the far bed, looking over the edge of it, half her face hidden from view. At the front of the room Ivanovich stood with his pistol thrust tow
ard Hannibal and his left foot on Jamal Krada’s throat.

  “It’s me, and I’m alone,” Hannibal said. Ivanovich relaxed a notch and lowered his gun so that it pointed at Krada’s face. The Algerian went pale and Hannibal saw a wet stain begin to spread on the front of his pants.

  “You don’t want to kill him,” Hannibal said, slowly lowering his hands. “Well, maybe you do, but you shouldn’t. Do you know who you got there?”

  “All I need to know is, he’s the man who came here to kill Viktoriya,” Ivanovich said. He reached into the back of his waistband and flipped a small handgun to Hannibal. It matched the picture on the box Hannibal saw at Krada’s house. “He killed her mother and her husband with that, and here he is to finish the family.”

  “Not likely,” Hannibal said. “She’s the reason he killed the other three.”

  “Three?” Viktoriya asked, standing and walking just far enough around the beds so she could see Krada. “Jamal, did you kill them all?”

  “Wait a minute,” Ivanovich said, sitting on the bed. He kept his gun on Krada even though he was looking at Hannibal. “I thought Boris Tolstaya killed Nikita Petrova.”

  Hannibal wondered why these people always used first and last names. “For a while so did I. Boris sure thought he killed Nikita, and Dani Gana held it over him to get what he wanted, a trip to North Africa. They both described a fight and a beating Nikita took. But nobody said anything about throwing him off a roof. I think he was still alive when they left. And when they left, they didn’t know that someone else was looking for him and had followed them to the building.”

  “This is silly,” Viktoriya said, leaning back against Sidorov’s arm for support. “Why would he kill my daddy?”

  “Because he found out that his wife told your father about your pregnancy,” Hannibal said. “She gets talky when she drinks. See, he couldn’t afford for the word to get out that he had gotten another student pregnant.”