Ice Cap: A Mystery (Jackie Swaitkowski Mysteries)

by Chris Knopf

  Soon after we waved at Yogi and Boo Boo being ferried away by the tow service, the Chrysler in a flatbed listing badly to port. We sat there and talked for another hour about nothing in particular, which was often the case with Sam. It wasn’t until after he backed up next to my Volvo and checked for internal damage from the three bullets in the fender that he told me that he was proud of me.

  “You showed a lot of starch back there,” he said, which for Sam amounted to lavish praise. “Kept your head.”

  Which had the effect of nearly ruining my machismo mood. So I showed him what I was really made of and pretended not to recall the utter indifference my father had toward offering approval of any sort, a tendency he managed to take with him to the grave.

  I just gave Sam a thumbs-up and drove away.

  19

  My laptop had two important messages waiting for me. One from Randall Dodge that he had an external hard drive loaded with my requested material, the other from UB45JK asking me to IM her at the first opportunity.

  “Hello there,” I wrote UB. “What’s up?”

  She shot right back. “I got a hit on Zina. Got there before Gyro’s whoopee-do Interpol dude.”

  “Get out of here.”

  She sent me a URL that took me to a Facebook profile page. Having never used Facebook, I had to sign up. After a bit of information sharing that I loathed giving up, I got in. I searched with UB’s URLs. And suddenly, there was Zina—her picture and an unreadable name.

  “Sorry, I totally can’t read Polish,” I wrote to UB.

  “It isn’t Polish. It’s Russian.”

  I stared at the Cyrillic letters but couldn’t tease anything out.

  “Does it say Katarzina Malonowski?” I asked.

  “Close. She’s Katarzyna Malonov’skyy. A Russian. Could be of Polish ancestry, since Malonowski is a common Polish name. Fancy Interpol man didn’t know to try the Russian spelling. Heh-heh.”

  “I’ve never been on Facebook,” I wrote. “I thought people exposed their whole lives.”

  “She’s got everything but her picture blocked. It’s usually the other way around.”

  Not if you wanted someone to know what you looked like, I thought.

  “You are brilliant,” I wrote to UB.

  “I’m a Dystopriot Warrior, second grade. We are fearless and intrepid.”

  “Now that I’m signed up, I could send her a message?” I asked.

  “You could. Her profile wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t an active account. Let me know how that goes. I’ve become emotionally involved.”

  I promised her I would. After we logged off, I sat and stared at Zina. Or was it Zyna? The adrenaline rush of the earlier fight came flooding back. The virtual world proving yet again it could reach out and grab the real world by the throat. Though now that I had what I had, what did I do with it?

  I decided to write Randall while I pondered that.

  “This is excellent news,” I wrote, thanking him for the satellite images.

  “I couldn’t let you log on, but I could download the stuff you wanted. I put all of it on an external hard drive, which is a physical thing I can just hand over,” he wrote back a few minutes later. “If you want more, I can go back and get it. No one’s the wiser. You can watch it on your pretty little laptop at home. In your underwear if you want.”

  He didn’t know how likely a prospect that was.

  “I’m on my way.”

  * * *

  Before I got to Randall’s, I stopped at the food store and stocked up for the next storm threatening to bury the East End till the spring thaw, if it ever came again. Like an automaton, I walked the aisles and loaded my cart with all the merchandise our local emergency nags insisted we have on hand—canned goods, bottled water, batteries and candles (the latter of which they said to snuff out before going to bed—I could see their liability lawyer adding in that one). I threw in a few specialty items of my own—coffee, ice cubes, tonic water, and limes to go with the gin. If I was going to survive, I might as well have some reason to live on.

  Of course, there was Harry. I felt a little tug at my heart that he hadn’t already asked me to come stay with him. On the other hand, that was the kind of thing he used to do that irritated me, and now I was glad he didn’t. But there was no reason why I couldn’t call him and suggest it, now, was there?

  “And where are you?” he asked when he answered the phone. “I think I hear music.”

  “I’m in the salty snacks aisle. You prefer nuts to chips, is my recollection.”

  “I do. Especially unsalted, so you might have to search elsewhere. Planning a party?”

  “I am. A snowstorm party. At your house, you and me. I’m provisioning as we speak.”

  “I’m honored. And already well stocked, as you’d imagine. Though more is always better.”

  Should I tell him I shot out a car’s tires and received a return volley today? How about shoving my gun barrel into a guy’s head, or making a deal with the mob to stop harassing me in return for handing over Tad’s real killer so they could execute him in prison? What are the proper parameters for sharing the workday with your significant other?

  “Let’s keep an eye on the sky,” I said. “I need to get there before all hell breaks loose.”

  “Or freezes over.”

  * * *

  Randall had the hard drive waiting for me in a little box when I got to his shop. He stuck it in a brown paper bag.

  “In case the NSA already has a satellite trained on me,” he said.

  He supplied a handwritten list of instructions on how to launch the application and navigate among the various times, dates, and locations, as well as how to use the arrow keys in place of the joystick to zoom in and out. I thanked him sincerely, and he thanked me back—for what, I’m not sure.

  “You might give that back when you’re done with it so I can wipe it clean,” he said. “And don’t download any files. Read everything off the drive.”

  “I refuse to be paranoid myself,” I said. “But I can act paranoid on your behalf. How’s that?”

  “Good enough.”

  * * *

  I’d planned to take another trip over to the Buczek place after I’d gone through Randall’s satellite recordings, but I was in the neighborhood (not really) and there was still some light left in the day (not much) and there was that impulse-control thing.

  So I felt the Volvo take over the wheel, guiding me up from Southampton Village to the Seven Ponds area, which by now felt like a second home. Randall had offered to lend me his GPS, which I could use to pinpoint the little building we’d uncovered, but I didn’t need it. I was an ex–real estate lawyer. Just show us a tax map and we’re like homing pigeons.

  And I had my own GPS built into my fancy phone. What a world.

  I drove past the Metal Madness entrance and parked on the side of the road, leaving enough room for anything smaller than a dump truck to get past me. I was wearing my full winter regalia, although taller boots would have been advisable. I pulled out my phone and brought up the GPS, enlarging the screen until the red dot of my destination was next to me—the blue dot. Then I set out.

  With every step through a stand of new-growth trees I seemed to encounter deeper snow, sometimes reaching nearly to the crotch of my flannel-lined jeans. The only relief came from a few stretches where a layer of ice partway down was strong enough to support my weight. This was nice until the layer broke through, nearly dislocating my hip. I would have cursed the weather, but I’d already done that so much I was sure the spirits who controlled those things had heard enough from me and would turn a deaf ear.

  After an exhausting slog that felt longer than it probably was, I spotted a small, cedar-sided building. The shingles were dark gray and partially blackened with age, and the uneven lines told of a weak foundation. The roof, however, looked new. I trudged the rest of the way, actually opening the top of my jacket to let out some body heat.

  It was maybe fiftee
n feet square. It had a front door and at least one window. I tried to look through the glass, but years of crud rendered it translucent at best. I went back to the door and tried the doorknob. It turned.

  It felt like I’d entered an entirely different building. Inside, the walls were paneled in fresh, rough-cut cedar and the floor in pine, in nearly the same wood tone, partially covered by a brilliant hand-woven Navajo rug. In the middle of the room was a bed, roughly unmade—thick, bulky quilts randomly cast about. On the side tables were empty glasses. On another table, along the wall, was a half-full bottle of bourbon and an ice bucket, a lump of partially melted and refrozen cubes at the bottom.

  I used the camera in my phone to snap photos from various angles. I carefully avoided touching anything with my bare hands and shuffled around the room, smearing my footprints. I thought of Randall and how easy it was to act paranoid on my own behalf.

  When I went to leave, I stopped for a moment at the door and looked down the hill through the young, gangly trees toward the center of the property. It was lumpy, as it would be from multiple tracks covered by repeated layers of snow. The trail went straight through to the field below, which is how I could see the figure of a person struggling through the depths, heading in my direction. It was too far away to make out much more than the dark, cold-weather clothing and the determined stride. Just before I turned to flee, the figure looked right up at me, paused for a moment, then redoubled its efforts.

  I was in much better shape than I deserved to be, given my indifferent relationship with regular exercise. But if I was going to design the most rigorous physical challenge imaginable, it would be trying to sprint through thigh-deep crunchy snow. Though I had the sight of that dark and relentless form churning up the hill to drive me along, and that was enough.

  I thought about the decision to check out the odd little building rather than just go home and slip into comfy clothes, gather intoxicants about me, and celebrate a generally successful day. What is wrong with me, I would have yelled if I’d had the wind.

  About the time I thought I’d escaped the threat from behind, I began to worry about what was in front. I’d left the Volvo alone and thoroughly exposed on the street. Not just an abandoned vehicle, but a hindrance to the already beleaguered traffic flow. What was I thinking? Oh, that’s right. I wasn’t thinking.

  As I slogged toward the road, the Volvo came into view, where I’d left it, confident in its circumstances. I should have taken precautions before racing to the car, but eagerness took over, and I almost ran through the final stages of irredeemable exhaustion toward the street and hoped-for salvation.

  I made it, pushing the electronic key to open the doors, and collapsing into the driver’s seat, heaving cubic yards of air into my lungs and letting them out in a song of pathetic whimpers. I started the car and floored it, racing away from that perfidious place, that capital of misfortune and outlandish acts of compulsive unrestraint.

  * * *

  I used the first three hours of the presumed safety of my apartment to sleep rich, dream-free sleep, a type of self-induced narcosis. In my clothes, on the couch, a glass of wine barely touched. When I woke, it was dark outside, and I had no idea what time it was, much less where I was or what year I’d reentered. I didn’t panic, however, assuming all would be revealed within the next ten seconds, which it was.

  I was pleased to not be in the house I once shared with Pete up in the woods of Bridgehampton. And to not be in my college dorm room or the vermin-infested pension near Sacré-Cœur I thought so romantic, like any other culturally besotted kid living anywhere but home.

  I liked being in my apartment next to my office over the Japanese restaurant on Montauk Highway. It might not be the perfect place forever, but for now, it was a hallowed place.

  I wanted to lie there forever, but part of me wanted to get up and move around, maybe dig up some coffee. This part, though a minority voice, prevailed, and I did just that, albeit not without major complaint from the aching, lead-limbed majority.

  The coffee had hardly filled the pot when the phone rang. It was Mr. Sato telling me I had a guest waiting for me downstairs.

  “Crap.” I’d forgotten about him again.

  “Shall I tell him you are indisposed?”

  “No. Give me fifteen minutes.”

  I stripped everything off and got into the shower, where I mostly let the hot water massage my body and steam up the bathroom. Showers always had the power to either wake me up or put me to sleep, depending on prevailing circumstances. That night it definitely trended toward the soporific, and it was only a supreme act of will that kept me from shlumping to the floor and drowning in artificial rain.

  I made little effort this time to manage my wardrobe, or hair, or makeup. I just showed up at the restaurant in sweater and jeans and a face gloriously unmeddled-with. Angstrom didn’t seem to notice.

  “Sorry for making you wait. Had a hard day,” I said, sitting down at the table and receiving my white wine, a standing order.

  “You don’t seem the worse for wear,” he said, obviously out of kindness.

  “Wear would be the least of it.”

  “What happened?”

  File cards flipped through my mind, each holding a piece of information I didn’t want to share with the press. This was not the proper format for a healthy conversation. But I had to accept that it never would be as long as the other party was a reporter.

  “Nothing really. So, what can you tell me about Ivor Fleming?”

  He took a little notebook out of a battered briefcase and flipped it open. It was the same type as mine, just a different color. I held mine up and we had a light communion over notebook preferences.

  “There are two schools of thought about Ivor,” he said. “One says he’s still dirty, the other says he decided after the last prosecution to stop pushing his luck. To enjoy his mature years selling scrap metal and sponsoring community activities. It’s pretty evenly split, but the latter camp has the better case, since there’s no evidence he’s involved in any of the naughty stuff he used to be into, which was just about everything. Most criminals like to specialize, but Ivor liked a diversified portfolio. Probably his business background.”

  “What do you think?”

  “Always the contrarian, I think he’s still active. Just far more careful.”

  “Anything connected to the Polish or Russian mob in Brooklyn?”

  His face filled with surprise.

  “You know more than you’re letting on,” he said.

  I did a little coquettish move and said, “I might,” then instantly regretted it. What is wrong with me?

  “Why don’t you tell me what you know and not waste our time,” he said in as much of a noncritical way as you could speak those words.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “That was jerky. I know the Poles and Russians are in some sort of alliance—the Russians operating a large global organization and the Poles contracting out as an independent subsidiary. There are benefits to both, on a local level as well as in their international operations. And that’s about it.”

  He looked impressed. “That’s a lot. The configuration you note is relatively new. There’s been a lot of bloodletting among all the Eastern European gangs as they sorted out territories formed after the Soviet collapse. They all have a presence in New York, working out of Brooklyn, as you’d have to if you were going to engage in world trade.”

  “How big is all this?” I asked.

  He gave a “who knows” gesture. “Billions. How many? Anybody’s guess.”

  “Where do you think Ivor fits?”

  He pointed his finger at me, not rudely, but to make sure I would hear what he was saying. “This you don’t talk about. It’s exclusive. My research, okay?”

  “I won’t. Unless it will help keep my client out of prison, then I can’t promise anything.”

  He considered that.

  “I believe you,” he said. “You’re not only direct, you’re
principled.”

  Yeah, yeah, I wanted to say, but it would have wrecked the spirit of the moment.

  “Okay,” he said, “I think he’s working in something closely tied to his legitimate business. It’s an area he knows inside and out. Much easier to stay under the radar when you’re on home turf.”

  “Scrap metal?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “A business consultant would tell you Ivor’s not in the scrap-metal business, he’s in the business of harvesting an inexpensive raw material, processing and packaging it, and then redistributing it as a higher-margin, value-added product. The processing and packaging is minimal, so it’s not like he’s really manufacturing anything. At the end of the day, it’s the moving around of the stuff that he’s really good at. So he’s not in the metal business, he’s in…”

  “Logistics.”

  “Exactly.”

  A single sharp laugh popped out of me, loud enough to cause Angstrom to pull back and the couple at the next table to shift their wary eyes in my direction.

  “That’s funny?” he asked.

  “Not to me. Logistics is serious business. You don’t get any more serious.”

  “Then why are you laughing?”

  “I know the god of the logistic sciences. When people ask, who’s the Babe Ruth, the Michael Jordan, the Jimi Hendrix of logistics, they’ll say, Harry Goodlander. None better. Broke the mold.”

  “Your boyfriend,” he said.

  “You shouldn’t know his name. That’s personal.”

  “It was in your background file. I didn’t compile it, just read it.”

  “That makes me very unhappy.”

  “It’s probably worse than you think,” he said. “Everybody can know almost everything about everybody.”

  I knew this was true, I just didn’t want to think it was true about me. So I shifted the conversation back to the original topic.

  “So you believe Ivor has somehow integrated evil enterprise into his official business. Which you redefine as essentially import-export,” I said.

  “I do,” he said. “The world is now nearly one. Matter flows around the globe like the currents of the sea. Legal and illegal all travel in the same streams. Ivor is a tributary in that system, from his various feeder stations to his plant then out again to trucks, railroads, and shipping docks. Who would be in a better position to serve illicit traffic?”