Krokodil

by Dustin Stevens

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Cofey said, backing up a few inches and clasping his hands in front of him, the folder cradled in his right palm.

  Pavel noticed that they hadn’t asked any follow up about his being related to Lita, meaning they had already ran his license against hers and found the identities solid.

  “How did she die?” he asked, sure to keep his voice low.

  Cofey shook his head and said, “I’m sorry, but right now that is an ongoing investigation. I really can’t share any details.”

  Pavel nodded and lowered his gaze to the floor. “I understand. When can I take her home?”

  Again Cofey shook his head. “Same answer, I’m afraid. We’ll take good care of her until the investigation is over, and then see to it she is returned for a proper funeral.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Can you tell me what she was doing up here?” Cofey asked, shifting gears.

  “I don’t know a lot,” Pavel said, head still aimed at the floor. “My mother called and said she had come up to bring home our friend Matthew. He worked for us in the family business, running the finances.”

  “Is this,” Cofey asked, going back into the file and producing a second photo, “your friend Matthew?”

  Pavel raised his gaze and stared at the image of Mateo Perez a moment before nodding his head. His reason for being in Montana was now confirmed. “Matthew was an excellent accountant, but he was troubled. Sometimes he would take off by himself, my sister would have to go find him, bring him home.”

  Cofey put the photo back and again glanced to the Sheriff. “So this wasn’t the first time?”

  “No,” Pavel said. “But this was the first time we’d lost contact with her too. After a day or two, we started to worry. After a week, my mother asked me to come check on her.”

  “I see,” Cofey said, stepping back once more and nodding. “And that’s how you came to be breaking into the Hawk’s Eye Tours office this morning when Sheriff Latham’s deputies found you?”

  Pavel had to force the corners of his mouth not to curl up into a smile. It was such basic interrogation technique, such rudimentary questioning by someone that clearly had no idea who stood before them, of the things he’d been through.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, his voice a whisper. “I didn’t take anything, and I will pay to replace the window. It’s just, when I got there and saw the sign that it was closed for the winter...”

  “What made you go there to begin with?” Cofey asked.

  The question stuck in the back of Pavel’s mind. It was an odd thing to ask, something that should have been self-explanatory to them.

  “She told us the last time we spoke that was who she had hired as a guide.”

  Cofey and the Sheriff both traded another look before Cofey drew his mouth into a line and nodded. “Thank you, Mr. Haney. I hope you don’t mind but we’ll need to keep you here another day or two on the breaking-and-entering charge, at least until we get this investigation wrapped up.”

  Pavel knew the American justice system well enough to know that was not at all how things were usually handled. If they planned to keep him, he was entitled to a lawyer, some more formal explanation of his charges than an off-handed comment about breaking-and-entering.

  Whatever reason they had for keeping him meant they wanted him close, and they wanted him talking. Starting the process formally eliminated both of those things.

  “Have a good evening,” Cofey said, motioning Sheriff Latham towards the door. Together they shuffled towards it, shoes dragging against concrete, until they were just a few feet away before Cofey turned, raising a finger towards Pavel.

  “Oh, one last thing, your sister wasn’t by chance missing a hand was she?”

  Pavel stared back at Cofey a long moment, his face neutral, before twisting it up into a look of surprise. “No, both there the last time I saw her, why?”

  Cofey nodded without responding and turned towards the door, disappearing through it, the Sheriff right behind him. Pavel stared after them a long moment before returning to the cot and taking a seat.

  The question had been meant to try and get under his skin, to pry free some bit of information that he had yet to give them. In truth, it had told him everything he needed to know.

  The guide was still alive, and he was on the hunt.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The living room of Hutch’s place was outfitted much the same as the kitchen and study. Dark wood lined the floors and walls, the furniture bathed in deep hues of cranberry and brown. A comically large flat screen television filled one entire wall while framed paintings of landscapes covered the others.

  The spoils of a bloated government salary.

  The oversized leather sofa seemed to swallow me whole as I leaned back into it, the plush cushioned seats enveloping my body. I fought the sensation for a moment, trying to keep my body perched on the edge of it, fighting to remain in position, before letting go and falling back into it. A puff of air rose up around me as I did, hissing into my ears, the chair molding to my contours.

  I propped my elbow on the arm of the sofa, using it to hold my cell phone in place against my head. Kaylan had called five hours earlier while we were in the bowels of the DEA. She’d left a message stating it was important I call her back, but hadn’t mentioned what had happened or why it was so dire we speak.

  She was about the only person in all of Montana I had even the slightest bit of loyalty to, and her calling proved she was okay. I wasn’t particularly in the mood for talking on the phone, but if she claimed it was urgent, I did at least owe her the courtesy of believing it.

  Without ringing once, an automated voice told me to enjoy the music as a bad rendition of Somewhere Over The Rainbow played. Bypassing the usual ukulele and bongos for a jazz piano and flute, it sounded like something from a hotel lounge show, bringing a wince to my face and causing me to hold the phone an inch away from my head.

  Not until I heard Kaylan’s voice come on the line did I press it back to my ear.

  “Hawk! Where the hell have you been?” Kaylan snapped, not bothering with a greeting of any kind.

  “Well, hello to you too,” I said, a tiny bit of sarcasm present, just enough to let her know I didn’t appreciate the tone, but I wasn’t too upset about it.

  “Sorry,” she said, backing off an inch or two. “It’s just, I called you like six times this morning, every one of them went straight to voicemail. I started to get worried.”

  My body grew a touch rigid as she explained. There were times when I’d been out of contact in the park for days at a time and she hadn’t blinked an eye. For her to be so worried about a few hours absence meant something had her spooked.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “The shop was broken into this morning,” Kaylan, shoving the words out in a quick string, bunched so tight it sounded like one unending sound.

  My heart rate ticked up a single beat as I processed the information, blowing a long breath out through my nose. “How bad?”

  “Not bad at all,” Kaylan said. “The guy broke the rear window and climbed in, setting off the motion sensors. Patrol was right down the street and showed up within five minutes. From what I can tell he didn’t get anything.”

  “Local guy?” I asked, rubbing my brow. It wasn’t the first time a business in town had been vandalized, usually by some kids out after a football game, looking to blow off some steam.

  “Not at all,” Kaylan said. “I haven’t seen him, but Latham said the guy’s a giant, looks like one of the villains from an old Superman movie. Claims he’s that girl’s brother, just here trying to find her. They’re holding him at the department now.”

  The information fed itself into the tangle already bouncing around in my mind, trying to find a niche where it made sense. The likelihood of this random Lita showing up, asking me to take her to Mateo, whom she killed, and then my office being broken into a week later by a man claiming to be related to her was just too much to
write off as coincidence.

  It had to all fit together, I just had no idea how.

  “Damn,” I muttered, my voice low.

  “I know,” Kaylan said, empathy in her tone. “Sheriff Latham said he tried to call you, but when he couldn’t get through he contacted me.”

  “Yeah,” I said, nodding, barely hearing what she was saying, my thoughts far away.

  “I went over and did a quick walk-through with Deputy Ferry just to assess the damages, but I haven’t been back since. Felt kind of spooky in there, even with him by my side.”

  I blinked twice, forcing myself back into the present, and shook my head hard to clear it. “Yeah, no, that makes sense. If you could, call Henry down the road and ask him to fix the window. Pay him whatever it takes, just put it on the company account.”

  “Okay,” Kaylan whispered. “You okay, Hawk?”

  “I am,” I said, nodding at the painting of a purple sunset over the desert on the wall opposite me.

  I hadn’t told Kaylan where I was going when I left. Hadn’t told her when I’d be back either. The truth was I didn’t know the entire answer to the questions, and I damned sure didn’t want to put her in danger by someone thinking she did.

  “Thanks for calling,” I said, a note of finality in my voice. “I’ll be in touch.”

  I cut off the call and sat alone in the living room a moment, a fist raised to my mouth. I stared at the painting until my eyes glossed over, my vision going blurry as I tried to force everything together.

  Try as I might, I couldn’t. There was just too much I didn’t yet know.

  “Everything alright?” Hutch asked, snapping me awake. He strode in stocking feet across the hardwood floor, a tumbler in each hand, and extended one to me.

  I accepted the drink with a nod, touching the rim of it to his with a clink. “Shop got broken into,” I said, lifting the glass to my lips. Out of reflex my body bristled as a few drops entered my throat, a conditioned response to years of being forced to share the alcohol Hutch enjoyed for himself, a cross between horse piss and rubbing alcohol.

  To my surprise the amber colored liquid slid down easy, leaving a sweet taste behind, as if laced with honey.

  “Damn, that’s excellent,” I said.

  “Ha!” Hutch spat, coughing out the laugh. “Johnnie Walker Blue. The good stuff.”

  “I’ll say,” I agreed, taking one more sip before sliding it onto the table beside me.

  “Apparently my shop was broken into this morning by a mammoth claiming to be Lita’s brother.”

  “Aw, hell. What’d he take?”

  “Nothing, as far as we can tell.”

  Hutch swigged down more of the whiskey and smacked his lips, a sour expression on his face that I knew wasn’t derived from his drink. “That can’t just be a coincidence.”

  “Not at all,” I agreed. “We get a hit back on her prints yet?”

  “Not yet,” Hutch said, shaking his head. “She wasn’t in our system, so we had to expand the search. Apparently the NSA has been less than cooperative thus far in granting us access.”

  “Dicks,” I muttered, pondering the situation. “Kaylan said they’re holding him now. Any chance they can keep him until we get an ID back on her?”

  Hutch stared off a moment, rolling around the idea. “Depending on how long it takes. They can’t hold him indefinitely on a what sounds like a simple B&E, especially if he didn’t take anything. That takes it clear down to criminal trespass, a misdemeanor.”

  “Right,” I said, nodding in agreement. I pondered everything in silence a moment before beginning to think out loud.

  “At the moment there are two bodies in the morgue at Yellowstone jail. One I knew from a lifetime before, the other had made a point of bringing me in to go find him and letting me see him die.”

  “To make a point? Or did she think she was doing you a favor?” Hutch asked.

  The question set me back a moment, the thought one I had not yet gotten to. “But a favor how? I didn’t, don’t, know the woman. And why would they go to that length to do it anyway? I’ve been out of the game for five years now.”

  “Amongst Injuns, a tribe’s greatness is figured on how mighty its enemies be.”

  I nodded at the movie line, agreeing with the sentiment, even if I was still unsure how I fit in. I chewed on it another moment before letting it go and reaching for my drink.

  “Alright,” I said, pushing the word out with a lengthy sigh, “what do we do now?”

  Hutch twirled the glass in his hand a moment, its contents spinning along its side. He kept his focus aimed at it a long moment and said, “The way I see it we’ve got two things going simultaneously. We’ve got this break-in up north and that whole mess.”

  “And we’ve got whatever’s happening in the south that sent Mateo on the run to begin with,” I finished.

  “So,” Hutch said, finally taking his gaze from his drink and looking up at me. “I go one way, you go the other?”

  Chapter Sixteen

  The eleven hour time difference meant that it was ten a.m. in Russia as Viktor Blok shut the door to his office and stepped inside. He had started checking his watch incessantly two hours before, careful not to get too caught up in the evening’s revelry to miss his appointment.

  It was a standing call every Thursday night, first thing Friday morning back in Russia. A weekly check-in to let Sergey know how things were going, get an update on information that needed to be passed down.

  Viktor shrugged the purple velvet smoking jacket he was wearing from his shoulders and let it drop to the floor behind him, leaving it where it laid as he walked through the room and took up a post behind his desk. He drew in a deep breath and pulled the phone receiver from its cradle, dropping it atop his table, the dial tone buzzing out over the speakers, filling the room.

  The exercise had started three years before, when Viktor was appointed to look over the North American operation. At the time he had been a twenty-nine year old kid, not yet quite ready for the post, and he knew it. His uncle had gone out on a limb for him in securing the position, a fact every person in the organization was aware of. The calls had served as a way for the old man to stay connected, to exert control, and to calm the other partner’s nervousness about the plan to expand.

  Now, three years later, the calls seemed more like blind oppression, paying taxes to a king an ocean away.

  Pushing an angry breath out through his nose, Viktor pressed a single button and the line began to ring. It chirped a full dozen times in his ear before it was picked up, knowing better than to disconnect before it was answered.

  “You’re late,” the voice said, a scratchy tone that was the end result of decades of cigars and vodka.

  Viktor slid back the cuff on his black silk shirt and checked his Philippe Patek watch, the illuminated face on it stating it was exactly eleven o’clock.

  “My watch must be a minute or two behind. My apologies.”

  A derisive sniff rolled out over the line. “Yeah, I’m sure that’s it.”

  Viktor rolled his eyes, picturing the fat little man with his beady eyes and sun-spotted head, and bit back a retort.

  He’d made that mistake before. No need to relive it.

  “Where are we with things?” Sergey asked, moving straight to business, as he always did.

  Viktor lowered himself into his padded leather desk chair and rested his elbows on the arms of it, his fingers steepled in front of him. “Things are progressing well. The takeover is near complete now, with only one last distributor still displaying any reluctance at all.”

  “Which one?” Sergey snapped, ignoring the first part of the assessment.

  “La Jolla, on the north side of San Diego.”

  “That going to be a problem?”

  “Not at all,” Viktor said, shaking his head. “It’s a wealthy community, the kind that thinks they can control things with a little bit of cash. Nothing we haven’t seen many times over, here and back
home.”

  Again a nasty chortle rolled out over the line, drawing another eye roll from Viktor. For the first two years the operation had felt like a partnership, a joint venture between two generations of Blok’s, the older handing things down to the next.

  In just the last twelve months that impression had begun to evaporate, Sergey taking on an increased interest in the business. It started with him sending Pavel stateside to look over Viktor’s shoulder, had continued with random phone calls at odd hours, an increased demand for access to the financials.

  “When are you thinking this will be under control?” Sergey asked.

  Viktor tapped the pads of his fingers together in front of him and said, “I sent up a small scouting party yesterday. They were going to dig around, determine how much it would take to make the problem go away quietly, how many men it would take to make it an example.”

  “I don’t need to remind you that right now we would prefer the quiet option,” Sergey said, his voice taking on a stern tone.

  “I’m aware,” Viktor said, moving his focus towards the ceiling, keeping his gaze aimed at the stucco surface above him. “How long before we’ll be ready to start importing our own product?”

  “Just waiting on you,” Sergey replied, no small amount of condescension in his voice.

  Viktor gritted his teeth and pushed a long breath out between them, animosity rising within him. “One week. Two at most.”

  There was more he wanted to add, about the rumors of delays in production that were drifting across the Pacific, about the dissatisfaction with the organization, the mentioning of decreased sales. Still, he kept his tongue, careful not to draw any unnecessary heat. If things were wrapped up in a week and the shipments began arriving as planned, his upward mobility would be impossible to track.

  He would be hailed as a wunderkind, the new blood that revived a dying system.

  He only had to bide his time.

  “Good,” Sergey said. “Is there anything else?”

  Viktor glared at the phone a moment before shaking his head in disgust. The old man knew full well what was going on with Mateo Perez. He had insisted on using Lita, was no doubt being fed updates from Pavel. He was simply testing Viktor, wanting to see how much he would disclose, how honest he would be.