The Best American Mystery Stories 2019

by Jonathan Lethem

  A creaking sound like the opening of Dracula’s coffin made me turn and see a wall-sized bookcase move.

  Slowly, squeakily, so disorientingly I thought, Earthquake? the bookcase kept advancing into the room, as freaky as the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland. I fixed my eyes at random on one frayed book called The Coming of the Fairies, willing it to stay put, but nope. It moved. When I turned my attention back to Mirko, he stepped over his pile of clothes, grabbed the handle of the wheelie suitcase, and moved to a now-palpable gap between bookcase and wall.

  Behind the gap was a door. Mirko opened the door and went through it.

  I grabbed the dog and followed.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” he called out.

  “Following you!” I called back. “What’s it look like?”

  It couldn’t have looked like anything, because it was pitch-black except for the glow of Mirko’s cell, bouncing along ahead of me. What it smelled like was a dank cellar, the scent intensifying as I followed Mirko down wooden stairs. When we reached the bottom, a light popped on.

  We were in a long and narrow passageway, low-ceilinged, brick-floored, and lined with storage shelves. The kind of place that makes you think bomb shelter except that it was stuffed with . . . stuff. Furniture, art, armaments, and god knows what else, bubble-wrapped, crated up, or just scattered about. Mirko pushed aside a Roman helmet and heaved his wheelie suitcase onto a high shelf, showing an impressive set of muscles. He gave me a quick look, then took off down the passageway.

  “Keep up,” he called over his shoulder. “Unless you fancy being locked in.”

  I jogged after him, clutching the dog, until some three hundred feet later the tunnel ended in a second staircase. The lights went off behind me and in darkness I followed Mirko up the stairs, bumping into him at the top. “‘S’cuse me,” I mumbled, unsettled by his proximity, and his aftershave. Bay rum. Which I liked.

  “This is where we go our separate ways,” he said, working to unlock yet another door. A moment later we were out of the tunnel and in the back room of a supermarket.

  It was a Tesco Metro, a British 7-Eleven. I followed Mirko through swinging doors onto the selling floor and the mundane world of Whiskas catfood and Wotsits Cheese Snacks.

  Mirko marched through the Tesco with all the confidence of a store manager. I tried to match his gait and attitude, never mind that I was carrying an unattractive dog the size of a watermelon.

  Once outside, he picked up the pace, his long legs at full stride, weaving his way through lunch-hour London, jammed with people. I caught up with him on the center island of some major intersection, waiting for the pedestrian signal. Before the light could turn green, Mirko stepped into the street, narrowly avoiding a speeding Volvo, and took off at a run. I said a prayer—a necessity, since the traffic was of course going the wrong way—and took off too, wincing at the horns honking at me. I followed him onto an escalator and down into London’s Underground.

  It was luck that I had a metro card—no, Oyster card, as they whimsically call it. I raced after him, dog squirming in my arms, through the turnstiles, over to some tube line or other, onto a platform, into a subway car, and out again at Liverpool Street, where we made our way to the train station. He made a beeline for a self-serve ticket machine and I found one too, as close as I could get to his. We bought tickets, me juggling credit card, dog, and purse. He then race-walked to a platform, and I hurried after, boarding a train labeled NORWICH. I walked the length of several cars, ignoring the stares of the presumably dog-averse until I found Mirko, at a table for four. As I approached, the train gave a lurch and I lost my balance for a moment, grabbing Mirko’s shoulder to steady myself and ending up with a handful of shirt, at which point Gladstone scrambled out of my arms and into his lap.

  Mirko accepted the dog but raised an eyebrow at me. “Took your time, didn’t you?”

  I plopped into the seat across from him, still panting. “Okay, where’s Robbie? Also, who do you work for and what do you do, and also, what do I call you, because you’re obviously not Mirko, and while we’re at it, how do you know all those things about me, things not even Robbie knows? And don’t say you’re psychic, because you’re as clairvoyant as a bagel.”

  He held my look. “One, that’s what I intend to learn, but lower your voice, please, because I’m following someone and while he is three cars ahead of us, I imagine the entire train can hear you. Two, a small agency within the British government. Three, call me Kingsley. Four, observation. You’re an American because of your accent. Someplace hot, because it’s winter, yet you have a tan line near your clavicle from a sports bra, and another at your ankle, from your trainers, so not a vacation tan but a resident’s. Your diction has no tinge of the American South, so not Florida, and the freckles on your left forearm suggest an inordinate amount of time spent on motorways with your arm resting on the window side, more likely in the ungodly traffic of California, than in Hawaii, and from the shade of your hair, Los Angeles. The lead on the dog is fashioned from a luggage strap and still bears the knot of elastic from an airline identification tag.” He picked up the slack leash and proceeded to unknot the elastic. “Your neck is stiff,” he continued, “suggesting someone who slept with her head against the window on the left side of an airplane. Front row, coach, standby, so last to board. With no seat in front of you to stow your bag, and by the time you boarded, there was no overhead space left, so the flight attendant checked your carry-on, which explains the tag.” He set the leash down and Gladstone looked up at him. “You dozed—fitfully—on a floor last night, as evidenced by the bits of shag carpet in your hair.”

  “Is that supposed to impress me?” I asked.

  “It does impress you,” he said. “Your turn. How did you know which ticket to buy? You couldn’t possibly see my touch screen.”

  “No,” I said. “But I had a clear view of your forearm. I calculated the length of that, plus your fingers, factored in the fifty-five-degree angle your elbow was bent at, which told me where your fingers would land on the touch-screen keyboard, given the destination list from the drop-down menu.”

  That shut him up.

  The train conductor approached. “Tickets, please,” he said.

  In unison, Kingsley pulled his out of his hoodie pocket and I pulled mine out of my jeans. We handed them over.

  The conductor punched a hole in mine but frowned at Kingsley’s. “Stansted Mountfitchet Station? You’re on the wrong train, sir.”

  Kingsley blinked.

  I gave the conductor my most charming smile. “I’m so sorry. My cousin is legally blind but refuses to ask for help. May I pay the difference for him?”

  With a shake of the head, the conductor accepted the twenty-pound note I offered him, made change, and issued Kingsley a new ticket. “An assistance dog, is it?” he asked, directing the question at me.

  “Gladstone? Yes,” I said. “Years of training.”

  Once the conductor was out of earshot, Mirko said, “You nicked my ticket. Nicely done.”

  “I traded tickets,” I corrected him. “Which is harder. Robbie and I played pickpocket as children.”

  “Not so good, though, at buying the proper ticket. You disappoint me.”

  “Same. Where’d I go wrong?”

  “You assumed I used my index finger on the touch screen. I type with my thumb. A three-inch difference. Classic schoolgirl error,” he said, but I could tell he was warming up to me. “When did you last talk to Robbie?”

  “Five days ago,” I said. “He texted me, saying would I please fly to New York, pick up his cat, Touie, and get her to London because his subtenant was threatening to drown her and he was stuck in England on a job. So I did. It was hell. Whatever lies ahead, let me tell you I survived Live Animal Border Inspection at Heathrow, which can make grown men cry, so your Russian mafia doesn’t scare me.”

  His long fingers, on Gladstone’s tall ears, stopped mid-pet. “Russian mafia?”

  �
�The Streisand fan. At the shop. Some low-level operative, right? A smurf?”

  “Beg your pardon?”

  “Oh, please,” I said. “You’re obviously laundering money, you’ve got a tunnel filled with black market goods, a wheelie suitcase full of rubles—”

  “What makes you think rubles?”

  “Your Russian friend, during a sappy pause in ‘You Don’t Bring Me Flowers,’ said eight hundred million. If that was pounds or dollars, you’d need a U-Haul to transport them. Rubles, on the other hand, come in denominations of five thousand, and yeah, you could stuff fifteen thousand of them into a suitcase. Which is around a million pounds, a million three in dollars.” I wondered if, behind those gray eyes, he was checking my math. “Anyhow,” I said. “My brother was part of this adventure. Whatever it is, it’s got ‘Robbie’ written all over it, him being a Russian interpreter, as you of course know.”

  He studied me. “Have you told the police he’s missing?”

  “Yeah, they’re gonna care that some random American won’t answer his sister’s texts. Or that his cat’s been kidnapped and a dog has stolen her collar.” The thief in question was now dozing, emitting fitful dog snores. “Nope. I’m gonna throw in my lot with you, Kingsley-if-that’s-even-your-name.”

  “Not entirely your call,” he said.

  “I can be persuasive.”

  “Persuade me.”

  “I’ve got a gun in my purse,” I said. “Once you catch up to your Russian friend, the one we’re following to Norwich, it could come in handy.”

  An eyebrow went up. “Nicked that too, did you? From the tunnel?”

  “Yeah. Which wasn’t easy, given that I was in the dark, in a hurry, and hauling a dog.”

  “Is that it, then?”

  “I’ve also got your wallet. You’re flat broke.”

  The other eyebrow went up. “Pinch any bullets?” he asked, and held out his hand.

  “You didn’t give me much time.” I passed him the wallet and our fingers touched.

  He smiled. “Fair enough. Even a nonloaded weapon is a weapon.”

  The countryside out the train window raced by, deeply green, with hills so rolling they looked fake, accessorized by contented-looking sheep. To someone used to the parched fields of Southern California, it was downright exotic. Kingsley, in the seat opposite, had a view of coming attractions, while I watched what we were leaving behind.

  Kingsley and I had steaming cups before us, thanks to the Greater Anglia Railway dining coach. Kingsley was a far cry from “Mirko”—unrecognizable, even—but even so, it took confidence to risk running into the guy he was tailing just for a cup of tea. Not that I was complaining; he’d brought me back a black coffee. I didn’t ask how he knew my beverage preferences. Perhaps I had a speck of ground espresso on my earlobe.

  “I’m a consultant,” Kingsley said, stirring his milky tea. “I was hired to investigate the clandestine dealings going on at the shop of Mirko Rudenko. Having tapped his phone, I heard Mirko converse with a woman named Sarah Byrne, in a dialect called Surzhyk, a hybrid of the Russian and Ukrainian languages in which I am conversant but not fluent. So when Sarah Byrne made an appointment with Mirko, I rang up your brother to come eavesdrop with me.”

  I blinked. “Robbie’s a spy? You guys are spies?”

  “No, a consultant,” he repeated. “Robbie, of course, knows Eastern European dialects the way a sommelier knows wine. I needed his expertise.”

  “Okay, whatever. Go on.”

  “We met outside the shop—’round the back—and listened through the flap of a dog door as Sarah Byrne and the Renowned Mirko had cream tea and a tarot card reading. All nonsense, of course, the tarot business, but then talk turned to gemstones.” Kingsley’s eyes lit up. “Mirko told Sarah he’d recently acquired a red diamond for a client. ‘Come,’ he said. ‘I’ll show you.’ But when she stood, she was suddenly unwell. Mirko expressed concern. We heard the sound of creaking wood, people moving about, and then—silence.”

  “They’d gone into the tunnel.”

  “They had. If Mirko suspected foul play, he’d certainly avoid the front door. Robbie and I let ourselves in and found no one in the shop but a French bulldog. He was clawing at the bookcase so near the point of entry they may as well have posted a sign saying, PRESS HERE FOR SECRET PASSAGEWAY.”

  I glanced down at the snoring Gladstone.

  “Although it did take me seven minutes to find my way in,” he went on. “Embarrassingly slow. I left Robbie in the shop, as a safety measure. I’ve been locked in cellars once or twice and wasn’t keen to do it again.”

  “And did you find Mirko and Sarah Byrne?” I asked.

  “No, but I could hear them, at the far end. The woman was growing hysterical. I listened for their exit and then moved fast. Do you recall the tunnel’s final meters, where the brick floor ended and the last bit was dirt?”

  “No.”

  “Try to be more observant,” Kingsley said crisply. “Fresh footprints, one of them a lady’s spike heel, size four—six to you Americans—told me she was short, plump, vain, and increasingly unsteady on her feet. Mirko half carried, half dragged her those last meters and up the stairs, through Tesco’s and onto the street. Which is where I found them. I helped them into a taxi, and in the process managed to acquire Mirko’s mobile and the remote that opened the tunnel door. You’re not alone in your pickpocketing skills. By this point Mirko was also feeling seriously ill, so I accompanied them to London City Hospital.”

  “Didn’t they think that was odd?” I asked.

  “Not once I saw who Sarah Byrne was. She wore an absurd black wig that fell off as we bundled her into the taxi, revealing her to be as blond as you are. I recognized her at once as Yaroslava Barinova. I had only to profess myself her greatest fan and beg the privilege of helping her. Frankly, they were both too sick to care.”

  Poison, I thought. “And who is, uh, Yaroslava—?”

  Kingsley sighed. “The greatest mezzo-soprano since Frederica von Stade. I saw them to the hospital, got them admitted, and texted your brother with an update.”

  “And?”

  He looked at me steadily. “I’ve heard nothing from Robbie since that day.”

  I stared at him.

  “Breathe,” Kingsley said, and I realized I’d stopped. “I found his mobile on Mirko’s bookshelf, its battery dead. Not in itself a sign of trouble; your brother’s careless about such things. I returned it to his flat, by the way.” He frowned at me. “Stop leaping to dire conclusions. We haven’t sufficient data, and you’ll be no use to me in Norwich if your amygdala hijacks your cerebral cortex.”

  “That’s an oversimplification of cognitive processes,” I snapped.

  “Don’t quibble with me; I wrote a monograph on the subject.”

  I said, as casually as I could, “So what happened to Mirko and the mezzo-soprano?”

  The pause scared me as much as the words that followed. “They were poisoned, of course,” Kingsley said at last. “They’ll be dead by the weekend.”

  Norwich, the end of the line, had an actual train station, old and stately. Kingsley and I strolled through it side by side, with Gladstone waddling between us. “Look relaxed,” Kingsley said, “but prepare to move quickly. We’ll soon need a taxi.”

  Our quarry was Igor, the Russian who’d come to the shop.

  Igor had been the first call on Mirko’s cell phone, after it was in Kingsley’s pocket and Mirko off to the hospital. Kingsley could tell, from Igor’s Russian and his use of the formal pronouns, that the man hadn’t met Mirko. This gave Kingsley the confidence to impersonate the psychic when Igor offered to come round and collect a red diamond and hand off a suitcase of rubles.

  “He had one moment of doubt,” Kingsley said, “but I’m extraordinarily convincing as a gemologist.”

  “Old-school money laundering,” I said.

  “A refreshing change from offshore banking,” Kingsley said.

  “Delightful,
” I said. “But what’s Igor got to do with my brother?”

  “With luck, nothing. But we must eliminate the impossible.”

  While Gladstone and I had hidden behind the screen, Kingsley, in a feat of deduction involving Igor’s footwear and clods of dirt—he’d apparently written a monograph on that too—had determined that Igor was bound for Norwich, and on either the 11:52 train or the 12:04. So here we were in a town with the kind of bucolic vibe I’d come to expect from watching Masterpiece Theatre. I had no trouble spotting Igor as the train crowd dispersed outside the station. He was a hulking figure, mostly bald but with a patch of red hair. Wearing a bright green windbreaker, he lumbered through the cobblestone streets with a bearlike gait.

  We followed him to the town center, thick with boutiques and cafés. A large after-school crowd, noisy kids in plaid uniforms and their attendant adults mixing in with gen pop, meant that Kingsley and I didn’t worry about being spotted. But Igor never looked back. He headed to an open-air marketplace, an Anglo-Saxon sort of souk in the shadow of a Gothic cathedral, with row upon row of vendors under striped awnings. We kept our distance now, and when Igor stopped at a kiosk we stopped too, twenty yards back, and Kingsley bought French fries served in newspaper. We then made our way up terraced stone steps overlooking the plaza.

  “I assume Igor’s getting his red diamond appraised,” I said, nodding at a blue awning marked POPOV FINE JEWELRY, BOUGHT AND SOLD. WALK-INS WELCOME.

  “Chips?” Kingsley pushed the French fries toward me, but as they were covered in vinegar, I passed. Gladstone, however, helped himself. “And what will the appraiser tell him?” Kingsley asked me.

  “He’ll say, ‘Igor, I hope you didn’t pay more than thirty bucks for this because it’s a third-rate garnet plucked from some dog or cat collar with a Swiss Army knife.”

  “Very good,” Kinglsey said. “Not a garnet, though. Swarovski crystal.”

  I scratched Gladstone’s neck, my fingers finding the empty setting where the crystal had been. “Where’s the real diamond?”