Nobody Rides For Free

by Neil S. Plakcy

  There was no one home at about half the houses on my side of the street, and the people I spoke with had little to contribute. No one had noticed anything unusual at the house. “What are you looking for?” one older gay man asked me.

  “A routine investigation,” I said. “Nothing to worry about.”

  It was that story over and over again until I reached the last house. “There was one thing,” the man who answered the door said. He was in his early thirties, tall and skinny, with a shaved head. “A couple of weeks ago, I was coming home after work and I saw two people arguing in the front yard.”

  “Do you mind if I record this conversation?” I asked. The guy said it was OK, and I set my phone to record.

  His name was Daniel Lambert, and he consented to the interview. “It was a couple of weeks before Christmas,” he said. “I remember because lots of houses were decorated and the whole street looked neon. Maybe about seven-thirty or eight o’clock at night, though I could be off by an hour or so.”

  “What did you see?”

  “This older white guy was outside, arguing with a skinny black kid. It seemed odd, you know? I thought, at the time, it was a trick gone bad. That maybe the kid was a hustler and the guy in the house didn’t want to pay him.”

  “Could you hear what they were saying?”

  He shook his head, and I had to ask him to answer verbally for the recording.

  “No, I couldn’t hear. I passed the house, drove into my garage, and that was it. But it gave me an impression, you know? That the guy in the house was the kind to bring tricks home.”

  “You ever see him any other time?”

  “No. But I have seen a couple of kids going in and out. Teenagers, black and white. I thought maybe I was wrong the first time, that the guy in the house was a foster parent.”

  “Did the kids ever look like they were being forced to be there?”

  “You mean like sex slaves or something?” he asked.

  I didn’t answer his question because I didn’t want to prejudice his comments in any way. “Were they able to come and go freely?”

  “As far as I could tell. They were always with somebody else though, getting in and out of cars. I never actually saw any kids come out of the house by themselves.”

  That was all he could tell me. I thanked him and then met Katya back at the car. “I got nothing,” she said. “Most houses nobody was home, and the ones who were there didn’t see anything.”

  I told her what I’d discovered. “That’s good,” she said. “Still not enough to get a search warrant, but it’s one more piece.”

  We drove around to the apartment building and parked in the lot. We climbed the exterior staircase and looked back toward the house. The tree cover was so full I couldn’t even tell which one it was. So there was no chance anyone at the building could have looked over and seen the backyard, or into the house.

  “It was a good try,” Katya said. “You want me to come back tomorrow and help you canvass the street again?”

  “I think I’m good. Help me make a list of all the houses we covered.”

  We drove slowly down the street and Katya marked down the house numbers and whether we’d been able to speak to anyone. Then I drove us back to my house, with a promise to meet Katya the next night at Krasotka.

  • • •

  Jonas got home about a half hour later. “Do I smell pizza?” I asked him when he walked in. “Did you bring a pie home?”

  “I had to do Eric a favor,” he said.

  “Eric? What kind of favor?”

  “He called me about an hour ago and asked me to pick up some pizzas for him. He was working at this place and his car is in the shop, so he’d ordered takeout. But then the delivery guy got in a wreck after Eric had already ordered and paid.”

  I told him the address of the porn house, and he verified that was where he’d taken the pizza. So the whole time we’d been walking up and down the street, Eric had been inside. And he knew me, for sure—he recognized me at the thrift shop.

  “I wish you had called me,” I said. “I would have come to the house with you. I’d love to see what’s going on inside.”

  “He didn’t ask me in,” Jonas said, and he looked sad. “I thought at least he’d offer me a slice but he thanked me and closed the door.”

  “He didn’t pay you?”

  “He’d already paid for the pizza. And it wasn’t like I was expecting a tip or anything.”

  Jonas sat down on the sofa. “By then I was jonesing for pizza, so I ordered a pie for us and went back and picked it up. Did I do something wrong?”

  “Not at all. But if he calls you again, please let me know. And if he asks you anything about me, tell him I’m an accountant. Don’t let him know I work for the FBI.”

  Eric’s involvement with the runaway boys was looking more and more like bad trouble. Was he guarding them?

  I remembered how I’d rewarded the kids at Lazarus Place with pizza. Was Eric getting more than information from them? Rewarding them for some acting? How was he involved with Frank Cardone?

  And had he noticed me canvassing his neighbors?

  26.

  Be My Backup

  I couldn’t go back to canvass the rest of the neighbors on Saturday because Eric might still be at the house and I didn’t want him to see me. So I worked out at the gym and read more about the Russian mafia before I had to meet Katya at a coffee shop a few blocks from Krasotka. It was a cool evening and we sat outside under a green umbrella, the Saturday night traffic slow and noisy on Collins Avenue beside us.

  “I wanted to give you some background before we go in.” She picked up the paper cup with her cappuccino in it but she didn’t drink. “My grandfather taught me to play poker when I was a kid. He used to sit around drinking tea from a glass and playing poker with these other old men from his hometown in Russia.”

  She took a sip. “I financed part of my degree with periodic trips to Atlantic City and Vegas. I never played a big tournament or anything, but I could walk away from a table with a few grand in my pocket.”

  “My dad’s mother played bingo,” I said. “When I was little I used to go to the bingo parlor with her and she’d let me mark the numbers. No money in it for me, though.”

  She laughed. “It was a natural matchup for me when I joined the Bureau to get involved in the investigation of the Organizatsya,” she said. “My background, my language skills. When the SAC discovered I played poker, he asked if I’d be willing to go undercover.”

  I sipped my café mocha and waited for her to continue.

  “I thought it was very glamorous,” she said. “I got a cover job with a real estate broker in Brighton Beach, right in the middle of all the Russians. Within a couple of weeks I was a regular at a poker game at a social hall on Brighton Beach Boulevard.”

  The keening wail of a police siren rose above the susurrus of traffic, the red and blue lights flashing off the lobby windows of the high-rise across from us. The car dodged and darted around traffic and we had to wait for the siren to fade until we could talk again.

  Katya toyed with the paper wrapper around her cup. “Around the time I wanted to leave New York, the Bureau got a tip that the Organizatsya was moving a lot of money through some cash-only businesses here in Sunny Isles Beach, and it seemed like a good place to send me.”

  I noticed the way she’d skipped over the details of whatever case she was working on in New York, but I didn’t press her. I’d accepted early on that so much of the information at the Bureau was on a need-to-know basis and, as the new guy, I didn’t need to know anything more than my superiors chose to tell me.

  “Is Krasotka one of the businesses you’re investigating?” I asked. I knew from my bartending years how much cash passed over bar counters and inside leatherette folders.

  She nodded. “I’ve been trying to find out who owns the bar, but it’s like a matryoshka—you know, the peasant woman doll with a bunch of smaller ones nested inside.�
�

  “Yeah. I’ve seen those.”

  “It took me a couple of months but I finally got invited to join an occasional poker game in the back room at the bar.” She looked at her watch. “There’s one starting in about fifteen minutes. And I’ve been told there will be a couple of ‘special guests.’”

  She used her fingers for the air quotes. “Berdichev, the guy I think is laundering money through his various businesses. Vadim Kurov, who keeps coming up in the investigation of the LLCs. And Doroshenko, the guy from New York who flew in last week. If that’s true, this could be my chance to pull in all three of them on gambling charges. Then we pressure Berdichev into giving us the goods on Kurov and Doroshenko and trigger a formal investigation into their finances.”

  “You think Berdichev will flip?”

  “He’s small potatoes compared to the other two. It’s the best chance we’ve had to get anything on Doroshenko.”

  I sipped the last of my coffee, then put the cup down on the table. “What about your ex, the one who you thought was Doroshenko’s bodyguard last weekend. What are you going to do at this game if he sees you?”

  “He doesn’t know that I work for the Bureau, but he does know that I play poker. So if he’s there, I can finesse him.”

  I nodded. “What can I do to help you?”

  “Be my backup. As long as everything’s going well, I’ll text you every half hour. Give me your phone.”

  I handed it to her.

  “I’m putting in the number for a cheap disposable I’m using so that in case anyone gets hold of it there’s no incriminating information.”

  “What do I do if you don’t text me? Go looking for you in the back room?”

  “No. I’m putting another number in your phone. It belongs to the agent I’ve been working with on the Russian Task Force. Just tell him that your comrade is in trouble. He’ll know what to do.”

  “My comrade? I can’t use your name to someone from the Bureau?”

  “You don’t know who’ll be listening around you.”

  “OK. In the meantime I’ll look for Lyuba and see if she knows anything about Verenich’s murder.”

  “Just keep an eye on your phone.”

  It was close to nine o’clock as we walked toward Krasotka. Tall sodium vapor lights overhead lit the parking lot which was filled with expensive cars and SUVs.

  Katya walked up to the front door of the bar and I followed a few steps behind. The bouncer nodded hello to her, but stopped me and asked for ID. He looked me up and down and said something in Russian. I wasn’t sure if he was going to let me in or not, but then I saw Lyuba in the background behind him and called to her.

  She spotted me and came to the door. “Hey, you came back!” She smiled and put her arm through mine, and we walked past the bouncer.

  The music was as loud as I remembered, the lights even hotter. Lyuba didn’t even give me time to get a drink—she dragged me out to the dance floor, put her arms around me and started to sway to the music. They were playing Rihanna again, a different song but the same hard-driving beat.

  We danced for a while, and then my phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled away from Lyuba for a moment to check it. The single letter K appeared on the screen.

  Was that her signal? Her initial? Or shorthand for OK?

  I slipped the phone back in my pocket as Lyuba leaned back. “Who’s that?”

  “My roommate,” I said. “He’s on a blind date and I promised to call him if he gives me the right signal.”

  “You boys,” Lyuba said, and pushed playfully at my chest.

  By then I was sweaty and my throat was parched. “I need a drink. Can I get you one?”

  “Stoli on the rocks,” she said. “I go powder my nose while you get the drinks.”

  Funny expression, especially for a young woman with a strong Russian accent, which implied she hadn’t been born in the United States. But how did any of us learn those phrases anyway? From watching old movies. A good way to learn English as well.

  From my bartending days, I knew the best drink to order when you wanted to pretend to be drinking alcohol was a plain tonic with lime. It was hard for anyone to tell there was no vodka in it. If anyone challenged me, I could always blame the bartender for pouring light.

  To add to my story, when I was facing away from the crowd I poured a few drops of Lyuba’s Stoli onto my index finger and smeared it around the edge of my glass.

  Lyuba returned from the bathroom and I handed her the Stoli. “I’m glad I saw you tonight,” I said. “I’ve been trying to get in touch with our mutual friend, Alexei, and I can’t reach him.”

  She frowned. “You don’t know? He is dead.”

  “Dead? My God. What happened?”

  She shrugged. “No one know. Or no one say, which is same thing.” She tossed back the rest of her Stoli. “Now we dance.”

  I finished my tonic and put both glasses down on a table by the wall, and let Lyuba lead me back to the dance floor. The beat was much faster by then, and Lyuba couldn’t hold me so close.

  How far would I have to go that night? Lyuba was going to expect more from me pretty soon. First base, second base? Did I even know what to do with a girl? Sure, I’d watched enough movies, and even some straight porn, so I knew the basics. But would I seem like a clumsy fool? A virgin? Or would she figure out I was gay and wonder what I was doing with her?

  It was foolish to be frightened of being embarrassed by a woman I hardly knew. But even so I was scared—and not just of being found out by Lyuba. Katya had put herself in danger, leaving me as her backup.

  I pulled out my phone. Had fifteen minutes passed? What if I’d missed my cue and Katya was in trouble?

  Fortunately, as I held the phone out, a second text came through.

  “I take phone away so you pay attention to me,” Lyuba said. Before I knew what she was doing, she’d grabbed the phone and slipped it under the strap of her bra.

  It seems silly to admit my first reaction was yuck. My phone and her breast. But I needed that phone back, and grabbing it from her right away would make a scene.

  So instead I pulled her close and leaned down to her ear. “I’ll pay attention to you,” I said. And I did what I’d have done with a guy who pulled that move—I ground my dick against her, letting her know that she turned me on.

  I held Lyuba tight, shimmying my hips in time to the music, and her face flushed red in the shimmering lights. “You know how to treat girl, Andy,” Lyuba said.

  “You don’t know the half of it,” I said.

  We danced for a while longer and I managed to get a glimpse of my watch. Nearly fifteen minutes had passed since my last text from Katya. If my phone vibrated against Lyuba’s chest, would I be able to tell?

  I leaned down against the left side of her neck, on the other side from where she’d stowed my phone. I nipped at her flesh, surprised by its softness, and she shivered with pleasure. Then with my other hand I retrieved my phone.

  “Ooh,” she said, startled by my hand.

  I glanced at the phone’s display. No text.

  “I’ve got to go to the men’s room,” I said.

  “Your friend needs rescuing?” Lyuba asked.

  “You could say that.”

  I hurried across the floor and into the men’s room, which smelled of chemical cleaners and the faint tang of old urine. I locked myself into a stall and checked my phone again. Still no text from Katya, and it had been twenty minutes.

  Should I try to text her? Phone her Bureau contact? But what if I was wrong and I screwed things up?

  I took a deep breath. Stick to the plan. Katya was very clear: if she didn’t text me every fifteen minutes, call the number she gave me. My fingers trembled as I pressed the button to dial the number she’d put in my phone.

  When a man answered, I said, “My comrade is in trouble.”

  “Are you somewhere you can talk?”

  “Men’s room at Krasotka. I’m alone.”

&nbs
p; “Good. Your comrade should be in a room at the back of the bar. You’ll recognize the door because there’ll be a goon in front of it. Don’t try to go inside, just keep an eye out for whoever spills out.”

  Then he ended the call and I stared at the phone for a moment. This was definitely not the way I’d expected this evening to turn out.

  Someone came into the men’s room, and I turned to face the toilet and emptied my bladder. I flushed and when I walked out of the stall there were two big bruisers speaking to each other in Russian. They stopped talking while I washed my hands.

  Before I walked back out to the dance floor, I checked my phone one last time. Still no text from Katya. I hoped I’d done the right thing, and that she was OK.

  27.

  Popsicle Stand

  Lyuba was waiting for me. “I think maybe you fall in,” she said.

  Was that another American expression she’d picked up from the movies? There was something not quite right about Lyuba, though I couldn’t figure out what it was.

  “No more dancing,” she said, lacing her arm in mine. “Come, I live close.”

  I couldn’t walk out then, not when I had been told to watch the door to the back room. “One more dance.” I tugged her toward the floor.

  She came along, though she wasn’t happy. She rubbed her hand over my groin and my dick stiffened again. “You don’t want dance,” she said to me. “You want play.”

  I pulled her hand away. “You don’t want me to play in my pants.” I backed away a few inches and began dancing faster, moving my arms and swaying my hips. Lyuba had no choice but to dance with me.

  Fortunately, the DJ was playing some endless house music. I shifted around so that I had a good view of the door behind the bar and one of the bruisers from the men’s room next to it. As I was watching, the door popped open and a man dashed out. Through the open door I saw bright fluorescent lights and heard loud voices under the music.

  As the man hurried past me, I recognized him as Antonio Cruz—the exotic car dealer—and I managed to stick my leg into his path, causing him to crash against Lyuba, and then fall to the floor.