Pushover (Iris Thorne Mysteries Book 5)

by Dianne Emley

  “Yeah, here it is,” Garland said. “In last week’s Business Week, the article’s called ‘Russia’s Rockefeller’. He looks like a slippery kind of guy.”

  “Could you fax it to me here?”

  “Sure.”

  She thumbed through the hotel guide until she found the fax number which she gave to him.

  “I’m going to get on these phone calls. I’ll call you back as soon as I find out anything.” He paused and inhaled deeply. Iris imagined him pressing his lips together with determination. “Iris, don’t worry. Everything’s going to be fine.”

  “I miss you. I wish I hadn’t come. I should have taken your advice.”

  “You had good reasons for going. Come on. Don’t revisit your decision.”

  “I love you.”

  He made the small noise that he made whenever she told him that. A noise as if he was savoring something good. “I love you too.”

  She hung up and glanced at the television screen that was still showing Simply Maria and tried to decide what to do next. Her rumbling belly decided for her. She pulled a handful of rubles from her purse, which had been miraculously returned to her room the previous night along with her coat. She shoved the money into one of the robe’s pockets, started to set the purse back down, then reached inside it again, this time taking out dollars in different denominations. She also took out a small brush and yanked it through her hair, which was severely crimped on one side of her head from her long sleep.

  Standing and readjusting her robe, she grabbed the hotel guide and her Russian for Travelers dictionary, left the room, and walked into the hallway. A businessman who was leaving his room at the same time gave her a hard look. She nodded and smiled then padded after him in bare feet down the thick carpeting. He cast a glance at her over his shoulder. Now irritated, she gave him a scalding look back.

  Iris was disappointed to see a different dezhurnaya from the night before sitting at the desk at the end of the hallway. This one was also wearing a pink uniform, but hers was marked with smudges and spots. She was older than the other one and filled-out; her square figure tested the dress’s buttons. Her hair was dyed raven black and stiffly molded into a cap of curls, the careful style contrasting with her soiled garment. Thick eyeliner was drawn into points at the corners of her eyes. She and the businessman warmly exchanged a greeting in Russian as he handed her his room key. He walked to call the elevator and the concierge turned her Cleopatra-painted eyes on Iris.

  “Pree-vyet,” Iris greeted the woman, smiling and bowing slightly. The woman nodded back, casting a disapproving glance at Iris’s bathrobe and bare feet.

  Iris opened the hotel guide to the section that described the hotel’s meal accommodations in four different languages. The woman pursed her lips when Iris pointed to the section that described breakfast. She pulled the guide from Iris’s hands and pointed to the lunch section. She then tapped the face of her watch with a polished, pointed fingernail.

  The businessman got in the elevator, leaving Iris and the concierge alone. Iris pointed at the breakfast again and then pointed toward her room. When the concierge frowned, not understanding, Iris opened the traveler’s dictionary and found the phrase, “in my room.” She held the book open for the concierge and pointed to the Cyrillic letters.

  The woman vigorously shook her head and bellowed, “No.”

  From her pocket, Iris produced about ten dollars worth of rubles. The woman looked at the money for a second as if she was considering Iris’s proposition and then shook her head. Iris tried again, this time with a twenty dollar bill. Slowly, the woman raised her hand and took the money, quickly slipping it beneath the desk.

  “Spasíbo,” Iris thanked her, clasping her hands and bowing.

  The concierge picked up the receiver of the telephone on her desk and Iris added, “Kófe,” then held her hands apart to indicate the size. Big. She produced a five dollar bill from her pocket and handed it to the woman, which managed to provoke a smile from her.

  At the door of her room, Iris heard her telephone ringing. She opened the door and bolted across the room to answer it.

  “Iris, it’s Dean Palmer.”

  “Dean, hello.”

  “How did you sleep?”

  “Like the dead. I just came back from bribing the concierge to have breakfast brought to my room.”

  “You’re learning the ropes quickly.”

  She winced against her headache. “Think it’ll work on those cops?”

  “It’s an option, but I don’t think we need to try that just yet. Look, the Ambassador has been talking with the powers that be about your case. I have to tell you that Davidovsky is being difficult about letting you go home.”

  “Oh, no.”

  “No need to be alarmed,” Palmer quickly added. “It’s probably a case of the police not wanting to look like they caved in to our request. I fully expect this to be resolved in twenty-four hours.”

  “I’m trying to remain calm.”

  “That’s the best thing you can do. I’ve been in contact with Tracy Fillinger, Todd’s sister.”

  Iris cranked open the metal shutters all the way and looked at the city that had again come alive. “In Bakersfield, California?”

  “That’s her. She can’t afford to travel to Moscow to settle Todd’s effects and asked if I’d take care of it for her. She says she doesn’t want anything. She figures that Todd was such a nomad, he wouldn’t have much worth the expense of shipping. I’m going out to Todd’s apartment today to check things out. Would you like to go with me?”

  “Yes, I would. Thanks for asking.”

  “I’ll be by in an hour.”

  Shortly after they hung up, Iris’s food arrived. A waiter pushed a cart loaded with covered plates and a big jug of coffee into the room. He got busy setting up a table next to the window. In the center, he placed a rosebud in a glass vase.

  No room service my eye, Iris thought to herself.

  Folded in half and stuck between the dishes was Garland’s fax. The waiter handed it to Iris and continued working.

  In a cover note, Garland wrote that tomorrow was the soonest he could get a flight to Moscow, but he’d keep trying for something earlier.

  Iris gave the waiter a generous tip and read the Business Week article as she wolfed down her food. The story on Nikolai Kosyakov displayed a photograph of him standing on the marble steps in front of the neoclassical façade of the Club Ukrainiya. Kosyakov had a sturdy face with broad cheekbones, a square chin, and narrow eyes. His salt-and-pepper hair was neatly trimmed around the sides but showily puffy on top. He was wearing a light suit and an open-collared shirt. He wasn’t looking into the camera but was frowning at the ground as he talked into a cellular phone.

  Iris wasn’t completely disappointed that Garland couldn’t arrive sooner. She had some business she wanted to take care of on her own.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Dean Palmer and Iris took a taxi to a shiny new skyscraper of cream-colored marble with brass trim. Right after they exited the taxi, a group of pre-teenage boys started following them.

  “Pickpockets,” Palmer whispered to Iris, stepping up their pace.

  The building doorman burst onto the sidewalk, swinging a board and yelling at the boys. They scattered, but not before the doorman thwacked one, the board cracking against his leg, knocking him to the ground.

  “Good Lord!” Iris cried.

  The boy scampered to his feet and escaped before the doorman could swing again.

  Palmer tried to explain, “It’s the only thing he can do to keep them away.”

  As the doorman held the door for them, Palmer spoke to him in Russian. He grinned modestly in response.

  In the lobby, ornate carpets covered the polished marble floor. The building was as quiet as if it were vacant. Iris and Palmer entered an elevator lined with burnished brass. He pressed the button for the fifteenth floor.

  “Todd told me that Moscow had been good to him,” Iris remar
ked. “I guess he wasn’t kidding. Do you have any idea what the rent is on a place like this?”

  “Easily five thousand dollars a month.”

  “Wow.”

  “Todd did well here in a short period of time.”

  They exited the elevator and walked down the corridor to the last door on the left. Palmer unlocked it and pushed it open. “The police have already searched the place.”

  After crossing a small entryway, they entered a large, airy living room. The corner apartment was spacious with high ceilings and two walls of windows that overlooked the Kremlin, St Basil’s Cathedral, and the Moskva River. An open kitchen and an adjacent dining area were at one end. In the living room was a brick fireplace with a large gold-framed mirror above it. A hallway to the left led to the bedrooms and bathrooms.

  The apartment was minimally and coolly furnished with a glass-and-chrome dining-room set, a navy blue leather couch and armchair, and a glass coffee table.

  “This doesn’t look like the bachelor pad of a nomadic freelance photographer,” Iris commented. “Todd had a beautiful apartment in Paris, too. He had a knack for making money.”

  “Appears so.”

  Iris ran her hand across the back of the couch, savoring the soft texture of the leather. “Are you sure his sister doesn’t want any of this?”

  “That’s what she told me.”

  “Seems like it would be worth her while to have his furniture sold and the money sent to her.” She walked to the coffee table on which a photograph in a silver frame was displayed. She slid her backpack onto the sofa and picked up the photograph, lightly touching the surface with her fingertips and smiling sadly.

  She explained to Palmer, who was looking over her shoulder, “It’s a picture of me and Todd in Paris. We were at a party at a friend’s house. He’d found that beret lying around somewhere and put it on my head.”

  “The two of you look happy.”

  After a long pause, she said, “We were.” She set the photo back on the table.

  “What happened?” Palmer scraped back lank strands of hair that drooped onto his forehead. Wearing khaki pants and a navy blue blazer, he looked like Mr. Preppy USA except for the dark circles under his eyes.

  “I broke it off.” She shoved her hands into her jeans pockets. “And I broke his heart.”

  “Why?”

  “Good question. I’ve been searching for the answer myself. I just had to run away. I don’t know if it was too much, too fast—which it was—or if I was spooked by the idea of commitment.” Iris didn’t care that she was revealing secrets to a stranger. She wanted to talk about it. “We were going to get married and I left him standing at the altar in a little chapel in Paris while I packed my bags and took a taxi to the airport. That was five years ago. Part of the reason I came to Moscow was to explain, or try to, anyway. To at least tell him I’m sorry.”

  “Did you get the chance?”

  “Yes.”

  “How did he take it?”

  “He was…okay. But I could tell he hadn’t gotten over it.” Iris walked to the window and stood looking at Todd’s newly adopted city. One in a string of cities. She had told herself that it had been the same with her. She was just one of many. That was part of the reason she’d run from him. He had said he was ready to settle down, but the rootlessness that had first attracted her had come to seem too big to tame. But she could have been wrong.

  Palmer picked up the photo and handed it to her. “Take it.”

  “If things had been different between Todd and me, maybe he wouldn’t have ended up shot full of holes on a Moscow street.”

  Palmer touched her arm. “You can’t blame yourself. People make their own choices.”

  “I know. But you think of the events that shape your life…If a few things had gone differently for me, I’m not so certain how I would have ended up. I never had a big support net under me and neither did Todd. His mother died in a car accident when he was ten. His father started drinking after that. He was raised by his older sister. He was good at playing the carefree man-about-town role, but there was a sadness to him. I saw it when we were in Paris. I saw it yesterday. I never quite grasped him. He was something of an enigma.”

  “Let’s have a look around and get out of here. Go have a drink somewhere.”

  “Sounds good to me.”

  “If you see anything else you want to take, go ahead.” Palmer walked into the kitchen with Iris following. He began opening cupboards, finding a few dishes and cooking utensils. He glanced at her. She drew down the corners of her mouth and shook her head.

  They walked through the living room and down the corridor, entering a small room. Palmer flipped the wall light switch. A red bulb in the middle of the room glowed dimly. A black curtain was pulled over the windows. Jugs of chemicals and packets of photographic paper were stored on shelves against the wall. Shallow plastic trays were side by side along a high table. Photographs were pinned with clothes pegs to cords strung across the room.

  “Todd’s darkroom,” Iris commented. She unclasped some of the photographs and looked at them. “I know this building. This is the Club Ukrainiya.”

  Palmer took the photograph that she held out to him. “It is, isn’t it? How did you know that?”

  “My boyfriend faxed a Business Week article about Nikolai Kosyakov to me at the hotel. So there is a connection between Todd and Kosyakov. Most of these are interior shots. I wonder why he took them and how he got permission.”

  She started pulling down the photographs. “I’m taking them.”

  Palmer helped her. After they had them all, they went into Todd’s bedroom. The bed was made but the spread was wrinkled and the pillows propped up as if someone had been reclining there.

  Iris spotted a large, square portfolio leaning against a wall. She hoisted it onto the bed and unzipped it. It was full of photographs, both loose and mounted. She dropped in the photos of the Club Ukrainiya, zipped it up, and set it by the door. “I’d like to take that.”

  From a desk in the corner, Palmer picked up a large photo album. He flipped through the pages. “This looks like samples of his magazine work.”

  Iris looked over his shoulder. In the bright light from the window, she got a good look at Palmer’s yellowish complexion for the first time. She had noticed his thinness when she’d first met him. Seeing him now in broad daylight, she wondered whether his sallow complexion and the circles under his eyes were indications that he was ill.

  “Good stuff, huh?” He looked up at her and she returned her attention to the album.

  “I’ll take that too. I’ll deliver them to his sister. I’m certain she’d want something of Todd’s. Bakersfield is less than a two-hour drive from Los Angeles.” She put the scrapbook inside the portfolio.

  “That’s very kind of you, Iris.”

  Returning to the desk, she picked up a pad of paper with writing on it. “Looks like he wrote his sister a letter shortly before he was killed. Listen to this:

  ‘Dear Tracy,

  Sorry I haven’t written in a while, but things have been a little chaotic for me lately. What else is new, right? Ha, ha. Moscow’s a great city. I’ve got a great business going with a partner, a Corsican named Enrico Lazare. We buy and sell fine art to the rich people in Moscow. It’s a perfect job for me and we’re making tons of money. I’ll wire you some tomorrow. Don’t try to send it back. It’s the least I can do.

  Things are tense for me right now. The Russian Mafia is trying to elbow in on our business. They expect everyone who runs a business to pay protection money. I’ve had an altercation with them. Lazare thinks I’m nuts to live in Moscow. I thought I could handle the heat, but now I’m not so certain.’

  “That’s all he wrote.” Iris pulled the letter free from the pad, folded it, and slipped it into her pocket. “He said he was going to wire his sister money. He must have a bank account. That should go to his family.” She started opening the desk drawers and going through them. “I don
’t see any bank statements or anything.”

  “A lot of people don’t trust Russian banks. Maybe his partner handled their money. But I’ll look into it when I get back to my office.”

  “Odd. I can’t see any bills or check stubs or even a phone book.”

  Palmer shrugged. “I barely knew the guy.”

  The doorbell rang. Palmer glanced at his watch.

  “Are you expecting someone?” Iris asked.

  He shook his head. “I’ll go see who it is.”

  Iris continued rifling through the desk drawers, not finding anything of a personal nature. She walked to the nightstand. On top was an ashtray with a cigarette stubbed out in it. She’d never seen Todd smoke. If he’d picked up the habit, surely he would have taken a puff during the hours they’d spent together the previous afternoon. She tilted the ashtray, rolling the butt to see the brand. “True” was printed on the delicate paper in fine blue lines.

  She found an empty envelope in the desk, tapped the butt into it, folded it, and slipped it into her jeans pocket. She heard Palmer and a woman talking in the next room. She cocked her head to listen, but they were speaking in Russian. The woman was laughing now, which Iris found odd under the circumstances.

  She entered a big walk-in closet and fingered Todd’s clothing. The garments were understated but expensive. She pushed aside the hangers and searched against the closet’s walls and in the corners. Perplexed, she picked up the portfolio and left the bedroom. From the hallway, she saw Palmer with two young women in the living room. One was admiringly drawing her hand down the length of the couch.

  Reaching the darkroom, Iris flipped on the red light and looked around. She scratched her head and took another look, making certain she hadn’t missed anything. She switched off the light and joined Palmer in the living room.

  The women both had long, curly black hair and were wearing tight jeans, tight sweaters, boots, and dramatic costume jewelry. Their makeup was too bright. The one who had been fondling the couch was now examining the contents of the kitchen cupboards. The other was sitting on the couch with her hands draped across the back, apparently chuckling at something Palmer had said. She stood when Iris came into the room.