The big man shrugged a ho-hum shrug, seating himself. The straight-backed wooden chair creaked, protesting the sudden stress. Lockington gazed at the newcomer.
“My name’s Lockington—Lacey Lockington.”
“So, okay, Lockington, I’m Vic Kozlowski.” He extended a greasy paw, grabbing Lockington’s hand, pumping it vigorously. Vic Kozlowski’s palm had the texture of a hunting boot and his grip was that of a seventeen hundred dollar hydraulic vise. He said, “I happened to notice the sign on your window—you gotta be brand-new in the neighborhood.”
“No, not brand-new—just recent.”
“I was here earlier. The joint was locked, so you was prob’ly out.”
Lockington nodded. “If it was locked, I probably was. What can I do for you, Mr. Kozlowski?”
“For starters you can call me ‘Vic.’ Just about everybody calls me ‘Vic’.”
Lockington said, “‘Vic,’ it is.” He’d have called him ‘Exalted Majesty,’ if Kozlowski had insisted.
Kozlowski was prying a Parodi cigar from a shirt pocket. He said, “Hey, look, Lockington, how many assistants you employ here?”
“As many as it takes to do nothing.”
Kozlowski was putting a match to his cigar, speaking from a corner of his mouth through bluish haze. “Business slow?”
“You’re understating an understatement.”
“So, okay, what the hell, don’t sweat it—things’ll shape up.”
“I simply can’t tell you just how glad I am to hear that.”
Kozlowski said, “Hey, look, Lockington, when the mills went bust ten years back, I was up the creek without a paddle—forty-one years old and no job! So, you know what I went and done?”
“No, what did you went and done?”
“So, okay, I opened a transmission repair shop down on Steel Street. Damn near starved to death for six months, and now I can’t handle all the work!”
Lockington said, “Great idea, but I can’t repair transmissions.”
“Hey, look, same principle applies, don’t it? You just gotta hang in there! How many kids you got, Lockington?”
“Probably none.”
Kozlowski nodded, hunching forward on the wooden chair, elbows on his knees, grizzled chin cupped in his hands. He said, “Well, Lockington, you don’t got the slightest idea what you’ve missed.”
“The hell I don’t,” Lockington said. “That’s why I missed it.”
Kozlowski said, “So, okay, I got one kid—raised him from a pup all by my lonesome. Eighteen years ago my wife hauled ass with a used car salesman. Nice Catholic Polish girl. Can you imagine that?”
“Oh, sure—most Polish girls are.”
“What—nice?”
“Catholic. What’s on your mind, Vic?”
“So, okay, it’s this kid of mine—name’s Barney—Bernard, if you wanta get technical. Y’know, Lockington, today’s kids are funny.”
“Uh-huh—well, if they’re so funny, how come you ain’t laughing?”
“I didn’t mean that kind of funny—I should of probly said ‘different’.”
“From what?”
“From every damn thing I ever run into. Now you take Barney—he’s been a real good kid, as kids go—made it through high school okay, got fair-to-middling grades, played all-City nose tackle at Chaney High, got half a dozen college scholarship offers—Pitt, Purdue, Michigan State, Syracuse—and he turned ’em down, every one. No great shakes, but Barney ain’t never been in no trouble. He ain’t running around with his cock in his hand, no drugs, and, hell, he don’t even smoke or drink!”
“That makes him different, all right. How old is he?” Lockington didn’t give a damn how old Barney was, but he had a hunch that Vic Kozlowski was going to tell him whether he gave a damn or not.
“He turned twenty-one just last month, and he ain’t never had a job in his whole life.” Kozlowski blew a blue shaft of Parodi smoke into the sunlight streaming through the west window. “Y’know, I’d take him into the business, but he don’t got no mechanical aptitude. He got a car, a beat-up 1981 Mustang I bought for him, but Barney don’t know a screwdriver from a fucking driveshaft.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve had considerable difficulty with that myself. Uhh-h-h, look, Vic, it’s getting late.”
“So, okay, what I been trying to get around to is Barney’s been reading private detective and spy stories since he was fifteen years old—you know, Marlowe and McGee and all that KGB and CIA stuff, secret agents and snipers and assassinations. You ever get hung up on that kind of crap?”
“With me it was Tom Sawyer.”
“Sawyer—was he a spy or a private detective?”
“Not when I knew him.”
“Hey, look, that ain’t all. Barney never misses them sort of shows on TV. He ain’t like most boys his age—he don’t wanta be no big-time athlete, or no railroad engineer, or no airplane pilot—all Barney wants to be is a spy or a private detective. Only Barney never says ‘private detective,’ he always says ‘P.I.’—‘P.I.’ stands for ‘private investigator,’ he tells me. Anybody ever call you a ‘P.I.’?”
“Among other things, yes.”
“So, okay, Lockington, reason I’m here is, you couldn’t maybe use an apprentice, could you? I mean for free. Y’see, I been thinking that if Barney ever gets around to finding out that this racket ain’t all cocktails and big money and fast cars and sex orgies, then he just might come down to earth—like if he could maybe hang around with you for a while and go out on a few cases till he gets the drift. Whaddaya think about that, Lockington?”
Lockington said, “Well, Vic, at the moment the problem is that I’m not exactly overburdened by cases.”
Kozlowski hadn’t heard him, he’d had a full head of steam and he’d widened on the throttle. He said, “There’s a couple other investigations outfits in Youngstown, but they wasn’t interested—wouldn’t even listen to me! Hell, all I was asking was a few weeks, it wouldn’t of cost them a damn penny, and I might even of thrown in a free transmission job. Shit!”
Pathos hung in the office air like swamp fog and Lockington’s Chicago-hardened heart went out to Vic Kozlowski. He said, “That’s a real good offer, Vic, and I’ll tell you what—I’m gonna keep Barney in mind, and the very minute something worthwhile pops, I’ll give you a call—how’s that?” He probably wouldn’t, Lockington knew, but he wanted to let the big fellow down easy.
A grin sliced Kozlowski’s melon-shaped face. He got to his feet, towering over Lockington’s desk like the Colossus of Rhodes, stooping to offer a smudged houndeared business card. Lockington accepted the card, glancing at it—KOZLOWSKI’S TRANSMISSION SERVICE, 84 North Steel Street, Youngstown, Ohio. SATISFACTION GUARANTEED. JUST TRY TO BEAT OUR PRICE. 10% DISCOUNT TO SENIOR CITIZENS. There was a telephone number. Lockington tucked the card into a shirt pocket. Kozlowski was saying, “You’re a square guy, Lockington, I can tell!” He cuffed Lockington on the shoulder, they shook hands, and Kozlowski went out, easing the door shut behind him. Lockington watched him climb into a battered black Ford pickup truck and drive through the plaza parking lot to Mahoning Avenue. He checked his watch. Five-ten. He’d be closing late and he still had to pick up a rose for Natasha. Well, he didn’t really have to, he wanted to. Bringing a rose gave Lockington a glow.
8
When she met him at the door, Natasha took her rose, kissing him, then stepping back, her pale blue eyes searching his face.
“Something wrong?” she asked. Lockington shook his head, smiling. Her radar was amazingly sensitive—she could read the fine print in him.
“No.”
“Then what is it?”
“Nothing to become alarmed about.”
Natasha went into the kitchen, worked on the vodka martinis, placed his on the coffee table in front of the sofa, hers on the end table by the overstuffed chair. She seated herself, crossing her legs, and Lockington caught a brief flash of black half-slip and tawny thigh. She said, “I�
�m listening.”
He told her of Vic Kozlowski’s appeal and Natasha laughed. She said, “Well, there’s an old American adage—‘Never look a gift horse in the mouth’.”
Lockington said, “And there’s another—‘Leave well enough alone’.”
Natasha was studying him. “There’s something else, isn’t there?”
“Yes—tell me, have you ever heard of a man named Alexi Fedorovich?”
She nipped at her martini, licking her lips with what Lockington assumed was the most educated tongue in the Northern Hemisphere. She said, “Yes, I’ve heard of a man named Alexi Fedorovich—have you ever heard of a man named Douglas MacArthur?”
“Certainly. Douglas MacArthur was an egomaniac.”
“Alexi Fedorovich isn’t—he’s a master military strategist, a great man, highly respected in the Soviet Union.”
Lockington said, “Uh-huh—well, for your information, Alexi Fedorovich ain’t in the Soviet Union anymore.”
Natasha’s eyebrows arched puzzledly. “He isn’t? Why isn’t he in the Soviet Union?”
“Because he’s in Youngstown, Ohio, that’s why.”
Natasha returned her martini glass to the end table, fishing a cigarette from the pack in her blouse pocket, lighting it. “You’ll have to explain that. Is he on some sort of goodwill tour?”
Lockington shook his head. “Fedorovich defected from the Soviet Union in May.”
“Impossible!”
“Maybe so, but today a man paid me five thousand dollars to locate him. Fedorovich was born in Youngstown.”
“I’ve heard that he was American-born, but Alexi Fedorovich is a Russian hero!”
“Benedict Arnold was an American hero—until he sold out to the British.”
“You’re sure of this?”
“I’m not, but a guy by the name of Gordon Kilbuck is—five thousand dollars worth.”
Natasha picked up her glass, sipped, peered over its rim with unbelieving eyes. “I—I just can’t comprehend this! It isn’t that I care, you understand—I’m through with Russia—but General Fedorovich was a public figure, and—and, well, I’m as shocked as you’d be if—well, if an American Supreme Court justice turned out to be a Communist agent.”
“If you’re talking about Earl Warren, he probably was. Did you know that Fedorovich has written a book?”
Natasha was grinding her cigarette into the ashtray at her elbow, lighting another, chain-smoking, obviously disturbed. “A book?
“Yeah, it’s called The Wheels of Treachery, and it has to do with Soviet Union plans to dominate Western Europe.”
Natasha got up to mix more martinis. From the kitchen she said, “Well, there’s nothing new about that, is there? Both sides are ambitious—the West wants to restructure middle-Europe to its own liking, the East wants the whole damned continent—it’s a tug of war that’s been going on for decades—economic pressures, propaganda barrages, the art of—”
Lockington cut her off. “Natasha, I’m not talking about economics or propaganda or the art of anything—I’m talking about a surprise attack out of Czechoslovakia and East Germany, an all-out armored assault, and relatively soon!” Lockington hadn’t read Fedorovich’s book, so Gordon Kilbuck’s synopsis would have to do.
She came back from the kitchen with the martinis, reseating herself, not crossing her legs this time to Lockington’s disappointment. She said, “That manure is in the book?”
“It is.”
“And under what circumstances is this supposed to occur?”
“Eastern Europe breaking free of Moscow, Gorbachev out of office, the old guard back in power, looking for a war that will restore Russia to what she used to be.”
“Lacey, that won’t happen—any of it.”
“It won’t?”
“No, and I suspect that if General Fedorovich has defected to the West, he’s learned a Western trick—write a sensational book and make a fast buck. You see, both sides suffer from paranoia, sharing a pronounced tendency to subscribe to the worst imaginable scenario. The West believes the Soviet Union’s strategic aims to be as clearly defined as its tactical goals. The truth of the matter is that the KGB is a tactical organization, powerful, efficient, ruthless, but the KGB does not dictate Kremlin policy!”
“No, but the Kremlin dictates KGB policy.”
“Of course, but only in the broadest sense. I doubt that Moscow is more than twenty-five percent aware of KGB activity, just as every CIA move isn’t necessarily ordered by the White House, possibly not even condoned. There are zealots at every level of government, here and in the Soviet Union, and there are alarmists, but that doesn’t place us on the brink of a third world war.”
Lockington worked on his martini, making no response.
Natasha said, “America’s CIA is probably much like Russia’s KGB in the respect that both are bedeviled by splinter groups, some radical, even fanatical, surviving by keeping low profiles—the same way that the Nazi element has managed to survive in a common sense democratic West Germany.”
Lockington said, “Low profiles or no low profiles, they’re there.”
“Yes, and in a touch-and-go situation they could prove dangerous.”
Lockington said, “Okay, class dismissed.”
“The Fedorovich book—it’s on the American market—you’ve seen it?”
“Kilbuck gave me a copy—it’s in a desk drawer at the office.”
“Lacey, would you go over this for me—from the beginning?”
Lockington took it from the top—Kilbuck’s visit, his desire to interview Fedorovich, his information, his five thousand dollar advance. He tossed Kilbuck’s envelope into Natasha’s lap. “Count it.”
She placed the envelope unopened on the end table, leaning toward Lockington, her face taut, her speech terse. “The KGB will want Fedorovich, you know that, don’t you?”
“On Kremlin orders?”
“No, probably on its own initiative. Leave it alone, Lacey—return Kilbuck’s money and stay out of it!”
Lockington spread his hands helplessly. “I can’t do that—what the hell, it’s a job! I’ve been living on your money since June.”
“Correction: we’ve been living on KGB money since June.”
“Whatever. I have a habit of paying my own way.”
“There’ll be other cases, nice quiet divorce matters, things of that nature. This one could get you killed!”
“I’m not going to get involved enough to get killed. All I have to do is find Fedorovich, then stand clear.”
“Lacey, you won’t be able to stand clear! I’m ex-KGB, I know how the KGB works—it leaves no tracks.”
“I know that. I saw it in operation last summer.” He winked at her. “Hell, I even knew the lady in charge. By the way, she was damned good in bed.”
Natasha frowned. “Was? Was?”
Lockington said, “Sorry about that.”
“Not half as sorry as you’re going to be.”
Lockington grinned a good-natured grin. He didn’t know what she meant by that, but he found out. At eleven-fifteen that night he sprawled panting on a bed that looked like it’d gone through an 8.5 earthquake. He’d never been so thoroughly pussy-whipped, even by Natasha Gorky. She’d destroyed him, and he’d never gotten off of his back. She was straddling him, leaning over him, whispering into his open mouth. She was saying, “Was?”
Lockington said, “My error—is.”
“Say it again, damn you!”
“Is, for Christ’s sake, is!”
“That’s better, Lacey, much better.”
Lockington said, “Tell me—this business of the woman being on top—that’s a female-dominant complex quirk, isn’t it?”
Natasha slipped to her side of the bed, lighting two cigarettes, passing one to him, snuggling beside him. She said, “Whoever told you that?”
“Gordon Kilbuck.”
“Well, you tell Gordon Kilbuck that he’s full of purple balloons!”
/> “All right, I’ll tell him.”
They finished their cigarettes, putting them out before dozing, Natasha’s head on his shoulder, her knee tucked comfortably into Lockington’s aching groin area. After a while she murmured, “Did you know that you’d be good for three?”
“Three—my God, was it three?”
“Trust me, it was.”
They slept. Natasha hadn’t mentioned the Fedorovich matter since their second martini.
9
In the morning they had toast and coffee, not saying much, yawning, looking out at a gray 8:30 and the light rain that’d come with it. At the doorway, Natasha gave him a light peck on the cheek and he patted her exquisite buttocks. She said, “Lunch?”
Lockington nodded and went out to the Mercedes, shoulders hunched against the rain, waving to Natasha before driving south to Oakwood Avenue, east to Millet, then south again to Mahoning Avenue. The Youngstown West Side Post Office was on the northeast corner of the junction, set back from Mahoning, sharing the location with a delicatessen. The parking lot was a beehive of frustrated activity. Cars whipped in and out, people walked in front of moving automobiles, outraged drivers tooted their horns, and Lockington had difficulty finding a parking place for the Mercedes.
As Gordon Kilbuck had told him, the facility was much too small to accommodate its traffic. Through the glass doors separating the vestibule from the desk Lockington saw a dozen or more people standing in a crooked line, awaiting such counter service as a frazzled-looking bespectacled lady in a blue smock was capable of providing. He didn’t go in, just paused briefly in the lobby, noting the position of Post Office Box #11, then departed to drive west on Mahoning Avenue. He swung north on Meridian Road to Youngstown Office Supply where he bought a large padded manila mailing envelope and a packet of address stickers. He returned to Mahoning Avenue, wheeling west to the Austintown Shopping Plaza. He went into Stambaugh-Thompson’s Hardware Store, purchasing a large roll of vinyl adhesive tape and a spray can of fast-drying bright red enamel. He left Stambaugh-Thompson’s, crossing to the Austintown Post Office where he picked up three twenty-five cent stamps. He bought a Cleveland Plain Dealer at a Rite-Aid Pharmacy, and it was 9:25 when he unlocked his office door. After what’d seemed like eons of battling Chicago’s impossible morning traffic, getting around in Youngstown was a snap.
The Fedorovich File Page 4
