Dead Game

by Kirk Russell

  “How do you know all this?”

  “Crey told me, okay.” Ludovna stared hard at him to make the point that it was the truth. But Marquez didn’t believe him.

  “You killed three men last night. They would give you the death sentence, right? But only I know.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “It means you do what I say this afternoon. You take the gun that’s here and put it on Crey’s boat before the detectives go there today.”

  “Where is it?”

  “In the building over there.” He pointed at the equipment building.

  “How do we get in?”

  “I have a friend at the bank, so I have a key.”

  “The guy has been offed, and I’m going to walk down the dock, get on his boat, and plant a gun?”

  “This way the murders here get solved. They find the gun and figure it out.”

  “I don’t want to take a hot gun anywhere.”

  “It won’t be so hard. You’re his friend, you’re coming by. People know you’re his friend.” Ludovna pushed keys into Marquez’s palm. “These are all of his keys. Someone asks you just say he’s your friend and you have a key. Lose the keys in the water after you put the gun on the boat. Okay, then like you say, it’s simple. The detective has his killers of Sherri. The FBI solves the case here, and when they go through the van Perry and Torp have been driving, maybe they find another gun that was used here.”

  “Is that what’s going to happen?”

  “What did I tell you Torp did here?”

  “He walked the kids down and shot them.”

  “With his gun, and his friend must have helped. Crey told me while we were waiting for you.”

  “Right, while I was out in the vines shooting the idiots, Crey was confessing. Bullshit. And you sent Crey to kill me.”

  “No, I sent him to check on what happened, to make sure you were okay.” Ludovna got close to Marquez, stood inches from his face. “You murdered him. I saw you murder him. I saw you murder three people. It cost me money because Crey owed me money, and now he’s not there to run the business and pay it back, so maybe you run the boat and the bait shop, or you hire someone and then pay me back.”

  “I’m not running any bait shop.”

  “You owe the money he owed me, and last night I let you take care of them. Now you owe me. If you have a problem with that, then we have a problem.”

  They walked over to the equipment building, and Ludovna opened the door. The orchard machinery was neatly organized inside, and Ludovna led him to one of the tilling machines.

  “You have to crawl under. He told me it’s taped under one of these machines.”

  It didn’t take that long to find, and now Marquez tried to figure out a way to avoid touching it and contaminating the evidence. He stared at the gun and called back to Ludovna.

  “I don’t see it.”

  “Okay, check the next machine.”

  He checked three machines and then questioned Ludovna. “When did he say this?”

  “Last night.”

  “Maybe he got confused.”

  “He was very specific. He knew the police would find the bodies of Torp and Perry and then they would find Torp’s gun. There were two guns used, this one and Torp’s. Even before you murdered them he knew because of what I said about Sherri La Belle. She used to come to my house once a week. She’s a prostitute. I was a client, okay, and the police found her book with my name. I told this to the detective, but Crey didn’t know until I came out and saved your life last night.”

  Marquez stalled. He scowled, wanted Ludovna to repeat it for the wire.

  “I still don’t follow you.”

  “The detective has murder warrants for Torp and Perry, okay. Then they’ll go through the van and find the gun used here. They’re not stupid. They’ll figure it out, and when they find the gun you hide on the boat, then they have both guns used here.”

  “Why did Crey kill the Raburns?”

  “It was about money.”

  Ludovna got in his face again now. He got close when Marquez was too quiet.

  “This is what you’re going to do because I tell you to and you owe me. I saved your life last night. He chained you so he could drag you with the truck if you won the fights. Then to make sure, he said he was going to run over your head and leave you. It was all because you fucked with his guys, the same as Raburn fucked with him. Look what happened to Raburn. So you owe me your life. Find the gun. I know it’s there.”

  “How do you know?”

  “You fuck with me and we’re going to have a real problem.” Ludovna pointed to the tilling machine the gun was under. “Check that one again. I don’t want to have to get my coat dirty.”

  This time Marquez found the gun and a gas rag in the equipment shed to wrap it in. They walked back to Ludovna’s car.

  “I’m going to want you to work sturgeon the same as you have. You’ll take over the boat and the shop and keep what else you have going. I’ll tell you how many pounds of roe we need a week, okay? You set it up and run it. You get 30 percent of what we make. Your job is just the sturgeon but sometimes I’ll ask you to make other deliveries for me. Sometimes you’ll take your boat out on the ocean and pick somebody up. You’ll get paid for that. I have other people I work with, but you won’t talk with them or ask them any questions. You understand?”

  “It was Crey’s shop. How do I take it over?”

  “I’m a partner. I have the majority, okay. In a couple of years when everything is going well no one will remember what happened last night.” He tapped his chest. “Even I will forget, but first we get everything working.” He got in his car and lowered his window. “Go put the gun on the boat. Everything will be fine.”

  “Sure, everything will be great. You have a good day,” Marquez said and watched him drive off.

  50

  But Ludovna didn’t have a good day. Marquez got a call from him around dusk. His voice was tight, uncomfortable, perhaps sensing something deeper was wrong.

  “There’s nothing on the TV,” he said. “They’re just talking about steroid baseball. Did you go to the boat?”

  “Yes, and there was no problem.”

  “Did the detective call you?”

  “No.”

  “Turn on your TV.”

  “Turn my TV on?”

  “Turn it on the Sacramento news.”

  “Why?”

  “Because there’s nothing on about them.”

  “So what, maybe this morning is all they’re going to report. Now you’re the one who needs to relax.”

  “There’s something wrong.”

  “What could be wrong?”

  Ludovna hung up, and Marquez called Selke.

  “He’s getting nervous. He’s looking for more news.”

  “He’s not going to get it. The media wasn’t too wild about the whole idea. It took a call from the Feds to make it work.” He added, “They’ve started surveillance of Ludovna, and there are two special agents here with me.”

  “Are you with Torp?”

  “No, with Perry. Torp got out of surgery a couple of hours ago, but he’s not talking. He wants a phone and a lawyer.”

  “Has anything been said to him about the Raburns?”

  “Not yet. Perry’s here in an interview box, and he’s wobbling. He may rat out his friend if a deal can be structured. The Feds have looked over what I have on Sherri La Belle and agree, better to try to get a confession before anything is said about the Raburns. Get the confessions, lock them up, then the Feds can go to work on them.” Before Marquez could ask about Crey, Selke answered the question. “He’s still on the table. The bullet shattered his shoulder, and he was pretty dicey from loss of blood when they got him in here, and it turns out he’s anemic and doesn’t clot worth a shit. The bastard is trying to die on us.”

  “I’m supposed to take over his business anyway.”

  Selke chuckled. He’d already recounted the conve
rsation at Raburn Orchards for Selke, but Selke surprised him now.

  “There’s a better life out there than dealing with these punks. My brother has a cabin up along the Boundary Lakes in Minnesota. It gets cold, the black flies are a bitch in the summer, but it’s beautiful. A guy like you could run a sport boat and when you think about being out on the bay on those warm still nights in the fall and the moon rising, a scotch in your hand instead of trailing these lowlifes.” He sighed, exhaling into the phone. “What they did to her with a knife I just can’t believe, and if Torp and Perry weren’t stupid we wouldn’t be catching them, but I tell you, I’m tired of this. I talk to my brother, he’s up there fishing, he’s happy. Anyway, I’ll call you as it changes here. FBI got to you yet?”

  “They’re on their way.”

  Marquez sat in the front room of his house with two FBI agents. The gun he’d placed on Crey’s boat had been recovered, and they had more than enough to take Ludovna down, but without saying so directly, they indicated that the Bureau was waiting for something more. They were somber and quiet and watched as Maria came in the door and had an awkward but friendly exchange with her mother. Then Maria and Katherine drove down to Mill Valley to do some shopping after Marquez explained he’d have to talk to the agents alone.

  It was dark now and cooling down in the room. Marquez turned on another lamp, asked the agents if they wanted anything to drink. No one wanted coffee, water, anything except to hear again Ludovna’s last instructions.

  “He said that occasionally I’d have to take the boat out in the ocean and pick up a passenger.”

  “How far out?”

  “Didn’t say.”

  “How are these passengers supposed to get onto the boat?”

  “That one sentence was all he said, but I had the impression Crey had made similar trips. He thinks Crey is dead, and I’ll step into Crey’s shoes and do whatever Crey did for him. Ludovna put the money up for Crey to buy Beaudry’s business, and it’s understood that I’m assuming Crey’s debt. He made it clear he’s got the leverage of being a witness to the murders.”

  One of the agents spoke now. “He ought to be worried you’re going to take him out.”

  “He made it clear he’s got other partners, and he seems to think it’s all going to be worth it for me and that I’ll like the deal once I get dialed in.”

  “Is that what he called them? His partners?”

  “Yeah.”

  The agents on the couch glanced at each other. Marquez looked from one to the other. The Feds hadn’t said anything about what they’d found or not found at Weisson’s. If they’d found sturgeon or caviar, no one had told him. Nothing had been in the news, other than Karsov was a known arms trafficker and there were national security issues.

  “Are you going to pick up Ludovna tonight?”

  “No.”

  Torp would have a lawyer by tomorrow, but that was about Sherri La Belle, and Torp wouldn’t be calling Ludovna anytime soon to chat. Neither would Perry or Crey.

  “You’re waiting for him to make a phone call.”

  One of the agents nodded. Marquez got up and made coffee. The agents stood. They were almost done here, and now everyone watched as Marquez’s cell phone rang and he checked the screen. “Selke,” he said to the agents as he answered.

  “We just got a confession from Perry on La Belle, and he says he was there when the Raburns were killed but did not participate. The charge will get cut to manslaughter for Perry on the La Belle murder, and he’s going to testify that Torp stabbed her to death and cut her up. Perry helped Torp dispose of the body.”

  “Who killed the Raburns?”

  “He claims the shooters were Torp and Ludovna. Ludovna shot Abe. Torp shot the kids, and I can tell you Perry is lying, that he was part of the Raburn killing, but we’ll get that from the others. But get this, he says he doesn’t know why they killed the Raburns. He says for Torp it was just about money. He got paid for it. I’m going to throw something else at you. This is from piecing together what Perry told us. I think Crey knew his ‘boys’ were going to get offed out in that vineyard and he came up with you as a lure to get them out there, but that pissed off Ludovna, who just wanted them driven out there and shot. That’s why Ludovna was angry when he drove up and found you chained to the Blazer.”

  The pager of one of the agent’s went off, then a cell phone. Marquez hung up with Selke, and the agents thanked him and were suddenly more forthright as they were leaving.

  “It’ll be no later than tomorrow,” one of them said.

  “Are you hoping he’ll try to contact Karsov?”

  “We are. We’re sorry we couldn’t tell you before. We’ve monitored every call Ludovna has made for the last year.”

  51

  DBEEP picked Marquez up at the Benicia dock the next morning. They glassed a couple of fishing boats out along the Mothball Fleet then rode up the San Joaquin River before backtracking and going up the Sacramento with a strong wind at their back. Marquez and Ruax compared notes, looking at fishing holes and sloughs and docks and boat launches they’d determined had been used by poachers. They rode past Raburn’s houseboat. They pooled their notes on who was left, talking above the wind and boat noise and much more quietly as they docked and dropped Marquez in Walnut Grove.

  The day was bright and clear, the sky wind-scoured. He bought coffee at Mel’s and waited outside across the road looking down at the river, the coffee keeping his hand warm. DBEEP was gone, and the SOU operation was basically done, though it felt unfinished. He turned as Shauf and Cairo drove up, and they bought a couple of sandwiches and sodas and sat and talked about where they were at with everything. With the exception of August, the players they’d tracked were going down or had gone down, but in some larger sense the importance of stopping the poaching had been subsumed by human crimes. The Raburn murders. The grisly killing of Sherri La Belle. The deaths of the FBI agents and the intrigue still surrounding what the Feds were after. It left a disturbing sense of incompletion or imbalance.

  Shauf drove Marquez into Sacramento, and he picked up an old Ford Explorer, one of the early models before they’d become so large. He liked the vehicle and hadn’t driven it in a while. He made sure it still started and then walked over to Shauf’s window.

  “Time to go see your niece and nephew.”

  “I’m leaving tonight. What about you, John?”

  “I’ll be home.”

  And he would have been, but for taking a call from Ehrmann. The call could have come from another special agent in the Sacramento Field Office, and it wasn’t clear from the questions he’d asked yesterday that Ehrmann was still part of the investigation. He’d gotten the impression Ehrmann might be on involuntary leave.

  “Ludovna made a call we were hoping he’d make, and we’re going to take him down tonight,” Ehrmann said.

  “I’d like to be there.”

  “Sure, if you want.”

  Ludovna was at a girlfriend’s, a woman who lived alone not two blocks from his house. She was very surprised when she opened the door. It was all very polite. There were eight of them and one of her. Two agents went in and buttonhooked left with their guns drawn, two went right, and four straight ahead. Ludovna was in the shower. When Marquez saw him, Ludovna stood naked and handcuffed on the tiled floor of the kitchen. He’d come out of the shower and tried to get a gun from near the bed, and they’d taken him down on the bedroom floor. Water dripped from the dark hairs of his chest, abdomen, and groin. Ludovna’s eyes focused on Marquez.

  “You’re FBI?”

  Marquez shook his head, showed his badge. Special Operations Unit, Department of Fish and Game.

  “I should have killed you,” Ludovna said, and an FBI agent cut him off.

  The last Marquez heard was an agent telling Ludovna they were going to unhook him so he could dress. They’d already read him his rights, and he was demanding a lawyer. Marquez walked outside with Ehrmann.

  “I’ll drop you bac
k at your car,” Ehrmann said. As they drove away he added, “I guarantee you he won’t be buying fish for a very, very long time.”

  52

  And that was the way it ended, except it wasn’t the end of everything. There were the poachers they tracked down that came from Ludovna’s list of contacts, and with Baird’s approval Marquez was still chasing those after Christmas. There was enough in Ludovna’s computer to bring trafficking charges against August, though what came later far surpassed those. It was the end of the SOU, or the end until new money was found in the state budget. It was the end of Sacramento Fresh Fish and Beaudry’s Bait Shop and Sportfishing, and the end of August Food’s caviar line.

  Torp and Perry got charged in the La Belle killing, and Ludovna, Torp, Crey, and Perry in the Raburn slayings. The FBI had other pending charges against Ludovna that Marquez was told might eventually include arms trafficking but definitely included further counts of murder, auto theft, RICO violations, and drug smuggling.

  Marquez didn’t doubt that August would hire the best lawyer. He laughed when he heard it was Batson, but it didn’t surprise him. It was also the end of Anna’s ability to pay Batson when the FBI located, and was able to get a judge to freeze her access to, a Cayman Island account.

  Maria moved back home on Christmas Eve, walked in around dusk carrying a bagful of presents, and rode with Marquez a couple of days on his trips into the delta, said she wanted to understand better what it was he did. She was with him this New Year’s Day morning, and it was one of those California winter days when it was bright and clear and warm. The light shone like polished gold on Suisun Bay, and the sturgeon bite was on.

  He figured the kid, Julio, would be out, guessed he’d think he was clever getting out early New Year’s Day and fishing for sturgeon when everyone was recovering from last night. Marquez knew Julio had taken more sturgeon since he’d last bought from him. He knew from talking to him where he liked to fish, and they went there now after buying coffees at a convenience store.