by Avery Duff
Kiril had to admit, their country was brutal like Penko; even their version of Christianity was laced with savagery.
The murals at the Rila Monastery, south of Sofia, depicted sinners thrown into a fiery lake, winged demons devouring them, and snakes slithering around naked virgins. Saint Ivan’s left hand was considered a holy relic in their country and rested alone in a silver casket inside the monastery. The right hand had been stolen on its tour of Russia; Kiril tried picturing a single right hand on a countrywide tour and could not.
And the heart of Tsar Boris? That relic had its own chapel in the monastery.
Let the Russians steal Boris’ heart, too! he was thinking. Let the Russians keep the hand and the heart.
The right hand of Saint Ivan figured in his own family’s history. Once they’d filtered into America, the Draganovs had wound up in Chicago, same as most Bulgarian immigrants. Chicago worked out for years; smuggling cigarettes to and from Canada made for a good life.
Their problems in Chicago began on Bulgarian Liberation Day, during celebrations for freedom from the five-hundred-year brutal Turkish Ottoman yoke.
How the Draganov family recalled that day and their own Ivan: as a drunk Turk had exited the bar, he’d made his last-ever boast to Ivan Draganov and his cousin, Emil; he’d wiped his ass with Saint Ivan’s right hand and jacked off with Saint Ivan’s left. All fun and games until the Turk’s dead body washed up at Wolf Point, his heart removed and both hands hacked off. But because of the dead Turk’s wire into local politics, Ivan and Emil had to flee Chicago fast, eventually settling in and around San Bernardino.
San Berdoo, Kiril was thinking.
Like Ivan, Penko and he were part of the northern clan, called that because its members had gravitated north to the Bay Area. The southern clan had stayed behind for the weather, using their graft and strong-arm skill sets and pursuing foolish dreams of stardom.
“Pussies,” Penko would say of the southerners.
Even though the two halves of the family worked together, Kiril agreed with Penko’s opinion of the southerners. In fact, the tale of the dead Turk had been refined by the northern clan: Ivan Draganov, it was said, did all the cutting on the Turk, while Emil, a southern weakling, puked on his shoes in the alley.
Now in the SUV on Amherst, Kiril watched a Ford cube truck park up the street. No one got out. Didn’t matter. No direct action was to be taken without definite instruction from Gospodar.
Ten minutes passed. Then a man, early thirties, and an older woman walked toward the house. Another man, looked Latino, and a young girl now got out of that Ford truck, and they all stood around talking. Another car pulled up and double-parked, engine running. A dark-haired woman got out. A knockout, that one. The young girl ran over to the dark-haired woman and took her hand.
“Very nice,” Penko said, looking at the woman and the girl.
Kiril wasn’t sure which female Penko meant as the pair got in the double-parked car and drove away.
After that, that early-thirties dude and the older woman went inside Carlos Famosa’s house. That last man, the one who’d driven the little girl here, sank down on the front steps of the house.
“That him?” Penko asked.
“Da. Matteo. He is the one . . .”
CHAPTER 10
“As Carlos’ executor, I simply think of myself as if I am he,” Evelyn told Robert.
They were inside Carlos’ house, in the study. Robert sat in Carlos’ desk chair, and Evelyn had turned on the desktop computer’s screen.
“I notified Carlos’ landlord, paid his rent through the end of the month, notified gas and electric, too. The gardener—his family came in, cleaned the house top to bottom. I’d planned to have Saint Joseph’s empty out the place, but it’s all yours now.”
Robert understood: Teo was sole heir to Carlos’ estate. Dealing with the house’s contents was in his court now, not Evelyn’s.
Robert said, “Whatever Teo doesn’t want, I’ll put together a garage sale, Craigslist, whatever works best.”
Across the simple room, Carlos’ movie posters and print reproductions had been removed from the walls and were leaning against them. Daylight streamed through a mullioned double door that opened onto a narrow side yard.
“That yard,” Evelyn said, pointing. “That’s where the gardener was working when he spotted Carlos sprawled on the floor in here.”
In the rest of the house, Carlos had made his own interior-decorating mark, and it wasn’t a good one. Oversize leather furniture filled a small living room. Sub-Zero appliances dominated a kitchen far too small to handle them. A twelve-by-fourteen media room held a seventy-inch flat-screen TV, leather chairs, and an oval, onyx coffee table. Like a crib designed by a nineteen-year-old male with new money.
On Carlos’ computer in the study, Evelyn showed Robert his client records, formatted by business software: Client, Hours Worked, Description of Work, and Notes.
“His computer was on when I came in. I left it that way in case he had a password. Checked his mail, too, hoping there might be a client who owed him money. So far, nothing’s come by mail, and I don’t expect the situation to change. See for yourself,” she said.
Robert scrolled back in the client program a couple of months, worked his way forward. All the entries were blank until a couple of weeks ago. At that point, he saw a trio of what looked like new or prospective CPA clients.
Robert skimmed over the first one:
Client: Monumental Park West Only
Hours Worked: TBD
Description of Work: Startup company/advise
Notes: Profits. Evergreen, Yuck
The second one:
Client: Rx Samuelson
Hours Worked: TBD
Description of Work: Startup/advise
Notes: Truht/Faiht. Granted, a real chiseler.
Then the last client:
Client: O’Meira
Hours Worked: TBD
Description of Work: Startup/advise
Notes: Angle Mann. Sticky Mickey, a real prick. Meet Karen. Your Decision! Don’t Forget! Dance Wif’ me ’Inri (not cockney)
Robert thinking: Word games, like Teo said, or stoned. Or stoner word games.
Evelyn watched the screen, too: “Angle Mann? Looks like gibberish to me.”
“Wow,” he added.
“He liked smoking dope. Can you tell? Maybe we should’ve started in his bedroom.”
They walked through the living room, down a short hall to a door.
“If Carlos hadn’t had this trust, I think he would’ve developed his CPA practice, done quite well.”
“Trust income took his initiative?” he asked.
“Something like that.”
She unlocked the bedroom door. “You first.”
In the bedroom, burglar bars protected the windows. The black-satin, zebra-stripe motif and smoke-mirrored walls didn’t surprise him. What did: the pulled-back throw rug that exposed a floor safe.
“Rug was pulled back when I came over. Feel free to look inside.”
He knelt, pulled open the safe’s door, and shined his iPhone flashlight inside: two and a half feet deep and three feet wide, much larger than its door suggested. He made out a few items stacked on one side.
“When the medical examiners came for his body, they didn’t bother with a walk-through.”
Once he’d put the safe’s contents on the bed, he no longer wondered why. First, a half pound of shrink-wrapped hashish. Then one each of a boxed woman’s Patek Philippe watch and a Rolex; three bottles of vintage Louis XIII Rémy Martin cognac; three boxes of Davidoff Oro Blanco cigars.
“Can’t tell you what the drugs are worth—bet Teo can. Cigar store tells me the Davidoffs went for four thousand a box; cognac’s thirty-five hundred a bottle. With the watches, the whole thing, ex-drugs, cost right at thirty-five thousand. What it would all bring now, I have no idea.”
He looked at the stash. This was how Carlos had pissed away his money
while his brother and niece had lived at the Mission or rolled around town, living in a truck.
As they walked out the door, Gia texted him. She and Delfina were going for lunch; Teo had okayed it.
Out in the living room, he and Evelyn sat on that oversize leather couch.
Evelyn said, “All my questions earlier, my lawyer shoptalk, quizzing you, I know it was odd.”
“A little,” he said. “I enjoyed it.” And he had.
“I think we can agree on the legal situation. Carlos negligently mismanaged this trust by any imaginable standard. Investing in two start-ups and only those two things? Even if the trust agreement had said what Carlos did was okay—had actually allowed it—the law won’t allow it. Carlos is personally responsible for the loss, and it’s clear that anything Carlos owned, or that the trust might own, belongs to your clients—either as Carlos’ next of kin or as the only beneficiaries of the trust.”
To Robert’s clients, that meant $18,000 in the trust’s bank account and whatever that swag in the safe might bring.
“Sounds right,” Robert said.
“But,” Evelyn said, “I have unbilled fees as Carlos’ executor. Roughly fifty hours dealing with the house, preparing for court, and going to the hearing. Fifty hours multiplied by my friends-and-family rate of four hundred fifty an hour”—she smiled saying that—“puts what I’m already owed at well over that eighteen thousand in the bank.”
He nodded. Looked like there was more bad news.
“Then there’s the question of my unbilled fees to the trust. I found at least a hundred thousand I never billed. Not a problem documenting it, and I can go to probate court and lay claim to everything here, including what’s in the floor safe. Then we could fight about it, but you’d lose.”
Here we go, he was thinking. Her fees. In excess of everything Carlos and the trust owned.
She must’ve seen his look.
“Robert, hear me out. I said could. A few days ago, I would’ve gone to the mat for every nickel I’m due rather than see Matteo Famosa get a goddamn dime. Once I met his daughter in court . . . well, she’s a different story, isn’t she?”
He hoped so, and waited.
“I want three things, Robert. That woman’s Patek Philippe in the bedroom. I looked it up. It retails for twelve thousand five, and you won’t get eight for it. Second, there’s a photograph of Carlos and me in his study. It can’t be of value to anyone else. And last, I want to petition the court for you to take over from me as sole trustee of the trust.”
He was nodding, grateful, until she hit that sole trustee part. When he leaned back in the leather couch, it made an unpleasant noise. Wasn’t this supposed to end at a hearing for a worried girl on the boardwalk? Hadn’t he signed her and her father to a limited task? How would that client conversation go now?
Listen, Delfina, Teo, let’s go over the specific language in your engagement letter. As you can see, the scope of my services was limited . . .
What about hiring a skilled trust lawyer to take over for him? Just paying that firm’s retainer would eat up everything Teo and Delfina now had coming to them. He walked over to the front window that gave onto Amherst.
Outside, Teo still sat on the front steps, slumped into his thoughts.
“All right. Let’s do that,” he said. “And thank you, Evelyn.”
After that, Evelyn copied all of Carlos’ files onto a flash drive for him and handed him a key to the house. With her Patek Philippe and the photograph of Carlos and her in hand, she said, “That hashish, Mr. Trustee, that’s on you to deal with.”
Looking outside, he watched as Evelyn walked past Teo. She didn’t speak a word to him.
CHAPTER 11
Robert joined Teo on Carlos’ front steps. For a while, they sat without speaking.
“What’s going on?” Robert finally asked.
“Can’t go in yet.”
“He’s gone, man. All his things, they belong to you now. We gotta start dealing with it.”
“Since hearing he was gone . . . dead.” He stopped. “I mean, before I knew about it, I was mad at him and resentful and, mostly, ashamed of myself. And then he was dead, and I started having different . . . I started thinking different about him. Having better thoughts. More like memories of the two of us. I don’t know. It’s hard puttin’ into words.”
Teo fell silent again. Robert gave him his space.
“Been thinking that the two of us were brothers, after all.”
“Sure,” Robert said, standing. “C’mon, let’s go. You need to go inside, take care of business.”
Teo kept his seat, looking up at Robert.
“What I mean is, I know Carlos had no love for me after how we were raised, after what I did to him, to the trust, and I don’t blame him. But that don’t matter to me now, Roberto. No matter what, I feel love in my heart for Carlos.”
Robert felt his throat tighten. Teo stood, and they headed inside.
Looking around inside Carlos’ house, Teo didn’t have much to say. He wandered the rooms, and Robert followed in case he had questions. Then they reached the study.
“Where he died,” Robert said.
“Mind if I have a while alone?” Teo asked.
Robert nodded, closed the door behind him.
In the kitchen, Robert flipped on the garbage disposal, thought about grinding up Carlos’ hash. Then he had another thought: How about asking Reyes for a little off-the-record advice?
When he switched off the disposal, he thought he caught a noise. Waited. Nothing. Then a wail came from the study.
By the time he reached it, the front door of the house was open, and Teo had made it outside, already unlocking the cube’s sliding door. Robert ran down the steps. When he peered into the truck’s dim interior, he found Teo kneeling in front of his open personal drawers.
“What’s going on? You okay?”
Teo pocketed something from the drawer, relocked it, and headed Robert’s way, looking shaken and agitated, not unhappy. In fact, Robert couldn’t put his finger on Teo’s mental state.
“Roberto,” Teo said, “I need a AA meeting. It’s important to me, and I know I’ve imposed on you and Gia so very, very much already. But . . . please. Do you mind? Is it possible? Is it okay?”
“Sure, let’s go.”
Teo shook his head. “I’ll walk, need to walk right now, sort things out. Delfina . . . she’s my higher power, you know. I’d be dead without her. You know that, don’t you?”
“Teo.” The word came out sharp, but Robert didn’t know how else to get through to him: “Don’t screw up, man. Not now. Things are gonna get better now for you and Delfina, all right? Do you understand that?”
He handed Robert the keys to his truck.
“Better? Things are better already. I ain’t running away, Roberto. I’m running toward.”
He headed up the street, first walking, then jogging.
As Robert headed back inside Carlos’ house, he didn’t pay attention to the SUV starting up down the street. Or notice who was sitting inside as it cruised past.
CHAPTER 12
Ahead of Kiril’s Lexus SUV, Teo jogged down Amherst, took a right onto Wilshire Boulevard. Kiril wheeled a right, and when he saw Teo jogging along the sidewalk ahead of him, he pulled into a bus stop, idling.
“You like how the car drive?” Penko asked, keeping an eye on Teo.
“Da, good car,” Kiril said.
“Maybe I buy one like it but flex fuel. That way, I, too, am friend of the planet.”
The idea of Penko being a friend of anything made Kiril smile.
“Call San Berdoo,” Kiril said. “Make sure about replacement grille after we finish job.”
Penko grabbed a burner, put the call on speaker. On the other end, a man said, “Body shop.”
“You know the part we wait for?” Penko asked.
“Da, grille is in stock,” the man said.
“Double-check,” Kiril said.
“
I am looking at it. Front grille is still inside box.”
“Open the box. Double-check model number,” Kiril said.
The speaker voice said: “You already give me model number. Model number on box is same as the model number you give me. Nothing more to do.”
Kiril watched Teo cross Wilshire three long blocks ahead; Kiril pulled out into traffic.
Kiril told the speaker voice: “What if person making that grille at car plant was smoking dope or snorting drugs and made mistake? What if shipping box has wrong model number by mistake, or a single screw is missing from a plastic bag inside the box? Then you are permitting my friend—the one sitting beside me in the car—to fit that part all the way up your ass.”
Now Penko leaned closer to the speaker.
“Do not listen to Kiril. Do not bother checking box. Nobody ever makes mistake in great country of America.”
The voice changed tone. “Looking in box now. Will call you back, for sure.”
Once Kiril caught up to Teo, he was jogging south on Twenty-Sixth Street: wide sidewalks, a busy road, no parking lane. Kiril checked his rearview. Alexandra was lying down in the back seat.
“Get out,” he said to her. “Follow him. Call me when you know where he’s going.”
“Still running?” she asked, sitting up, rubbing her eyes.
“Yes, follow and sweat out your poison.”
She slipped on a pair of tennis shoes and opened the door.
Kiril watched her begin to jog along Twenty-Sixth. Long strides, her head erect like the track star she had once been.
“Hey,” Penko said, reading his Subway app, “Subway on Colorado, not too far. Twelve-inch meatball sub with cheese? And toasted, right?”
“Not toasted—how many times do I tell you?”
He looked over. Penko was laughing at him.
“Lunyo glava,” Kiril said. Shithead.
As they pulled into the Subway parking lot, Penko said, “Ilina, she is good girl. You like her very much, no?”
“Just a girl,” Kiril said.
Penko opened his car. “Give me her number,” he said. “I want to try her out.”
