The Fedorovich File: The Lacey Lockington Series - Book Three

by Ross H. Spencer

  “Brenda?”

  Lockington nodded.

  Natasha’s facial expression didn’t change. “How?”

  “Shot—she was two feet from me.”

  “There’s nothing that’ll connect you to this, is there?”

  “Not that I know of—I was out of there in nothing flat.”

  “Krahsny Lentuh!”

  “Look, why don’t you just say KGB?”

  “Because it isn’t the KGB, damn it—not the KGB I worked for—Krahsny Lentuh’s out of bounds!”

  “Okay, so Krahsny Lentuh’s a berserk splinter group—Brenda’s still dead.”

  Natasha pulled the legal pad to her, drawing wheels in sets of three, adding numbers. Without looking up, she said, “Death gets under your skin, doesn’t it, Lacey?”

  “Unsolicited death, yes.”

  “But you’ve killed.”

  “I’ve killed people who were asking for it—that didn’t faze me. And you? You’ve never told me.”

  “Three, all in Europe.”

  “And one in the United States—Devereaux.”

  “Indirectly.” She poured vodka into a short glass, sipping at it. “Brenda was your last link to Olga Karelinko?”

  “She introduced herself as Brenda Willoughby—if I can locate her husband, there’s a chance. I’ll tackle that in the morning.”

  “She was shot in the funeral home parking lot, I assume.”

  “Yeah—we’d just stepped outside.”

  “At that point you’d learned nothing?”

  “Just that her name was Willoughby—I was going to follow her to a tavern for a drink or two—I wanted to inquire about Olga Karelinko. So did somebody else.”

  “Who?”

  “She told me that she’d had a call at the funeral home before I came in—a police detective named Mawson. This guy Mawson really gets around!”

  “What did she tell him, did she say?”

  “She didn’t get the chance.”

  “Our Mr. Mawson is a Krasny Lentuh operative, depend on it! He was ascertaining that she was at the funeral home.”

  “He’s a killer—he’ll be the man who brained Candice Hoffman.”

  “Likely, but Mawson may not have wanted Brenda Willoughby—he may have missed his target.”

  “He meant to get me?”

  “It’s worthy of consideration, isn’t it?”

  “I doubt it.”

  “Quite frankly, so do I—it was just a thought.”

  Lockington said, “If Krasny Lentuh doesn’t know Fedorovich’s location—”

  “Which it doesn’t—he’d be dead, if it knew.”

  “And if it knows that I’m looking for Fedorovich—”

  “Which it does, believe me!”

  “All right, then—why kill me? Why not use me, watch me, let me lead the way to him?”

  “That’s the strategy—then kill both of you. No tracks.”

  Lockington shrugged. “We’ll cross that bridge if we ever get to it.”

  Their glasses were empty and Natasha was filling them. “I’d say that Mawson believed that you’d already gotten the important information, thereby reducing Brenda to the status of complicating factor, more liability than asset.”

  Lockington frowned. She was a furlong in front of him.

  The tautness had left her lips, her lopsided smile had returned. She raised her glass and Lockington raised his. She said, “To Mr. Mawson—until Mawlniyuh catches up with him.”

  “Which may be three years after the cow jumps over the moon.”

  “No, Lacey, he’s on his last legs—he’ll be dead within a week. Mawson’s good, but Mawlniyuh’s better—much better!”

  They drank, and there was silence. Natasha turned off the bar lights. She reached across the bar to take his hand. “Mr. Lockington, you’re an excellent detective. How are you in bed?”

  “With limited capabilities, I do the best I can.”

  Natasha was on her feet. “Last one stripped is a sissy!”

  Lockington finished second, and there was nothing new about that. He’d been finishing second since he could remember, and he’d been willing to settle for it—second isn’t all that bad. He rolled into bed and into Natasha’s waiting arms. She stroked the side of his face. She whispered, “There’s a first time for everything, isn’t there?”

  “I suppose so.” He kissed the end of her nose, wondering what she was leading up to, but not for long.

  She said, “That point having been agreed upon, Lacey, here you go!” She had him by the ears, tugging his head gently downward to the swell of her breasts and southward. His lips brushed her navel and in a moment he was there. She held onto his ears, cocking a leg, lifting her buttocks, pulling his face into the hot V of her, holding him in place. “Welcome to perestroika.”

  Lockington said, “Perestroika has hair?”

  “Perestroika is a word indicating the beginning of a new era. This is the beginning of a new era!”

  “Well, whaddaya know!”

  Natasha murmured, “More than four months, and you’ve never been there.”

  “I didn’t know that you wanted me here.”

  “Enough conversation! Are you going to do it or aren’t you?”

  “I’m going to do it.”

  Natasha’s voice was hoarse. “Then do it, for God’s sake, do it, I—I—yes—yes—yes-s-s-s—that’s right, that’s right—that’s right—wonderful—wonderful—WONDERFUL-L-L-L!” A prolonged shudder was racking Natasha Gorky’s tawny naked body, she jack-knifed in Lockington’s direction, grabbing him by the hair of his head, gasping, “Oh, but that was quick—so quick—too damned quick!” She released her hold on him, falling back to her pillow, the tension gone out of her. She said, “Don’t you think?”

  “Don’t I think what—that it was too damned quick?”

  “Yes—too damned quick.”

  Lockington shrugged as best he could in that position. He said, “I don’t know—it’s a moot point, probably.”

  “Do you have objections?”

  “None that come readily to mind.”

  “Might I ask you a question?”

  “You might—in fact, you probably will.”

  “Would you do it again?”

  “When?”

  “There’s no time like the present.” She reached for Lockington’s ears. “Mary Manley said that.”

  “She did?”

  Natasha said, “Yes, possibly at a moment like this, wouldn’t you say?”

  “I wouldn’t say—I’m not an expert on the subject.”

  Natasha had grasped his ears. She said, “Well, you certainly could have fooled me!”

  Lockington’s response was strangely muffled.

  39

  Natasha had slept soundly through Lockington’s Saturday morning alarm. Considering the previous evening’s hectic bedroom activities and Natasha’s demands for encores, that was understandable, as was the crick in Lockington’s neck. At eight-thirty he’d left the house quietly, driving to a small coffee and doughnut shop in Austintown, west of Meridian Road. That was where Frank Addison caught up with him. Addison said, “Well, doggone, Lockington, fancy meeting you here!”

  Lockington crunched down on a chocolate doughnut. “Knock it off, Addison, you were parked on Burbank Avenue, watching for me.”

  Addison’s smile was sheepish. “Yeah, well, I didn’t want to wait at your office—I haven’t established a great deal of rapport with your hired man.” He slumped onto a chair, ordering a jelly doughnut and a cup of black coffee.

  Lockington gave him a quick once-over. “You look like there was a hole in your parachute.”

  Addison shook his head wearily. “I was up half the night—homicide on the South Side.”

  “From what I know of the South Side, that ain’t grounds for a congressional investigation.”

  “Woman killed in the parking area behind Sabatini’s Funeral Home on South Avenue. We found a thirty caliber rifle casing
on the street north of there—she was probably shot from a parked car.”

  “Local woman?”

  “Yeah, a Brenda Willoughby—man, she must of been some kind of cat! There was a dozen condoms in her clutch-purse!”

  “Well, one never knows when opportunity will strike.”

  “She lived in an apartment on Wick Avenue—we checked with neighbors—she was a divorcee. She threw her old man out last spring. He rolls an eighteen-wheeler for Moffitt Red Ball Express east of Canfield—he’s out of town—left on a run to Chicago night before last.”

  Lockington drained his coffee cup, studying Frank Addison over its tilted rim. He said, “This is none of my affair, is it?”

  Around a bulging mouthful of jelly doughnut, Addison said, “Maybe yes, maybe no. Probably yes.”

  “Why yes?”

  “We went through the identification stuff in her purse—driver’s license, social security card, that sort of thing, and the person to be notified in case of emergency was Brenda’s mother, a Candice Hoffman of 24 North Brockway Avenue.”

  Lockington yawned. “Then she was at her mother’s wake.”

  Addison said, “Point of interest—how would you know where Candice Hoffman’s wake was to be held?”

  “The old gal across the street from the Hoffman house told me yesterday morning.”

  “And you forgot to mention it to me.”

  “Slipped my mind.”

  “I’d think that you should have been at Sabatini’s, just to see who came around.”

  “I was considering stopping there tonight—most wakes are two-night affairs. Things are usually more settled on the second night.”

  Addison grabbed a napkin from a chromed holder on the table, wiping a smear of jelly from a corner of his mouth. “Well, actually, the reason I’m here is because you’re looking for Mr. X, and you seem to think there was a connection between him and Candice Hoffman, and Brenda Willoughby was Candice’s daughter, so I thought you might want to talk to Cy Willoughby.”

  “I might, yes.”

  “Well, he’s due in at the Moffitt terminal this morning—hour, hour and a half, give or take. Wanta ride along?”

  “Why not?” Lockington grabbed Addison’s check.

  “Much obliged.”

  “My pleasure.”

  It was raining when they left the doughnut shop.

  40

  Frank Addison tooled the blue Chrysler west through the rain, turning north on Route 11. He said, “Y’know, Lockington, I been thinking about what you told me at Borts Field yesterday morning.”

  “That I like pigeons?”

  “No, that there’s a human trail leading to the guy you’re trying to find, and that somebody is erasing it.”

  Lockington said, “Well, if it ain’t that way, I’ve just run into the Goddamndest set of concidences I’ve ever run into.”

  “Okay, but he’s erasing it behind you, never before you get there, always after!”

  “How about the Willoughby woman, wasn’t he ahead of me?”

  “My ouija board tells me wasn’t.”

  “Then you better get a new ouija board.”

  “Well, anyway, you got the right idea. You said that old Abigail Fleugelham knew your man, and Abigail gets throttled with a plastic clothes line. Candice Hoffman was mixed up in this thing somehow, and Candice gets her brains knocked out. Brenda Willoughby was Candice’s daughter, she had to know something of Candice’s affairs, and Brenda takes a thirty through the eye. Care to take it from there, Lockington?”

  “If I could take it from there, I wouldn’t be here.”

  “Who are you working for?”

  “No dice, Addison.”

  “You don’t have to give me a name.”

  “I don’t have to give you anything.”

  “I could run you in, you know that.”

  “On what charge?”

  “I could come up with one—material witness—obstruction of justice—some damned thing.”

  “Run me in and you’re gonna have an office full of pissed-off feds.”

  Addison grinned. “Well, that helps just a bit—you’re government!”

  “No, but I know people who are.”

  “And you’re working for them.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “This guy you want, he’s a fugitive?”

  “Not exactly.”

  Addison lit a cigarette, rolling down his window, pitching the match into the rain. He was silent for half a mile. Then he said, “Jesus Christ, Lockington, don’t tell me that this is an international thing!”

  “Okay, I won’t tell you that this is an international thing.” They turned west on Route 224, passing a string of fastfood joints and restaurants. Lockington couldn’t equate fastfood joints with restaurants—you can’t get a vodka martini in a fastfood joint. Addison was saying, “I’ll tell you what—you could be getting into a matter involving the KGB, couldn’t you?”

  “I could also be getting into a matter involving the Salvation Army, couldn’t I?”

  Addison was slowing the Chrysler, spinning south between eight-foot barbed wire-topped gates and onto a blacktopped acreage fanning in front of a corrugated metal garage more than a hundred feet in length. The building had four overhead doors, one of them open. To their left, twenty or more trailers were parked in orderly fashion along the perimeter of the blacktopped area. Fifty feet off to their right, a small whiteframe enclosure occupied a corner of the apron—Moffitt Red Ball’s dispatching office, apparently.

  Lockington checked his watch. “We’re early.”

  Addison said, “So, we’ll wait—I’m not scheduled to address the Senate until this afternoon.”

  “Put in a few words for me.”

  “I’ll do that—I’ll mention that you’re a hard-headed sonofabitch.” Addison pulled onto the graveled shoulder, stopping, killing the engine. He said, “You’d better start looking over your shoulder. A green T-bird followed us all the way from the doughnut shop.”

  Lockington said, “If he’s watching you, he’s probably a hit man—if he’s watching me, he’s a bill collector.”

  “It wasn’t a ‘he.’”

  “Okay, so there are female bill collectors.”

  “She continued west into Canfield.”

  Lockington didn’t reply, and they sat in the Chrysler, listening to the rattle of rain on the roof. Lockington whistled absent-mindedly. After a while, Addison said, “Ain’t it the truth?”

  Lockington stopped whistling. “I don’t follow you.”

  “You were whistling ‘I Get the Blues When it Rains’.”

  “I guess that’s a habit.”

  “A Freudian thing, maybe.”

  “No, it was written by Klauber and Stoddard—we used to sing it at Mike’s Tavern.”

  Addison said, “I was referring to spontaneous psycho­ physical responses.”

  “Sounds like classical stuff—we never got into classical.”

  “Fuck you, Lockington.”

  They watched a big man in a gray jacket come out of the office carrying a small overnight bag. He entered the garage through its open door and a few moments later a blue Peterbilt tractor snorted onto the macadam, swung left, stopped, backed toward the row of trailers to the east and coupled with one. Addison said, “Where do you suppose he’s headed?”

  Lockington shrugged. “Christ knows, but there’ll be a chickie waiting when he gets there.”

  “Yeah, these over-the-road guys all got chickies at the other end of the line—any old line.” He thought about it. “How’s about you, Lockington—you got a chickie?”

  “Yeah, I got a chickie.”

  “Permanent?”

  “Hope so.”

  Addison said, “Hell, nothing’s permanent. I got a little barmaid at Dinty’s Wharf on Hubbard Road, but that’s a temporary thing—she’s got a female-dominant complex. You know about female-dominant complexes?”

  Lockington shook his head. “L
ook, why don’t we hit the office? Willoughby might have busted down in Indiana.”

  Addison started the Chrysler, pulling up to the office door. They got out, Addison leading the way, climbing the steps in the rain. They went in. A portly baldheaded man in a peppermint-striped shirt sat at a paper-cluttered desk, munching on the stump of a cigar, talking on the telephone. He glanced up, placing a forefinger across his lips for silence. He was saying, “Yeah—yeah—okay—okay, I’ll jump right on it and I’ll call you back.” He banged the telephone into its cradle. “Gents, I’m Nate Slifka—what can I do for you?”

  “Youngstown police—Frank Addison—I spoke with you earlier this morning.”

  “Uh-huh. About Cy Willoughby, wasn’t it?”

  “That’s right—he should be in shortly, shouldn’t he?”

  Nate Slifka said, “Yeah, he should be, but he ain’t gonna be—Cy Willoughby’s dead.”

  Lockington checked his surprise meter. It hadn’t so much as quivered.

  Frank Addison was saying, “I’m a sonofabitch—where?”

  “Chicago—that was the Chicago cops on the line.”

  Addison said, “Wreck?”

  “Naw, they found him in the pissery of some gin mill near the Mohawk West terminal—he’d been knifed.” Slifka shook his head. “Jesus, what a way to go—knifed in a tavern shithouse!”

  Addison said, “When did this happen?”

  “Late last night—he was scheduled to be on the road one o’clock this morning.”

  “They get the guy who knifed him?”

  “If they did, they didn’t say so.”

  “Who do you notify?”

  “All I got is his ex-wife—they busted up sometime last spring, as I recall. Cy was outta West Virginia—he got no immediate family in these parts, far as I know. Was he in some kind of trouble?”

  “No, we wanted to talk to him about his ex-wife—she was killed last night.”

  “Holy Christ—it never rains but what it pours! I’ve met her—cute cookie—Brenda, I think. Well, maybe I can get hold of his mother-in-law.”

  Addison said, “She’s dead, recently.”

  Slifka said, “Well, what the fuck do I do now?”

  Lockington said, “There aren’t too many trucking terminals in Chicago proper—most of ’em are in the suburbs. What’s Mohawk West’s address?”