by Neil Plakcy
In the desk drawer, he found statements from Laskin’s bank account, as well as a box of checks. The bank’s address was on Collins Avenue a few blocks from the apartment, and a statement a few months before indicated a debit for the rent of a safe deposit box.
Biff found a credit card receipt with Laskin’s signature, and pocketed it.
His closet, though, was immaculate. A dozen suits hung with a precise space between them. The laundered shirts across from them ranged in color from white to black, with a dozen shades of peach, blue and pale green between. An electric rack held a few dozen ties from various designers, ordered in groups of patterns, stripes and solids, like a well-stocked pool table.
Even from the bedroom, Biff could feel the malevolent influence of the nesting dolls, and it took an extra effort to push them out of his mind. Under the tie rack Biff spotted a safe. Kneeling to the floor, he began twirling the dials, tuning his exceptional hearing to the pattern of clicks as the tumblers fell into place.
It wasn’t as easy as it normally was; the dolls were interfering with the functioning of his senses, and he grew increasingly irritated. The longer it took him to search Laskin’s apartment, the greater the chance that he would be discovered. Though he had the power to transform himself into a collection of dust fragments suspended in the air, he could only do so for very short periods of time—enough, say, to slip past a guard or through a locked door. Within thirty seconds his head began to buzz like a swarm of angry bees and he lost the ability to remain invisible. And the more stressed he was, the harder it was to demetabolize.
His fingers grew slippery with sweat as he turned the dial on the safe’s front door. This was unlike him; he was usually so confident in his investigations, letting nothing bother him and maintaining a zen-like calm. But the evil dolls in the living room were somehow subverting his natural abilities. He didn’t like that feeling of helplessness at all.
He squeezed his eyes closed and focusing only on the sound of the tumblers clicking in to place, he was able to get the door to swing free.
He opened his eyes, and whistled softly. The safe wasn’t nearly so well-organized as the closet. A pile of four handguns shared space with rubber-banded sheaves of hundred-dollar bills and a haphazard pile of gold chains and bracelets. There was even a baggie of cocaine; Biff could smell it and assess it as high grade without opening the zipper lock.
There were no computer disks or drives inside, though. Biff took everything out and examined each item twice before replacing it. He was tempted to take the cocaine, replacing it with a note that read “Say No to Drugs,” but decided it was safer to leave as little trace of his presence as possible.
Where were the files? Did Laskin have them on a laptop with him? In another location? Perhaps with his girlfriend Natasha? And why had he taken them in the first place? What had appeared to be a simple job was beginning to get irritating as the cast of characters grew and the stakes got higher.
He had been so focused on the safe and its contents that he was surprised to hear the sound of a key entering the front door slot. Quickly he looked around. There was a sliding glass door leading to the second floor balcony, and he nicked it open just enough so that he could transform into smoke and slip through. But as soon as he was outside he had to return to human form.
He stepped up on to the railing and flattened himself against the wall. He looked into the apartment and saw Laskin, wearing a pair of dark slacks and a white dress shirt with the first few buttons undone, showing off a hairy chest and a gold coin on a rope chain around his neck.
He remembered sensing the magical power emanating from Laskin the first time he encountered him, at the Marouschka restaurant. Now he understood that the magic came from the gold coin. There was something familiar about its energy signature, and Biff felt that with proper study he might be able to identify the magician who had imbued the coin with its power.
But once again, the coin was not the problem; Laskin’s presence was. Biff could not make himself invisible; that was a power reserved only for the highest level of genies. He could transform himself into a puff of smoke, but only for a moment, long enough to glide through a doorway, or slip past a watchful eye. He could not stay outside for long or else someone might notice him, and he could not get back into the apartment and out the front door without Laskin’s seeing him.
He was trapped there. He could, with much effort, change his corporeal body, but that would take days, and would do him no good out there.
He closed his eyes and focused on Laskin inside the apartment. He peered around the corner with his third eye, trying to locate Laskin and figure out what he was doing. And then, without warning, a foul smell attacked him, coming from inside the apartment.
Laskin had farted.
Biff wrinkled his nose in disgust, but then he sensed the man heading for the bathroom. Laskin didn’t close the door, and Biff heard the sound of Laskin’s pants, heavy with belt, keys and wallet, hitting the tiled floor.
He took that opportunity to slide back inside the apartment, then walk as lightly as he could across the living room. He heard grunting noises coming from the bathroom, and smelled more of Laskin’s disgusting farts. With relief, he slipped through the space between the front door and the jamb, and out into the hallway.
A couple in the next apartment were arguing in Yiddish and Biff hurried down the hall, sure at any moment either the husband or wife would come barreling out their door, followed by a barrage of kitchen equipment. He sighed heavily as he reached the stairwell, just as the couple’s door opened and the man tumbled into the hall, holding his hands over his head in protection.
A flying colander came sailing out after the man, and Biff didn’t wait around to see what happened next.
4 – Bagels and Background
Biff woke at first light and went for a jog around his neighborhood. Gated communities of townhouses stood next to a small industrial park, and the streets curled around in a series of cul-de-sacs lined with palm trees. South Florida reminded him of other hot places in his past, and he was happy to live just off the beaten path, yet close enough to the ocean that he could smell the salt air when the breeze was right.
While he ran he thought about Sveta and her stolen files. His next step had to be to visit the bank where Laskin kept his safety deposit box. He ended his run at his office, just a couple of blocks from the townhouse. He removed the key he had copied the night before from its waxy bed and used fine sandpaper to clean the edges. A special and very illegal program on his computer allowed him to fill in a template for a Florida driver’s license, inserting his own picture, along with Laskin’s name, address and license number, which he had obtained when he lifted the man’s wallet. He practiced Laskin’s signature a few times, then signed the blank and slipped it through his laminator.
Then he called Jimmy Stein, a detective he knew with the Miami-Dade Police department, which handled investigation for the unincorporated parts of the county, like the neighborhood around Biff’s office. “What time’s your break?” he asked. “I’ll buy your coffee.”
“You can buy me a bagel with a shmear,” Jimmy said. “I’ll see you in an hour at the Bagel Barn.”
As Biff was locking the front door of his office, he saw Sveta approaching down the mall hallway. He was embarrassed to be caught in his jogging clothes rather than his usual business outfit of Hawaiian shirt and khakis, but from the look on her face Sveta didn’t seem to mind.
She wore a shapeless smock with cartoon animals on it, and her hair was bundled up in a pile on top of her head. “I am worrying, Mr. Andromeda. Mr. Ovetschkin, he call me again this morning wanting files. You are finding who stole them?”
“Please, call me Biff,” he said. “I know who stole your files.”
“Chorosho! When will you get them back?”
“It’s not that easy. The man who stole them works for Ovetschkin.”
Sveta’s mouth dropped open. “But why? Why take pictures of boss�
��s wife?”
“That’s the question,” Biff said. “I don’t want to confront him until I know more about what’s going on. “
“But Ovetschkin want files. He threaten me.”
“I know, Sveta. I’m working on it.” He looked at his watch. “As matter of fact, I’m on my way to check something out.” He didn’t want to tell Sveta he was breaking into Laskin’s safe deposit box or that he was talking to a cop; that would only worry her. And he didn’t want to mention the AK-47s he heard Ovetschkin and Laskin speaking about the night before either.
She stood up. “I have photo session with baby. You will let me know?”
“Of course.” He jogged back to his townhouse, where he changed from his jogging shorts and T-shirt into a conservative business suit that disguised as much as possible his impressive musculature. Carrying his laptop, he drove to the bank on Collins Avenue. He counted on there being so much traffic through the bank that the clerk wouldn’t remember Laskin.
But he was wrong. The clerk, a young Hispanic woman whose name tag read Yunexis, looked at the ID and then at Biff. Then she looked at the ID again. “Please wait here,” she said, and she got up from behind her desk.
“Is there a problem?”
“I just need to get my manager to sign off. I’ll be right back.”
Biff could tell from the way she held herself stiffly and avoided direct eye contact that she was lying. Either the cops had an alert on Laskin, or she knew the man personally and realized Biff was an impostor.
“That won’t be necessary,” Biff said. He smiled at her and opened his third eye, sending a jangle of confusing signals to Yunexis’s brain.
She stopped and looked at him, cocking her head like a bird. “What was I doing?”
“You were about to take me to the safe deposit vault.”
“Oh. Yes. Come this way, please.” She pressed in ten numbers on the key pad which Biff couldn’t help following and remembering. He figured that you never knew when information would come in handy.
Then she turned to face him. “I’m sorry, I forgot your box number.”
“No problem.” Biff read it off to her, and she found it in the wall of similar boxes. She put her key in and turned it, and then Biff inserted his.
“When you’re finished, just stop by at my desk,” she said. Once she stepped out of the room, Biff withdrew the box from its drawer.
There was a neat stack of hundred-dollar bills, and another of hundred-euro notes. A small velvet pouch which contained a half-dozen uncut diamonds. A half-dozen gold coins in shrink-wrap. And beneath it all, a 2 MB jump drive.
He opened his laptop and turned it on. Then he inserted the jump drive and viewed thumbnail shots of the contents. He established that they were boudoir photos of a very beautiful young blonde woman. Each one was named “douschka” with a number. Satisfied, he shut down the laptop and pocketed the jump drive. Before he closed the box, though, he counted out a wad of cash to cover his fee and expenses. After all, why should Sveta have to pay, when Laskin had stolen from her? It fit his notion of justice.
He returned the box to its slot and the lock snapped in place. He waved at Yunexis as he walked past her desk, receiving only a confused stare in return. Then he drove to home for a quick change of clothes, then to the Bagel Bar, tucked away in an industrial complex off Ives Dairy Road and only a few blocks away. He ordered a pumpernickel bagel for Jimmy, salt for himself, along with a small tub of cream cheese and several strips of lox. Coffee for Jimmy and orange juice for himself.
As Biff was sitting down at a table by the window, Jimmy walked in. He was in his mid-fifties, a portly guy with a crew cut and a New York accent. “You never look a day older,” he said, shaking his head when he saw Biff. “How do you do it?”
“Clean living.” Biff raised his orange juice glass in a toast.
“Like I believe that.” Jimmy sat down heavily across from Biff as the waitress brought a tray over with their food. “Jesus, how do you eat so much salt?” he asked, watching Biff layer the lox and cream cheese on his bagel. “Your blood pressure must be through the roof.”
“I like the taste. So listen, you know someone in the police department over in Sunny Isles Beach?”
“What are you looking into?” Jimmy asked. He wore a khaki-colored button-down microfiber shirt of the type favored by hunters and fishermen, with mesh venting and odd-shaped extra pockets.
“A couple of Russians. One of them stole something that belongs to a client.”
“The photographer?”
“I don’t care what they say about you, Jimmy. You’re a sharp guy.”
“I saw the report yesterday,” Jimmy said. “I figured her office is near yours, you’d be involved. But all she said was stolen were some computer files of photos.”
“You know what kind of pictures she takes.” Biff stretched his long legs out next to the table. He had left his pointy-toed shoes back at the office, replacing them with his Nike cross-trainers.
“No shit? Somebody stole some naked ladies?”
Biff nodded. “Pictures of a certain woman whose husband wasn’t happy with the way they came out.”
“You think it was the husband?”
“Sveta didn’t discover the theft until he came by demanding the files.”
“You have a name for this couple?” Jimmy pulled a pad out of his pocket and slid a pen from the metal coil at the top.
“Ovetschkin,” Biff said. “Kiril and Douschka.”
“This just gets better and better.” Jimmy took a big bite of bagel and washed it down with a swig of heavily-creamed coffee, while Biff waited impatiently.
“You don’t know who Ovetschkin is?” Jimmy asked, when he finished swallowing.
“I get the feeling he’s not a very nice guy.”
“He’s a yutz, is what he is,” Jimmy said. “Thinks he’s a big shot because he’s wrapped up with the Organizatsiya, because he’s got a bundle of loose cash and a pretty young wife. But he’s really just a small-time jerk.”
“The Organizatsiya,” Biff said. “You mean the Russian Mafia?”
“Whatever you want to call it. But Ovetschkin’s slippery. The Feds haven’t been able to pin anything on him yet.” Jimmy took another swig of coffee.
“How about arms smuggling?” Biff asked. “You think he could be involved in that?”
Jimmy nearly dropped the coffee cup on the table. “I thought we were talking about stolen pictures.”
“I overheard something last night.”
“I swear, you’ve got better hearing than my poodle. What do you know?”
“I was at the Marouschka in Hallandale Beach. Ovetschkin was talking to a guy named Igor Laskin about a problem getting some AK-47s through Customs. I think Laskin’s the thief I’m looking for.”
“AK-47s? That’s some serious shit.” He wiped his mouth with a paper napkin. “Laskin is an independent operator, but he reports to Ovetschkin.”
“Kind of like one of those network marketing things?”
“Yeah, one of those, but with guns and drugs.” Jimmy scrawled a name and phone number on a sheet from his pad, then ripped it off and handed it to Biff. “Call this guy at the ATF. He knows more about Ovetschkin than I do.”
Biff took the paper and slipped it in his pocket.
“I know that look,” Jimmy said. “You think you’re smarter than the cops, you don’t need to talk to anybody. Yeah, yeah, don’t bullshit me.” He pulled out his cell phone and punched in a number. “Hector? Jimmy Stein. How you doing?”
He listened for a minute. “Yeah, same shit up here. Listen, I got a guy you should talk to. Private eye up this way who’s been nosing into the Russian Mafia.”
Biff finished the last bite of bagel, lox and cream cheese, and leaned back in his chair. Jimmy listened some more. “Yeah, he’ll even buy you lunch.”
“Thanks, pal,” Biff said, when Jimmy had slapped the phone shut. “I don’t exactly have a bottomless expense account
, you know.”
“All part of my mission to put some fat on your bones,” Jimmy said. “You’re too fit, you know that? Meet him at this Cuban dive near his office. La Guajira. One o’clock.”
They finished eating, talking about Jimmy’s wife, the poodle, and the lousy rain the week before. As they walked out together, Jimmy said, “Watch your back. These Russian guys, they’re trouble.”
“Thanks, Jimmy. I’ll talk to your guy, let you know how it all spins out.”
Biff left the bagel shop and walked along the winding sidewalk, so caught up in his brain that he narrowly missed being hit by a falling palm frond. When he reached the Aventura Beach Shopping Center, he passed his own office, only touching the painted eye on the glass door, continuing to Sveta’s studio. “Mr. Andromeda! You have found my files?” she asked, as he walked in.
She was sitting at a table in the front of the studio, sewing the leg back on a plush stuffed dog.
“I believe so.” He handed her the jump drive, and she got up and led him through a beaded curtain back to the workroom. She slid the drive into her laptop and called up Photoshop.
The shots of Douschka Ovetschkin were even more beautiful when properly displayed. Even Biff, who had been around the block a few times, was impressed with her. The see-through negligee she wore, covering a black bra and panties, didn’t hurt either. They were not pornography; Douschka was never naked, and the photos were all in good taste. They were designed to enhance her beauty, not cheapen it. A lesser photographer might have made her look like a cheap hooker; instead, Sveta had taken a beautiful woman and turned her into a goddess.
“How I can thank you!” Sveta turned to Biff and kissed him on the cheek, stepping up on her tip-toes to reach. Without even thinking, he identified her perfume, Jean Paul Gaultier’s Classique. He also noticed the way she bunched up her girls so that they flowed out of her blouse.
