Clean Hands

by Patrick Hoffman

  “She’s still beautiful,” said Isaac.

  Uncle Yakov stepped to him and rubbed his cheek. “That’s right,” he said. He raised his hand toward a couch, and the boys sat down.

  “So?” asked their uncle, sitting across from them.

  “We dropped something for you at Auntie’s,” said Yuri.

  “You dropped laundry,” said Grigory, looking up from his phone.

  “Dropped your laundry,” said Yuri.

  Uncle Yakov made a troubled face and waved his hand up and down as if saying, Be quiet, there is no need to speak of such things. “Now,” he said, leaning toward the boys. “They used to say, ‘If you don’t have a river to jump in, then don’t pick a fight with a wasp.’ Have you ever heard this?”

  Yuri shifted in his seat and shook his head.

  The older man lowered his voice: “It means if you pick a fight with a law firm, don’t mail them letters first saying exactly what your plan is.”

  Yuri didn’t know what his uncle was trying to say. When he glanced at his brother, he saw him nodding along like he understood exactly what the old man meant.

  Uncle Yakov decided to get to the point. “Does anybody know what you did?” His face became serious, almost sad-looking. Nobody answered.

  “I had a call from a friend. He says a woman has been asking about me and wants to meet. You know what I said? I said this seems very unusual.” He turned toward Grigory and said, “Right?”

  Grigory clenched his jaw, nodded his head.

  “My friend says this woman is a very high-class kind of person; she works for important people. Rich people. Americans. She wants to meet with me. I think to myself, I have no business with this woman. Why would she want to meet with me? I’m thinking, lawyers, lawyers, lawyers—you know—law firms, Manhattan lawyers, law firms, lawyers, it hits me: You boys. Your little plan,” said Yakov, rubbing his forehead like he had a headache.

  “Uncle,” said Yuri.

  “No,” said Yakov, holding up his hand and silencing his audience. “I wouldn’t have said okay to you boys if I didn’t want you to do it. That’s my fault. Still, here we are.” He looked at each of the younger men in turn. “Listen to me: we are businessmen; we take chances.” He turned toward Grigory. “Right?”

  Grigory frowned and shook his head: he didn’t know if the statement was right or wrong.

  “I need to know something, though,” said Yakov. “I need to know exactly how many other people know about it. No”—he raised his hand and again shushed the men on the couch—“I need the facts so I can be well informed when I speak with this woman. I don’t want to say the wrong thing.”

  Yuri pictured Avi Lessing’s face—soft and smiling—and it occurred to him that he’d made a great mistake. “The only person who knows is the man who brought us into it.”

  “And who is this?” asked Yakov.

  “He’s a friend, he’s a, um, he’s—”

  “A Russian?”

  “He’s an American Jew.” Yuri glanced at his brother next to him to see if he was planning on joining the conversation at any point, but Isaac sat there silently. The expression on his face seemed to suggest he’d been against the plan the entire time. “He’s harmless.”

  “Well, harmless or not, I would consider talking to him, reasoning with him. Just make sure he never speaks to anyone,” said their uncle.

  Yuri looked down at the floor and tried to understand exactly what his uncle was suggesting. “Talk to him?”

  “Talk to him,” said the older man.

  Yuri looked at Grigory for help, but the large man just sat there shaking his head.

  Billy Sharrock sat in the back of his white van. Parked just down the block from Yakov Rabinowitz’s office, he had a good angle on the boys when they emerged from their meeting. He used his remote control and snapped a burst of pictures. After looking at the images on his computer monitor, he went over to his blacked-out back window so he could observe them with his own eyes.

  Billy hadn’t been following them that morning; he’d been watching their uncle. He started the day at 4:09 a.m., parked a block away from the old man’s house. Nothing happened until 9:22 a.m., when a black SUV pulled into the driveway. The driver got out and entered the house. Billy texted the plate number to Danny Tsui, who told him the car was registered to a limousine service in Queens.

  At 10:48 a.m., Billy watched the driver come back out of the house. This time he was accompanied by Yakov Rabinowitz. Billy snapped away with his camera and got pumped up on adrenaline just from the sight of the man. He trailed them to Park Slope, where Yakov Rabinowitz appeared to visit a doctor’s office. At one point, his driver stepped out and entered a café—presumably to use the restroom—and Billy was able to attach a small GPS device to the SUV’s chassis.

  It was 1:48 p.m. when the boys came out from meeting with their uncle. Billy had already identified Yuri Rabinowitz and his little brother Isaac when they entered the building. He’d been given a packet of information that included their pictures. A third unidentified man had accompanied them in and out.

  Billy had already told Valencia that the younger Rabinowitz boys were in the building. She had told him to call her when they came out.

  “I’m looking at them right now,” he told her.

  “How are they acting?” asked Valencia.

  “Well,” said Billy, “they aren’t hiding their faces, let’s say that. No hoodies, no hats.”

  “Little shits,” said Valencia.

  “I put a rat on the old man’s vehicle. You want me to stay with the boys, see what they’re up to?”

  “You read my mind,” said Valencia. “But don’t—I repeat—don’t let them see you. I don’t care if they lose you. Stay way the hell back.”

  Something about the way she was speaking annoyed Billy, but he didn’t say anything.

  “Got it?” she asked.

  “Yeah, I got it,” said Billy. They ended their call.

  The boys stood on the corner talking. The older one seemed to be speaking heatedly to the younger one. He tapped his brother on the chest and shook his head. The unidentified man stayed out of it and just stared down the street with his arms crossed. A woman walking past gave them a wide berth.

  Then a car pulled up, and the men walked toward it. Billy watched Yuri Rabinowitz walk around to the front passenger door. Right before he got in, Yuri took a moment and stared across and down the block, directly at Billy’s van.

  Reflexively, Billy held his breath and leaned back from the window.

  He didn’t follow them when they left.

  Instead, he called Valencia and told her he thought they took a look at his van when they drove past.

  “Go home,” she said.

  “Yes, ma’am,” said Billy. He cursed himself up and down. An ugly and foul mood came over him that seemed like it would last the rest of the day.

  Later, Valencia’s phone buzzed again. This time, it was Yakov Rabinowitz’s old lawyer.

  “Just got off with our friend,” said Utah Sandemose.

  “And what did he say?” asked Valencia. She was sitting in her living room, wearing a bathrobe. Her hair was wet.

  “You’re gonna owe me more than dinner,” said Utah.

  “Ooh la la,” said Valencia.

  “He said he’d meet with you tonight. You’re free, right?”

  Valencia felt a tightening around her shoulders and chest. She looked out her window at the storm clouds that had moved in over the city; but it hadn’t started raining yet. She pulled her robe closed. “Will you be there?”

  “Hell, no, I’m staying out of this shit,” said Utah. “I made it very clear that I didn’t think he should sit down with you, although I did tell him you possess your own charms.”

  “Well, then I definitely owe you more than dinner,” said Valencia. She leaned over and peered through her bedroom door just in time to see Milton Frazier—wearing nothing but a white towel—walk past.

  �
�First things first, though,” said Utah. “There’s a spot he likes to go to—don’t ask me why—it’s in the Garment District, a little kosher spot, Uzbek. It’s nothing fancy. It’s at 358 West Thirty-Seventh Street. You got it?”

  Valencia repeated the address.

  “Eight p.m. Get the stuffed cabbage. It’s actually pretty damn good.”

  “And when are we going to have our own date?” asked Valencia.

  “Shit,” said Utah. “I’m about to be in trial, but don’t think I’m not gonna be thinking about you every single night.”

  “I’m sure you’ll call me when you’re ready,” said Valencia.

  “Guilty as charged,” said Utah.

  After ending the call, Valencia sat there for a moment, biting her thumbnail. Her mind jumped to the question of why Rabinowitz had chosen a location within walking distance of the law firm. I’m not afraid, he seemed to be saying. This man is a little son of a bitch, she thought. A cheeky little bastard.

  Right then, Milton walked into the living room, tying his tie.

  “Have you ever had stuffed cabbage?” asked Valencia.

  “We used to eat that over there sometimes,” said Milton, referring to his time overseas.

  Valencia stood up from the couch, tightened her robe around herself. “Mr. Rabinowitz has agreed to meet me tonight,” she said, trying to make it sound like bragging. But she felt her spirits plunge as she spoke.

  “So I heard,” said Milton.

  “What do you think I should wear?”

  “He’d probably like to see you in that little white suit that you wore to that one thing.”

  “No,” said Valencia, walking to her bedroom. “This is an evening date, I’ll wear my navy blue suit, the tight one, and put on lipstick and wear gold.”

  “We call that your bad-boy suit.”

  “Who’s ‘we’?” asked Valencia, turning from the doorway.

  “Me and Billy.”

  “You guys sit around and talk about my clothes?”

  “Only like, ‘Watch out—she’s got her bad-boy suit on—don’t say nothing out of turn.’”

  Valencia walked to her closet, pulled the suit out, and laid it on her unmade bed. In her dresser she found her favorite underpants. She took her robe off and pulled those on, and then fit herself into a matching bra. Something about Milton’s tone had annoyed her. He was being overly familiar. Even if they had just shared a bed, she was still his boss. “I’m going to need you to drive me there and wait for me,” she called out over her shoulder.

  “Yeah,” he said. “No problem.”

  She stepped to the mirror in the bathroom and wiped fog from it. Then she examined her face in the reflection and gently patted in toner. In her mind, she played with ideas of hurtful things she could say to Milton, but all her options seemed too obvious.

  “Billy’s a naughty boy, and he needs to be spanked,” she whispered to herself. Then, practicing what she might say to Milton, she whispered, “Get out.”

  She rubbed some cream into her face and puckered her lips at her reflection. Her mother had given her porcelain skin; she was thankful for that. She’d look perfect for the meeting, glowing. Yakov Rabinowitz wouldn’t be able to resist her charms. Thank you, Mother, she thought.

  After getting dressed, she came into the living room, where Milton was sitting up straight on the couch, as if waiting for a job interview. It was too much. She looked at the clock; it was only a quarter past six. She didn’t have to leave for another hour and fifteen minutes.

  “You know what,” she said flatly. “Why don’t you go and get some fresh air. I need to make some calls. Just text me at seven thirty, when you’re downstairs.”

  After she said them, the words hung in the air for a moment. Milton’s lower lip pushed out and covered his upper one. He lifted himself up off the couch and pulled on his coat. “Sure thing, boss,” he said, unable to hide his annoyance.

  When the door closed, Valencia flopped herself down on the couch in the spot he’d just left, checked her cell phone, and then put her fingers on her wrist and felt her pulse. “Call your fucking wife,” she whispered, speaking to an imaginary Milton. She closed her eyes, and in her mind she saw the clouds outside her window covering the sky completely. Then she saw her mother, who had passed away many years ago.

  Chris Cowley stood in the lobby of his office building waiting for his Uber. He held his phone in his left hand and used his right finger to race through the headlines. The news did nothing to calm his nerves. The world was falling apart. The president was a joke—a racist laughingstock; there seemed to be a new climate disaster every day. There were mass shootings and terrorist attacks. And his Uber driver—as he tracked him on the app—was moving like he had four flat tires. Fuck me, thought Chris.

  Across the lobby someone barked out a demonic laugh. Chris squinted that way but all he saw was a group of security guards, and none of them were laughing. He looked back down at his phone: his Uber was two minutes away.

  “Don’t be so depressed”—he couldn’t stop thinking about that. Don’t be so depressed? Who were these people? Literally who were they? Nothing about the situation he found himself in made sense, but there was something particularly maddening about being told not to be depressed.

  When his ride arrived, Chris walked out to it and spent a second comparing the plate number to the number on his phone. “For Chris?” he asked, opening the back door. The driver was white, which made Chris pause, until the man spoke with a Slavic accent of some kind and confirmed that Chris was at the right car.

  They looped around and headed downtown on Park Avenue, where they hit a red light. Outside Chris’s window, an old white-haired woman bent down and looked in at him. She was only a few feet from the window. She didn’t appear to be homeless, but there was something off about her. She squinted and gestured with her hands like she was asking, What?

  Chris had no idea what the woman wanted; to avoid looking at her, he pulled out his phone. A moment later, she banged on the window right next to his head; she tried to open the door, but it was locked.

  It made Chris flinch; he scooted to the other side of the car.

  The driver rolled down his own window to talk to her, but then the light changed and he took off.

  “What was that?” asked Chris. He turned in his seat to look for the old woman, but he couldn’t see her.

  “I think she thought I was her ride,” said the driver.

  Chris busied himself buckling his seatbelt, hoping to cover up how scared he’d gotten when she tried to open the door. He thought about saying something but stayed silent.

  “People are crazy here,” said the driver, gesturing out at the street in front of him. “Everyone is crazy, you know that?” He reached out and grabbed the rearview mirror and adjusted it at an odd angle so he could look right at Chris.

  Chris shook his head. He didn’t want to be stared at.

  “They’re all depressed,” said the man.

  Chris’s mouth dried up. “Excuse me?”

  “Everyone so depressed. My country poor, but not so many people crazy.”

  Chris leaned and looked at the little identification placard on the dashboard. The name read Abdulmalik Juraev, which didn’t seem to match the accent. “Where are you from?” asked Chris.

  “Florida,” said the man, smiling at the lie. “I was born and raised in Florida.”

  Chris looked at his Uber app to make sure he was in the right car. He felt nauseous. There was no end to his problems. “Where are you really from?”

  “I’m from Tajikistan,” he said.

  “Nobody’s depressed there?” asked Chris.

  “Depressed? I tell you what, people there are depressed because they’re poor. People here—what do they—people get depressed if they’re not being followed.”

  Chris leaned forward in his seat. He couldn’t tell if the man was trying to deliver some kind of message. “What are you trying to say to me?”

&n
bsp; “What?” Right then a truck veered into their lane and the driver jerked the steering wheel and hit the horn. The driver’s eyes went back to the mirror.

  “I’m sorry—please,” said Chris, gesturing at the road.

  “I’m saying here people are depressed when they’re not being followed by the paparazzi—when they’re not on camera all the time.”

  “Seriously, if you have something you want to tell me, just—”

  The man—suddenly seeming angry—interrupted him. “I’m telling you it’s not all about money—you don’t just take, take, take. Try helping someone.”

  “Me?”

  “America,” said the man.

  Chris bit his thumbnail and looked out at the street. People were leaving work to meet their friends. They were going out to have drinks. He used to be one of those people. He used to go out to clubs and hook up with random dudes, make out with them. He used to send text messages to his friends and go out for brunch. He used to listen to podcasts and watch movies and cook food and go out to dinner. What happened to all that? What happened to exercising, yoga classes, bicycle riding, farmers’ markets? Was that life completely over?

  The driver adjusted his mirror; moved it back to its normal place. Chris watched him shake his head, like he couldn’t believe how stupid his passenger was. The stupidest passenger he’d ever had.

  They rode the rest of the way in silence.

  Valencia arrived at the restaurant at two minutes before eight p.m. The windows of the place had butcher paper taped to the insides, making it impossible for her to see in. She took a moment to quiet her mind and then pulled open the door.

  Standing there waiting for her was an old man with a mustache. He wore a navy suit, no tie, and he looked startled to see her. Apparently expecting someone else, he raised a hand and spoke, “No, I’m sorry, ma’am, we—”

  Before he could finish, another man interrupted him in a language that sounded, to Valencia’s ear, more like Turkmen than Uzbek. The man came from the back. There were ladders leaning against the near wall, and the room smelled like paint. Valencia shifted on the balls of her feet so her back was to the wall on her right instead of to the door. The second man had joined them by now, and he was making a fuss of looking her up and down.