by P. J. Tracy
Harley smiled and gazed up at the very top spire of the tree, which was still bare. “I still can’t figure out what to put up there for the final flourish. A star seems kind of obvious and pedestrian.”
“You’ll think of something.”
SIXTEEN
Annie Belinsky did a pirouette in front of the big baroque mirror in her hotel room, giving final approval to her wardrobe choice for the day’s big meeting, which had been conveniently scheduled so as not to interfere with her daily afternoon excursion to Bergdorf Goodman. When in New York City during the holiday season, it was absolutely paramount to spend any and all free time at Bergdorf’s, one of the best places on earth to Christmas shop, outside Bahnhofstrasse in Zurich.
She tugged at the lapels of her jaunty, velvet-trimmed tweed suit, which had been beautifully tailored overnight to accommodate her very generous proportions. Normally, anything without fur, feathers, or beads was absolutely unacceptable, but business meetings were an entirely different thing altogether, requiring a certain modicum of austerity. Southern belles, no matter how sartorially fearless, knew how to dress perfectly for any occasion.
She shot her snow-white French cuffs, arranged the cashmere scarf around her neck until it fell just so, then patted down her black bob before rapping on the door that divided the double suite she and Roadrunner shared. “Roadrunner? Are you ready?”
“I’m ready, Annie. I’ve been ready for an hour.”
Annie opened the door with a flourish. “What do you think?”
Roadrunner was sitting awkwardly on a velvet fainting couch that was several inches too low for his gangly six-foot-eight frame. His knees nearly brushed his ears. His eyes grew wide and he gave her a little smile. “You look great, Annie. Kind of like Sherlock Holmes.”
She gave him a sideways glance and a fondly impatient sigh. The man wore Lycra biking suits all the time, what did she expect him to say about her finery? Besides, his genius mind was always far too occupied with things much more important than social graces, which was why they made such a great road team, as it turned out.
Annie could manipulate any situation with Southern charm and cunning, and Roadrunner was so technically brilliant he stunned any audience into silence when he spoke about his craft, even if he was wearing a Lycra biking suit. In fact, his complete oblivion to anything other than his work only enhanced his credibility in stuffy boardrooms, where people had certain expectations about appearances. He had the unadulterated innocence of a true savant, and in the end, Roadrunner always delivered the goods, goods that only he could conjure.
Grace and Harley, on the other hand, were so intimidating in their own distinct ways, they could chase demons out of a room just by being there, and some people found Grace’s refusal to enter any space unarmed off-putting. Silly, but true.
“Come on, sugar. Let’s get Grace and Harley on the line for a check-in before breakfast.”
“Morning, darlin’.” Annie laid her Mississippi accent on thick as molasses when Grace answered. It was amazing how quickly it came back to her after so many years away.
“Annie, how are you two?”
“Having a grand old time painting the town red. We’re plucking up new clients faster than you could gather petals on the Rose Bowl parade route, and those petals might as well be money, because Roadrunner is nailing every single pitch. We have our last big New York City meeting this morning, and we head to Rochester tomorrow for our last appointment. And how about you? Staying out of trouble?”
“Trying to. Harley and I have the new software about thirty percent complete.”
“Hmm. I reckon that’s about two months ahead of schedule. Maybe Roadrunner and I should stay on the road for a little longer.”
“Don’t you dare,” Annie heard Harley blustering in the background. “I got all the decorations up, and it’s just me and Gracie here to enjoy them. It’s Christmas, for God’s sake. I’ve already got the prime rib dry-aging in the cooler.”
Annie winked at Roadrunner. “Well, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say you miss us.”
“Of course I do. Grace is way too nice to me and it’s just wrong. Hey, I’ve gotta go, Leo and Gino just sent some stuff. Good luck, and we’ll see you in a few days.”
Annie heard Harley’s heavy footfalls receding. “He sure gets sentimental around Christmastime, doesn’t he?” she whispered into the phone.
“Yes he does. And you don’t know the half of it—just wait until you see what he put in the foyer.”
“Well, now I’m intrigued. So you’re doing a little something for our MPD friends?”
“They have a couple glitchy computer issues related to a homicide. Sounds like it’ll be a piece of cake.”
SEVENTEEN
Max emerged from the subterranean world of public transit in his adopted homeland, leaving behind the rank, moldering smells left by the endless army of commuters whose boots had deposited snow-encased scraps of the city: flyers for a band showcase that reeked like stale beer, business cards for a new restaurant or boutique laced with perfume or a random droplet of coffee; a lost receipt or a greasy fast-food wrapper that had picked up a trace of dog crap along the way.
And even though such things were regularly cleaned up in New York subways, their scents lingered long after they’d been swept into a bin and removed. Most people didn’t notice—they had long ago become inured to their own subway’s funk and didn’t perceive it as offensive. But Max had been cursed by a freakishly heightened sense of smell—as a young man in a confused and transitory Moscow in the days after the Berlin Wall had fallen, after the Cold War was over and anarchy ruled, his nickname had been Bloodhound.
But as bad as the smell was in this particular station, he remembered much worse smells from the underground in the former Soviet Union. There hadn’t just been wet paper in those tunnels, there had been raw sewage, seeping into cracks and putrefying, along with the rat shit, and sometimes, one or two dead drunks who’d died from something—hypothermia, staph, a blackened liver steeped in cheap vodka—most people never knew, and never really cared to know, because it happened enough that it became part of day-to-day life.
More disturbing, those people eventually started not to notice the smell of rotting human flesh, as if a dead person in a subway was just one of life’s many nuisances that somebody else would eventually clean up when it was convenient. Sometimes, it took a couple of days before the police finally cleared the corpses out, as if they were bags of trash to be carted off to the city dump, all in due time.
Max pulled his topcoat closed at the throat and shivered off the memories from a much darker time in his life; tried to push away the image of his own father suffering that particular fate, only to be unceremoniously tossed into some pile in a morgue, no doubt, and buried without a single word, or more likely cremated by the State, because that was so much more efficient in a world where efficiency was nonexistent unless dealing with the dead. He’d never been privy to the details of his father’s death and disposal, but common sense and experience had led him to the conclusion that it had been grim.
With a great sigh of relief, he finally saw daylight and took the stairs up to street level two at a time until he could suck in the relatively fresher air of the city. Exhaust fumes he’d learned to handle long ago. The old Zhigulis and Fiats hadn’t exactly had catalytic converters.
It had finally stopped snowing, and most of the day’s accumulation had already been cleared, but a few flakes persisted, floating down from the heavens in a final good-bye, or maybe a final fuck you as the storm moved off to conquer the Atlantic and beyond. Max would be doing the same thing himself—very soon—after one last job.
He smelled Ivan the Terrible coming long before he emerged from the subway—the strong, revolting reek of Troika cigarettes, and the more comforting scents of gun oil and steel.
“Privet, Maksim.”
> “You’re still smoking those shit Troikas, Ivan? What’s the matter with you?”
Ivan’s laugh rattled like a badly broken piece of machinery, which he was. “Old habits die hard, tovarish.”
“You miss the old days so much, you steep yourself in its stench?”
“This is a good life here, I will admit. Look at us both, living the American Dream. But we miss certain things about the old days, don’t we? That’s why you came here today. What is that Bruce Springsteen song? ‘Glory Days’? They’re back, Maksim, for this short moment in time. History and our mother country call us into service once again, perhaps for the last time.”
“So you’re not only clinging to your Troikas, you’re clinging to your melodramatic Russian soul.”
“We will always be Russians, tovarish, whether you like it or not.”
Max grunted. “History is not paying, so who is?”
Ivan seemed to relish letting the question hang. His cold, gray, soulless eyes actually sparked to life for a brief moment. “This is a very important job, with rich rewards. And it comes from the very highest authority.” He let out his rattling chuckle again. “From an old boss of ours, Maksim, so you understand what must be at stake.”
Max didn’t know what was at stake—he never did, and he really didn’t care. It wasn’t his job to know details. The less he knew, the better. “Tell me what I need to know.”
Ivan pulled a flash drive from an inner pocket of his coat. “Details. Your flight is in three hours.”
Max palmed the flash drive. “Are you joining me?”
“No, no. I have other business locally.” He smiled. “But I’m certain you will enjoy your destination—the weather is just like Moscow.”
• • •
Max looked out the plane’s window at the white, lake-pocked landscape below him. Minnesota was called the Land of Ten Thousand Lakes and from up in the sky, he could see it was an appropriate moniker. He’d never been to Minnesota before and he found it odd that his vocation would bring him to a quiet little city in the Midwest, one with such a wholesome reputation. But apparently it was the epicenter of something, because he had three targets here. Odder still was the nature of his assignment: according to the sparse details he’d been provided, his targets were to be protected at all costs—an unusual request for a career assassin to receive.
The conclusion was an obvious one—if Russia wanted these people kept alive, then somebody else wanted them dead, which meant they were of very high value and worth the risk of an ugly international incident if things went wrong. He would be the first one sacrificed if the situation necessitated it. Had he been the inquisitive type, he would have mentally pursued the matter further, but it wasn’t his puzzle to solve.
When a flight attendant announced they would be landing in Minneapolis in thirty minutes, Max finished his Diet Coke and deleted the computer file he’d been reading and rereading for the better part of two hours. Undoubtedly, there would be more instructions to come, but the current ones he had memorized verbatim.
He had an unsettled feeling about this trip; the only thing that kept his mood aloft was the thought of seeing Vera again.
EIGHTEEN
Homicide was relatively quiet when Gino and Magozzi got back from meeting Lydia Ascher at the Chatham. Louise Washington and fire-haired Johnny McLaren were both at their desks working the phones, and Peterson the emaciated vegan was rooting around the snack table which was a mecca of junk food. Gino made a quick detour, gave Peterson a pat on his bony shoulder, then grabbed a couple of bags of cheesy puffs.
“Hey, Peterson. I thought vegans were supposed to be healthy.”
“Not necessarily. We just eat plant-based food and most junk food is plant based, so it’s kind of a win-win.”
Gino scratched his chin, examining the potato chips, the tortilla chips, the Fritos, the Potato Stix, and the dizzying array of candy. “Damn, Peterson, I never thought of it that way. You think if I stopped eating meat and dairy for a while and went on a diet of plant-based junk food, I’d get skinny like you?”
Peterson snickered. “That’s not going to happen. I’ve known you for four years, Rolseth. You’d rather smear honey on yourself and get eaten alive by fire ants before you gave up meat and dairy.”
“You’re absolutely right, Peterson.” Magozzi dragged Gino away from the snacks and a potential vegan conversion. “Let’s get through some paper.”
Gino plopped down in his chair and started shuffling and stacking files, setting them up in piles that looked as precarious as the final stages of a game of Jenga.
Magozzi pulled Lydia Ascher’s impromptu sketch out of his briefcase and put it in the printer to scan. Whether or not there was anything to it, it still belonged in the case files. “So what do you think of Lydia Ascher?”
Gino shrugged, jiggling his computer mouse to wake up his machine. “I think she’s cute as a cloth-covered button and I’m positive she didn’t have anything to do with Charles Spencer’s murder. I’m on the fence about the spooky guy from the airport. I mean, Angela sees something weird about somebody every time we go anywhere and she’s always right. Women are observant by nature, it’s a survival thing. They anticipate, we react. You and I are only observant because we trained ourselves to be for our job. Plus, the situation kind of led Lydia there. A nice guy she met on a plane and has coffee with ends up murdered a few hours later. Her brain tries to make sense of it, so she remembers the guy in the airport café who gave her the creeps for whatever reason and a story forms subconsciously.”
Magozzi cocked his brow. “Please don’t tell me you’re in therapy.”
“Hell no, it’s just commonsense psychology . . . Oh lookie here. We got a report from Ballistics Dave, check it out.”
Magozzi abandoned the printer and went to his own desk, but Gino was already giving him a rundown by the time he’d seated himself in front of his own computer and pulled the report up for himself.
“Spencer bought it with a nine-millimeter and his friend Wally got his with a .45. Both guns are clean, riflings didn’t jibe with anything on any registry.”
“Of course they didn’t. We never get that lucky.”
“No, we never do, but now there’s a possibility that we’re looking for two shooters instead of just one. Great.”
“It could still be one shooter with two guns. But either way, it’s weird. Seems like these guys were serious targets for no reason we can see.”
“Maybe the airport guy really was tailing Spencer after all.” Gino grunted, then picked up a call on his cell and put it on speaker. “It’s Cory from Arson,” he said. “Hey, Cory, what do you know?”
“I know that Wally Luntz’s house got blown to kingdom come because somebody rigged the gas lines from the outside. We found pieces of a device that looks like something you’d see in a war zone.”
“Jesus.”
“Yeah, there’s no question it’s arson. I heard he was murdered before the explosion. Is that true?”
“Yeah.”
Cory sighed through the phone. “Wow. Somebody really wanted that guy wiped off the map. How’s your shoulder, Gino?”
Gino sputtered. “Where’d you hear about that?”
“We played broomball last night against Freddie Wilson’s team.”
“Tell Wilson and Ames they’re both dead men.”
Cory laughed. “Hey, they weren’t talking out of school or anything. In fact, Freddie said you were as graceful as a cat, you just didn’t land on your feet.”
“That bastard. I hope you handed their asses to them.”
“Are you kidding? Nobody beats that team. We lost seven to one.”
Gino hung up and glared at Magozzi. “What are you smiling at?”
“I’m thinking we didn’t do so bad after all. A successful broomball future isn’t out of the question.”
>
“We were behind ten to one in the first fifteen minutes.”
“We would have gotten better.”
Gino readjusted his chair position along with his bruised ego. “I’m less worried about our future in broomball than I am about our future as detectives.” He opened up a file. “Wallace Luntz. Retired iron foundry worker. Volunteered at his local public library. Delivered Meals on Wheels twice a week. No police record, no criminal associations, solid financials. He was a good neighbor and a model citizen, just like Charles Spencer. They both get shot in the head and Luntz’s house gets shot up into the sky. What are we missing?”
“We’re missing all the private information and deep dark secrets we would normally find on a victim’s computer. And their computers are gone.”
NINETEEN
The only good thing about the long drive from Minneapolis to the country was the sensation that you were moving from some anxiety-ridden place of noise and crowds and traffic to someplace better. Lydia’s jangled nerves finally started to still once she’d pulled off the freeway, and by the time she’d turned onto the wooded, snow-dusted back roads that would bring her home, she had calmed into a gentle sorrow for Chuck Spencer.
She hadn’t really known him, but he’d been such a nice man. She’d never met his friend Wally, but surely neither one of them deserved such a senseless, brutal end. The coincidence of their murders on the same night wasn’t lost on her, but that was work for the detectives.
She pulled into the aspen-lined drive and up to the house that had felt like home the first time the realtor had shown her the place. She stopped her car at the front walk and listened to the cold, peaceful silence of her woodland sanctuary. Here, deer romped and songbirds and wild turkeys feasted at her many feeders; fox patrolled for rabbits and mice, nature went on as nature always had, and people didn’t kill each other.