Red Mercury Blues

by Reggie Nadelson

  He was a mafia groupie; crime turned him on.

  “Tell me something I don’t know.”

  He helped himself to my smokes and lit up.

  “Everyone on that TV show had a beef against Ustinov. Zalenko thought he sold out Mother Russia. Saroyan reckoned he wanted to stifle capitalism, for which read extortion. Officialdom hated little Olga’s kind, poor bitch,” he said.

  “Ustinov was ex-KGB. They were all Russians with a beef. So what else is new?”

  “Myself, I wouldn’t trust Anatoly Sverdloff.”

  “Why not?”

  “Ustinov once locked him up. Got him to talk. Ustinov had charm. He could make anyone talk.”

  “What else?”

  “Lily Hanes had the hots for Ustinov, I noticed.” Crowe leered and helped himself to more wine.

  “Lily Hanes your friend too?”

  “Everyone’s my friend, darling,” he said.

  “Maybe it was you,” I said. “After all, you had a beef, didn’t you? Ustinov treated your old man like the garbage he was, didn’t he?” I tossed it out.

  Crowe’s eyes went dead with hate.

  I said, “Stick around a couple days,” and threw some money on the table.

  “Is that official?”

  “Official enough for you.”

  “One other thing,” he called as I started to leave. “I’m in a hurry.”

  “Ask Phil Frye about Ustinov’s book. Ask him where the missing pages are.”

  8

  I figured I was maybe on to something, and when I began trying to get at Phillip Frye I was convinced. After I left Crowe, I spent the rest of the day trying to track Frye down; Frye was coy. At his office his secretary said he was out, at a meeting, gone home, whatever.

  Still zonked from the cuts on my face and the growing reality of Gennadi’s death, I went home, but the Frye thing bugged me. It bugged me when I called the Chelsea later and heard Crowe left town, so did the fact Ustinov had locked up Sverdloff once. The man in glasses at the café in Brighton Beach bothered the shit out of me. He knew my name. I figured he had to be connected to the creep who cut me, who maybe also shot Ustinov. Sonny was unavailable and it was my fault. I didn’t know how to get help. I was out of the loop.

  The vacuum cleaner was propped against the wall and I climbed off the sofa, uncoiled the cord and plugged it in; it roared into life like a fighter plane. The place was a mess.

  The Taes had done the bare bones renovation on the loft, but I had painted it myself and scraped the old hardwood floors and waxed them until they were like mirrors. Back when I moved in, ten years ago, when Benny Ong was still running Chinatown, it seemed crazy, a cop living in a loft below Canal Street.

  Chet Baker was on the CD playing “It Never Entered My Mind”. I never could figure how a white man could play such gorgeous stuff. “There’s this little white cat on the coast gonna eat you boys alive,” Charlie Parker said after he first heard Chet. I even made a pilgrimage to the Lighthouse, the club in Hermosa Beach Chet used to play at. Shortie Rogers, too.

  Vacuuming my place made me feel better, and I got up on a ladder and dusted the window sills, then I dumped all the dirty laundry into a bag, scrubbed out the bathtub and did the dishes. I like cleaning. I like the order.

  Until Ustinov was shot, I was a pretty happy guy. I had a life. I got to travel. I liked the job, sometimes a lot.

  New York is home. The Taes are family. There are friends. Music. Softball with the guys. Girls. Once a week I eat ribs at Tennessee Mountain with Lois and Louise from across the hall, and I would marry either of them, or both, if they weren’t already in love with each other. I even have a little money in the bank because when you could play around with junk bonds in the eighties, Dawn Tae who has an MBA and can make money do tricks you never dreamed of, showed me how. I blew most of it on fixing my place. I bought a few pictures I liked and the Mustang, took a trip to New Orleans and listened to music there and saw the bayou trees. The few bucks I had left I put away.

  The day I realized I didn’t owe anyone any money was a liberation. I even have a broker named Stephanie who doesn’t let me touch it. You can inhabit New York very nice if you’re not sick or poor. I don’t have to mortgage myself to corruption the way a lot of the guys are tempted to, and who can blame them?

  From time to time a letter comes from Aunt Birdie, and I worry about my mother. After my father was killed by a bomb on a tourist bus in Galilee, she retreated into a kind of Yiddishkeit of her own making, looking to inhabit the world of her own grandparents. I get over to see her in Haifa once a year, if I can, and the Alzheimer’s leaves her periods of lucidity, but they’re getting shorter.

  I was making a mozzarella sandwich when the front door suddenly burst open; I scrambled for my gun.

  “What is this, the OK Corral? Jesus Christ,” bellowed Rick. “This is New York, Artie. Civilization, you know?”

  He was carrying an armful of beer. “Look what I got. A fabulous micro-brewery in New Haven.”

  “You’re turning into a beer bore, Ricky. I hate beer bores. I like Bud Lite. What’s up?”

  “Tastes like cat piss.” He sat cross-legged on the kitchen counter and drank with zest. “I read something in the paper maybe means something. Who owns The Teddy Flowers Show?

  “What do you mean, who owns it?”

  “Is it network? Cable? A syndicate?”

  Next door, the kid was playing a Nine Inch Nails album. “Shut it up.” I pounded the wall.

  “Jesus, you’re wired,” Ricky said mildly. “So who owns him?”

  “Surprise me.”

  “CBM owns it. That’s who.”

  “OK.”

  Ricky loves this stuff. He likes revealing information with what he considers legerdemain, and for a while he planned on being a professional magician. His mother got fed up with the dead rabbits around the place and cooked one.

  “CBM is a media conglomerate that’s suddenly buying up all kinds of stuff. Talk shows. Tabloids in small markets. Putting together a mini-network, like Fox.”

  “And?”

  “Today I read that CBM also owns Madison House. So I think how come the same go-getter media outfit that’s in bed with tabs wants a staid book-publishing outfit?”

  I got onions out from the icebox and began chopping them to go with some eggs I planned on making.

  “You want me to do that?”

  “No thanks. Tell me what you’re getting at.”

  “Madison House published a memoir by a certain ex-KGB general. Interesting? Do we care both General Ustinov and Teddy Flowers are owned by the same people?”

  “I guess. You saw the tape of the show I left you?”

  Ricky nodded. “The fat guy? The one with tits that could feed an orphanage?”

  “Sverdloff. He’s a DJ. A rock and roll type.”

  “He seems familiar. I think I’m going to make some calls,” he said. “I got cousins with good connections in old commie rock circles.”

  Like most Chinese, Ricky Tae has cousins all over the place. I’m ten years older and six inches taller, but he’s tougher and smarter, some kind of actual class-A genius when he bothers. He graduated Bronx Science High, then MIT, but he went into the family business in the end. “Gimme a plate of perfect dumplings for a religious experience,” he always says.

  Ricky has a loft in the building too and, early on, when I first moved in, we became friends. Sometimes, when the Taes go home to Riverdale, we sit up late in the restaurant talking politics, smoking, playing some chess. It was Rick got his folks to change the name of the place from China Host to the Tiananmen Café; he’s the only son and they indulged him and changed the sign.

  “Artie? You in there, babe?” a voice yelled through the door. It was the casting director who lives two floors down. Her name’s Irma but she calls herself Oxygen.

  “Later,” I yelled back.

  “Jesus Christ,” Ricky said irritably. Oxygen never pays her rent on time. It drive
s the Taes crazy. “What do you see in her? She bolshoi ugly, man.”

  Ricky makes me laugh and I love him. Years ago, I figured out he’s sexually ambivalent, and he knows I know, but it doesn’t matter to anyone except Mr Tae. I can say pretty much anything to Ricky. Once I crossed a Une. We were talking about women and why I could never fix on one and settle down and I said to him, “You think I’m a faggot?” and he shot me a look. I knew it was a mistake.

  “She’s not that bad.”

  “Reality check, Artie.” Ricky looked out the window. “I think you got more company. This place is turning into Grand Central Station. I gotta go.”

  I leaned out the window and threw the keys to Maxine Crabbe who climbed out of a taxi. She waved and came up.

  “Hi, Artie.” Max kissed me, but she was nervous.

  A string bean of a girl, too tall for her torso, she has a punk haircut, an angelic face, a disposition to match and long loose limbs. She wanted to be a jazz singer, but ended up in forensics. We went out for a while, but eventually she gave up on me and married a handsome fire chief named Mark and moved to a house on Staten. Island where you can practically fish the Arthur Kill from the back yard. They have twin girls.

  She had called earlier. She was coming over, she said; she didn’t want to talk on the phone. Maxie accepted a cold beer and zipped her purse uneasily. With those two kids, she’s always strapped for cash.

  “Let me give you the money for the taxi, Max, OK? It’s my nickel.”

  “It’s not that. We’re friends, right, Artie?”

  “You know that. Hey, I’m not going to come on to you. I like Mark.”

  She sucked on the bottle. “It isn’t that. I’m not supposed to be here. Where did you get that knife you got sent over? What’s with you and Agent Pettus?”

  I told her some of it.

  “Look, doll, this Ustinov thing has moved up the ladder. It’s mostly all Feds now. Roy Pettus told me I could talk to you about the knife because he thinks you’re in trouble and he likes you, but from now on it’s going tight as the cracks in some assholes I know. Everyone is frantic. And I’m not even really in Pettus’ jurisdiction exactly.” She hesitated.

  “What? What? Come on, Max. This is me.”

  “My boss gets this call from Sonny Lippert. He lets on you’re on leave, you know? Tells him stay clear of Artie Cohen. Like you have a disease. Why, Artie?” She looked at the wooden counter that separates the kitchen from the rest of the place. “You got anything to eat? I’m starving.”

  I made her a sandwich out of some sweet Italian sausage and a slab of mozzarella on focaccia.

  “Thanks.” Chewing, she sat on a stool at the kitchen counter and leaned on her elbows. “OK. This is really preliminary, but I got some prints. And blood. I love blood,” she said with relish, her mouth full. Maxine is nuts for blood. Since OJ and the DNA thing, blood has become the fingerprints of the nineties.

  “Spell it out for me, Max.”

  “The knife is what they call a boning knife. Only three or four places sell this kind. Fancy chef stuff. Very expensive, over a hundred bucks.” She took a list out of her purse. “These are the stores.”

  “That’s not all, is it?”

  She shook her head.

  “What?”

  “Gimme a cigarette.”

  I lit one for her.

  “People talk wild stuff. You know.”

  “Yes.”

  “Turn on the stereo, OK. Just in case.”

  “Sure. But no one’s listening.” I put on Peggy Lee.

  Maxie lowered her voice.

  “The weird thing, and it’s not my territory, but there have been forensics guys from Washington I’ve never seen before. Something is going on and it’s way out of my league. I don’t know, but you should be careful, Artie. Be careful.”

  “What? What is it?”

  “Nothing.” She was holding back. She was scared.

  “Tell me.”

  “I gotta go now, Artie. I gotta go.”

  It goes without saying there was a lot of crap being talked about this whole case, and Maxie had probably stepped in some of it. She was holding back and I was pissed off, but she has the kids to worry about. I called her a few times but there was no answer. I left messages for her boss. Nothing. The shops where you could buy a knife for a hundred bucks weren’t much help, either; I got in touch with most of them and came up blank.

  For the third time since Roy Pettus gave it to me, I opened the plastic bag. I knew the contents by heart: Birdie’s fudge; a book written by a kid I went to school with; a few photographs, including one of me and my parents and Gennadi near a river; a funny note in Birdie’s beautiful hand. Jesus, I felt guilty about Birdie, but the guilt never quite outweighed the fear of going back, so I didn’t visit. Also in the bag was an item Roy Pettus had added, the flimsy Xerox of a double-page spread out of Ustinov’s diary, his last full day alive and the day he died. It was Roy Pettus’ real gift to me.

  Everything checked out. The hotel where Gennadi stayed, the restaurants he ate at, the people he saw. All of it was inscribed in his elegant writing, including me. Breakfast, he had written. Artyom. We were going to meet the morning after The Teddy Flowers Show.

  In one corner Gennadi had also written CB in tiny letters. Who was CB, or what?

  The phone rang. It was Sverdloff. He reminded me I promised to meet him. He wanted the meet tomorrow night. I owed him so I agreed. I took off my shorts and got under the shower. I ran it hot and hard, then I switched it off and grabbed blind for a towel. There was blood from my face streaming down my chest.

  “Artie, babe? Sweetheart? You in there?” It was Oxygen screaming through the door. “Hey, I’m bored. Open up.” Once in a while she offers me a part. I love it. I would have been an actor if I had any talent.

  “You wanna night job?” she screams, clattering past on her five-inch platforms. “I got defectors, I got dissidents, I got KGB, nice uniforms.” “Why can’t I play an American?” I always ask. “Americans I already got. You want it, you don’t want it? I got the director on the phone. I got Mike Newell on the phone.”

  It was early evening. It was hot. “Don’t trust Sverdloff,” Crowe had said, but I owed Sverdloff and I didn’t trust Crowe. The guy who towed my car from Brooklyn said I owed him. I owed everybody. What the hell, I thought, life is short.

  I wrapped a towel around my waist and shouted through the door, “I’m coming.”

  Hours later, in the middle of the night, Oxygen sat up, rigid as a board, and her hat, which she wore to bed, fell onto the floor.

  “What?”

  “Outside. There’s someone there.”

  “Go back to sleep,” I said.

  “No, listen. Listen.”

  The building was silent. No dogs barked. The babies in 4B slept. No noise came from the street; it must have been around four a.m., the only time New York is silent.

  In the black stillness, holding the hand of the woman in my bed, I listened again, hearing now the faint creak of the old building: the walls in these cast-iron buildings are a foot thick, but the hardwood floors resonate, moaning on a windy night like a lighthouse in a storm. But it was humid and still out and there was nothing except the chug of the refrigerator.

  Then I heard it.

  “Stay still.” I swung my feet over the edge of the bed, feeling for my sneakers and a pair of sweatpants, fumbling in the closet for my .38.1 turned the deadbolt quiet as I could. Outside, in the narrow hall that led to the elevator and the other two lofts, the light had gone out. There was a faint scuffling, like rats, I thought. But there were no rats here; Mrs Tae is a fanatic.

  Creeping along, gun in my hand, I went down the stairs chasing the noise. In the dark, there was a palpable stink; it was the smell of rotten flesh I had smelled in Brighton Beach.

  A shadow moved down the hallway. My mouth went dry. I heard a door slam. Probably Oxygen running home from my place. Then something slimy draped itself around my
ankle, something wet, oily. Maybe there was a rat. I reached down and grabbed it and felt blood. It was the bandage from my face. It had fallen off.

  I tried to chase the shadow. It danced in the dark. Then it reached up.

  A light snapped on. I was ready.

  “Ricky? What the fuck.”

  Ricky had stripped off his T-shirt and was wrapping it coolly around his head and it was already soaked with blood. He was a skinny kid but he had real balls.

  “Give me a cigarette.”

  I gave him one.

  “I heard something. I figured you might need some help.”

  “Thanks, man.” I didn’t know what to say. Ricky had taken the blow for me. “You want me to get a doctor?”

  “Nah,” he said. “I hit my head on a door is all.”

  “Well, thanks.”

  “For what? I figured if you were screwing the broad, you wouldn’t hear a nuclear bomb drop.” He pushed his hair back from his lean face. “I gotta get cleaned up.”

  “I’m coming with you,” I said.

  “It’s OK, I can manage.” Ricky was secretive about his apartment—I’d been in it, of course, but only by invitation. It was a sleek place with a few good leather chairs and some wonderful Chinese rugs. Maybe he had a visitor. Maybe he didn’t want to tell me about it.

  “What would I do without you?”

  “Beats me, pal. Get some sleep,” Ricky said and went home.

  Somewhere I heard a door bang again, and then the eerie quiet returned to the building and by the time I got back to my place, the creep had been inside. I could smell him. My laptop was gone, nothing else. The creep left no other trace at all, except dread.

  9

  Dread was what I felt the next night when I pulled up near the Batumi Nightclub in Brighton Beach. I spent the day checking what I could around town—but the Feds were a pain in the ass and I didn’t get much satisfaction—and by the time I got to Brooklyn that night I was dog-tired. There was a greasy gun-metal sky and a sticky drizzle that smelled of seaweed. Standing in the doorway, light falling on his huge face from the Odessa Deli next door, was Tolya Sverdloff, surrounded by a phalanx of Russian men attending him as if he was some kind of priest.