by Todd Merer
Hold on. The drug-conspiracy statute charged in the indictment expired after five years. But apparently, Bolivar had been arrested after the statute of limitations had run. I had an inkling of how and why but left the thought for now.
“Tell me about Mr. Bolivar,” I said.
“Like I said, I don’t know him. I’m just here for the person who knows about the case. Could you please meet with him?”
“Your business associate?”
“My . . . yes, him.”
I figured the associate was Joaquin Bolivar himself. Again, I wondered if he were a fugitive. “When does he want to meet?”
“Now. He’s waiting.”
I took that to mean Bolivar didn’t want to go public. Which answered my question:
Fugitive.
Jilly’s ride was a lead-gray stretch limo with a customized grille resembling a bulldog with an underbite. It rode heavily, as if armored. The driver sat behind a shuttered panel. Jilly sat looking out the window. Her fingers, long and lightly tanned, were clasped in her lap. On her marriage finger was a faint, pale outline where a ring had been. I wondered about that story.
We drove down Fifth and turned west on Central Park South. Horse carriages were lined up across from the hotels. Just a few days ago I’d been in one with the Avianca flight attendant.
“I love horses,” she said. Unscripted, her voice had a touch of country.
“I used to like the ponies myself.” How fucking true. The second time I’d gotten wealthy, it had stayed in Vegas.
“Where I grew up, lots of kids had horses,” she said.
“I never touched one until I was seventeen.”
She wasn’t listening to me. “We couldn’t afford a horse.”
“We couldn’t afford a TV to watch them.” Did I just say that? I was totally out of control. This one was so gorgeously perfect, I was shaky. A guy with my voice said, “Where did you grow up?”
“Not far from Tulsa.”
I used to love this country song—“You’re the Reason God Made Oklahoma”—about a full moon over Tulsa and a rancher’s daughter. I pictured the rancher’s daughter like Jilly: perfect skin and hair and teeth and the effervescence of a girl enjoying being a girl.
She smiled.
I wanted to move on her, badly. But she was already with a man that Foto feared—Foto, who never worried about anything farther than his enlarged dick and probably held the world’s record for having been chased naked down the most fire escapes by angry husbands waving weapons. Besides, maybe the man who had her also had my fee.
Bad idea. Forget it.
We passed Sixth Avenue and then Seventh. Ahead, outlined against the white winter sky, stood a jagged skyline of new one-hundred-plus-story condos whose price tags were far more than the getaway money I yearned for. Not for the first time, I thought I was in the wrong business. But what was the right business? The kind that allows so many people to afford those kinds of prices?
The bulldog entered Columbus Circle and stopped in front of a new building known as the Kursk Needle. A while ago, it had been in the tabloids because its namesake was a Russian oligarch with links to organized crime.
The Needle’s lobby was nouveau Trump. Doormen uniformed like Ruritanian generals. Mammoth marble atrium dominated by an odd work of art: an actual battle tank, bronzed like a baby shoe. A plaque identified the tank as a T-34, the legendary battle horse of the Red Army that had gone toe-to-toe with German Panzers in the greatest tank battle of all time: Kursk. As in, the Kursk Needle.
The elevator had two buttons: “Lobby” and “PH.” My stomach dropped as it whooshed up. Jilly stood facing the door. She was visibly nervous. My stomach caught up with me as the elevator slowed to a stop and slid open, and we entered the point of the Needle.
Impressive, I had to admit. The glass was cut in layered panes, forming a sheath that covered the vaulted ceiling. Glass and marble and minimalist leather furniture. Plus two black-suited thugs.
“Welcome, sir,” one said. “My name is Andrey. This is Kyril.”
I recognized Andrey’s voice as that of the man who’d spoken over the phone. His accent was sort of like Val’s: Mitteleuropean, but thicker, more eastern. He was thin as a blade and smelled faintly of Vitalis. Kyril was small, bespectacled, with a shaved head. He looked me up and down without so much as a nod.
We followed Andrey through another room that was empty except for a tripod-mounted telescope pointing out at the city. We passed the scope and went down a ramp that looked stolen from the Guggenheim.
The lower level was empty except for a thin man seated in a chair. He wore an Adidas tracksuit and was using a chopstick to scratch an ankle. His color scheme matched the décor: black eye patch, paper-white face, black yarmulke. He worked the chopstick beneath a blue plastic ankle bracelet.
I revised my forecast.
The bracelet was an electronic monitor worn by people under house arrest. Joaquin Bolivar wasn’t a fugitive. He was already a defendant.
I was wrong again.
“I’m Nathan Grable,” the man said, his Russian accent like Andrey’s but the voice higher, reed-thin, like his seemingly undernourished body. “My friends call me Natty.”
“Nice meeting you, Natty.”
As we shook hands, I saw a crudely inked tattoo on Natty’s wrist: a hammer and sickle enclosed by a red star with barbed borders.
“Now we are friends,” Natty said. “Friends are only important thing in a man’s life. Me, I am friend of Joaquin Bolivar.” He pointed at his leg. “This fucking bracelet I wear? Like Joaquin, I am falsely accused by the feds. For me, they fabricate lies that I manipulate commodity sales. Gasoline. For Joaquin, the lie is that he conspires marijuana. Ridiculous. I have a lawyer, but Joaquin does not. I want to help my friend. Why, you wonder, yes?”
“Tell me if you like,” I said. “Or not.”
“Because I believe. Loyalty. Friends.”
When my clients talk about friendship, I keep my trap shut. I’ve seen the things these types of friends do to one another, and they ain’t pretty.
He motioned in the direction of Andrey and Kyril. “These are friends, too. Why? Because we went through hell together. You know Spetsnaz? Special forces of former USSR? My unit fight so many Afghan blackies, you wouldn’t believe. Kill plenty but always plenty more. Like cockroaches. Finally, politicians say war cost too much. We go home leaving behind Marek, buried under rocks near Jalalabad. The two Leonids come with us, but in pieces. Little Leon, no more arms, no more legs, sips vodka from a straw, and pisses himself. Big Leon, in a sanitarium with black mold on the walls. We still help them. Why? Loyalty. Organiskiya. You understand, yes?”
“I think I catch your drift.”
“Ask how I came to call you. Go on, ask.”
“How did you come to call me?”
“I want my lawyer to represent Joaquin, but my lawyer says he does not do narcotics cases. He says for narcotics the number one man is Bluestone.”
I smelled a referral coming on. “That was very nice of your lawyer. What did you say his name was?”
“Not important. Here is the thing. Joaquin is going to be extradited from Colombia. We want you to defend his case. We want for you meet with Joaquin. But first, business is business.” Natty snapped his fingers, and Andrey handed me an envelope. There was a check inside. Certified, drawn on a Swiss bank. The checking account title was Murmansk-54 Imports, Inc. The check was made out to me.
For $1 million.
Be still, my heart.
“Okay?” he said.
“Fine.”
“Tell Joaquin we are finding property for his bail.”
“It may not be necessary. If he’s a Colombian citizen, after extradition he’s technically in the United States illegally. That means there’ll be an immigration detainer—a hold—on him, which means he’s ineligible for bail.”
“Passport no problem,” he said. “Maybe Joaquin American citizen.”
�
��That’s good,” I said, although bail was still a long shot, because someone being extradited surely would be deemed a flight risk. “Hopefully, we’ll get bail.”
“Hopefully?” Jilly said to Natty. “I thought it was certain.”
“Please, no talk,” Natty said. “Be good girl. Go.”
For a moment, Jilly stood there, helpless. Then she left the room.
Natty smiled benevolently. “Beautiful lady, yes?”
“Yes,” I said. “About the bail?”
“I know about bail,” said Natty. “They didn’t want me to have bail, but my lawyer got it for me. You can do the same for Joaquin.”
“If it can be done, I will—”
“You can do,” Natty said, resuming working the chopstick. Andrey was thumbing his device. Kyril was looking at me. The message was clear: Say goodbye, Benn.
“Goodbye,” I said.
No one saw me out. I went up the ramp. Jilly was at the window, looking through the telescope. Apparently, my reappearance startled her, because she quickly stepped aside. Averting her face from me, she headed back down the ramp. I watched her descend. Nice. Perfect posture. High breasts; long neck; thick, golden hair. V-shaped torso and perfect, pert ass and those legs . . . I swore to myself that if ever I had another chance with her, I would not pass it up.
Passing the telescope, I paused. I always like a good bird’s-eye view and was curious what she’d been looking at. I put my eye to the scope. It was pointed high in the skyline all the way downtown, where it was focused on a building topped with a statue that shone golden in the sunlight.
I recognized the building. It signified nothing to me.
I held the check up to the light and peered at it. It signified the same as a moment ago: made out to me for $1 million.
I pocketed it and left.
CHAPTER 16
As I made my way back to my office, I thought about the Colombian-Russian link. I didn’t consider it all that unusual. Colombians produce and deliver their product to others, then step back and wait to get paid. Didn’t used to be like that; in the old days, the Colombian DTOs operated vertically, each cartel doing everything from growing to street selling. But they soon learned the streets were too dangerous and sold their vending franchises to lesser criminals. Dominicans, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, and apparently Russians. Such connections were predictable. Underworlds are conceived in jail.
But forget the hows. Concentrate on the whos.
After an hour of Internet searching for anything resembling the woman—Jilly, Jillian, sounds like Shenolt—I realized my attempts were futile. She was a cipher.
PACER was the official US federal courts database in which all docketed cases could be found. I entered PACER, linked to the Eastern District of New York, and queried United States of America v. Joaquin Bolivar. There were only two items on the docket: the indictment, which I already had, and an attorney’s notice of appearance entered by the prosecutor, AUSA Kandice Kauffman.
Fuck. More on Ms. Kandi Kauffman later, none of it good.
Again I searched for Jillian Shenolt but got nowhere.
I went back into PACER and queried USA v. Grable.
I got a hit. According to an indictment, Nathan aka Natty Grable and a dozen-odd codefendants had conspired to defraud American investors in nonexistent gasoline. The amounts were in the tens of millions. Most of the defendants had already pled guilty except for Natty and two others. Judging by the motion practice, the three were well on their way to trial.
Natty was represented by Morton L. Plitkin.
Surprising. I’d disliked Morty Plitkin for many years. He was a shark, but he knew I was a killer whale and made sure to keep a wary distance from me. No way he’d recommended me for a drug case like this, because Plitkin did all the drug work he could scare up. Even more surprising that he hadn’t called me in advance to secure the request for a referral fee I was sure would be forthcoming.
I took a closer look at Natty’s case. He’d originally been denied bail, but because of a medical issue that could not be properly treated in jail—its specifics redacted from the docket—Natty had been allowed house arrest with exceptions for medical treatment, legal consultations, and religious observance, pending trial.
Natty was as fishy as a Baltic herring. I thought it wise to have some b.g. on him, so I rummaged in my bookcase and found a slim volume titled Russian Criminal Tattoos. I skimmed through it until I found a tattoo identical to Natty’s. The tat was self-administered by prisoners in the Soviet Gulag, specifically a camp named Murmansk-54.
That got me to wondering which came first: the camp, or the company of the same name. And that in turn got me to wondering whether the check written by Murmansk-54 was any good. And that ended with me wondering how a world-class beauty like Jilly got mixed up with low-class slime like Natty . . .
I reran my memory tape of when she’d introduced herself. So beyond beautiful, her breathy pronunciation of Shen-olt. A foreign-sounding name. A romance language: extended, lilting . . .
Shen-olt.
I needed to disassociate. Let my mind wander elsewhere. I opened my device. Last I’d used it was in the air-sketch app, and the face of my ex-wife now appeared. Classic-shaped face, both lips the same width, symmetrical brows above large eyes—
But to hell with her.
What about Jilly?
Shen-olt?
Uttered aloud, the name was vaguely familiar. Someone I know? Knew? No. Someone I knew of? Maybe. Wait, wait, wait . . .
Then I got it.
I’m into old war films. Black-and-whiters I used to watch on obscure cable channels when I was getting high, doing all-nighters. How many times had I made cocaine-fueled love while staring at Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo? Or chain-smoked and drank tequila while glued to Gung Ho! as a girl or two snored next to me? God Is My Co-Pilot was my favorite. The legendary Flying Tigers, P-40 squadrons led by Raymond Massey, playing General Claire Chennault—
I searched for Jillian Chennault, and up popped entry after entry on:
MRS. JILLIAN CHENNAULT III
The entries were a series of articles from the same source, the Ozelle News. I searched Ozelle News and found it was the newspaper serving a small town on the Pacific side of Washington state’s Olympic Peninsula. The articles were chronological; the first, four years ago:
A wedding announcement. Groom Sholty Chennault III, CEO of Chennault Industries and son of Mr. Sholty Chennault Jr. (deceased) and Mary Chennault (nee Debevoise) of Palm Beach, Florida. The bride was referred to as Jillian Chennault (nee Randa), but she dominated the photograph. She wasn’t platinum then but a natural dark blonde, a Miss America if ever there was one. Alongside her, Sholty was older, bland behind thick eyeglasses.
I sat up straight when I saw the next article. The headline said it all:
SHOLTY CHENNAULT III SLAIN
Entries unspooled like frames in an old black-and-white thriller:
DA SAYS WIFE A PERSON OF INTEREST
Chennault Family Calls Wife Black Widow
More stories about the investigation followed, gradually becoming repetitious, smaller. Then nothing at all until two years ago:
CHENNAULT INVESTIGATION CLOSED
Wife Awarded Inheritance
The prosecutor’s announcement was brief, although the Chennault family was more verbose, maintaining that Jillian was the killer. But apparently nothing came of that, because no articles followed. Made sense to me. I couldn’t see Jilly as a murderess. Nor could I see her as the wife of Sholty Chennault III. Nor could I see her with the man she’d been with in Panama City, much less with Natty Grable . . .
On the other hand, I could definitely see her with me.
But I was straying off topic. What about my money?
I searched Murmansk-54 Import, Inc.
Zilch.
I noodled around variants. Murmansk Export. Murmansk Import/Export. Nothing. I searched Murmansk businesses and firms, but all I found was stuff on Murmans
k itself. During the Second World War, it had been the principal Russian port receiving supply convoys from the States. I pulled up a map and located the city of Murmansk, on the Russian Arctic coast, more west than east by far, right next to Finland, in fact. A port city connected to the Artic Sea by a wide bay and river, ice-bound excepting for a few summer months. What cargo came into Murmansk in the warm months was easily rerouted west to Scandinavia or through the Baltic Sea to the Baltic republics and Eastern Europe.
I was straying again.
I searched for the Swiss bank that had certified the check.
It was a real bank in a Swiss city whose main business was moving money. Which inevitably meant some of the money was dirty. Which was why I had once visited the city in connection with a money-laundering extradition. I remembered gray buildings by a gray lake under a gray sky. Was the check also in a gray area? What if it bounced? Depositing a phony check for one mil reeked of con. I needed to ensure that it was clean.
I went into the US Treasury Department Office of Foreign Assets Control website. OFAC had a Specially Designated Narcotics Traffickers list—aka the Clinton List—and all American citizens, including lawyers, had to obtain an OFAC license before doing business with a listed trafficker. A lot of midlevel nobodies were on the list, and a lot of big traffickers were not. The list was a perfect example of the state of the war against drugs: off center due to its being half-assed.
Murmansk-54 wasn’t on the list. Nor was Joaquin Bolivar. Nor Nathan Grable.
I needed to confirm the check was real, but because of the time difference, it was night in Switzerland, and the bank would be closed. Doubtful the gray bankers would tell me anything, anyway.
Okay then. Supposing the check was real?
Then I pocket a million shekels, and it don’t matter who’s paying. For sure it wasn’t Natty Grable. He might go to extraordinary lengths to help his brethren, but who was Joaquin Bolivar to him? Doubtful it was Jilly, despite her inheritance. She had no apparent interest in the case, and I was convinced she couldn’t break a plate. On the other hand, she’d referred to “business associates,” ostensibly meaning Natty or Bolivar . . . and, more chillingly, she had been suspected of murder.