Dead Man's Rule

by Rick Acker

  “What’s up?” Noelle’s voice broke into his deliberations. Ben looked up and saw her standing in his doorway.

  “Too much. I was just figuring out how much work I’ve got to do over the next week and a half. It’s not pretty.”

  “Will it get better after that?”

  Ben thought for a moment. “No.”

  Noelle looked down and shuffled her feet guiltily. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

  Ben was about to say no—after all, she wasn’t a lawyer—when an idea hit him. He raised his eyebrows and smiled. “Actually, there is. What’s your time like over the next few weeks?”

  “I’ve got a stack of spreadsheets to go through and I need to update our books, but other than that I’m pretty free. What do you have in mind?”

  “You don’t have a law license, so you can’t handle depositions, court appearances, and stuff like that. But there are other things you can do. For starters, you can go through documents and interview witnesses, which would be a big help. You can also help me put together discovery requests. We can bill you as a paralegal at, say, a hundred dollars an hour. It would really help me, and Dr. Ivanovsky shouldn’t mind. You’ll be doing work I otherwise would do, and you’ll be doing it at half my rate. Also, I could boss you around, which would be fun.”

  Noelle smiled and arched her eyebrows. “There’s a first time for everything, isn’t there? Actually, I like your idea. It’ll mean more revenue, which we can always use. Besides, if you’re going to be working late every night, I might as well do something useful to stay busy. I’ve been getting a little sick of doing reconciliations or bookkeeping for half the day and being bored the other half.”

  Later that afternoon, Ben struck gold. A former colleague gave him a lead on a private investigator, and now he was sitting across the conference-room table from a former FBI agent named Sergei Spassky. The private eye was about six foot two and had a lean, sinewy build that looked almost skinny if he stooped his shoulders. He wore wire-rimmed glasses that hid his dark, quick eyes and made him look more scholarly than streetwise. His short flattop haircut and open face also looked a little out of place for an experienced special agent—which Ben guessed was at least partially intentional.

  Spassky’s resume was impressive. He had received several commendations from the Bureau and had been the lead agent on several high-profile cases. His references—two of whom Ben knew personally and respected—spoke quite highly of him. He had only recently left the FBI to start his own agency, and his rates were well within the budget Ben and Dr. Ivanovsky had discussed. He seemed like a good candidate.

  “Sure I know Elena Kamenev,” Spassky said in response to Ben’s question. “She and I never worked together, but she had a reputation as a good agent. She’s a great shot. Two years ago she beat me out for the Chicago shotgun-marksmanship title. She’s also a SWAT-certified sniper.”

  “But I see you beat her in the handgun category,” Ben replied, looking at the man’s resume. “What’s this ‘Possible Club’ you’re a member of?”

  “That means I got a perfect score on the handgun range at the FBI National Academy.”

  “Pretty impressive,” said Ben. “Hopefully that’s not a skill you’ll need on this case. How many investigations did you handle involving Russian immigrants?”

  “At least two dozen. There weren’t too many of us who could speak Russian without an accent, so we tended to get a lot of Russian crime cases.”

  “You don’t have an accent in English either,” observed Ben. “How did you manage that?”

  “I was born and raised in America, but my parents came over from Russia in the sixties and we always spoke Russian at home.”

  Ben checked the language item off his list. “Ever hear of Nikolai Zinoviev?”

  “No.”

  “How about Dr. Mikhail Ivanovsky?”

  “No.”

  Ben looked over his resume again and decided to hire him. “Congratulations, Sergei. We’re going with your agency for this investigation. Dr. Ivanovsky will be your employer on this case, and Mr. Zinoviev is the target of your investigation.” Ben went on to briefly explain the case. “Any questions?”

  Spassky shook his head. “The case seems pretty straightforward. You want me to do a background check on Zinoviev, right? Pull his criminal record, credit reports, that kind of thing?”

  “Right. I’d also like you to try to identify Zinoviev’s new buyers and those guys in the back of the courtroom. We’ll need to hit them with subpoenas in the next few days.”

  The detective jotted down some notes. “What did they look like?”

  Ben stared at the table for a few seconds, trying to remember. “One was a big guy with a scar on his forehead. The other one was about average height, maybe five ten. The big one had black hair and looked like he was around forty. The other one had gray hair and looked ten or fifteen years older. Their names were Anton and Josef, but I don’t know which was which.”

  “How were they built? Skinny? Fat?”

  “They both had on overcoats, so I couldn’t really tell. I don’t remember either of them being particularly thin or fat, but the big guy looked pretty strong.”

  “Facial hair? Tattoos?”

  “The smaller one had a mustache. I think the other one was clean shaven. No tattoos that I saw, but they had their coats on the whole time.”

  “Were they wearing black?”

  “Yeah,” said Ben in mild surprise, “and so was Zinoviev. How did you know?”

  “Russian mafiya types and mafiya wannabes generally dress in black.” Spassky wrote down a few more notes. “Okay. Anything else you can tell me about either of them?”

  Ben thought for a moment. “Nothing I can think of right now. If I remember something else, I’ll give you a call.”

  Spassky opened his briefcase and put his pen and notebook away. “Thanks. I’ll start working on it this afternoon.”

  “How long do you think it’ll take?” asked Ben. “I’d like to be able to subpoena those guys in the next couple of days.”

  Spassky stared into space for a few seconds, apparently making some mental calculations. “Putting together a background file on Zinoviev shouldn’t be too hard, but getting names and addresses for everyone you want? That could be tough. With a couple of breaks, I could do it in two days. I’ll do what I can, but I don’t want to get your hopes up.”

  Ben appreciated the man’s honesty. “That’s all we ask. Welcome to the team.”

  Sergei Spassky made a couple of quick calls to start the processes that would produce Nikolai Zinoviev’s police file (he had no doubt there would be one), credit report, and so forth. That was so routine he could have done it in his sleep. Tracking down Zinoviev’s buyer and the two men Corbin had seen in the courtroom would be harder, and doing it in two days would be harder still. Sergei smiled. It would be a challenge, and he liked few things better than a good challenge.

  His first stop was a construction site on the North Side. Workmen had gutted an old warehouse building and were now rebuilding it into a mix of small shops and expensive loft apartments. Sergei stood outside, watching the construction and listening to the men carry on loud conversations in Russian and Polish over the noise of the machinery.

  After several minutes, a large man with a sport coat, tie, and improbably good hair emerged. He made a beeline for Sergei and shook his hand, saying in Russian, “Sergei Kirilovich, what brings you to see me?”

  Sergei noticed the respectful use of his patronymic and caught the hint of nervousness in the man’s voice. He smiled inwardly. Yuri Filimonov had been known to hire workers whose skills were impeccable but whose immigration papers were not. Federal law-enforcement officials were generally—but not always—willing to overlook this circumstance in return for Yuri’s willingness to provide information from time to time. “What can you tell me
about Nikolai Zinoviev?”

  He made a dismissive gesture with his left hand. “Nicki? Small-time drug dealer, heroin from Central Asia mostly. The word is that he shoots his own smack, which is stupid and cuts into profits. He’s just a shestyorka doing odd jobs for some local smugglers and drug runners. He’s nothing, but his brother was something, and Nicki mostly lives off his contacts.”

  “Who’s his brother?” asked Sergei, a little surprised that there was a Chicago-connected Russian criminal who was “something” but whose name he didn’t know.

  “His name was Alexei. High-end smuggler. He died before your time. They found him in the Chicago River.”

  Sergei made a mental note to look into that. “Who are Nicki’s contacts?”

  “I don’t know,” the contractor said, his eyes darting sidelong at Sergei. “Business has been very heavy, and I don’t talk to people as much as I used to. Sorry.”

  Sergei turned back to the warehouse. “It looks like business has been good to you, Yuri. I see you’ve hired a couple of new carpenters. What are their names?”

  “Pasha and Janko,” he answered warily.

  “What are their last names?”

  “You’re not FBI anymore.”

  “So? Does that mean I’ve forgotten ICE’s phone number?”

  He glared at Sergei. “There can be no leaks.”

  “Of course not.”

  “So what happened with that investment-fraud case where those kidali were ripping off old ladies? It got out that I talked to you guys, and I nearly got killed!”

  “You know that wasn’t me,” Sergei replied evenly. “And as you pointed out, I’m not with the Bureau anymore.” He looked at Filimonov expectantly.

  The burly contractor returned Sergei’s gaze for a moment, then shook his head and muttered an oath. “Nicki works with the Brothers. They do import/export business and maybe other stuff. I don’t know much about them, but I think they’re old friends of Alexei’s. I never deal with them, and I don’t know any of their names. And that’s it! I don’t know anything more!”

  Sergei looked him in the eye and decided he was telling the truth. He smiled and patted Filimonov on the back. “Thank you for your help, Yuri. Have a nice day.”

  Filimonov’s face relaxed. “You won’t be making any calls?”

  Sergei’s grin widened. “About what?”

  Nicki Zinoviev’s criminal file arrived on Sergei’s desk the next morning. Zinoviev had emigrated from the Soviet Union twenty years ago, possibly because of legal problems there, though of course that wasn’t what he had put on his immigration forms. The file said he was forty-two, but he looked at least five years older in his most recent mug shot. But then, most people do, thought Sergei, particularly if they’re using.

  Zinoviev had two convictions for drug possession, including one for half a kilo of heroin. He’d been sentenced to two years for that one but had gotten out after eleven months based on good behavior and alleged progress in a drug-treatment program. While he was still on probation, though, he’d been busted for conspiracy to sell drugs and carrying a concealed weapon. He had avoided more jail time by cooperating with prosecutors, but he might have cooperated a little too well—he later picked up a perjury conviction for some of his testimony against his former business partners.

  After forty-five minutes, Sergei closed the manila folder and plopped it on the to-be-filed pile. Nikolai Zinoviev was just what Filimonov had said he was: a retail-level dealer and gofer with a drug problem. Turning state’s evidence in the conspiracy case would have ended his career (among other things) if he had been in the mafia or the Russian Organizatsiya, but Russian and ex-Soviet crime in the United States was much less organized than it was in the former Soviet Union. There were no real loyalty rules here, so Zinoviev’s betrayal simply meant that his remaining colleagues would never trust him, confining him to small, low-level roles in any operation.

  Sergei had lunch at the Petrograd, a small restaurant of what he called the “borscht and babushka” type: lots of traditional food listed on the cheap laminated menus, lots of middle-aged and older women talking away the afternoon over sweet tea, very little English being spoken.

  Little streamers of cigarette smoke rose from most of the tables before blowing away in the currents from the ventilation gratings. The walls displayed the mandatory “No Smoking” signs, but the patrons viewed these as purely decorative—which they were in places like the Petrograd. Sergei didn’t mind. The smell of harsh Russian tobacco awakened fond memories of visiting his grandparents when he was young.

  He sat down at the counter and called to an elderly, aproned woman standing at the far end. “Good afternoon, Auntie Olga. How are you today?”

  “I’m as well as an old lady can expect,” she said, putting down some dishes and walking over to him. “But I’m still depressed about the Bears. When are they going to get a back that can actually run the ball?” She looked at Sergei as if she expected him to know the answer.

  “Good question. Kozlowski’s a good bulldozer if they only need two or three yards, but he never gets much more than that. They could sure use someone with some real speed and evasiveness.”

  “Maybe,” Olga said. “But you are not just here to talk football, am I right?”

  She was right. Olga Yanayev was his mother’s second cousin, but she was also the widow of one of the top bosses in the Moscow mafiya and the mother of two others. Her sons did no business in the United States—otherwise she would have had nothing to do with Sergei except at family reunions. However, she knew most of what went on in the local mafiya underworld, especially if it involved dealings with Russia. She and her husband had moved to Chicago when he’d retired, so that they could be near extended family and good hospitals, which he had needed because of his diabetes. It finally killed him two years ago, and he had left her a small fortune of dubious origin. She worked in the restaurant because it was a convenient way to talk to her friends and hear news, not because she needed the money.

  “Of course you’re right,” Sergei said with a smile. “I came for the borscht and black bread too. And for the chance to visit with you.”

  She left to tend to her other customers and came back a few minutes later with his food. “Here’s the borscht and bread. Now let’s have the visit.” She walked around the counter and sat on the stool next to him and eyed him shrewdly. “Let’s be frank. You want to ask me something, and I want to ask you something too. Since you’re the guest, I’ll let you ask first. What is it?”

  “Do you know Nicki Zinoviev?”

  She shrugged slightly. “I know of him. He’s a small fish for you, isn’t he?”

  “But not for my client. Nicki broke a contract to sell a safe-deposit box because he got a better offer from someone else. My job is to find out who that someone else is. I think it might be the Brothers. Do you know where I can find their names and addresses?”

  “I can get them for you.”

  “Thanks. Do you know if they’re trying to buy something from Zinoviev?”

  “I don’t know what they’re doing. Why would they tell me?”

  “I didn’t think they would, but it never hurts to ask.”

  “Sometimes it does,” she observed. “Now it’s my turn.”

  “Fire away,” said Sergei with a relaxed smile that hid a heightened alertness. She was his auntie, but she was also a very shrewd lady with her own agenda and a remarkable ability to read between the lines. He’d have to choose his words carefully.

  “What are the Chechens up to around here?”

  “Lots of stuff,” he said. “You know that.”

  The Chechens had been fixtures in the Chicago crime scene for years. When Sergei was still with the Bureau, for instance, he had helped break up a sex-slavery ring on the North Side, allegedly run by Chechens. Recently, there had been a string of beatings, robberi
es, and murders targeting the Russian community, and a lot of people suspected Chechen gangs. Sergei had heard through the grapevine that the FBI was in the midst of a large investigation aimed at putting a stop to these attacks, but of course he couldn’t say that.

  Olga looked him in the eye for several seconds. “You know what the problem with those evasive running backs is? If you catch them, they go down hard.” She smiled and patted his hand so that he wouldn’t take her comment too hard, just hard enough.

  Sergei smiled back. He knew she wasn’t really threatening him, but he also stopped evading her questions. “You know from the papers that someone’s been attacking Russians over the past few months and that it’s probably a Chechen gang or gangs. All I can tell you is that law enforcement is aware of the problem and taking steps to deal with it.”

  “Are the gangs taking orders from Grozny?”

  “Not that I know of. Why?”

  “My boy Kolya heard that a gang based near Grozny might be trying to put together something here. Not Obshina. Someone else. He heard they were buying a brewery in the western suburbs, but that doesn’t make any sense, because they’re Muslims.”

  “Think it might be a cover for a meth lab?”

  She nodded. “That’s what scares me. If they try to push into the drug market in an organized way, there could be a war. Maybe they’re attacking people now to build a reputation for the future.”

  “If I hear anything that I can tell you, I will,” he assured her.