She turned and followed the other two off the pier.
Once the three of us were standing there alone, I turned to Broadway and Perry. “Whose dumb-ass idea was this anyway?” Since it was mine, nobody answered. “We could use a new plan, guys,” I said. “Whatta you think?”
“I think, besides learning those bugs were set by Virtue and reverse engineered by someone, the filly looks the best going away,” Emdee drawled, watching Bimini’s long, sexy stride.
“We could try and recruit a CTB surveillance team,” Broadway suggested. “Most of our Special Ops cowboys have more testosterone than sense. We’d have to do it without sanction and that could cause them trouble. But if we make it a challenge, maybe we could recruit a few and get them to keep it on the DL so the Loot doesn’t fall on us.”
The CTB surveillance teams were mostly reassigned hard-ons from SIS or SWAT who loved a good dust-up.
But still, it did involve some career jeopardy.
“Okay,” I told them, “but I’m not throwing down on this guy unless we have backup.”
“Say no more, Joe Bob. Rowdy and Snitch always deliver.”
Chapter 54
Take the entire top floor of a Century City high-rise; buy every bad Russian painting you can find; stick them in overdone gilt frames, then hire Donald Trump’s decorator, and you have a reasonable idea of what the offices of Petrovitch Industries looked like. There was enough nude statuary and crystal swag to decorate every whorehouse in New Orleans.
The receptionist was a beautiful Russian girl with flawless skin, piercing eyes, and a sculpted jaw. She also had a bitchy attitude and a graceful swan neck acceptable for wringing.
I was standing with Danny Dark and Sid Cooper, two detectives from the Financial Crimes Division. They were both carrying thick briefcases with notebook computers inside.
“And this is regarding?” my Russian goddess asked. Only the slightest sound of the Ukraine still remained in her clipped, chilly presentation.
“I will only discuss it with Samoyla himself,” I said. “And he won’t agree to see you unless you first state the nature of your business,” she replied coldly. Ice started to form on the mirror behind her.
I laid my temporary creds down on the marble desk. “See if you can get Mr. Petrovitch to change his mind so he won’t have to take an uncomfortable ride chained to the inside of a big gray bus.”
“Really?” she said, arching plucked eyebrows as if she would really like to see me try that.
I held my ground under the weight of her disapproving stare, but after a second she folded, and deserted her post like an Afghan army regular. On her way past, she reached for my ID and started to leave with it. I grabbed her wrist.
“Where are you going with that?”
“I have to show Mr. Petrovitch.”
“You don’t get to take it. You tell him you saw it and then he gets to come and see it for himself. That’s the way it works.” I was playing it very ballsy and tough for a guy in a Kmart suit, standing in a lobby surrounded by two million dollars worth of crystal and art. But what the hey. You gotta believe in yourself, as I’m so fond of telling everyone.
After a minute, the receptionist departed and the three of us were left alone to study a huge lobby painting of thousands of Cossacks on horseback charging across a wooded field. Glorious carnage and romantic death.
We waited for almost five silent minutes before the Russian princess returned. “If you’re the one in charge, he’ll see only you,” she intoned coldly.
I turned to the financial dicks. “You guys wait here while I get this guy set up.”
She led me away from Cooper and Dark, down a hallway full of art depicting the Greats. Peter, Ivan, and Alexander. The Russians have produced a lot of Greats. Most of them in braided jackets with warlike personas.
I was ushered through a Russian Barbie section where half a dozen beautiful blonde secretaries, all perfectly groomed with arched backs and jutting breasts typed diligently at computers. I followed my princess into an executive suite that faced the Avenue of the Stars. A Louis XV desk and a high-backed swivel chair covered with expensive gold brocade sat in front of a glass wall overlooking the street twenty stories below.
“He’ll be here shortly,” she clipped. Almost no accent this time. I had to really strain to hear it now. She left me standing there and closed the door. After a minute alone, the side door opened and the most frighteningly ugly man I have ever seen walked into the office. His booking picture didn’t begin to capture the essence of him. In person, he radiated evil.
Where to begin?
He was a dermatological mess—much more so than I had realized from the photograph. Scar tissue everywhere. I’ve seen a lot of scars, even have my share, just not ones where the crude stitching so horribly altered what had been there before. All that was left was a hideous mask. He had at the same time, both a ghoulish smile and a frightening scowl. This amazing expression was accomplished because his restitched mouth curved up on one side with a scar that ended in the middle of his left cheek. On the other side, the scowl side, the scar collapsed down from the corner of his mouth to his chin, ending at his destroyed uneven jaw line. It was as if the Riddler had gone into a psychopathic rage, ripped his own mouth wide open, then stitched the mess back together using a staple gun.
He was huge, so those metric measurements now translated to about six-foot-eight and almost three hundred fifty pounds. He had shoulders like a water buffalo and hands the size of anvils. All that was missing were the neck bolts.
“Shto tibe nado? ” he said, in Russian. His voice was a strange whispery squeak from vocal cords wasted in all that carnage.
“Sammy Petrovitch?” I asked, knowing there couldn’t be two like this.
“Da?”
“You speak English?” I said, wondering if it was possible that this guy could have been in the U. S. since ‘ninety-five and still not speak the language.
“Ya, I speak. Vat is?” he said. It was not that his voice was high, as much as it was a whistling, muted wheeze. I’d never heard anything quite like it.
“I have a subpoena to gather up all of the records for Patriot Petroleum,” I said, holding out the paperwork. He didn’t look at it, didn’t care about it. But that’s okay. Neither did I.
“I also have two financial crimes detectives in the lobby who need access to your computers and all the electronic records and transactions for that same company.”
“We have done nothing,” he squeaked. “We have rights.”
Time to throw sand in the giant’s eyes. “The only right you have is the right to suck my dick, yakoff.”
His huge, flat brow furrowed. Rage began to climb up his neck and redden his destroyed face.
“Did you hear me, dummy? You’re under investigation for running a federal gas tax scam. This subpoena orders you to give my detectives full access to your computers. Then we’ll see about getting you and your limp-dick brother, Igor, downtown to answer some more important felony charges.”
The first part of our plan was to insult him. Get him operating on impulse so he’d make a mistake and follow me after I left. It never occurred to me that this guy might decide to just flat out whack me right under the crystal chandelier in his overdecorated antique office. But apparently that’s what he planned, because without warning, he started a murderous shuffling advance across the room. That ruptured face became a distorted mask of rage. His scarred lips pulled back in a snarl, exposing teeth, big and square as tombstones.
I don’t like giving up ground under any circumstance, but in that instant Sammy Petrovitch had me spooked. I was now close enough to read unchecked insanity in his stone gray eyes. He had at least a hundred fifty pounds and five inches on me, so I started backpedaling until I slammed into a paneled wall and rocked an oil painting. One of the female greats—Catherine, was hanging from a hook in a thousand-dollar gilt frame, looking down her aristocratic nose at me.
Sammy took anothe
r shuffle step, then paused, bringing both hands up into some kind of combat strike position, methodically sizing me up, deciding how he was going to annihilate me.
“Back up, asshole,” I commanded. “You touch me, I’m taking you in for aggravated assault on a police officer.”
It didn’t begin to dampen his enthusiasm. He shuffled in closer. His eyes glinted with pre-combat intensity. This wasn’t going at all as I planned.
Just then the side door burst open and out of the corner of my eye, I saw another man moving into the office. “Samoyla! Stoi! Shto ti delaesh? Nyet!” he shouted, as he grabbed Sammy and pulled him back.
I was propped up against the brown paneling next to a disapproving Catherine the Great, who was still swinging wildly from her hook.
“Who are you?” the man demanded. Judging from the expensive suit and the size of his diamonds, it was Iggy. He was one third smaller than his brother with a strong face and greased-back hair that was the texture and color of poured concrete. He looked nothing like Sammy. But then a Stinger missile in Afghanistan had forever ended the notion of any sibling resemblance.
“What do you want?” he said, his English far better than his brother’s.
“I have a subpoena for records on Patriot Petroleum,” I said, holding it out. “You and your company are being audited by the LAPD for financial crimes.”
Iggy snatched the paperwork out of my hands and glanced at it. “Our attorneys will deal with this. You go.”
“Not that easy,” I answered. “This ape was threatening to attack me. A threat of violence constitutes felonious assault.” Sammy was rocking from side to side, his eyes had now gone slightly blank, someone not in complete possession of his faculties.
I certainly hadn’t been ready for the mammoth insanity of Samoyla Petrovitch.
“He did not touch you. You have served your papers. It is done and you go. This is America. We know our rights,” Iggy said.
“I love it when you noncitizen mob assholes throw your American rights around,” I growled. “That’s a real crack-up. From now on, I’m gonna make you a full-time project,” I said, glaring at Sammy. “You’re both Priority One on my shit list. I’ll stay on it until I get both of you either jailed or deported back to Odessa. There are two officers from the financial division in your lobby. They need a place to work. You give them everything this warrant calls for or I’ll be back here with another fucking warrant for obstruction of justice and failure to comply with a legally obtained court order. You don’t want to test me on this.”
I moved toward the door, paused on the threshold for a moment and looked at them, trying to judge my jeopardy and how much damage I’d done.
Sammy and Iggy were both glowering, standing side by side in a nice little homicidal tableau.
“This is the beginning of the end for you two pukes. When I’m through, you’re both gonna be chained to a wall.”
Samoyla lurched forward, but Iggy pulled him back. I turned and exited the office, heading down the gilded hallway past the Greats, into the lobby. Behind me, I could hear voices yelling angrily in Russian. A door slammed somewhere in the hall.
“What the fuck is that all about?” Detective Cooper said, looking a little alarmed.
“This isn’t going to be exactly like running an audit on Enron,” I told them. “These guys are a little looser than I thought. I’m going to radio for some Blues to come in here to watch your back. Stay frosty till they arrive, then make as much trouble as you can.”
More Russian shouting leaked out into the lobby.
“I’m outta here,” I said, and stepped into the elevator and pushed the button. As the doors closed I heard more shouting and doors slamming.
The Acura was parked in a red zone in front of the building with my handcuffs draped over the steering wheel so I wouldn’t get towed. It’s the universal signal to traffic cops identifying a detective’s car. Once I was inside with the engine running, I called dispatch and ordered immediate backup for Cooper and Dark. Then I waited to see if Sammy was as nuts as Emdee said.
He was.
Three minutes later a black Cadillac exploded out of the underground parking garage and turned in my direction. There were four burly guys, including Sammy, packed cheek to jowl inside. All were wearing strained blank expressions. They spotted me as they sailed past. Brake lights flashed. The Cadillac skidded to a stop and began a Y-turn, coming back after me.
The black Caddy was only four cars back, tracking me on the 405. It was the worst tail since Hef designed the bunny costume. At any given moment, I could see them in two of my three rearview mirrors.
Somewhere near San Pedro I caught sight of a white, windowless Econoline van.
Please don’t let that be Zack, I thought. I’ve got enough trouble right now without adding him to the mix.
I lost sight of the van when I exited the freeway and turned left onto the Coast Highway heading toward the recently decommissioned and razed Long Beach Naval Yard.
The massive property slid by outside my left window—hundreds of acres of freshly paved parking lots loaded with multicolored marine shipping containers.
I looked back. The black Cadillac was now caught at a light; so, without making it look too obvious, I slowed down and timed it so I missed the next signal. Then I spotted the Cad coming up on me again. Sammy must have somehow reined in all that homicidal rage because they were being more careful now, staying further back.
Up ahead loomed the two-story-high, curvaceous blonde cutout in her black miniskirt. I pulled into the abandoned dress company parking lot and stopped next to the entrance of the main office. Then I stepped out of my car and headed toward the building.
I took the stairs two at a time, quickly reaching the second floor. When I got to the sewing room, Emdee was waiting.
“They follow you?” he said, looking out the window.
“Yeah. You were sure right about Sammy. He almost unpacked me right there in his own office. If his brother hadn’t walked in, I wouldn’t have made it out of there.”
“If they followed you, then we’re in business, Joe Bob.”
So we waited.
I walked over to one of the camera positions and spoke into the pinhole to Roger who was in the ESD van out back with four CTB surveillance guys he’d recruited. I brought Roger up to date, told him the Russians were about to make their move.
But nothing happened.
Emdee and I sat around until well after sunset. Then we walked downstairs and checked the parking lot and the road out front.
No sign of the black Caddy anywhere.
Finally we climbed down to the ESD van hidden in the culvert. I knocked on the back door. Roger opened up. The four CTB surveillance team members inside were all wearing black Kevlar with heavy ordnance strapped to their sides.
“He didn’t take the bait,” I said.
“What the fuck is wrong with that boy?” Roger said.
We turned the surveillance team loose and watched them drive out of the parking lot in their black Suburban.
“So what do we do now?” Emdee asked after they were gone.
“We regroup,” I said, softly.
Chapter 56
I headed back to the Shutters Hotel in Santa Monica. All the way there I kept my eyes on the rearview mirror. No white vans. No black Cadillacs.
Before transitioning onto the Santa Monica Freeway I pulled a lane change maneuver that an old motorcycle officer in the traffic division taught me. He swore it would shake any tail. You stay in the fast lane going about sixty and look for a pattern in traffic that allows you to abruptly cross all four lanes in one move, and shoot down an off-ramp. No car following will be able to find a similar hole and will overshoot the exit.
I executed the maneuver twice and then drove on surface streets to Shutters, which sits right on Santa Monica Beach and, in my opinion, is one of the most delightful little hotels in Southern California.
I handed over my car to the valet and went up
stairs to our ocean-view suite on the second floor. Delfina and Chooch were both inside doing their homework.
“Hi. Where’s Mom?” I asked, as I came through the door.
“Gonna be late,” Chooch said. “She called and said she wants us to get dinner without her.”
Franco was out on the balcony leering at seagulls swooping in over his head, turning back and forth, watching them with hungry eyes. I got a beer from the minibar and joined him. The beautiful white sand beach stretched out beyond the bike path where the surf thundered in, making turquoise and white foam. Off to the right was the Santa Monica Pier where we had our disastrous noontime meeting.
I sat on the balcony taking in the view as the afternoon sun set; thinking about the events of the afternoon.
A wasted day.
Worse still, we’d exposed ourselves without any result and put the Russian mob on alert, giving them the opportunity to destroy key evidence.
So far, nobody at Parker Center had been told how badly we’d screwed up, but I knew I was going to have to fill Alexa in when she arrived.
The phone rang, so I walked inside to answer. “Good, you’re there,” Alexa said. “How’d it go?” “Terrific,” I lied, chickening out, telling myself I’d rather give her the bad news in person. “I left Cooper and Dark down there to scan the computers and dig out anything they can find on the forged gas tax records.”
“Yeah. I know. I got a call from the Petrovitches’ attorney. Some Eastern Euro shyster named Sebastian Sebum. He’s been all over us with temporary restraining orders and show cause writs. Guy’s a real meat grinder. I called Detective Cooper. He says, so far, it looks like a grunion hunt. If they’re running a gas tax fraud, they have it pretty well papered over. I told Tony I wouldn’t pull them out without your okay, but everybody down here thinks it’s a wasted play.”
“Take ‘em out,” I sighed. “I’m gonna work on coming up with something else.”
Cold Hit (2005) Page 26