An echo of that broken English: We had disagreement over fee and ownership of object. Clearly, this was how disagreements with Paulo Shevchenko ended.
Nate scrolled down and lifted a finger to the screen, reading the lead detective’s report of the ongoing investigation. Though an autopsy had been performed in short order, Urban’s corpse remained in the perennially backlogged morgue, stowed for future tests. The hit man’s private weapons cache had been taken into evidence, a small arsenal that included everything from frag grenades to AR-15s, ironic given Urban’s low-tech MO for his murders: He used a ten-dollar lock-blade knife, available through any hunting catalog.
According to ballistics, the SIG Sauer P250 set down by Urban’s cheek had fired the bullet extracted from his head. Leaving the gun behind with the body protected the killer from being found with the murder weapon. The move was also, the detective had noted, a calling card of elite contract killers hired by the Eastern European mob.
Misha.
Charles shuddered, sand falling off him like dandruff. “So a hit man killed a hit man? What’s the story?”
“Pavlo hired Urban to do a job,” Nate said. “To knock someone off and get something.”
“Why’d he use an American killer?” Charles asked. “Why not one of his Ivans?”
“Maybe to make sure there was no connection that could be traced back to him.”
“But then once Urban pulled a double cross or wanted to keep what he stole or whatever, our boy Pavlo went back to his roots.”
“Which exposed him more. Then again, so did having Misha run a bank job. But Pavlo was willing to take the risk.” Nate rocked back in his chair. “Whatever’s in that safe-deposit box, he wants it bad.”
“We don’t even know which box it is,” Charles complained. “What are we gonna do, break into all of them?”
“That was Misha’s plan.”
“What the hell could be in that box?”
“Incriminating photos. Family heirloom. A priceless jewel.”
Charles shrugged. “I vote sex tape.”
The floor creaked behind Nate, and he closed out of the screen quickly. Pivoting, he looked up at Ken.
“What you looking up?” Ken asked.
A flush crept hotly across Nate’s face. His mouth opened, but his brain was still waiting to feed it an excuse. One second passed. Another. Then: “Just a word I overheard the other day. Tyazhiki.” Nate grimaced. “I think it means—”
“Shadow people,” Ken said. “They’re enforcers brought in by the Russkies. No papers, no visas. Utterly lawless. They’ll literally ship ’em in on container ships, route ’em through the Long Beach Port. They do a job and head back. Not a footprint.”
Charles was standing behind the detective, imitating him, wagging his head importantly. Nate did his best to focus.
“The Russian mob’s ruthless,” Ken continued. “They’ll shoot you just to check the sight alignment on their guns. If it’s cheaper to bring in a hit man than pay off a loan, they put out a contract. Life means nothing.”
“How about Ukrainians?” Nate asked.
“The Ukrainians?” Ken whistled, and Charles at last stood still at the ominous note. “Even the Russians are afraid of the Ukrainians.”
Chapter 16
Flores Esposita’s funeral at Forest Lawn Cemetery was a crowded, animated affair. Countless uncles and weeping second cousins and families from church. Among others, Nate was singled out by the stoic widower in the eulogy and had his hand shaken by numerous relatives after the casket was lowered from view. The outpouring of warmth only added to his silent regret at the fraudulent role he was playing here. He’d gone into that bank to take a coward’s leap and had walked out a hero.
Head down, he moved between the plots back to his Jeep.
“You seem uncomfortable.”
He turned to find Agent Abara, impeccably neat in a black suit.
“It’s a funeral,” Nate said.
“Right. I just thought that given your job, you know, you’d be used to…” A wave of his hand. “Events like this.”
Nate thought about finding Flores Esposita’s clip-on earring on the bank floor. How he’d squeezed and the clasp had pushed into the tender skin of his palm. “If I’d gone through the window earlier, maybe I could’ve kept her from being shot.” It was a regret he hadn’t made conscious until he heard himself saying it.
“But you said you climbed out the bathroom window right after you heard the shots.”
“… Yes.”
“So how could you have gotten there earlier?”
Nate wet his lips. Shook his head.
Abara had fallen into step beside him. The lush grass, soft underfoot. “You know what happens when I see my kids?” Abara asked.
“You’re reminded of the simple power of human love?”
Abara squinted over at him but didn’t smile. “I wonder what they’re not telling me. Maybe that’s from being an agent, sure. But you know how teenagers are. Girls. I have two. And everything’s a lie right now. Not ’cuz they’re malicious. It’s because their white matter’s not grown in yet, you know?” He shook his head. “They’re hard to get through to. It’s like they’re talking one language and I’m—”
“We’re preverbal.”
Abara laughed, a dimple indenting either cheek. “Right? So last night my oldest came in past curfew. And I asked where she was, and of course—she was at her friend’s. And I know she’s lying, and she knows I know she’s lying, but we’re doing this dance still, right?” He stopped walking, his perfect teeth shining in the morning brightness. “Ever have that? Where you’re talking to someone and you know they’re lying and they know you know? But there you are? Still talking?” The easy smile remained, but his gaze was suddenly intense.
The suit felt hot and tight across Nate’s shoulders. He chose his words carefully. “With my daughter, sure.”
“Yeah, kids. Sometimes they don’t know what’s good for them.” Abara touched Nate’s arm. “See you around.”
Nate watched him pick his way through the headstones. When he turned around, he noticed someone among the graves just a few yards off. A worker with a bag lunch and neatly combed hair showing gray at the part, his mouth a line of forbearance. He’d paused for his break sitting respectfully at the edge of a little fountain beside a newly turned plot. A wet shovel rested against one thigh. When Nate approached, the man set down a remaining crescent of sandwich.
Nate stared at the fresh dirt, and the man looked at him with his sun-beaten face. “You family?”
“No,” Nate said.
“Oh.” The man set his cap on his knee. “Sometimes there’s a big turnout”—a gesture to Flores Esposita’s grave, around which a dozen folks and grandkids remained, consoling one another—“and sometimes…” He flared his half-chewed sandwich at the rectangle of soil.
Nate read the grave marker again, the name registering this time as belonging to the security guard from the bank robbery—the older black man with the striped socks who’d wound up twisted on his back in the lobby. “Wait. This is…?”
The worker nodded. “The bank paid for his resting place.”
“Jesus,” Nate said. “Someone should be here. Someone should…” He felt suddenly weak, and he eased himself down to the fountain ledge beside the man.
“Bad way to die,” the worker said. “When you won’t be missed.”
Nate tried to picture what his own funeral would look like. A few colleagues recycling the same stories. A hired shovel. A designated funeral coordinator, bowing his head mournfully and checking his watch.
Shirt untucked, tie loose, he sat, the sun heating his face. The man chewed quietly beside him for a while, then rose to get back to work, one callused hand rasping up the shaft of the shovel.
Chapter 17
When Nate approached the Santa Monica house, blaring music greeted him from the garage—less a song than a wall of noise aimed at his face. A masculine voice sc
reamed the wrong lyrics to a Guns N’ Roses song: “Welcome to tha Jun-gul, we got funny games!”
Nate passed between the cars, which had been pulled out onto the driveway to free up the garage, and a big doofy teenage kid drew into view inside, hopping around and flailing at an electric guitar. Cielle sat atop a low cabinet, flipping listlessly through a magazine, her fingers punctuated with black nail polish. Her private-school uniform—plaid skirt and white blouse—matched neither the fingernails nor her scowl, but it gave Nate a brief, inexplicable stab of pride nonetheless.
“Na na na na na na na na knees, knees! Come on, I’m gonna make you SPEED!” The kid noticed Nate and dropped the guitar, letting it dangle around his neck from the sling. He was at least six-four and thick, but he looked less strong than soft and uncoordinated, all elbows and knees. The curse of the teenage male. A few spread-out dots marked his pale chin and cheeks where a five-o’clock shadow was trying to will itself into existence. An oversize hoodie with plush, checkered lining half covered a pair of Bermuda shorts so long and baggy that they hung in one piece like a kilt. He wore a slightly bemused smile and shaggy black hair capped by—of all things—a hipster fedora. Ear gauges had enlarged the holes in his lobes to the size of nickels.
Jason. The shithead boyfriend.
Cielle’s dark pupils lifted, though her face stayed pointed at the magazine. “Gasp,” she said flatly. “It’s my screwup of a father.”
Despite the reception, Nate took a moment to soak in the sight of her. Beautiful, safe, intact. She looked up at him, wrinkled her brow at the spectacle of him standing there gawking.
“Don’t be disrespectful,” he said, covering. “It’s Mr. Screwup.”
“Nice suit, Nate,” she said. Jason ducked out of the guitar and extended it to Cielle, who gave him a withering glare. “I’m not a coatrack.”
He set it down lovingly on the floor and turned to Nate with excitement. “Dude, you’re the man. People are wearing WHAT WOULD NATE OVERBAY DO? T-shirts. I’m not kidding—Google that shit.”
“What are you talking about?” Nate said.
“Have you watched the news? You’re a celebrity.”
“No. Steve McQueen was a celebrity. I’m Monica Lewinski.”
Jason chewed his lower lip. “Who’s Steve McQueen?”
“Who’s Monica Lewinski?” Cielle asked.
“I give up,” Nate said.
Cielle, back to her magazine. “Thank God.”
Nate eyed the husky kid. “Jason, right? How old are you?”
“Seventeen. But I’ve been emancipated ’cuz my parents were screwups, too. No offense.”
“None taken. You are aware that my daughter’s fifteen?”
Cielle flipped a page harder than necessary, giving off a crisp snap.
“And a half,” Jason said. The edge of a tattoo peeked up from his collar. “It’s only like sixteen months’ difference.”
“I appreciate the math. But you’re still too old for her.”
“Or maybe you’re just blinded by the radiance of my awesomeness.”
“Or maybe that.” Reminding himself that he had bigger fish to fry right now than an emancipated seventeen-year-old with gauge earrings, Nate backed out of the garage and headed to the porch.
Pete answered the front door, on his knees in the foyer, skinny bottle in hand. “Nate. How you feeling today?”
“Oh, God. Let’s not start that, please. And what the hell are you doing?”
“Putting hot sauce on my dress shoes.”
Casper watched cautiously from the kitchen doorway. He lifted a stare in Nate’s direction, his Rhodesian ridgeback brow furrowed in puzzlement. The wrinkles on his forehead could convey a broader range of human emotion than most human faces could.
Nate took in this standoff as Pete returned to the task, diligently applying sauce to the heel of a two-tone wing tip. “Of course,” Nate said. Then: “Why?”
“The dog has chewed up half my shoes.”
“So you’re putting hot sauce on them.”
“To dissuade him. Yes. An admittedly unconventional approach, but I’m running out of footwear. At least footwear that doesn’t make me look like a homeless guy.”
Nate had to smile.
Pete got up. “Casper. Come. Here. Come. Come.”
Nate snapped his fingers low at his side, and Casper trotted over. His hindquarters stayed offset at a slight jag from his front legs, like revelers navigating a two-man horse costume.
Pete took Casper’s collar and pointed the dog’s unwilling nose to the shoes. “See this? Steer clear.” He scratched Casper behind the ears, released him, and dusted his hands. “He’s a maniac. Ate a box of tampons last week.”
“This dog is an exceptional animal.”
“That’s what all dog owners say. You ever hear anyone say, ‘Oh, my dog? He’s really ordinary.’”
“A fair point.” Nate looked at Casper. Casper looked at him. They knew better.
“So what’s up, Nate?”
“I want to talk to you and Janie, actually.”
“She’ll be right down.” Pete started for the kitchen, then said reluctantly, “Listen, the U-pipe beneath the sink’s leaking. I’ve checked it twice. What am I missing?”
“It’s the drain, not the U-pipe. Plastic washer gets worn out. There’s a box of them in the corner of the pantry.”
“Thanks.” A sheepish grin. “I’ll take a look at it.” Pete assumed his position behind the kitchen island. Ground turkey shaped into patties, corn bobbing in a pot on the stove, two glasses filled with soda and a third, presumably Cielle’s, with water.
Pete drizzled olive oil into a pan, dropping in sliced onions as Janie entered.
Her head tilted as she took in Nate. Awkward. “You called late last night?”
“Yeah. Look. There’s really no good way to lead into this. So … uh, I didn’t just go up on that bank ledge to foil robbers. I was up there to jump.” He kept his eyes on the marble island, but he sensed both faces go lax. “The disease, you know? And…”
“What, Nate?” Janie said.
“You need to be careful here. Keep an eye on Cielle. Keep her close.”
“Wait. Why? You’re scaring me.”
“Just … be cautious. It’s for your own good. And hers.”
“We haven’t seen you in nine months,” Janie said. “You don’t get to tell us what to do. Certainly not without telling us why.”
“Okay.” He took a breath. Bit his lip. “I got knocked out and regained consciousness half embedded in a slab of ice.”
She’d been ready with a response, but his words must have caught up to her, because her mouth froze partway open. It closed with a little pop.
Still speechless, she circled a hand for him to continue, then listened intently as he spelled out his ordeal with the Ukrainians, ending with Pavlo’s threat.
The onions sizzled, black wisps rising, until Pete picked up the pan and turned it upside down in the sink. Janie sank onto a barstool. Pete coughed out an angry one-note laugh, wiped his mouth.
“They threatened to kill my baby?” Janie finally managed. It seemed she was saying it aloud to try to get her mind around it.
“Yes. But I’m not gonna let that happen.”
“All due respect, Nate,” Pete said, “but it hardly seems like you’re in control of the situation.” He hurled a dish towel at the backsplash.
Janie looked catatonic. From the garage, muffled screaming: “You can have anything ya want but yer a better mint taker for free!”
“We need to just get in the car and start driving,” Janie said.
“Not yet,” Nate said. “These guys have shown that they have reach, resources. They’ll be watching, and who knows what they’ll do if you try to run. I’ve got a window to take care of this.”
“So we’re supposed to just sit here?” Janie said.
“You want them to catch up to us at a Motel 6 in Nevada?” Pete said.
The quest
ion bled through the air, and they breathed until it dissipated.
“Do we tell Cielle?” Nate asked Janie.
“Are you kidding?” Pete said. “It’d scare the living hell out of her. What’s the upside in that?”
“She hates not knowing,” Nate replied. “Not having a say in things. Janie? Are you okay?” Nothing. “Janie, look at me. I will take care of this.”
“Give us a moment here,” Pete said.
“Okay.” Nate pulled his gaze reluctantly off Janie. “I need to check something in Cielle’s room. I’ll just…”
Heavy on his feet, he mounted the stairs. For all his concern about sparing them fallout from his illness, here he’d inflicted on them something much worse. In Cielle’s room he headed for the closet. Parted the curtains of clothes. A mound of clutch purses in the back. He dug under them, and there it was.
A red diary.
Just as Pavlo had promised. His men had shown up so quickly after the bank shoot-out. They’d stood where Nate now stood, arms in his daughter’s wardrobe, prying and digging and reading. Revulsion rose in his gorge, then something sharper. Rage.
Gathering himself, he breathed deeply, tapping the red leather against his thigh. Something in the closet caught his eye, mostly hidden beneath a black sweater. The edge of a wooden frame. Was it? He lifted the sweater tentatively to discover their old family portrait. The three of them laughing and hugging and half falling over. She’d kept it. Buried in her closet, but still. When he inhaled, he felt the slightest catch in his throat.
The door boomed open, and Cielle and Jason spilled in, Cielle mid-rant: “—just saying I can’t believe you called a friend of mine ‘Sewer Crotch’ on your Facebook page.” She halted two steps into the room, her eyes blazing over to Nate, who was bent into her closet, incriminating diary in hand.
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