“Thank you, ma’am, I’ll make a note of that. Could you tell me who owned the franchise?”
“Yes.”
More silence.
“Would you mind telling me now?”
“I’m trying to pull it up, if you’ll please give me a second.”
We definitely weren’t hitting it off.
“From ’eighty-three to ’ninety-five, that station was owned by Boris Litvenko. Then it was sold to Patriot Petroleum.”
“Excuse me. Litvenko? Did you say Litvenko?”
“L-I-T-V-E-N-K-O.” She spelled it.
My heart was beating faster now. Boris must have been Marianna’s husband and Martin Kobb’s uncle.
“Do you happen to have the ownership names for Patriot Petroleum?”
“No, we wouldn’t have that.”
“Thank you, ma’am. If I have any more questions, I might need to talk to you again.”
“I’ll be right here,” she chirped, not sounding too happy about it, either.
I found Emdee and Roger eating prefab waffles at the kitchen table. They put two in the microwave, zapped them up for me, and handed me the butter and syrup.
“Anything?” Broadway asked.
“We’re in business. Marianna Litvenko sold the station in ’ninety-five to an outfit named Patriot Petroleum. No surnames on the paperwork.”
“Whatta ya wanta bet there’s no patriots employed at Patriot Petroleum?” Perry said.
“So, like you said, Marty Kobb wasn’t at the market. He was over visiting his Uncle Boris’s gas station when he was killed,” Broadway said.
“Why didn’t Marianna Litvenko or anyone else mention that they owned a gas station right next to the market, and that Marty was there right before getting shot? When Blackman and Otto talked to her in ’ninety-five she never mentioned it.”
“That ought to be our first question once we find her,” Emdee said.
We spent the rest of the morning looking for Boris’s widow. She wasn’t listed in the phone book. Maybe she was listed under another name or had remarried. I thumbed through my shorthand of Blackman’s and Otto’s notes looking for the Bellagio address. I found it, picked up the phone, and ran it through the LAPD reverse phone directory. No Marianna Litvenko. The directory listed the people who owned the house at that address as Steve and Linda Goodstein. I called the number and Mrs. Goodstein said the house had sold twice since ’95. She had never heard of the Litvenkos.
Emdee Perry finally found Marianna in the LAPD traffic computer. She had three unpaid tickets for driving with an expired license from three years earlier.
We agreed that since I’d turned this angle, I would run the interview on Mrs. Litvenko. Roger and Emdee would be there for backup. The address was way out in the Valley, in Thousand Oaks.
“Wonder why she sold the nice place on Bellagio?” I said as I unlocked my sun-hot car and we piled in.
Roger shrugged and took shotgun. Perry stretched out sideways in the back. We headed down Coldwater, onto the 101. Just after two o’clock we pulled up to a slightly weathered, not-too-well-landscaped, low-roofed complex of cottages in the far West Valley.
When we parked in the lot, my question was answered. There was a large sign out front:
WEST OAKS RETIREMENT CENTER
AN ASSISTED LIVING COMMUNITY
47
As we walked up the stone path to the lobby building, I glanced over at Emdee. “Don’t you think since you speak Russian, you’d be better equipped to handle this?”
“You get in a crack, I’ll help ya out. But I don’t put out a good Granny vibe. I look like I skin goats for a living, so old ladies mostly hate me on sight.”
“Listen to the man. He knows his shortcomings,” Broadway said.
We entered a linoleum-floored waiting room furnished with several green Naugahyde couches, bad art, and a long vinyl-topped reception desk. An old man with a turkey neck and two-inch-thick glasses peered at us over the counter as we approached.
“Ain’t seen you folks before,” he announced, loudly. “Means you’re either guests, undertakers, or family of our next resident victim.” Then he smiled. He had most of his lowers, but not much going the other way.
“We’re here to see Marianna Litvenko,” I said.
“Ever met her before?”
“No, sir,” I said.
“Then get ready to be disappointed. Whistler’s mother with more wrinkles than a Tijuana laundry. And ta make it worse, the woman is a communist.”
He picked up the phone and started stabbing at numbers, made a mistake, and started over.
“Can’t see shit anymore,” he growled.
“Are you employed here?” I asked, a little surprised at his demeanor.
“Hell, no. Volunteer. I’m Alex Caloka of the Fresno Calokas. Not to be confused with the San Francisco Calokas who were all fakers and whores.”
He finally got the phone to work. “Folks to see Russian Mary,” he bellowed into the receiver. Then he waited while somebody spoke. “I ain’t shouting!” he said, and listened for a minute before hanging up.
“Unit B-twelve, like the vitamin. Off to the right there. She’s getting massage therapy. If they got her clothes off and ya don’t wanta puke, cover your eyes.”
We walked out onto the brown lawn that fronted the paint-peeled cottages and turned right. The single-story, shake roof bungalows were arranged in a horseshoe. A few frail-looking, old people with blankets on their laps, sat in wheelchairs taking the sun.
“Be sure and sign me up for this place after I retire,” Emdee told Roger.
B12 was identical to the other units. The only difference was the color of the dying carnations in the flowerbed out front. We went to the door and knocked.
“Just a minute, not quite finished,” a young-sounding woman’s voice called out.
We waited for about three minutes, listening to occasional hacking coughs, which floated across the lawn from the row of parked wheelchairs. Finally, the door opened and a thirty-year-old blonde goddess in gym shorts and a sports bra came down the steps carrying a canvas therapy bag.
“You’re her guests?” she asked.
“Yes, ma’am,” Broadway and Perry answered in unison, both of them almost swallowing their tongues.
“You’re lucky. She’s having one of her good days.”
Then the goddess swung off down the walk using more hip action than a West Hollywood chorus line, and headed toward another cottage.
“As long as we’re here, maybe I oughta see if I can get that painful crick worked outta my dick,” Perry said, admiring her long, athletic stride.
We stepped inside the darkened room and stood in the small, musty space for a moment waiting for our eyes to adjust. Then I saw her sitting in a club chair parked under an oil portrait of a stern-looking bald-headed man.
Suddenly, she leaned forward and pointed a bony finger at Emdee Perry. “Dis is man who stole my dog,” she shouted, loudly.
“I’m sorry?” Emdee said, taking a step back.
“Took Chernozhopyi. Right out of yard.”
“Chernoz…?” Broadway said, furrowing his brow, unable to finish the word.
“Means black-ass,” Emdee said.
“Beg your pardon?” Broadway sputtered.
“You ain’t bein’ insulted. Probably was a black dog. So don’t go sending no letter to them pussies at the NDouble-A-C-P.”
“I want dog back!” she yelled.
Perry looked chagrined and took another step back, glancing at me.
“Your witness, Joe Bob.”
I moved forward. “Mrs. Litvenko, we’re police officers.”
I turned to Broadway and Perry. “One of you guys show her your badge.”
They both pulled out their leather cases, and as soon as she saw them, Marianna Litvenko shrank back into her chair like a vampire confronted by a crucifix.
“Ma’am, this is about your nephew’s murder in nineteen ninety-five,” I said.
“I no talk. You go!” she said, her voice shaking.
“Ma’am, Martin Kobronovitch was an L.A. police officer,” I pressed. “This is never going to be over until we catch his killer.”
“No.” Her lower lip started to quiver. “Not again. Please.”
I moved over to her and kneeled down looking into dark eyes.
“Mrs. Litvenko, we’re not here to hurt you,” I said gently.
“Please, I have nothing left. They have taken everything.”
“Why didn’t you tell the detectives who talked to you before, that your husband owned the gas station on Melrose next to the parking lot where your nephew was shot?”
“No good will come of this,” she whispered.
“I know you cared about Martin. The other detective told me how upset you were.”
“Martin is dead. We cannot help him now. We can only save those who still live.”
“Your family was threatened? That’s why you kept quiet?”
She put her wrinkled hands up to her face. “These men, they are gangsteri.”
“Russian Mob,” Emdee clarified. He had retreated to a spot behind the screen door on the porch, where he now stood with Broadway, looking in.
“Mrs. Litvenko, this is America. It’s not the old Soviet Union. We’re not KGB. The police are not your enemy. We’re here to protect you.”
“Did you protect Baba?” she challenged.
“Your husband?”
“Killed. Murdered! Did the police stop that?”
“Ask how he was killed,” Broadway coached through the screen.
Marianna looked up, angrily. “They must leave. I will talk only to this one.” She pointed at me.
I walked to the door and looked out through the screen. “Why don’t you guys go get that physical therapy?”
I closed the door on them and turned back.
“Mrs. Litvenko, I want to find out who shot Martin. I know now, he was at the gas station, not the market, when it happened. I understand you’re frightened, but whoever is threatening you, I will protect you. This is America. You’ll be safe. You have my word.”
She shrank further into the upholstered chair and then, the dam broke. Tears rolled down her face. It was as if a decade of anguish was flowing down those wrinkled cheeks. Finally after several minutes, her crying slowed. I found a Kleenex box and gave her a tissue.
“How did Boris die?” I asked.
“He owned six Texacos,” she said, haltingly. “Very smart. He work hard, my Baba. Then one day, the mafiozi come. Boris say one of these men is huge and ugly. They want to buy stations. Boris say, ‘This is Land of Free. We can dream here.’ These men laugh. They tell him he has one week to sell. Boris is very frightened. He tells Martin, who is policeman. But Martin say he can do nothing without proof. Then Baba goes to be checking his two stations in Bakersfield. He is coming home; a big truck swerves and there is accident. Boris only one to be dead.”
“And you don’t think it was an accident.”
She snorted out a bitter laugh. “Martin, he start to investigate after work. He find out man who drove truck is named Oliver Serenko from Odessa. Odessa. This is a place of many evil men. Serenko was never arrested. He just disappeared. Martin, he goes to Boris’s gas station on Melrose. He talk to people, try to find someone who saw the gangsteri. That night, they come again. The manager of our station, Akim Russaloff, he tells me Martin is angry, threatens the men and then the ugly one with the broken face, shoots him.”
“Where is this manager?”
“Disappeared. A week later. Dead.”
She sat quietly now, looking away and remembering.
“There was nothing we could do. I could not help Martin then, and I cannot help him now.”
“They forced you to sell all six stations?”
She nodded. “They threatened my sister’s babies. These are men who keep their promises. I had no choice.”
I looked at the guilt in her eyes. That’s why she cried when Cindy questioned her. Martin had been at the gas station because of her. She felt guilty about his death, but could do nothing without risking the lives of her sister’s children.
“Who were they, Mrs. Litvenko? Who killed your husband and your nephew?”
“No. They will kill my grandnieces.”
“You give me their names and I will see that they all get protection.”
I held her hand again. “This has gone on long enough. Only you can make it stop.”
The tears started flowing again. I stayed beside her until she was finished crying. After a few more minutes, she had no more tears.
“Please, Mrs. Livenko,” I pleaded. “It’s time to finish this.”
“Nyet,” she whispered.
48
“I called Tampa and talked to the chief of police there,” Alexa said. “You were right. Zack had some problems.”
We were standing out on the deck of the safe house. The evening sun was just setting behind a dense wall of brush in the overgrown canyon; sliding below the hills, shining gold on the limbs of a nearby stand of white eucalyptus. Broadway and Perry were in the kitchen opening beers and preparing a plate of crackers and dip.
“What kinds of problems?” I asked, fearing the worst.
“The chief wouldn’t unseal his juvie record, but he remembered the worst of it. A lot of fights, half a dozen D and Ds.”
D and Ds were drunk and disorderly arrests. My own juvie record was three times worse.
“Anything else?”
“Nothing the chief could remember. If he was killing dogs or beating up classmates, it didn’t make it to the booking cage.” She reached into her purse and retrieved some temporary credentials with my name attached. “Here. I figured you’d need these until Personnel gets your new ones made.”
I put them in my pocket without looking at them. No cop likes to lose his badge. It was embarrassing.
Perry brought out the hors d’oeuvre plate and set it on the table with a flourish. It contained a three-by-two-inch block of something covered in brown goo with crackers arranged around the edges.
“I hope that didn’t come out of the toilet,” I said skeptically.
“This here ain’t some possum I scraped up off the highway, Joe Bob. What we got here is a quarter pound a cream cheese with A-1 Sauce. Prime hillbilly cooking.”
“I think I’ll pass,” I said.
Broadway came out on the deck, balancing a tray with beers and four glasses he’d found in the kitchen. All this party formality was because it had finally occurred to these two dingbats that Alexa could actually enhance their careers. As if cold beer and cream cheese would zip them right up onto the Lieutenant’s List.
After the Heinekens were poured, Alexa opened her briefcase and pulled out some folders.
“This is everything from the Russian organized crime databank on the Odessa mob,” she said. “The guys who seem to be currently in charge are the Petrovitch brothers. Samoyla and Igor. They’re both foreign nationals here on long-term visas. Neither of these guys has a wife or family, but that’s pretty standard. Members of the Russian mafia are prohibited by their criminal code from getting married, seeing or talking to relatives, or even working for a living.”
“They’re celibate?” I asked, surprised.
“They can have girlfriends, but no children,” she responded. “They brought a strict thieves’ code over from Odessa. It’s all pretty desperate stuff. Never work, never marry. Never, under pain of death, give truthful information to police. And my own personal favorite; sit in on trials and convocations and be willing to personally carry out all death sentences.”
“Nice,” I muttered.
“The file on the Petrovitches is mostly a lot of surveillance reports and broken search warrants that never came to anything,” she said, handing it over. “Every time OCB thinks they have Iggy or Sammy set up for something, and convince a judge to write the paper, the search always turns up zilch.”
I
looked at the file. There was no picture of Iggy Petrovitch, but there was a booking picture of his younger brother, Sammy, clipped on the front of his yellow sheet. If this was the guy who threatened Marianna, no wonder she wouldn’t talk.
He looked massive and his face was a hideous mask of scar tissue, the result of some horrific disaster. Height and weight were listed in metrics courtesy of some European police agency. For the record, he weighed 127.01 kilograms and was 2.032 meters tall. Somebody else would have to do the math, because I don’t get the metric system.
“This guy is right out of a forties horror flick,” I said, showing the shot to Broadway and Perry who nodded, but didn’t take the photo. They knew him from the street.
Alexa continued. “According to the background check from Interpol, Sammy was rumored to have been doing covert incursions and death squad assassinations for some secret branch of the KGB during the Russian war in Afghanistan. Setting bombs in mosques and blowing up buildings. He was driving away from one of his booby traps in Kabul when a Sunni militia man hit his vehicle with an American-made shoulder-fired Stinger. We had some green berets over there advising Afghan warlords. They found him and one of our corpsman patched him up. The world would’ve been a lot better off if we’d just let him die. Now he’s in L.A. and according to our gang squad, Sammy is the Odessa mob’s designated hitter here. He’s dropped ten or fifteen people since he showed up, only we’ve never been able to prove it. Down in Russian Town, this guy’s like the Black Death. They call him Ebalo. It means The Face.”
“Two questions,” I said. “If he was a KGB agent with such a dark past, how does U.S. Immigration and Naturalization let him in here? And since the Petrovitches aren’t citizens and we suspect them of being Odessa mobsters, why don’t we just deport them?”
“Can’t deport them if we can’t prove they’re guilty of anything,” Alexa answered. “The one time we actually tried, it was quashed by INS in Washington with instructions not to pursue our case.”
She leaned forward, picked up a cracker, and spread some cream cheese on it. Then she put it tentatively in her mouth and chewed. Everybody watched.
“That’s excellent,” she exclaimed.
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