The Con Man's Daughter

by Ed Dee

  "Remind me not to piss you off," Babsie said.

  "You would have done the same thing if you'd heard the way he talked about Kate."

  "He said he saw Kate?"

  "He said it, but it was bullshit."

  "Well, at least you didn't kill him," she said. "You don't have that to worry about."

  The only remorse Eddie felt was that he'd failed to kill the Russian. It made him sick that he'd gotten too cute with it. Fining and deporting him was playing the same glib, facile game that had gotten him in trouble as a cop. The fact that he'd shot Sergei in the foot rather than the head wound up destroying the lives of a family.

  "I guess your Gypsy friend really did sell you out," she said.

  "Looks that way."

  It surprised him that the Parrot had sold him out. Not because he expected the Gypsy's loyalty. If the price was right, he'd understand it. Expect it. But this was going to be a hard payoff to collect. Borodenko would sooner kill him than pay a Gypsy. Maybe Madame Caranina talked him into it. Caranina liked money. Men always make their best and worst decisions on the advice of women.

  On the floor next to Babsie was a plastic trash can filled with scraps of paper.

  "What is that stuff?" Eddie asked.

  "In the trash can? Those're the bits of photograph I found in that black garbage bag outside West Nineteenth Street."

  "Is that all one picture?"

  "I don't know; I just started. Bigger than I first thought. Looks like a nine-by-twelve, something like that. So far, I got a couple of legs done. But there're at least two people. Guy in white shorts, then a woman's legs. Long legs."

  "Good luck," he said.

  "Listen, Eddie, if you want to talk about what happened today… I'm comfortable sitting here in my fuzzy slippers."

  Eddie had already told her about shooting Sergei and she hadn't flinched. He wondered what else he could release from his nightmare vault. Oddly, what he remembered most about the El Greco diner was the smell of the cologne from the father of the birthday girl. After the Lincoln took off, he pushed Eddie out of the way and lay down on his wife, as if the mere pressing of his body against hers could stop the life from leaking out of her. Eddie understood this. He loved her, and he was desperate. She was still breathing at that time. Her eyes were open but gazing blankly. Eddie could see one exit wound behind her ear. It was then he noticed the strong cologne, that overpowering chemical smell that seemed common to so many men who, because of their jobs or personalities, had a need to impress. His old partner had worn cologne like that. Every once in a while when Eddie caught a whiff of overripe cologne, he'd turn around and look for Paulie the Priest.

  Eddie said, "This guy shoots an innocent woman in the face for no reason. He watches her drop to the ground. Then he puts his gun away, buttons his coat, and gets in the car. In front of a hundred witnesses."

  "People are evil, Eddie. One thing about being a cop is that we don't have any ambiguous feelings about that fact."

  "I was surprised he didn't grab the little girl. But she was probably too small for him to hide behind. I kept thinking about Kate, how these guys have no regard for human life."

  "That's why we have to put an end to it. We're going to get Kate back and stop these bastards."

  Eddie couldn't believe he'd come to care so deeply for Babsie in such a short time. Eileen had always said that Eddie's parents had taught him how to fight but not how to love. If that were true, why did this seem such an easy fit?

  "Now, I've got some bad news for you," Babsie said. "Scott filed a petition for custody with Westchester County Family Court. He's going to ask for temporary custody of Grace, to remove her from a possibly dangerous situation."

  "What danger? She's the most protected kid in the country."

  "A lot about you in the petition, Eddie. Not good stuff."

  "How much time do I have?"

  "I don't know. I heard this from my brother's wife, who works at Con Ed with Scott's sister. You better get your ass in gear on this."

  "I'm calling B.J.'s friend tomorrow. We'll fight it, slow the process up. By the time it goes to court, Kate will be back."

  "Yeah," she said.

  "She will be back, Babsie."

  "I'm agreeing with you. We'll find her."

  "If she was dead, they wouldn't have killed Freddie. The only thing Freddie could have told us is where she is."

  Babsie nodded. Eddie knew she had the decency not to point out the flaw in his logic: that Freddie's knowledge of Kate's kidnapping, or where she was now, didn't mean she was alive.

  "Now we have to find Zina," Babsie said.

  This was what cops did every day. It was what most people only learned in the midst of the worst moments of their lives. You simply grasp at the next straw. Zina was the next straw. She would surely know something about Kate. This time, the magic door would open. Zina would show him the way.

  "Why did Matty Boland call?" Eddie said.

  "He wants Freddie Dolgev's keys," she replied.

  Chapter 33

  Monday

  11:30 P.M.

  Eddie tried to call Matty Boland at home, then on his cell phone. Boland answered, but static cut out most of what he said, except something about a fucking tunnel. Eddie stayed on the line until he cleared whatever tunnel he was in. First thing Boland brought up was Dolgev's keys.

  "What keys?" Eddie said.

  He played that game until Boland stopped playing his game and admitted the reason he needed them. The FBI task force had obtained a warrant for installing an electronic eavesdropping device in a garish nightclub on the edge of Brighton Beach, a place called Mazurka. A new informant had revealed that Yuri Borodenko held high-level meetings to discuss his criminal enterprise in an office in the rear of the Mazurka nightclub.

  "If I had such a set of keys…" Eddie said.

  "Let's not string this out. What do you want?"

  Although telephone wiretaps could be set up from outside, a bug was essentially an open microphone, and thus the installer somehow had to get inside the place.

  Although locks could be picked, having the keys was always better. Fredek Dolgev's keys would make their entrance quick and simple. The less time on the street, the better. "Tonight's the night," Boland said. A judge had signed the warrant three days ago; therefore, the clock was running.

  "I want to go in with you," Eddie said.

  "Jesus Christ," Boland said, then added, "Okay, okay."

  The FBI warrant would be amended to include the use of other "expertise necessary to gain access," meaning Eddie Dunne and his keys. Eddie grabbed almost ninety minutes' sleep before meeting Boland, the FBI's lock man, and a Russian interpreter in the back of a van parked near the handball courts in Coney Island.

  It was just after 2:00 a.m. when Eddie handed the keys to the FBI lock man. They were sitting around a circular table two feet in diameter in the custom-built surveillance van. The lock man compared the keys with the notes he'd taken on existing locks. The interpreter tried to match the notations taped on each key to a specific location. They were certain the two odd-shaped keys would match the Mazurka's high-priced outer locks. Advertised as impossible to pick, the French-made locks had thus far thwarted the lock man. Now the only question concerned the inner office. How many inside locks would they face?

  "This is the third try," Boland said as he and Eddie stepped outside to piss against a wall of the handball court. Boland said the FBI's lock man was amazing at his workbench in the office. In there, he could pick any lock known to man. The guy was Houdini in the right setting. In the field, however, in the bowels of Brooklyn in the dead of night, was a different story. Hands started sweating; the heart ticked louder. "I told him I was bringing a brick with me tonight," Boland said. "If he didn't get it in ten minutes, I was going to break a goddamned window."

  "What about alarms?" Eddie asked.

  "That's the easy part."

  "The alarm guy is a federal stool, right?"

&nb
sp; "You didn't hear me say that."

  Boland decided it was a good thing they'd brought Eddie along. He was the only member of the team who had actually been inside the Mazurka. Shortly before he left Lukin's employ, Eddie had accompanied the old man to the lavish wedding reception Yuri Borodenko threw for his new teenaged Russian wife. This was a bash rumored to have cost in excess of fifty thousand dollars. But they'd put Lukin's party at a table so far back, Eddie had barely been able to see Yuri and the baby bride. Lukin's placement at the party was a clear insult, and a sign of things to come.

  The rumor at that time was that Borodenko was the undisclosed owner of the Mazurka and had sunk over half a million dollars into the place simply because his fashion model wanted a nice place to go. Now Eddie sketched out on a legal pad a floor plan of what he remembered of the nightclub. The huge brown metal doors were heavy and etched in Russian design. The inside foyer had mirrored walls, a floor of black-and-brown Italian marble, and a two-headed eagle, the symbol of Russia before the revolution. A hand-painted mural of the Saint Petersburg skyline pointed the way to the cavernous nightclub.

  Eddie said he'd never forget the night he was there. Bowls of borscht and frosted bottles of vodka everywhere. The tables were covered with pink tablecloths. Russian men in suits bought at Barneys "Gangster Room" danced across the inlaid-wood dance floor with their voluptuous blondes. Eddie doodled on the inlaid squares of his pencil-sketch dance floor as he tried to picture the place in his mind. Multicolored lasers crisscrossing the room. A black woman crooning Russian love songs on an elevated stage in front of the dance floor. To the left of the stage was the kitchen. Waiters in tuxedos rushing around with skewers of beef. To the right of the stage were the rest rooms and private offices.

  At 4:00 a.m., the task force moved. It went quickly; seven of nine people were inside the place in less than thirty seconds. Two stayed outside in the van. The job was always easier when you had the keys. They knew there were no guard dogs. Even the best-trained guard dogs would make the place smell like dog shit.

  Inside the darkened club, every investigator had a specific responsibility. Computer expert, records expert, et cetera. Matty Boland's job was to make sure everything was put back exactly as it had been when they entered. Eddie had no assignment, but Boland handed him a pair of latex gloves. Eddie had asked to watch the records person, who'd be going through files, address books, and all other paper records. He wanted to find something on Zina.

  Although no outside windows were noted, light was kept to a minimum. Radio contact was limited to emergencies. Working off pinpoint flashlights, the team turned right at the dance floor. The lock man dropped to his knees in front of a door that said executive offices. With the flashlight held in his mouth, he slipped into the lock a small curved metal pick that looked like a dental tool. Eddie could hear the tumblers flipping one by one. Thirty seconds ticked away before the lock man stood up; his gloved hand turned the knob.

  The Executive Offices were far from any exterior walls. Boland turned the light on, revealing a nicely decorated reception room with a leather couch and one metal filing cabinet. Two more doors. One was a private bathroom with a shower stall. The other was the inner office they were looking for. Jackpot in less than two minutes. No problemo, as Kevin Dunne would say.

  The tech men had already decided on a power system for the bug. They ordered a new telephone line for the Mazurka, billable to a third party under their control. They found the connection and ran the wire in the ceiling above the manager's desk. They wanted the microphone set directly above the desk.

  Boland watched as a tech man put a cloth down on the desk to avoid footprints. He made a note of everything they moved. Ceiling panels were raised to find the telephone wire. The tech man near the wall, standing on a stepladder, pushed a wire across the ceiling to the man standing on the desk. The guy on the desk had the important job: He attached the microphone to the phone wire. When the tech man nodded, Boland notified the agent in the plant in lower Manhattan to call the new phone number. The tech man clicked the microphone, opening the line. The guy in Manhattan could hear everything. Thus began a one-way phone conversation that would last for twenty-seven more days, unless evidence of new crimes extended the warrant.

  The tech men carefully replaced the ceiling panels. Boland put his finger to his lips, reminding them that everything they said could be heard downtown. While this was going on, Eddie Dunne looked inside every folder in the file cabinet. He looked through the employee files, the manager's appointment calendar, and the

  Rolodex. He found Fredek Dolgev's file, although not one single notation regarding Zina. Then he found her name on that month's pay sheet. Zina Rabinovich… with a line drawn through the name, the word terminated, and the initials Y.B. The date was April 6, the day Kate was kidnapped. Borodenko was in Russia on April 6. He'd fired her from Russia.

  In under fifty minutes, the members of the task force were walking out of the club one by one. They waited until the street was empty and then hustled into the waiting vans. It was done smoothly and efficiently. Eddie might have to take back some of the nasty things he'd said about the feds.

  There were four in the van as they rode back to the underground Queens garage they called "the bat cave." Matty Boland lit a big Cuban cigar and talked about the importance of what they'd just done. If the bug turned out to be as good as it seemed at this point, it would strike a death blow to the Borodenko operation. Boland was flush with his success.

  "If this goes right," Boland said, "I've got First Grade detective in the bag. No way they can't promote me."

  Human nature, Eddie thought, it comes down to thinking about number one. Numero Uno. He'd once read that people expend by far the most energy on the preservation and enhancement of their self-image. We see ourselves in splendor. Perhaps this is why we are so devastated when tragedy hits home. How can God do this to me? The great me. But deep inside, you know exactly why.

  Chapter 34

  Tuesday, April 14

  11:00 A.M.

  Eddie stumbled into the kitchen, limping almost as much as the psycho Sergei Zhukov. That shooting pain that Babsie called sciatica came and went for no reason he could understand. Every day, more of his life seemed to be breaking down. He felt old for the first time, his breath sour, skin dry and itchy. Just another unshaven old man scuffing through the corridors of some rest home. Babsie sat at the kitchen table, a magnifying glass up to her face.

  "I put this photograph together," she said. Detective Barbara Panko never wasted any time with "Good morning" or "What's with the limp?" She went straight to the heart of the matter.

  The house was quiet, the weather too warm for the clank of steam in the pipes. Grace was at school, no TV, no radio. Eileen had always had to have the TV on; silence made her antsy. Just the two of them now. Babsie had worked out a schedule with the Yonkers PD wherein they only watched the house when she wasn't there. But every single school day, a uniformed cop sat outside Christ the King.

  "What photograph?" Eddie said.

  "The one from the trash at Freddie Dolgev's house."

  It had been after 5:00 a.m. when he'd gotten home from Brooklyn. The fluorescent light over the stove had led him to a note written in big block letters. It was signed by Babsie and Grace, but one signer had written her name too large and too near the end of the page. She'd had to slide the "ce" under the "Gra." It said that a piece of "angel foot cake" was waiting for him under the cake tin. It was signed "Love." He hadn't been hungry, but he'd poured a glass of milk and finished the cake. Then he'd collapsed into bed, hoping not to dream.

  "Grab some coffee and come over here and look at this picture, will you?" Babsie said.

  "Soon as I get my eyes open."

  He'd slept miserably. The first time he woke up, the morning sun was angled low in his bedroom window. Loud voices and the rumble of heavy equipment shattered the usual early-morning peace-a city road crew getting an early jump on resurfacing the street. F
irst time in twenty years, and they chose now to do it.

  "How did you make out last night?" Babsie asked.

  "The Mazurka is wired."

  "Another feather in Boland's cap, thanks to you."

  "Can't hurt. They might pick up a mention of Kate's name."

  "They won't say anything to you; it might jeopardize their almighty case."

  "They'll tell us, Babsie. Good bunch of guys on the task force."

  "A few maybe, and that's only because Louie Freeh dumped that stupid lawyer or accountant requirement and brought some cops and street kids aboard."

  The second time he woke up that morning, he'd heard Babsie sliding the glass pot back into the Mr. Coffee. A kitchen chair squeaking against the tile floor; a cup set down on the table. Grace's voice complaining about school. He'd thought about Kate, how loud she was in the morning, banging pots and pans. Over a week had gone by, but Eddie had no doubts that his daughter was alive. Not that he believed in ESP or any of that occult crap, but a parent and child must be able to tune in on the same wavelength. So much is genetic, he thought, why not a common wavelength?

  "Come over here," Babsie said. "This picture is really interesting."

  In his mind, Eddie saw Kate tied up and blindfolded. He tried to imagine the room. Sense it as she was doing. They'd have to tie and blindfold her because she'd be fighting and cursing like the tough pain in the ass he'd raised her to be. No one doubted that. She could be a pain in the ass. God bless her. Amid all this going on, it made no sense that these people outside woke up today, showered, went out to blacktop some curvy, hilly little side street, thinking only of their own lives: dinner, sex, golf, the weekend, whatever. It wasn't right.

  "Hey, Dunne," Babsie said. "Get your ass over here and look at this picture."

  "All right, all right," he said, carefully lowering himself into the chair. He'd decided that sciatica made sitting worse than standing.