Reznikov went for convenient national pride when he said, “Chekhov,” and then waited for me to absorb the import. No, I thought, please, not Chekhovian wisdom too! “You have assigned me black hat,” he explained. “Impossible to understand antagonist until you see him as protagonist in his own world. Chekhov knew this.”
My ex-wife, Dana, an actress, would have been all over it. In agreement. “Your calling,” I said. “I’m still struggling with that.”
“Your contempt,” he said, “means nothing.”
My talent for showing no expression was suffering with this guy. I decided not to try so hard. “What I’m going to take away from this,” I said, “is the chink in the fence I got you to trip over.”
He said, “I do not know this expression…chink in fence.”
“You’ve shown yourself to me without intending to,” I said. “I’m going to be thinking about that.”
He said, “I do very little without intending to.”
“I’m sure you think so,” I said.
“What you need to think,” he said, “is how you will survive tomorrow, or day after, because of what I have told you.”
“Nail in my coffin?” I said.
“Expressions and more expressions,” he said. “This, my friend, is what you have tripped over.”
I said, “Oops.”
“Still,” he said, “I have enjoyed speaking with you. Yes.”
“We done?” I asked.
“Maybe I like you,” said Reznikov. “Little bit.”
“Stefan,” I said, “you’re going to make me blush.”
“Woman behind wheel in your vehicle,” he said, “waits for you.”
“I wondered if you’d noticed,” I said.
“You are in habit of making women wait,” he said. “Good.”
I said, “Nice speaking with you, as well.”
“We will meet again, Theodore Mitchell. Yes. Am looking forward to it,” he said, and smiled in such a way that the mole at the top of his cheek lifted itself until it appeared a shadow to the pupil of his eye. It did everything but sound a slight pop for having struck a spark.
The side-door slowly rolled open. The driver and the man who had wielded the garrote made way for me to exit the vehicle. I nodded at Stefan Reznikov and stepped down out of his office. The man who was not the driver handed me my gun. “Thank you,” I said.
He said, “But of course.”
As I walked without haste toward Adrienne and my Chrysler, I repeated, for my own piece of mind, what Reznikov had said about not killing me today. By the time I slid into the passenger seat and looked back to where I had left it, the van was gone. Nothing about the meeting was what I had expected, and I really had not expected much beyond the stunt of getting inside the van in the first place, after which I figured I’d play it as it rolled out. That he halted what seemed like the perpetual movement of the van to tell me the story of his life was a knock-out. It had to lead to something, but as to what that might be was going to have to oscillate inside of me until it showed itself.
Adrienne said, “Did I make a mistake in coming down into the garage?”
“He was onto us from the get-go,” I said. “Not a problem. But this car is now useless on this case.”
“I was this close to walking over there,” she said.
“He probably would have invited you in,” I said. She started the engine and we headed back to her place. “I’m not a hundred percent sure what happened,” I said, “but I am absolutely fascinated.”
“You always are on tap-root cases,” said Adrienne.
“No, no,” I said, “this isn’t like that. He’s a hologram. The man behind the curtain. Invisible even while you’re looking at him straight in the eye.” I ruminated on my fascination with him beyond mere motive. I wanted to know what animated the man, made him get up in the morning. No, more than that, I wanted to know what made him think he was a good guy, the protagonist in his own world.
“Keeping it to yourself?” said Adrienne.
“He was an orphan who was turned out onto the streets,” I said. “He turned away from a life as a prostitute to join the military.”
“And now he heads up an army of prostitutes,” she said.
Something was telling me that hookers were merely the obvious level of his business. The real operation was deeper. Darker. He had invoked the names of Tolstoy, Pushkin, and Chekhov. I was thinking more on the order of Dickens. Grave robbing. Body snatching. A stable of after-market flesh more valuable than that gained from turning tricks. I said, “He deserted without intending to.”
Adrienne said, “How does that work?”
“Afghanistan,” I said. “Heroin.”
This was received with a modulated expression, but nothing was said. We were in Hyde Park, on Waugh at Cherryhurst, the street on which Adrienne lived, but she passed it up and kept heading north so we would not have to sit in front of her house to continue the discussion. Her mother’s nose would no doubt have been pressed against the living room window, with an over-abundance of wrong impression gathering in her imagination.
“Heroin,” repeated Adrienne.
“Soviets lost a lot of men to heroin,” I said. “The way we seem to have lost them to suicide in Iraq and in our own excursion into Afghanistan.”
“So,” she said, “he had a death wish.”
“He was not military-material,” I said, “and got himself strung out before he knew it. One of countless who thought he could control it.”
“Heroin?” she said. “Please. Idiot.”
“He’s not without arrogance,” I said.
Adrienne allowed a pop of air to escape her lips, along with a slight shake of her head. Having lost Allison to such an individual understandably made every opportunity for disparagement appear as if things were adding up.
“See,” I said, “at this stage, we collect. We don’t judge, we don’t decide, we don’t shortcut the rising tide of useful information that might be helpful down the road. This guy’s not stupid. We’d be making a mistake to think so.
“What is he?” she said.
“Compelling,” I said.
She didn’t like that I had cautioned her. “Shut my mouth,” she muttered.
“He ended up insinuating himself,” I said, “into the life of a poppy farmer who looked on him as if he were the son he had lost to a drug he helped to cultivate and export. It’s all bound up in crossed intention.”
“Guilt over a lost child,” Adrienne said, “I understand.”
“The farmer made it his mission to clean him up and restore him to the living,” I said. “I’m thinking it was a way of compensating for the son he had thrown into the fire.”
“He told you all this?”
“And more,” I said. “It was as if he’d been waiting for someone to ask.”
“And you’re buying it.”
“I listened to it,” I said. “I’m sure he got that I was…what..?”
“Compelled,” said Adrienne.
“Fascinated,” I said. “A different kind of narcotic.”
We had reached Allen Parkway, where Adrienne turned right and headed back toward downtown. The bayou was lighted enough to keep those out and running in what can seem like the cooler air after dark “Get to the part where he deserted,” she said.
“We’re there,” I said. “He was locked in a barn. Oblivious. Dangerous. Very sick. By the time he’d kicked it, he had been considered a deserter.”
She said, “Why didn’t he go back and tell the truth?”
“Soviets liked to shoot deserters without asking a lot of questions first,” I said, “or listening to a lot of story. Hoping for deterrence, I’m sure. Didn’t do much to stem the tide.”
“So,” Adrienne said, “he just stayed deserted.”
“Providence had helped him out,” I said. “He decided not to fight it. And he owed the farmer for giving him back his life.”
She said, “I don’t like the way
you’re telling this.” There was a plaintiff edge to her voice, a growing dread of being jilted.
“It’s not like he’s my new best friend,” I said.
She said, “He murdered Allison.”
“He’s complicit,” I said.
“He’s turning you,” she said.
I said, “He is not turning me.”
“You just bought the man’s rap,” she said.
“We had nothing,” I said. “He revealed himself. There’s somewhere to go.” She shook her head and drew breath slowly instead of responding. “What are you afraid of?” I said. I detected a slight wince on that. I had challenged her.
She said, “I don’t know.”
“Go deeper,” I said. “I don’t want to have to pull my punches here.”
“I just felt for a second that I was losing you,” she said.
“Here’s the good news,” I said. “He is no longer the mysterious Russian. He’s flesh and blood. He feels pain. He’s got an idea about himself. He’s vulnerable.”
“I can’t afford to lose you,” she said. “And I don’t want to.” Traffic was backed up as we hit downtown. We slowed to a crawl. I had never felt that Adrienne was attached to me in any needful way. Now I did. She prodded me with, “I’m listening.”
I said, “He thinks he’s the good guy.” We were stopped behind a large SUV which blocked the view ahead. Nothing to do but wait.
Adrienne said, “What I don’t like is the fact that you are cutting this reptile some slack.”
I grew quiet in the face of further substantiation of my long-held desire to work solo. The web of impulses that motivated a suspect was complicated enough without also having to contend with those of a tag-along assistant, to say nothing of my own impulses, which were ample enough complication. I studied the traffic stalled behind us in the passenger mirror. Nothing alarmed. It was habit. In keeping with what had become societal default activity to fill dead time, cell phones were being used in the sedan behind us. Four adults. Likely they were car-poolers.
Adrienne said, “I’m too emotional, aren’t I?” I remained silent. “I’m not built for this, am I?” I remained silent some more. “I couldn’t do what you do,” she said. “You know how to wait better than anyone I know.”
“This is about your flesh and blood,” I said. “Were you a doctor, I wouldn’t expect you to operate, or a lawyer, to represent.”
She said, “I don’t think I should come with you again.” I remained silent yet some more. “But I probably will anyway.” Exactly what I didn’t want to have to say myself. After a moment she said, “Say something.”
“I have nothing to add,” I said.
“In what possible context,” said Adrienne, “could he conceive of himself as the good guy?”
“He feels he is paying what the farmer did for him forward, helping those who can’t fight for themselves to get their lives back.”
“He actually said that?” she asked.
“Not in so many words,” I said.
“How do we get Allison from turning tricks in a trailer up on 1960,” said Adrienne, “to her deathbed teeming with infection because of a botched, fly-by-night butchering?”
“Haven’t put that together yet,” I said. “It will come.”
“How often,” she said, “do your scenarios belly up?”
“You keep asking that,” I said, “but it is a highly protected trade secret.”
She added, “That farmer end up calling him Grasshopper?”
Better that than Sweetheart, I thought, and hoped she hadn’t seen me think it. I turned to look out the side window just in case.
It had to be a problem with the train up ahead, or an accident.
Eight
I rented a car the next morning. Ford Taurus, four-door sedan. Beige. All due respect to Ford, and to the popular Taurus, this car was the most non-descript of all I looked at on the lot. Certain, I felt, to blend in with any landscape, moving or still. It required that I write a check for an additional temporary parking space in the garage at the Hogg.
I breakfasted on a reheated cup of coffee before walking to my office. I never failed to appreciate the vast, spare openness of my loft at the Hogg. Virtually no walls, save for the glass-brick monolith that served as the headboard to my platform bed extending out from it on the other side. A modest concession to privacy. The only room with a door was the bathroom beyond the bed at the other end of twenty-five hundred square feet of planked flooring finished in light gray.
More windows than art; no painting, tapestry, or sculpture could compete with the stunning view of downtown’s north end, bayou, horizon, and endless sky out the gridded wall of window in front of which I stood. The kitchen was on that end of the loft, mostly stainless steel, with granite countertops the color of onyx. Though I owned a very nice dining table under a light fixture suspended from the ceiling, I preferred to stand at the counter, where I often took my meals. Silence enriched the sense of open space such that I rarely breathed as effortlessly anywhere else.
I did not encourage the thoughts about Stefan Reznikov that pushed up in my mind. Neither did I discourage them. The man had perfected the condition of being alone. So much so that he had contrived being off the grid not so much in stealth, as it was a conceit of being invisible while moving about in plain sight. I found this enviable, and recast Adrienne’s bristly reaction toward my telling her about him the previous evening as more correct than I had allowed her to believe at the time.
It was not the first time I felt drawn toward someone I pursued in ways that were not entirely explicable to me, but this was the first time I was able to qualify such a pull as envy. Adrienne had been right to bristle and to call me on it. I wasn’t sure I liked the feeling once I had acknowledged it. To understand the individuals I pursued, I necessarily found myself identifying with their motives, intentions, desires, needs… What a sick business.
The two-block walk east on Preston to the Kiam building had become, over the years, an efficient wind-up so that by the time I reached my third-floor office door, readiness would have been kick-started, my engine warmed, the direction of the day engaged. I had one hand on the side door I used into the building, when a screech of brakes behind me demanded that I turn to see what it was.
Sergeant Ebbersole and Officer Taggart had nosed into the curb behind me in their cruiser, the doors on either side of the vehicle splayed open, and they made their way toward me. “Where’s your car?” said Ebbersole, her tone indicating that a barn was burning somewhere.
I said, “I never bring my car to work, Sergeant.”
“Okay,” she said, “I’ll ask one more time. Where’s your car?”
“Is there a problem?” I said.
“That remains to be seen”, said Taggart. His was a calmer tone, slower, very much in support of Ebbersole identifying as the alpha dog. Ever the polarized partnership; she overplayed, while he played under. Quieter. Easier.
The morning was still about ease for me. “I keep my car at home,” I said.
“Let’s go,” said Ebbersole.
“Do I get to know,” I said, “what this is about?”
Taggart looked to Ebbersole who, I sensed, was calculating loss of perceived authority in answering my question. I waited. “We’re responding to a tip,” she said.
“A tip?” I said.
“We got a call,” said Taggart.
“Let’s go,” said Ebbersole.
Never my intention to make things difficult for uniformed officials, I climbed into the back seat of their cruiser. A call from whom? I wondered. A tip about what? Interesting that their sense of alarm dovetailed so coincidently with my having already launched the day on the issue of my car. The short drive back to the Hogg had barely been enough time for me to generate interest in pursuing their tip with the adrenaline they had brought to the party. I unlocked the door to the garage with my key and we climbed the four flights to my parking space.
The car I owned,
the Chrysler 300, brought them up short. Something didn’t fit. Expectations were thwarted. Suspicion descended. The air bristled between the two of them, and in an ambient way, it got to me. “Open the trunk,” said Ebbersole.
I complied and stepped back for their easy access. Inside the trunk was a rolled, sliver windshield liner I no longer used, designed to reflect sunlight when the car might be left in the heat of the day. There was also an emergency road kit, lights, jumper cables, an aerosol tire inflation canister, and electrical tape. Other than that, the trunk was clean and empty.
“Do you have another car?” said Taggart.
“No,” I said.
“We’re looking for a Ford Taurus,” said Ebbersole.
“That’s a rental,” I said. “Just picked it up this morning.”
“Where is it?” said Ebbersole.
“Third floor,” I said, and pointed down to indicate the level below. For convenience, my permanent parking space was on the same floor on which I lived. I’d had to take what was available for a temporary additional space.
“Let’s go,” said Ebbersole. Her haste to the stairwell intended to signal that a powerhouse was on the move. Popular perception was that law enforcement hardball was played on the streets of Houston; whereas, in reality it was by and large a relaxed endeavor, punctuated with flashes of lightning. Ebbersole was trying to produce lightning, which did not bode well for occasions when authentic lightning might be needed. She arrived on the third floor before Taggart. She even spotted the rented Ford Taurus upon emerging from the stairwell.
Taggart joined her at the back of the car before I caught up. I popped the trunk electronically as I made my way toward them and saw even from thirty feet away that a body was on its side, in the trunk, in a fetal position, facing in the direction of the back seat. No clothes. Its color was that of someone who had bled out, though there did not appear to be blood in the trunk. Upon arriving at the rear of the car and looking down on the young boy’s curled body I heard my own slow exhalation through barely parted lips, “Bumper.”
I was encouraged that we ended up in an interview room at the HPD building on Fannin instead of at the county intake facility on Riesner Street, on the bayou adjacent to the county jail. While it was a sure bet that I was being recorded for sound and image after having been offered the opportunity to call in a lawyer, I was not yet the material of a Mirandized booking.
Spare Parts: A Ted Mitchell Detective Novel (Ted Mitchell Detective Novels Book 4) Page 6