False Dawn jl-3

by Paul Levine

  “I’m looking for a Russian man named Smorodinsky,” I repeated. “Maybe thirty. He would have checked in today.”

  “Couple of hours ago, one of ’em came in.”

  I waited.

  “Talks English as good as you. Looks like a gypsy, but he’s a Rusky. Room two-twelve.”

  He was hacking again as I made my way to the darkened staircase. There were three steps to a landing. I felt along a wall, found a light switch, and flipped it on. A bulb of maybe twenty watts went on overhead, and a slow ticking started. There was graffiti scrawled on the wall, Manuel boasting about his conquest of Rosa. I listened to the wail of a radio, one of the Spanish-language music stations. Somewhere overhead, two children were squabbling with an astonishing command of four-letter words. The light went out. It must have been on a thirty-second timer. By then, you should have completed your business. I climbed the stairs to the second floor, pushed another button, and was granted another half-minute of light. I climbed more stairs, finally emerging through a splintered door on the third floor. Here there was the smell of disintegrating plaster and steaming cabbage. Voices, two men, two women, who may have been playing cards. I headed toward a door at the end of the corridor.

  I knocked three times before getting a response. It sounded like a question, the voice deep and melodious, the words foreign.

  “My name is Jake Lassiter. I’m here to see Nikolai.”

  Nothing.

  “It’s about Yagamata.”

  “Do you work for him?” The words flowed easily and seemed to carry, like an actor on stage.

  “No.”

  “Whom do you work for?”

  I didn’t know whom.

  After a moment, I said to the door: “No one.” It sounded like a lie, even to me.

  “Did Yagamata send you?”

  “No. Eva-Lisa sent me. It’s about your brother. It’s about Vladimir.”

  I heard a bolt slide, a chilly sound like the action on a Mauser thirty-ought-six. The door opened with a squeal, and I was looking into the face of an olive-skinned man in his early thirties. Nikolai Smorodinsky looked nothing like the corpse I had seen in the morgue. Unlike his brother, he had prominent cheekbones, a black mustache, and long, almost feminine eyelashes. He wore a black linen shirt open at the collar and regarded me suspiciously with piercing dark eyes. He had a strong neck and was wiry beneath the oversize shirt.

  “Please come in.” He extended an arm in a graceful motion to smooth my entry and held the door for me. He didn’t move back to let me in. I had to scoot in sideways, and as I did, the arm that had welcomed me so graciously swung around hard, driving a fist deep into my stomach. It was a right hook, and a helluva sucker punch. My gut was relaxed when it hit. I doubled over, gagging, and he grabbed a handful of my shaggy hair and yanked me to the floor. Then he spun behind me, dropped a knee into the small of my back, and pinned one of my arms against my spine in a half nelson. He had one hand against the back of my head and was using it to grind my nose into a hardwood floor that stank of oil.

  “Who are you?” He yanked my wrist higher, locking the half nelson even tighter. He was strong. “What’s happened to my brother?”

  I had a feeling that the truth could break my arm. “Let me go. I’ll tell you everything.”

  “Where is he? Why hasn’t he contacted me?”

  I was kissing the greasy floor and my shoulder was just about to pop out of its socket. Through the pain, I pictured Vladimir Smorodinsky on a cold metal tray.

  “He’s dead,” I said, my teeth scraping the wooden slats, a trickle of blood oozing from my lip.

  After a moment, Nikolai released the pressure on my arm, took the knee out of my back, and stood. I rolled over and rubbed the back of my shoulder.

  “Are you certain of what you say?” he asked.

  I remembered the young assistant M.E. tugging out Vladimir’s intestines, hand over hand. “I’m sure.’’

  He let out a sigh and buried his head in his hands. “I knew. I just knew.” Then he looked back at me, his eyes asking the question.

  “I’m a lawyer. I represented the man accused of killing your brother. But my client didn’t do it. Yagamata had your brother killed, and I think you know why.”

  Nikolai studied me but didn’t say a word. “Yagamata said something to me after your brother was killed, something about Vladimir being a patriot true to his principles. Too much so. That’s what he said, that your brother was too much the patriot.” Nikolai was nodding, taking in every word. “Vladimir was trying to stop Yagamata, wasn’t he?”

  Nikolai extended a hand, offering to pull me up. I’d had enough of his neighborly gestures. I got to my feet all by my lonesome. He gestured toward an opening. The kitchen. A narrow passageway with an ancient stove, a waist-high refrigerator, and against a wall, a wooden table with three chairs. I sank into one of the chairs. There was blood on my face, and my shoulder throbbed.

  Nikolai stood over me. He didn’t answer my question. “My brother loved the Hermitage,” he said finally. “Have you ever seen it?”

  “I’ve never been to Russia,” I admitted.

  “The Winter Palace of the Czars, more than a thousand rooms in just one of the buildings, all filled with irreplaceable art. Think of the magnitude of it.”

  I remembered what Yagamata had told me. Three million artifacts. How do they even keep track of it all? Or was that his point?

  “The czars could build great monuments,” Nikolai said, “but could not feed the peasants. Not much different from the communists or our new democrats, eh?”

  “The art,” I said, licking my torn lip. “That’s why Vladimir was killed. When he figured out what really was going on, who was getting the money, how much of your national heritage was being stolen, he wanted to stop it, and so did-”

  I never heard the footsteps in the hall. The voice came from behind me. “As usual, Lassiter, you’re half right.”

  I whirled around, nearly falling out of the chair. Standing there in his gray suit and white shirt, black tie knotted at the neck, was Robert Foley. He looked like a man who would rather be anyplace else. “But it’s the other half,” Foley said, “that’ll get you killed.”

  N ikolai looked up, stunned. “Mr. Foley, what are you-”

  “Shouldn’t leave your door open, kid. Who knows what’ll come in. Goblins, spooks, half-assed lawyers.” Foley glared at me. “You tell him yet? Or should I?”

  “He told me.” Nikolai answered for me. “But, deep in my heart, I already knew. We had a system. Vladimir could get messages to me through an Aeroflot pilot who flew to New York. Every other Sunday, he would-”

  “Not talking about your brother, kid.” Foley’s voice had softened. Behind his rimless glasses, his eyes were tired and sad. He grabbed a wooden chair, swung it around, and straddled it backward, placing his forearms on the chair’s back. He looked like a cowboy in a gray suit. “We tap Yagamata’s phone. Hell, all his phones. We scan his cellulars, bug his home, his office, his boat. The son of a bitch is under twenty-four-hour surveillance. Yesterday, I’m in Washington, the Miami bureau picks up a call from Miami Beach to Yagamata’s home. A male voice: ‘The Finnish bunny has flown the coop.’ And Yagamata says, ‘What a shame to lose a bunny with such pretty fur.’ The caller asks, ‘Lose?’ And Yagamata says, ‘Lose like a cherry blossom in the snow.’”

  Nikolai’s voice echoed his disbelief. “They killed Eva-Lisa?” He slumped into a chair.

  Foley said, “In Miami, my people thought it was just another bullshit code about the artwork. Some agent just out of training even asked what artist painted bunny rabbit pictures. It took the better part of the day for the tape to be transcribed and faxed to me in D.C. By then, I was at a reception at the Polish embassy. Nobody in D.C. understood the importance of the transmission, either, or they would have gotten me out of there. I get home late and call the night desk. It’s an old habit, and they read me the fax. I’m yelling to get somebody to the girl’s
apartment on the Beach. They do, and there’s no sign of her. Another crew heads up to Lake Worth, but it was too late.” He opened his palms on the table in a gesture of helplessness. He did not look at me. “I’m sorry. As soon as I heard, I caught the next flight to Miami.”

  Nikolai’s face was white with anger, and tears glittered in his eyes. “You swore you would protect her. You knew what she was like. So impetuous. So young.”

  So dead, I thought.

  “She didn’t follow instructions,” Foley said. “I assume from the message to Yagamata that she was bailing out. She never even warned us.”

  “Who did it?” Nikolai asked, his voice cracking. “How was it done?”

  “Why don’t you ask Lassiter?”

  I didn’t like the way he said it, his tone changing from mournful friend to sarcastic cop in the blink of an eye. When I didn’t say anything, Nikolai turned toward me. A vein throbbed in his neck.

  Foley said, “We checked every police report yesterday in Miami Beach. Yesterday afternoon, a restaurant worker called the cops about a scuffle in an alley. Seems like a guy was tussling with a woman, may have hit her. By the time the cops got there, the couple was gone. Our people showed photos of Lassiter and Eva-Lisa to the worker. Positive ID on both of them.”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “Foley, what kind of bullshit is this?”

  “Shut up, Lassiter.” He turned back to Nikolai. “We’ve gotten some help from Palm Beach County homicide, too. Eva-Lisa was butchered in the sauna behind her parents’ house. A short-handled hatchet did the job.” I sensed Nikolai shifting in his chair, angling toward me. “They picked up latents all over the place. The wooden benches, the hatchet handle, even one on her shoulder using the methyl methacrylate test. We faxed Lassiter’s prints to them. A perfect match. If you look on the inside pocket of Lassiter’s sport coat, you’ll find the initials ‘R.H.’ If we scraped under his nails right now, we’d find…” He grabbed one of my wrists and turned my hand over. “… a speck of dried blood, and I’d bet you a hundred bucks DNA testing would match up with the decedent.”

  I tore my hand away. “You bastard, Foley! You know I didn’t kill her. Tell him!”

  “You tell him, asshole.”

  Before I could respond, Nikolai’s hand came up. In it was a stainless steel push dagger that must have come from a sheath on his leg. He pressed it hard against my neck, forcing me back in my chair.

  I hate a knife.

  When I spoke, I felt the tip of the blade pierce the skin. “I didn’t kill her. Foley, goddammit, you know it.”

  “Who killed her?” Foley asked.

  The knife pressed harder. “Kharchenko. You know that. He called Yagamata when she tried to quit. Your office picked up the call, you said so yourself.” Warm blood trickled down my neck. “Why are you doing this?”

  Foley shook his head. He seemed genuinely sad. “I don’t know any Kharchenko.”

  “Of course you do! He works for Yagamata. You were there in the warehouse when Yagamata told you about him.”

  “What’s he look like? Where is he now?”

  Too weird. I was about to have my throat cut, and Foley was taking a statement. It didn’t make sense. Or did it? I was arching backward, trying to escape the knife. If my chin went any higher, I’d snap my cervical vertebrae. Nikolai didn’t seem to mind.

  “What’s with you, Foley? I thought this was your operation.”

  “So did I,” Robert Foley said. “Now, what’s he look like, this Kharchenko?”

  “You really don’t know him?”

  “Christ, Lassiter, if I knew, I wouldn’t have asked for your detailed statement at the Crespo scene.”

  “I thought that was a trick to get my signature.”

  “That was a bonus,” he said, “like having a big-boobed secretary who can type.”

  I let out a breath and tried to relax. Foley wouldn’t let Nikolai kill me. At least not yet.

  “I know Kharchenko when I see him,” I said, lowering my head enough to look at Foley. “And I know where to find him tonight, but if Nikolai slices me, you won’t learn a thing.”

  His eyes dismissed the notion as irrelevant. “He cuts your jugular, I’ll clamp it shut with my hands. Make a hell of a mess, but give you another two minutes to live. For those two minutes, you’d tell me your mother’s darkest secrets and your father’s fondest dreams.”

  “I never knew my mother,” I said. It was true, though it sounded ridiculous just now. She was a platinum blonde who waited tables in Key West and ran off with an oil worker from Galveston. “And my father was killed in a barroom brawl.”

  Killed with a knife.

  I shifted my gaze to Nikolai, whose face was a dark mask. “Don’t you see what he’s doing? He can’t kill me. Against regulations or something. But he could let Yagamata do it. Or you. And he wants to make a quinella out of it.” A flicker of puzzlement crossed Nikolai’s face. “He wants to get the information he needs, then have you kill me.”

  I felt a bead of sweat trickle down my cheek. The pressure of the knife eased just a bit. Foley’s palm slapped the table. “Half right again, Lassiter. Sure, I want information from you, but I don’t want you dead. I just figure you deserve to piss your pants a little after that trick you pulled at the airport. Just answer my questions.”

  I was having trouble breathing. A lump of rage was stuck in my throat. “First, you tell Nikolai the truth, you bastard. Tell him they found another set of prints in the sauna. Tell him you don’t know who Kharchenko is because the prints don’t match up with anything you’ve got. Tell him how Yagamata took your nice little Operation Riptide and made it his own.” I licked my lips, salty with sweat. “Tell him I didn’t kill Eva-Lisa.”

  Foley shrugged his shoulders. “The lawyer’s right,” he told Nikolai impassively. “He didn’t kill her.”

  The knife clattered to the floor. With a strangled sob, the young Russian pushed away from the table and stood at the grimy window with his back to us.

  Foley’s eyes tried to apologize. “I’m sorry, kid, but this is a lot bigger than you are.” He said it as if he believed it. Then he turned to me. “Okay, Lassiter, let’s you and me kiss and make up.” I didn’t care much for the phrase but figured it was better than bury the hatchet. Foley gave me his snoop’s imitation of a friendly grin. “Where do we find Kharchenko?” he asked.

  “At the ballet,” I said.

  19

  ART FOR WHEAT

  I didn’t move in time, and a woman the size of Larry Csonka, but not as attractive, stomped on my feet and plop ped into the seat next to me, elbowing me in the ribs. Foley on one side of me, a Russian babushka on the other. Welcome to the Bolshoi Ballet, at least the touring version. The audience was an eclectic mix of South Florida society and Russian emigres. Foley and I were sitting in the balcony with the Russians. I was wearing a rented tux with an undersized shirt collar that felt like a garrote.

  Foley owned a formal outfit, or was it government issue? He was practicing his Russian by silently reading the bilingual program. I tried to get his attention. “First, you said our government was trying to stop the art thefts, help out the reformers.”

  Foley didn’t look up from his program. He was tracing under the words, moving his lips slightly, but he was reading Russian, and that’s more than I can do.

  “Then, I learn you’re really behind the thefts. You were trying to get the goods on the hard-liners, protect the Yeltsin crowd, help make the country a colony of the West, or something like that. What’s your expression, ‘drive a coffin nail into the godless heart of communism.’”

  “That was for the benefit of Soto and the Finns. Christ, Lassiter, do you believe whoever talks to you last? Don’t you have the ability to reason for yourself?”

  “Yeah. All by myself, I figured you’re a lying scumbag, because now I know you’re the thief. You and Yagamata are stealing the art.”

  Ordinarily, I am much more polite in ornate sur
roundings. But I doubted that many of our newest immigrants bustling into the gilded red velvet balcony of the Performing Arts Center would care, even if they could understand my poison-tipped whispers.

  “Look, Lassiter, you don’t even know the players, much less the rules of the game.” Foley folded the program neatly and placed it in his lap. He leaned close enough for me to smell the tobacco on his breath. “Severo Soto is a rabid anticommunist. He’s crazy as a bedbug. All he cares about is overthrowing Castro. He figures that if the Russians can’t subsidize the bearded one, the Cuban government will fall. He wants to be the first president in a democratic Cuba, or maybe it’s a fascist Cuba, who the hell knows. Everybody hears what they want to, and Soto heard me talk about nailing communism. The Finnish girl, too.”

  “So what the hell are you doing here?” I demanded. “What’s the U.S. interest in Russian art?”

  “What I told you was true at one time. A couple of years ago, the Russians let us know they were starting to lose valuable artworks, primarily from churches, but then some of the less valuable artifacts from the museums were missing, too. It was part of the crime phenomenon all through Eastern Europe, once travel restrictions and other controls were eased. All the Russians wanted was a little help on our end, trace where the stuff was being sold in the West, make some arrests, get people to talk, and find the source here that was funding the flow.”

  I used a finger to get some breathing room between my neck and my shirt collar. “Sounds like drug interdiction.”

  “Same idea. Anyway, we help them out, pick up a stolen Rubens at an auction house in New York, track it back to some semiorganized crime types in Minsk who have Party ties, and everybody’s happy. But then, somebody at Langley’s talking to somebody at State about how perestroika is stuck, and the nomenklatura are getting itchy because Gorby is cutting off their caviar, and suddenly, everyone’s scared shitless there’ll be a coup. So, with the reformers’ blessing, we take the initiative. We target some of the real assholes in the army, the Foreign Ministry, the KGB, and set them up for a sting. We’re paying off these guys in return for some valuable pieces from the museums. We’re taping the transactions, tracing their deposits into foreign accounts, and pretty soon, we have enough evidence to send some important commies to Siberia for treason. It would have gotten some of the real hard-liners out of the way. Then, all of a sudden, way more art is coming out of the country than we need to hold the top Reds’ feet to the fire.”