No Time for Heroes

by Brian Freemantle

  It wasn’t until mid-morning, long after the interrogation of Antipov had begun, that Zubko was fit enough to be questioned. As with Carla Roberts, Wilkes and Bradley did the questioning, with Slowen the uninvolved observer.

  ‘You’re in shit, Peter. Deep shit,’ began Bradley.

  ‘What you want?’

  The hooker had been right, Slowen thought: the man did speak as if he had rocks in his throat. He had the neglected thinness of an addict who rarely ate, nerves tugging near his left eye and in his cheek. The shake was beginning in his hands, and he was using both to scratch away the skin irritation there sometimes was coming down from a heroin plateau.

  ‘To make the world a better place,’ said Wilkes. ‘It’s our reason for living.’

  ‘Don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘We mean ridding the streets of vermin like you,’ said Wilkes.

  ‘We’re going to send you away to a very bad place and you’re going to stay there for the rest of your life …’ The lieutenant stopped, pretending the need to consult the man’s criminal sheet. ‘Says here you’re forty-three. With the shit we found stashed in that rat-hole where you live, we got ourselves a major trafficking indictment here. And you’re an already convicted trafficker. A recidivist …’

  ‘… And there’s the guns,’ said Wilkes.

  ‘The guns!’ exclaimed Bradley, tapping his forehead. ‘I forgot the guns. You know, we can’t find a licence record anywhere for that Smith and Wesson and that Beretta …’

  ‘… You got a permit for those, Peter …?’

  ‘… Sure as hell won’t look good if you haven’t,’ said Bradley. ‘The one thing judges hate more than a major drug trafficker is a major drug trafficker who goes around with a loaded piece, prepared to kill people … You kill people, Peter?’

  ‘… Twenty-five years, I’d guess,’ came in Wilkes. ‘And there’s no parole for drug convictions, so you’re going to serve every one of them …’

  ‘… Which will make your sixty-eighth birthday pretty special,’ cos that’s the first one from now you’re going to enjoy outside the slammer …’

  ‘What you talk about?’

  ‘Courts don’t like big time, Grade A operators,’ said Bradley. ‘And that’s what you are. How else could you describe a trafficker with maybe more than a kilo of sixty or seventy percent shit in his room when we come calling?’

  ‘What you talk about?’ repeated Zubko. ‘Don’t have no kilo!’

  ‘Found it myself, under your bed,’ insisted Bradley.

  ‘Saw him do it,’ confirmed Wilkes.

  ‘No true!’

  ‘Gonna swear on oath,’ said Bradley.

  ‘Me too.’

  Slowen hadn’t heard anything about a kilo of heroin until that moment.

  ‘You plant it!’ declared Zubko.

  Solemnly the two detectives looked at each other, then back at the Ukrainian. ‘That’s a grave accusation,’ said Bradley. ‘Courts don’t like lies being told about the police.’

  Zubko was scratching himself more vigorously, the shaking was worsening, and there was a patina of sweat on his face. ‘Why you do this?’

  ‘Tell us about Viktor Chebrakin,’ demanded Bradley.

  ‘And Yuri Chestnoy.’

  The man brought his shivering hands up to his face, as if physically to stop himself talking.

  Wilkes said: ‘We’re not hearing you, Peter.’

  ‘How about Igor Rimyans?’ persisted Bradley. ‘He’s pretty big on the drugs scene in Brighton Beach, isn’t he?’

  Zubko remained with his hands to his face, hunched over the table.

  Wilkes said: ‘We’re still not hearing you!’

  ‘Don’t know these men.’

  ‘That’s a lie,’ said Bradley.

  ‘I’ll tell the court what you did to me. Put heroin in my place.’

  ‘Who do you think they’re going to believe? Us? Or you? Think about it,’ urged Wilkes.

  ‘What you want?’

  ‘Where would I find Viktor Chebrakin or Yuri Chestnoy or Igor Rimyans …?’ said Bradley.

  ‘… Or Valentin Yashev?’ completed Wilkes.

  The lowered head shook, in refusal.

  ‘Twenty-five years,’ said Wilkes.

  ‘No parole,’ said Bradley.

  ‘There’s a warning,’ mumbled the man.

  ‘We know,’ said Bradley.

  ‘We do deal?’

  ‘We want addresses. Right addresses,’ said Bradley.

  ‘Then you not lie, about the heroin?’

  ‘Names. Addresses,’ insisted Wilkes.

  ‘Rimyans,’ mumbled the man.

  ‘OK. Rimyans,’ accepted Bradley.

  ‘Queens,’ said the man, voice scarcely above a whisper, still refusing to look up. ‘The corner house at Junction Boulevard and Elmhurst Manor.’

  ‘The Jackson district!’ identified Wilkes, the man with local knowledge. ‘We’re a long way from Brighton Beach.’

  ‘Airport,’ said Zubko, simply.

  ‘Supply points,’ breathed Bradley. ‘A spit from La Guardia, not much further from Kennedy.’

  ‘You never tell it was me?’

  ‘Of course we wouldn’t.’

  ‘And you not lie about the heroin?’

  ‘Let’s see who we find in Jackson,’ avoided Bradley.

  ‘I tell truth.’

  ‘We’re going to be very upset if you aren’t,’ warned Wilkes.

  They held an immediate conference in Bradley’s office, accepting the Washington edict that Slowen remain as supervising controller of the investigation spreading wider and wider throughout the New York boroughs. Before driving out to Queens Slowen had a long telephone conversation with the precinct captain in the Jackson district, who wasn’t offended at the suggestion that Bradley and Wilkes, with their knowledge and involvement of the case, accompany him. Wilkes drove.

  ‘You going to do a deal with Zubko if the address he’s given us is kosher?’ asked the FBI man.

  Slowen was aware of Wilkes’ expression of astonishment reflected in the rear-view mirror. Wilkes said: ‘Deal with a motherfucker like him?’

  Bradley said: ‘He kills people. Kids.’

  ‘You know where he trades?’ demanded Wilkes. ‘Schoolyards. Gives kids little samples without payment, like a supermarket loss leader, until they’re hooked. Catching up with Zubko is the first positive benefit that’s come out of this whole goddamned thing!’

  ‘So the answer to your question, Mr Slowen, is no; we are not going to deal, whatever we come up with at Jackson.’

  ‘With more than a kilo – and the two guns – it probably will be a long sentence,’ said Slowen.

  ‘The longer the better,’ said Wilkes.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Cowley was waiting when Danilov got to his office after the encounter with the Director. So was Pavin. The scene-of-crime officer was subdued instead of being excited, which Danilov found strange.

  The American wasn’t. ‘This looks like it at last!’ greeted Cowley. He’d held himself to three whiskies the previous night, refused wine at dinner, and felt fine.

  ‘It could be,’ agreed Danilov. He saw there were duplicate photographs of those he had seen in Metkin’s office and several obviously new folders banked up on the exhibit table. Some had overflowed to rest on top of the closed safe.

  Seeing Danilov’s look, Pavin said: ‘Everything’s complete, including the statements of those involved in the arrest. It’s immaculate.’

  Was Pavin jealous of someone else being able to correlate evidence as meticulously as him? It was difficult to believe, but it could be a logical explanation for the other man’s attitude. Danilov told him: ‘We’ll need the gun. And the fingerprint sheets.’

  While Pavin was unlocking the safe, Cowley said: ‘You want the interrogation any special way?’

  ‘Let’s play it according to how he reacts,’ suggested Danilov.

  ‘I’ll follow your lead,�
� accepted Cowley.

  Danilov looked to Pavin. ‘Let’s make an audio recording, as well as a written note.’

  ‘Already arranged,’ assured the exhibit officer.

  For a few seconds after entering the interview room, until he saw the earphoned technician, Cowley stared at the archaic recording apparatus in genuine curiosity, unsure what it was. A separate table had been brought in for Pavin’s additional note-taking. There was only one chair on either side of the other table, for a one-to-one confrontation: another chair stood by the door, put there because whoever had arranged the room hadn’t been sure where else to leave it. Cowley was content with its position: with Danilov settled facing him across the table, Antipov would constantly have to switch from one interrogator to the other to answer their questions. It would form a psychologically disorienting triangle, to their advantage.

  Cowley and Danilov, professionals both, instantly recognised another professional from the other side of the divide when Antipov swaggered into the room. He wore the chamois jacket slung around his shoulders, the sleeves hanging loose; it made look bigger shoulders that didn’t need enlarging. His hair was greying and crew cut, although to create a rugged-man style, not for the disguising reasons Danilov wore his that way. It reminded Danilov he still had to get his cut. Antipov’s face was tight skinned, stretched over angular cheekbones and jaw, stubbled from lack of a shave. He wasn’t manacled, and the two uniformed warders stood back for the man to come through the door. Cowley’s impression was more of their being courteous escorts than watchful guards to a shoulder-rolling mafioso.

  Antipov stopped short of the table, hands nonchalantly in his pockets, exaggeratedly surveying the room. He halted at Danilov. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Sit down,’ Danilov ordered, dismissively waving towards the chair opposite.

  Antipov took his time: he kept his hands in his pockets, extending his legs fully in front of him.

  ‘I am charging you that on or about the fourteenth of this month you murdered Ivan Ignatsevich Ignatov,’ announced Danilov. He nodded to the recording apparatus and to Pavin, alongside. ‘Whatever you say will be taken down, for presentation at your trial.’

  Antipov snorted a laugh. ‘Why don’t you fuck off?’ He turned towards Pavin. ‘Make sure you get that.’

  ‘We’ve got the gun we can scientifically prove fired the bullets that killed Ignatov. It’s got your fingerprints on it.’ Danilov held it up, in the protective exhibit bag.

  Having tried a laugh, the gangster yawned, hugely. ‘Didn’t get a lot of sleep last night, with one thing and another.’

  Danilov said contemptuously: ‘We’ve all seen the American movies. You’re not doing it very well.’

  Choosing his moment, Cowley said: ‘No good as an actor and no good as a thug.’

  Antipov had to turn, as Cowley had known he would: for the first time there was interest on the man’s face. ‘Russian crime so serious they’ve got to import help?’

  ‘Why don’t you tell us about Russian crime?’ invited Danilov.

  Antipov spread his hands innocently, palms upwards. ‘What do I know about Russian crime?’

  ‘It wasn’t from a movie you got the idea of shooting Ignatov in the mouth, was it?’ said Cowley. ‘That was intended to mean something …’

  ‘… What did it mean?’ completed Danilov.

  Antipov yawned again, more artificially than before.

  Danilov held the exhibit bag up again. ‘It’s an automatic conviction. Which means the death penalty. You want to die, shot like you shot Ignatov?’

  ‘I’ve never seen that gun before. Don’t know anything about a man called Ignatov.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid!’ sneered Danilov. ‘He was an Ostankino bull. And you killed him.’

  ‘Is there a gang war going, between the Ostankino and the Chechen?’ demanded Cowley. ‘They’re your main rivals, aren’t they?’

  ‘I don’t know what Ostankino or Chechen means.’

  ‘What’s your rank, in the Chechen?’ said Danilov, setting the Makarov on the table in front of the man, where he could constantly see it. ‘You a bull?’

  ‘Or just a lokhi?’ queried Cowley, taking up the sneer, trying to penetrate the veneer.

  Antipov shook his head in contempt, not denial.

  ‘Probably a lokhi,’ jeered Cowley. ‘In America the worst soldier wouldn’t dump his weapon with the body.’ Arrogant men often cracked under ridicule.

  ‘What was Ignatov going to say about the Chechen?’ resumed Danilov. ‘That’s what the mouthshot is for, isn’t it? A warning to stool-pigeons? You’ve copied that from America, like a lot else.’

  ‘Why ask me?’ There was a heavy shrug.

  ‘Or do the Moscow mobs have different rules?’ said Cowley, in growing desperation. ‘You have different titles, after all.’

  ‘I told you, I don’t know anything about mobs or titles.’

  ‘Maybe you’re telling the truth,’ said Cowley. ‘A lokhi, too small time to know anything … a punk. Means you’re shit. That’s you, isn’t it? Shit.’

  ‘How long you going to keep this up?’ said the man, holding the anger.

  ‘As long as it suits us,’ said Danilov. ‘You’re ours now. We can hold you as long as we like, how we like, where we like …’ He snapped his fingers. ‘We do that and you jump.’

  ‘Go fuck yourself,’ said the mafioso again.

  It was looking increasingly as if that was exactly what they were going to have to do, decided the American. He couldn’t at the moment think of an approach that might have been more successful with the man, but their supercilious performance certainly hadn’t succeeded. ‘You know what that double fuck was you had last night?’ said Cowley, knowing the circumstances of the man’s arrest from Kabalin’s already prepared report. ‘The last ever. Sure hope it was good for you.’

  That failed like the rest. Antipov feigned masturbation. ‘It was fantastic. You want their address? They’re very expensive but worth every dollar …’ He turned more fully, to Cowley. ‘You could probably afford it. You’ll have the money, being an American …’ He nodded between Cowley and Danilov. ‘Why not do him a favour, treat him to the fuck of the century?’

  Thank God they could hold him as long as they needed, thought Danilov: it was going to be a long haul to break this bastard. ‘You read newspapers? Watch television?’

  ‘Sometimes,’ shrugged Antipov.

  ‘Two men were killed in Washington, just like Ignatov: shot in the mouth. One was a Russian diplomat.’

  ‘Didn’t hear about it,’ said Antipov. ‘I’m a businessman! What do I know about crime?’

  ‘What sort of business?’ pounced Cowley.

  ‘Import–export.’

  ‘What do you import and export?’

  ‘Whatever I can. Nothing special.’

  ‘Where are your offices?’

  ‘I don’t need offices. I buy one place and sell another. I’m a middleman.’

  ‘You’re a little thug,’ said Danilov. He reached down by his side again, bringing up the old and new fingerprint sheets. He held out the first and said: ‘The file that goes with these has two convictions for violence … two more for theft …’

  ‘… It’s a risky business …’ broke in the man. ‘Have to protect myself sometimes.’

  Danilov paused beyond the interruption, suddenly thinking Antipov was actually enjoying the fruitless interrogation. Holding out the second sheet, he said: ‘These came from the butt of the gun. That’ll convict you. Put you before a firing squad …’

  ‘… Wouldn’t it make sense to try to help yourself?’ pressed Cowley.

  ‘How?’

  The simple question, free at last of any arrogance, encouraged both investigators. Danilov said: ‘With the evidence we’ve got, a death sentence is automatic. Co-operate, and I’ll intervene with the Federal Prosecutor. See he doesn’t demand the death sentence at your trial …’

  ‘We’re offering you life!’ urg
ed Cowley.

  ‘Wish I knew what it was you wanted,’ sniggered Antipov.

  Cowley only just suppressed the exasperation, glad he was able to deny the cocky bastard the pleasure of knowing how deeply he was getting under their skins. He saw Danilov looking at him over Antipov’s head and lifted his shoulders, helplessly.

  ‘Don’t be a fool,’ said Danilov, standing but leaning across the table. ‘You haven’t got a defence. And we can do what we like with you. We’ll talk tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that. For as long as it takes. Think of the choices. You going to choose to die? Course you’re not! Only a fool would do that …’ He nodded to the waiting detention guards.

  Antipov took as much time standing as he had seating himself. ‘Some things were taken from me, when I got here this morning. Rings. A watch. A gold identity bracelet. You’ll see they don’t get stolen, won’t you? I don’t trust the Militia, uniformed or otherwise. No-one does.’

  No-one spoke for the first few minutes after Antipov was escorted from the room. Cowley crossed to take the interrogation chair at the table. Danilov gestured for the tape to be stopped.

  ‘He should have snapped, being ridiculed,’ insisted Cowley, sure of the psychology. ‘That was the way to do it.’

  ‘He hasn’t had time to think it through,’ suggested Pavin. ‘It will be different when he realises he is going to die.’

  Cowley shook his head, not completely convinced. ‘He’s got a long way to go before he becomes a frightened man.’

  ‘But no real choice in the end,’ insisted Danilov, confidently.

  By the time they got back to Petrovka, the decision had been made to issue a press statement announcing the arrest. Vladimir Kabalin was named as the arresting officer: the point was emphasised that it had been an entirely Russian operation, although American participation was continuing with the ongoing investigation. A photograph of Mikhail Antipov was released.

  The Jackson address was openly recorded in the housing register and in Post Office computers as being that of Igor Rimyans and his wife Irena. It was a clapboard, two-storey house with an attached garage and a well tended garden. There was a child’s bicycle discarded by the verandah swing seat. The lace curtains were cross-looped, corner to corner, a woman’s decoration. It looked deserted from the moment of their arrival, and there was no obvious movement throughout the afternoon. They put a van with two-way observation glass on Mill, and an hourly-changed car squad much further back along Elmhurst Manor. Quite close, on Junction Boulevard, a supposed sewer maintenance squad set up home beneath a canvas tent. The house remained in darkness throughout the first night.