“It keeps the rain off,” he said modestly.
He headed toward the elevator across the lobby, but Val put a restraining hand on his arm. The sleeve of his suit was so smooth and cool he couldn’t help but rub his thumb against the material. “Get the doorman to call you if anyone he doesn’t recognize comes in.”
Maksim sighed but did as instructed. When they were safely behind the elevator’s mirrored doors, he asked, “You don’t seriously expect them to come after me so soon, do you?”
Val shrugged and immediately regretted it when pain lanced through his torso. He took a moment to breathe through the agony before answering.
“Maybe. Maybe not. That stunt at the police station wasn’t the act of someone willing to be patient. Pop was killed last month, and I’ve been out for blood ever since. I haven’t exactly made a secret of it.”
For all the good it had done him. His parents were still in the ground, and Val had no one to blame for it except himself for failing them. “I’ve been turning up the heat on anyone I could find, but going after Esposito must have set the pot boiling over. Whoever this guy is, he wants to clean house… and you climbed into bed with me the second you took me as your client.”
Those arctic blue eyes slid sideways to examine him. “Threat of bodily harm aside, I’ve chosen worse bed partners.”
Damn, was there a twelve step program for flirting?
Val faced forward, only to be smacked in the face by his reflection. Jesus, no wonder that Uber driver had been giving him the stink eye. He was a mess.
He ran a hand through his crazy thatch of black hair, attempting to smooth down the pieces that stuck up in back like a rooster’s comb. It didn’t do much good. Compared to the tall, sleek man beside him, he looked like a hobo coming off a week long bender.
A man like Maksim Kovalenko was at home in this pretentious urban ant farm, with its chandeliers and gleaming copper fixtures. He looked impeccable. His silver hair wasn’t even mussed despite their frantic downtown marathon. Val would have figured it was the work of gel if his hair didn’t look so damned soft.
The guy just oozed class. His heart probably pumped gold coins, for crying out loud.
“Everything all right?”
Val cleared his throat. “Yeah. Look, whatever you’ve got to take care of, do it fast. If they’re watching this place, it won’t take long for them to know we’re here.”
He’d expected Maksim to live in the penthouse, because someone like him would have to live in a penthouse, right? So it was a surprise when the elevator stopped on the seventh floor.
The doors slid open to reveal a wide hall, filled with discreet shadows and painted maroon with black accents. Gold plated wall sconces had been installed at regular intervals.
He wrinkled his nose, and Maksim laughed. “I know. It looks like a bordello.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Your thoughts are remarkably transparent for a man involved in criminal enterprises.”
Maksim moved to depart the elevator but Val grabbed his arm and held him back. He exited first, scanning both ends of the dark hall, before crooking a finger.
Maksim seemed amused, but at least he tolerated Val’s paranoia. It could be paranoia, but Val doubted it. He knew the people he was in bed with. They didn’t keep many scruples in their bottom drawers.
At the very end of the hall, Maksim opened a door without unlocking it.
“You don’t lock your front door?” Val asked incredulously.
“Oh, I do. I just have a problem with strays.”
“I heard that!” yelled a feminine voice from the depths of the apartment.
Maksim rolled his eyes and gallantly gestured for Val to precede him.
The place was swanky as hell but much more tasteful than whatever hellish theme was happening in the outside hall. Past the entry was a kitchen large enough for a family of five, filled with gleaming chrome appliances and a granite island wide enough for two grown men to lay side by side.
The image of Maksim doing just that briefly distracted him. He shook himself and focused instead on the low rumble of a television coming from the living room.
The apartment was a corner unit with two full walls in the living room made of floor-to-ceiling windows. On days the sky wasn’t leaking, the view of Mt. Hood would be breathtaking. Through the glass, steel towers fanned out around them as far as the eye could see. Streets crisscrossed the ground like stitches in a quilt. All the light streaming through the glass was probably meant to be cheery, but Val felt isolated this far apart from the bustle of humanity below.
The room was all cream carpet and grey suede, the kind of thing Val saw in waiting room magazines. He supposed it was a classic wealthy bachelor pad… or it would be, if it didn’t contain a teenager lounging on the sofa.
She was probably fourteen or so, skinny and flat chested, wearing a ton of smeared eye makeup and a messy bun. Her clothes were typical rich girl flash, and her socks had rainbow stripes. She was settled into the overstuffed sofa cushions for the long haul.
“You have kids?” he asked blankly.
He didn’t know why he was so shocked. The man wore no wedding ring, but that didn’t preclude a family, especially these days. He might be divorced or have an open marriage. His flirting was obviously a compulsive habit, so there was no judging by that, even though Val had gotten the impression the man was bisexual, at least. Straight men didn’t flirt so openly with other men, even as a joke.
“No.” Maksim came to stand beside him. He’d removed his jacket and tie. Val found his gaze locked on the skin beneath his open collar. “I have a feral creature from across the hall. She eats my food and leaves press-on nails on my sofa, so they stick to my ass when I sit down.”
The girl rolled her inky eyes. “I keep the place from becoming a cold, dark void like his soul. Maks secretly enjoys having something alive to come home to.”
“I could get a fish,” Maksim said. “A fish wouldn’t eat my ice cream.”
“Yeah, but a fish wouldn’t properly appreciate your withering sarcasm either. Who’s the guy?”
“A friend,” Maksim said smoothly. “You promised to go to school today.”
“I did. It was early release.”
Even Val could smell the bullshit all over that. It had to be obvious to a professional lie detector like Maksim, but he let it slide. Perhaps he, like Val, had noticed that the mascara streaks around her eyes didn’t look intentional. They looked like the result of tears.
Maksim sighed. “I need to change. Emma, watch Valentine, will you?”
The girl shot Val an evil grin as Maksim disappeared down the hallway.
6
Maksim
Maksim rubbed the back of his neck and stared down at his open suitcase. He kept his cell phone pressed to his ear and tossed his shaving kit on top of a pullover sweater.
Aspen always had good skiing this time of year. He needed to stay active to keep from driving himself insane with his own company.
Tinny soft rock piped through his speaker. He yanked the phone away from his ear and checked the time display. He’d already been on hold for seven minutes.
The young man in the other room would undoubtedly blow a gasket if he knew what Maksim was doing, but he didn’t give a good goddamn. If he was about to turn his entire life upside down, he would need more than a mafia hitman’s word on the subject.
He didn’t doubt Val was telling him a relatively honest version of the truth as he knew it. But Maksim had been around the block enough times to understand that perspective made the truth rather more flexible than most people assumed.
A harassed female voice came on the line. “Nilsson.”
“Detective, it’s Maksim Kovalenko.”
“Kovalenko? Jesus!” The speaker rattled as if she’d dropped the phone. “I’ve been trying to get ahold of you for two hours. Where the hell have you been?”
“My apologies,” he said, slightly startled. H
e’d never known Andrea Nilsson as anything other than unflappable. “Something came up.”
“Yeah? I’ll just bet. Did you know your client was the target of a drive-by this morning?”
“How can you be sure it was him?”
“Witness accounts matched his description. Funny thing, though…”
“Hm?”
“There was another man with him.” Nilsson let the silence bloom.
Maksim heard the distant cacophony of ringing phones and masculine chatter in the background.
“Was there? How unfortunate.”
“Don’t jerk me around, Kovalenko. Was that you?”
He sat on the edge of his bed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “If it was,” he said carefully, “I’d be wondering how criminals came to know the exact time my client and I stepped outside the precinct.”
“You and me both,” Nilsson growled. She lowered her voice to a whisper that probably wasn’t as discreet as she thought. “My captain is having a total shit fit. Brent and I thought he was going to have a stroke when he pulled us into his office. Apparently, we stumbled into an I.A. investigation when we pulled Esposito’s case.”
“Was Esposito an informant?”
“Hell, no. He had someone in our department on the take, as far as we can tell. At least, I.A. thought Esposito was the one pulling the strings.”
He considered his options before saying carefully, “If it was Esposito, my client wouldn’t have ended up with a bullet in him the moment he was released from your custody.”
“He was hit?” Nilsson got hyper at that. “We swabbed for blood on the sidewalk but results aren’t back yet. Is he alive?”
“For now,” Maksim hedged.
“Take him to St. Vincent. I’ll get some uniforms on him.”
“Hell, no.”
“I’m not screwing around here, Kovalenko. I need to talk to your guy.”
“He doesn’t know anything about Esposito.”
“Bullshit.”
Maksim wasn’t going to argue. In his experience, very little changed a police officer’s mind unless they could see it with their own eyes. It was a quality he shared with them, so he understood how futile an argument it would be.
“Neither of us is coming anywhere near the PPB until you get your house in order, Nilsson.”
“I can protect you.”
“I believe that you believe that,” Maksim said ironically.
“Christ, you’re an asshole. Bring Rivetti in or I’ll slap you with obstruction charges.”
Maksim thought of his airy corner office at Lockheed & Poole. He remembered the skint early years of his career, sleeping four hours a night in a rent-controlled apartment while he gunned hard to become the youngest junior partner at his firm.
He loved his firm, and they loved the way he’d always been a rock solid closer. But they loved their reputation more. An ethics inquiry was all it would take to send everything he’d built tumbling down. What would be left for him then?
“If that’s what you think is best, Detective.”
The seconds ticked by. Maksim could wait out a pregnant silence with the best of them. Eventually, Nilsson heaved a sigh. “You swear to me your guy knows nothing about the shooter?”
“He wishes he did.”
“Fine.” Nilsson’s voice was grim. “Lay low. Toss your phone. The captain will probably have us putting a BOLO on both of you. But you fucking call me the second you know something useful, Kovalenko, or I swear to God you will never work in this city again.”
“Done.” Maksim was about to disconnect when he brought the phone back to his ear and said impulsively, “Nilsson?”
“Yeah?”
“Watch your back. These might not be the days of Al Capone, but the mafia still has a long reach.”
“Roger that.”
* * *
Val
Val had already rechecked the hall and secured the front door, so he resorted to poking around the apartment to kill time.
The kitchen made him want to cook up a batch of his mom’s meatball marinara. There wasn’t much he could do with the kitchenette in his own place, and he’d been so distracted lately that he’d eaten tuna out of a can over the sink more often than he cared to remember.
He wondered if Maksim cooked. He couldn’t really imagine it. He seemed like a guy who paid people to do things for him.
The rest of the place was sleek and clean, but nondescript, nothing like its owner. The pricey, masculine flair that radiated off Maksim was nowhere to be seen in his home. There was no trace of family or friends, no photographs or quirky collectibles. It was like nobody lived there at all. Nobody worth knowing, at any rate. It was depressing.
He ended up back in the living room where the girl, Emma, was watching an old black and white show where a fat man was stuffing someone’s head into a turkey.
Val recognized the jaunty variety show humor. “Laurel and Hardy?” he asked skeptically.
“Abbott and Costello.” A derogative ‘peasant’ was implied in the sentence.
“Oh, yeah, the Who’s On First guys.” He’d found the bit hysterical as a kid when Pop had told it to him. He remembered trying to pull the act on his buddies at school, only to be disappointed when they didn’t supply the right foils for the jokes. “Not something I’d expect a teenager to enjoy.”
She rolled a baleful eye in his direction. “Do you actually know any teenagers?”
Huh. “Well, no. But it’s not like I’m ancient.”
She snorted and turned her attention back to the television. Val wondered if this level of pissiness was her general attitude, or if she was just having a bad day.
The idea of her and Maksim sniping at each other made him grin. It seemed like sarcasm was the man’s preferred method of communication, and this girl could give him a run for his money.
“Valentine is a dumb name,” she announced randomly.
Val’s lips twitched. “I agree,” he said. “Call me Val.”
Emma sneered and went back to ignoring him.
He checked his watch. What the hell was taking the guy so long to throw his shit in a bag?
The only sign of personality in the room was a massive, state-of-the-art entertainment center and an enormous bookshelf full of old-school DVDs.
Val perused the titles, aware the entire time that he was under the girl’s malevolent side-eye. Films were grouped by genre, and as far as Val could see, there was a little of everything: action, romance, drama, documentaries, and foreign films. Two shelves were stacked with old black and white comedy shows like I Love Lucy.
What the hell? He chuckled.
“You’re the youngest guy he’s ever brought home,” Emma blurted, as if she were continuing their conversation and hadn’t been ignoring him for five minutes.
“That a fact?” Val glanced over his shoulder and raised an eyebrow. “He brings people home a lot?”
“No.” She made a face. “The last guy was such a douchebag I heard Maks tossing him out in the middle of the night. He pounded on the door for, like, an hour. Woke my parents, even.”
Val rubbed the back of his neck and debated whether that was a line of inquiry he wanted to pursue. Nope. “How come you hang out in Maksim’s apartment when you have your own place next door?”
Her elfin face shut down, like a jewelry box snapping shut, leaving everything sparkly trapped inside.
“Emma sometimes needs a quiet place to clear her head.” Maksim’s deep voice came from behind him. “And she knows I appreciate the company.”
Val spun, alarmed that he hadn’t heard the man approach. It was difficult for people to sneak up on him. Why couldn’t he keep his head in the game? It didn’t speak well of his ability to protect Maksim long enough to shove him aboard an airplane.
A black, heavy duty suitcase sat at Maksim’s feet as he did up the buttons of a clean dress shirt. He’d changed into a pair of slacks that would probably be called business casual.
/> “I booked a flight.” He met Val’s eyes. “It leaves in two hours.”
Val checked his watch. “Just enough time to get you through the checkpoints at PDX.”
“You’re going somewhere?” Emma cried. She bolted upright on the sofa, her smudged, red-rimmed eyes welling with fat tears.
“Yes.” Maksim sat beside her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders.
Val was startled when the girl, who was prickly as a hedgehog, buried her face against Maksim’s neck. “I should already be gone, actually, but…” he hesitated.
Val had never seen him do that, not even when they were running for their lives.
“I needed to let you know that you can’t come by while I’m gone.”
“What?!” She scrambled to her feet and flung her arms wide. “You’re kicking me out? You said I was welcome any time!”
“You are,” Maksim insisted. “When I’m in town. But it’s not safe for you to be here alone.”
“Since when! Why are you leaving? Is it because of him?” She threw a venomous glare at Val, who held up both hands in a defensive gesture, even though that was bullshit because it was absolutely his fault.
“It’s not because of Val,” Maksim lied calmly. “I have business, that’s all.”
“Where are you going?”
“New York,” he answered smoothly, and Val realized the man was a far more talented liar than anyone Val had ever met. Which was saying something, considering he worked for the mob.
He wouldn’t have known it was a lie himself, except he knew the man was too intelligent to leave his whereabouts in the hands of anyone else. He’d come back to keep the girl from harm. He wouldn’t jeopardize her safety by giving her the precise information a hitman would look for.
“Can I come?”
“Your parents might object to my kidnapping you.”
“Like they’d even notice,” she muttered.
Val checked his watch. They’d already stayed too long. Why the hell was a guy like Maksim wasting his time with teenage tantrums?
Murder Aforethought Page 5