He seemed to consider that. “Djuro, if you were Tishchenko and two people came to you in this way, how would you advise them?”
Bo put his hands in his lap and stared at the table. “I would advise them to find out what it is that Harvey Baltimore has, or what it is that he knows, and to let the man have it, this man who took him. But”—he held for an extra beat—“I would also understand that they meant no disrespect in taking him back. They didn’t know.”
“Then you believe this man should…”
“I would ask that he forgive any disrespect that was shown and accept in exchange the full and true disclosure of whatever it is that Harvey Baltimore knows that he needs.”
Tishchenko sat back and scratched his chin. “If he did, that man would be a very understanding man.”
“Yes.”
“A benevolent man.”
“Yes.”
“And in line,” I said, “in front of the FBI, who also wants this…this thing, whatever it is, which…which we don’t know what it is because…because…” They had both turned to look at me. “Because Harvey is home recovering and hasn’t told us yet.” They turned away, and I knew how it felt to get smaller.
“This man who took your friend, Djuro, would he not be stupid to forgive the thief who stole his chicken before he got his eggs? With no chicken and no eggs, he has nothing now. My six-year-old grandson knows this much.”
“He would have my word.”
Tishchenko picked up his cup and drank down the rest of his espresso. Then he picked up the spoon and dropped it into the cup, where it clanked delicately.
“Sashen’ka.”
“Yes.”
“Do you have a brother?”
I looked at Bo. He gave me a subtle nod. “Yes.”
He put his hand on Bo’s forearm. “Djuro reminds me of my brother Vladislav. Vladi was also my business partner. We came here to America together. I miss my brother very much.”
“What happened to him?”
“Someone killed him.”
“I’m sorry he’s dead, but Harvey never killed anyone.”
“Perhaps. But this man who took your friend, he might believe Harvey Baltimore knows something about the man who killed my brother, a man who left this country and to this day has never paid the price for what he did.”
“Wait a second. Roger Fratello killed your brother?”
Tishchenko sat back abruptly. He reacted as if I’d squirted lemon juice in his eyes. Bo was also staring at me. I had apparently violated the code of vague communication. I tried again.
“Why do you—” I had to pick my pronouns carefully. “May I ask why the man who took Harvey thinks Harvey can help him with his problem?”
“He might have friends who know such things.”
Friends in the FBI? That was a scary thought, though not entirely out of the realm of possibility.
Tishchenko aimed his steady, impassive eyes at me. “Would he have your commitment, Sashen’ka?”
“For what?”
“If this man were to let your friend go and forgive your mistake, would he have your commitment to provide a service in return?”
“What exactly is the service requested?”
“Find the man who killed Vladi. Tell me where he is. That’s all.”
“First of all, I have to be clear. Are we talking about Roger Fratello?”
He offered a curt nod.
As far as I knew, no one knew where Roger Fratello was hanging out. Certainly not the FBI. Maybe Harvey did, maybe he didn’t. “If Harvey knows something—”
“I do not believe in if. It is a weak word. Something either is or it is not. You either do or you do not.”
I was afraid my voice would come out as a squeak, so I made myself calmly reach for the teapot, lift it, and pour the tea into my cup. I put the pot down, picked up the cup, and took a sip. It was strong and hot, and as I settled my cup back on its saucer, I looked at Tishchenko.
“If I did this, then this man we’re speaking of would no longer have interest in Harvey?”
“He would have no interest in Harvey Baltimore.”
I glanced at Bo. He was giving me no cues. This was apparently up to me. I looked at Tishchenko’s dead eyes. “Yes, he would have my commitment. I’ll find Fratello.”
“Conscience and honor,” he said, looking at Bo. “This is the law I live by. Not the laws of this country or my country or any country but the laws of man. You know this, Djuro.”
“Yes.”
“A commitment means everything. Do you understand, Sashen’ka?” He watched me closely.
“I understand.”
He looked straight at Bo. “Make sure that she does.”
If I hadn’t been in Bo’s Mercedes, I would have thrown up on the way back to Harvey’s. As it was, I couldn’t stop trembling. I heard myself talking to Bo. I heard the words that came out of my mouth, but I couldn’t make any kind of cognitive connection to them. My mind was back in that dank café, playing over and over again the moment where I had made the commitment to Tishchenko. Something told me I had just made a very large bet.
“Bo?”
“Yes?”
“What if I can’t find him?” That he didn’t respond was not reassuring. “Roger Fratello disappeared four years ago and hasn’t been seen since. The FBI hasn’t been able to find him. Obviously, the…the tsar back there hasn’t been able to find him, and I’m sure he looked. Both of those organizations would have way more resources than I have.”
“He believes that Harvey Baltimore knows where he is. If he believes this, then it is true, even if it is not. Do you understand?”
I did. I opened the window on my side and let the cool air rush over my face. “This is not a good situation.”
“He will not kill you if you give him what you said you would give him. He is a man who lives by his commitments.”
“What if I can’t?”
He stared straight ahead. “As I said, he is a man who lives by his commitments.”
14
THE NEWS JUST KEPT GETTING BETTER. BO WAS SUPPOSED to go back to Harvey’s with me and strategize, but he got a phone call that took priority. Boston PD was interested in talking to him about a disturbance that had taken place in a local neighborhood in which three men disappeared. He wasn’t sure what they had, but he had to go and take care of it. When he dropped me in front of Harvey’s, he assured me that Radik and Timon would still be around—as long as the cops didn’t want to see them, too, in which case we might all be in big trouble.
I assumed that Harvey would still be in bed, but when I came into his office, he was sitting quietly in his chair in the middle of the room, blinking at me.
I froze. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing is wrong.”
I didn’t believe him. Something was always wrong. But he had gotten himself out of bed and dressed. He looked much more together than I felt. “You look good,” I said. “You look better. Are you feeling better?”
“I am well, thank you. Much better than last we spoke.”
“What are you doing?”
“Waiting.”
“For what?” The tea service was back out. A fresh pot had been brewed. “Are you expecting company?”
His hands had slipped into his lap, and he was staring at them as if he’d just screwed on a new pair and didn’t know how they worked. It was the way he looked when he felt guilty.
“I was hoping to have this done before you got back.”
“Have what done?”
“I called the FBI.”
“You called—”
He held up a business card, and I had a sick feeling, because I knew whose it must have been. I went over and snatched it from him. Special Agent Eric Ling.
“Where did you get this?”
“It was on my bedside table. I thought you left it for me, either by design or by fate.”
“It was neither, Harvey. It was by accident. Why did you call him?”
“You mentioned last night that the FBI had come. Feeling somewhat more lucid this morning, I have an idea of why they were here. I think it is my duty to speak to them.”
“About what?”
“Roger Fratello.”
I looked at him more closely. It was clear from the way he said the name that he knew who he was talking about. “What about Roger Fratello?”
“You said they were looking for him.”
“They are. They said he was a bad guy and that you helped him go on the lam four years ago. I told them you wouldn’t do that.”
He wouldn’t look at me. He kept rubbing the back of one hand with the other, which was what he did sometimes when they felt numb. My heart started to beat with purpose, like someone hammering on a door, trying to wake me up.
“Harvey?”
He started to answer and stopped. He scratched his head. The clock ticked, he swallowed hard, and I started to feel numb as I waited to have the last of my illusions shattered.
“I did it. I did help him sneak out of the country.”
Crap. I went over and flung myself down on the wingback. “Why would you do that?”
“He was a danger to Rachel.”
That figured. I closed my eyes and tried to stay calm. But then I opened them, and I was staring at all my casework strewn across the floor in plain sight. “When is Ling coming?”
“At nine o’clock.” We both looked over at his great-grandfather’s clock.
“Dammit, Harvey.” I had fifteen minutes. I went down on my hands and knees and started scooping up all the bits and pieces of the case that I had so scrupulously fit together the night before. “A conversation between the two of us would have been nice before you invited the federal government over. There are things going on that you are not even aware of, things we need to talk about.”
Without bothering to sort, I shoveled everything into a couple of file folders. “Besides that, we’re partners. We should be making decisions like this together.” Looking around for a hiding hole, all I could think of was to shove everything under one of the couch cushions.
“There are some decisions you cannot make for me,” he said, “or even with me. This might be one. I do not know. It is confusing.”
He sounded genuinely conflicted. Had I not been so angry with him, I would have felt bad for him.
“I know how you feel about Rachel,” he said, “but I cannot let harm come to her. If I am to take the heat, I believe that must be my decision alone to make.”
“Take the heat for what?” I closed up the laptop and shoved it under the couch. Then I smoothed the seat cover and checked around for anything incriminating. Eventually, my attention landed on Harvey, who hadn’t bothered to answer. I stood up and pushed the hair out of my eyes. “Harvey, will you answer me, please? Take the heat for what?”
He hesitated. “I know you do not understand…us. Rachel and me. I have never really understood it myself. But I love her, and I always will, and I have a chance to do something for her with the life I have left.”
“Harvey—”
“I am dying. I know that is hard for you to accept. It is hard for me to accept. I do not want to die. I do not want to have this illness, but I have it. I do not know how many days I have left, but I know one thing: there will never be another one that is better than the one that preceded it. I am a burden to you—”
“Please, don’t start with that.”
“Let me finish.” He sat as straight as he could and took a deep breath. “When those men came and took me out of my house, I was certain they would kill me, that I would be murdered by people I did not know for reasons I did not understand. I was terrified. But do you know the thing that frightened me most? That it was fitting.”
“What was fitting?”
“That a man who had lived such an unremarkable life would die in such an anonymous way.”
“Your life has not been unremarkable.”
“My life has been remarkable only for the amount of energy I have expended to keep it that way. I have never done anything that would draw notice, I have never caused a commotion, I have never taken a risk.”
“You married Rachel.” It took him a second or two, but when he got it, he smiled. The moment was fleeting. He went on.
“All my life, I have been offered opportunities that I never took. I have turned away from the things that frightened me. When you came to get me, I was ready to die, but now I feel that God has granted me another opportunity, and I promised myself that when the time came, I would not turn away. The time has come.”
“The time for what?”
The clock began to chime. It was nine o’clock. He waited until all nine bells had sounded. “To turn myself in.”
“To turn yourself in for what?”
“For the murder of Vladi Tishchenko.”
“Vladi Tishchenko? Drazen’s brother? Drazen’s much-loved and sorely missed brother?” I thought maybe we were joking again, but he seemed perfectly serious. I considered sitting down, but I knew I couldn’t stay down. “I thought Roger killed Vladi.”
“Roger Fratello did not kill Vladi, and if he comes back here, he will undoubtedly say so.”
“Then who did? Because I know it wasn’t you. I know—” That was when I got it. I finally got it, and everything made sense. Horrible sense. “Rachel killed Vladi. That’s what this is about. Rachel killed Vladi, Roger knows that, and that’s why you got him out of town. You did exactly what Ling said you did.”
“Yes.”
“And you did it to protect her.”
“Yes.”
I hadn’t had much sleep, I was feeling like crap, and I still had a Drazen hangover, but I managed to come up with the relevant question. “Why did she kill him?”
“He tried to rape her. It was self-defense. But that would not matter to a man like Drazen Tishchenko. He will kill Rachel if he finds out. Roger Fratello can never come back here.”
“If Drazen thinks you did it, he’ll kill you.”
His face went slack, and his lips parted. His jaw began to quiver under his jowls. “How do you know what he would think?” His voice was shaky. Drazen had that effect on people.
“Who do you think snatched you? Bo and I killed three of his men last night getting you home. That’s where I was this morning, having breakfast with him and trying to make amends.”
“What did you tell him?”
A car pulled up outside. I checked through the blinds. Our guests had arrived. “That I would find Roger Fratello. In exchange, he promised to forgive and forget and to leave you alone.”
“Why would you do that? I never asked you to do that.” He tried to press his lips together. He tried to look stern, but his chin was quivering. “Why would you do that?”
“You are my partner and my friend. There is no other choice I could have made. Don’t you get that?”
Two car doors slammed in quick succession. Ling and Southern would be walking up the driveway. I needed time to think.
“All right, look. I can figure this out. I know I can.” I started doing laps around the couch. “There is a way to make this work so that no one gets killed. I know there is, and I know I can find it. But I can’t do it if you’re in FBI custody, I can’t do it if I’m worried about Drazen coming after you, and I can’t do it right this second.” I stopped in front of his wheelchair. “I need for you to give me a little time.”
“How much time?”
“I don’t know. But more than the thirty seconds it’s going to take for them to get to the door. I need you to stall them.”
“What would I say? I am the one who called them.”
“I don’t know, just please don’t say you killed anyone. Don’t confess to something you didn’t do. At least give me the rest of today.”
There was a loud knock on the door. They’d probably been standing out there for a while, not knowing the doorbell was broken.
“What’s it going to be, Harvey?”
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He seemed a little more crumpled than usual in his chair, and he was starting to wheeze. “I will do what you ask,” he said. “Under one condition.”
Everyone had conditions. How come I never got to set the terms? “What condition?”
“If it comes down to it and you have to choose, you must promise me that you will choose Rachel.” He might have looked crumpled and sounded spent, but his tone was firm.
“If I have to choose between you and Rachel, you want me to choose her?”
“I am sorry. I am truly sorry, and I believe that you can figure all of this out. But I have to know that if you cannot, or if you cannot in time, Rachel will be safe.”
The pounding on the door began in earnest. Ling and Southern had already come in once with guns drawn. It was time to make a decision.
“Fine. I promise. But here’s my condition. After they leave, you have to tell me what it is about this woman that would make you want to die for her.” Because I just didn’t get it.
15
SPECIAL AGENTS LING AND SOUTHERN LOOKED LIKE CIRCUS clowns through the parabolic lens of the peephole, but when I opened the door, they were all business.
Southern stepped up. “Where is he?”
“In his office.”
He brushed past me and headed down the hallway. Ling wiped his feet on the mat. “Thank you,” he said. I tried to look as if I knew what for. He smiled. “For having Harvey call.”
“Oh, absolutely. I insisted.”
He let me lead the way to the office, where I was surprised to find Harvey on his feet. He was leaning on his cane but mostly upright. After he confirmed that he was who he was, Ling flashed his ID and introduced himself and Southern. “We’d like to talk to you alone.”
“Excuse me, Special Agent Ling,” I said, “but I already feel involved in this because of our interview yesterday. I would like to stay.”
“I’m sure you would, but have you checked with your partner?”
Harvey wobbled a little as he blinked at me from behind those thick lenses. My jaw tightened, my stiff neck throbbed, and I knew there was still the chance that he would choose today to throw himself under the bus for Rachel. I knew that’s what his instincts told him to do.
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