by Linda Ladd
Black frowned. “That’s against the law.”
“I know, and just thinking about it makes me crazy. And now I’ve got to interview these loser fighters at the arena and spend the weekend here instead of going out in those hills and making sure that no child abuse is going on.”
“If they’re out there, you’ll weed them out and put a stop to it. I have no doubt, whatsoever.”
“It’s just so sick. How could anybody do that to their own child?”
The valet showed up at Black’s door a moment later, so they got out, gathered their shopping bags, checked in at the desk, and then headed for the elevator. The serious conversations were now over. Black planned to have a very enjoyable weekend, and he was going to make sure that Claire did, too.
When Claire opened her eyes the next morning, Black was long gone with no note in sight as to his whereabouts. Oh, well, he was probably out at the mall getting her another expensive scarf to slink around in. She was surprised, however, when she saw on the bedside clock that it was already nine o’clock. She had been more exhausted than she had even realized. Maybe that explained her silly miff from the night before.
But right now, she felt rested and relaxed and ready to go arrest some murderous cage fighters. She snuggled back into the soft and silky pillows, thinking about all the young belligerent men she was going to have to interrogate. More interesting, she was going to have to infiltrate Ivan Petrov’s little enclave and push around his band of big bad guys. But hey, that was gonna be the fun part.
Not long afterward, she dozed but opened her eyes again when she heard the door in the living area open and close. Her 9mm and .38 snub were both loaded and under her pillow, thus close enough to grab, so if a weapon-wielding felon showed up on the threshold she could protect herself with the best of them. Not that she expected an attack, but one never knew in her line of work. A moment later, it was Black who appeared at the bedroom’s French doors. He had on khakis and was wearing the dark blue denim shirt they’d bought at Macy’s unbuttoned over a black insulated Henley shirt. He was carrying a rectangular black box. Oh, God, if that was a wedding dress, he was a dead man.
“I bought you a present. You know how I am. I liked it, so I wanted to force you to like it, too.”
“Hey, don’t be so sarcastic.”
“Open it. I tried harder this time.”
“What’s that mean?”
“That means it’s not a designer anything.”
“It better not be my wedding dress. Just sayin’.”
Black laid the gift down on the bed in front of her. “Quit being so picky and ungrateful. But you do look good with your hair all wild like that and wrapped up naked in that sheet.”
“You flatterer, you.” Claire sat cross-legged and pulled loose the white ribbons and then lifted the shiny black lid. Black tissue paper was folded inside, hiding the contents. She pulled it back, not sure what to expect. Then her eyes settled on what was inside. She instantly came up on her knees and grabbed it out of the box.
“Oh, my God, Black, you did not get this for me!”
Black was just sitting there on the edge of the bed, grinning and enjoying himself. “I looked for an Hermès scarf but didn’t see one you wouldn’t hate.”
“Oh, man, this is so sweet. A Glock 19. I can’t believe you actually went out and got me this.” She looked up at him, truly thrilled with the new gun. “Oh, my God, I’ve wanted this ever since I lost the first one down in that swamp in Lafourche Parish. Oh, thank you, thank you. I love it, Black. I love it.”
“You said I only bought you stuff that I liked, and after a bit of soul searching, I realized that was true. This is something you wanted, so now you’ve got it. Actually, I bought myself one, too.”
“And you got me a leather belt holster to go with it. And a ton of ammunition.”
“You like this gun better than your engagement ring, don’t you? Admit it. You definitely weren’t this excited when I gave you that ring.”
“I was, too, but I can’t protect myself with that ring. But this little baby, wow, Black, that’s all I can say. Wow. You hit the jackpot this time.”
“Yeah, I know. So show me how grateful you are.”
So she did show him, and he liked it almost as much as she liked the gun.
Chapter Nine
Later, and after a leisurely breakfast with Claire still in one of the hotel’s soft white monogrammed robes and Black now back in his robe as well, he said, “So you really like that Glock, huh?”
“Now you’re just fishing for compliments.”
“So I am.”
“Okay. My, my, Black, you certainly have a way about you when it comes to buying a gal guns and ammunition.”
“That’s because I always try to think about what you like when I’m out shopping. For fear that, otherwise, you’ll get mad, stalk off, and buy me dinner.” He grinned, and yes, it was very smirkish, and then he picked up the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that came on their room service cart and opened it to the sports section.
Claire had to laugh at that little tidbit, because she deserved what he had said, but serious stuff was incoming now because she’d put off a very serious and case-related conversation for as long as she could. She was not looking forward to bringing it up, and he wouldn’t like it, either, not even one little bit. In fact, his pleased-with-himself expression was going bye-bye-so-long in about three seconds. But, oh, well. “Okay, Black, brace yourself for something you’re just gonna hate with a passion.”
His wary eyes appeared over the top of the newspaper and were just so easy to read: Oh, God, now what? Which was the usual state of their lives of late, so she plunged in headfirst and willy-nilly, at that.
“Okay. This case I’m working on? You know, the dead and frozen cage fighter we found?”
“Yeah? What about it?”
Man, was he ever guarded now, hunkered down into dig in and defend, big-time. “Well, Bud and I uncovered an interesting connection right here in St. Louis. That’s another reason I wanted you to come over here with me.”
“Yeah? And?”
“Well, it’s a little sticky, Black.”
“I wouldn’t expect anything less from you.”
Claire inhaled deeply and let him have it. “Okay, it involves Ivan Petrov.”
In the blink of an eye, Black’s facial expression changed from guarded-as-hell to I-do-not-want-to-hear-another-word-about-this, and in a fraction of a nanosecond, too. He stared at her without speaking, and then he said, “Ivan Petrov runs a crime family here in the city. Drugs, prostitution, gambling, rackets, gun running. He’s implicated with your victim?”
“Afraid so.”
“Wonderful.”
“Do you know him personally?” She hesitated, not sure how to put her next question. “Or does anyone in your family happen to know him?” God, that was so damn clumsy that she embarrassed herself, but it sounded a little bit diplomatic, even if it wasn’t. What else could she say? Something like: Tell me, sweet cakes, is your godfather brother, Jacques Montenegro, in criminal cahoots with this lowlife dirtbag?
“By that, you mean my brother, I presume.” He frowned and shook his head. Now he was dragging his feet, big-time. He hated it when they talked about his big brother aka New Orleans crime lord. “I believe they are acquainted. I doubt very much if Jacques does business with Petrov. Ivan’s a very unstable and dangerous man. Jacques doesn’t care for him personally.”
Claire had a feeling that nobody on God’s green earth cared for Ivan Petrov personally. “Well, I’ve gotta go interview him. In person. ASAP. I thought you might want to come along and be my backup since Bud’s not here. You know, keep his goons from shooting me down.”
“That is not funny. And you do not want to go anywhere near him, believe me, Claire.”
Momentarily, Claire contemplated the reason why he thought she was being funny and couldn’t think of anything. “Well, sorry, but I’m gonna have to. His ex-wife accused him of m
urdering her husband, and her husband happens to be my victim. Therefore, I’m on call to check him out. See if he’s got an alibi for the window of opportunity.”
“You do not want to do that, believe me, Claire,” Black repeated firmly, his face utterly somber, his light blue eyes intense, as they usually were when discussing murderous mobsters.
Claire laughed off his concern. “What’s he gonna do? Kill me?”
“Maybe. Don’t joke around about this, please.”
Claire sat up straighter. “Is he that dangerous?”
“What the hell do you think?”
“I think I don’t have any choice. I need to know where he was when the murder went down and where his little army of villains happened to be hanging their black hats. I also understand that he has some guys in the cage fighting business. I need to question him about them, too. It’s all connected.”
“Tell me about this case, Claire. And don’t leave anything out. This is not good. We are in dangerous territory now.”
So she told him about Parker the Punisher, and his pale and fragile wife, Blythe, and the ugly circumstances of their love affair and their familial discord. And everything else they had come up with thus far.
“Oh, God, you have really stepped in it this time. Let me tell you again, it’s not a good idea to mess around with the Petrov family. They’re dirty.”
“Oh, really? No kidding? Are they bad guys, or something, Black? Mobsters, maybe?”
“Like I just said, this is no joking matter. They are ruthless killers, the whole lot of them.”
“This is police business. I’ve got to interview them, whether they’re ruthless killers or not. In fact, I have interviewed lots of ruthless killers, including your brother. Blythe Parker believes they might have murdered her husband, and she seemed pretty damned sure they were capable of it. Charlie wants it checked out. I’m under orders here.”
“Jacques is nothing like Ivan Petrov, damn it. He’s trying to go legit. I told you that.”
Uh-oh, he was offended. Understandable, of course. After all, Jacques was his only living family, and she had just insulted the hell out of him. “Sorry, Black, really I am, but they do have a couple of similarities, you have to admit.”
Black leaned back in his chair and contemplated her for a moment. Then he stood up. “Stay right here. I’ve got to make a few phone calls.”
“Who are you calling?” she called out to his back as he disappeared into the bedroom and shut the door.
Oh, well. She had a badge. Ivan Petrov would have to let her in. Trouble was, would he let her out?
Maybe ten minutes later, Black came back, still holding his smart phone.
“So, who’d you call?”
“I called Book. He needs to know about this.”
John Booker was one of Black’s best friends and his go-to private investigator. “Booker? Why?”
Black put his phone down on the table, hesitated for a second or two, but long enough to make Claire begin to feel nervous. He looked down at her, and yes, he did appear a trifle edgy himself. Then he said, “Let me tell you a story, Claire.”
What the crap? Claire thought. Black was a lot of things but he wasn’t usually a storyteller. He had never told her a single story that she could ever remember, not even at bedtime. In fact, he usually was the story at bedtime. But if he had a tale to tell this time, she had a feeling that it was going to be one heck of a doozy. Probably a tragedy, to boot. The Shakespearean kind of tragedy where everybody dies at the end.
“Oookay. I like stories. Never heard one of yours, though. Except when you told me you were in London when you weren’t, and I didn’t like that one at all. So go ahead, let me hear it.”
Black sat down across from her at the table, and now seemed more relaxed than Claire now felt. Maybe the telling of stories mellowed out his Petrov anxieties. “Once upon a time, not so long ago, six years, to be exact, there was a really nice woman named Kate Reed. She lived in a cabin on a river called the Current. She adopted a little baby boy named Joey. One rather unpleasant morning a bunch of armed Russians from a Moscow crime family run by a guy named Kafelnikov barged into her house, shot dead her lawyer husband by the name of Michael Reed, and told her to hand over her baby or they’d kill her. Kate is a pretty remarkable woman, however, and managed to get away from them and flee into the woods with her child.”
“Something tells me this tale doesn’t exactly qualify for Dr. Seuss Day, does it?”
“Not in the least.”
“I suppose it’s got a big bad Russian wolf, too? If not a whole pack of them?” Claire said.
“Yeah, a pack pretty much nails down the parameters. The leader of that pack is Ivan Petrov’s predecessor here in St. Louis, a real criminal psychopath who we’ll just call Vince.”
That little revelation brought her story enjoyment sliding down a notch or two or twenty. “This is not fiction, is it?”
“Not even close. Want to hear the ending?”
“I’m not so sure anymore.”
“So, Kate Reed escaped the bad guys and fled into the woods with her baby. They pursued her and almost caught them, until she met up with a big tough guy who happened to live out there, and he decided to help her get away from the bad guys. He was on the run, too, you see, from military authorities. He helped Kate and the baby make it out of those woods alive, but guess what? That little baby boy? Joey? The child that Kate had recently adopted? Her lawyer husband, Michael, had arranged the adoption. Worse than that, Michael was unfaithful and had a girlfriend. So guess who Joey’s father was?”
“Vince, the big bad wolf?”
“Nope, the baby’s daddy was Kate’s own sleazy excuse of a husband, Michael. And the mother was his girlfriend.”
“You’re telling me that he brought home his baby from an adulterous love affair for his wife to adopt? Without telling her? That’s downright tacky. You better not ever try that.”
Black gave a less than mirthful smile. “You just don’t know. His lover’s name was Anna. And not only was Anna married to Vince the Psycho, but she was also Vince’s boss, Kafelnikov’s only child. As it happened, Vince was out of the country when she delivered little Joey, over in Moscow reporting in to Anna’s father. So Anna invented a story about Joey being kidnapped in order to get the child out of Vince’s hands for fear he’d kill the baby if he found out she had gotten pregnant by another man. Vince was about the craziest son of a bitch who ever drew a breath, and he was obsessed with Anna. So there was no telling what he’d do. But Anna was sure he would kill all of them: Michael, Kate, her, and the baby.”
“Good God, Black, are you kidding me? This sounds like the next installment in the Godfather franchise.”
“I wish I was kidding. It’s more like a Greek tragedy. Are you following me so far?”
“Sort of.”
“So when they finally caught Kate and the baby and took them back to Anna to identify the child as her supposedly kidnapped son, Anna was horrified what her husband, Vince the Psycho, would do if he found out that little Joey wasn’t his baby. So she told him that his thugs had brought back the wrong kid, that Kate Reed wasn’t the kidnapper. That Joey wasn’t hers. So they let Kate and the baby go.”
“Great. So there is a happy ending.”
“Not so much.”
Claire frowned. “Okay, I think I’ve got the gist of it now. Anna didn’t want Joey to grow up in the mob so she was unselfish and gave him up. Can’t say I blame her. What I want to know is how Booker fits into all of this. Why did you call him?”
“Booker is that big tough guy in the woods who helped Kate escape. She ended up marrying him and he adopted little Joey. Therefore, he needs to know what’s going down with Petrov, just in case any of this ancient history blows up. Anna is Ivan Petrov’s cousin, but he doesn’t know the truth about Joey, and Anna doesn’t want him to, or he’ll find the kid, kill Book and Kate, and drag that poor kid right back into that compound with the rest of the family
. That is, if he doesn’t just kill the boy outright.”
Truly shocked, Claire could only stare at him. “Oh, my God. You live in a whole secret alternate gangster universe, don’t you, Black?”
“No, I don’t. I didn’t have anything to do with any of this. But I know about it, and that’s why we’ve got to tread very carefully right now. Petrov doesn’t know anything about Joey, not where he is, not who he is, and especially not that the boy is his cousin Anna’s baby and Kafelnikov’s grandson. And Anna doesn’t want anyone to know, not ever. He thinks Anna’s son was taken in that kidnapping and was never found. He’s got to keep on thinking that.”
“But Current River’s way south of the lake, down close to the Arkansas border, right? Why would Petrov connect any of this to me or to my investigation?”
“He probably wouldn’t. I’m just saying we need to be cautious in what we do and what we say to him or anybody connected to him. Ivan Petrov was the one who murdered Vince on Kafelnikov’s orders, slit his throat from ear to ear, right after they found out that he liked to slap Anna around and had allowed somebody to kidnap her baby. But Ivan Petrov answers to Kafelnikov in Moscow, no question about it, and if Kafelnikov ever finds out that Anna gave up his grandchild to Kate and Booker, he would kill them, and probably Anna, too, only daughter or not. So, that’s why I don’t want you going over there to see him. I don’t want you anywhere near Ivan Petrov or his compound. He’s too damn dangerous.”
“But, Black, come on . . .”
“And you don’t have to go in there, either. I have another way. A better way. I’ve met Ivan before, through Jacques, on one occasion, and in other situations. I can find out what you need to know. So I want you to tell me everything that this Blythe woman said to you and the questions you want asked.”
Claire basically zeroed in on one particular sentence in that whole spiel. “You know him in what other situations? And they better be legal, Black.”