by Neil Plakcy
“We have an hour before our appointment at the salon,” Natasha continued. “Please, Mommy? We could go to Flirt and see what they have. It’s right here in the shopping center. You wouldn’t even have to drive anywhere.”
Biff was grateful when her mother gave in. “But if I buy you a new dress, you must promise you will not be alone with any boys tonight. And not with that Igor Laskin, either.”
“Mommy!” Natasha said. “I’m a good girl! And Igor isn’t my boyfriend or anything.”
“And that is why you bought him that expensive cologne? Because he is just a friend?”
“It wasn’t that expensive,” Natasha pouted. “I bought it at the duty free in Milan, remember? The saleswoman said that Acqua di Parma was the best. And Daddy always says we should have the best.”
Acqua di Parma was the cologne the thief wore. Was Igor Laskin the name of the man who stole the photographs from Sveta? Who was he, and why would he have done so?
The barista called their drinks, and the girl grabbed them both, leading her mother toward the door. Biff considered following them, but instead he opened his laptop and logged on to the Internet.
Igor Laskin was nearly as anonymous as the Ovetschkins. Biff could find nothing more than a speeding ticket on the man. He was born in Sebastopol, a Crimean sea port in the Ukraine, and brought to Sunny Isles Beach as an infant. He graduated from North Miami Beach High – and then dropped off the radar. There was not even a head shot on line that he could reliably attach to the name.
He closed his computer and went back to the newspaper article. Bosaso, Somalia, had all the hallmarks of a place that would attract Farishta: it was hot, it was near the water, and it was full of trouble. Just like south Florida.
But what had drawn her from that remote port here? And why the hell hadn’t she come to see him? Didn’t she love him anymore?
3 – A Night Out
Shortly before eleven that evening, Biff woke from a brief nap, stretched, and considered his plan. He would go to the Russian restaurant and identify the thief, either this Igor Laskin or some other man. He would not confront the man there; instead he’d track him down the next day, in private, and threaten him, if necessary, to regain Sveta’s files. She could hand them over to Mr. Ovetschkin, and Biff would type out his final invoice. Another case closed, another satisfied customer.
Marouschka’s unassuming storefront, in a shopping center anchored by a Publix and a discount store, belied the opulent interior of the restaurant. From the doorway Biff saw paneled columns, gold chandeliers, and stage curtains that looked like they’d been lifted from the Moscow Opera.
A young Russian woman with a blond beehive and breasts even bigger than Sveta’s was taking names at the front door. Quiet as a wisp of smoke, he slipped past her and walked into the restaurant. Tables clustered around the edges of the room, but the center had been cleared for the party, and fifty-some people stood there in small groups, laughing and talking in Russian.
A hostess passed him, holding a tray of vodka glasses. She was dressed as if she’d just stepped out of Czar Nicholas’s court, with a pomaded white wig, a red low-necked gown decorated in gold brocade, and long white gloves with pearl buttons.
Biff took a glass from her tray, and she smiled flirtatiously, curtsied and moved on. It was easy to distinguish the help from the patrons, though all were Russian; the servers were in period costumes like the hostess, while the guests dressed in flashy Italian couture, the women in tight, slinky dresses, the men in dark suits and colorful ties.
Biff moved easily through the crowd, opening his senses to detect the same signature the thief had left behind at Sveta’s studio. He strolled the room, fighting against being overpowered by all the estrogen and testosterone in the room, all part of the mating dance going on between men and women. Then there were the competing colognes, body washes, after shaves and perfumes. Not to mention the residue of everything they’d eaten that day, oozing from their pores in tiny bits of sour cream, blini and kvass.
It was enough to make him woozy. Or maybe it was the glass of vodka he’d belted on an empty stomach. He wolfed down a couple of meat pierogies, a few curls of smoked salmon dotted with sour cream, and some beluga caviar on tiny round crackers, and started to feel better. He continued his circuit of the room, his nostrils expanding and contracting as he sniffed. He caught a man looking strangely at him as he got too close, and drew his monogrammed handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose. The man glared at him and turned away.
He began to wonder if the party was a dead end. He hadn’t found anyone who smelled of Acqua di Parma, and he hadn’t seen the beautiful young Natasha or her mother either.
There was a commotion at the front door, and when he looked up he saw a tough-looking bodybuilder in a sleek Hugo Boss suit entering with his arm around Natasha. She wore a body-hugging strapless black taffeta dress with a full skirt, and a gold necklace with a tear drop ornament studded with tiny diamonds.
The bodybuilder was about thirty years old, dark-haired, with biceps that bulged under his black silk T-shirt. Biff casually made his way through the room, coming up to stand just behind the man. Biff inhaled deeply, and then mentally compared what he sensed to what he’d found at Sveta’s studio that morning.
A match. The thief stood before him.
But there was something more. Some kind of magical power that emanated from the man. Biff tensed. Was the man himself magic? He opened his third eye and searched for any magical signatures he could feel. With relief, he recognized that the thief was all human—but that he possessed some kind of talisman. He was most likely not even aware of the powers of the object he owned. Biff had discovered that to often be the case. There were many objects in the world that had been imbued with magic in the long distant past, then had been lost by their original owners. They showed up at auctions, in thrift shops, in the closets of old houses.
Biff allowed himself a satisfied smile. The talisman, whatever its properties, what not his problem. All he had to do was verify that the thief was indeed Igor Laskin, and he’d be that much closer to retrieving Sveta’s files.
Foolishly, the thief kept his wallet in the back pocket of his black jeans. With an ease born of years of practice, Biff lifted it with two fingers. The thief didn’t even notice its passing.
Biff slipped across the darkened room to the men’s room, where he examined the wallet’s contents in the harsh fluorescent light of a cubicle. The wallet belonged to Igor Laskin, as Biff had guessed. He was thirty-one and lived in a condo on the bay side of Sunny Isles Beach. The wallet carried the registration for a Porsche 911, license plate IGOR 5. He had an American Express black card, a membership to the gym on Collins Avenue, and a thousand dollars in cash, mostly in hundred-dollar bills.
He had no health insurance card that might indicate his employer, and no business cards either. He memorized the man’s driver’s license number then returned to the dining room and located Igor, sliding his wallet back into his pocket as the bodybuilder flirted with Natasha.
The stocky, older man who had bumped against Biff in the locker room at the gym approached, and Biff readied himself for another altercation. But the man walked right past him. “We have to talk,” he said to Igor in Russian.
“Excuse me, please,” Igor said in English to Natasha, who pouted, but walked away. He turned to the older man and continued in Russian. “What is so important it cannot wait until the end of the party?”
“Not here,” the older man said, taking Igor’s arm and steering him toward the restrooms. But instead of entering the men’s room, the older man pushed open an exit that led to the service drive behind the shopping center. The two men walked outside, and Biff, following, slid through the door just before it closed.
“What is it, Kiril?” Igor said, as Biff drifted behind them, to a position just far enough away that he would not be noticed.
Kiril, Biff thought. Was this Kiril Ovetschkin, the mobster who had threatened Sveta?
“There is a problem with Customs,” Kiril said. His Russian was gruffer and more idiomatic than Igor’s; Biff assumed that Kiril had been raised in the mother country, learning his language in a rural area, while Igor had grown up in the US, learning the Russian taught in schools.
“What kind of problem?” Igor asked. “Will it interfere with the shipment?”
“Yes, it will interfere,” Kiril said, in a tone that implied he was speaking with a child. “The Italian had a heart attack last night. He won’t be there tonight to sign off on the shipment.”
“Motherfucker,” Igor said in English. Then he returned to Russian. “What can we do? A heart attack, he won’t be back soon.”
“You must go down there. Convince his replacement that it is in his best interests to allow the AK-47s to proceed unmolested to Managua.”
“Motherfucker,” Igor said again. “Fine. I will go. Tell Natasha I said good night.”
“I may tell her more than that,” Kiril said, with a leer. “Now that I am a single man again.”
Biff sensed a surge of testosterone in Igor, as well as an effort to control his temper. “I will call you,” he said, stalking off into the darkness.
There was no sense following Igor; Biff knew his name and address, and hadn’t planned to confront him at the party anyway. It was more interesting to follow the older man back inside and see who he really was.
Crowds parted wherever Kiril moved. The girl in the red brocade dress nearly fell over when Kiril snatched a glass from her tray, downed it, and shoved it back onto the tray. He stalked back to where Natasha stood with her mother.
“Hello, Natasha,” Kiril said, smiling wolfishly at the teenager. “Igor sends his regards. He was forced to leave unexpectedly. But I promised him I would look after you.”
“Thank you, Mr. Ovetschkin,” Natasha’s mother said. Her dress was too short for her age, which had to be at least forty, and too tight in several places. “But we are leaving.” She wrapped her arm around her daughter’s bare shoulders.
So it was Kiril Ovetschkin. But where was his wife? Why had he told Igor he was single?
“But the night is so young, Maria Petrovna,” Ovetschkin said. “And I hardly know your lovely daughter.”
“We will come to visit one day,” Maria Petrovna said. “I have not seen Douschka in some time. She is not here?”
“She has gone to join her parents,” Kiril said, and there was something menacing the way he said it, as if Douschka’s parents were dead.
No wonder Sveta had been so frightened; Kiril Ovetschkin was a dangerous man, an arms dealer who exuded a sense of power. Biff admired Maria Petrovna for standing up for her daughter.
Why did Ovetschkin want the pictures of his wife if she had left him to return to Russia? Biff was confused. Perhaps he had drunk too much vodka.
A tall, gray-haired man joined the trio. “How is my princess enjoying the party?” he said, kissing Natasha’s forehead.
“Mama says we must leave,” she said, pouting. “First Igor leaves, and now we must go too.”
“Surely not so soon,” the man said. “Good evening, Kiril.”
“Professor,” Kiril said, nodding. “I was just admiring the beauty of your daughter. She is your oldest?”
“Yes. She graduates this May, and starts at Yale in the fall.”
“So beautiful, and so intelligent,” Ovetschkin said. “She will make someone a wonderful wife. Igor, perhaps?”
Natasha beamed, but her father did not look happy. “Natasha has much ahead of her before she will consider marriage.” He took his daughter’s hand and said, “Come, my dear. I want to introduce you to someone.”
He swept Natasha away, Maria Petrovna following with her head bowed. Kiril watched them leave, licking his lips, and Biff wondered who the Professor was, and how he could so easily dismiss such a powerful man.
Biff left the party after wolfing down more of the excellent caviar. He had the thief’s name and address. But everything else about the case was murky. Why had Igor taken the photos of his boss’s wife? It was obvious that Kiril did not know Igor was the thief; if he had, he’d have gone directly to Igor and demanded their return. Was Douschka dead? Or had Kiril sent her back to Russia? And why would Kiril demand the return of the digital files if his wife was no longer in the picture?
As he walked back to his car, Biff considered removing himself as intermediary. He could simply notify Kiril that Igor had the files, and sit back as the powerful man dealt with the issue on his own, removing Sveta from the picture.
But he didn’t feel that would be right. He had been hired by his client to retrieve property stolen from her, and he had never let someone else do his own dirty work. He would have to get the files himself.
He didn’t have to get them directly from Igor, he thought, turning right, toward the ocean, rather than left, which would take him back to his office. Igor Laskin would be busy driving to Miami Airport and speaking with the Customs agent there. He would not be back to his apartment in Sunny Isles Beach for some time.
Biff was careful to watch the speed limit as he drove south through Golden Beach, the exclusive town tucked between the Broward county line and Sunny Isles Beach. He’d seen far too many cars pulled over for speeding tickets, and his driver’s license wasn’t exactly kosher. For one thing, it didn’t reveal his true age—but then, no one seeing him would believe the truth anyway.
He typed Igor Laskin’s address into the GPS on his dashboard, and received step-by-step directions from A1A to the building, an elegant high-rise tucked onto a narrow piece of land that fronted Biscayne Bay. There was no on-street parking, so he turned back, leaving his car in the Epicure Market lot. It was after one a.m. by then, and the lot was nearly empty.
Keeping to the shadows, he walked through the guard gate unnoticed, then slipped past the dozy concierge at the front desk. Laskin’s bayfront unit was on the 15th floor, and despite the deadbolt he slid through the door like a wisp of smoke, pausing just inside to take a mental survey.
It was a one-bedroom unit, with a galley kitchen off the living room. A real bachelor pad, focused on the view through sliding glass doors to the balcony and the cityscape beyond. A dozen high-rises loomed across the broad expanse of the bay, in Aventura on the mainland. A patchwork of windows were lit; the water glinted in the moonlight, and two sailboats rocked at anchor in the light breeze.
There wasn’t much furniture, just a long leather couch, a glass-topped coffee table, and a huge TV in a carved wooden armoire. The apartment smelled of air freshener and the faintest hint of the Acqua di Parma cologne he knew Laskin used.
When he opened his third eye, he was drawn to a set of six nesting dolls, elaborated painted with lacquer that shone in the reflected light. He had a long-standing horror of such dolls. An evil vizier with too much magical ability and too few morals had once trapped Biff inside the smallest doll in a set once for a minor infraction. He had remained inside for quite a long time, until Farishta outmaneuvered the vizier and released him. He still had the occasional nightmares. Just seeing the dolls lined up there gave him the chills.
He took a deep breath and continued his search, though the dolls were like a malevolent presence in the room, interfering with his ability to concentrate. He avoided looking at them straight on, only glancing sidelong. Though they bore the rough shape of rounded women, as usual, these dolls were presented as wolves.
The largest wolf was a gray-haired male in the prime of his power. The doll beside him was his mate, a lithe, muscular female. The next three dolls were progressively younger, while the smallest doll was a wolf cub—adorable, if you didn’t know what it would grow up to be.
When Biff looked at them with his third eye, he saw a dark aura shimmering around them, as if there was something powerful and dangerous inside. He wondered what Laskin was doing with such objects; did he have supernatural powers as well? Biff had been around the man, even touched him, and never sensed anything mor
e than human.
But he was not there to investigate paranormal phenomena; he was looking for computer files. He erected a defensive wall against the power of the dolls, and began to work quickly and efficiently, examining the kitchen, living room, bathroom and bedroom in a grid pattern.
After half an hour, he ascertained that there was no computer, disk or drive anywhere in the living room or kitchen, not even stowed in a false-bottomed container in any of the cabinets.
The bedroom was similarly spare. A king-sized bed dominated the room, with a mahogany frame and pineapple-shaped finials at the top of each of the four posts. The gold satin sheets were rumpled, the Ralph Lauren paisley comforter thrown to one side. Laskin wasn’t much of a housekeeper; his bikini briefs and Gianni Versace socks littered the floor, and the only chair in the room was heaped with a pile of Cavalli, Gucci and Zegna shirts in a variety of colors, ready for the laundry.
He wrinkled his nose at the smell of semen that pervaded Laskin’s bedding, at the places in the bathroom where Laskin’s aim had been less than accurate. It was the unfortunate side effect of his highly acute sense of smell; even the nastiest aromas of human life assailed him wherever he went.
In a corner of the second dresser drawer, under a pile of bikini briefs, Biff found a single key. It was flat and silver-colored, incised with squared notches. Did it open a safe deposit box, Biff wondered? If so, where was the box?
He opened his canvas bag and retrieved a small container of Bell canning wax. He closed his hand over the key and focused on the blood vessels in his hand, constricting them and transferring heat to the metal. When it was warm enough, he pressed it into the wax until the key was flush with the surface of the wax. He removed the key from the wax, and released the pressure on his blood vessels so that his hand returned to normal temperature. Then he filled the cavity in the canning wax with a fast-drying epoxy. He put the wax aside, returned the key to the drawer, and continued his search.