by Neil Plakcy
As he was mulling these questions over, a slim, blond Russian who was at least two inches taller than Biff’s 6’2 walked into the locker room.
Biff put his foot up on the bench as the Russian walked to a neighboring locker and began to disrobe. “You know the guy whose locker the police are looking at?”
The Russian shrugged. “To say hello. Puerto Rican guy, big talker.”
As the guy changed into his workout clothes, Biff established that he had belonged to the gym for about a year, and that he was usually there around the same time a few days a week.
“Usnavy ever talk to you about his girlfriend?” Biff asked.
“Pretty girl. Showing pictures around.”
“That picture over there?” Biff asked, pointing to the one Loi had placed in a clear plastic evidence folder.
“Da. I mean yes.”
“He show it to a lot of the guys here?”
The Russian looked at Biff. His shirt hung open, displaying a tank top with Cyrillic writing on it advertising a soccer team in Moscow. “You are with the police?”
Biff nodded. He was, after all, there at Jimmy’s request. “You remember anyone in particular who showed an interest in her?”
“Lots of guys. Very pretty girl, nice breasts. But married, and not to this guy.”
“Really? You know who she’s married to?”
The Russian lowered his voice. “Mafia guy. Ovetschkin. I am seeing at parties sometimes. But I don’t say anything.” He tucked his T-shirt into his workout shorts and walked out.
When Jimmy was finished with Loi, Biff told him what he’d discovered from the Russian, and then the check-in clerk came into the locker room with a printout of all the clients who had been in the gym the last time Usnavy was there. Biff looked over Jimmy’s shoulder and they scanned the list together.
“I don’t see Ovetschkin here,” Jimmy said.
“But look there,” Biff said, pointing at a name. “Igor Laskin.”
From the printout, they established that Laskin and Usnavy had been at the gym together on Friday morning. They left Loi in the locker room and walked out to the gym, where Jimmy spoke to men and women working out. None of them were happy to be interrupted, and only a few recognized a picture of Usnavy. None had much to offer.
“So who’s this guy?” Biff asked Jimmy, when they were finishing up. “Usnavy, you said? That’s a Puerto Rican name.”
“Come on,” Jimmy said. “You can buy me a Starbucks and we’ll talk.”
“Just out of curiosity,” Biff said, as they crossed the parking lot to the coffee shop at the shopping center entrance. “You ever actually pay for any food yourself?”
“Not when you’re around. I’ll take a venti caramel Frappuccino with an extra shot.”
Biff ordered the coffees and joined Jimmy at a small round table to wait for them. “Spill,” Biff said. “Who’s the guy, and why did he have Douschka’s picture in his locker?”
“Valet at the Odessa. Building where the Ovetschkins live.”
“That’s why you called me? Because of the Ovetschkin connection?”
“Like I always say, you’re a sharp guy.”
The barista announced their drinks, and Biff picked them up. When he returned to the table Jimmy said, “So Douschka’s humping the valet, and she orders a set of nudie shots for him. Kiril finds out, and he’s not happy. Next thing you know, we’re getting a call about a dead body in an apartment off Ives Dairy Road.”
“Which would be said valet,” Biff said.
“There’s some cocaine residue on the kitchen counter, so we’re thinking it’s drug-related,” Jimmy said, after sipping his coffee. “Find a locker key which brings us down here, and maybe there’s going to be some blow stocked here. But instead, there’s just some sweaty gym clothes and a picture of Douschka Ovetschkin.”
“Which puts a whole different complexion on the murder.”
Jimmy nodded. “So being an experienced detective, first thing I do is try and get hold of Mr. and Mrs. Ovetschkin. No dice. You’re the next best thing, because I know you’re looking for the originals from the photo shoot. I’m figuring you might be able to supply some of your unique insights and help me get this case wrapped up. You know where Ovetschkin is?”
“Like I told you, I saw him last night at the Marouschka. And then he showed up at Sveta’s studio this afternoon and smacked her around, even though she gave him the digital files he was looking for.”
“He was gone by the time you got there?”
“Yeah. He told Sveta he didn’t believe they were the only copies, and he wanted more, even though she swears she doesn’t have anything else. I told her I’d look for some way to get Ovetschkin off her back. Fortunately he told her he was going out of town, but he was she better have the files for him by tomorrow.”
“Motherfucker. Somehow I doubt he’s planning to come back. May have sent the little woman on ahead of him, to get her away from the boyfriend.”
While Jimmy called his office, Biff opened his laptop and connected to the free Wi-Fi. He had a contact who was an experienced hacker in England, and the man had sold Biff a couple of different programs that were useful when looking for missing persons. The program which tracked flight lists had an icon shaped like an airplane, which swooped and dove around his monitor while the search ran. It took nearly a minute for it to discover that Kiril Ovetschkin had flown from Miami to Managua, Nicaragua that afternoon. There was no record of a return flight, though that didn’t mean anything.
He looked over at Jimmy, who was still talking. “I want to know where Ovetschkin went,” he said into the phone.
“Managua,” Biff said.
Jimmy looked at him. And Biff turned the laptop to face him. Jimmy peered at the screen, and then read off the flight details. There was no indication that Douschka was on the flight with him, and there was no record of her flying anywhere else.
He turned back to Biff. “What do you figure Ovetschkin was doing in Managua? Another arms deal?”
“You’d have to ask Hector Hernandez. That’s out of my wheelhouse.”
“Jesus, Biff. You mean there’s something you don’t know? I’m stunned.” Jimmy sat back in the leather armchair. “You’ll let me know if you find out anything about where Ovetschkin is? I definitely want to talk to him about this murder.”
“You been to his condo?”
“Nobody home. And no search warrant yet.”
“Bummer.” Biff, however, needed no such formality, and since he was already so close to the Ovetschkins’ condo, he thought it was worth paying them a visit.
“I’ll call you, Jimmy,” Biff said, and left the cop finishing his coffee and making phone calls.
7 – Emotional Frequencies
The Odessa was just a block farther down Collins. As he walked up the steep curving driveway of the glass tower built on top of a parking garage, he heard a woman complaining in a heavy Russian accent.
“I should not be waiting for my car,” she said. “I am calling you ten minutes ago.”
“Sorry, ma’am, but we’re short-handed,” he said, holding the door to a Cadillac Escalade for her. “Usnavy died last night and we haven’t been able to hire a new guy yet.”
Jimmy had obviously already been there and talked to the staff.
“Is not my problem,” the woman said, climbing into her SUV. “Next time, I want car ready. Yes?”
“Yes, ma’am.” The valet closed the door. Biff saw him give the woman the finger behind his back as she drove away.
Waiting until the valet was busy unloading groceries for an elderly woman and her Jamaican aide, Biff slipped into the mirrored lobby, which had been designed to resemble the reception area of the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg. It was lined with gold columns with Corinthian capitals and square bases, with a massive chandelier in the center of the room. The floor was marble, and the room was rimmed with a balustrade around a second-floor mezzanine. A few hundred years before, during the reign of Catherine t
he Great, Biff had attended a ball at the Winter Palace while spying on the Russian army for Emperor Selim III, and wasn’t impressed with the imitation.
The concierge, a young Haitian woman in a faux-military uniform, sitting behind a half-round desk, was involved in a long Creole conversation about a boy who had cheated on her. Biff waited until she was rummaging in her desk for a tissue, and walked quickly past her. Once inside the elevator, he discovered that it required a key card to operate. He opened his wallet and extracted a plain white card similar to a hotel room key. He held it between two fingers for a beat of about fifteen seconds. Then he inserted it in the slot for the 23rd floor. The number 23 illuminated on the panel and the car began to rise.
He stepped out of the elevator and into a small marble foyer. The massive double doors ahead of him were locked and dead-bolted. He focused his third eye on the interior of the apartment, scanning to be sure there was no one inside. When he was confident that it was empty, he transformed into a puff of smoke and slid through the tiny gap between the doors. “So much security, and so easy to breach,” he said when he resumed his human form.
Ahead of him was a vista of ocean framed by sliding glass doors that led to a balcony. The furniture had the sleek lines of expensive Scandinavian design, all blond wood and black leather, with glass coffee and end tables with sharp edges. He stood there and sniffed the air, surprised to find so little trace of human habitation. It was as if the apartment had been professionally cleaned within the last day or two.
He walked slowly around the living room, with his senses open. Strong emotion often left an impression on the inanimate objects in a room, even the dust motes that floated in the ar. He had often been able to intuit when arguments had taken place, when two people had been in love, when there was fear or apprehension. But this room was strangely empty.
He stepped into the kitchen, where the top of the line stainless steel appliances looked like they had never been used. Nothing had been cooked in there for some days, and the garbage can was empty.
Biff began to get irritated by the lack of information to be found. The only trace of skin cells was one that led from the front door to the master bedroom, and that appeared to belong to Kiril. As he followed the trail he sensed the faintest traces of several different perfumes, which confused him until he followed the scent into the dressing area, where he found bottles of Ralph Lauren’s Notorious, Joy by Jean Patou, and Fauborg by Hermes. But the most recent scent was several days old.
The bed had been slept in, the simple black and white comforter thrown back. But there was only one body’s impression, and only Kiril’s skin cells remained.
Biff looked at his watch. He’d been in the apartment for at least a half hour, and he had no idea when Kiril might return. He had to get moving.
He turned to the huge walk-in closet. Douschka’s clothes were a collage of designer labels in small sizes, zeroes and twos, and she favored very high heels. Her lacy silk underwear came from La Perla, her accessories from Chanel, Louis Vuitton and Hermes. A few gold rings, necklaces and bracelets were kept in a jewelry box on the vanity in the dressing area.
The single item out of the ordinary was a frayed polyester housecoat in a garish floral print, folded and stowed on a high shelf. The label was in Cyrillic, and from the fabric he could tell it was older than he knew Douschka herself to be. A souvenir of Russia? A memento of a dead relative? Surely if Douschka had left for good she would have taken something with so much meaning with her.
Kiril’s scent was much stronger than his wife’s, and after prowling the rest of the apartment it was clear to Biff that she had not been there for a few days.
So where was she? Had Kiril sent her away? On vacation, or back to Russia? Wherever she had gone, she hadn’t taken much with her; a complete set of Louis Vuitton luggage was in the master bedroom closet, and there were no gaps in her wardrobe to indicate clothing taken away.
Biff stood in the middle of the bedroom, opened his third eye, and tried once again to focus on the emotional frequencies in the room. Had Douschka and Kiril had argued in the bedroom? Had she left in haste?
There was anger there, certainly. Yet it appeared to be all one-sided. From the wavelengths, which were mostly masculine, Biff assumed that Kiril had been the one with the anger. The only emotions Biff could sense from Douschka had been happy, so if there had been a confrontation with Kiril, it had happened elsewhere.
Frustrated, Biff left the condo. The elevator responded to his summons, and he rode it down to the lobby, nodding to the concierge as he strolled across the marble lobby. Outside, the weather mirrored his mood—it had turned gray and ugly, and as he drove north on A1A the rain swept in, nearly horizontal showers that blasted against the car windows. Within minutes the water began pooling in shallow places along the curbs and where hotel driveways met the street.
Gale-force winds attacked his tiny car, threatening to push it across to the next lane. Biff held tight to the steering wheel and plowed ahead, his focus on driving. The flooding reminded him once again of Farishta. He had seen her run out into thunderstorms with her arms spread wide open, her face up to the sky, her hair streaming out behind her, soaking in the rain.
By the time he reached the Aventura Beach Shopping Center, the wind had eased, but the rain was still heavy. He opened his glove compartment and pulled out a square of heavy-duty rubber, about two inches on each side. He balanced it on the top of his head, closed his eyes, and focused his energy on it.
The rubber grew and stretched, draping itself over him until it took on the shape of a raincoat, complete with hat, face mask, gloves and galoshes. He looked something like a beekeeper or an undersea explorer, he thought, as he clambered out of the Mini Cooper and lumbered across the parking lot, into the dry safety of his office.
Once inside, he closed his eyes and refocused. While the square of rubber resumed its original shape he also spelled the tile floor dry where he had dripped on it. Then with a sigh he sat back down at his computer with one hand on the lamp for power, and the other on his computer mouse, for information.
Biff had dealt with enough criminals over the centuries to understand how they thought. He could tell from his few interactions with Ovetschkin that the man looked at people as either strong or weak; that was a classic part of the career criminal mentality. Right now, he must see Sveta as weak. So it was up to Biff to shift the balance of power and make Ovetschkin fear harming her.
But what was Ovetschkin afraid of? Losing his money? His citizenship? Being arrested for arms trafficking? Physical attack?
He remembered Ovetschkin’s deference to the man called The Professor, and how Hector Hernandez had described The Professor as much bigger than Ovetschkin. How could he invoke The Professor’s power to protect Sveta? And who was this guy, anyway?
He turned to his computer, but a nickname wasn’t much to go on. He tried every database he had access to, but he had no luck finding any information about the man online. Frustrated, he stared down at his desk, looking for inspiration.
Instead he saw the application from the chiropractor’s office. He sighed and picked it up, and began running the records checks. By the end of the day, he had a report together for the doctor. The applicant, a young woman born in St. Kitts but raised in Fort Lauderdale, had a juvenile record which had been sealed, and two arrests for disorderly conduct, both of them involving a woman she suspected of dating her boyfriend. She also had two traffic tickets for speeding and was in danger of losing her license.
Not the best candidate for a job which gave her access to sensitive patient data. Sophia was right. Maybe she should be a private eye. Biff printed up a report and an invoice, but it was too late to deliver it to Dr. Oppsal.
The rain had stopped and the skies were clear. He drove back down to Sunny Isles Beach in search of information about The Professor as the sun dipped over the horizon in a flare of orange and dark blue. He went back to the Starbucks where he had seen Natasha and her moth
er, then prowled every Russian-oriented business he knew. He dropped hints to clerks and even asked outright questions, but he came up empty-handed everywhere.
He ate dinner at a Russian restaurant in the same shopping center as the Bolshoi Gym, eavesdropping on every conversation around him, in Russian and English. The effort was exhausting, and he learned nothing but the useless aggravations of everyday life, issues that passed through his brain like summer breezes.
By the time he returned to his townhouse and climbed the stairs to his bed, he was no closer to any information on The Professor, or any other way to protect Sveta Pshkov from whatever Kiril Ovetschkin decided to do to her.
8 – Only the Best
After his fruitless attempts to find a way to protect Sveta, Biff slept restlessly, and after a run the next morning he returned to his office. He carried the invoice down to Dr. Oppsal’s office. The waiting room was full of elderly men and women in Easter-egg colored jogging suits, though he was sure none of them ever actually jogged. A woman with a high bun of pink spun-sugar hair was at the window arguing with Sophia. “How can you make two nine o’clock appointments when the doctor only has one pair of hands?” she demanded.
Biff slipped the paperwork past her and onto Sophia’s desk, gave her a two-fingered salute.
“I gotta get my adjustment,” the woman said, as Biff was backing away. “I’m leaving on a cruise tomorrow morning.”
As he walked back to his office he wondered what was it about the woman’s statement that had sparked a synapse in his brain to fire. Cruise? Cruising? Cruise control? Was someone going on a cruise? Something about a boat?
He shook his head. It was hell getting old. And he should know; he’d been around for centuries. When he got back to his desk he forced himself to focus. He sat down on the oriental carpet beside his desk, crossed his legs into the lotus position, and rested his palms on his knees. He closed his eyes and began to chant the mantra a yogi had taught him in Madras long before.
When he had entered his meditative state, he allowed the images and thoughts floating in his brain to appear before him. It took a while to sort through them—rain, Farishta, the Ovetschkins, the pelmeni he’d had for dinner the night before, a beach in St. Kitts where he had once made love to a beautiful woman, Sveta, the smell of Joy perfume, the boat in the Keys where he had last seen Farishta…