by Neil Plakcy
“Why do you never say ‘hello, Farishta?’” she asked.
Biff’s heart skipped a beat with relief. “Because you use a different number every time you call. Are you all right?”
“Of course. I learned something very interesting. You know of this computer drive with pictures?”
“The ones of Ovetschkin’s wife, Douschka? Yes. Laskin stole the drive from Sveta. But I stole it back from him and returned it to Sveta.”
“You are a fool, Bivas. But I have known that for centuries. This drive, it had many pictures, correct?”
He looked over at Jimmy, who was nonchalantly sipping his Frappuccino, though Biff was sure he could hear every word of the conversation. “Yes, Farishta.”
“Including pictures of a young girl named Natasha? Petrov’s daughter?”
Biff sat up straighter in the metal chair. “I didn’t look at the other pictures. Are you saying that Laskin didn’t steal that drive for Ovetschkin? He stole it for Petrov. Jesus. It just happened to have Douschka’s photos on it, too.”
“Now you are intelligent. Too late, of course.”
“So Petrov knew that Sveta had taken dirty pictures of his daughter, and he ordered Laskin to kill Sveta because of it. But we have no evidence to prove that.”
“Petrov was very angry with Laskin this morning. That marijuana shipment he lost was quite valuable. So valuable that he took money from Laskin’s bank account to cover it.”
“Excuse me if I don’t cry,” Biff said.
“Laskin did not cry either, but when Petrov handed him the paper he was very angry.”
“Paper?” Biff asked. “What paper?”
Biff could see that Jimmy was eagerly following the conversation, all thoughts of his Frappuccino now gone.
“A printout of Laskin’s bank account,” Farishta said. “He pointed out the transfer into the account to pay Laskin for the murder. And then the transfer out, to cover the cost of the lost product.”
Biff looked at Jimmy. “If Laskin has that piece of paper in his possession when you pick him up, can you use it as evidence?”
“I’m not an attorney,” Jimmy said. “But I believe having it in his possession gives us reasonable cause to question him about it.”
Farishta said, “If Jimmy arrests Laskin, the police will take away the amulet from him, correct?”
“If they book him,” Biff said.
“Then I think it is time for the police. Laskin is by the elevator now, ready to go downstairs.”
Biff turned to Jimmy. “You heard all that. You ready to go?”
Jimmy slurped the last of his Frappuccino and stood up, pulling out his own cell phone. “Have your gal pal stay on him until I can pick him up.”
Biff relayed the message to Farishta, who snorted. “I am staying with him until I see him remove the coin.”
17 – His Cheating Heart
By the time the valet had pulled Laskin’s Porsche up, Jimmy and two squad cars were blocking the exit of the Odessa. Biff watched from the sidewalk as Jimmy walked up to Laskin and spoke to him. Then he handcuffed the Russian and led him down to the Charger.
Biff could just make out a faint disturbance in the air above Laskin’s right shoulder, and the telltale sense that the humidity in the air had been drained away, which meant that Farishta was following the Russian. He stood there and watched as the swirling air remained behind Laskin as he slid into the back of Jimmy’s sedan.
He sighed. Farishta. It was always amazing while it lasted. But now she would get her amulet, and flit off to wherever she wanted to cause some trouble.
He heard Raki chittering, and looked down at the pavement. The squirrel was sitting on his back legs looking up at Biff. He realized that he couldn’t understand anything the little creature vocalized; the only way they could communicate was on a direct thought level, though Raki usually understood when Biff spoke. Or maybe it was just tone and body language. “Come on, squirrel. Let’s get back to the office.”
Farishta’s scent lingered in the Mini Cooper, and Biff put the top down to diminish it as much as possible. He wasn’t going to waste time mooning after Farishta like some love-struck schoolboy. She had used him to get what she wanted, and now she would be leaving. Maybe she’d stop to say goodbye, once she had the amulet, or maybe not. Either way, Biff had to move on.
As Biff returned to his office his phone was ringing. “Andromeda Investigations.”
“Finally! I have been calling all morning.”
The woman had a slight Cuban accent and sounded agitated. “If my friend Celia had not recommended you I wouldn’t have bothered. I left you three messages!”
“I do apologize,” Biff said. “I was on a stakeout and wasn’t able to access my messages. How can I help you?”
The truth was he hated voice mail, and when he didn’t need the work he ignored it and hoped potential clients would find someone else. But with Farishta leaving town… a new client would be just the thing to keep him busy.
“I need to meet with you as soon as possible,” the woman said. “My name is Dilenys Cardozo. My husband is cheating on me, and I want you to catch the bastard.”
“I’ll do what I can to help you. How soon can you get here?”
“I work a few blocks from your office. I can be there in ten minutes.”
She hung up before he could agree to the appointment, and within the specified time she was knocking on his door. She was about fifty years old, with sallow skin and black hair pulled back into a severe bun. She wore a black knit blouse and black slacks. She wasn’t unattractive, but she seemed intent on minimizing her curb appeal. “How can I help you this morning, Mrs. Cardozo?” he asked as he ushered her into his office.
He looked around for the squirrel. He was pretty sure Dilenys Cardozo would not react positively to a furry-tailed rodent hopping around the furniture. But Raki was nowhere in sight.
“What makes you think so?” he asked, leaning forward.
“He has a password on his email account, and on his cell phone. Why would he do that? Is he sending pictures of himself to women?”
“Everyone has a password,” Biff said. “That’s nothing to worry about.”
“What about this?” she asked, pulling a piece of paper from her black vinyl shoulder bag.
Biff peered at the photo. The man in question was fairly slim, with smooth skin, and white jockey shorts with the Calvin Klein logo on the waistband. The shot had been framed so that the picture began just above the waistband, and ended a few inches below the bottom of the shorts. He wasn’t particularly well-endowed, but maybe he just wasn’t excited at the time he took the photo.
“Is this your husband?” he asked.
“It must be.”
“And where did you get it?”
She sat back in her chair with her arms crossed in front of her. “I found it on his computer. In the trash folder. He must have forgotten to empty it.”
He nodded. “You have another photo of your husband? One with his face?”
As she opened her purse and extracted her wallet, Biff sniffed the air. Had Raki somehow left the office while Biff was out? Where had he gone?
He realized with a start that he was worried about the little creature. When had that happened? Raki wasn’t his pet. Or his familiar, as Farishta had called him. He was just a little squirrel who had started hanging around.
Once he focused, he identified Raki’s distinctive scent—part coconut, part asphalt, part something feral. The squirrel was dozing underneath the desk.
Dilenys handed Biff a two-thirds shot of a middle-aged man. He had graying hair, with a salt and pepper goatee and neatly trimmed beard. He wore a plaid sports shirt, and Biff could see dark hair sprouting under his neck.
“How hairy is your husband?” Biff asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Body hair. He have a lot, a little?”
“He is like a monkey,” she sniffed.
He pushed the crotch shot b
ack to her. “You see hair on this man?”
She looked at the photo, then looked up at Biff.
“The man in the photo looks slimmer than your husband, too,” he said.
Her laugh was almost like a bark. “The idiot. He does not even take a real photo of himself to send. Of course not—who would want him the way he is?”
That wasn’t Biff’s take on the situation, but there was clearly something to investigate, so he printed out a contract, which Dilenys Cardozo didn’t read. She scrawled her name at the bottom of the form and handed him a check.
“Tell me about your husband’s routine. Where does he work?”
“He’s an accountant for a company that rents out vending machines,” Dilenys said. “Their office is in that big glass building at Presidential Circle in Hollywood—you know, the one with the big American flag in the center?”
Biff knew it. “He belong to any clubs or organizations? The Elks, the Kiwanis, that kind of thing?”
She shook her head. “He’s not very social. He goes to work, then he comes home. On the weekends he’s always underfoot.”
“Does your husband go out for long lunches that you know of?”
“He gets a club sandwich from the deli in his office building,” she said. “Every day, the same thing. If he ever eats a hamburger, he complains about indigestion for the next day.”
Carlos Cardozo did not appear to be the swinging type. “Let me look into some things and get back to you,” Biff said.
Dilenys left, and Raki crawled out from under the desk, yawning and waving his tiny paws. “Do you want water?” Biff asked him. “I need some tea.”
The squirrel merely cocked his head. “Am I speaking too quickly for you? I realize you have only a very small brain.” He focused his energy on the squirrel and transmitted a single word. Water?
The response came back. Yes.
Biff took an old pottery pitcher decorated with veiled dancing girls down the hall to the men’s’ room and filled it with water. Back in the office he poured some into a flat dish ashtray advertising a long-extinct brand of French cigarettes, and the squirrel slurped greedily from the dish, spilling water in little puddles on the tile floor.
Biff accessed a computer database and pulled up Cardozo’s driver’s license and registration. No criminal record, not even a motor vehicle infraction. Probably the kind of guy who slowed down for yellow lights. He nibbled at a bar of halvah and rubbed his lamp for a boost of energy. He couldn’t see how Cardozo could have an affair if he didn’t take long lunches and was at home every night and every weekend, unless he’d mastered the art of the restroom quickie.
“This country is stupid!”
Biff looked up to see Farishta in front of him. “What do you mean, my love?”
“This Laskin? He does not even go to jail. An attorney arrives at the police station, argues, and then walks away with Laskin. He does not have to take off the necklace at all!”
“So you’re stuck here,” Biff said.
“And I am not happy.”
He clutched his chest. “I am devastated that you are so eager to leave me, my love. You break my heart.”
“And you are a silly man. What are you doing here?”
“We should take a break,” she said, nuzzling his ear. “Your home, it is close?”
“Very close,” he said, his mouth dry.
She wrapped her arms around him, kissed him on the lips, then pulled her whirlwind around them both. The next thing Biff knew they were back at his apartment, in his bed, both of them naked. He had no idea where his clothes were, and he didn’t care a bit.
18 – Housekeeping
Biff woke up with Farishta nestled against him, her dark hair spread out against the white pillows like the tentacles of a dangerous deep sea creature. In the bright golden light he could see the threads of silver more clearly, and the tiniest of lines beginning to gather at the corners of her mouth.
She woke, stretched, and smiled. “Did you sleep well, my Bivas?” she asked.
“I regret every moment I waste in sleep when you are by my side,” he said. He leaned down and laid feathery kisses along her brow line. She giggled and turned away.
“You have always been a silly flirt. Don’t you have work to do?”
“I do.” He yawned and looked around the room. “Where are my clothes?”
Farishta sat up and crossed her arms in front of her breasts, which Biff noted were still quite firm and lovely, despite her protestations of her impending decrepitude. “I am not your housekeeper.”
He pushed the sheets off and stood up.
“You are still a very handsome figure,” Farishta said from the bed.
He turned back to her and bowed from the waist. “At your service, my dear.”
He pulled on a fresh pair of sweat pants and a muscle T-shirt. “I’m going back to my office. Do you want to come with me?”
“I need to think,” she said. “I must find a way to separate Laskin from the amulet.”
“You won’t leave town without saying goodbye, will you?”
Farishta reclined against the bed in her most seductive position. “Our time together is not finished, my Bivas.”
“I’ll take your word for that.” He walked outside; it was mid-afternoon, and there was a gentle breeze through the palm trees as he strolled from his townhouse down to the shopping center. His car was still in the parking lot, and Raki was in his office, chittering angrily. He chose not to open a channel to communicate directly with the squirrel.
“Don’t blame me, blame Farishta,” Biff said.
His clothes, and Farishta’s, were in a pile in the middle of the office floor. He collected them all, then decided he would drive over to Carlos Cardozo’s office home. He closed up the office and ushered Raki outside. But instead of heading to the Mini Cooper, the squirrel scampered up a palm tree. Biff watched him for a moment, then said, “Suit yourself.”
Even squirrels needed a break, he figured. Perhaps there was a Mrs. Raki who was worried her husband was cheating on her, and Raki needed to check in. Biff drove to the angular towers of Presidential Circle in Hollywood, navigating the complex circle, and pulled into the lot. He cruised around twice until he identified the man’s car, and parked in a position to watch Cardozo when he left work.
Cardozo was easy to identify from the photo that Dilenys had provided. He was short and trim, with tanned skin and dark hair. He wore black slacks and a white guayabera, a Cuban dress shirt with multiple pockets. As Biff had predicted, he drove carefully, negotiating traffic and construction with the care of a man at least thirty years older.
He took the simplest route from his office to his home, in a fifties-era single family home community near the football stadium. He and Dilenys shared a ranch-style house with a single-car garage and a narrow driveway. Carlos drove into the garage, and a half hour later Dilenys arrived and blocked him in.
Biff was sure that if Dilenys let her husband out of the house, she would call him. So he returned to his townhouse. He was disappointed that both Raki and Farishta were gone. Were they together? Had Farishta taken off for parts unknown to research ways of outsmarting the amulet, and taken the squirrel with her?
Or was Raki back at the shopping center? What if he’d missed one of his spectacular jumps and gone crashing to the pavement? Suppose he’d been sitting in the middle of the parking lot and been run over by a car?
He took a deep breath. The great Indian teacher Chanakya said, “The root of all grief is attachment. Thus one should discard attachment to be happy.”
Words to live by, Biff thought, especially if your life spanned several centuries. He fixed himself a light dinner, wondering where Farishta was. He was just clearing the dishes when she appeared before him, wearing a bright blue sleeveless crop top, skin-tight pegged jeans, and Gucci-logo sandals with a two-inch heel. Oversized sunglasses were perched on her head. She might have just stepped out of a boutique on Miami Beach’s Lincoln Road.
“The wolves,” she said, and then she fainted dramatically in front of him.
He jumped up to grab her. Her body was as light as air, and he could feel her heart beating rapidly. He carried her out to the studio and laid her down on the couch there. Then he sat down on the end of the couch and lifted Farishta’s feet into his lap. He began massaging them gently, sending healing energy through her body. After nearly five minutes, she awoke groggily and looked at him.
“What happened?”
“You flew in and fainted,” he said. “The last thing you said was ‘the wolves.’”
She rubbed her upper arms and sat up, pulling her feet from Biff’s hands. “You were right, Bivas. Those wolf dolls have something terrible inside them.”
“You saw them?”
“Yes. They are in the apartment of this man Petrov. In a box inside a closet. I thought perhaps because Petrov was Laskin’s boss, I could find a way to have Petrov demand the amulet, then take it from him before the amulet bonded to him. I was searching his apartment when I felt the magic inside the dolls calling me.”
Biff scooted up next to Farishta and put his arm around her shoulders. “It will be all right,” he said. “You will recover, now that you’re back here.”
“As soon as I saw them, they began to drain my power from me. They were so much stronger than I am.” She turned to look at him. “Me! Farishta! I can master the oceans and the winds. But the power inside those dolls is more than I could combat.”
“Do you know what it is? Another genie?”
She shook her head. “Something much more evil than one of our kind. And very old. From before time.”
“What was Igor Laskin doing with them? And how did he get them?”
Farishta yawned. “I don’t know, my Bivas. I am just so tired.”
He picked her up in his arms, once again surprised at how light she was. In the past when he had carried her—and he had carried her many, many times over the centuries—her body had been much more substantial. “Sleep, my love,” he said, kissing her forehead. “In the morning all will be well.”
He wished he felt as confident as he sounded. Farishta was among the most powerful genies he knew. If whatever was in those dolls could knock her out so easily, then they were facing a very great danger.