by Neil Plakcy
It was a map of the Safavid empire, around the turn of the 18th century. The Safavids were a Persian dynasty, which ruled a big chunk of the world around the Caspian Sea, or Mare Caspium as it was referred to on the map. Biff had lived for some time under the rule of Shah Tahmasp, who assumed the throne when he was only ten years old, and who had encouraged bookbinding, calligraphy and miniature painting to flourish.
He detected traces of residual magic embedded in the canvas, as though it had been imbued with power centuries before but then had faded with time. With a shudder he realized that might be the way Farishta ended if she was unable to retrieve the amulet.
“You like the map?” Mrs. Himmelfinger said.
He turned back to her. “Yes, I do. Is that where you’re from?”
She barked a short laugh. “I’m from Brooklyn. But my grandfather was from some shtetl around there somewhere. He brought the map with him when he came to this country.”
“I’m sure it’s quite valuable.”
“As long as somebody doesn’t steal it off the wall.”
The aide retreated to another part of the apartment, and Biff envied her. “You can move one of those bears and sit,” Mrs. Himmelfinger said.
The armchair that matched hers held a half-dozen stuffed bears in a range of sizes and styles. He carefully relocated them all to the sofa, arranging them.
“They’re not having a tea party. Just shove them over there and sit down. You’re making me nervous.”
Biff dumped the rest of the bears and sat. “I spoke to both of the agencies you’ve been using, and did background checks on all your aides. Every one of them came up clean.” He didn’t mention the failed beautician. “Do you have a list of what’s missing?”
“I made one out yesterday. But I think she stole it.” She nodded toward the kitchen, in what Biff assumed was the aide’s direction.
By then, Biff had an idea of what was going on. He closed his eyes and opened his third eye to the energy in the room, then stood and walked to the dining room table. “Where are you going?” Mrs. Himmelfinger demanded.
Biff didn’t answer. Underneath a pile of recent mail, he found a list in handwriting that matched the old woman’s scrawl. “This it?” he asked, showing it to her.
“How did you do that?”
“It’s a gift. You just sit here for a few minutes and let me see what else I can find.”
He began going down the list. Three strands of freshwater pearls were at the bottom of a cloisonné vase on the coffee table. Her latest brokerage statement was lost in a pile of junk mail on the kitchen table. Her diamond engagement ring was in the tissue box on her night table. And so on. After a solid half-hour search he had found everything on the list except a gold baby ring with the initial E on it, which Mrs. Himmelfinger admitted had been lost since soon after her marriage to the late Mr. Himmelfinger.
Biff sat across from her, as she looked at the array of lost objects he had found. “I need to get this place cleaned up, don’t I?” she asked.
“It would be a good idea. Things wouldn’t go missing so easily if there was more open space.”
“You’re right. You haven’t worked off that retainer yet, have you?”
“I’ll give you back the remainder,” he said, reaching for his wallet.
“No, you can work it off. Clean the place up.” She waved her hand around. “The girl will help you. I’m going in to take a nap.”
She rang her bell before Biff could complain. The aide returned with a walker, and led Mrs. Himmelfinger to the bedroom. Before the woman could return, he closed his eyes, summoned his power, and began twirling his finger around the room.
All the junk mail, the old newspapers and out of date magazines vaporized into the air. The stuffed animals disappeared, to end up in a haphazard pile in the lobby of the children’s hospital. Most of the mismatched knickknacks went to the Jewish thrift store, and Biff conjured up a receipt Mrs. Himmelfinger could use for her taxes.
By the time the aide returned the living room had been transformed. The surfaces were clear and clean, the chairs and sofa empty except for throw cushions. The aide stood there open-mouthed as Biff smiled and said goodbye.
If the detective business didn’t work out, he thought as he left, he could always start a cleaning agency. He walked to where he’d parked the Mini Cooper, and when he slid into the driver’s seat Farishta appeared in a tiny whirlwind.
29 – Customs
Farishta turned to face him, sniffing the air. “My Bivas,” she said. “You have found someone else? A sylph?”
“Just a business associate,” he said.
She crossed her arms in a seductive pose that pushed her breasts together under her sheer black blouse, and Biff felt himself going weak. He licked his lips.
“I have news,” she said. “That arms shipment?”
He turned the car on. “Coming in tomorrow. Already signed up with Igor Laskin to move it along.”
Farishta looked disappointed.
“What did you expect, Farishta? That I was going to sit here on my hands waiting for you to come back? I’ve been working out with Igor Laskin every day. And just so you know, he hasn’t taken that coin from around his neck—not even when he takes a shower.”
“That I know,” she said. “I, too, have watched him.”
He looked at her and smiled. “In the shower? Now I’ll be jealous of him.”
“Please,” she said, leaning back in her seat and stretching her legs, cloaked in the pegged harem pants she favored. “Where is Raki?”
Biff shrugged. “He’s not obsessed about following me anymore.”
“Did you do something to him?”
“Farishta, he’s not a pet. He’s just some crazy rodent that used to hang around.” He looked at his watch. “I’ve got to stop by the office and pick some stuff up, then get down to the Miami airport for a briefing with the guy in charge of Customs. You want to come?”
“Why not?” Farishta said. “This way I will see when I can take back my amulet.”
As Biff pulled into a parking space at the shopping center, Raki came scampering down the trunk of a palm, chittering away. He hopped through Farishta’s window into the tiny back seat. “Yes, I am happy to see you, too, Raki,” Farishta said. “Has Bivas been ignoring you?”
Biff left them to chat, and walked into his office. All he needed now was the butterfly to complete this wacky pseudo-family he had accumulated. He retrieved the files he needed and returned to the car, sliding from the humid heat into the cool of the air conditioning.
As they drove, Farishta sat back against her seat, the air blasting her long dark hair so that it flowed around her head like a living thing. Raki dozed in the back, waking every time Biff cursed at a slow-moving driver or zoomed between semi-trailers at top speed.
“This is why they would not let you drive the chariots when we were in Rome,” Farishta said.
“Those charges were all trumped-up, and you know it,” Biff said, veering onto the airport expressway at top speed. He was forced to slow down as they approached the never-ending road construction that surrounded the airport, and had to pay attention to navigate through the forest of signs that led to the short term garage.
He and Farishta left Raki in the car with the windows open an inch and walked through the garage. A mother with a pair of pretty, blonde girls of about ten joined them at the crosswalk, and Biff remembered Sveta Pshkov. Her death was the reason Biff was still pursuing Laskin and Petrov; though she was a bad woman, Biff felt that by taking her on as a client, he had an obligation to protect her, and he had failed at that. The least he could do was bring her killers to justice.
They crossed the multiple pick-up lanes and entered the terminal. It was a shame that Laskin had such a dark side that he was able to be manipulated into killing people; Biff had come to like him a bit as they worked out together. But his long experience around humans had showed him that they often had many shades to their personalit
ies.
Biff and Farishta met Hector and Jimmy in the Customs department’s waiting room at the international arrival concourse. “I have a question,” Farishta said, when they were all seated on the hard plastic chairs. “Why do these guns pass through Miami at all? Why not go direct from Baku to Managua by plane?”
“Good question,” Hector said. “We think it’s because the airport is controlled very well by the government, while the rebels have connections at the port. Miami is the easiest transfer point from air to sea in this general area. Plus we figure that the Russians have been doing this long enough to have it down to a science.”
Frank Jaeger, the customs officer in charge of air cargo shipments, and Fiorentino’s boss, stepped out and ushered them into a conference room overlooking runway 9/27.
Jaeger was a young guy with a Boston accent, tall and slim, with dark hair cropped military short. After the introductions were complete, he said, “This office controls the north-south cargo flows in the Western Hemisphere. We’re the world’s largest gateway to Latin America and the Caribbean, we handle more cargo than any other airport in the US, and we have a stellar security record.”
“Except for Albert Fiorentino,” Jimmy said.
“We don’t know for sure that Al was on the take,” Jaeger said.
“And some of us probably still believe in Santa Claus,” Jimmy said. “But the point is we have intel that a batch of guns is coming in from Azerbaijan tomorrow, then going to a cargo ship on the Miami River, destination Nicaragua. Records show that there have been eight similar shipments in the past year—all of them signed off on by Al Fiorentino.”
Hector took over. “If you look at the cargo manifests Fiorentino signed off on, they show agricultural machinery. Last I checked, Kalashnikov AK-47s are not used for agricultural purposes.”
“So what do you want me to do?” Jaeger asked.
“Can you explain the procedure for getting a shipment through Customs?” Biff asked. “I’m going to need a basic understanding of what happens if I’m going to pull this off.”
“When goods come into the United States, they need to be cleared through Customs,” Jaeger said. “That involves preparing documents and/or electronic submissions, calculating and paying taxes, duties, and excises. So what typically will happen is that this plane from Baku will land, and the cargo will be offloaded to a U.S. Customs warehouse adjacent to the runway.”
Biff started taking notes as Jaeger got up and walked over to a whiteboard. He sketched in a plane, a runway and a square building next to it. “An agent performs a physical examination of the merchandise to establish that the cargo is eligible to enter the United States—that it’s not in any of our prohibited categories, and that it matches the commercial invoice which lists all the items in the shipment and their value.”
Farishta raised her hand, and the gold and silver bangles on her arm tinkled gently. “May I ask a question?”
Biff sniffed the male pheromones rising off all the men as Farishta manipulated them. “Of course,” Jaeger said, smiling.
“What happens if there is no match?”
“That does happen from time to time. Paperwork gets confused. The agent also examines the packing list, the air waybill, and any relevant permits and/or licenses. Eventually we figure out what’s right and what’s not.”
She smiled. “Thank you so much.”
Biff thought Jaeger blushed. The Customs officer cleared his throat and continued. “Then the agent files the Entry Summary, which includes the import data and the duty owed.”
“Fiorentino was the agent on duty for the past shipments?” Biff asked.
Hector said, “According to the records we received.”
“Usually we have procedures in place to double check the examinations and the Entry Summaries,” Jaeger said, frowning. “Fiorentino must have found a way around them.”
“No second signature required?” Jimmy asked.
Jaeger shook his head. “When we’re busy, the senior agents can sign off on their own. It’s hard to investigate with Fiorentino still hooked up to a ventilator. The doctors don’t want us to upset him, so I can’t go in there and say, ‘blink once if you’ve been taking bribes, or blink twice if you haven’t.’”
“I’ve found discussing criminal prosecution does tend to upset people,” Jimmy said. Farishta laughed.
Jaeger pointed back at the whiteboard. “Once the paperwork is in the system, a customs broker can go to the Cargo Clearance Center to get the shipment released.”
“What’s a customs broker?” Biff asked.
“A middleman, who knows the Tariff Schedule, a listing of duty rates for imported items, and the regulations governing importations,” Jaeger said. “The broker knows how to fill out our forms and figure out how much the customs duty is. It’s usually a percentage of the value of the shipment. There’s also a merchandise processing fee of 0.21%.”
He turned back to the board and drew a truck. “Once you have your clearance, you have your truck show up at the warehouse, you hand over your paperwork, and you drive away with your merchandise.”
“Which is where we come in,” Hector said. “We’ll have surveillance on the warehouse so that we can pick up the truck as it leaves the facility. We’ll follow it down to the Miami River. We’ll get a search warrant for the cargo ship, confiscate the weapons and arrest Laskin and Petrov.”
“What if they are not there?” Farishta asked. “What if they hire someone to drive the truck and steer the boat, and you can’t connect either of them to the shipment?”
“Igor Laskin is Petrov’s go-to guy,” Jimmy said. “He won’t trust some hired hand to pick up the guns and drive them down to the boat. We catch Laskin red-handed, and then we get him to flip on Petrov for a lighter sentence.”
“What about the murders?” Biff asked.
“Murders?” Jaeger asked. “Nobody told me anything about murders.”
“That’s how Farishta and I come into this,” Biff said. “A client who hired my agency was murdered by Igor Laskin. I want to make sure he gets nailed.”
“I told you, Biff, as long as Laskin’s got credible witnesses who put him somewhere else at the time the photographer got shot, the best we can do is pull him in for the arms shipment. You knew that going into this.”
“Yeah, but I thought…”
Jimmy shook his head. “Maybe if Petrov’s business falls apart, those witnesses will recant. But that’s a big if.”
Farishta reached over and took Biff’s hand. “As long as he is arrested,” she said.
Biff knew that all she cared about was getting her amulet back, and if Laskin was taken into custody he’d have to give it up voluntarily, making it fair game for her to retrieve.
“And you know this photographer was not so innocent,” Farishta continued.
“You dance with the devil, sometimes he sticks his forked tail right into your heart,” Jimmy said. “That’s what Sveta did.”
“Sveta?” Jaeger asked. “Sveta Pshkov?”
Jimmy turned to him. “Yeah. You know her?”
“She took pictures of my kids, every year, for their birthdays. Someone killed her?”
“You or your wife always present when she took those pictures?” Jimmy asked.
Jaeger cocked his head like he didn’t quite understand. “Of course. They’re just babies.”
“Good for you,” Jimmy said. He explained to Jaeger what kind of pictures Sveta had been taking, and the Customs agent looked green.
He left them in the conference room for a few minutes, and Jimmy and Hector stepped over to the window to have a conversation out of earshot. Biff almost laughed; Jimmy should have known Biff’s super-sensitive hearing would pick up anything. He sat at the conference room table and pretended to look over his notes, with Farishta by his side.
“You sure Biff can handle this?” Hector said in a low voice.
“This and more,” Jimmy whispered back. “He’s sharp, and he knows how
to roll with the punches. I tell you, sometimes I think the guy’s got superpowers or something.”
“I’d still be happier if I had one of my men doing this.”
“Let me tell you something about Biff. When he wants to do something, you’d best not get in his way. That’s all I’m saying.”
Jaeger returned to the room with a bag of gear. “Uniform should fit you,” he said, handing the bag to Biff. “There’s an ID on a lanyard that will get you in anywhere you need to go. Of course I’m going to need all this back.”
“Of course,” Biff said, standing up.
“You’ll also find an ID and password on our system in there, so you can log in tomorrow and track the incoming flight, make sure you’re here in time. But just so you know, I set you up with very limited access—all you can see is the info on this particular arrival. Otherwise we’d have a security issue.”
“I understand. I was thinking of getting here a couple of hours early, just to get the lay of the land,” Biff said. “I don’t have any idea how early Laskin will show up so I want to be in place.”
“Good plan,” Jaeger said. He turned to Farishta. “Will you be here, too?”
“I am behind the scenes,” she said, and Jaeger looked disappointed.
Jaeger ushered them all back to the waiting room, and they split up. “I hope this works,” Biff said to Farishta as they walked back to the parking garage. “I wanted to nail Laskin for Sveta’s murder, but I’m going to have to settle for putting him away for arms smuggling instead.”
“As long as Laskin is forced to give up the amulet, I will be happy,” Farishta said. “Aren’t you also doing this to help me?”
He turned to look at her as they reached the Mini Cooper. She looked very happy, standing there in her filmy blouse and harem pants. She smelled great, too. “Of course, my love,” he said.
At least there was going to be some benefit to this operation, Biff thought, as they drove back up the highway to his townhouse. He was so focused on thoughts of how he could ask Farishta to show him her gratitude that he hardly noticed the miles passing. He exited the highway and navigated the local streets to his community. He pulled into his parking spot, so eager to whisk Farishta into his bed that he was ready to pick her up and carry her to the bedroom.