Last Dance

by Jeffrey Fleishman

  “Katrina was a child of secrets.”

  “I think you know.”

  “I don’t, but I know it’s true.”

  “Did you love her?”

  “I think a little, yes.”

  “I could bring you in.”

  “I’m not the one you want, Sam.”

  Stefan pours more bourbon.

  “Why am I here?” I say.

  “Zhanna wouldn’t come back to America so soon. Not after Katrina and Levon.”

  “Not Brussels. Here. We didn’t have to come here. You could have told me. You knew that eventually I’d find out. I’m pissed, Stefan. Brussels was good, yes. Zhanna is probably key to something. Thank you. But this. The FBI is suspicious of you. They’ve wanted you for a long time. They probably know I’m with you. You lied to me, and now I’m flying around Africa.”

  “You needed to see, Sam. People are not one thing. We are many people in one. I wanted you to see this other person in Katrina. You saw the pictures. That is not the same girl you found. It is not the same ballerina on pills. It is another her. The one who couldn’t survive. Does that make sense? I wanted you to know that about her. It seemed the best place to tell you. Why not come and see? A day late back to LA. Big deal.”

  “What about the other you? Who is he?”

  “This is part of him.”

  “Penance? Absolution for your other life?”

  “Sam, you are like a Serb.” He smiles. “Yes, maybe penance.”

  “I don’t think I’ll ever know you.”

  “We are the same, Sam.”

  “No.”

  Stefan empties the flask. We sit, saying nothing. It is dusk. Lights come on in the clinic. I can see Dr. Goodluck working at his desk, the nurse counting syringes. Mosquito nets hang over beds of sleeping children. Samuel and his men are gone. The clearing is quiet, but night sounds rustle beyond the tree line. Fires rise here and there. The moon will soon be over the river; the stars are as if from a storybook, endless. Chloe walks over with a satchel. She hands out cigarettes, and we smoke—I, who have quit and will quit again—and sit quietly with the other people in us, those the land awakens. The Range Rover pulls up. Roberto waves. Our boy-man driver slaps on cologne. The Bee Gees play all the way to the airport.

  Chapter 21

  “You disappeared,” says Lily.

  “I told you where I was.”

  “Yeah, for a day. It’s been four. Nothing.”

  “I texted.”

  “One text. One.”

  Lily is midway through a set of curls. I drop my bag and head for the porch. She follows. She gives me a quick, joyless hug, sits beside me, sweating. I unfold the short version of my Brussels and South Sudan trip. Her anger cools. She wants to hear more about red-dust villages and tribesmen on motorcycles and children dancing around night fires beneath the stars.

  “When I was a child, I had a picture book about lions and jungles,” she says. “It was paradise, you know, like Eden. I’d sit in bed at night staring at the pictures, seeing if I could find God hiding with the animals.”

  She lingers on God and the funny things children think. She slides closer to me, leans back, and tells me about Jimmy Krause. He keeps a pattern, stays close to Burbank. No friends. He went for a head shave at a barbershop. He watches a lot of TV, walks to the grocery store, eats canned stuff and half gallons of ice cream. He pets passing dogs and keeps a night-light on in his bedroom. Twice, he met a well-dressed big guy with polished shoes at the Burbank bar and at a parking lot in Santa Monica.

  “They met near the beach, both of them facing the water—Krause slid over to his passenger side—talking out windows, watching the waves. And the guy? Get this,” says Lily, as if she’d spotted a twenty blowing across a sidewalk, “the guy is Armando Torres. You know who that is? Orlov’s head of security at the studio. Former army captain. Tours in Iraq. Now, he’s in LA looking through tinted wraparounds and driving an Escalade. Beats shooting hajis, I guess.”

  “Hajis?”

  “Jesus, Carver. Hajis are what our guys over there called Iraqis.”

  “That’s racist.”

  “It was goddamn war.”

  “What are you thinking about Krause?”

  “He’s working off-the-books stuff for Torres. Which means he’s doing them for Orlov.”

  “You think—”

  “No,” she says. “Not his MO. He’s more of a fixer, bouncer type. I’m thinking he was the contact for the two Russian guys who showed up at Katrina’s loft and at the Cubano café in Echo Park to see Levon. Two Russians would need a local. Someone to get them where they need to go. These Russians disappeared, right?”

  “Vapors. But why would Orlov bring Krause to his estate? He’d want to keep his distance. Krause is a small-time fence and car thief. Orlov’s a billionaire spy. Why get tangled with a guy like Krause?”

  “Maybe Krause has history with Torres. They both did time in Iraq. Band of Brothers kind of shit. Who knows? Besides, Krause might be smarter than we think. Don’t look at me like that. People surprise you. You, if anyone, should know that. I’m liking Krause in this.”

  “Too many maybes.”

  “It’s something, Carver. A connection. Just like your Zhanna Smirnov.”

  “Zhanna’s more Orlov’s league.”

  She stands, stretches, tightens her laces.

  “I’m going for a run. Coming?”

  “I’m tired. Long flights. You go. I have to call Ortiz anyway.”

  “See ya, wouldn’t want to be ya,” she says, laughing.

  “How far you going?”

  “Five. You gonna be here?”

  “Yes.”

  The door slams. I watch her run up the gentle slope toward the church, making a right, heading west toward the 101 and the skyline, which she likes at dusk, when the air cools and the colors simmer and girls are skipping rope in the plaza near the trumpet man and the painted virgin. Lily would be a good partner if I wanted one, and maybe I do. I don’t know yet, but I do like sitting on this porch, knowing she’s out there and coming back. I pat myself for a cigarette. Pretend I have one. In my mind, I light it and throw away the match. I call Ortiz. He’s calm as I tell him about Brussels and Zhanna and then the detour to South Sudan. He stays quiet, letting me spool it out. He’s sitting on his lawn, probably on his second beer, and his wife, Consuela, is inside watching Survivor or Dancing with the Stars. My story done, he says nothing for a while.

  “You there?” I say.

  “You ever think, Carver, what it all comes to? All these perps. Put one down; another pops up. Can’t keep faces straight anymore. The species depresses me.” He sips. “It’s still and dark in my backyard. I can count my breaths, you know, feel them hit the air. I like it out here. You’ve been here, so you know. I read this story in the paper the other day.” He sips. “They think they found this whole ancient hidden city beneath some farmland in Kansas. Can you believe that shit? Some conquistadors looking for gold hundreds of years ago come upon an unexpected city.” He sips. “Amazing, the shit we don’t know. Right under our feet. Whole fucking lost cities.”

  “You want to go find one?”

  “I’d like to.” He laughs.

  “You have all those old maps.”

  “Love ’em. They’re our claims on the earth. They tell you what’s where, but they also tell you what was once imagined. You know what though?”

  “What?”

  “We don’t have a map to her body. That bother you? A dead ballerina out there we don’t know fuck about. Where she is. Who took her. Second woman we’ve lost.” He sips. “Dylan Cross is out there too. Alive, no doubt. I don’t know if I ever told you, but I drove to that little church she designed out near Joshua Tree. It was after she got away. It was a cold day. The wind was blowing hard over the desert, and th
ere was this perfect little church, sitting on the horizon by itself. I got out of the car to go in. It was locked. I walked around and watched the light play on the stained glass. I thought about staying there for a long time. Just me and the church and the desert wind. You ever go out there?”

  “More than a few times,” I say. “I keep imagining that’s where she’ll turn up, sitting alone in a pew. Waiting for me. I dream about it. I don’t know if she can hide forever. Some people aren’t built to stay gone.” The moon is high off Lily’s porch. Kids are laughing in the street. “Don’t worry, Ortiz. We’ll find Katrina, and Dylan Cross too.”

  “We have to find Katrina now, Carver. Put this thing down. I think it’s time you pull in Krause. Get him to talk. Lily may be right about him being an errand boy in this whole thing. Sounds like she’s into this, huh? Being a detective.”

  “She’s good, smart.”

  “She could kick both our asses,” says Ortiz.

  “There’s that.”

  He sips and laughs.

  “Tell me more about this Zhanna chick. Sounds like she’s something out of one of those books written by that English guy with the French name.”

  “Le Carré.”

  “Yeah, him.”

  “If she told all she knew, we’d find everything.”

  “I’m getting calls from the FBI. They’re getting calls from the CIA.”

  “I’m going to see Azadeh tomorrow,” I say.

  “The married lesbian?”

  “That’s her.”

  “I met her once. A little too know-it-all, maybe, but she’s sharp.” He sips. “I’m tired.”

  “I’m guessing you’re reaching for the third beer.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “The way you get philosophical. Put your energy on low.”

  “Maybe. My wife calls it drunk. I’m going to bed.”

  I nod off and wake when Lily gets home, sweating. She’s been gone a while. She unties her running shoes, rolls a cold beer across her forehead. Sits with me. She tells me she watched Touch of Evil on AMC while I was gone. “Orson Welles was great, but Charlton Heston and Marlene Dietrich are no Mexicans. All that dark makeup. Terrible. Couldn’t get away with that shit today. Twitter’d be all over that. Hashtag racist. It was good, though. I like black-and-white. You ever see it? You’ve seen all the old stuff.” She hands me a beer. “I like the opening scene,” she says. “The camera moving from low to high, following a guy, you know, the guy who plants the bomb, from running through an alley to a shadow on the wall. Mysterious shit.” She leans against me. I feel her through my shirt, how warm she is, and I think I’m not going home tonight. I’ll sit here with my maybe partner, falling in and out of sleep, watching the sky change beyond the church on the corner.

  “Hey, Carver.”

  “What?”

  “I was keeping something from you earlier. The thing I hinted at before my run. I was waiting on a guy to confirm it.”

  She smiles, clicks on a light, hands me a picture.

  “I took a detour. Met with this guy a few days ago who does security for Krause’s building. You wouldn’t think it. I mean, the building’s okay, but you wouldn’t think it’d have security—but they have cameras. No shit. I asked the guy to pull some stuff. Quiet, you know. Anything recent with Krause in it. Didn’t think he’d get back to me, but he calls while I’m running. Look at this.”

  I put my beer down, sit up, lift the picture close. Krause passing through a lobby with two very big men dressed as if they fell off a train in Kiev. They’re both smoking, in a lobby of a Burbank building. Definitely not locals. One of them is wearing a ball cap, his face mostly hidden; the other has a thick, pale face of stone, black eyes looking into the camera. Lily presses closer.

  “The Russians,” I say.

  “That’s what I’m thinking. The guys who went to Katrina’s.”

  “We don’t know that.”

  “Look, Carver, they fit the description. That CI you met put Krause in this.”

  “Could be just two guys. Two of Krause’s bouncer friends. Need more.”

  “C’mon, Carver, look. These guys couldn’t find the 405. They’re not from here.”

  “When’s the footage from?”

  “The week Katrina and Levon were killed.”

  I stare at the picture. Three men frozen in gray, caught for a split second in time and then gone, fluid, moving through the world.

  “We’re only going to get one shot at Krause,” I say, looking at the picture and then to Lily.

  “Then we better not fuck it up.”

  Chapter 22

  Dawn. Echo Park. A few homeless guys stand in their blankets, rumpled and biblical in the mist. The lake is calm. Geese float, still as decoys. A man slices mangoes and pineapples on a cart, but it’s too early. Only joggers out at this hour, and a guy with a sketchbook, and some lost soul with a guitar, sitting on a bench, singing to empty swan boats. I open the Times. I like the feel of it—not always what it says, but the paper, its scent and black words, reminding me of my father when he’d get in from his morning run, sitting at the kitchen table, snapping through the Boston Globe and the New York Times, reading about tragedies distant and close. This hour, this fading twilight, this half-world—this is Los Angeles, stirring, gray, sun slanting across downtown toward the ocean, mountains taking shape, party boys fumbling latchkeys, cars running red lights on Glendale, ragged palms blowing on Sunset, Latinas hurrying for buses, Asians racing with fish on ice, cops changing shifts, garbage trucks clanging, all of it just starting, the clouds breaking to light, the day coming at you with peril and promise.

  “Jesus, Carver, I said the south end.”

  “Thought you said north.”

  “Here.”

  Azadeh hands me a coffee.

  “You bring scones?”

  “Screw you, Carver.”

  “Why so early?”

  “I got a court thing.”

  “I like it here in the morning.”

  “Kinda like South Sudan,” she says.

  “Ah, you’ve been checking up on me. It was a little vacation.”

  “They track Stefan, you know. Everywhere. Who he’s with. Who gets a ride on his plane. Brussels. South Sudan. Quite the vacation, Carver. Zhanna Smirnov. You got the deluxe package. Bet there were plenty of scones.” She sips her coffee, looks at the geese. “We—you—have another problem too. When my CI gave you Jimmy Krause, I didn’t know he had a connection to Mickey Orlov. He wasn’t on the radar. I found out the same night you did, when Krause got driven to Orlov’s mansion.”

  “But . . .”

  “Let me finish,” she says. “FBI, CIA, and NSA have had surveillance on Orlov for at least two years. We think he’s one of the smart guys behind the election hacking. You can thank him for Trump.” She shakes her head. “It’s perfect cover, you know: former Russian spy stays clean—or appears to—for decades, has all the right friends. Becomes a billionaire gold miner and movie producer. But he never stops being who he is. Like one of those terrorist sleeper cells. The Russians figured it out. Facebook, fake news. They knew where to hit.”

  “Why not bring Orlov in?”

  “Can’t prove it. Not enough to stick, anyway. The better play is to watch him. Where he leads. Guy’s smooth though. No traces. Always that extra layer of separation. Anyway, we’re staking out and following things, and guess who pops up?”

  “Jimmy Krause.”

  “And you. And your new partner, Lily Hernandez.”

  “We’re not partners,” I say.

  “Look like partners.”

  “It’s complicated. Tell me more about Orlov.”

  “I just told. That’s the gist.”

  “So he controls the whole thing?”

  “Didn’t say that. But he’s a bi
g part of it.”

  “What about Zhanna?”

  “You tell me,” she says. “You met her.”

  “She’s Katrina’s aunt.”

  Two geese, wings beating the air, feet slapping the lake, lift to flight. Azadeh reaches for her vape.

  “What else?”

  “Was or is a spy. Gave me that impression, but how the hell do I know? She’s connected like her sister, Maria, Katrina’s mother. There’s jealously there. Something happened between Maria and Katrina. Don’t know what, but it was bad. Zhanna got close to Katrina. She became the go-between. I got the sense Maria’s the bigger deal in Russia. Better friends. Could be completely wrong though. These people are like grabbing at air.”

  “Welcome to my world,” she says.

  “Zhanna suggested there’s a connection between Katrina and Orlov. She wouldn’t give it up. ‘You find, Mr. Sam.’ Great accent. It’s a voice you’d follow.”

  “Don’t get romantic, Carver. You’ve got two murders and a lost body.”

  “Just saying.”

  We drink our coffee. The sun is warming things.

  “Your hair’s straighter,” I say.

  “I blow-dry it longer when I have court.”

  “Why?”

  “Juries like blow-dried. It’s proven. They do studies on shit like that.”

  “I prefer natural.”

  “Maybe that’s why you look like shit today.”

  “I traveled halfway around the world.”

  “Shave, Carver.”

  Azadeh hands me the vape. I take a hit, feel the rush.

  “So?”

  “Watch yourself,” she says. “Orlov is a national security interest, which means—”

  “Don’t get in the way.”

  “See, you are smart.” She winks.

  “I’m going to bring Jimmy Krause in,” I say. “We don’t have a lot but we’re going to rattle him.”

  “What do you have?”

  “I’ll let you know after we talk to him.”

  “You better call me if anything points to Krause and Orlov.”

  “You probably already know.”