Austin Camacho: Russian Roulette

She paused, holding the cigarette out, until Hannibal noticed the small box of matches on the table. He struck one, freeing the sharp scent of sulfur. She ignored it as she leaned in, drew a lungful of smoke, and let it carry her words out.

“He is a violent boy who does the dirtiest work for gangsters. But when Vitoriya saw Dani, she realized what a good man looks like.”

Hannibal blinked away the smoke. Raisa was starting to sound like a bad imitation of Shirley MacLaine. Was it the accent the actress had used in Madame Sousatzka or the attitude from Steel Magnolias that gave him that impression? He turned his gaze back down the path while he gathered his thoughts.

“You like the flowers, young man? Those are periwinkles.”

“ Periwinkle was a color in my crayon box when I was a kid,” Hannibal said, “but that color didn’t match any of these. And just how much do you know about this good man Dani Gana? How did he come to be so wealthy?”

“Why do you care? Are you here working for Aleksandr Ivanovich too?”

“Are you paranoid, Mrs. Petrova?”

He had guessed correctly. She did not want her sanity questioned, and if she insisted that everyone was sent by Invanovich that would be evidence that she was becoming paranoid. Blinking back those thoughts, she leaned in, as if to share a confidence. Hannibal moved forward too, looking around as if to make sure no one was listening.

“Dani Gana is a very important man. He is no simple financier. He is Algerian, you know.”

“Yes,” Hannibal said. “I know.” What else you got?

Raisa set her jaw and raised the stakes. “He is living in exile from his own country. Gana is not his real name.”

Inside the house, a cockatiel screamed. Hannibal looked into Raisa’s eyes from behind his sunglasses. “How do you know he’s telling you the truth?”

Raisa almost leapt to her feet, snugged her floral gown around herself, and moved off into the house. Hannibal sipped his tea and examined the irregular flagstones underfoot. The house must have dated from the 1920s or before. With four levels, an attached garage and maybe a fireplace it would go for a million six or seven if she put it on the market.

Mrs. Petrova returned with a flourish, leaving her front door open. She slapped a letter down on the table and glared at Hannibal as if daring him to pick it up. He did.

As soon as he saw it, Hannibal understood why Raisa thought this letter was so important. It was typed on heavy, creme-colored stationery with a classic watermark and it carried the letterhead of Leon Martin, a vice president of the Chemical Banking Corporation in New York City. It was a formal letter of introduction addressed to Raisa Petrova.

This is to introduce you to Dani Gana, who has been a substantial depositor at our institution for five years. He has asked our bank to formally introduce him to you because of your position as a pillar of the community in Washington.

Mr. Gana is a man of influence in both business and government circles in his native Algeria. He now wishes to establish financial ties in the United States and has asked us to help him establish valuable contacts.

Mr. Gana will be in your area in the next few days and he shall be contacting you soon to arrange a meeting.

I am sure you will benefit if you agree to see him.

Sincerely

If Gana wanted to establish his legitimacy, this was a powerful bit of evidence. Assuming, Hannibal thought, that the letter itself was legitimate.

“I take it you know Mr. Martin?” Hannibal asked.

“He has handled my personal finances for more than a decade.”

“I see. Well, thank you. This helps a lot. May I borrow this? I’d like to contact Mr. Martin to confirm his relationship with Mr. Gana.”

“Perhaps,” Raisa said, lowering herself into her seat. “On one condition.”

“And that would be?”

Raisa leaned in again, pulling out her seductive voice. “You are a professional investigator, yes? Someone has hired you to investigate Dani. What I want you to do is to drop the case. Give these two a chance to succeed. Give my Viktoriya a chance to find her happiness.”

Hannibal wondered if it would make any difference to Raisa if she knew that the life of the woman he loved hung in the balance. No, he decided, it would not. Like any mother, the happiness of her child was her highest priority. But did Ivanovich want to destroy Viktoriya’s life? All he had asked for was the truth.

“I promise that I won’t do anything that hurts either of them if Gana turns out to be all you say he is. But before I make that determination, I have to meet the man himself.”

“By all means, go and meet him,” Raisa said, sitting back and swallowing half her cup of tea in one long drink. “I expect him to be back from his morning business by eleven. I’ll call and tell him to expect you.”

Before speaking with Dani Gana, Hannibal had a previous appointment. The time in his car gave him a chance to think through his conversation with Mrs. Petrova. He considered why the letter from a banker might mean so much to her. She did have a fine home, but its value had nothing to do with the cost of maintaining it. His read of the woman was that she would never part with it, even if she couldn’t afford to keep it up. It was symbolic of the fortune her husband had made for her and her daughter. A wealthy man in her daughter’s life could be insurance of a sort.

But if she wanted the man to stay in his daughter’s life, that raised its own questions. Knowing that Hannibal was investigating her prospective son-in-law, why had she dealt with Hannibal so kindly?

It didn’t take Hannibal long to reach the meeting place for his appointment. The drive to one of the southwest entrances to Rock Creek Park was brief, and it took Hannibal only five minutes to find the man he had arranged to meet.

On a map, the District is an almost perfect square balanced on one corner. Rock Creek Park is a long swath of green shoved up into the upper corner, with the Maryland towns of Chevy Chase on its left and Silver Spring on its right. At the worst of times it has been an island of tranquility in the tumultuous city, a place where ash, beech, birch and butternut, hickory, elm, and cedar trees can all live together. It is also a place where bikers and hippies, hikers and joggers, Republicans and Democrats, and even law-abiding citizens and retired professional criminals can find peaceful coexistence.

Before he made eye contact with Anthony Ronzini, Hannibal spotted his two-man protective detail. These were big, beefy men who wanted the world to know they were there. Ronzini had few living enemies, but his boys didn’t want any muggers or pickpockets to think he was an easy target. They both recognized Hannibal as he approached and one tapped his boss on the shoulder. Ronzini stood back, letting an elder jogger pass him on the gravel path he had chosen for his morning constitutional.

Ronzini was a big man who appeared physically soft, but if you looked into his eyes you could still see the hardness of his youth. As a young man, Ronzini made his fortune as a pimp, a gambler, and a fixer. Now he was simply a man who knew people, knew things, and took a slice of other people’s activities in exchange for his permission to do business unmolested in certain parts of town. Hannibal had never imagined this man wearing a blue sweat suit and running shoes, but even in that outfit he exuded a quiet menace.

“Good morning, Mr. Ronzini,” Hannibal said in the soft voice he used for those he wished to show respect. “How is your son these days?”

“Salvatore is doing well up in New Jersey,” Ronzini said, walking at an easy pace. “I must grudgingly thank you for showing him the error of his ways when he was dealing drugs. He is really doing much better in gambling operations.”