Robert Knightly - The cold room

I printed Margaret’s and Ronald’s rap sheets, then turned away from the computer to spread out the Portola family photos as they appeared on their drivers’ licenses. At some point, I’d be taking a shot at one of them. But which one? I couldn’t answer the question, not then, and I didn’t try. Still, it was the essential question. Mynka’s death had occurred nearly a month before and no cop had come calling. More than likely, they knew nothing of Barsakov’s failures, or of the Russian’s subsequent demise. More than likely, they were starting to relax, to believe they’d gotten away with it. My sudden appearance would come as a complete shock, and that was all to my advantage, but I wouldn’t get a second bite at the apple. If I blew it, the Portola family would lawyer up and that would be that.

Again, I looked from Margaret to Ronald to David. Margaret was staring straight ahead, eyebrows slightly raised, lips and nostrils compressed. Ronald’s eyes were fixed on a point slightly below the camera’s lens. His soft smile appeared almost regretful and his lips were very red. His brother’s mouth, by contrast, was hanging slightly open. David seemed almost bewildered.

I glanced at the issuing date on David’s learner’s permit: June 17 of this year. According to Father Stan, David and Mynka were in love and I wondered, as I searched David’s features, if he’d still been looking ahead on the day the photo was taken, if his hopes and dreams were of happily ever after. Mynka was pregnant by then. Maybe the threats had already started. Abort, or else.

A moment later, I turned back to the computer where I ran the plate number of the Ford Explorer I’d seen on Riverside Drive. The vehicle was registered to Zashka Ochirov, living at 121 North Third Street in the borough of Brooklyn. Brooklyn is a big place, but I didn’t need a map to pin down a more exact location. Barely a mile long, North Third Street begins and ends in Williamsburg, home of the Nine-Two.

I pulled up Ochirov’s driver’s license next. The woman who looked up at me was blond at the time her photo was taken, but I recognized her easily enough. I’d seen her twice before, at the Domestic Solutions’ warehouse when I confronted Barsakov, and just that morning when she double-parked in front of the Portola townhouse. Zashka’s rap sheet came last, a long record of non-violent offenses, including larceny, forgery and welfare fraud. This was all to the good. Now I wouldn’t have to do a lot of talking when I explained that Aslan was tied to the tracks and there was a train coming down the line. Better for her, much better, if she was on it, because that train wasn’t-

‘Say, you gonna be long?’

Startled, I jerked around to find two detectives, a man and a woman, standing behind me. Intensely focused, I hadn’t heard them approach.

‘Long day?’ the woman asked.

I glanced at my watch. It was eight o’clock and I hadn’t eaten since breakfast. I was going to have to slow down. I logged out of the computer and gathered the printouts.

‘Long and fruitful,’ I said. ‘In fact, I haven’t had a better day in the last nine months.’

I was back in Riverside Park at seven thirty on the following morning, striding through a heavy fog in search of a bench close to the street. The sun was a pale orange disc and the morning air, dead still, clung to my body. My pants and the back of my shirt, when I sat on a dew-slick bench were instantly soaked.

Though it was the beginning of the work week, the park was crowded with committed runners tracking their miles before heading off to the job. I thought of Adele then, as I’d thought about her last night after I settled in front of the TV. I felt guilty. I should have called her, at least to bring her up to date, but I hadn’t. My reasoning was very simple. Suppose she finally opened up, told me what was bothering her. Suppose the issue required my immediate attention at a time when I had no attention to spare. What would I do? Better not to know.

I remained where I was for the next three hours, until I could no longer distinguish between the mist and my own sweat, watching drops of water form on the ends of the pine needles, then drop to the ground. Behind me, the West Side Highway was running full out, but the traffic produced no more than an inconstant hum that seemed part of the swirling fog. On another day, driven by New York’s prevailing westerly winds, the reek of automobile exhaust would cover the narrow strip of park between the highway and Riverside Drive, but the only odors to reach my nostrils on that day were of wet earth and decaying vegetation.

At ten fifteen, Ronald Portola, the elder of the two brothers, came out of the house. He wore an off-white linen blazer over a black polo shirt and white pants that bunched around his shoes and ankles. I watched him from a park bench right across the street. He was sporting that same bemused smile and he had that same dismissive look in his intelligent eyes, as though he were observing the game of life the way a scientist observes a colony of ants. I wondered how I’d appeal to him if the time ever came to make an appeal. Ronald would appreciate a creative approach, a bit of high theater, of that I was sure. As I was now sure that bludgeoning was not Ronald’s style and I would have to look elsewhere for Mynka’s killer. Ronald was glancing at his watch for the second time when a black Lincoln Towncar from one of Manhattan’s many car services pulled up in front of the townhouse. The driver popped out an instant later, ran around the vehicle, opened the back door with a little flourish. Ronald shot his cuffs before climbing inside.

David Portola made his appearance a little after eleven, carrying a skateboard. In marked contrast to his brother, he wore a pair of cutaway denim shorts, the hems ragged, and a t-shirt that had once been white but was now a dingy gray.

I was back in the park by then, a good hundred and fifty yards from the townhouse, but I didn’t have to shift my position for a better look, or even raise my binoculars. The youngest Portola walked directly across the street, dropped his skateboard onto the sidewalk and came straight down the path in front of my bench. He looked neither right nor left as he passed, his lower lip curled into a nasty pout, eyes hard-fixed on the path ahead. David’s hair was moussed into a little forest of quills and he was skimming the few strollers in the park, his head bent forward as if intending to impale them. Finally, he came within inches of a female jogger who yelled at him to slow down. All she got for her efforts was a raised finger.

I knew from experience that sullen can sometimes become outright defiance, that David’s hatred for authority figures might extend to all cops all the time. The challenge, if I chose to approach him, was to re-route his anger, to focus it back on his family, on the people who’d provoked his anger in the first place. The rest would be easy. After all, he’d loved Mynka.

A little after noon, I left my post in search of a bathroom and something to drink. I found a reasonably clean restroom several blocks to the north and a vendor near a deserted playground who sold me a can of soda, two bottles of spring water and a couple of boiled hotdogs. I carried the food back to a convenient bench, opened a bottle of water, then leaned forward to pour the cold water onto my head and neck. I told myself that weather is never an excuse, not for a cop; that standing up to the elements is a matter of honor. I wasn’t consoled and the water didn’t cool me off all that much either.

I was just about to bite into the first hot dog when the door of the townhouse opened and the Portolas’ maid emerged. I recognized her without difficulty. At Blessed Virgin, she’d covered her head with a gold kerchief before going inside.