David Duffy - In for a Ruble

“So, who’d you guys clip for that eight mil?” I asked as we pulled back on the highway and they unwrapped their meals.

“We have nothing to say, Chekist Pig,” Irina responded before biting into her Whopper. Andras looked at her, clearly uncomfortable, then caught my eye in the rearview mirror. He held his burger in his lap and said nothing.

“The way I figure it,” I went on, as if discussing a movie or last night’s ball game, “the seven mil each of you guys has—all those transfers from State Street—are your WildeTime profits. Nice work if you want to do it. But the three mil in November and five in December, that puzzled me—for a while. You might have gotten away with it if you’d only hit them once. But the second time—Thanksgiving vacation, right?—you got their attention. Karp put a tap on your old man’s system, Andras. They had a good look around. You didn’t cover your tracks quite well enough and now you’ve got Karp on your tail. He got Uncle Walter to help, by the way, with your father’s computers. Which reminds me, did you see him on Wednesday?”

His eyes grew wider than ever. “I didn’t…,” he started to whisper.

“ANDRAS! Remember what we promised.”

He gulped, took a bite of his burger, and studied his knees.

“You didn’t what? See him?”

He kept his face down. Irina watched him and watched me. She was on high alert.

“I think you saw him. He tell you he was in jail? Child rape, Andras. Your uncle has a serious problem. But maybe you already knew that.”

He started to shake, head still down. Irina put a hand on his shoulder while she kept her eyes on me in the mirror.

“Haven’t you said enough, Cheka Pig?”

I ignored her. “That why you wanted to disappear so bad, Andras. You hit half the ATMs in Queens after you left your uncle.”

He was still shaking. Irina had acquired a more thoughtful look, and it occurred to me I’d just told her more than I should have. It was also clear I wasn’t going to break her hold without a sharper weapon, and probably not so long as she was present to protect her interests. With nothing better to do for another three hours, I kept at it anyway.

“You know who you’ve gone up against, don’t you, Andras? I’m sure Irina’s told you all about them. They run in her family. All the way through it. Baltic Enterprise Commission—same outfit that probably hosted your WildeTime Web site. Same people that have Uncle Walter by the you-know-whats. They own him and they own ConnectPay. You do know that, right?”

“Shut up, Pig!”

“Maybe Irina was a little short on the details. I can understand that. Her uncle started the BEC. Her father’s a partner. Her stepfather’s another. Maybe she has her hand in the honey pot too. How ’bout it, Irina?”

“Fuck you.”

“Thing is, Andras, you screw around with people like that, they don’t care who you are, who you know, who you’re sleeping with. You rip them off, they want restitution—and blood. Not necessarily in that order. They need blood to tell the next guy not to try. That’s why Karp is here. That’s why he’s after you. Both of you. You put up a good act, Irina, but he’ll break your neck as easily as he breaks your boyfriend’s.”

It could have been my imagination, but Irina chewed more thoughtfully. Maybe I’d really penetrated her tough-girl Russian veneer this time. Andras wasn’t chewing at all. He just stared straight ahead, out the windshield, alone in his thoughts. I had the idea that, as troubling as those were, they were probably safer than anywhere else he could be.

Around Danbury, it stopped snowing. The kids slept, Andras leaning against the door, Irina’s head on his shoulder. Foos called to announce he’d finished the transfer.

“Worse than we thought,” he said. “Kid’s in this deep.”

“How deep?”

“Wrong people catch him, they’ll bury him alive.”

I kept one eye on the rearview mirror. No movement. “You mean the same people as this morning?”

“Uh-huh.”

“They know what you know?”

“Yep. Where are you?”

“Danbury. Slow going.”

“I’ll be here.”

I pushed up the speed to forty-five and called Victoria.

“You okay?” she asked.

“That’s a relative question, but yes, I’m alive and functioning.”

“Don’t be cute. Where are you?”

“I-Eighty-four, an hour from New York on a good day, probably two tonight.”

“I-Eighty-four? What the hell are you doing on the road?”

“Snow’s stopped.”

“You know what I mean. Pull off, find a motel.”

A car ahead of me went into a skid. The phone fell to my lap as I braked gently and moved lanes. The sliding vehicle swiped the snow covered guardrail as I passed.

“Turbo?! You there?!” Victoria called.

“Sorry. Car ahead just spun out.”

“Can you hear yourself talking? You’re no good to anyone dead, least of all me.”

“The sweetness of your sentiment is all I need to bear me back to town.”

“Christ! You are the most stubborn—”

“National trait. Only foreign invaders are defeated by snow. Have I told you how snow and Russian stubbornness turned the tide of the Great Patriotic War?”

“Save the propaganda and focus on the road. What happened in Crestview? Foos said you’d encountered difficulties, but everything’s okay now.”

“Foos exaggerated—about okay. I’ve got the Leitz kid and the Russian girl in the backseat. We’ve got Nosferatu on our tail, maybe. They’ve got him on their tail, certainly. Neither of them will tell me what’s going on, I was up all night last night, and this is a long trip. So I’m in a bad mood. But I’ll be back in your arms in a few hours.”

“There’s something you need to know.”

“I’m listening.”

“I’m breaking rules telling you.”

“I understand.”

“Alexander Lishin.”

Uh-oh. “The backseat, remember.”

“That’s why you need to know. He’s dead.”

I checked the mirror. All still.

“Where? When?”

“He was found in the Moscova River fifty miles outside Moscow. Apparently there was a thaw and he bubbled up through some thin ice. The CPS got there first. They’ve got a tight lid on. He’s been dead several weeks.”

I looked in the mirror again. Irina hadn’t moved, still sleeping soundly or giving a good performance of same. Did she know?

“Cause?”

“Run through with a fireplace poker and the body dumped. The poker broke through the ice. He’d been tortured about eight different ways before he hit the water.”

“Thanks. I understand everything you mean. We’ll talk about it when I get there.”

“You coming home?”

“I’ve got to drop off the kids. Then a stop to make. Then probably the office.”

“A stop? What kind of stop?”

“I’ll tell you when I see you.”

“How’d I know that’s what you were going to say? I’ll be waiting.”

I spent the last ninety minutes of the drive thinking about Victoria’s news and whether Irina had any idea and what it meant. I came up empty on all fronts. I would’ve given a bottle of vodka for a laptop and the ability to read what Ivanov had to say. Victoria said the CPS put a lid on. I was willing to bet the Valdez—and the Potemkin—that Ivanov had the story.

The kids came to life as we crossed the Willis Avenue Bridge into Manhattan. The streets were quiet and empty. We got to Irina’s house first, which would give me a few minutes with Andras. She anticipated that and whispered something about “remembering our promise” before she kissed him on the cheek and got out of the car. Her stepfather opened the door when I rang. He tried to greet her, but she brushed past without a word. He looked at me, the blue-gray eyes cold but sad.