David Duffy - Last to Fold

“Maybe he should’ve thought about that before he started stealing.”

“Everybody stole, Turbo. You know that, too.”

“Not true. You know that.”

“All right, you didn’t. You still could’ve looked the other way.”

“Like everyone else.”

“We’ve been over this ground before. Is there a reason you’re taking us on another tour?”

Good question. No good answer, except that old wounds, when they’re deep enough, don’t heal.

“What happened last night? Who shot you?”

He shook his head. “Rislyakov and I were talking. Someone buzzed from outside, and he asked me to wait in the back. I heard him yell, and the shot. I wasn’t armed—I stayed where I was. I didn’t hear anything else, so I thought whoever it was had left. He was just outside that door to the kitchen, waiting. He shot me as soon as I opened it. I must have passed out. The next thing I remember is you.”

The blue eyes were thoughtful. I thought about the questions he wasn’t asking, like Why was Eva in that loft? Is Polina living here? He could already know the answers. Or he could be biding his time. Or some other reason altogether. Iakov taught me to play chess when I was a student at the Foreign Language Institute. I was never much good at it. He always beat me.

He gave up a pawn. “So Polina’s remarried?”

“That’s right.”

“She’s still married to Lachko.”

“Apparently that hasn’t stopped her.”

“Who’s the new father Eva has?”

Another caution signal. “Does it matter?”

“Turbo!” The voice was sharp. “Remember where your loyalties lie. Lachko will want to see her. He has a right.”

“The loyalty question got put through the grinder back then, Iakov.”

“Your memory is self-serving, as so many are. You started the grinder.”

I stood and went to the wall of the small room.

“Tell me about this kidnapping,” Iakov said.

“Not much to tell. Just Ratko—or Ratko and Eva—trying to score a quick hundred grand. I assume he had an impatient casino creditor. Unfortunately for him, he had some associates who were neither bright nor brave, which is how I got to Greene Street. Did he and Lachko have some kind of rift, do you know?”

“Why do you ask that?” The sharpness was back.

“The name on the buzzer was Goncharov. Lachko didn’t know that.”

“You’ll have to talk to Lachko. Rislyakov was only doing a job for me.”

He was lying. I could feel it. He’d been tiptoeing around the truth as carefully as I had.

I pointed to the computer on his lap. “Lachko wants that, too.”

“You told him you had it?”

“Only way to find out what hospital you were in.”

He smiled. “You explore its contents?”

“Of course.”

“Of course. Anything interesting?”

“Spreadsheets. I assume they’re what Lachko wants.”

“What else?”

“Nothing.”

“Truth?”

I tried to read what was behind the blue eyes. He was watching me watching him. I gave him the same face I use when I’m holding a full house, although I felt like I had anything but.

“Truth.”

He opened the laptop and turned it on, balancing it on his legs and working the keyboard with his one good hand. After a few minutes, he said, “How thoroughly did you check this?”

“Thoroughly.”

“Data recovery?”

“Two large files copied and removed—permanently—some time ago.”

He nodded, as if that were the answer he expected. “You tell Lachko that?”

“He didn’t ask.”

He nodded and continued to work the keyboard.

“What happened between Lachko and Polina?” I asked.

“Why do you care?”

“Curiosity.”

“She was never loyal to him, just like she was disloyal to you. She was screwing a man called Kosokov the whole time they were married.”

“The banker?”

“That’s right. Everyone thought she ran away with him.”

“You didn’t believe it?”

“It was always too cut-and-dried for me. Life isn’t that neat.”

“You always said there are a million shades of gray, and my job was to get within a hundred of the right one.”

He smiled. “You have no idea how much good it does an old man to see you again.”

“I feel the same. I’ve always regretted everything that happened.”

“We can’t fight fate.”

“You didn’t answer my question—about Polina and Cheka business.”

“What are you looking for, Turbo?”

“Just trying to solve a riddle for a client,” I lied. “What are you looking for?”

“Trying to lay a few old ghosts to rest.”

He was lying, too.

The door opened, and the pockmarked thug came in. He nodded at Iakov and whispered in my ear. “Fuck off. Lachko’s downstairs.”

I looked down at Iakov. “Will you be in Brighton Beach?”

“I don’t know.”

I picked up his hand again and squeezed it. He smiled up at me.

“You know, of all the men I brought into the Cheka, you were the best.”

I smiled back. Just like old times. Only thing missing was warmth.

There was a shaded bench across Fifth Avenue, but I walked a few blocks up to the Conservatory Garden in case Lachko should decide to look out his father’s window. All manner of flowers in bloom, including a few purple tulips hanging on to their last petals—color so deep they were almost black. I wondered if they were Russian. I sat in the thick shade of the canopied crabapples and almost felt comfortable. My psyche felt anything but.

I was trying to process too much at once—emotions, reactions, suspicions, doubts. Seeing Iakov for the first time in twenty years, and seeing him in that condition, rattled the door to the soul. Polina resurrected her own grave full of memories. Lachko, too. They all brought back the heartache of the Disintegration. I thought I’d succeeded in locking away those feelings, but Lachko knew how to reach in and squeeze, and his father and Polya, without even trying, amplified the pain.

Then there was Iakov, not telling the truth—for the first time I could remember. He’d betrayed me two decades ago, but that had been aboveboard. Put between a rock and a hard place, he’d chosen Lachko, his own flesh and blood. I understood that. The ramifications were going to be dire for one of us, and family won out. The irony was, Iakov couldn’t avoid the chasm that would be ripped open whatever he chose to do. He was too close to see that. I was, too, at the time. This afternoon, he had no need to lie that I could fathom. Yet he had.

Motion beside me. I turned fast, ready to face one of Lachko’s goons. The man looking down was the same one I’d seen in Victoria’s reception area, in his white linen suit and eye patch. He bowed formally from the waist and extended a hand. “My apologies if I startled you,” he said in Russian. “Petrovin. Alexander Petrovich Petrovin.”

“Call me Turbo,” I replied in English, taking the offered hand. His greeting was old-school Russian. Mine was anything but. Nobody’s called me the mouthful my mother saddled me with since the orphanage, except Lachko when he wants to piss me off. “I saw you earlier today, if I’m not mistaken.”

“That is correct. I apologize again for intruding. I’m told we have a mutual acquaintance in Rad Rislyakov. I was wondering if you’ve seen him recently.”

“Never met him, I’m afraid.” Technically true.

He looked me over, taking his time. He was a handsome man in his midtwenties, maybe an inch taller than I am but a good thirty pounds lighter. The linen suit was well tailored and hung stylishly from his slender frame. With the eye patch and full head of black curly hair, it gave him a certain flair. His one brown eye took me in with intelligence, and his easy smile indicated he meant no offense with his examination.