David Duffy - Last to Fold

“Talk about rock and hard place.”

“Don’t worry.” The green eyes smiled. “I won’t use anything you say against you—unless, of course, it should be. Besides, I’ve been reading your notes. You can start there. This Iakov the same guy you told me about at dinner?”

She pushed across the piece of paper with the list I’d written out during my brief window of semi-lucidity.

“One of the first things they teach you in spy school is never write down anything.”

“You failed that class. C’mon, give. What were you doing at the Greene Street loft? What happened there? I’m bettin’ you found a dead Rislyakov. What else?”

I don’t know whether it was the fallout from the pain and painkillers, accumulated stress and exhaustion, or just the green pools staring across the counter, but no chance I could dance around her questions in any way that would satisfy her—or me. I didn’t even want to try. So I told my Cheka training to take a rest while I told her what she wanted to hear—all of it. Or at least the all of it that I knew.

We drank two cups of coffee each while I talked. She took it all in, without question or interruption. Along the way, I realized I’d forgotten something important. I gave myself a mental kick. Even that hurt. I wrote “Blue Impala” on the paper and kept on with the story. When I finished she said, “Why didn’t you call the cops?”

“Same question Bernie asked. Short answer, I needed that computer for leverage to get Sasha out of Lubyanka. Long answer, I was determined to figure out what’s going on. Still am. We’re stubborn, remember?”

“Stubborn ain’t the half of it. Did you have to give the computer to Barsukov?”

“That’s what Foos asked. I traded it for Sasha. I owed him.”

She shook her head. “I’m trying to count up how many laws you broke.”

“Didn’t Dylan say something about honesty and living outside the law?”

“Give me Hank Williams any day.”

“Dylan might agree. I’m just trying to say, what you see is what you get.”

“That’s what frightens me. Listen, serious now. You and I are gonna have an understanding. I’m willing to let bygones be bygones, I think, mainly because they happened when I wasn’t around so I can almost convince myself you weren’t trying to hide anything from me. But I meant what I said about fooling with felons. I’ve worked too damned hard to get where I am. My job and career are too important to me. They gotta be important to you, too, if we’re gonna have anything—together, I mean. That means you gotta be a law-abiding citizen going forward, an American law-abiding citizen. Those are the ground rules. No exceptions. Understand?”

I nodded slowly, mainly to buy time. Even though my brain was operating at about seventy percent, I knew I couldn’t live by those conditions—not in the current circumstances—but the last thing I wanted was to drive her away.

“That a nod of agreement?”

I wasn’t going to lie. “It’s a nod of agreement to think about what you’ve said. I’m still not at my best—as you can see.”

“Fair enough,” she said, to my relief. Perhaps she was worried about driving me away, too. I could only hope. “I wouldn’t say what I said unless I cared. You know that, right?”

Hope validated, for once. “It’s the one thing that makes me feel semi-okay.”

She laughed, and the green eyes pulled my heartstrings like a puppeteer. “Okay, then. I’ve got to run. Thanks to you, I lost all of yesterday, and now I’m behind a big damned eight ball. I’ll stop in on my way uptown this afternoon, see how you’re faring.”

“Something to look forward to.”

The phone rang. Foos said, “Victoria still there?”

“That any of your business?”

“Speaker.”

I pushed the button. His baritone rumbled out of the phone.

“Good morning, boys and girls. Thought I’d check in, see how everyone’s doing. Big Dick tells me Victoria hasn’t gone to work yet. Didn’t go home last night either.”

“Big Dick? What?! You just say what I think you said?”

“You’re playing into his hand.”

His laugh filled the room.

“Patriot Act’s the best thing that ever happened to the Dick. That’s D-I-C—Data Intelligence Complex. It collects information, on you, me, Turbo, everybody. I just ask for little pieces of it.”

She said, “Christ. A privacy junkie with an adolescent sense of humor.”

“Only making a small point about liberty. Your client’s called twice, Turbo. Wants to see you ASAP.”

“You’re not going anywhere,” she said.

“Just relaying the message,” Foos said.

“I need some help from the Dick,” I said. Victoria shot me a look. “Somebody followed Track and Field from Jersey City to Greene Street Wednesday morning. Blue Chevy Impala. No plate number, sorry.”

Victoria said, “Who the hell are Track and Field?”

Foos said, “Turbo, do you have any idea how many Chevy Impalas—”

“Could be a rental.”

“Do you have any idea how many rental cars—”

“Look at it as a challenge for the Basilisk?”

“What’s the Basilisk?” Victoria said.

“The beast that keeps track of you—whenever I ask it to,” Foos said. “Have a nice day, Victoria. I’ll be watching.”

“Listen, goddammit—”

A click and the dial tone as he hung up.

“I don’t know which of you is the bigger pain in the ass. If you take my advice, you’ll stay right where you are—all day. But I might as well tell your friend to act like… oh, never mind. Why bother?”

“Foos would tell you that you’ve reached the inevitable logical conclusion.”

She didn’t respond as she took the cups to the sink and rinsed them.

“Why didn’t you tell me your first wife is married to Mulholland?”

“Didn’t seem relevant.”

“Hiding out, living under a different name?”

“That doesn’t have anything to do with Mulholland. He doesn’t know who she used to be. He thinks she’s a real estate broker from Queens.”

“What’s she hiding from?”

“Don’t know. Lachko, maybe. That’s what she says. I’m not sure I believe her, but that means I have to believe Lachko. She had a lover, while she was married to Lachko. They were all in business together. Iakov claims she and the lover stole six hundred million dollars from the lover’s bank—and maybe Lachko. Lachko says that never happened. That could be pride talking, but I doubt that, too. Besides, if she had all that money, why did she try that silly fake kidnap scheme on her husband? So I think it’s something else, which I intend to ask her.”

“Not today, though, right?”

I didn’t respond.

“How long were you married?”

“How about I tell you the whole sordid tale over dinner—right here? I’ll cook something. We ex-socialist small businessmen can’t afford a steady Trastevere diet.”

She smiled a big smile. “Deal.”

She came around the counter and gave me a kiss on the lips that was much more than a peck. Then she was out the door without looking back.

I sat for a moment sipping coffee and thinking about how good it felt, for the first time in a long time, to have someone who cared what happened to me. Even if she was threatening to toss my ass in jail if I didn’t change my ways. Maybe that was part of what made it fun.

I could have—and should have—followed her advice and spent a quiet day in bed, mentally replaying her kiss. She was giving me every incentive to get well soon. However, patience was not among Lachko’s virtues, and I’d already blown more than two days. That was his fault, of course, but he wouldn’t see it that way.

Using the counter for support (I could tell Victoria I was trying to take it easy), I made it back to the living room, where I’d left my computer, and logged on to Ibansk.com. I wasn’t surprised to see Ivanov had been busy. Three new postings, Saturday, Monday, and this morning. The first focused on the Barsukovs’ growing anxiety over setbacks to their money laundry and speculated about whether Ratko had disappeared with “the detergent that makes the washing machines run.” The second reported the surprise demise of Risly. The third detailed the shooting at CPS headquarters.