David Duffy - Last to Fold

“What kind of car? His or Barsukov’s?”

“Hold on.”

A click on the line, silence, then another click.

“Lincoln Town Car. Mulholland and two other guys, probably Barsukov’s.”

“I’ll call you back.”

“Call me back? Call me back when, dammit?”

“When I get to Brighton Beach.”

I phoned Gina while piloting the Potemkin out Ocean Avenue. I didn’t want to take it—Lachko might try to add it to his collection—but the Valdez was still uptown at its observation post.

“We’re doing another bank tour,” Gina said.

“ATMs?”

“Real branches. She’s going in and talking to tellers.”

“Keep a record. Branches and times.”

“Turbo, what do you pay me for?”

“You see anyone else watching you—or her?”

“No, and I’ve been looking, but…”

“But what?”

“I’ve got a sense I’m not the only one on this tour.”

“How many banks have you hit?”

“Four.”

“Get lost. I mean now, right now. E-mail me the bank information.”

“Okay, but—”

“NOW!”

“Hey, you’re scared.”

“Down to my shoes. You saw what I look like. Beat it.”

I pulled up at the pink palace at three ten. A guard pointed a shotgun through the iron bars as I got out of the car.

“Tell Lachko Turbo’s here,” I said in Russian.

The guard called to someone else while he kept the barrel pointed squarely at my midsection. After a few minutes, the someone yelled back and the gate swung open. The guard didn’t move. Two others came out, checked inside and under the Potemkin, then signaled me into the courtyard. I parked next to the ZiL limo. Auto détente. I was searched and escorted along a different set of hallways to an open courtyard in the center of the complex. At one end was a chapel in the Greek Revival style. Lachko wasn’t remotely religious, probably keeping the bases covered. A large swimming pool took up most of the middle, lounge chairs spaced evenly around. A bar with a fake thatched roof faced the chapel across the pool. Waikiki meets Delphi. Lachko was in his wheelchair on the far side in the shade, oxygen tubes in the nose, papirosa in hand. Another muscled thug, could have been Sergei’s brother, stood beside him.

First things first, my first thing being self-preservation. “Lachko, let’s you and I be clear from the outset,” I called across the pool. “That guy or anyone else lays a hand on me, your laundry is out of business.”

“You’re in no position to dictate anything, Turbo.”

“In that case, I drove out here for nothing.”

I turned back toward the house.

“Wait. You’re not going anywhere.”

“That’s exactly my point, Lachko. I come and go as I please, unmolested. Your word on that, for what it’s worth. Otherwise, we won’t even get started.”

“Fucking zek .” He spat on the tile.

“You can drop the zek bullshit, too. I’m tired of it.”

He let the cigarette fall to the ground. “That’s what you are, Turbo.”

“I’m here to make a deal. We can talk about that or we can wallow in old insults that don’t mean anything anymore.”

“So you have come to think. I’m not sure everyone would agree.”

“I’ll take that chance. Where’s Mulholland?”

He ground the cigarette under his foot and lighted another. I could smell the cardboard forty feet away. “I have no idea.”

“Come on, Lachko. You brought him out here. Why?”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“You know full well.”

“I know you’re a useless—”

“Where is he now?”

“How should I know?”

My phone buzzed. Victoria said, “Mulholland left that cotton-candy cabin fifteen minutes ago.”

“What’d he look like?”

“Look like?”

“Normal or like me?”

“Appeared to be unharmed. Does that go for you as well?”

“So far. But I just got here.”

“Turbo! Get out of there.”

“I’ll call when I do.”

She started to say something, but I cut her off. Lachko was watching from across the pool. None of this made sense. Some kind of game—he’d used Mulholland as a lure—but games were never his style. When he wanted something, he sent muscle, as he’d done before.

“I did drive out here for nothing,” I said as I pocketed the phone. “See you.”

“What’s your rush? Company not to your liking?”

“Too much of a good thing.”

I started for the house. I hadn’t taken half a dozen steps before I felt a hand on my shoulder, spinning me around.

“Handle with care. Boss doesn’t have what he wants yet.”

The big man took a step toward me but veered away and went inside.

“Come over here, Turbo. I’m tired of yelling,” Lachko said.

It might have been the bright sun, or the disease, but up close Lachko looked like he’d aged ten years in the last few days. I didn’t feel sorry.

“Tell me about Eva,” I said.

“Why should I tell you one fucking thing about anything?”

“It’s part of the deal we’re going to make—for the code and the database.”

“What deal?”

“We’ll get to that. Eva. She’s not your daughter, is she?”

He threw the smoking cigarette in the pool. “She’s Kosokov’s.”

That admission must have hurt. I still didn’t feel sorry.

“I fell hard for Polina, that’s true,” he said, lighting another. “She was screwing him, but I thought I could pull her away. She told me they were never serious, but that was before I learned she lies as easily as I smoke Belomorkanals. She married me, but I think she was still trying to get even with you. Or she was trading one protector for another—or keeping two on the leash. Kosokov was so fucking venal, he didn’t give a damn. The man was a whore.”

He was angry. Maybe I could provoke him. “That’s why you killed him?”

“What?”

“You heard me.”

He threw his cigarette into the water, next to the other one, and held up two tobacco-stained fingers, a half inch apart. “You are this close to choking on that butt underwater.” He wheeled his chair a few feet, following the shade. “You’ve always considered me slow-witted, and perhaps in this instance I was. It took me too long to discover she’ll eat your balls for breakfast and throw them back up to make room for lunch.”

“She said the same about you.”

“I can imagine the lies she told. I didn’t kill Kosokov. I would have, gladly, but fate didn’t put that in my path.”

I kept at it. “He lost your fortune—one of them—or did he just steal it?”

He laughed out loud, long and hard, until he started to hack. He bent over double, body shaking so hard I thought he’d fall out of his chair. I was about to go in search of help when he gave a final, choke-filled cough, spat a cupful of yellow-brown bile on the bluestone, and pulled himself upright.

“Turbo, you are without a doubt the dumbest fucking Russian in all of Russian history. You swallowed Polina’s lies so deep, the hook buried itself in your bowels. I ask myself, whenever I’m unfortunate enough to think of you, how the fuck did you ever make it into the Cheka? I told you before—Kosokov was a fool, a big-mouthed moron. He was the tool of our mutual friend, Polya. She suckered me, I admit, but not so much I didn’t make sure every kopek of my profit left his fucking bank the moment it was booked. Kosokov made some bad bets at the end, or so I’m told, but he made them with his money—and Polina’s—or the bank’s, not mine.”

That sounded like the Lachko I knew—but it wasn’t Polina’s hook buried in my bowels. “So who killed him?”