Brian Freemantle - The Watchmen

“So you wouldn’t mind me doing it meanwhile?”

“Honey, if I hadn’t seen your fucking shield you know what I’d do. I’d arrest you for impersonating an FBI agent.”

“Don’t worry,” said Anne Stovey. “I won’t arrest you for impersonating a New York State detective. Or for not knowing your criminal history.”

It had become routine since the beginning of the investigation for Dimitri Danilov to keep his office television on and tuned permanently to CNN, so he learned of the Washington Monument bomb within seconds of arriving at Petrovka, for once earlier than Pavin. Danilov had slept badly on the couch and left the apartment before six, to avoid encountering Olga. She’d been snoring when he eased the door closed behind him. He put a call in to Cowley but was told both he and Pamela Darnley were in conference.

There was an overnight log note that Anatoli Sergeevich Lasin, one of the two men who had provided the alibi for the murdered mobster, had been arrested during the night at his last known address, an apartment on Pereulok Ucebyi, in bed with a boy of fifteen. Both were being held, separately, in basement cells.

Danilov at once saw the advantage, which was why he decided to leave them there, wanting first to read the case file of the Osipov mafia brigade to which Anatoli Lasin belonged. It had become instinctive to look for names that would personally mean something to him from Larissa’s murder, but very quickly, sighing in weary professional recognition, he saw the obvious tampering and accepted the pointlessness. The last criminal records photograph of the godfather-the brigadier himself, Mikhail Vasilevich Osipov-had been taken twelve years earlier, when he’d been bearded and heavily mustached. There wasn’t any explanation for there being no updated picture to accompany the two subsequent arrests. The beard and mustache would have long gone, and Osipov would be unrecognizable from the only image they had on file. There had been insufficient evidence-due to loss, also unexplained-to prosecute on either subsequent arrest, and there was even an assessment, unsigned, that the brigade was fragmenting under pressure from other, more powerful mafia families upon whom more attention should be focused. From which Danilov at once knew it wasn’t breaking up at all but that after the territory wars to which Pavin had referred-quoted in the assessment as evidence of the family’s demise-it had probably emerged one of the strongest in the city.

Who, wondered Danilov, was the well- but discreetly paid officer within his Organized Crime Bureau ensuring that the Osipov family remained protected from any irritating official intrusion? He was at once annoyed-embarrassed-at asking himself the question. Shouldn’t he know? It was his department, and he’d taken up the appointment as its director after exposing the corruption of the previous commanders with the burnished shield and sworn determination to cleanse it from the bottom as effectively as he’d cleansed it from the top. And done what? Gotten rid of two of the most obviously bribed inspectors, earned the obstructive animosity of practically every other one, and after Larissa, in his swamp of selfpity and disinterest, allowed everything to go on-get worse, maybe-as it had before.

What about the other self-imposed determination, his supposedly always being honest with himself? The so-far avoided question. Which it was time to confront. His unease wasn’t at his failure to correct the crookedness of others. It was at the thought-the vaguest, seductive wisp of an idea-of the only way he could maintain two homes and support Olga if she carried out her threat, which he had little doubt she would vindictively do.

But how could he? Danilov demanded of himself. Everything was totally different now from how it had been when he’d gone along with the accepted system. Which (excuse-seeking, he at once accused himself) in his case had not been dealing with the organized crime families. The reverse. He’d protected the small shopkeepers and businesses and independent entrepreneurs in the district he’d commanded as a uniformed militia colonel, facing down-arresting and prosecuting-the gangs who’d tried to extort protection money. For which those shopkeepers and businessmen and entrepreneurs had been grateful. He’d never exacted a levy or asked for any tribute. Whatever had been given had been offered freely: not once had he treated differently someone who had never given him a gift from someone who had.

But he wasn’t any longer a uniformed militia officer with a comparatively small suburb of the city to administer, no longer the policeman who could take an offered apple from the stall. He was at the absolute center now-and at the pinnacle. What would his worth be to the brigade whose file was on the table in front of him or any of the other mafia groups who’d sliced the Moscow cake between them? Incalculable. Whatever car he demanded, whatever retainer he suggested, whatever rent-free apartment he chose.

Yuri Pavin’s arrival broke the reverie, and Danilov was glad, actually embarrassed at the entry of one of the few truly honest men in the department while he had even been thinking as he had.

Pavin nodded toward the volume-reduced television. “Seems minor, thank God.” Pavin was devoutly religious, a regular communicant at the new cathedral, sometimes stopping there on his way to Petrovka on weekdays as well as Sundays. The invocation of God was genuine, not blasphemous.

“I spotted Bill.”

“So did I. You called him yet?”

“We’ll speak later,” said Danilov. “I’ve waited for you before seeing Lasin. What about the other one, Baratov?”

“Not at the last known address we have.”

Danilov nodded to the Osipov dossier in front of him. “It’s been doctored.”

“I know.”

“Who’s their friend here in the building?”

“There’s a lot to choose from.”

“I’ve let things slip here,” Danilov confessed abruptly.

“Maybe when this is over?” suggested the other man.

“Definitely,” said Danilov. “Maybe today could be the beginning. And I want you to start making up a suspect list, OK?”

“OK.” The deputy smiled.

As he stood Danilov said, “We don’t have time to fuck around. We’ll hit Lasin hard. I want results.”

They heard the shouting long before they reached the cell in which the man was held. Danilov slid aside the peephole of the adjoining one holding the fifteen-year-old Vladimir Fedorin. It wouldn’t, Danilov knew, be the boy’s real name. His hair was long, almost to his shoulders, and richly dark. He was very slim, in a silk shirt and second-skin trousers. He’d been crying and the mascara was smudged. He looked up, unspeaking. Danilov said, “You’re in serious trouble,” and slammed the shutter closed. It would be very easy to use the terrified boy if it was necessary.

Lasin actually tried to leave the moment his cell door was opened and would have done so if Pavin hadn’t put a spadelike hand against his chest, pushing him back inside.

“Who the fuck do you think you are that you can do this!” demanded the man. “I want a lawyer now! Some fucking desk sergeant took all my belongings: watch, rings, bracelet. I’ll never get them back. I want everything accounted for. I don’t get them back, I’m going to sue.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Pavin said, calmly. “Sit down.” He and Danilov did, leaving Lasin standing. He was a small, wire-thin man who nevertheless conveyed an unsettling impression of coiled-up strength. He, too, wore trousers as tight as his lover’s next door, and the sweater was silk. The hair was very obviously dyed, a yellow blond. Danilov decided it was too good to have been done by Olga’s hairdresser lover.