Kirk Russell - Dead Game

“Do you want to follow him or watch him on camera?” the security chief asked.

“Both.”

“How many of you are there?”

“Three, and I’d like to get at least one of us to the gate where he is.”

“Will you possibly be boarding a plane?”

“I don’t think so.”

Shauf followed August out to the gate and watched him sit down. They had his flight. United 1375 to LA. Marquez watched Shauf in grainy black and white on the airport video monitors as she talked to him on her cell.

“He’s about an hour early,” she said. “Why? Who gets here early to go to LA?”

August sat with his legs crossed, arms folded as he looked out the windows at the planes coming in.

“Who is he?” the security chief asked, and Marquez gave him a quick recap. “We’re pretty sure he’s repackaging illegal caviar and selling it out of his stores. But he’s got a system for moving it we haven’t figured out.”

Maybe they were in the process of figuring it out. Another man entered the screen and sat down near August, leaving the gap of one seat between them. He also had a carry-on, similar in type. He started talking with August. Stocky man, fleshy face. Marquez asked the security chief if he could get sound.

“God no, we can’t even get cargo holds X-rayed.”

He watched August’s lips. Twenty years of undercover and some training and he was pretty good at this, but he didn’t think it was English they were speaking. When August got to his feet, the other man stood as well. They left the gate, then went into a restroom, and Marquez looked to the chief.

“I guess I’ve got to ask what I’ve been wondering all these years. How much can you see?”

“You don’t want to know. Follow me.” He led him to a secluded screen, and they had a top-down view of the toilet stalls and urinals. August was at a sink, his carry-on against a wall near the exit. He slowly washed his hands while keeping an eye on his bag. Then the other man used the urinal, his carry-on parked next to August’s.

Shauf asked, “What are you seeing?”

“Man number two at the urinal, August at a sink. The two bags are next to each other. Now August is leaving and the other guy has moved to the sinks.”

“Did you catch that?” the security chief asked quietly off to Marquez’s side.

Marquez relayed what they’d just watched onto Shauf. “They traded bags in the restroom.”

Forty-five minutes later the unknown man had a name and was on a flight to Seattle. Instead of flying to LA, August drove back to San Francisco. He went to his apartment and carried the bag upstairs while Marquez talked to Washington Fish and Wildlife and then U.S. Fish and Wildlife in Seattle, trying to get the inbound man tracked. They decided to follow the man rather than stop him in the airport with the carry-on, and toward dusk the bad news came.

“I’m sorry,” the Washington warden said. “We’re not even sure how he did it, but we’ve lost him.”

“He’s gone?”

“Like he was never here.”

Two women sat on a big black leather couch in Ludovna’s living room. One wore skin-tight jeans and couldn’t have been more than eighteen. The other wore a short skirt and a top that had to be a little cold tonight. Marquez handed Ludovna the bottle of vodka he’d brought him. He looked around the room. The sliding door to the backyard was open, and chill December air flowed in. Steam rose from the hot tub in the backyard.

“You didn’t tell me it was a party,” Marquez said, and then “Hello” to the women. The call had come from Ludovna, and he’d left Shauf and Roberts and driven from San Francisco. In the corner of the room an old Western movie played silently on a high-density screen.

“These are my friends.” Ludovna looked at them. “You girls go outside.”

He poured two vodkas, handed Marquez one. From the backyard the smell of dope drifted in through the door.

“The first thing I bought in America was a house, even before a car. A car is bullshit. You can always get a car.”

“You must have had some money when you got here.”

“Someone stole my car a couple of nights ago. I was out with one of the girls and someone stole it. It was a beautiful Cadillac, and they stripped it and burned it, so now I have to get a new car. But a car is no big deal. A man should have a place of his own. Where do you live?”

“Here, in Sacramento. But now I want to move in with you. You’ve got girls, a big house, and plenty to drink.”

Ludovna smiled and refilled their glasses. He downed his and gestured for Marquez to do the same. But Marquez didn’t kill his drink. He looked from Ludovna’s face to the big room and the fireplace, heard the women giggling outside.

“If you want a house like this, get me a thousand sturgeons.”

“Sure, I’ll catch a thousand tomorrow.”

“Here everyone wants to make a lot of money. In Russia I was a KGB officer in charge of interrogating foreigners, and now I sell fish and real estate in the land of opportunity. You get me good sturgeon, and we’ll make you rich.”

Marquez lifted his glass, toasted, “To catching every last sturgeon.”

Ludovna refilled the glasses and expounded his theories on money and America as Marquez watched the two women in the backyard. A low deck surrounded the hot tub. The backyard was deep with a lawn and low-voltage lights along the back fence. It was landscaped. He watched one of the women bend over the hot tub to test the water. She kept her legs straight and arched her back for them.

“You like her, you can have her tonight,” Ludovna said.

“Thanks, Nick.”

“You need to wear something when you’re with her.”

“Yeah?”

“I caught something from her once.”

The women came back in, and Ludovna told one to get some caviar for his friend. He poured the women vodka and said to the younger one, “After you bring the plate, you should get in the tub.”

She made a show of saying that was going to be fun. She touched one of her nipples, and yet it didn’t seem like she was looking forward to the tub. Ludovna waited until they were in the kitchen.

“How do you know so many guys catching sturgeon?”

“I don’t know so many guys.”

“You said you did.”

“I exaggerated because I want your business. It’s what we do in America. First we exaggerate to sign you up, and then we tell you how it’s going to be.”

“No one knows you. I asked around and no one knows you.”

“Raburn knows me.”

“So why does he help you fuck him? He sells to me. Why would he want you to get any of the business?”

“Because he owes me money.”

“Raburn owes you?”

“Yes.”

Ludovna thought about that. He was quiet, and then his eyes returned to Marquez’s face.

“Do you know how to make caviar?”

“Sure.”

Ludovna refilled the glasses again, and the young woman with skin-tight jeans came out with a plate of caviar, little crackers, and sliced lemon. She’d lost her top in the kitchen and sat down next to Marquez after putting the platter on the table. She snuggled close. Her breast was rock hard, but it didn’t hurt.

“We’re talking,” Ludovna told her, “you and her go in the tub.”

“I want to sit here.”

Ludovna’s voice hardened abruptly. “Go in the tub,” and Marquez wondered if he was sitting with a small-time hood moving a little bit of stolen fish and whatever else, or whether Ludovna was as organized as they imagined he might be. When he gave Ehrmann Ludovna’s name, Ehrmann had acted uninterested, and maybe the FBI had already checked him out. The new Bureau could get all phone numbers on a suspect very quickly and send them to their Special Operations Division in Virginia. The computer there would track any hit on any of those numbers. His guess was the Feds had already looked at Ludovna and didn’t see anything to go after.