Michael Koryta - Tonight I Said Goodbye

Joe explained what we knew, including the details of our visit with Hubbard, as well as the checks from various Hubbard-owned companies that Weston had cashed. Cody listened thoughtfully, and I could tell the idea that Hubbard was somehow connected to the Russians wasn’t a pleasing one to him.

“We’ve got hundreds of names of people believed to be Belov associates,” he said when Joe was through. “Hubbard has never come up, nor any of his people.”

“If he’s associated with Belov, he’d definitely want to keep it under the radar,” Joe said. “Hubbard’s about as big a man as there is in this town.”

“No kidding,” Cody said. “He’s the legitimate version of Dainius Belov.”

We all sat in silence then, as the wind whipped around the building, making the old windowpanes rattle. Another cold front was sweeping in, driving out the small touch of spring that had settled during the day.

“How long have you had surveillance on Rakic and Krashakov?” I asked.

“Several months.”

“The night Weston was killed?” I said, letting the rest of the question hang unspoken.

Cody shook his head. “They were home,” he said. “That doesn’t mean they didn’t authorize the hit. It just means they didn’t carry it out personally.”

“What do you think happened to Weston’s wife and daughter?” I asked.

Cody leaned forward, braced his forearms on his knees, and looked at the floor. “Several years ago,” he said, “when the FBI was trying to bring down John Gotti in New York, their wiretap picked up a conversation in which one of Gotti’s thugs was threatening an associate. He also warned this man about crossing the Russian mob, which was apparently involved somehow. He said, ‘We Italians will kill you, but the Russians are crazy-they’ll kill your whole family.’ ” He kept his eyes on the floor.

“So you think they’re dead,” Joe said.

“Yes,” Cody said. “I think they’re dead.”

IN THE six months prior to Wayne Weston’s murder, Jeremiah Hubbard had been a busy man. In late fall, he began to buy property in the river district downtown known as the Flats, and he announced his intention to build an “entertainment plaza” to rival anything found in New Orleans or any other river town. It would feature a five-star restaurant, two nightclubs that would host the nation’s top performers, and a sports bar. The whole thing would be built along a beautifully landscaped river walk, and Hubbard promised it would become the hottest destination in the city. The Flats had already been transformed from an area of dingy warehouses and blue-collar bars into a popular nightlife district, but Hubbard’s plan would take that to a new level. The only problem with this idea was that his vision was ten years late. Real estate prices in the Flats had soared as the area was rebuilt, and now it was going to cost Hubbard significantly more money.

In February, he took a great step toward his dream when he acquired three lots of prime property from a man named Dan Beckley, who owned a small restaurant, a gift shop, and a parking lot in the Flats. Beckley had initially balked at the idea of selling out to Hubbard, but he settled a few weeks later, apparently for much less than his initial asking price. Hubbard already owned some of the adjoining property, and he was now much closer to his goal. His next mission was to acquire property on either side of his current holdings. To the north, his property was bordered by a seafood restaurant that was pricey, well known, and always busy. It wouldn’t be an easy deal for anyone to swing, even Hubbard. To the south, Hubbard’s land met a strip bar called The River Wild: A Gentlemen’s Club. It had been in existence for about six years, and the owner reportedly was making a good profit and had no interest in selling. The bar had received some unfavorable publicity a few years back, when an underage and intoxicated kid wandered away from his fraternity brothers, fell off the deck, and drowned in the river. It hadn’t hurt the club’s business, though. Nothing generates a steady cash flow quite like lap dances, apparently.

The newspaper reported February meetings between Hubbard and the owners of both the seafood restaurant and the strip bar, but negotiations hadn’t gone well. Hubbard accused the owners of “outlandish” asking prices; the owners said if Hubbard didn’t want to put up the cash, he was out of luck, because they were in no rush to sell. At the end of the month, it was still a stalemate.

Joe and I learned all this studying Amy’s faxes early in the morning. Cody’s visit the night before had effectively put an end to our surveillance of the Russians, but there was no reason to stop moving on Hubbard. We decided to begin by talking with Dan Beckley.

I made a few phone calls and learned that Beckley had purchased a laundry and dry-cleaning operation in Middleburg Heights after selling out to Hubbard. He apparently had an office in the back. We drove to Middleburg Heights.

Beckley’s shop-E-Zee Kleen-was in a small strip mall on the west side of Pearl Road, just past the Bagley Road intersection. I pulled the truck into the lot and parked while Joe stared at the sign and sighed.

“What the hell is the matter with people?” he said.

“What?”

“E-Zee Kleen? Can you tell me what the point of that is? Is there a reason he can’t spell it correctly?”

“It has more pizzazz that way,” I said. “Catchier.”

He gave me a withering look. “Spare me.”

We went inside. Two women were loading laundry into the washing machines, and a short Chinese man was at the counter, talking in an agitated voice with the clerk, a bored-looking middle-aged woman. Joe and I stood behind him, waiting. He was ranting about a rip that had appeared in a suit he’d left to be dry-cleaned. The clerk was explaining that she couldn’t help him if he didn’t have a receipt and the supposed damage had occurred six months earlier, as he said. This was not the response he’d been seeking, and he let her know that for about five minutes while Joe and I grew increasingly impatient. Eventually, Joe cleared his throat and spoke over the man.

“We’re here to see Dan Beckley. Is he around?”

The clerk nodded her head at the door behind her. “He’s in the office, but he might be on the phone. Go on in, though.”

The Chinese man turned to us and glared at Joe. “Excuse you for interrupting. I was talking.”

Joe stared at him. “No,” he said, “you were babbling.” Then he walked around the counter and opened the door.

I looked at the outraged man and shrugged. “He’s not a morning person,” I said. “But, then again, not so much of an afternoon or evening person, either.”

I followed Joe into the office. It was a small, square room, occupied by an old metal desk and one filing cabinet. A tiny television sat on the filing cabinet, tuned to a morning talk show. The room smelled of beer and body odor. A large, ruddy man with fat cheeks and small, sunken eyes sat behind the desk. He wore a plaid shirt, with the first few buttons undone, revealing a thin gold chain amid a cluster of gray chest hair.

“You here about the dryer?” he asked.

Joe shook his head. “No.”

The man sighed. “Figures. Those sons of bitches have been promising to come out here for days, and they still haven’t showed. Meanwhile I got only four dryers that work. Sucks.” Joe looked at him blankly and didn’t say anything. The man said, “So what do you want?”

“You Dan Beckley?”

“That’s right. Who wants to know?”

I looked at Joe. Who wants to know? There are some things that sound cool when said by Robert DeNiro that sound ridiculous when said by anyone else. Joe gave Beckley our business card, and he looked at it and then dropped it on his desk.