Ed Dee - The Con Man's Daughter

"I'll find a man in the trailer. He'll point, and I'll drive this into a container. I hope it is one with a car already in there. Then they'll lock it up."

"How much do they pay you for this?" Eddie said.

"For this car, two grand. But not here; I have to go to Brooklyn. So I give up two grand for you."

"Don't go back for the money."

"You fixed that already," he said.

Parrot made a U-turn and cruised toward the gate. He'll be fine, Eddie thought. The Parrot was indestructible.

Saturday

7:30 A.M.

The trucker diner was half-empty, the long-haul guys long gone. Eddie called five cab companies before he got one that would take him from the track stop in Elizabeth, New Jersey, back to Brooklyn. While he waited, he had a fried egg sandwich, heavy on the catsup. He saw Parrot's van go past the window, heading toward the dock. The women had already loaded up their lives. They'd been in Brooklyn too long anyway. Gypsies are supposed to be on the move.

He called Babsie and asked her to check the FBI list for any Borodenko real estate holdings on the ocean block in Coney Island. He gave her the names Zina and Freddie and told her everything he knew, which consisted only of what Parrot had said. Babsie said she was cooking breakfast and then they were going to sign Grace up for the soccer league in Lennon Park. Grace yelled that Babsie had been teaching her how to handle the ball. Sitting at a table near the clatter of a truck stop kitchen, he realized how much he cared for Babsie. He told her he might have to beat up her brother again, because he definitely owed her a slow dance.

"Just get your sorry ass home," she said.

Back in Brooklyn, Eddie counted what he had left. Breakfast at the Elizabeth truck stop had cost him five bucks, including tip. The ride back to Brooklyn went for ninety-six, but at least he'd gotten a chance to close his eyes. Counting tolls and the parking ticket he found on his Olds, the night had been costly. He'd also been way too generous with Sergei's money. The hundreds he gave Parrot's kids had been stupid. He could use that money now, a little spread-around cash to get his foot through the doors of Borodenko's businesses.

Worst of all, he'd lost time, wasting too much of it on Sergei Zhukov. Maybe finding the burned guy named Freddie wouldn't be too difficult. Find Freddie, you find Zina. He wondered if Zina could be the "she" the late Misha Raisky had talked about.

On Brighton Eighth, Sergei Zhukov's car yielded nothing more than half a box of condoms, an unopened pint of Popov vodka, and a copy of Hustler . The Cadillac was brand-new but filthy. It reeked of an eye-watering cologne and spoiled food. Eddie donned Sergei's calfskin gloves for the search. The floor of the backseat served as a repository for fast-food bags, chocolate wrappers, assorted drug paraphernalia, and a pair of red thong panties. No day planner, no Palm Pilot, no address books. Eddie checked every scrap of paper for a name or an address. Most of the writing was in Russian and the pieces of paper appeared to be betting slips.

Babsie called while Eddie was still in Sergei's car. No doubt it was the first time "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling" had been heard in the Russian's Caddy. Babsie said Yuri Borodenko legally owned or quietly had his hands on nine properties near the ocean in Coney Island. Seven were commercial. Among them, a small arcade specializing in video games, and a T-shirt store. He also owned two co-op apartments. She said there was no mention of any women on the associates list, and only one Freddie, but he died three years ago.

Armed with Babsie's list, Eddie posed as Detective Desmond Shanahan from the INS task force. He began with the business owners, hoping they hadn't heard of his performance in the Samovar. After flashing his bogus shield, Eddie said this location had been identified by a confidential informant as a hideout for a very tall Chinese female involved in smuggling aliens from Asia. "Look anywhere you want, Officer." Cooperation all around. Eddie inspected every nook and cranny, every cabinet and cardboard box. Most were far too small, even for a midsize Chinese smuggler. He thanked the managers, faked a notation on an index card. Then he said, "One more question, please," and asked about Zina and Freddie, who'd been burned. Several people knew the two he was talking about, but no one admitted to knowing any more than Parrot.

It was late afternoon when he got to the two co-op apartments owned by Borodenko. Fatigue and melancholy had already set in when a middle-aged woman in a paisley housedress opened the door to the first apartment. Eddie felt his eyes well up as he tried to play the game and couldn't.

"My daughter was kidnapped," he blurted out. He told her the Gypsy's story about the lesbian and the burned man. Before he finished, she pulled him inside. She poured a glass of tea and handed it to him while he apologized.

"Shush, shush," she said. "This is your baby. Of course you must look everywhere."

Eddie tried to leave, but she wouldn't hear of it. She took him by the hand and showed him through her home. In closets, under the beds, behind the shower curtain. She promised she would call all of her friends and tell them of Kate's plight. When he left, she shoved a handful of gingerbread cookies wrapped in a cloth napkin into his pocket. Then she kissed his hand.

The second apartment seemed vaguely familiar. He knew he'd been in the building before, working a case or doing something for Lukin. When he arrived at the door, the tenant, a waitress, was just leaving for work.

"I forgot you lived here," Eddie said.

"Oh, you forgot," Ludmilla said. "I thought you came here to apologize. I thought it was sweet you should do that. But you forgot I lived here."

"I've got a lot on my mind right now."

"Where is your friend the FBI agent? When will he arrest me?"

"No one is going to arrest you, Ludmilla. Listen, why don't we get out of the hallway?"

"You worry because I'm talking, but you talked too loud in the Samovar. Everyone I work with thinks that I'm a thief. My manager, the customers, they all know. The bait-and-switch queen. Where does that leave me now?"

"I overdid it, Ludmilla."

"Tell me why am I working in the Samovar if I'm making so much money selling fake jewels? For fun? You think I do this for fun?"

"No, I don't."

"You always remembered where I lived when you were too drunk to go home to your wife. Ludmilla was special to you then."

"That was a long time ago."

"I'm not even a memory to you. I'm a thief to you now."

"That's not true."

"What kind of man are you? You forget making love in this apartment, but you remember fake jewelry, when I was just a young girl."

"I'm a man who's looking for his daughter, Ludmilla."

"So now you think I kidnap your daughter. Okay, okay," she said. Her hands shaking, she fumbled with her keys and opened the door. She flung it wide-open. "Go ahead, look," she said. "Look, look, look."

Eddie went in and looked-carefully.

Eddie barely remembered the ride home. He kept the windows down, the radio volume up. One minute he was singing to the joggers along the FDR in Manhattan, the next he was in the Bronx and he could smell anise from cookies baking in the Stella D'Oro plant. When he got out of the car, his legs ached from the stiffness. His right hand was badly swollen.

Grace filled him in on their day while he ate leftover macaroni and cheese casserole Babsie had fixed. They'd signed up for soccer, gone food shopping, picked up a movie, and still had had time to make five o'clock Mass at Sacred Heart.

"Granpop, I taught Babsie how to play chicken foot."

"I wasn't very good," Babsie said.

"Yes you were," Grace said. "For your first time playing dominoes."