Ed Dee - The Con Man's Daughter

"What kind of company is Celltech?" she said.

"I would think something scientific: biology, computer? Your guess is as good as mine."

The one thing he wasn't guessing about was that Zina was the only known link to his daughter. If Yuri Borodenko were here, he'd go to him and make a deal. Yuri was a businessman. Without him, Eddie needed a way to get to Zina without igniting a psychotic reaction. He knew that a single spark was enough, and she could blast off to the moon.

"Okay, say Zina was too young," Babsie said. "Is it possible you screwed her older sisters or her mother, in any sense of the word?"

"I wasn't quite the wild man you think. Besides, I would have recognized something about her. I'm good with faces, Babsie. People I haven't seen in forty years, I recognize immediately. I'd know who Zina was. Some family resemblance."

"What about your ex-partner?" Babsie said. "He was quite the swordsman."

"Paulie was in that precinct for a long time. He probably screwed half the female population, in every sense of the word."

"Exactly what I've been saying. Since the day they identified his head, I've been saying the same thing, Eddie. This is all about Paul Caruso."

"Then why isn't it over? If Zina already killed Paulie, it should be over."

"Zina didn't kill Paulie," Babsie said, flipping through her notes. "Zina never left the country. She doesn't even have a passport. Sergei Zhukov killed Paulie."

Babsie told him that one of Boland's feds had reached out for Sergei's travel activity for the past two years. He'd racked up some major mileage, mostly Moscow to New York. But on April first, he had flown from JFK to Rome. He returned to New York five days later, on the afternoon of April sixth, traveling alone.

"If Sergei returned on the afternoon of the sixth," Eddie said, "he had nothing to do with Kate's kidnapping."

"The guy already had enough on his plate that day."

According to Babsie's notes, Sergei returned to New York on Monday, April sixth, on Delta flight 149. The flight left Rome for JFK at 9:55 a.m. Sergei, however, had arrived in Rome only two hours before that on a connecting flight: Alitalia 7708 from Palermo, Sicily.

"Lukin told me that Borodenko called on the morning of the sixth, looking for Sergei. He asked Lexy Petrov to find him."

"Sergei was busy whacking Paulie," Babsie said. "In the late hours of April fifth, a guy answering his description was seen coming out of Paulie's villa. Sicilian authorities said the place looked like someone had taken a serious beating inside. Paulie's car was later found at the airport in Palermo. My guess is that Sergei wasn't supposed to kill him, but it got out of hand."

"Paulie was an old man," Eddie said. 'Twenty years ago, Sergei would have had his hands full."

Grace yelled for Eddie's help. Some type of infraction of shuffleboard rules by Uncle Kev-o. Behind the bar, B. J. Harrington told her to quiet down. He was reciting "The Shooting of Dan McGrew" for the regulars. Eddie told her to handle it herself.

Eddie said, "I've been assuming they brought Paulie's head over on one of Borodenko's freighters, with or without the body."

"Time frame doesn't work. Witnesses saw Paulie in Capo San Vito on the fifth. The head shows up on your lawn on the eighth. Not enough time for a sea voyage. Sergei beat him to death, dumped the torso in the Mediterranean, and carried the skull on the plane like a painted coconut."

"Why?" Eddie asked.

"The head? To prove he did it."

"No, why beat him in the first place?"

"Money," she said. "If it's not revenge, it's money. The Caruso brothers screwed Borodenko out of money. You're in the mix because Paulie gave you up to save his own ass. Sergei was beating the shit out of him, so he told him you were involved. That's why Sergei brought that picture of you in front of the boat. To identify you."

"You're working your way back around to the Rosenfeld shooting, aren't you?"

"If the shoe fits…" she said. "Didn't Anatoly Lukin tell you that Borodenko was collecting old debts?"

"But Zina was maybe ten years old at the time of the Rosenfeld murders, and Borodenko was still in the Russian army."

"People don't forget that kind of money," she said.

"Forget what money? It's an urban legend."

"Whether it exists or not, Eddie, it's like pirate treasure to these people. Maybe Zina thinks she found the map."

"It doesn't matter."

"What doesn't matter?" she asked, her eyes widening.

"None of it; nothing that happened fourteen years ago, or last week. None of it matters. Not as long as we get Kate back."

At least Babsie was right about Paulie Caruso. If his life was at stake, no telling what story he'd have told to save himself. Paulie the Priest knew how to survive. "Always have a story ready" was his mantra.

"All I'm trying to do," Babsie said, "is figure out how Paulie fits in. Whenever you're dealing with cops like Paulie, it always comes down to the same root causes: women, booze, or money."

"Sometimes all three."

Her eyes darted around in herky-jerky, unfocused movements. It was a trait Eddie recognized from her older brothers. Another Panko thinking hard. "What about the blonde in the picture?" she said. "The one with you and Paulie in front of the boat?"

"You mean Lana," he said. "What about her?"

"Was she local talent?"

"If you consider the Ukraine local."

"Let's go to that boatyard tomorrow, before we go to Staten Island. See where Paulie kept the Bright Star ."

"Boland already thought of it. All the boats in the marina were searched when Misha's body was found there."

"I want to see it for myself."

"Sheepshead Bay, Babsie. You're talking a good hour out of our way. I don't want to get stuck in traffic somewhere on the Belt Parkway and wind up missing Zina. I can't risk that."

"We'll leave here early. I want to get a picture of that place in my mind."

"You need to picture everything?"

"Everything," she said. "Right now, I'm picturing you, and you're starting to look like a grandfather."

The shuffleboard game came to a stop as Grace began sobbing. Deep, racking, uncontrollable sobs. "The last few days," Babsie said, "the slightest thing has set her off." Kevin picked her up and walked toward the kitchen. Eddie started to go to her, but Babsie stopped him.

"Let your brother do it," she said. "Give him a couple of minutes to calm her down."

Babsie was paying attention, thinking for him again. God knows, he needed somebody to do it. Eddie knew that Grace had been sleeping with Babsie the last few nights. This woman, he thought, saving my ass, time after time. Right under my nose since high school.

"I've got a big, big favor to ask," Eddie said.

"Big, big," she said, frowning. "Two bigs. So okay, I'm worried, but curious."

"Tomorrow," he said, "if we find Zina, I'm going to make a deal with her. I'm going to offer her money. She mentioned three million dollars."

"Where the hell you getting that kind of money?"

"I've got some cash socked away, almost fifty grand."

"That's impressive, but a long way from three million."

"It'll be a fake boodle; it'll look like three million. Real bills outside. In the center you use bill-size colored paper; the edges are perfect. We did it on narcotics buys all the time. You wrap the stacks very tightly. The trick is in binding them as tightly as you can."

"What if she sees it's a fake boodle?"

"She won't."

"You're guaranteeing that? She's gonna ask to count it."

"The top stacks will be real. I won't let her go any farther until I have Kate."

Behind them, the click of the shuffleboard disks resumed. Babsie said Kevin would have made a great father. Eddie thought, Isn't that the way it always is? Who the hell is responsible for deciding who should be parents? She reached over and put her hand over his.