Kelley Armstrong - Exit Strategy

I wriggled like a praised puppy. Joe sidled closer.

“Evelyn tells me you’re a very important man,” I said.

My use of the present tense didn’t go unnoticed. Joe preened and regaled me with a few glimpses into his former life. As he talked, I was aware of time ticking past, but also knew this wasn’t someone who could-or should-be rushed into answering questions. I took my cue from Evelyn, who settled into her chair as if not expecting to rise for a while.

Little Joe was the older brother of Boris Nikolaev, long-time head of the Nikolaev family. To hear Joe tell it, he’d voluntarily abdicated his role as heir because he didn’t want the responsibility. My guess was that he’d been passed over, like a Fortune 500 CEO’s screw-up son-given a big corner office and invited to all the meetings, but never asked to actually do anything.

After about a half-dozen surprisingly boring mob stories, Joe made the segue himself.

“So you girls need help, you come to Little Joe. This is good. I may be old, but I can still help. You said it was about a former associate of my family?”

“A man who worked for you. Leon Kozlov.”

“Kozlov?” Joe’s face screwed up and I expected him to make the connection with the Helter Skelter victims, but instead he said only, “From the seventies?”

“Late seventies, maybe early eighties. He seems to have parted ways with the family. Kicked out, probably. His fortunes didn’t exactly improve after he left you.”

“Kozlov. Leon Kozlov.”

Joe’s eyes rolled back, as if searching his mental files. Then he turned his head and spat. Didn’t just make the motion. Actually spat. Fortunately, in the opposite direction. He muttered something in Russian. I didn’t need to know the language to know it wasn’t a compliment.

“The Fomin hit,” he muttered. “Sasha Fomin.”

Evelyn frowned. “Kozlov was a hitman? I don’t think-”

“No, no. Kozlov, he was not a hitman. He was security. A bodyguard. Not for the family, but for our associates, people we wanted to protect. Only he didn’t do so good a job.”

“So this Fomin got whacked on Kozlov’s shift?” I said.

Joe squeezed my thigh. My upper thigh. Upper inner thigh, to be precise. I resisted the urge to squirm back into the sofa cushions…or break his fingers.

“Smart girl,” he said, kneading my thigh. “I said she was a smart girl, no?”

“How did the hit go down?” Evelyn asked.

“Hit-and-run. Looked like an accident, and this Kozlov tried to tell us that is what it was, but we were not fooled. The Nikolaevs know accidents. Remember that senator? From Texas? Now that, that was genius. First, we-”

“About Kozlov,” Evelyn said. “Do you remember anything else about him?”

Joe puckered his lips, obviously displeased with being cut short. I turned toward him, pulling my elbows in to spring my breasts up closer to the old man’s face. His eyes zeroed in on target, lips smoothing in a smile. I inched back before my cleavage caught drool.

“Did you know Kozlov well?” I prompted.

A snort. “As you say, he was not an important man. Not important enough for me to know.” He hesitated. “But, if you wish to know more, there was a man who worked for us, was friends with this Kozlov. Volkv. Nicky Volkv.”

“Any idea where I’d find him?”

“More than an idea. You will find Mr. Volkv is a guest of the state, serving a life sentence for murder. Like Mr. Kozlov, he did not do so well after he left our organization.”

Evelyn found out where Volkv was being held, then she thanked him and rose. “You’ve been a great help. If there’s ever anything I can do for you…”

Little Joe turned his gaze on me. All over me. He grinned and opened his mouth, but I pressed my finger against his lips.

“I don’t think you’re ready for that,” I said. “You look like you still have a lot of good years left ahead of you.”

He barked a laugh. “Maybe, someday, if that changes, I will call you. Send me off in style.”

I grinned, pressed against him and kissed his cheek. “It would be a pleasure.”

As we stepped outside, Evelyn murmured, “Seems someone is quite the accomplished actor. Jack give you lessons?”

“Jack?”

“He doesn’t seem the type, does he? Like you.” A sly look my way, as if expecting a response. When I didn’t comment, she continued. “Now, me? I bet you think I’d make a good actress.”

“Probably.”

She took out her keys and opened the car door. “Well, I’m not. I can’t stand it, and no amount of practice makes it any easier.” She slid into the driver’s seat and waited for me to get in before continuing. “I just never could get the hang of being someone else. Nearly blew a job over it once.”

She started the car and pulled from the lot. I expected the “story” to end there but, when she reached the main road, she continued.

“I had to hit a mark at a big party. I was about your age. Now I was never what you’d call pretty, but there are ways to make men forget that. Under the circumstances, what’s the easiest way to make the hit?”

“Honeypot.”

“Exactly. A little vroom-vroom-like you did in there-lure your mark away, then take him out while his brain’s hiding in his trousers. So I bought the dress, put on my disguise, showed up at the party, got my first really good look at the old geezer and knew there wasn’t a hope in hell I could pull it off.”

“Ugly?”

“Made Little Joe look like a fireman’s calendar centerfold.”

“So what’d you do?”

“Waited until he found a little morsel he liked, let her do the dirty work, then shot him while she was in the bathroom cleaning up afterward. Improvisation, Dee. That’s what I’m good at-not acting. The point is, everyone has strengths. Jack can teach you some. I can teach you others. There’s no need to limit yourself.” She slid a look my way. “But remember I’m the one with the teaching experience. Jack’s only ever played the pupil.”

I nodded and said nothing.

By the time we made it to the jail where Volkv was being held, visiting hours would likely be over. Besides, this wasn’t a “fly by the seat of your pants” type of mission. It would require planning.

As we switched places and I drove back to Evelyn’s, she kept me amused with stories about Little Joe, none of which were complimentary and all of which wouldn’t have been nearly so funny if I’d hadn’t met the man.

“-nearly blew a year’s worth of planning,” Evelyn said. “And why? So he wouldn’t have to pay for the goddamned blow job.”

“Isn’t that the same story he told us? The payroll heist?”

“Now you know why the man’s stories are so boring. He takes out all the parts that make him look like a moron, which means there’s no goddamned story left. Between making things up and letting things slip…Volkv! Yes!”

Her sudden outburst nearly had me wearing my Coke.

Evelyn waved an apology my way. “I’ve spent the last hour trying to figure out where I know the name Nicky Volkv from. Thinking about Joe’s loose lips just reminded me. Volkv tried to turn pro after he left the Nikolaevs. His first hit, he screwed up big-time. Put a car bomb in the wrong car, killed a young couple.”

“Sounds like Volkv and Kozlov would have hit it off well. Two Mafia incompetents.”

“It’s the mob. Competence is a recessive gene. That’s what keeps us in business.”

I changed lanes, carefully passing a school bus. “You did mob work?”

Evelyn waggled her hand. “Fifty-fifty. For contract killers, mob hits are like office work-steady employment, decent pay…and boring as hell. There’s far more lucrative and interesting work out there.” She glanced my way. “Even for someone with her own rules. Drug cartels, political assassinations…”