Cold As Ice: Novel (A Kristen Conner Mystery Book 3) Page 8

  I look at my own watch. I’m running out of time if I want to get back to Chicago tonight. I have to roll, too.

  Reynolds and I stand up and walk toward the front door, putting on our coats.

  “Why don’t you stay over another night?” Reynolds asks. “Let me take you to dinner at Peter Luger’s, the best steak house in America.”

  No hug, but he does know my prodigious and legendary appetite.

  “I’m getting chewed out by the boss. Zaworski is back and I’m in a little trouble. I’ve got to get back.”

  “Well, we need to figure another time to sit down and talk. We really do need to talk.”

  “About?”

  “A lot of things . . . but now isn’t a good time.”

  He looks at his watch yet again and pushes the door open. We walk out. I stay in the doorway out of the wind. He steps on the sidewalk and I watch him pull his coat up to cover his neck and face.

  “Catch you later Special Agent Reynolds.”

  I wasn’t trying to be dramatic but my tone stops him from stepping off the curb and jaywalking through a break in the traffic to the front door of the precinct. He walks back over and gives me a peck on the cheek.

  “We gotta talk,” he says one more time over his shoulder.

  We gotta talk? That sounds ominous, same as Zaworski saying there are things I’m not going to burden you with. We gotta talk. What does that mean? If he’s calling it quits, I don’t blame him. How do I feel about that?

  I’m standing on the street, still soaked in blood, feeling sorry for myself. I never did get that hug. Just get moving, I tell myself.

  Time to get back to the hotel and pack. I look at my phone. Two missed calls from Klarissa. She wants to know what the heck is going on with my stuff cluttering the room, I’m sure. I’ve got to call her back. I am incredulous that I’ve missed another call from Don as well. Something must be up for my partner to call all weekend and on a Sunday afternoon. He’s probably going to clue me in on what Zaworski didn’t want to burden me with.

  The screen lights up and I see a New York number.

  “Conner,” I answer.

  13

  “SO THINGS DIDN’T go as planned this morning. That happens. But why are you here in my home, Medved? What makes you think you can come here?”

  “I found something that I thought you might want to see, Pakhan.”

  “Then you take it to Pasha. Pasha brings it to me if he feels I should see it. You know how we work. You are never to come to my home. Med, are you listening? Look at me.”

  The Bear looked up. “Pasha wouldn’t listen.”

  Aleksei Genken was about to dismiss him with a nod to his bodyguard but paused. He traced the scar under his right eye, a physical habit that helped him think. Genken was longtime Pakhan of New York City, which made him the most powerful Russian Mafiya boss in the United States, the greatest among equals. You don’t hold power in a Russian bratva through trust. It came through knowledge. So he kept at least two spies in each of the cells that reported to him to make sure his brigadiers weren’t skimming from his profits or planning a coup d’état.

  “Show me.”

  Medved handed him a folded sheet of paper. Genken opened it and read the words and numbers carefully. The long string of numbers meant nothing. But the note underneath did. Password to deposit $25,000,000!!!

  “What is this Med?”

  “It is something Pasha wanted.”

  “Why didn’t you give it to him?”

  Med wasn’t sure how to word it.

  “Just say it, Medved.”

  “When things didn’t go as planned, he got very mad. He took my Ilsa.”

  Genken looked at the Bear and thought.

  “Where does he have Ilsa?”

  “I think maybe at his office. Maybe at a warehouse he has in Queens.”

  “In Queens?”

  “Yes,” Med answered. “Pasha was very angry with me and he was hurting Ilsa. This had nothing to do with her.”

  “It is not good for a man to hurt a woman. Kazhdyy chelovek imeyet mat’.”

  Medved nodded. Every man has a mother. He loved his mother very much. And Ilsa almost as much.

  “A man should protect his woman, too, Med,” Genken said.

  “I would die a million deaths for my Ilsa, but I can’t defend what is no longer alive.”

  Genken nodded. What was going on? He first assumed it was a low level operation gone wrong. But $25 million indicated an operation that was a lot bigger than anything Pasha had ever worked on— and much bigger than Pasha would do without his full knowledge. Unless . . .

  “Where did this come from, Med?”

  “The man on the news had it. His name is Frank Nelson. He was murdered by somebody in Central Park.”

  “Somebody?” Genken asked.

  Med could barely breathe.

  “Tell me more,” the Pakhan ordered.

  “He was the man I was to bring to Pasha. It is the paper that Pasha really wanted. That’s what he asked me about.”

  “Did you give him the numbers?”

  “No,” Med said, hanging his head. “He took Ilsa.”

  Genken thought. He knew nothing of this. He was certain Med had screwed up something Pasha was working on. But what? More importantly, why wasn’t he informed?

  Pasha? He was youngest and boldest of his brigadiers. Genken wouldn’t show it, but Pasha was also his favorite. He was undoubtedly ambitious. That was a good thing and a bad thing. How had he got involved in a deal that involved that sum of money? Who was backing him? And who was this man he was making a deal with? And why don’t I know about any of this?

  No doubt. This was a coup. Pasha was the edge of the sword that others were wielding. Probably Moscow ready to assert more control, something Genken had not let happen in his years as Pakhan. He remembered Soviet rule too well.

  The problem in Genken’s line of business was there was no safe retirement or succession plan. At seventy-three, he was feeling his mortality. He was tired of following the part of the vory v zakone code that demanded he forsake all relatives and family for the apparatchik. Genken would like to tend his garden and play with his grandchildren. He liked that scene in the first Godfather movie where Don Corleone had a stroke or a heart attack or whatever while playing with his grand-kid. Not the heart attack. The family time. He couldn’t show love to his family or it would put them in danger as a lever against him.

  He felt the jagged scar tissue beneath his eye. He had sewn up the bullet wound himself.

  None of his men inside Boyarov’s camp had reported anything unusual with Pasha. But in addition to being bold, Pasha was smart. He had figured out who Genken’s spies were and paid them off. The two men did not have much time to live. Pasha maybe had a little longer. There were things Genken wanted to learn from him. His like for the young man aside, he knew just how to make him talk.

  Too bad. No question in Genken’s mind Pasha would have taken his place as Pakhan. But it was obvious from the sheet of paper in front of him that Pasha wasn’t willing to wait for him to die, but had already begun his move to grab power. Genken frowned. The Americans had a saying about athletes when they got a little bit older: “He’s lost a step.” Unfortunately, it seemed to be true of him at this moment.

  He looked at the big man in front of him, shifting his balance uncomfortably from foot to foot. Medved was a loud oaf that drank too much. He was too unreliable to move up the hierarchy from anything other than a foot soldier. Genkin would never trust the Bear with anything important. So why was Pasha using him for such a big deal?

  He pursed his lips and shrugged. It was obvious. Pasha planned to knock off Medved after he finished his assignment.

  “Medved, I have been rude. Sit. Sit. I’ll have someone bring you a cup of coffee—or maybe you need a glass of vodka?”

  The Bear nodded.

  “Which?”

  “A small vodka might be good right now.”

 
; Genken got up from his desk, walked to a sideboard, and poured a large measure of iced vodka in a crystal tumbler. He brought it over to the man who was trembling with nervousness.

  “Relax, Medved. We’re going to talk. But first I need you to answer a couple of questions. Then maybe I will have you do something for me.”

  “Yes Pakhan.”

  “Drink, Med. Then tell me everything. Leave nothing out. If you tell me everything you will live. If you lie to me I will know. And you will die.”

  Medved was warmed by the fiery clear liquid and the hope of life. When they tell you, “I will know,” is it true? Do men like the Pakhan have special powers of discernment? Or is it just a bluff?

  “Conner, we didn’t get off to a great start and I want to apologize,” Barnes says.

  We shake hands.

  “No problem, Tommy, you were just doing your job.”

  “Thanks. Listen, I’m glad I caught you before you left the area.”

  We’re in the lobby of the 54th Street Precinct. If he’d called me a minute later I would have already been in a cab to the Sheraton on 6th Avenue.

  “So what do you need, Tommy?”

  “Don’t punch me, but I need you take your clothes off.”

  I glare and he laughs.

  “You think I’m kidding,” he says, “but you know it’s true. Everything you’re wearing needs to go to the lab and get checked into the evidence box.”

  I shake my head. What a day. And unfortunately he’s right.

  “You didn’t hear it from me,” he says, “but we’ve not done right by you. You know the drill. No way should you still be soaked in someone else’s blood. Way off protocol for a potential biohazard. If you want to file a grievance, have at it. It wasn’t my call so no skin off my back.”

  “I’ll think about that,” I say, wondering if I can get the NYPD to replace my gear. “But just in case you haven’t noticed, it’s still under ten degrees out there and I didn’t bring a change of clothes.”

  He smiles real big at that. Funny guy. Do I put him in a hammerlock now or later?

  “Any suggestions?” I ask with all the patience I can muster.

  “Don’t get worked up, Conner. We’ve got you covered—literally.”

  I don’t smile and he continues, “I’ll walk you back to the squad room. A couple of the girls have found a spare uniform and coat that might fit you. Don’t worry about sending them back—they’re compliments of the friendly NYPD. One of the girls will bag your clothes, you can grab a shower, change, and get on your way. Who knows, you might hook another whale today.”

  The girls? One of the girls? I’m in New York City, the center of US culture, and I’m hearing this. I really don’t get caught up in political correctness or worry about whether my gender is being disrespected— except when it really is—but if Tommy Barnes wants to improve his career track he’s going to have to work on his language and attitudes.

  “I appreciate it, Tommy. Why aren’t you in the meeting?”

  “Same reason as you. They didn’t need me when the Feds showed up. It’s their show now.”

  “Are you still working the murder?”

  “Nominally, yes. I’m not sure they actually care about the murder at this point.”

  “But we do and that’s why they pay us the big bucks.”

  “No argument on that point, Kirsten.”

  Kirsten? Do I even try to correct him? Nah.

  “Let’s get this over with, Tommy.”

  I’m suddenly very tired. The only thing on my mind is the promise of a warm shower.

  14

  PASHA WAS IN trouble and he knew it. Time to look strong or even his own men would turn on him. He had assured his backers in Moscow he could handle the PathoGen deal with Frank Nelson with no problem. They believed him and were ready to hand him the keys to the bratva that Genken had ruled with an iron fist for almost three decades. Pasha liked and respected Genken. He owed all his success to the man. It wasn’t personal. But his time was over. The bratva needed fresh leadership. The bratva needed him.

  Moscow’s twenty-five million bucks would not be lost, but Hiller said if the transaction aborted, it could take up to a month for it to be laundered from the escrow account back to the original account in Moscow. The sum was a drop in the bucket to his sponsors, but his failure was huge.

  Pasha ran his hands through his close-cropped hair. Where would the Bear have gone to hide? He had twenty soldiers out looking for him. He hadn’t been seen at any of his regular haunts. A thought came to him.

  “Vladimir.”

  “Yes, Pasha?”

  “I have a suspicion where we might find Med.”

  Vlad looked at him but said nothing. Vlad is smart, Pasha thought.

  “If you knew I wanted to find you and was going to kill you, where would you go?”

  Vladimir said nothing.

  “Come on old friend, humor me. Where would you go?”

  “A place no one else knows about,” Vlad answered.

  “Do you think the Bear has such a place?”

  “I doubt it.”

  “So where?”

  “Me? I’d find such a place and stay there.”

  “Okay, Vlad, since you refuse to humor me, I’ll tell you where I think he’s gone.”

  “You think he’s gone to Genken?” Vlad asked.

  “Finally you speak. That’s exactly where I think the Bear has gone.”

  “And that means you want to move our plans forward.”

  “You read my mind,” Pasha said. “Can you make the move tonight?”

  Vladimir Zheglov thought a moment.

  “You got a few of my men out looking for Med,” he answered.

  “We’ll call them home. Can you do it?”

  “Sure. The plan is set. The men have never known the exact target or the exact night it happens. With the Bear on the loose there will be a lot of chatter. The sooner we act the better in my opinion. We don’t want to lose surprise because of whispers on the street. It’s always better to strike first.”

  “Make it happen, Vlad. Go now. Everything rides on it.”

  Vlad nodded and the two childhood friends hugged.

  It’s time for war, Pasha thought. I better change locations again. That’s the way it will be until I fix this.

  I couldn’t believe how lucky I was to book the last flight to Chicago. But then it started snowing again and traffic was a tangled mess. I started sweating in the back of the cab, looking down at my watch every minute, wondering if I was going to miss it after calling Captain Zaworski and letting him know I was going to be at the office in the morning after all. Then the traffic jam didn’t matter. I got a text message from Southwest. My flight was canceled due to weather. They rolled me over to the first flight in the morning. I let the driver know I needed to go back to the Sheraton. He shrugged and got off at the next exit.

  I decided to eat the frog first and called Zaworski to let him know I wasn’t going to make it after calling to let him know I was going to make it after all. No answer—a big relief—so I left him a message and let him know I’d be in by early afternoon. I’m praying I’m not actually suspended because I didn’t meet with the counselor after the Cutter Shark case—or the Jack Durham case.

  Maybe Zaworski was just lighting a fire under me to make sure I got the point. Or maybe not.

  I called Mom to check on her and she sounded fine. She reminded me that I had promised to call Blackshear and let him know about the mystery man that had been visiting Nancy Keltto. I found Blackshear in my contact list, hit the number, and he picked up. I gave him the skinny on what Mom saw as quick as I could so I could follow up on some other callbacks. But he was in the mood to talk and I couldn’t get off. We talked about Keltto’s death and whether it might just be an accident. That’s his initial suspicion but he takes down the license plate number my mom supplied. Then we end up swapping updates on other cases and office politics, including the return of Zaworski.
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  I wanted to catch Don who called a seventh time and Klarissa to let her know she’s stuck with me as roommate one more night, but I couldn’t get off the call with Blackshear and now the cab is pulling up to the doors of the Sheraton. I swipe my card and punch in a fifteen percent tip. The driver looks at his screen in the front seat and scowls. I guess driving on icy streets calls for a higher percentage. This trip has gone way over my budget. Rice and beans and bumming meals at Mom’s and Kaylen’s the rest of January.

  The doorman out front offers to have my bags carried in, but I’m out of cash and have done all the tipping I plan to do in New York City.

  I sling my backpack over a shoulder and pull my roller board behind me. I snag it on the rounded corner of the revolving doors and for a nanosecond fear I’m going to jam the motors.

  There’s a long line of tired, irritable travelers in the reception desk line that snakes through a maze of velvet ropes. I wonder how many are here for the same reason as me; cancelled travel plans.

  I weave through the mob to get where I can fish out my phone to call Klarissa. Hopefully she’s in the room. I didn’t keep a key and it’s going to take an hour to get to the front of the line and ask for one.

  It’s late enough in the day that there is a guy in a fancy uniform in front of the corridor to the elevators who won’t let anyone pass without a key. Klarissa is on the club floor and you need a key to access it anyway. I’d have to get lucky someone else was going to the top floor or ride up and down until someone did.

  I look to the left at the open bar. A cozy couple is laughing and clinking martini glasses together.

  My lungs don’t ask my permission and gulp in a big breath of air and let it out slowly. They do it of their own volition. I’m suddenly tired. I might even feel faint. I need to sit down.

  The cozy couple is Austin and Klarissa. They look good together.

  You are right Austin. We gotta talk.