French Pressed (20 page)

“Respect? What do you mean? Like good manners?”

Boris nodded. “Exactly! Here’s my grandfather talking now: It’s important to remember someone’s name. It’s the right and polite thing to do. Don’t forget a man’s name, or he might forget you. To remember is respectful. It will gain you his friendship. Or to put it the Russian way, it’s for
blat
.”

“Excuse me?”

“
Blat
. That means having friends in the right places. Connections.”

I scratched my head. The sentiments were actually fairly conventional. “I don’t see what that has to do with rapping.”

“Here it is, Clare Cosi. I am not so good at the memory thing, but I like the rap music, and I remember the lyrics, and I can make them up, too. One day I discovered that if I rap a person’s name, make it like a song, then the memory is locked here.” Boris tapped his temple. “That way I never forget.”

“There’s a name for that kind of thing,” I said. “Mnemonics? I think that’s the term. I can’t remember.”

Boris stuck a finger in the air, nodded sagely. “Ah, but you would not have forgotten if you had rapped about it!”

“Ready to go,” Esther declared.

I looked up, blinked in surprise. The transformation from barista to hottie date was stunning. Esther wore a little black, clingy dress that hugged her zaftig curves and dipped daringly down to reveal a Renaissance-era quantity of push-up bra cleavage. The hem barely reached midthigh, and she added matching black tights and stacked heels. Her black librarian glasses were gone, replaced with bright red cat glasses. Esther had applied scarlet lipstick to match the frames, and she’d lined her big, brown, long-lashed eyes with a sexy dark liner.

Boris grinned stupidly and practically stumbled to his feet. “Like a vision of night, her beauty takes flight! Like Jam Master’s bling in the blazing sunlight. My lady, come ride with me on a silver streak of phosphorus bright.”

“Huh?” Esther said, clearly baffled. “Could you maybe translate that one?”

“My SUV’s parked right outside.” Boris explained with a shrug. “It’s the silver Subaru.”

B
B
Gun parked his SUV on the street, and the three of us walked along Brighton Beach Avenue. Beneath the subway’s elevated tracks, a gust of wind off the nearby Atlantic whipped at our coats and hair. In a sweet gesture, BB draped his arm around Esther’s shoulders and pulled her close.

On the drive to Brooklyn, Boris had explained that we were coming to the “fast-beating heart of Little Odessa.” And within a few blocks of his parked Subaru, I understood what he meant. The neighborhood was pulsing with life; the streets were busy; the markets, stalls, and shops glowing and crowded, even on this cold, dark November night. Everyone was speaking Russian, and most of the signs on storefronts and food stands were printed in Cyrillic lettering.

We soon found the address for Nick on Brigitte’s note, a four-story yellow brick building with art deco trim and a small storefront at street level. Through a crack in the curtained picture window, I spied cloth-covered tables with neat place settings, and even though the sign painted on the glass was Russian, I definitely recognized one word:
café
.

“Let’s go in,” I suggested.

The interior was warm but not luxurious with cheap wood paneling and simply framed pictures of various Russian cities. Beside a muted television a large chalkboard was covered with Cyrillic writing—probably the menu. Swinging half doors blocked the kitchen, and another doorway was veiled by a black curtain. A large samovar occupied a wooden table between the two exits.

I counted a dozen tables. At the small register near the front door, a plump, florid-faced hostess in her forties greeted us in Russian. Needless to say, Boris did the talking, and we were led to a table in the corner.

A waitress soon appeared with a tray of water glasses, no ice, filled nearly to the brim. I didn’t care; my mouth was parched, my lips chapped from the persistent winter wind. I took a huge, long drink—and thought I’d just swallowed
napalm
.

“This isn’t water!” I gagged, my eyes filling with tears. “It’s vodka!”

Boris lifted his own glass.
“Za Vas!”
he cried, draining it. Esther took a tentative taste, then a big swallow.

“Oh, that’s good,” she said, waving air into her mouth.

Boris ordered hot borscht for everyone.

“Beet soup?” Esther’s nose wrinkled beneath her red cat glasses. “I hate beets,
and
I was promised
caviar
.”

Boris pulled her close. “And caviar you shall have, my tsarina, but try a little borscht first.”

My eyes cleared, and my mind started moving.

Beets…beets are important. Why?

I suddenly flashed on the cut-up beets that had been scattered on the prep table around Tommy Keitel’s corpse. And there’d been stock bubbling on the stove, too.

Tommy was preparing borscht, I realized, probably from a recipe the mysterious Nick had given him!

Could Nick be the chef here?

The scorching fire in my throat had turned into a pleasing warmth in my stomach. I took another taste of the superb Russian vodka and looked around.

The place was pretty dead, especially for a Saturday night. Only two other tables were occupied. One by a trio of young Russian men in black leather coats, with hair that stood straight up, giving their heads a distinctly angular appearance. Four very attractive young women sat at the other table, nursing cups of steaming tea. One polished her long fingernails; another leafed through a dog-eared copy of
Vogue
.

“They look like hookers,” Esther whispered.

“They work here,” Boris said. “This is
banya
, probably also Red
Mafiya
.”

Esther stiffened. Boris touched her knee. “It’s all right. We’re no threat. We’re…how you say…
civilians
.”

A young man at the other table rose. Cup in hand, he crossed to the samovar. Boris watched him and suddenly called out.

“Leonid, Leonid, the music man, he books my band as fast as he can. The man with the power and the hour was midnight, we rapped so neat we gave Eminem a fright.”

The man turned toward us, and his eyes lit with recognition.

“BB Gun!” he cried, rushing to our table. Boris rose, and the two men embraced like long-lost friends.

“Hey, guys,” Leonid called to his comrades. “This is BB Gun. He played at Klub Bespredel, the big Halloween show. Really brought down the house. Good haul for the boss!”

“Ah, Leonid, but we both know why you remember me,” Boris said. “That was the night I introduced you to my ex-girlfriend, Anya.”

The man touched his heart. “What a night! And thanks for introducing me to Svetlana, too.”

“Da…da.”
Boris nodded.

Leonid smacked his lips, thumped his barrel chest. “They’re a pair of hot pistols, I’ll tell you. Make me feel like
byki
—strong like a bull.”

“I’m the guy who’d know,” Boris boasted. “That’s why they call me BB Gun!” Boris put his arm around Leonid’s broad shoulder. “Homey, listen up now! I wrote this song about those two phat booties.”

Boris launched into another rap, this time in Russian. The names “Svetlana” and “Anya” came up a number of times, and the references were obviously lewd. The men at the table guffawed. The women pretended to be shocked, but in the end they laughed, too.

When Boris finished, everyone applauded except Esther. Stewing, she glowered at her new boyfriend.

Leonid nudged Boris with his elbow. “So what is the great BB Gun doing in our
banya
?”

“It’s my new friend,” Boris said, tilting his head in my direction. “She came to this place because of a mutual friend of Nick’s.”

“You know Mr. Pedechenko?” Leonid asked me, obviously surprised.

“If you mean Nick, then the answer is yes. I met him once.”

“Ms. Cosi wants to ask Nick a few questions,” Boris explained.

The man snapped his fingers. “Olga,” he bellowed.

The woman who’d been painting her nails rose. She wore a tight blouse, and figure-hugging black Levi’s. Waving her spread fingers to dry the nail polish, Olga approached us. Her hair was long and black as squid ink, falling like a curtain around her oval face. She was supermodel thin and had a good eight inches on me, at least half of which could be attributed to her four-inch heels.

“Take Ms. Cosi to see Nick,” Leonid commanded.

Olga nodded. “Follow,” she said, spinning on her giant heels.

“I’ll be right back,” I told Esther. She barely heard me. She was still glaring at Boris. As I followed Olga through the black-curtained door, Esther clutched her boyfriend’s arm.

“Who’s Anya?” she demanded. “And who the hell is Svetlana?”

Behind the curtain, cubicles lined one wall of the narrow corridor, a bank of steel lockers the other. Each cubicle was veiled by black curtains that matched the one blocking the door.

“In there,” Olga said, directing me to a cubicle. Inside there was a bench and a clothing hook.

“What’s this?”

“Changing room,” Olga replied. Her voice was deep and sultry.

“What am I changing into?”

Olga thrust a white towel and plastic flip-flops into my hands. “Put purse and valuables in locker. You leave clothes here.”

“Wait a minute, why am I changing?”

“You want to see Nick,” Olga said, hand extended as she admired her manicure. “Nick in
banya
. You want to see Nick, you go in
banya
.”

“
Banya
? What’s a
banya
?”

Olga rolled her eyes, clearly frustrated with the slowwitted American woman. “
Banya
is steam bath.”

Wrapped in nothing more than the barely adequate towel, with rubber flip-flops on my feet, I stepped out of the cubicle five minutes later. Olga was waiting for me at the lockers. She took my purse and watch and made a show of locking them up, then she handed me a key on a long white string, which I wrapped around my wrist.

“Follow,” Olga commanded.

She led me to a stout wooden door, painted black, with a comically large metal ring for a handle.

“When I open, go right in,” Olga instructed. “Nick don’t like to lose heat.”

Then the door opened, and a blast of steam washed over me. My eyes filmed, and I blinked to clear them. Olga placed her hand on the small of my back and shoved me over the threshold. The door slammed behind me.

The bath was incredibly hot, hotter than any health club sauna I’d ever sweated in, hotter than the hottest kitchen I’d ever cooked in. Hissing steam rose from stones piled around a black cast-iron stove in the center of the room. The only source of light was the flickering glow of yellow flames through the grate.

Someone had just dumped water on the rocks as I’d entered. Now much of the steam had dissipated, and I looked around. The concrete room contained ascending levels—essentially long, wide steps, rising up to the high ceiling. On each tier I noticed spigots with aluminum buckets under them.

My eyes adjusted to the gloom, and I counted eight men, all clad in white towels. Four were young and fit enough to be bodybuilders, the terry cloth around their loins hardly larger than hand towels. The rest were seated on the higher tiers. They had towels wrapped around their heads, obscuring their features.

“My name is Clare Cosi,” I called out. “I’d like to speak with Nick.”

“I’m here,” a voice boomed from the highest tier. “Talk.”

I tried to see the speaker, but between the steam and the shadows, he was no more than a silhouette. I didn’t recognize the voice, but why should I? When I’d met Nick the other night, he’d barely uttered a sound.

“You may not remember me, but we met at Solange,” I continued.

“I don’t remember you,” the voice replied from on high.

“Okay,” I said. “Could you answer a few questions, then?”

“I suppose so, Clare Cosi,” the voice replied. “Since I doubt very much that you’re wearing a wire.”

The others chuckled. Self-consciously, I readjusted the towel, but the narrow strip of terry cloth was barely up to the task.
Don’t freak. Keep your head. This is for Joy. You can handle this…
I stepped forward, which brought me so close to the heat source that I suddenly felt light-headed.

“Do you know about Tommy Keitel’s death?” I asked carefully.

“I read the papers.”

“You knew Brigitte Rouille, too. No point in denying it. I found your name and address among the papers she left behind.”

“Yes. I know Brigitte. Why do you speak of her that way?”

“What way?” I asked.

“You say I knew her. I
know
her.”

One of the bodybuilders rose and tossed a bucket of water onto the rocks. More steam filled the room. I touched my forehead. My skin was slick with sweat, my hair stuck in dark ringlets to my face and neck.

I cleared my throat. “I said
knew
, because Brigitte is dead, along with her boyfriend, Toby. It was suicide by overdose.”

There was a long pause. One man bathed his face with a blast of cold water from a spigot.

“When you visit a Russian man, it is customary to bring a gift as a gesture of goodwill. Did you know that, Clare Cosi?”

“No. I didn’t.”

“All you have brought me is bad news.”

The door opened behind me. A draft of chilly air ran over my flesh, giving me instant goose bumps. I looked over my shoulder as another bodybuilder entered. This one had tattoos on his forearms and across broad shoulders that tapered down to narrow hips and sculpted, powerful-looking legs.

“She’s not a policewoman,” the newcomer said, standing uncomfortably close to me. “I went through her purse. Ms. Cosi here runs a coffeehouse.”

“Coffee?” the voice cried. “Bitter, black mud! Russian men drink tea!”

Oh, good God.

The bodybuilder brushed past me and plopped down on the bottom tier, clad in barely more than a wisp of steam.

Once again, I cleared my throat. “I’m not here to defend my trade,” I told the man. “I want to know how you’re connected to Brigitte Rouille. Are you a chef? A restaurateur? A vendor or importer?”

“I’m a businessman,” he replied. “My business of selling
kaif
to the
kit
—”

“Sorry?” I said.

“I peddle recreational drugs to people with the cash to waste on them. Do you understand, Clare Cosi?”

“I understand you sold drugs to Brigitte.”

“A long time ago. When I first met her at a Manhattan nightclub, she was just another customer. But I enjoyed her company, and Brigitte became very special to me. So special I cut her off when I saw that she could no longer handle the drugs. When she hooked up with that worthless artist who was always on the
kalol
, I refused to see her again.”

“On the what?” It was so hot I was having trouble following his words.

“Toby De Longe was hooked on the injection. Heroin. When the
lavit kaif
goes that far, it’s not fun anymore.”

Someone else tossed a bucket of cold water on the rocks. The sizzling hiss was deafening. Rising steam swirled around me, and the heat started really getting to me. I felt myself losing balance, swaying on my feet.

“I…You…” I couldn’t seem to form words. The room was too hot. My grip on the towel faltered, and I almost dropped it. My head began to spin.

“Feeling…dizzy…”

Nick said something to me in Russian. But I couldn’t understand him, and then I saw a figure quickly scrambling down from the steam bath’s highest tier. My legs started giving out.
Crap!

I must have gone down, because the next thing I remember was coming back to reality by the shock of cold water. Someone had filled a bucket and dumped it over my head. I yelped and opened my eyes at the icy jolt. A large man with beefy hands and thick, muscular arms was holding me. His round head was shaved, but his shoulders, chest, and torso were covered with curly hair. He looked at me through brown eyes filled with concern.