Last to Fold (36 page)

“And make sure Ivanov announced the news to the world.”

He grinned sheepishly. “As I said before…”

I wasn’t listening. “When did you say the kids found the bodies?”

“Mid-May.”

That couldn’t be it. Ratko had phished Mulholland months earlier. “If Polina shot Gorbenko, then who killed Kosokov?”

“We still don’t know.”

“And that’s one reason Ivanov hasn’t run with the rest of the story.”

He nodded.

“The fact that Polina’s alive makes her a leading suspect, doesn’t it?”

He was lifting his glass, but he stopped midair and returned it to the counter. “You know she’s alive?”

I grinned, partly to cover my carelessness. I’d assumed he knew about Polina. All the wits Sergei had knocked out hadn’t returned to the roost. No harm done, that I could see, but I told myself to watch my step.

“You’re late to the party. Yes, she’s living here. I’m surprised you didn’t know.”

He looked down at his glass. Perhaps I’d nicked his pride. “Where is she?”

“Could be I’m holding the bargaining chip now. Tell me about Rad Rislyakov.”

He shook his head.

“You know he’s dead? You can’t say anything that’ll hurt him now.”

He nodded.

“You were right the other day, your guesswork about Greene Street. I’d gone there looking for Ratko. I found the body. Iakov was there, too. He’d been shot, he said by the same guy who shot Ratko. I think the killer works for Polina’s current husband. I think she had him kill Ratko.”

I might have slapped him. He drew back, jumped up, froze for a moment, then walked around the room. When he came back, he said, “Why’d she do that?”

“Multiple reasons. Rislyakov was blackmailing her. He knew who she was, who she’d become. He horned in on a scheme she was running and was taking fifty percent not to tell Lachko. Then he got greedy and wanted a hundred thousand dollars, cash. I delivered the money to his people, and they led me to him. She had her husband’s driver follow me. I led him to Greene Street.”

He sat down again and rubbed his face. “What kind of scheme?”

“I don’t know, but I’m betting it’s connected to your two corpses. Rislyakov hacked his way into her computer several months ago. He removed a big file, without her knowing. He also learned enough to get close to her daughter—another way to keep tabs on Polina.”

“The auburn-haired girl?”

“That’s right. Her name’s Eva.”

That brought his head around, a funny look in his eye. “But you don’t know what he stole?”

“No. Only that she panicked when she found out.”

“How do you come to have all this information, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“I had twenty-four hours with Rislyakov’s laptop, remember?”

“The one you gave Barsukov?”

“Yes. After I copied its hard drive and made a few programming modifications. Rislyakov put a keyboarding bug on Polina’s computer. I put one on his.”

He grinned. “You can see everything he does.”

“Cheka habits die hard.”

I poured a little more vodka and offered him the bottle. He shook his head. “Listen to this again,” he said. He pushed some keys on his computer, and the tape started.

Kosokov’s voice
. “National outrage? Russia today? Hah! Don’t make me laugh. Neither of us will live to see it, in any event. Like I said, you made your deal. Good luck to you. I’m taking my evidence with me. My life insurance policy.”

The door crashing open. Polina saying,
“Tolik, I came as soon as I could. What the hell is going on? What are you doing here?”

Petrovin stopped the computer. “Kosokov says he’s taking his evidence with him—his life insurance policy. Suppose that’s the records of his bank, all the Cheka’s transactions.”

“Okay, I’ll suppose. But he’s dead.”

“She’s not. Suppose
that’s
what she had on her computer. Suppose
that’s
what Rislyakov stole.”

“Dammit!” It made perfect sense. I did my own revolution of the living room. Polina was scared about Mulholland’s bank crashing. She was looking at being cut adrift again—bringing back every fear she ever had since she was a kid. She’d be terrified, desperate, just like that day at Kosokov’s dacha. She needed money. She used Kosokov’s file to put the bite on Lachko. He still had Cheka connections. They moved the payoff money through Ratko’s laundry—and Lachko assigned Ratko to figure out who was hitting on him. Ratko did just that and … No, he didn’t. He didn’t report back. Lachko was ignorant of Polina the day he hauled me out to Brighton Beach. Ratko had kept his discovery to himself and gone underground. Less than perfect sense. I returned to the kitchen.

“If you’re right, and that’s what Rislyakov stole, why didn’t he turn it over to his masters?”

Petrovin held out his glass. “Rislyakov was working for us. He was our man inside the Badger organization.”

I laughed. “I may be an ex-Chekist, Alexander Petrovich, but that doesn’t make me newly gullible.”

He shook his head. “Blood’s thicker than money, even in Russia.”

“Meaning?”

“Rislyakov had a conflicted relationship with his parents. They were dissidents during the Soviet years. His father spent time in the Gulag. Ratko competed with politics for his mother’s attention. He went through a rebellious phase, fell in with a bad crowd, but a couple of teachers recognized his technical brilliance and helped him get back on a straight path. He reconciled with his folks in the midnineties. He was living with them, while he was going to university, in an apartment on Guryanova Street.”

“Uh-oh.”

“Right. They were all supposed to go to their dacha that night, but he had an exam coming up and decided to study late at school. They stayed home—and perished in the bombing.”

“He blamed himself, of course.”

“Of course. He started hanging out with his old friends and caught the attention of Barsukov. Chmil was a friend of his mother. He spent years trying to convince Ratko that the bombings that killed his parents were a Cheka operation. Three months ago, something happened, and Rislyakov told him he believed him—and he wanted to get even. He offered to open up the Badger empire. Chmil was murdered before he could do anything about it.”

“Cause and effect?”

“I’m afraid so. We have a leak. That’s one reason no one knows I’m here.”

Not surprising. But that was a hard admission for him. I went around the counter behind him and moved some stuff in the sink, giving him time.

A couple of minutes passed before Petrovin said, “I think Ratko stole that file from Polina’s computer. It proved what Chmil had been telling him about the Cheka and the apartment bombings. After Chmil died, I tried to build a relationship with Rislyakov. Slow going—he was cagey, suspicious, as you’d expect. I didn’t push too hard. We were making progress; I saw him when he was in Moscow last month. He told me to come to New York, he had something to show me. I recognized Iakov Barsukov on the plane. I followed him to Greene Street. I was supposed to meet Ratko there the next day.”

Lots of reasons not to like where this was going. I needed time, alone, to work through that. “If Ratko was going to be your mole in the Badger den, why did he go into hiding? Lachko hadn’t seen him in months—that had him worried, suspicious.”

“I don’t know. We were concerned about that, too, of course. We asked him. He said he needed to do things his way. We didn’t have a lot of choice but to go along.”

“I think he was using you, just as you were trying to use him. Ratko had expensive tastes, in addition to the gambling. He was blackmailing Polina, remember? I think he was going to keep the laundry running. He was going to operate it himself and use the Rosnobank file to keep the Barsukovs at bay. Iakov didn’t follow Ratko to Greene Street. He had an appointment. Eva told me Ratko was expecting him. He wanted Iakov alone—and out of Moscow—when he told him what he had and how he planned to use it.”

Petrovin shook his head. “Ratko wanted revenge. I got to know him well enough to see that.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way. Ratko spent the last several years being tutored by Chekists. He was smart. He would have learned some things. Maybe you saw what he wanted you to see. And maybe, like Kosokov, he wasn’t convinced the CPS could close the deal—especially in today’s Russia. On the other hand, from his point of view, with the laundry, he’d keep his income stream and he’d hit the Barsukovs—Lachko in particular—where it hurts most, in the wallet.”

Petrovin started to object but stopped. He sat for a moment, then did another circumnavigation of the apartment. He didn’t like my theory, for lots of reasons, but he could see it fit the facts better than his own.

“Tell me something,” I said when he returned to the counter. “Suppose you had Kosokov’s bank records. Suppose you could tie the bombings to the FSB. It’s explosive information, to be sure, but realistically, a decade later, in today’s Russia, what do you expect to accomplish?”

“You gauging my ambition—or my naivete?”

“Only asking if you’re trying to change the world.”

He smiled once again. “There was a time, not too long ago, I would have said yes. Now … I’m just trying hard to hold on to truth as a concept. Not something we, as a people, are familiar with, except perhaps in our humor. It may take us somewhere, it may get pushed into a ditch, but if we don’t at least put it on the road … You’re probably right about Rislyakov. Still, we had to try.”

“You might still get what you want. That file’s out there somewhere.”

“I’d like to talk to Polina Barsukova.”

“Her name is Mulholland now. Felicity Mulholland. Married to another banker, Rory Mulholland. Nine nine eight Fifth Avenue. Be careful. She doesn’t like talking about the past. Even if there’s no history.”

He gave me a funny look.

I said, “In your investigation of Kosokov and Gorbenko—their bodies, I mean—did you come across anything related to someone named Lena?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Eva keeps throwing this line at her mother—‘You should have left me with Lena.’”

“Lena … Yelena … there’s something in the file. I’ve got it all on this.” He tapped the laptop keyboard. “Here we go. A doll—in the shelter. Under the stairs, female, plastic, forty-five centimeters long, blond hair, remnants of a peasant costume. Also a plastic doll’s suitcase, nine by six by three, with three dresses inside, mostly intact. Name handwritten on the inside of each one—Yelena.”

“Huh. If the doll was in that shelter, odds are she was, too. Maybe with two corpses. Can you get the doll sent here?”

“I don’t know. I suppose so. It’s a risk—no one knows I’m here, remember?”

“Have it sent to Victoria, or to me. That’ll give you some cover.”

“You believe it’s that important?”

“She’s a screwed-up kid. Mulholland told me she suffered some kind of childhood trauma. He doesn’t know what. She was at the dacha with Kosokov and Gorbenko. She might have seen what happened. I know she’s terrified of something. The doll could be the key—if I can find her, that is.”

He nodded. “I’ll call tonight.”

The buzzer sounded, and I shuffled over to the intercom. Vodka was definitely having a medicinal effect on movement. “Yes?”

“Your guardian angel. Who else were you expecting?”

“I’ve been advised to screen my guests.” I pushed the door release button and turned to find Petrovin next to me, putting his laptop back in the messenger bag.

“I’ll be going,” he said, taking my hand. “Three’s company, as they say. We’ll be in touch.” Haste in his voice, bordering on urgency. I had the feeling he didn’t want Victoria to know he was here, but when she stepped out of the elevator, he bowed in his formal Russian way and spoke a few words in her ear. She nodded in response before coming down the hall, smiling, briefcase in one hand, shopping bag in the other. She was wearing a sleeveless blue blouse over a knee-length black skirt. All the curves in place. I wasn’t ready for a guardian, but the angel set my heart racing.

She gave me a kiss on the cheek and pushed past me to the kitchen. “I gotta warn you, I’m not much of a cook, but I figured in your condition, you’ll take what you get.”

“I’m cooking, remember? What’s in the bag?”

“Chicken. I’m going to call Giancarlo. He’ll tell me what to do.”

“I’ll take care of it.”

“You just go lie down. Dinner in an hour, I hope. You get any wine?”

“Still vodka and beer, sorry.”

“That’s got to change if I’m gonna keep comin’ around. Where’s the vodka?”

“On the counter. I’ll roast the chicken. You like lemon or onions?”

She turned, the vodka bottle in midair. “This about the chicken or control?”

“Probably both. It’s my kitchen.”

“In that case, you’re on your own. I’ll be right back. You got a wine shop in the neighborhood?”

“Liquor store, corner of Fulton, across from the Seaport.”

She was gone before I could say more. I melted some butter, chopped some garlic, parsley, and rosemary, grated some zest, squeezed some juice, mixed it all together with salt and pepper. I splayed the chicken, painted it all over with the butter-herb mixture, and put it in the oven, reflecting on the fact that none of this felt like it had taken any effort or caused any pain—but that could’ve been the vodka. I had just poured a small glass in celebration when the buzzer sounded Victoria’s return. She came down the hall carrying a bottle of something red, frowning. “Y’all need a new wine shop or a new neighborhood. Hope this stands up to your chicken. Corkscrew?”

I found one in the drawer and went looking for some mood music.
Sketches of Spain
was still on the CD player. I pushed
PLAY
and went back to the kitchen. She started around the room, wineglass in hand, too-small nose wrinkled in distaste, the rest of her smiling in fun.

“Wine not up to your standards?” I said.

“Passable, barely. Music sounds like a hermit’s funeral. Stoned hermit.”

“Not a Miles fan?”

“Ain’t no Bob Wills, that’s for sure.”

I switched to Bach cantatas. Her frown moderated a little. Bach wasn’t her thing either, but she didn’t complain. I left it on, hoping he’d grow on her. Bach usually does.