The Cold Room (12 page)

I watched him walk to the curb, his gait quick and graceful despite an extra fifty pounds, watched him look, very deliberately, up and down the block. For just a second, as his head swept from right to left, his narrow eyes crossed mine. No more than slits, they were as disfiguring as a birthmark or a tattoo. Kelly’s identification would be quick and sure, and beyond challenge in a courtroom.

The fat man nodded once after completing his sweep, then crossed the street, disappearing from view. A moment later, he returned with his hands empty. The garbage, apparently, had gone over the fence.

FOURTEEN

I
was up and moving before the door closed behind the fat man. Down the corridor, through the lot, across the street. I tried to compose myself as I went. A pure waste of time. I entered the small office as though I owned it.

On the far side of the room, Aslan and the fat man sat behind large desks placed at right angles to each other. The woman with the red hair was standing to my right, at the foot of a stairway leading to the second floor. She had a toddler by the hand, a boy wearing a Mickey Mouse t-shirt. Aslan said something to the woman in a language I didn’t understand. Without answering, she picked the child up and climbed the stairs. I let her go, not because I wouldn’t have relished a conversation with her, but because I was much more interested in the joint Aslan held between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand.

Aslan stared at my badge, then into my eyes. I expected him to make some effort to conceal the joint, even to swallow it whole. Instead, he laid it on the edge of a glass ashtray in a gesture of pure defiance that I would later make him regret.

‘Okay,’ he said, his tone echoing his earlier gesture, ‘you are big-deal cop. Now can put tin badge in pocket and show me search warrant.’

‘Hey,’ I said, looking directly into the narrow eyes of Aslan’s companion, ‘what’s with your buddy’s attitude? He doesn’t even know what I’m here for and already he’s asking for a warrant. Gimme a break.’

When neither man replied, I inventoried the room, taking my time about it. Perhaps twenty feet square, the office was paneled with sheets of some material halfway between wood and wallpaper. Dark blue tiles, shot with irregular veins of silver, covered the floor.

The tiles were bright and shiny, as they should have been, given the number of servants who lived there.

Above my head, an air conditioner blasted away. A pair of three-drawer filing cabinets to my left were arranged along the front wall. I registered these items quickly, suppressing an urge to open those cabinets and examine their contents, until my attention finally settled on a flag mounted behind Aslan’s desk. The flag was bright green, with three stripes – white, red, white – about two-thirds of the way down. At the flag’s center, in stark black and white, a large disc contained a semicircle of nine stars. The stars supported a pedestal on which an animal lay with its legs dangling and its head facing outward, so that it stared at me through a pair of ghost-white eyes.

‘That a cat or a dog?’ I asked Aslan, pointing to the flag.

He stared at me for a moment, then blinked twice before swiveling his chair in a half-circle to face the flag. ‘This is wolf of Chechnya,’ he told me. ‘All Chechen peoples are coming from wolfs. This is in our national song. This is what we believe.’

‘Yeah? It must be a pretty wild place then. You do a lot of hunting?’

He broke into song at that point, singing to the flag in a language I assumed to be Chechen. I stepped forward, took the half-smoked joint from the ashtray and put it in my shirt pocket. Then I winked at Aslan’s companion, who stared back at me, so unmoving he might have been carved from clay. Dimitri had been right about the man’s gaze. He was, indeed, looking at me like I was shit on the sidewalk.

I came forward to sit on the edge of his desk, leaning down to study an open checkbook. I barely had time to register a signature on the top check, Konstantine Barsakov, before Aslan challenged me.

‘I have ask you before. In America, man’s home is castle. Where is search warrant for castle?’

‘Well, it’s a funny thing, but your castle is exactly what I’m here about. What’d you say your name was?’

‘I don’t have to say name. Is unconstitutional.’

‘Nope, you’re wrong there. Any police officer can ask any citizen for identification at any time. If that identification is not produced, that police officer can detain that citizen until such time as it is.’

This was a complete lie, but not one likely to be unmasked. Aslan’s eyes traveled to the ashtray, now minus the joint he’d laid down a few minutes before. Then his eyes jumped to mine, displaying a blind and unreasoning hatred.

‘Also,’ I added, ‘your attitude is really bad here. I just asked for your name. I didn’t ask you to submit to a strip search.’

The clear implication, that a strip search would follow a second refusal, didn’t escape Aslan. I could see the struggle in his eyes. He was going to have to back down and he didn’t like it.

‘Aslan Khalid.’

‘There, was that so hard?’ I glanced down at the second man. ‘And what’s your name, pal?’

‘Konstantine Barsakov.’

‘And what do you do for Domestic Solutions? What’s your job?’

‘I am president,’ Barsakov replied, his English much better than Aslan’s. ‘Now tell us what you want or I will call the lawyer. And remove your ass from my desk.’

‘Okay.’ I rose to my feet, leaving a sweaty stain behind, then spread my hands defensively. ‘See, it’s really just a routine complaint. This building is zoned industrial and you have people living here. That’s the complaint, anyway. That you have people living here and the conditions are unsafe.’

I might have left all this unsaid. My intention, when I came through the door, was to use the building code violation as a pretext to detain Konstantine. That ploy was no longer necessary; the joint in my pocket was pretext enough. Still, I couldn’t resist an urge to needle Aslan, to play to his rage. Turned down at the corners, the man’s small mouth had hardened into the sort of petulant frown I associated with a bratty toddler about to launch a temper tantrum.

When Konstantine failed to reply, I turned to his partner. ‘Do you deny the charges?’ I asked.

Aslan stared at me for a moment, his eyes traveling from my soggy hair, to the t-shirt plastered to my chest, to my frayed jeans. That my mission had nothing to with the building code was obvious and I had to assume he was already thinking of the murdered girl his partner had dumped six weeks before.

‘No more I am playing with you this game,’ Aslan finally declared, reaching for the telephone on his desk. ‘I am calling lawyer.’

‘Here, let me help you.’

I hooked my fingers under the lip of the desk and flipped it over. Aslan tried to get out of the way, but he wasn’t fast enough. The desk caught him in the hips and his chair went flying. Then the monitor of his Dell computer imploded a few feet from his head and he cried out, despite himself. I drew my Glock and put on my game face. These were the foreign gangsters Capra had warned me against. I would treat them accordingly.

‘You,’ I said, leveling the Glock on Konstantine while Aslan struggled out from under the desk, ‘get up against the wall.’

When he continued to stare at me, I drew the gun back, fully prepared to slam it into the side of his head. He apparently got the message, pushing his chair away from the desk, rising slowly, turning and walking off to face the wall. I might have demanded that he raise his hands at that point, but there was only one pocket in his warm-up suit, a back pocket which held his wallet.

‘You, too. Get up against the wall next to your partner.’ I came around the overturned desk to confront Aslan as he rose to his feet, slamming the heel of my left hand into his chest. He staggered backward, but continued to glare at me. Though I was a good five inches taller and fifty pounds heavier, Aslan was powerfully built and obviously unafraid. For a moment, I thought I might have to shoot him, but he finally turned when I stepped forward.

‘Put your hands against the wall,’ I told him, ‘and spread your legs. I’m going to search you.’

‘I will tell you story,’ he said as he complied, ‘of boys becoming mens in Chechnya. Are you wishing to hear this story?’

‘I’m interested in anything you have to say, Aslan. That’s because you’re such an interesting guy.’

Aslan ignored the sarcasm. His expression had hardened by then. ‘New Year’s Day this story begins, when Russians attack Grozny to drive out rebels. Airplanes they use, mortars, artilleries, missiles, tanks. In one hour, four thousand rounds, boom, boom, boom, boom. This goes on for three months, every day, always bombs falling, house crashing down, glass broken from windows, everywhere flames, everywhere smoke. At end, Grozny is no more a city. Grozny is ruins like of ancient kingdom.’

I searched Aslan carefully, emptying each pocket, tossing items off to the side. He didn’t flinch, not even when I confiscated his wallet.

‘On first night, mother killed and brother killed. On fifth night, father killed. I run to uncle’s house, but house is no more. Boy has only on self to rely. How does boy do this? Fear first, for boy, too scared to think. Then hunger eats at stomach and boy runs through streets, hiding in shadows from snipers, like rat. This is trick Russians play. First bomb, then burn, then shoot when people come out. If civilian, no matter. If child, no matter. All are same to them.’

I moved over to Konstantine and took his wallet as well. He was paying close attention to Aslan’s tale and I got the distinct impression that he was hearing it for the first time.

‘How survive, huh? For boy? First time boy discovers food, gang of children take it away. Later, boy joins gang, takes food from others. Oldest in gang is fourteen. Youngest is seven. When find wounded Russians, they kill them with knives. No mercy. Kill and take gun. Now grows stronger, this boy. Little more every day. Until no longer is rat. Is wolf.’

At that point, I backed away from the two men, giving myself a little reaction room while I examined Konstantine’s and Aslan’s green cards. Both appeared to be legitimate and both listed Russia as country of origin.

‘Boy can no more be sheep when boy becomes wolf. This is thing about wolfs. Once is wolf always is wolf.’

I can’t say how long Aslan would have rattled on if I hadn’t chosen that moment to kick his feet out from under him. As it was, his head banged into the paneling as he crashed to the floor and he barely got his hands out in time to break his fall.

‘Stay down there, wolfman, while I finish with your partner.’

Finishing with Konstantine meant holstering my weapon while I bent his massive arms behind his back and put handcuffs on his wrists. Konstantine didn’t fight me, but I felt his strength nevertheless. We were of even height, with him much the heavier, though most of it – or so I hoped – was fat.

‘Why you are arresting me?’

‘Marijuana possession.’

Animated for the first time, he looked at me in disbelief. ‘I wasn’t smoking this joint.’

‘Doesn’t matter, Konstantine. You’re the president of the company and you’re responsible.’ I drew my weapon. Aslan was behaving himself, but I wasn’t taking any chances.

‘This is bullshit, this little joint. This is a parking ticket.’

‘Not so. Smoking marijuana in a public place is a misdemeanor. Now, check this out, just so we’re all on the same page. I’m going to walk you through the door and down the street to my car. You’re not going to resist or try to run away. Meanwhile, the wolf of Chechnya will remain inside the building. That’s because if the wolf shows his fangs, he not only goes to the top of the endangered species list, he faces the threat of immediate extinction.’

I gave them a moment to think it over, then took hold of Barsakov’s right arm just above the elbow, squeezing hard enough to let him know how much it would hurt if I clamped down. We had two blocks to walk and I didn’t want him to get ideas. Nevertheless, when we reached the door, I couldn’t resist a final diversion. I turned slightly, so that I could see Aslan out of the corner of my eye. He was holding his palm against the top of his bald and reddened scalp.

‘Funny thing about detectives,’ I told him, ‘the best ones have great memories. And what I remember is that the Russian attack on Chechnya took place in the mid-nineties. Now, you, Aslan, you’re how old? Thirty-five? And you were how old when the Russians attacked? Twenty? That’s a long way from fourteen.’

Aslan continued to stare at me for a moment, hatred still apparent in his black eyes. Then he began to laugh, a phlegmy choking laugh that came within an eye-blink of a convulsion. Still he managed to get his message out. ‘Wolfs,’ he shouted, to me, to Konstantine, to his thoroughly humiliated spirit, ‘do not forget rabbits. Again someday we are meeting.’

I might have added, ‘Sooner, rather than later,’ but I was already focusing on the tasks ahead.

We made a show of it, Konstantine and I, when we strolled into the Nine-Two. Konstantine with his burgundy warm-up suit and his lime-green socks, his squinty eyes and his great balloon of a head. Me in ratty jeans, a shirt with dark stains under each armpit, humidity-driven hair that rose from my scalp like a fright wig. Konstantine was cool throughout, absorbing the scrutiny of the various cops we passed on our way to the second floor, his expression unchanging, until I finally brought him into an interview room and sat him down.

‘I want a lawyer,’ he said. ‘I have my rights.’

‘Speaking of rights, are you right-handed or left-handed?’ When he didn’t reply, I uncuffed his left hand, then closed the empty handcuff around the leg of a small table bolted to the floor.

I suspect it was this final humiliation that set him off, that motivated him to throw a clumsy left in the general direction of my head. I avoided the blow easily, then grabbed his wrist on the way back and forced it down onto the table in front of his chair.

Konstantine fought me all the way, his eyes squeezed shut, groaning in frustration. Even when I had his wrist pinned, he didn’t give up, struggling on until he finally ran out of energy. Then I leaned down over him, placing my lips a few inches from his ear.