The Cold Room (21 page)

‘Like I already said,’ I continued, moving a little closer, ‘I spoke to a case officer at immigration about your status. According to her, you got out of Russia and into the United States by . . .’ I glanced at Urnov. ‘What do you think, Nicky? What am I gonna say next? I’ll give you a hint. The animal I’m thinking of has four legs, a long ugly tail, and a skinny face with sharp little teeth.’

Without waiting for an answer, I swung back to face Aslan. ‘Not only did you rat on your own people, you took the name of a true warrior to cover up the truth. Tell your partner, just so he understands, how many died because of you. How many freedom fighters were blown to pieces because the Russians knew where they were hiding? How many villages were burned because you told the Russians that the villagers harbored rebels? How many bodies were dumped in mass graves so you could pursue your American dream?’

By the time I finished, Aslan’s eyes were ricocheting from side to side. I’d seen that effect on many a common criminal. The adrenalin pouring into Aslan’s blood-stream was demanding that he do something to relieve the tension, but his mind was rejecting every possibility. One of those possibilities became clear to me when he balled up his fists.

‘You pissed off, Aslan? You wanna do something about it?’ I approached to within a step of where he sat. ‘Why don’t you do it? C’mon, take a chance. You’re the lion of Chechnya, right? You’re a true son of the wolf people. Ask yourself, what would Kazi Mullah do? Jokhar Dudayev? Imam Shamil? Shamil Basayev? Would they allow an ordinary cop to label them cowards and rats? Or would they fight to maintain their honor?’

As I reeled off the names of these Chechen heroes, Aslan rewarded me with long slow moan. I’d stripped him of even the pretense of dignity. But he didn’t fight me, not when I took him by the shoulder and pulled him to his feet, not when I searched him, then cuffed his wrists.

Finally, I turned to Urnov as Hansen led Aslan out the door; the message I wanted to send was simple, though I felt that it needed driving home.

‘You figured this out yet, Nicky? You gettin’ this? Well, just in case, let me spell it out for you. If you do business with Aslan Khalid, if you help him in any way, I’m gonna make you a personal project.’ I took one of the card readers from the shelf, dropped it to the floor and crushed it with my heel. Then I slapped him in the face, just so there’d be no misunderstanding.

TWENTY-THREE

W
e took Aslan to the headquarters of a Street Crimes Unit stationed in Far Rockaway. Hansen drove, while I sat next to Aslan in the second of the Ford Expedition’s three rows of seats. Aslan’s hands were cuffed behind his back and he had to lean forward throughout the forty-five minute drive. He didn’t complain, though, nor did he break the silence Hansen and I studiously maintained. Not even when he realized – as he must have at some point – that we weren’t headed back to Greenpoint, that we were driving in the opposite direction.

The SCU outpost we finally entered reminded me of Formatech Money Services. A large room with a few desks, lockers and filing cabinets scattered about, a bathroom large enough for a shower, a computer workstation in a corner, a refrigerator and a microwave on a battered table. Except for the wire cage at the far end of the room, it might have been any small business. I checked that cage very carefully, sides, top and bottom, and found it reasonably secure. Nevertheless, I took a further precaution, cuffing Aslan’s right wrist to a steel cot, the cell’s only furniture. The cot was bolted to the floor.

As I backed out of the cage and locked it, Aslan raised his eyes to me. The hate was still there, but the fire was gone. His gaze was implacable now. He would await a better time.

I broke it off when I heard the door at the far end of the loft open. Our unannounced guest was Sergeant Theobold Anderson, and he came bearing gifts. Our food supply, first, in a pair of plastic bags. Cold cuts, corn chips, a loaf of rye bread, a jar of mustard, a jug of water. Anderson shoved all of it, including the chips, into the refrigerator, then unpacked a billy club, a canister of pepper spray and a stun gun. There was no toilet in Aslan’s cage and we were going to have to let him out from time to time. Sergeant Anderson was prepared.

‘The sergeant’s gonna stay here,’ Hansen said when he introduced us, ‘to guarantee that somebody’s awake at all times.’

And to witness any conversation I might have with Aslan. But that didn’t need saying and I gave Theobold’s small hand a hearty shake. Tall and heavily built, Anderson might have plugged a hole in the front line of a professional football team. His face was almost perfectly round and he had more hair on his chin than his head.

Theobold didn’t smile when he took my hand. Later on, when I asked him where he’d worked, he told me that he wasn’t a police officer. He was a Corrections Officer and his beat was the Isolation Unit on Rikers Island, home to the most violent prisoners in the system.

I took Hansen off to the side while Anderson wrestled a folding cot out of a closet. He accepted the deal I offered without hesitation. I would babysit Aslan until midnight on Saturday. He would relieve me, then continue on until Monday at noon when Aslan was to be cut loose.

That done, I walked Hansen to his car. He was in an expansive mood and I remember his cop-to-cop smile as genuine. ‘Helluva job you did on Aslan,’ he declared. ‘Where’d you get that good stuff on Chechnya?’

‘Forget Chechnya. All I did was memorize a few names. Plus, it didn’t work. Aslan kept his cool.’

‘Maybe so, but he definitely paid a price.’

I accepted the compliment with a nod, then said, ‘Tell me about lootafrish.’

‘Lootafrish?’

‘The joke about lootafrish and snot.’

‘That’s lutefisk, Harry. L-U-T-E-F-I-S-K.’

‘Fine, tell me about lutefisk.’

Hansen unlocked the door of his Ford, then turned back to face me. ‘Lutefisk,’ he explained, ‘is dried codfish reconstituted with lye, then boiled or baked until it has the consistency of Jello.’

‘Lye? What does lye taste like?’

‘I couldn’t tell ya, Harry. Lutefisk is a Norwegian dish and my background is Swedish. All I know is that the stuff has a very strong odor and there’s as many lutefisk jokes as Ole and Lena jokes. You wanna hear another one?’

Ever the party pooper, I declined.

At eleven o’clock, Theobold produced a tiny portable radio and tuned it to the Yankee game. The Yanks, playing out in Oakland, were at the tail end of a disastrous road trip. Going in, they’d been a game ahead of the hated Red Sox. Now they were two games behind.

I resisted the urge to strike up a conversation, though we were both Yankee fans and at least had something to talk about. Aslan had been confined for several hours and he had to be asking himself three basic questions: what; why; for how long? Thus far, he hadn’t even been accused of a crime, much less interrogated. On top of that, the attitude I projected was utter indifference.

At two thirty, the game over, I balled up a dirty blanket to make a pillow, then stretched out on the cot. This was familiar ground. There are cots in every precinct, kept for just this purpose.

I woke up at eight. Not because I wanted to, but because Aslan, impelled by a pressing need to void his bladder, was rattling his cage.

‘You awake?’ Theobold asked.

‘Afraid so.’

‘Cause my orders are the prisoner don’t leave his cell unless escorted by two officers.’

‘I can see the wisdom in that.’

I got up and headed for the bathroom, leaving Aslan to curse at my back. I didn’t mind. I was certain, now, that we’d eventually have a conversation. I used the toilet, washed my face, neck and chest, brushed my teeth with the least ratty of the six toothbrushes I found in a can on the sink. When I came out, I headed for Aslan’s cage.

‘Uh, detective,’ Theobold said, ‘I don’t mean to tell you your business, but you might wanna put that weapon away somewhere. Prisoners and guns, they don’t mix too good.’

Anderson was holding the billy club in his right hand. Leather pouches containing the pepper spray and the Taser hung from his belt. Even in chinos and a polo shirt, he was a supremely menacing figure. I wondered, briefly, as I stashed my Glock in a filing cabinet, how Sarney was connected to Anderson, what favor he’d called in to secure Anderson’s services, and how he’d found this very private outpost a few blocks from the Atlantic Ocean.

Only one explanation came to mind. I was witnessing – I was meant to witness – a display of power. Bill Sarney spoke with the authority of the First Dep. The First Dep spoke with the authority of the Commissioner. The Commissioner was obeyed.

I smiled to myself. There was no mystery to Anderson’s presence or to this little prison we occupied. Both were readily available because the First Dep had used them before.

When Aslan came out of the bathroom, Theobold was standing with his feet well apart, the left slightly forward. He was holding the nightstick at shoulder height, with the barrel facing backward at a forty-five degree angle.

‘Turn around and put your hands on the wall,’ he said.

Aslan stopped in his tracks. He looked at Anderson for a moment, wary now. In his Chechen world, the police had almost unlimited power to deal with problems. Commonly, they were problems themselves, there being no clear line between cop and criminal to cross. More like a barely defined no-man’s land where bands of predators competed for scarce resources.

‘I ain’t gonna tell ya but one more time, boy. Turn your ass around and put your hands on the wall.’

Still in control, Aslan slowly complied.

‘Now move your legs back and apart.’

Again, slowly, Aslan did as he was told.

Anderson tossed the nightstick to me, then searched Aslan. Good thing, because he found a throwaway razor in Aslan’s sock.

The strip search that followed was too gruesome to watch. Open your mouth, raise your arms, lift your penis, lift your testicles, bend over, pull your cheeks apart. At some point, the ritual exceeded Aslan’s tolerance for humiliation and he groaned with frustration.

‘What, you are getting big hard-on for once in life?’

Though I assume Aslan was speaking to Theobold, he was looking back at Harry Corbin. I ignored him, as did Theobold, who proceeded to search each of Aslan’s garments, including a pair of boxer shorts bearing a likeness of Pamela Anderson on each buttock.

‘Get dressed.’

Theobold backed away, then reached for the nightstick. I gave it to him and he resumed the stance he’d taken before Aslan emerged. ‘Now ah’m gonna tell ya somethin’, and I want you to listen hard,’ he said. ‘You try to get over on me this one time? I don’t take it personal. I figure that’s jus’ the way it goes. You don’t know me. I might be a chump. But that’s one time. You hear what I’m sayin’? Cause if you do it again, I’m gonna beat your white ass all over the room.’

A few minutes later, when Theobold settled in for a nap, I made breakfast for Aslan and myself. Sandwiches, ham and cheese, and mugs of instant coffee lightened with some kind of non-dairy creamer and heated in the microwave. The coffee was terrible but I drank every drop.

As for Aslan, he didn’t complain. He drank, he ate, he laid back on his cot. Then he suddenly popped up.

‘I wish to make phone call.’

I ignored him for a moment, but not because I wanted to prolong the agony. I needed time to suppress a rush of satisfaction. Aslan’s pressure cooker had finally sprung a leak. It was nine o’clock on Saturday morning, a few hours before his workers were due to be picked up at their jobs.

‘Look, Aslan, the way it’s workin’ out, you’re here until we decide to cut you loose.’ Far from confrontational, my tone was sympathetic. ‘I think you already know that.’

I settled into a straight-backed chair and picked up a two-day-old copy of the
Daily News
. Aslan held his peace for a good two or three minutes, enough time for me to blow through a story about an accused rapist who’d escaped from a midtown precinct and was still at large.

‘You are knowing nothing,’ Aslan finally said. ‘You are soft American fools. When time comes, Aslan will show you how to die.’

‘Show Detective Corbin? Or show the soft American fools?’

Aslan settled back on the seat and closed his eyes. ‘In beginning it made sense. Chechens hold Grozny. Chechens hold countryside. But we are now nothing. The Russians attack us village by village, burn crops, kill animals. Childrens, womans, old mens, freezing, starving. Even blind man can see end has come. But there is no stopping for great leaders. Fight must be to death. And all the time Arabs say to put bomb in schools. Kill Russian children as our children are dead. Great leaders must listen because Arabs have money, because Arabs supply arms and ammunition. Without Arabs, great leaders would be dead.’

Though I’d put down the newspaper, I remained silent for a moment. Then I said, ‘Did you kill, Aslan? In Chechnya? Did you kill other men?’

‘So soft.’ Aslan’s head shook back and forth. ‘Americans know nothing. In Chechnya, death is every minute coming. Always around corner, in next room. Each day, hear helicopters far away. Will they pass village? Shoot rockets? Will rocket hit house where I am hiding? Will Russian soldiers follow behind rockets? Will I fight free? Or will now be time when I will die?’

‘Listen,’ I said when he finally slowed down, ‘what happened yesterday, at Formatech . . . well, you shouldn’t take it personally. I was only trying to provoke you.’

‘Why?’

‘I wanted you to swing on me so I could arrest you for assaulting a police officer. But you didn’t bite.’ I spread my hands, as I stole a glance at Sergeant Anderson. Though his eyes were closed, Anderson’s breathing was shallow, his chest almost unmoving. He was obviously awake. ‘That’s life for a cop, right? Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.’

TWENTY-FOUR

I
let the silence build, hoping Aslan would speak first. Instead, he laid back on the cot with his cuffed wrist behind his head, then closed his eyes.

‘My interest,’ I finally said, ‘is not in Barsakov. Barsakov was a scumbag. My only interest is in Mynka.’