Big Money (Austin Carr Mystery) Page 23

  “Nice to see you,” she said, tilting her head and added, “You have a few gray hairs, and you gained a bit of weight, but you still look okay.”

  “You’re too kind,” he said.

  She shrugged.

  Her gaze was different somehow than he’d expected. Her eyes quixotically hinted that there was something warm-blooded behind them, though he struggled to imagine a selfless side of her.

  “You didn’t come all this way just to say hello.”

  Mariya took a step closer in her four-inch heels.

  “You’re right. But I’m happy to see your face.”

  Though she’d always spoken near-fluent English, her accent had thickened slightly since he’d last seen her nearly a decade ago. Perhaps she was spending more time in her native Russia. Maybe. But why is she here? In New Orleans, of all places, where she faced being charged with a long-forgotten murder.

  “You can help me.”

  He shook his head.

  “Did you read what I wrote you?”

  “Yeah, so what? You want my help.”

  “You really read every word?”

  “What? Yes.” Jonathan recalled only the four handwritten words on the note.

  She looked down. “That’s all you have to say?”

  “I’m going to tell you this just once,” Jonathan said, crossing his arms and meeting her gaze. “I’m not helping you because you are crazy. Yes, I’ve never said this so bluntly before, but you are certifiably insane, and mean, and violent, and cold-blooded, and egocentric and sexually demented. And that’s aside from the fact that people around you die prematurely. Have you noticed that about you? Have you?”

  “I didn’t expect this greeting.” Her smile withered. She raised her chin and loosened her grip on the purse.

  Jonathan shook his head. How could she not? They weren’t friends. Even though she’d helped him, he’d also witnessed her madness firsthand.

  “I’m leaving, Mariya. I’m sorry you came all this way, but I want nothing to do with you.”

  He turned and briskly walked the short distance to his car, got in and shut the door. He fiddled with his keys for a second, fighting the urge to roll down the window and ask what help she’d needed. His curiosity tempted him. He glanced at her. The fact that she stood ten feet away comforted him that his car probably wouldn’t explode upon turning the ignition. It didn’t, and he chuckled. Crazy broad.

  Jonathan pulled away from the parking spot, turned toward the Constance Street exit, but suddenly the pedal fell flat. The engine died and the car coasted silently for a few yards until he pressed on the brakes. He threw it into Park and quickly tried to restart it. He looked over his shoulder and spotted Mariya through the back windshield. She’d walked out from behind the row of cars into his lane and threw her hands in the air.

  He turned the ignition key again, and again. The engine whined but failed to start.

  “Jerk!” He punched the dash with his fist. After kicking open his door, he jumped out, pointing the finger at her. “What did you do to my car?”

  “I’m sorry,” Mariya shouted from twenty yards out. “You have to help. You owe me that.”

  With every step he took on his angry march toward her came a different insult for this Russian hazard. Towering over her petite figure that innocently and deceptively veiled her viciousness—and with excruciating restraint in his voice—he asked, “What on earth do you want from me?”

  She looked up at him calmly. “My nephew is dead. He’s in the morgue, and you’re the only person I can turn to.”

  He felt his face turn red—but he told himself it might be from mild embarrassment, perhaps, but certainly not sympathy. For all he knew she was a pathological liar spitting out another ruse.

  “Your nephew?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “I swear.” She raised her right hand as if the gesture would sway him.

  Jonathan’s next thought was that he should be doing other, more important things—like preparing for Cramer’s deposition—rather than waste time bickering with this can of gasoline from the past.

  “Do you understand the risk I’ve taken to come into this country? He’s my nephew, and he apparently drowned a week ago.”

  Jonathan didn’t want to be outright rude, but everything coming from her was suspect.

  “How do you know it’s him?”

  “I just do—it will take too long to explain. His body is here for certain.” Her voice shook, and her gaze turned frosty. “You have to trust me, if only this once.”

  “Trust you?” The thought of that unsettled him. It reminded him of Dino, who’d used the same phrase each time he’d roped in a new client. Yes, the best client, he’d often brag. This case will bring in millions. It’ll let us have offices with real views of the city. We’d each have our own secretary. Believe me. Trust me. Jonathan had counted the losing cases by the number of times he’d heard Dino profess those words. The mental echo pulsated like a brightly illuminated porn shop sign. It was a clear indication Dino didn’t trust himself. And an equally clear clue Mariya was also full of it.

  She grabbed the sides of her head and growled. “I helped you find your brother, didn’t I? And I protected you, and got rid of the man responsible for his death. You could at least do something for me in return.”

  Jonathan had expected her to use that card. How could she not? She’d rescued him from a debacle in the cold, dreary Russian capital. The cerebral images once again scrambled his thoughts. Studying her face, he sank deeper into the memories of the ordeal. The unbearable pain returned. The pain of finding Matt—a dying Matt. He’d hoped to forget the details forever. But Mariya’s voice—and the way she’d said the word brother—made him all of a sudden nauseated. He clenched his jaw.

  “Please.”

  She looked into his eyes intensely, waiting, perhaps wishing, pleading, and feigning a gentler look than the one she’d usually carried. Her eyes began to water. And then a tear streaked down her cheek. He’d never thought she was capable of it. She was cunning enough to act this out, he cautioned himself. But he wasn’t sure. He met her gaze—and calculated as lucidly as possible—seeing perhaps for the first time this Russian troublemaker finally reveal a sliver of compassion.

  She dug into her purse and retrieved a tissue. She delicately dabbed the corner of her eyes with it, careful to leave her makeup intact.

  “I want to be left alone.”

  Mariya squinted, squeezed her purse with both hands, and butted Jonathan’s shoulder with it. For a small purse, it sure felt heavy—and he guessed why.

  “I came a long way!” Her voice cracked. “I want to tell his wife, his mother, his children, what happened, to give them closure—the same closure you found ten years ago. You should understand this. And they’re poor, from a small town in Siberia, so they can’t come here. I don’t know anyone else here who could help.”

  Jonathan scanned the parking lot, unsure if she was really alone. A half-empty lot in broad daylight was hardly a scary place except to someone already afraid. To someone who’d been tracked down. And nothing she’d said so far had attenuated his fear. “Go to the morgue yourself. It’s at Tulane and Broad.”

  She grabbed Jonathan’s wrist and jolted him toward her. “I’m here illegally. The last thing I’m going to do is walk into a government office. The FBI is still looking for me. If it’s money you want, I’ll pay you—”

  “Stop!” The thought of taking anything from her, be it money or praise or affection or chocolates or anything else, riled him up.

  “I beg you.” Mariya stepped closer. Closer yet. She threw the purse strap over her shoulder and raised her hands to his collar.

  Jonathan looked up at the blue sky blotched by small, charcoal-colored clouds. A refreshing, long breath laced with the scent of her sweet perfume vented his lungs. He didn’t repel her embrace, but the awkwardness crept through her grasp, the timid squeeze strengthening with
each passing second. She pressed her head into his chest, her solid grapefruit-sized breasts planting into his ribs. Surely now she’d feel his racing heartbeat, he thought, anxious that she’d sense his fear.

  “I’m not the same woman. And now, I’m sad and need to know what happened to my nephew.”

  “What’s his name?” Jonathan didn’t look down.

  “Igor.”

  Jonathan imagined an enormous, toothless beast from Siberia with biceps the size of a bear’s thighs.

  “Igor what?”

  “Yakin. He was a good, kind, honest man. A father. A dedicated worker, with a hard life.” Mariya squeezed Jonathan even more tightly into her hold, her palms pressed flat on this back.

  He stood motionless. He pondered reciprocating her hug, if anything out of pure human impulse, out of kindness or empathy, but her gesture contrasted sharply with every vibe he’d ever gotten from her. It mattered little that no woman had held Jonathan with such closeness in over a year. It mattered even less that she’d momentarily effaced her hardened warlord persona. Her act, whether genuine or fabricated, would not pierce his armor. He couldn’t allow himself to trust her. At least he recycled the warning to himself again and again as he lingered motionless in her embrace.

  “One day,” Mariya said softly, “I will tell you many things that will surprise you. But now, I need this favor from you.”

  His back was drenched with sweat, as much from the heat and muggy air as from her uncomfortable clasp. An entire minute passed, silently, her arms still wrapped around him. His hands drooped to his side. He began to feel a weirdly soothing aura. Something comforting. He quizzed himself. It was obvious. She was part of his past—intertwined in a momentous and tumultuous piece of history, albeit brief. She embodied that reality in her very existence. A history he both abhorred and secretly valued that very instant in her proximity. He felt his resistance fade, as if witnessing it from outside his body. What harm could she really do? She was not in Russia, after all, but rather on his turf.

  He closed his eyes. He reached his arms around her shoulders, his hands over her back. She wore no bra. Her hair smelled of lilac, not sulfur. Her heart was also racing. It brought back the images of the night he’d first met her. He’d tracked her down at a Moscow hotel. And he remembered how attractive she was the moment he laid eyes on her. But that was long ago.

  “Only on one condition.” He moved back, gently peeling her hands off him.

  Peering up at his face, she asked softly, “What?”

  “You don’t lie to me.”

  Her poker face returned. She didn’t answer right away. Her lips stayed as straight as a hyphen, until she said, “Horosho.”

  Identifying a corpse at the coroner’s office might be simple enough, he thought. But what gave him pause was going on behalf of Mariya, a woman associated with an unsolved murder, among other unpleasant liabilities. He weighed the risks some more. “Fine, I’ll find out what I can.”

  Mariya’s face lit up.

  “What does he look like?”

  “Dark hair, dark eyes, not tall...and you will recognize him by a tattoo—a snake wrapped around an anchor. It should be on his right arm.”

  Jonathan sighed.

  “Spasibo, my old friend.” Mariya pulled out a receipt, jotted something on it and handed it to him. “My mobile number. Please ask them all the right questions, as quickly as possible. I must go, now.”

  Jonathan felt strangely relieved that he’d agreed to help but wasn’t sure why. Perhaps the guilt of having said no would have been too unpleasant, even knowing who this woman was.

  “Please undo what you did.” He handed her the keys.

  It didn’t take long for her to again amaze Jonathan with her resourcefulness. She popped open the hood and quickly dug into a space behind the battery. She grimaced, appearing to struggle with something, pulling hard at whatever was buried in there. A few more tugs revealed a black tube the size of an empty paper towel roll, with a coiled wire dangling from one end.

  “Done.” She slammed the hood shut, rubbed the dirt off her hands, and got behind the wheel. The engine started instantly. She stepped out and grinned.

  “Don’t do it again, or I’ll kill you,” Jonathan said with a seriousness meant to confuse or amuse her.

  She raised her brow and chuckled.

  He took out his cell phone and scrolled through some names until he found the one he could count on for help.

  Back to TOC

  Here’s a sample from J.L. Abramo’s Chasing Charlie Chan.

  LENNY ARCHER

  When Lenny Archer managed to open his eyes, the first thing he saw was a small black circle with a white spot at its center. As he began to focus the circle became deep red and he recognized the white object. A tooth. Lenny probed the inside of his mouth with his tongue and found the space where the molar and a few of its neighbors had once been. And he could taste blood. Lenny realized he was face down on the floor and made an effort to move. The pain in his lower abdomen was unbearable. He shifted his gaze to the significantly larger red pool that spread from the floor up into his shirt below his waist. Archer let out a ghastly sound, part animal moan and part angry prayer.

  “This mope is still breathing,” said Tully.

  “Put him out of his fucking misery.”

  “Maybe he’ll tell us where he stashed it.”

  “If he was going to spill, he would have talked before you knocked his fucking teeth out,” said Raft. “The guy is a fucking mess. Kill him. You’d be doing him a favor.”

  Lenny Archer tried to remember where he was, remember what he’d been doing before taking a bullet in the stomach and a kick in the face. He wondered if it really mattered.

  Archer remembered sitting at his desk looking over the notes Ed Richards had handed him and hearing the noise in the hallway outside his office door. Midnight, too late for a social call and long past business hours. Archer had instinctively placed the notes in the fold of the newspaper on his desktop and quietly slid open the top drawer. Lenny pressed the remote switch to start the office tape recorder and he pulled out his handgun. And he listened.

  Silence.

  Archer rose from his chair and moved to the door, his gun in hand, intending to check the hall. He slowly turned the knob, the door knocked him to the floor and his weapon discharged. Then another shot and the terrible pain in his abdomen and the crushing blow to his head.

  Archer thought he heard voices, in his mind or in the room, debating his fate. He seemed to remember questions. What did Ed Richards tell you? What did Richards give to you? Who else did Richards talk to? Who did you talk to? And each time he had failed to respond he could remember another blow to the face. And then blackness.

  Lenny looked in horror at the pool of blood growing larger at his waist. The voices were louder now.

  “You’d be doing him a favor,” Raft said.

  Tully pressed the gun barrel against Lenny’s head.

  “Bingo, Richards’ notes,” said Raft.

  Tully looked over to the desk. Raft held the notes in one hand and he tossed the newspaper at Lenny with the other.

  “Shoot the motherfucker already,” said Raft.

  “We’re still not sure who else knows about this.”

  “The sooner you kill this fuck, the sooner we can get to Richards. And trust me; Richards is going to spill his guts.”

  An hour earlier, Tully and Raft had followed Richards to the parking lot of a donut shop on Fifth. The shop was closed for the night. Richards pulled up next to the only other car in the lot. They watched from a distance as he climbed out of his car and moved to the driver’s window of the other vehicle. Ed Richards passed some papers through the window, quickly returned to his own car and drove off.

  “Follow the other car,” Raft had said.

  “What about Richards?”

  “We know where Richards lives, he can wait. Let’s see where this guy goes, who the fuck he is and what he knows.”


  They followed the second car to a building on Fourth Street and waited for the driver to enter. When they saw the light go on in a second story window, they left their vehicle and moved to the front entrance of the building.

  “Fucking private dick,” said Raft, checking the names on the mailboxes.

  “There are two of them,” said Tully.

  “Not tonight. Whoever this one is, he’s alone up there. Let’s go and check his ID.”

  Tully and Raft stood in the hallway outside the office for a minute, unsure about how to play it. They had pulled out their weapons.

  “Sounds like he’s coming this way,” Tully said.

  They heard the footsteps and watched the door. When the knob began to turn, Raft slammed his shoulder into the door. A shot went off. They stepped into the doorway and saw the man on the floor, a gun in his hand. Tully fired a round into the man’s stomach and then quickly moved to kick the man square in the mouth.

  Raft found the wallet in Lenny’s jacket pocket.

  Lenny Archer knew he was a dead man. Tully held the barrel of the gun against Lenny’s temple.

  “It’s not too late, Leonard,” Tully said. “We call for an ambulance and you survive this mess. All you need to do is help us out a little.”

  Lenny Archer could feel the life spilling out of the center of his body.

  “Is your partner in on this?” Tully asked.

  “No.”

  “You wouldn’t lie to us at a time like this, would you, Leonard?”

  “No.”

  “Any last words?”

  Archer closed his eyes, felt the lightness in his head and saw the bright light behind his eyelids.

  “Life is a carnival,” Lenny Archer said.

  Tully pulled the trigger.

  JAKE DIAMOND

  I met Jimmy Pigeon on the set of a film shoot on a Los Angeles sound stage. All I knew about private investigators was what I had found in the Hollywood movies I was desperately trying to break into.