A Jeff Resnick Six Pack Page 16

  “We’ll have another round,” Richard said. “And I’ll have a Reuben.”

  “I’ll have a ham and Swiss cheese sandwich on rye bread.”

  “We don’t have that on our menu,” the waitress said.

  “Do you have ham in any capacity?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she answered uncertainly. “But we don’t do ham sandwiches.”

  “But that’s absurd.”

  She shrugged. “Sorry.”

  “This is a restaurant. They serve sandwiches,” I insisted.

  “Jeff,” Richard admonished.

  And suddenly I was as angry as Jack Nicholson in Five Easy Pieces when he couldn’t get a couple of lousy pieces of toast. “Then I’m sure the chef can come up with ham on bread with a slice of cheese, and if not, then I can walk out the door to find it elsewhere.”

  “It’s your choice,” the waitress said. She’d obviously never heard the old saw that the customer was always right.

  I leveled an angry glare at my beloved brother, who wasn’t comfortable with any kind of conflict. “I’m done,” I said with as much calm as I could muster, and stood. “I’ll see you back at the apartment.”

  “Jeff, wait!” Richard called, but I pivoted and headed out of the restaurant.

  I didn’t know where I would go or what I would do, but I knew I needed some alone time. If I high-tailed it quick enough, Richard would have to settle the bar tab and be unable to catch up with me. He’d be pissed, but I couldn’t help that.

  The chilled air hit me like a smack in the face and I turned right, away from our home-away-from home. I needed to walk a couple of miles on mindless autopilot because I wasn’t sure what I felt and what I needed to do with the information I’d learned that day.

  I needed to get online, but the days of cyber cafes were long gone. I supposed I could use my phone, but texting really isn’t my thing—my thumbs go numb. The apartment building had a shared office center with a couple of computers, printers, and a fax machine, but I needed a little anonymity. There was only one other place I could think of to go.

  I ducked into the first store I came to, pulled out my phone and Googled the location of the nearest library. Next, I turned off the phone. I didn’t want Richard hounding me—and I sure as hell didn’t want him coming after me, either.

  I knew what I needed to do to find the bastard who had killed Shelley. I just wasn’t sure what I would do when I tracked him down.

  #

  I had to wait more than an hour before one of the computer carrels opened up at the Mid-Manhattan Library, and was thankful they’d provided a big squirt bottle of hand sanitizer for patrons to use. The keyboard was incredibly cruddy, but I had more on my mind than the number and kinds of bacteria that inhabited it.

  I no longer had access to the data bases I regularly perused when I was just another minion in the vast insurance industry, but I also knew the kinds of keywords that would get me places and access to data that the average man on the street couldn’t retrieve. It took me less than an hour to identify every member of the Russian diplomatic staff. The head guy was Alexey Bykov. It wasn’t all that hard to get his picture and home address, and that of all his staff, too. If I were one of them, I’d be nervous about how easy it was to track them down but, hey, I wasn’t about to complain and made plans to better cover my own Internet tracks once I was back home in Buffalo.

  See, I did not have a death wish.

  Honest.

  But I also wasn’t sure I didn’t harbor particularly vicious murderous thoughts, either.

  Only one member of Bykov’s staff had silver hair. He kind of reminded me of what Maggie called Blond Bond, the actor, Daniel Craig. Unfortunately, in this scenario, Sergei Kovshutin was playing villain—not good guy.

  I logged off the computer and wondered what to do next. It was damn cold outside, but maybe the layers that had me sweating for the past hour would be good enough to thwart the March temps outside. I didn’t want to go back to the apartment to change because then I’d have to explain things to Richard and that was not on my list of things to do.

  I logged off, got up from the uncomfortable office chair, strode straight out the building and turned left. The wind had died, so the air didn’t seem as chilly as it had earlier in the day. Still, it was going to be quite a hike, but I wasn’t about to take a cab to old Sergei’s apartment. No way did I want anyone to be able to testify that I’d ever been there.

  It was going on six o’clock when I stood across the street from the twenty-story glass-fronted building. I had no idea how long I was going to have to stay wedged at the head of an alley that served a deli and a dry cleaner. It didn’t matter. I had hours and hours to kill.

  Hands shoved into my pockets, I stamped my feet on the concrete to keep warm. Why hadn’t I thought to wear a hat and gloves before leaving the damn apartment that morning?

  It was almost dark when the silver-haired Russian, wearing shades on that dull gray evening, strode down the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street and entered the luxury apartment building. Sergei’s apartment was on the sixteenth floor, way higher than I was ever willing to live. In a fire, the NYFD’s cherry-picker trucks could reach the seventh floor to effect a rescue, and those above had a nasty choice to make: jump, or risk death from smoke inhalation from the long walk down a soot-filled stairwell. I was glad I lived above Richard’s garage. If push came to shove, I could break a window and dangle with only a five or six foot drop.

  I stood rooted on the hard concrete, occasionally stamping my feet to keep the circulation going. I didn’t do much thinking, too preoccupied with waiting for Sergei. I did not want to miss him. I still had no plan other than to wait and watch.

  Time dragged as night closed in.

  One hour ….

  Two hours ….

  My feet were popsicles and I wondered how much longer I could stand the cold when Sergei emerged through the big glass doors of his apartment building. Although the sun had set long ago, the jerk still wore sunglasses. Who did he think he was? Bono? He headed north, and I took off as well, shadowing him from the other side of the street.

  The guy oozed confidence. Why not? He’d probably already killed five women with impunity. Did he think of himself as a twenty-first century Jack-the-Ripper? Okay, he didn’t eviscerate his victims, but when he was finished with them, they were just as dead.

  I followed him as he zig-and-zagged down the streets of Manhattan. I kept far enough back so that he had no idea he was being followed. The guy walked with such an exaggerated swagger that I could almost hear the Bee Gees singing Stayin’ Alive in the back of my mind. Finally, he ducked into a bar called Henry’s. I waited a full minute before I casually entered the establishment.

  The place was welcoming, with its dark-paneled oak, black-painted tin ceiling, and plenty of tables for the dinner crowd, which had already thinned. It was then I remembered that I hadn’t had anything to eat but a cup of yogurt since the breakfast I’d upchucked, and the no-ham sandwich policy at the joint Richard had chosen for lunch. Only a couple of TVs with closed-captioning spoiled the bar’s otherwise vintage charm.

  Sergei had already scored a stool and had taken off his shades, which sat on the bar. He’d apparently arrived there on a mission, and was already conversing with a black woman who was dressed to the nines. Was she a prostitute? If so, she was high-end. She had a pretty smile, and for some reason I got the feeling she was nobody’s fool. But I also wondered if she’d be Sergei’s next victim.

  I took a seat four stools down from the Russian and pretended I was looking at one of the TV screens, keeping him at the edge of my peripheral vision. He pulled out his smartphone and was swiping the screen, oblivious to what was going on around him. My gut tightened and I had to swallow down revulsion. This joker was alive and breathing. Shelley was dead and buried.

  I hadn’t been inside the bar for more than thirty seconds when someone sat down beside me.

  Richard.

>   “What the hell are you doing here?” he muttered, just loud enough for me to hear.

  “More important; what the hell are you doing here?”

  “I’m thirsty.”

  “Bullshit.”

  I realized what his appearance meant. “You followed me?”

  “Someone has to keep you from doing something incredibly stupid.”

  “And what would that be?”

  He lowered his voice. “Committing murder.”

  I turned to glare at him. “Why in hell would you think that?”

  “You like the world to think you have no emotions, but you’re just the opposite. You feel things far more intensely than the rest of us.”

  I was about to refute that statement when the bartender spoke up.

  “What can I get you gents?” the lady asked. She was pretty. Blue eyes, auburn hair—not unlike my dear sweet Maggie—only twenty years younger.

  “Heineken,” I said, struggling to keep my voice calm.

  “Me, too,” Richard said.

  “Bottles only,” she said.

  “Not a problem,” Richard replied.

  Once the bartender turned away, Richard leaned forward to look around me, taking in the Russian. “So, what are you planning?”

  I stared at the reflection of Shelley’s murderer’s face in the mirror behind the bar. “Nothing. I’m just here to observe.”

  “What? His drinking habits?”

  It looked like the Russian had ordered a Scotch on the rocks; his companion had nothing. Was he too stingy to buy her one, or was she determined to keep a clear head?

  I should have taken a seat closer to the guy, then I could have listened in on their conversation, not that he was paying all that much attention to the woman, who had picked up his sunglasses and was idly toying with them.

  Our beers arrived, along with a couple of napkins and glasses, and Richard paid the tab. He poured his, but I was too busy watching the Russian to pour mine.

  “What are you going to do when you leave here?”

  “I have no idea,” I said truthfully. I wasn’t sure what I was feeling besides the most obvious: anger. I wanted to throttle the guy. He was the reason my wife was dead. But if I was honest with myself, Shelley’s dangerous behavior would have gotten her killed sooner or later—the Russian had just been the first to see her as easy prey and had taken advantage of her gullibility. Shelley thought she’d become street smart, but she hadn’t wised up soon enough.

  “What a waste,” I muttered, and finally grabbed the bottle, pouring the beer so it left virtually no head.

  “Shelley? Or the silver fox?” Richard asked quietly, and took a sip of his beer.

  “Both. Her life—and him being a waste of space.”

  The waste of space pocketed his phone and finally started paying attention to his Scotch.

  I kept my attention riveted on the mirror. “I turned off my phone. How were you able to track me?”

  “I know how to get around certain protocols.” I knew he wasn’t bragging.

  I picked up my glass, and noticed my hand was shaking. I took a sip of beer, but was afraid I’d slop it all over the bar and set it back down again. What the hell was I going to do? I could follow Sergei for the rest of the evening. I could tail him for weeks. I could buy a gun off the street and blast a hole through the back of his skull like he’d done to Shelley.

  I could.

  But I knew I wouldn’t.

  The truth is I’m a coward. I like my life. It was getting better all the time. Doing time in jail for the next quarter century was not on my agenda. And yet … someone needed to take this guy out. Someone needed to make him pay for the suffering he’d caused not just me, but the families of the other women he’d murdered.

  Someone. But not me.

  And for some reason, I felt ashamed. Ashamed I didn’t have the balls to take on the contemptible prick. Ashamed that I wasn’t up to avenging Shelley’s murder.

  I turned to my brother. “We’d better go home.”

  “When?”

  “Tonight.”

  He scrutinized my face, his own mirroring his obvious relief. “You mean it?”

  I nodded. “Yeah.”

  He let out a shaky breath. “Thank God.”

  God had nothing to do with it.

  “I don’t think we can hop a train back to Buffalo at this time of night.”

  “Then we’ll rent a car. I know you said you didn’t want to drive, but—”

  “Who says we have to drive straight through?” he asked. “I’ve never been to Cooperstown. It might be fun to stop and take a look around.”

  “I didn’t know you were that into baseball.”

  “Brenda and I take in at least one Bison’s game a year. And there’s the Farmer’s Museum there, too.”

  He didn’t give a damn about visiting museums. He just wanted to get me out of the city before I could do something stupid—and I was going to let him.

  “I guess it wouldn’t hurt to look at a scythe, some plows, and maybe an old wagon or two.” I tried to laugh, but couldn’t. I felt heartsick.

  Sergei pushed back his stool and stood. He spoke into his companion’s ear, and then headed toward the back of the bar—for the can, no doubt.

  The woman got up and headed for the door.

  The Russian had left his sunglasses on the bar.

  I looked around. No one was paying attention to me. I quickly stood, took two steps forward, and grabbed them by the earpiece, clasping it so hard my knuckles whitened.

  “Jeff!” Richard sounded angry.

  I moved back to my seat, kept my hand close to my body so that no one—not even Richard—could see what I held. My breaths came faster as I tried to make sense of the feelings and emotions that clung to the plastic in my clenched fist. It wasn’t getting anything on the Russian—it was the vibes his companion had left that assaulted my psyche.

  A smoldering anger topped the list. She’d done a good job hiding it. In fact, I would have sworn she’d looked bored during the minutes she’d sat beside Sergei. And the anger was much deeper than that of a woman being ignored in a bar. Hateful anger. Anger I could identify with. Anger because of what Sergei had done to her—or hers, but I had no clue what it was. I could, however, speculate.

  She had a plan.

  She had a switchblade that was nestled against a packet of tissues and a wad of cash in the beaded clutch that had rested on her lap the entire time she’d sat at the bar. The knife was a thing of beauty, with a pink pearl-like handle and a polished chrome blade. Exquisite—and deadly.

  And she intended to use it.

  The Russian returned from the john, bypassing the bar and heading for the exit. He held the door open for his companion, and they exited the bar. I watched them stand in front of the door’s beveled glass. He patted down his coat, looking for something. He spoke to her, and she nodded. She opened the door and came back inside, heading straight for the seats they’d so recently vacated.

  She glanced around the bar, then under the chairs.

  “Did you lose something?” I asked.

  “Yes. A pair of sunglasses.”

  “I found these on the bar. I was going to turn them into the bartender,” I lied. She moved closer and I handed them to her.

  “Thank you.”

  She was about to turn, when I caught the sleeve of her coat. I pulled her close and whispered in her ear. I could feel her immediately tense as she listened to what I had to tell her. Then she turned and glared at me. She said nothing. She didn’t have to.

  She yanked her arm from my grasp, straightened, and once again left the bar.

  I didn’t watch her leave. Instead, I turned back to my beer.

  “What did you tell her?” Richard asked.

  “Not now,” I told him. “Later.” But that wasn’t exactly a promise. I drained my beer. “We need to get the hell out of the city—and as soon as possible.”

  “I don’t like the sound of th
is.”

  “Let’s grab a cab, pack our stuff, go to the airport, rent a car, and start for home ASAP.”

  “Now you’re scaring the shit out of me.”

  I thought about it. It might be better to first stop in a few convenience stores to better establish an alibi—because I was going to need one. Mr. Kovshutin was likely to meet his maker in the next few hours and I wanted to make sure that there was no way I could be implicated for what might be his rather grisly death.

  Gosh-darn-it, somehow I couldn’t work up a whole helluva lot of sympathy for the guy.

  I stood. “Let’s go. The sooner we head for home, the sooner we can kiss my little Cherry Pie.” My pet name for Richard’s sweet baby girl.

  “I’m all for that,” he agreed.

  In many ways, Richard is a lot more worldly than me, but after living fourteen years in the city, I could still grab a cab a helluva lot faster than him.

  Within minutes, we were back at our apartment, and ten minutes later, we waited in the lobby for yet another cab to arrive.

  We didn’t say a word to each other on the way to the White Plains airport, where Richard had already reserved a rental car. We picked up the keys for a bronze Lexus, stowed our luggage, and I took the first shift behind the wheel as we steered for the Tappan Zee Bridge. The car’s headlights cut a swath of light on the double-lane road as we headed north toward Albany. I was glad the night sky was clear with no snow in the forecast.

  “When are you going to tell me what went down between you and that woman at the bar?” Richard asked. “What did you say to her?”

  “Not much,” I admitted. “I told her to look out for surveillance cameras.”

  “What the hell does that mean?” Richard asked. I don’t think I’d ever heard such a note of fear in his voice.

  “Sadly, Mr. Kovshutin isn’t long for this world.”

  “She’s going to kill him?” he asked, aghast.

  “I got that feeling.”

  “Oh, man,” he said, sounding heartsick.

  “Rich, that guy killed my wife. He’s killed others. At least four other women that the police know about. Who knows how many others he’s abused in the interim?”