He raised a full cocktail glass at us. “Can I offer you a drink, gentlemen? I know you guys never drink on duty, but you really should make an exception in this case. This is very, very special. We call it a ‘Green Feeling.’ You try?”
I smiled. “Love to, Yuri. It sure looks good. Thing is, if we did take you up on that, where do we draw the line? Some caviar canapés? Some of your lovely ladies? Maybe a couple of E’s and some blow?”
Mirminsky smiled back, a forced, cold smile that so clearly had zero connection to what was really swirling behind those shifty slits. “You just name your pleasure, my friend, and leave the rest to me.”
“You know something? I’m a cheap date. I don’t need the Champagne and the caviar.” I pulled out two shots of his dead underlings from my inside pocket and laid them out in front of him, then tapped them with two fingers. “All I need right now is to know what these guys were doing at a motel on Howard Beach yesterday and what’s going on between you and Leo Sokolov.”
I studied his face as I said it, but I didn’t expect to see anything. There was no tell there. Mirminsky was too much of a pro for that. He didn’t even grimace at the sight of the dead men. Instead, his face tightened with concentration that was followed by confusion. “I’m sorry, Agent-”
“Reilly,” I offered.
“-Reilly, I don’t know these men. Should I?”
I gave him a dubious look. “I think so, Yuri. They’ve got these tattoos on them. It’s like they’re animals that have been branded, and those brands lead right back to your ranch.”
The Sledgehammer laughed, making his eyes disappear altogether. “My ranch? I like that. Maybe I’ll call my next club that. Could be fun. A tribute to a great American tradition.” His face morphed into humble contrition. “Maybe they did work at one of my clubs. The problem is, I have so many employees. Maybe they were waiters, or bouncers. Maybe we caught them stealing from the till, or worse even. Anyway, if they ever did work for one of my many enterprises, I have no doubt they were fired for being”-he looked for the word-“undesirable.” He smiled smugly, like we were done.
“And Sokolov?” I asked.
He shook his head. “It’s a very common Russian name, Agent Reilly. Like Smith, or Jones. And my memory just gets worse by the day.”
“Tell you what, Yuri. Go see an herbalist and get some memory-boosting supplements. ’Cause you’re going to need everything you have locked away in that cesspool of a brain when we haul your ass in for conspiracy to murder two homicide detectives. Because in this country, that’s a crime we never, ever let slide. The file on this case-it’ll never get closed, not until we’ve got whoever did this.” I let him stew on that for a moment, then I put on a more détente-esque expression. “You lost two men out there, Yuri. So did we. So unless you enjoy having federal agents watching over every breath you take, you might want to cooperate with us on this one and help us get whoever did this.”
I gave him a pointed, questioning look.
Mirminsky frowned, like he was processing it all. Then his face broke out in another pervy-uncle smile. “If I hear anything, anything at all, that can help you, I’ll be sure to call you, Agent Reilly. You have my guarantee.”
There was no point in sticking around now that I’d delivered our message, so we followed our steroid-boosted tour guides back out into daylight.
Aparo and I walked past a van that I knew to be one of our mobile listening posts-the ones the judge had signed off earlier on that morning-and got into our car.
Mirminsky, I hoped, was about to discover that his privacy settings weren’t anywhere near as robust as he imagined.
25
Sokolov sat on the creaky bed in the small bedroom of the second-floor apartment above the Green Dragon and stared at the cell phone he had taken from Yakovlev after shoving the man out his window.
He had tossed and turned all night, finally falling asleep not long before dawn. He wasn’t used to staying up that late. It was something he hadn’t done with any regularity, not since first arriving in the United States. He and Daphne had found a way to make their lives dovetail, even with her recent move to alternating shift schedules. They had been comfortable in what seemed like perfectly complementary patterns. At least until his past had crashed right through his present with all the subtlety of an eighteen-wheeler.
He had already established that the last call placed by Yakovlev was to a DDI number at the Russian consulate. Which wasn’t surprising, given that he worked there. It was where Sokolov would start, but so far, he hadn’t dared test the number. He didn’t want to make contact until he was ready. He’d removed the SIM card and battery from the cell phone as soon as he’d put enough distance between himself and his apartment to stop and take a breath. He knew that nowadays, locating someone via a live cell phone was a relatively simple task. As an engineer and a scientist, the advent of cell phones had in fact fascinated him. He had become an expert on cell technology, something that had spurred him to renew his own research and advance his work into realms that would have sounded like science fiction a mere decade or two earlier.
Realms that, at the time, he couldn’t resist exploring even though he knew they would only lead to trouble.
Ironically, his work could now prove to be crucial in saving Daphne-and himself.
After replacing the SIM card and battery, he powered up and immediately pressed the Dial button. The call rang through for four long rings, then someone picked up.
And said nothing.
Sokolov grasped the phone close to his ear, also saying nothing. He could hear some faint breathing on the other end.
He imagined that whoever picked up the phone was probably surprised as hell to see the caller ID displaying their dead colleague’s name. And whoever it was probably figured it could only be one of two people: either a cop investigating Yakovlev’s death, or Sokolov himself.
After a few drawn-out seconds, the male voice said, “Da,” flatly and questioningly.
Sokolov felt his throat tighten, then he said, “Eto ya. Shislenko.” It’s me. Shislenko.
More silence.
Sokolov guessed that whoever was on the other end probably wasn’t alone and was almost certainly starting a recording and initiating a trace.
“Prodolzhat,” the man then said. Continue.
Sokolov’s heart was punching its way out of his chest. “You have my wife,” he said in Russian. “And I have what you want. So here’s what we’re going to do. I will call you back at exactly eight o’clock to tell you when and where we make the exchange. There will be no discussion.”
He clicked off and swiftly removed the battery and SIM card.
He stared at his shaking hands.
What the hell are you doing?
He sucked in some deep breaths and tried to calm himself. He could feel a headache galloping in.
The only thing you can.
He stayed like that, immobile, for a few minutes, questioning himself, second-guessing his actions. Then he pushed the doubts away and stood up.
He got dressed, collected the small number of possessions he had with him, and left his room.
He had an errand to run.
“HE JUST CALLED. He’s going to call again at eight. He wants his wife back.”
Koschey listened as Oleg Vrabinek, the Russian vice consul and the city’s senior SVR operative, relayed the little that Sokolov had said.
“All right,” he told Vrabinek. “Call me as soon as he contacts you again.”
He killed the call and glanced in the direction of the small office, where he was keeping Daphne. This was good. Sokolov was feeling brave. He was offering a trade. He was willing to expose himself.