“What did you say?” Tattoo shouted. “There are no secrets in here. You must learn that quickly or it won’t go well for you.”
“I told her ‘It’s okay.’ That’s all. Because I didn’t do what you say.” She chose her words carefully, trying to spare Alexandra a reference to her father. “I would never do that. What does your witness say? I’ve been around people all day. I couldn’t have done this.”
“Last night you could have,” Tattoo retorted. “That’s when it happened. Our witness says a woman with dark hair, short, pushed him in.”
“How? How could I push someone so big into a garbage truck? That’s crazy.”
“Not crazy,” Tattoo said. “Because we are also following the money. Always follow the money,” he repeated, as if enunciating a principle of investigation that had never been uttered before, much less one that had become a cop-honored cliché. “It wasn’t like that in his time,” Tattoo added with a respectful nod at Stalin.
Galina refrained from saying the reason Russian police hadn’t needed to “follow the money” back then was that the Soviet state had been so impoverished there was no money to follow, though privileged Party members were often compensated richly in other ways. Often unspeakably so, even to this day.
“But now we have to follow the money,” Tattoo repeated. “So let’s do that. You just took out a life insurance policy on Viktor Vascov.”
“What?”
“Don’t play the innocent with me.” He opened a file and peered at it. “Yesterday. What a coincidence. And within hours, Vascov is dead and you’re supposed to get fifty million rubles. But my computer here found something else, a publicly registered document. It is Viktor Vascov’s will. Such a careful man, making sure his estate was delivered directly into the hands of his daughter’s mother. Isn’t that something? The executor is someone named Oleg Dernov. He controls when you get the money to make sure you are ‘responsible’ with it. That is the very word Vascov used, ‘responsible.’ So tell me,” Tattoo closed the file and leaned over the desk, “who is Oleg Dernov?”
As if you don’t know. As if this whole thing isn’t a show.
Good Cop eyed Tattoo: “Oleg Dernov is a son of—”
“A son of a what?” Tattoo asked.
“Of an oligarch. Petroleum and mining.”
“I know what they are.” Tattoo smiled, his every move as choreographed as a Kremlin dinner. “They’re all sons-of-bitches. But that looks like your problem,” he said to Galina. “My problem is your confession. We have a witness. We have followed the money. Everything leads to you. Would you like to make everything easy and confess?”
Only to stupidity, Galina thought. She wanted to kick herself for believing — if only for a moment — that Oleg would ever have done anything for anyone other than himself.
“Or do you think this Oleg Dernov killed your Viktor Vascov?” Tattoo asked, all his humor gone, his eyes as steely as the bars of a cage.
Good Cop shook his head almost imperceptibly, but Galina caught his eye and his meaning. Not that she needed the hint. She was sure Oleg had set this up, and it all came down to whether she would try to implicate him. If she did, she was dead. She was, in every sense, betting her life on her next few words:
“I can’t imagine Oleg Dernov doing anything like this.”
Tattoo’s grimace softened. “Maybe we need to talk to our witness again.” He waved her away. “Go. Take your sick kid and go home. You’re a rich girl now. Or would you like me to give you a ride?” He winked at her. “I’m a very good driver.”
She already had her phone out, dialing a cab. And Tattoo was already laughing again, closing a file as treacherous as his offer.
Oleg’s ring tone went off — John Lennon’s “Instant Karma.” He had just downloaded it. With oceans sure to rise around America, it sounded so good: “Instant Karma’s gonna get you…”
Lennon was the best Beatle. Ringo’s an idiot.
But better to be lucky than smart, Oleg reminded himself in the next breath.
Reluctantly, he forced himself to mute the webcast of the Midget World Windsurfing Championships in Manila, men’s competition. Dwarves in purple thongs were shredding tiny waves on tiny boards with tiny sails, using the surf to launch miniloops that took them twelve, thirteen feet in the air. Surreal. And these tykes were tough. Looked like little balls of muscles.
But the call had to be taken — from the medical examiner’s office.
“She identified the body?” Oleg asked.
“Yes,” the cop told him.
“And how did that go?”
“It set the mood.”
“And when she heard about the life insurance and me?”
“She did not look so happy when your name came up.”
Oleg cut the line.
Not happy? He’d raised fifty million rubles for her, made himself the executor so she wouldn’t make foolish female money mistakes, like PP’s many wives had done. And she’s not happy? Not grateful?
Maybe he wouldn’t give her any money now. But he knew he could never deny Galina, that his generosity would win out, after all. He would give her an advance on the life insurance. Like a payday loan, like they have in America for all the unfortunates. He would have to charge interest and special fees, of course, but if he gave her a little cash now under those conditions, he could afford to be generous to others, too, and use most of the money to pay off the operatives in the U.S. — before their impatience turned into something he’d rather not consider. Besides, they were on standby to pay special attention to the children of certain sailors, should their fathers fail to cooperate fully. After satisfying the operatives, he could then place an equal amount in a Channel Islands account for Uno.
His own benefactors were holding back until they saw a Trident II hit the WAIS. Then the first $2 billion would be released to him. A trifle, considering the long-term profits they would make, but enough for him to launch the construction of the AAC plants, which would be Oleg’s real money mill.
He returned his attention back to the Midget World Windsurfing Championships where Mr. Universe, a muscled tiger of a man, was crowning the men’s and women’s winners. Both were sponsored by Neil Pryde, sailmaker to champions of all sizes, and both were built like fire hydrants with excellent glutes—like bowling balls—flossed so neatly by their matching thongs.
Please, drop trophy. Pick it up.
Oleg liked midgets. Maybe that was why he’d been so attracted to Galina. Not truly a midget, but pretty damn short.
He loved midget tossing even better than midget bowling. He once threw a midget more than a hundred feet. Won a big bet when, as he’d expected, a boaster in the hotel bar said nobody could throw a midget that far. Many thousands were bet against Oleg.
At gunpoint, Oleg marched the midget over to the elevator, and when they got up on the roof, he threw him off. Everybody paid up.
When you’re right, you’re right.
Maybe next year he would sponsor the championships right there in Russia. Extend a big Russian welcome to the little people of the world.
But those dreams would have to wait. He texted Uno: “So r u ready?”
“For prime time.”
“EST, U.S.” Better be, Oleg thought.
“Yes.”
“Gives u 10 hrs.”
“Gives me all I need.”
Uno would have to get a bonus, even if it cut into Galina’s share.