Authors: Martin Cruz Smith
“Salt?”
“A lot of salt and just enough bread to get it down.”
“She didn’t mention anything about his complexion?”
“What was to mention? It was mainly one big bruise. I questioned the doorman and lobby receptionist again. They have the same story: no problems, no breach. Then some guy with dachshunds tried to pick me up. I showed him my ID to shake him up, you know, and he says, ‘Oh, are they having another security check?’ Saturday the building staff shut down the elevator and went to every apartment to check who was in. The guy was still upset. His dachshunds couldn’t wait and had a little accident.”
“Which means there was a breach. When did they do this check?”
Victor consulted his notebook. “Eleven-ten in the morning at his place. He’s on the ninth floor, and I think they worked their way down.”
“Good work.” Arkady couldn’t imagine who would want to pick up Victor, but applause was indicated.
“A different subject.” Victor laid down a picture of two buckets and mops. “These I found in the lobby of the building across from Ivanov’s. Abandoned, but the name of the cleaning service was on them, and I found who left them. Vietnamese. They didn’t see Ivanov dive; they ran when they saw militia cars, because they’re illegals.”
Menial tasks that Russians wouldn’t do, Vietnamese would. They came as “guest workers” and went into hiding when their visas expired. Their wardrobe was the clothes on their back, their accommodations a workers’ hostel, their family connection the money they sent home once a month. Arkady could understand laborers who slipped into the golden tent of America, but to sneak into the mouse-eaten sack that was Russia, that was desperate.
“There’s more.” Victor picked macaroni off his chest. The detective had changed his gray sweater for one of caterpillar orange. He licked his fingers clean, gathered the photos and replaced them with a file that said in red:
NOT TO BE REMOVED FROM THIS OFFICE
.
“Dossiers on the four attempts on Ivanov’s life. This is rich. First attempt was a doorway shooting here in Moscow by a disgruntled investor, a schoolteacher whose savings were wiped out. The poor bastard misses six times. Tries to shoot himself in the head and misses again. Makhmud Nasir. Got four years—not bad. Here’s his address, back in town. Maybe he’s got glasses now.
“Second attempt is hearsay, but everyone swears it’s true. Ivanov rigged an auction for some ships in Archangel, got them for nothing and also bent some local noses out of shape. A competitor sends a contract killer, who blows up Ivanov’s car. Ivanov is impressed, finds the killer and pays him double to murder the man who sent him, and shortly after, supposedly, a guy falls in the water in Archangel and doesn’t come up for air.
“Third: Ivanov took the train to Leningrad. Why the train, don’t ask. On the way, you know how it is, someone pumps sleeping gas into the compartment to rob the passengers, usually the tourists. Ivanov is a light sleeper. He wakes, sees this guy coming in and shoots him. Everyone said it was an overreaction until they found a razor and a picture of Ivanov in the dead man’s coat. He also had some worthless Ivanov stock.
“Fourth, and this is the best: Ivanov is in the South of France with friends. They’re all zipping back and forth on Jet Skis, the way rich people carry on. Hoffman gets on Ivanov’s Jet Ski, and it sinks. It flips upside down, and guess what’s stuck to the bottom, a little limpet of plastique ready to explode. The French police had to clear the harbor. See, that’s what gives Russian tourists a bad name.”
“Who were Ivanov’s friends?” Arkady asked.
“Leonid Maximov and Nikolai Kuzmitch, his very best friends. And one of them probably tried to kill him.”
“Was there an investigation?”
“Are you joking? You know our chances of even saying hello to any of these gentlemen? Anyway, that was three years ago, and nothing has happened since.”
“Fingerprints?”
“Worst for last. We got prints off all the drinking glasses. Just Ivanov’s, Timofeyev’s, Zurin’s and the girl’s.”
“What about Pasha’s mobile phone? He always had a mobile phone.”
“We’re not positive.”
“Find the mobile phone. Ivanov’s driver said he had one.”
“While you’re doing what?”
“Colonel Ozhogin has arrived.”
“
The
Colonel Ozhogin?”
“That’s right.”
Victor saw things in a different light. “I’ll look for the mobile phone.”
“The head of NoviRus Security wants to consult.”
“He wants to consult your balls on a toothpick. If Ivanov was pushed, how does that make the head of security look? Did you ever see Ozhogin wrestle? I saw him in an all-republic tournament—he broke his opponent’s arm. You could hear it snap across the hall. You know, even if we did find a mobile phone, Ozhogin would take it away. He answers to Timofeyev now. The king is dead, long live the king.” Victor lit a cigarette as a digestif. “The thing about capitalism, it seems to me, is, a business partner has the perfect combination of motive and opportunity for murder. Oh hey, I got something for you.” Victor came up with a plastic phone card.
“What’s this for? A free call?” Arkady knew that Victor had strange ways of sharing a bill.
“No. Well, I don’t know, but what it’s great for…” Victor jimmied the card between two fingers. “Locks. Not dead bolts, but you’d be amazed. I got one, and I got one for you, too. Put it in your wallet.”
“Almost like money.”
Two young men settled at the next table with bowls of ravioli. They wore the jackets and stringy ties of office workers. They also had the shaved skulls and scabby knuckles of skinheads, which meant they might be office drudges during the day, but at night they led an intoxicating life of violence patterned on Nazi storm troopers and British hooligans.
One gave Arkady a glare and said, “What are you looking at? What are you, a pervert?”
Victor brightened. “Hit him, Arkady. Go ahead, hit the punk, I’ll back you up.”
“No, thanks,” Arkady said.
“A little fisticuffs, a little dustup,” Victor said. “Go on, you can’t let him talk like that. We’re a block from headquarters, you’ll let the whole side down.”
“If he doesn’t, he’s a queer,” the skinhead said.
“If you won’t, I will.” Victor started to rise.
Arkady pulled him back by his sleeve. “Let it go.”
“You’ve gone soft, Arkady, you’ve changed.”
“I hope so.”
Ozhogin’s office was minimalist: a glass desk, steel chairs, gray tones. A full-size model of a samurai in black lacquered armor, mask and horns stood in a corner. The colonel himself, although he was packaged in a tailored shirt and silk tie, still had the heavy shoulders and small waist of a wrestler. After having Arkady sit, Ozhogin let the tension percolate.
Colonel Ozhogin actually had two pedigrees. First, he was a wrestler from Georgia, and at wrapping opponents into knots Georgians were the best. Second, he had been KGB. The KGB may have suffered a shake-up and a title change, but its agents had prospered, moving like crows to new trees. After all, when the call went out for men with language skills and sophistication, who better to step forward?
The colonel slid a form and clipboard across the desk.
“What’s this?” Arkady asked.
“Take a look.”
The form was a NoviRus employment application, with spaces for name, age, sex, marriage status, address, military service, education, advanced degrees. Applying for: banking, investment fund, brokerage, gas, oil, media, marine, forest resources, minerals, security, translation and interpreting. The group was especially interested in applicants fluent in English, MS Office, Excel; familiar with Reuters, Bloomberg, RTS; IT literate; with advanced degrees in sciences, accounting, interpreting/translation, law or combat skills; under thirty-five a plus. Arkady had to admit, he wouldn’t have hired himself. He pushed the form back. “No, thanks.”
“You don’t want to fill it out? That’s disappointing.”
“Why?”
“Because there are two possible reasons for you being here. A good reason would be that you’ve finally decided to join the private sector. A bad reason would be that you won’t leave Pasha Ivanov’s death alone. Why are you trying to turn a suicide into a homicide?”
“I’m not. Prosecutor Zurin asked me to look into this for Hoffman, the American.”
“Who got the idea from you that there was something to find.” Ozhogin paused, obviously working up to a delicate subject. “How do you think it makes NoviRus Security look if people get the idea we can’t protect the head of our own company?”
“If he took his own life, you can hardly be blamed.”
“Unless there are questions.”
“I would like to talk to Timofeyev.”
“That’s out of the question.”
Besides an open laptop, the sole item on the desk was a metal disk levitating over another disk in a box. Magnets. The floating disk trembled with every forceful word.
Arkady began, “Zurin—”
“Prosecutor Zurin? Do you know how all this began, what your investigation of NoviRus was all about? It was a shakedown. Zurin just wanted to be enough of a nuisance to be paid off, and not even in money. He wanted to get on the board of directors. And I’m sure he’ll be an excellent director. But it was extortion, and you were part of it. What would people think of the honest Investigator Renko if they heard how you had helped your chief? What would happen to your precious reputation then?”
“I didn’t know I had one.”
“Of a sort. You should fill out the application. Do you know that over fifty thousand KGB and militia officers have joined private security firms? Who’s left in the militia? The dregs. I had your friend Victor researched. It’s in his file that on one stakeout he was so drunk, he went to sleep and pissed in his pants. Maybe you’ll end up like that.”
Arkady glanced out the window. They were on the fifteenth floor of the NoviRus building, with a view of office towers under construction; the skyline of the future.
“Look behind you,” Ozhogin said. Arkady turned to take in the samurai armor and helmet with mask and horns. “What does that look like to you?”
“A giant beetle?”
“A samurai warrior. When Japan was opened up by the West, and the samurai were disbanded, they didn’t disappear. They went into business. Not all; some became poets, some became drunks, but the smart ones knew enough to change with the times.” Ozhogin came around the desk and perched on its corner. For all his grooming, the colonel imparted the sense that he could still wring a bone or two. “Renko, did you happen to see
The Washington Post
this morning?”
“Not this morning, no. Missed it.”
“There was a considerable obituary for Pasha Ivanov. The
Post
called Pasha a ‘linchpin figure’ in Russian business. Have you considered the effect a rumor of homicide would have? It would not only harm NoviRus, it would damage every Russian company and bank that has struggled to escape Moscow’s reputation for violence. Considering the consequences, I think a person should be careful about even whispering ‘homicide.’ Especially when there isn’t the slightest evidence that there was one. Unless you have some evidence you’d like to share with me?”
“No.”
“I didn’t think so. And as for your financial investigation of NoviRus, didn’t the fact that Zurin chose you as investigator suggest to you that he wasn’t serious?”
“It crossed my mind.”
“It’s laughable. A pair of worn-out criminal detectives against an army of financial wizards.”
“It doesn’t sound fair.”
“Now that Pasha is dead, it’s time to let go. Call it a draw if you want. Pasha Ivanov came to a sorry end. Why? I don’t know. It’s a great loss. However, he never asked for any increase in security. I interviewed the building staff. There was no breach.” Ozhogin leaned closer, a hammer taking aim on a nail, Arkady thought. “If there was no breach in security, then there’s nothing to investigate. Is that clear enough for you?”
“There was salt—”
“I heard about the salt. What sort of attack is that? The salt is an indication of a mental breakdown, pure and simple.”
“Unless there was a breach.”
“I just told you there wasn’t.”
“That’s what investigations are for.”
“Are you saying there was a breach?”
“It’s possible. Ivanov died under strange circumstances.”
Ozhogin edged closer. “Are you suggesting that NoviRus Security was, to any degree, responsible for Ivanov’s death?”
Arkady picked his words carefully. “Building security wasn’t all that sophisticated. No card swipes or voice or palm ID, just codes, nothing like the security at the offices here. And a skeleton crew on weekends.”
“Because Ivanov moved into an apartment meant for his friend Rina. She designed it. He didn’t want any changes. Nevertheless, we staffed the building with our men, put in unobtrusive keypads, fed the surveillance cameras to our own monitors here at NoviRus Security and, any hour he was home, parked a security team in front. There was nothing more we could do. Besides, Pasha never mentioned a threat.”