Beyond Suspicion

32

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Yuri Chesnokov was in his favorite getaway on earth, a city of two hundred thousand thieves, swindlers, whores, hit men, gangsters, kidnappers, drug runners, drug addicts, extortionists, smugglers, counterfeiters, terrorists, and well-armed revolutionaries, some with causes, most without. It was the kind of place where you could get anything you wanted, any time of day, any day of the week. You might also get a few things you didn’t want, things you wouldn’t wish on anyone. It all depended on what you were looking for.

Or who was looking for you.

Ciudad del Este is a festering urban sore in the jungle on the Paraguay side of the Paraná River. It’s difficult to get there, unless you really want to get there. Amazingly, people come in droves. More than a hundred landing strips have been cut into the forests and grasslands in the “Tri-border Region,” as the area is known. All are in constant use by small airplanes, not a single flight regulated by authorities. The two-lane bridge from the Brazilian border town of Foz do Iguacu brings in thirty thousand visitors a day, serving as the principal passageway for convoys of buses, trucks, and private cars entering from neighboring Brazil and Argentina. It’s a daily ritual, shoppers leaving Rio de Janeiro and other cities late at night and arriving the next morning in the midst of the noisy, fume-filled traffic jam that is the center of Ciudad del Este. Most of the scruffy, bazaarlike shopping centers are on Avenida Monseñor Rodriguez, the main drag from which another five thousand shops fan out in all directions for a twenty-block area. Cheap electronic equipment and cigarettes are big sellers, but only to the truly unimaginative buyers. Behind the scenes is where the real money exchanges hands-cash for weapons, sex, sex slaves, pirated software, counterfeit goods, cocaine by the ton, murder for hire, and just about everything else from phony passports to human body parts for medical transplants. Miami and Hong Kong are the only two cities in the world that see a higher volume of cash transactions. In a country that boasts an official GDP of just $9 billion, Ciudad del Este has risen to a $14 billion annual industry of sleaze, Paraguay’s cesspool on the Brazilian border.

Yuri walked from his thirty-dollar-a-night room at the Hotel Munich to a Japanese restaurant on Avenida Adrián Jara, the heart of the Asian sector. An ox cart bumped along the street, maneuvering its way past a pothole large enough to swallow it whole. Mud and ruts were typical for February, when temperatures averaged a humid ninety-five degrees and summer rains were at their peak. It was better than the dry season, when red dust seemed to coat everything, though Yuri saw irony in the pervasive red grit that got in your eyes, your hair, your clothes, as if it were symbolic of the growing influence of the Russian mob, the Red Mafiya.

“Cerveza, por favor,” he told the waiter. Nothing like a cold beer in the middle of a hot summer afternoon, and the cerveza in Paraguay was consistently good.

It was Yuri’s sixth trip to the city in the past three months, all successful. He was seated at his usual table in the back of the Café Fugaki, angled in the dark corner with a direct line of sight to the entrance. No one could approach from behind him, and he could see all who entered. At the moment, he was the only customer; a heavy downpour outside keeping away even the most loyal patrons. His beer arrived in short order, and a minute later two men joined him. Fahid was Yuri’s middleman, and he’d brought his supplier with him.

Fahid greeted him in Russian, but the pleasantries had exhausted his limited knowledge of the language. They continued in English, their common tongue. The third man, the source, introduced himself as Aman. He had cold, dark eyes-as cold as Yuri’s-and a flat scowl beneath his black mustache. Yuri offered drinks, but they declined.

“Fahid tells me you have some problem with the merchandise,” Aman said with a heavy Middle Eastern accent.

Yuri sipped his beer, then licked away the foam mustache. “Big problems, yes.”

“You asked for a virus that easily injects into the bloodstream and is fatal to people with weak immune systems. That’s exactly what we gave you.”

“That may be. But West Nile virus is too… how do you say-exotic?”

“We sold it to you for the same price as much cheaper products.”

“The price isn’t the issue.”

“If you wanted something specific, you should have said so before we filled the order.”

“Five orders you filled, not once did I get West Nile virus. The sixth order, everything changes.”

“Not a change. It was within your parameters.”

Yuri shot an angry look at Fahid. “I was told it was going to be a strand of pneumonia.”

Fahid shrugged and said, “That’s what I thought it was going to be.”

“The end result is all the same,” said Aman. “What’s the big deal?”

Yuri’s voice tightened. “I’ll tell you what the big damn deal is. We stuck a woman in Georgia. Now, instead of a routine death of an AIDS victim from any one of the million or more run-of-the-mill viruses that could have killed her, there’s going to be a full-blown investigation into how she picked up this weird virus from someplace in western Africa.”

“So what? Investigations blow over.”

“I asked you to supply me with something AIDS patients die from every day. Not some bizarre virus that in the last twenty years has killed maybe two dozen people in the entire United States.”

“But this is expensive product. I give you the best price anywhere.”

“I told you, it’s not a question of price, asshole.”

“Don’t call me an asshole.”

“Then don’t act like one.”

“What you want us to do?”

“I want my money back.”

“Oh, for sure. Would you like that with or without interest?”

“You think I’m joking?”

Aman leaned into the table. “Mr. Yuri, you are in Ciudad del Este, not Bloomingdale’s. There are no refunds.”

Yuri reached across the table and grabbed him by the throat. “You move, and I’ll crush your windpipe.”

Aman’s eyes bulged as he gasped for air, but he didn’t dare fight with Yuri. Fahid looked on, too afraid to intervene.

“Stay right there, Fahid. I’m aiming straight at your balls.”

Fahid glanced down to see a.22-caliber pistol with a long silencer between his knees. Yuri still had his other hand around Aman’s throat. The man’s face was turning blue.

Fahid said, “Yuri, come on. Can’t we work this out?”

“Just give me my money back.”

Fahid glanced once more at Yuri’s pistol. “I’m sure that won’t be a problem.”

“I want to hear it from Aman.”

“Take your hand off his throat, and he’ll tell you.”

He didn’t let go. “A simple nod will do. What’s it going to be, Aman? Do I get my money?”

Saliva dribbled from the corner of Amam’s mouth. He grunted, but the response was unintelligible.

Yuri tightened his grip. “Am I going to get my money back or not?”

Beads of sweat ran from Aman’s brow as he struggled to breathe through his compressed windpipe.

“I’m waiting,” said Yuri.

His eyes rolled back in their sockets, and his lashes fluttered, as if he were on the verge of losing consciousness.

“Let go of him,” said Fahid.

“Shut up. You got five seconds, Aman.”

Aman stiffened. His nostrils flared and whistled as he sucked desperately for air. He raised his right hand and curled his fingers into a fist. It shook unsteadily for a few seconds, and then he slowly raised the middle finger.

“You son of a bitch!”

Yuri lunged forward, knocking over the table as he pounced on Aman and flipped him onto his belly. With a knee against Aman’s tricep for leverage, he jerked back on the forearm. It was like a gunshot, the sound of bone snapping, and Aman let out a horrible scream as his elbow bent in the wrong direction.

It all happened before Fahid could even blink. Yuri flipped Aman over and jammed a gun into his crotch.

“Stay back, Fahid, or your friend gets an instant vasectomy.”

Aman was screaming in pain. There were no other patrons in the restaurant, but the waiters caught a quick look at the commotion and didn’t stop running until they were across the street, all in keeping with the silent code of survival in Ciudad del Este: Look the other way.

Yuri grabbed Aman’s hand and shoved his middle finger into his mouth. “Give it to me!”

Fahid stepped forward, but Yuri pressed the gun deeper into his friend’s groin. “Back off, Fahid, or I’ll shoot him.”

Fahid froze. Yuri crammed the finger farther down Aman’s throat, past the second knuckle and all the way to the base. “Bite it! I want that finger!”

Aman pleaded with a whimper, his eyes watering. Yuri answered with a muffled shot from his silenced pistol. It shattered Aman’s left foot. His leg jerked, as if jolted by electricity, and even with his finger halfway down his throat he managed to emit a muted scream.

“Bite it off, right now!”

Aman grimaced, but his jaw tightened at Yuri’s command.

“Harder. Bite it all the way through!”

Aman’s body shook. Blood ran from his mouth as the teeth tore through the skin and tendons.

“Yuri, stop,” said Fahid.

“All the way,” he told Aman.

“He’s going into shock,” said Fahid.

Blood was running down both sides of his face, pooling in the ears. His teeth clenched even tighter as the incisors crushed the bone.

“Let me hear it snap!”

Fahid said, “Stop, okay? I’ll get you your money. Consider it my debt. Just let him go.”

Yuri looked up at Fahid, then down at Aman. Blood covered his cheeks, his foot was a mangled mess, and his left arm resembled a pretzel. Yuri yanked the middle finger from the clutch of Aman’s jaws. It was a broken and twisted stick of raw meat, bitten down to the bone.

“You disgust me,” said Yuri. As he rose, he gave two quick punches to Aman’s busted elbow, eliciting the loudest scream yet. Aman rolled on the floor in agony, as if not sure which of his painful wounds to tend to.

Yuri said, “I want every penny before I leave town. Not just this order. All six orders.”

“I’ll deliver it to your hotel tonight,” said Fahid. “Then we’re square, right?”

“We’ll never be square. You assholes cost me my biggest contract ever.”

“What?”

“Those bastards I lined up from my Miami office. They cut me off. And it’s your fault. You and your fucking West Nile virus.”

He turned and stomped on Aman’s bloody foot, drawing one last cry of pain.

Fahid said, “Yuri, I’m sorry about this.”

“Not half as sorry as those boys who pulled my contract are going to be.”

He tucked his gun into the holster hidden beneath his shirt, dropped twenty dollars’ worth of Paraguayan guaranies on the chair to cover the beer and the smashed table, and walked out of the restaurant, leaving Fahid to tend to his bloodied partner.