Beyond Suspicion

39

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Katrina walked into the Brown Bear around six-thirty with Vladimir at her side. The restaurant was about half-full, and she spotted Theo instantly. They walked right past the sign that said please wait to be seated and joined Theo in a rear booth.

Katrina made the introductions, and they slid across the leather seats, Katrina and her boss on one side of the booth, across from Theo.

The Brown Bear was in East Hollywood, just off Hallandale Beach Boulevard. It had a huge local following, mostly people of Eastern European descent. The newspaper dispenser just outside the door wasn’t the Miami Herald or the South Florida Sun-Sentinel but eXile, a biweekly paper from Moscow. Behind the cash register hanged an autographed photo of Joseph Kobzon, favorite pop singer of former Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev and a household name to generations of Russian music lovers, known best for his soulful renditions of patriotic ballads. The buzz coming from the many crowded tables was more often Russian or Slovak than English or Spanish. Meals were inexpensive and served family-style, gluttonous portions of skewered lamb, chopped liver, and beef Stroganoff. Caviar and vodka cost extra. On weekends, a three-piece band and schmaltzy nightclub singer entertained guests. Reservations were essential-except for guys like Vladimir.

Katrina wondered if Theo had any idea that the Cyrillic letters tattooed onto each of her boss’ fingers identified him as a made man among vory, a faction of the Russian Mafiya so powerful it was almost mythical.

“Katrina tells me you used to work together,” said Vladimir.

She shot Theo a subtle glance. Vladimir had quizzed her on the car ride over, and she’d been forced to concoct a story. Revealing the true circumstances under which she and Theo had met would only have exposed herself as a snitch.

“That’s right,” said Theo, seeming to catch her drift.

Katrina took it from there. “I’ve come a long way from slogging drinks at Sparky’s, haven’t I, Theo?”

“You sure have.”

“I like that name,” said Vladimir. “Sparky’s.”

“I came up with it myself. The old electric chair in Florida used to be called ‘Old Sparky.’ When I beat the odds and got off death row, I thought Sparky’s was a good name for a bar.”

Vladimir smiled approvingly, as if serving time on death row only confirmed that Theo was all right. “Do you own this Sparky’s?”

“Half of it. I’m the operations partner. Buddy of mine put up all the money.”

“Other people’s money,” Vladimir said with a thin smile. “We should drink to that.” He signaled the waitress, and almost immediately she brought over three rounds of his usual cocktail, one for each of them.

“What’s this?” asked Theo.

“Tarzan’s Revenge.”

“Ice-cold vodka and Japanese sake poured over a raw quail’s egg,” said Katrina.

“I didn’t know Tarzan drank.”

She didn’t bother explaining that Tarzan was not Johnny Weissmuller but a flamboyant, muscle-bound Russian mobster famous for wild sex orgies on his yacht and a hare-brained scheme to sell a Russian nuclear submarine to the Colombian cartel for underwater drug smuggling.

“Cheers,” said Vladimir, and each of them belted one back.

Just as soon as the first round was gone the waitress brought another. Katrina joined in the second and third rounds but passed on the fourth and fifth. She’d seen Vladimir operate before, knew he could outdrink any American, and knew that Tarzan’s Revenge was Vladimir’s way of loosening tongues and tripping up rats.

“Tell us more about your proposal,” said Vladimir.

“Let me start by being upfront with you. I’m not gonna try to hide the fact that I’m a friend of Jack Swyteck.”

“You mean the lawyer?”

“You know who I mean.”

Vladimir was stone-faced. “You said you had business.”

“That’s right. And for me, business is business. Swyteck’s not part of it. So, it’s your choice. You can tell me to shut up and go away, that you don’t want shit to do with any friend of Jack Swyteck. Or you can put my friendships aside and act like a businessman, which means both of us make a lot of money.”

Vladimir removed a cigar from his inside pocket, unwrapped the cellophane. “Everyone I do business with has friends I can’t stand.”

“That’s what I thought you’d say. You look like a very smart man.”

“What are you offering?”

“Viatical settlements.”

“How much?”

“The sky’s the limit.”

Vladimir laughed like a nonbeliever. “I’ve heard that one before.”

“Maybe so. But not from someone who understands your business the way I do.”

“You know so much, do you?”

“You got a lot of cash on your hands.”

“What makes you think that?”

“It’s written all over your face. And your hands,” he said as he glanced at the Cyrillic letters on Vladimir’s fingers.

Katrina said nothing, but she was starting to reconsider. Maybe this Theo isn’t as dumb as he looks.

Vladimir said, “A guy could have worse problems.”

“But too much cash is still a problem. So I figure it works this way. You got a pot of dirty money.”

“I have no dirty money.”

“Just for the sake of argument, let’s say you got fifty million dirty dollars. Some from drugs, some from prostitution, extortion, illegal gaming, whatever. We can all talk freely here. We’re among friends, right, Katrina?”

“Old friends are the best friends,” she said.

“Okay,” said Vladimir. “Let’s say fifty million.”

“Let’s say I got a hundred guys dying from AIDS who are willing to sell their life insurance policies to you for five hundred thousand dollars a pop. You do a hundred separate deals, all impossible to trace, and pay out fifty million in cash. My guys name some offshore companies formed by your lawyer as the beneficiary under their life insurance policy. When they die, the life insurance company pays you the death benefit. Clean money.”

“How much?”

“Double. You start with fifty million in dirty money. In two years you got a hundred million in clean money straight from the coffers of triple-A-rated insurance companies.”

Vladimir glanced at Katrina. Again she said nothing, though it impressed her the way Theo had put so much together. She suspected that Jack had done at least some of the unraveling.

“Sounds intriguing,” said Vladimir. “I might be interested under the right circumstances.”

“If you had fifty million dirty dollars?”

“No. If you actually had a hundred fags with life insurance in the pipeline.”

“A buddy of mine owns nine AIDS hospices. Three in California, four in New York, two in south Florida. All high-end, all wealthy clientele. No one who checks into these places is long for this earth.”

“That could be a very useful connection.”

“I thought so.”

Vladimir’s cell phone rang. He checked the number and grimaced. “I gotta take this. Back in a minute.”

Katrina waited until he was safely outside the restaurant, then glared at Theo and said, “What in the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“Going to the source.”

“What for?”

“It’s like Jack and me figured. We find out who’s laundering all that viatical money, we find Jessie Merrill’s killer.”

“Do you have any idea who you’re dealing with?”

“Yes. Do you?”

“Eventually Vladimir is going to see right through you. You can’t bluff these people.”

“Why not? You did.”

“That’s different. I’m working from the inside.”

“Give me a little time. I’ll be right there beside you.”

“Have you lost your mind? You’re going to get yourself killed.”

“Only if you blow my cover. But you won’t do that. Because if you do, I’m taking you down with me.”

She was so angry she could have leaped across the table and strangled him. But Vladimir was back, and she quickly forced herself to regain her composure.

He sank back into the booth and snapped his fingers. The waitress brought another round of Tarzan’s Revenge.

“To your health,” said Vladimir.

He belted back the drink. Katrina did likewise, keeping one angry eye on Theo.

Vladimir put the unlit cigar back in his pocket, as if signaling that it was time to leave. He looked at Theo and said, “I’m afraid I have to go, but before I do, I want to leave you with this story. You ever heard of the money plane?”

“Money plane? I don’t think so.”

“Delta Flight 30. It used to leave JFK for Moscow at 5:45 P.M. five days a week. Rarely did it leave with less than a hundred million dollars in its cargo belly. Stacks of new hundred dollar bills, all shipped in white canvas bags. Over the years, about 80 billion dollars came into Russia that way. Just one unarmed courier on the flight, no special security measures. And not once did anyone even try to hijack the plane. Why do you think that is?”

“The food sucked?”

“Because anyone who knew about the money also knew that it was being bought by Russian banks. And if you rip off a Russian bank, nine chances out of ten says you’re ripping off the Russian Mafiya. Nobody has big enough balls or a small enough brain to do that. So that plane just kept right on flying.”

“Very interesting.”

“You understand what I’m saying?”

“I’m pretty sure I do.”

“Give us two days. If you check out, you meet Yuri.”

“Sounds good.”

Katrina said, “Tell him what happens if he doesn’t check out.”

“I think he gets the point,” said Vladimir.

“I like to be explicit with my friends. He should hear.”

Vladimir leaned forward, a wicked sparkle in his eye. “You don’t check out, you meet Fate. And he has not a pretty face.”

Theo gave an awkward smile. “Funny how you talk about fate as if it’s a person.”

“That is funny,” said Vladimir. “Because we all know that Fate is an animal.” He laughed loudly, pounding the table with his fist. Then all traces of a smile ran from his face. “Good-bye, Theo.”

Theo rose and said, “You know where to reach me, right, Katrina?”

“Don’t worry. We won’t have trouble finding you.”

She watched as he turned and walked away, then headed out the door, not sure if she should be angry or feel sorry for him.

Theo, my boy, you were safer on death row.