Cold Hit

Chapter 37

Broadway drove the Navigator out of Staples VIP parking and onto the city streets. I couldn't see the gray Lincoln Town Car that Ringerman was driving. We'd only been following it for three minutes and already we'd lost sight of him.

"I like a nice, loose tail," I said, "but isn't it usually a good idea to keep the target in sight?"

Broadway opened the glove compartment revealing an LD screen. He turned it on and a city map came up displaying a two-mile moving grid. I could see a red light flashing down Fourth Street towards the freeway.

"Satellite tracking," Broadway explained. "The feds aren't the only ones with goodies. While you and Perry were watching the game, I hung a pill on Eddie's ride. We're following him from outer space."

We followed the embassy car from a mile back as it turned off the Hollywood Freeway at Highland, then shot across Fountain and down the hill on Fairfax. We turned on Melrose and were right back where Yuri's market had once stood. The center of Russian Town.

This three-block area was the L. A. version of New York's Brighton Beach. Russian liquor stores featuring signs advertising expensive brands of Yuri Dolgoruki and Charodei vodka. Restaurants with names like Sergi's and Shura's dotted the landscape. Posters were plastered everywhere advertising an upcoming Svetlana Vetrova concert.

Roger finally pulled up across the street from a restaurant called the Russian Roulette. It was on Melrose at the west end of Russian Town, nestled close to the boundary of Beverly Hills. The building was stucco, but had a slanted roof with fancy trim. I spotted Ringerman's gray Lincoln in a jammed-to-overflowing parking lot.

"Unfortunately, as it turns out, this ain't the best place for me and Afro-Boy t'attempt a covert surveillance," Emdee said once we were parked.

"Shane, you're gonna have to go in there and check it out for us," Broadway added.

"Me?"

"We're unwelcome personages in there," Broadway said. "A month ago, donkey brain over there, attempted to end the criminal career of one Boris Zikofsky, a known L. A. hitter and Odessa shit ball."

"The man deserved the bust," Emdee protested.

"Instead of following this hat basher into the parking lot and cuffing him out there like he's supposed to, the Hillbilly Prince badges the motherfucker right in the restaurant without backup, and starts World War Three. My man ended up by dancing Boris through a pricey pastry cart from fifteen hundred Czarist Russia. Cost the department seven grand. The Loot shit a blintz."

"Not my best polka," Emdee admitted.

"So if we go in there, we're gonna get made, turned around, and run right back out, then reported to the lieutenant." Broadway handed me an old, taped together digital camera. "Take lots of pictures."

"I don't even know who the players are. Who do I take pictures of?"

"Everybody." Broadway reached into the glove box and retrieved a big, clunky tape recorder with a directional mike that was about the size of a Kleenex box.

"What happened to all our miniaturized, state-of-the-art goodies?" I said.

Broadway handed the recorder to me and said, "If you can find the complaint box up on five, slip it in as the saying goes."

Then he pointed at the camera. "No flash. It's digital, but just barely," he smiled. "Directional mike on this tape recorder has a short, so watch the transmission light to make sure it's recording."

"What are you two gonna be doing?"

Emdee switched on the radio. The Lakers game was in the third quarter. He gave me a lazy smile.

"Right," I said, and headed across the street.

I decided not to go in through the front. I didn't want to be seen, so I went to the rear of the restaurant.

The back of the Russian Roulette was littered with empty produce boxes and used-up liquor bottles. I looked in the trash and found some soft lettuce heads that didn't look too bad. I put my clunky camera and recorder in one of the boxes, then arranged five heads of wilted lettuce on top. I took off my jacket, tied it around my waist, and rolled up my shirt sleeves.

With this brilliant on-the-fly disguise in place, I carried the rotting produce right back into the restaurant.

The kitchen was noisy and full of cooks turning out that vinegary smelling food that Balkan people seem to love. Without warning, a burly guy in a white tunic who looked like a cross between Boris Spassky and Wolfgang Puck, grabbed me and started rattling away in some language with way too many consonants.

"Sorry, pal, I'm just the relief driver," I said into his guttural windstorm. "No speaky da Rooskie," trying to do it like some zooted out delivery guy from Saugus.

He ranted some more Russian at me then grabbed a head of rotting lettuce out of the box and shook it under my nose.

"No can this. . this. ." He was sputtering. "Thing no to eat!" Then in frustration he turned to find somebody who could speak my language.

As soon as he was gone, I set the box down, retrieved my camera and tape and went lickity-splitting down the hall connecting the kitchen and restaurant.