No Time for Heroes

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

The suggestion came from Wilkes, the black detective who thought at street level, but was initially rejected by Hank Slowen, who said you didn’t uphold the law by breaking it. Wes Bradley asked since when: a forest blaze could be put out by burning a firebreak in its path and no-one got pissed at the firemen. How many more Russian Mafia murders did Slowen want? At the end of the week the impatience was obvious from Washington and Slowen floated the thought past the two Washington homicide detectives with whom he kept in daily contact. Both thought it was a great idea.

The choice was left to Wilkes.

The hooker was dull-eyed but painted professionally to attract attention with glistening make-up that hadn’t had time to smudge. She wore long boots that came up over her knees but were still far short of the micro skirt that only reached her crotch. The long-sleeved T shirt was short-waisted to expose a lot of bare stomach and tight for the nipples of her heavy tits to bulge through. Carla Roberts was one of several names she used: in blue movies she was known as Pouter Pet. When Wilkes announced that alias to the waiting detectives Carla grinned and said they all better believe it. The print-out showed fifteen previous prostitution convictions; there were also sentences for larceny and receiving.

‘What the fuck’s going on?’ she challenged, immediately aware of the change from a normal vice arrest when she was led past the charge room cages into an interview room.

Bradley indicated a chair. Hesitantly she sat down but pushed it away from the table. Bradley picked up her sheet from it. ‘Ten arrests in the past year, Carla. You training to fuck for America when it becomes an Olympic sport?’

‘Average,’ said the girl, professionally. She crossed her legs, professionally again, not tightly, so her see-through underwear stretched over her crotch.

Bradley said: ‘Nice!’

Slowen, against the wall, thought how glad he was he’d chosen the Bureau and not the police force. He knew the arrest record gave the girl’s age as twenty-three: he would have given her another ten years.

Carla smiled at Slowen, embarrassing him. ‘You guys got something special in mind? A little party, maybe? I quote rates.’

‘Maybe,’ said Bradley. ‘You know, with a record like yours a concerned, Christian-minded prosecutor could recommend a custodial sentence. Care and rehabilitation. Show what a caring society we are. And you’d be with an awful lot of dykes, so that pussy you’re flashing at me wouldn’t heal up. Wouldn’t get paid for it, though. Still, you could be saved…’

‘What the…?’ Carla uncrossed her legs, putting both feet firmly on to the ground. ‘Why don’t you stop jerking me around and tell me what this bullshit is all about!’

‘It’s about co-operation, Carla,’ said Bradley. He reached across to where she was sitting, grabbing her left arm before she could stop him and yanking the sleeve up above the elbow. There was a line of track marks along the vein in the crook of her arm: one was scabbed and looked septic. ‘Old hits. You finding difficulty scoring recently?’

The girl snatched her arm away and dragged her sleeve down to cover the evidence of her heroin addiction. ‘Why don’t you fuck off!’

‘That’s what we’re offering to do,’ said Wilkes.

‘Providing the exchange is right,’ said Bradley.

‘You help us, we help you,’ agreed Wilkes.

Slowen thought it was like a double act, the sort of routine comedians used. He didn’t consider this version funny.

‘We could make a case for rehab, putting you before a court. And get it,’ insisted Bradley. ‘Shitsville, with smoke-stacks. And there’ll be the dykes, of course.’

‘… Or you could learn to love us,’ came in Wilkes, on cue. He took something Slowen didn’t immediately identify from his jerkin and dropped it on the table.

Carla’s eyes locked on to it. A nerve twitched, by her mouth and Slowen thought her hand moved, instinctively, to reach out.

‘Lotta happiness in that baggie, Carla,’ promised Bradley. ‘It’s good stuff. Could be eighty percent pure, not like the cut-down crap. Enough there for a month, unless you binge…’

‘… And we know there ain’t nothing out there on the streets ‘cos we’ve stopped all the traffic lights at red,’ said Wilkes. ‘Which is how they’re going to stay. Seems to me you’re still pretty much together, so I guess you had a little stash going for you. Sensible girl. But it’s going to run out soon. Then what you gonna do, Carla? You ever been really strung out? Screaming for it but there’s nowhere to go get some? That’s what it’s going to be like for you, in a day or two. Screaming. Hurting…’

‘… Or this,’ said Bradley, pushing the heroin closer to where she sat. ‘Feel it, Carla. Feel the weight of it. Imagine how good it would be…’

‘… All you gotta do is tell us where we can find Viktor Chebrakin or Yuri Chestnoy or any other of these connected Russian guys,’ took up Wilkes. ‘You do that you walk with our grateful thanks and that little present there, all to yourself…’

‘… Or we gotta tell the courts about the dealing,’ said Bradley.

‘What fucking dealing…?’

‘That baggie there,’ said Bradley. ‘That’s what Detective Wilkes found on you, after arresting you for soliciting, Carla. I know he did. He’s already told me.’

‘MOTHERFUCKER!’ screamed the girl.

Slowen felt sickened. But the Bureau had done enough entrapments and deals in the past. And would in the future.

‘So what do you say, Carla?’ invited Wilkes.

For several moments the hooker sat staring at the generous sack of heroin, hypnotised by it. The twitch became more pronounced and she swallowed a lot, tongue coming out over her tight-together lips. ‘I don’t know where those people are! If I did, I couldn’t tell you.’

‘You’re not hearing me right, Carla,’ said Bradley.

‘Fuck you!’

Wilkes, the man who knew his way in dark alleys, said: ‘It’s as bad as that, is it?’

‘Don’t know what you’re saying.’

‘They couldn’t get you, if they were inside.’

‘I don’t know! And it’s not just one or two names, is it? It’s groups. Organised.’

The girl shook her head. Slowen noticed for the first time the sheen of perspiration making her face even shinier, threatening the sharp lipstick and mascara lines.

‘We’d make it look right,’ promised Wilkes. ‘Bring more girls in, run them through the courts so you couldn’t be singled out. Make a dealer bust, too. Lotta guys, so no one person would stick out as someone you’d fingered…’ He picked up the bag, tossing it up and down in his hand. ‘I bet you never had this much stuff at any one time in your entire life.’

‘Promise?’ mumbled the girl.

‘Our word,’ assured Bradley.

‘I get the bag?’

‘And less heat from now on,’ guaranteed Wilkes. ‘Just enough to convince them you’re not a special friend.’

‘Peter,’ she said, a mumble again.

‘Peter who?’ seized Wilkes.

‘Peter the Pole. Don’t know any other name.’

‘ Is he Polack?’

‘How the fuck do I know! Speaks English like he’s got a rock in his throat.’

‘Where do we find Peter the Pole?’ asked Bradley.

Carla shrugged. ‘Around.’

Bradley put an enclosing hand over the heroin. ‘Better, Carla.’

‘He usually uses the Adam and Eve bar, on Columbus. But not now the heat’s on.’

‘Where’s he live?’ asked Wilkes.

‘I’m not sure.’

‘We take guesses.’

‘There are rooms over the amusement arcade on Atlantic.’

‘We want you to look at some mugshots, see if you can pick out Peter the Pole for us, OK?’

‘I get the bag?’ Carla persisted.

‘You got the bag,’ assured Bradley.

As the girl left the room with Wilkes, Slowen said: ‘That wasn’t very pretty.’

Bradley said: ‘What’s pretty got to do with it?’

Leonard Ross had lunch served in his private dining room, Maryland chowder followed by New England lamb.

‘We’ve got to accept we’ve caught the Russians running a criminal enterprise from their embassy,’ insisted the Secretary of State. ‘There can’t be any other reason for the way the investigation is being handled in Moscow.’

‘Cowley doesn’t go that far,’ reminded the FBI Director.

‘But he expects us to protest officially?’

‘I asked specifically. He says yes.’

‘You got any thoughts about withdrawing him?’

‘None,’ said Ross. ‘I’ve got two murders to solve. Cowley stays until we understand the connection.’

‘I’ve summoned their ambassador for an explanation,’ disclosed Henry Hartz. ‘I’m damned if we’re going to have a Mafia office on 16th Street!’

‘Seems like one’s already there,’ warned the Director.

The doubtful Yerin had again persuaded Gusovsky to meet the two Organised Crime officers without the third member of the komitet. Gusovsky had agreed to Zimin’s exclusion because he still trusted the blind man’s judgment in all things, but he would have liked to feel more confident about Yerin’s entrapment idea. The meeting had been in the Glovin Bol’soy restaurant, in a private rear salon where the policemen had eaten discreetly while they finalised the move against Danilov and Cowley.

‘I liked the confidence Metkin showed,’ remarked Gusovsky, after the two other men had left, both with their dollar bonuses safely pocketed.

‘No reason why he shouldn’t be confident,’ insisted Yerin.

‘There’ll be an enquiry at the highest level. There’ll have to be, to make it look right officially.’

‘We’ve got all the influence we need.’

‘I hope we won’t be called upon to use it,’ said Gusovsky.

Yerin had a blind’s man sensitivity to nuance. ‘You nervous?’

‘I’d like more guaranteed control.’

Yerin closed his hand in a grasping gesture. ‘We’ve got the Organised Crime Bureau, the Interior Ministry and the judiciary! It would be hard to have more control!’

‘That should be enough,’ conceded Gusovsky, annoyed now he’d let the uncertainty show.

‘All Antipov’s got to do is laugh.’

Danilov and Cowley laughed initially, though. But wrongly.