The Last Witness

[TWO]

Office of the General Manager

Lucky Stars Casino amp; Entertainment, Philadelphia

Monday, November 17, 10:30 A.M.

“Damn it! That is not what I asked for,” Nikoli Antonov snapped. He was on his phone as Dmitri Gurnov entered. “Call me back when you get it right.”

He slammed the receiver into its base on his desk, then glared at Gurnov.

“I really hope you have good news for me, Dmitri.”

Unlike Gurnov’s distinct, hard, old-world Soviet features, the dashing thirty-seven-year-old Antonov looked very Western European. He was of medium build, had dark hair trimmed short, and wore an expensive, nicely cut two-piece suit with a tie-less crisp white dress shirt. While Antonov certainly could speak his native Russian fluently, his early years of attending boarding school in Helsinki had left him with no detectable Russian accent. He generally was soft-spoken-Gurnov knew that his outburst just now would never have happened in public-an appearance that conveniently masked the fact that Nikoli Antonov could be utterly ruthless.

Behind him, a quad of twenty-inch flat-screens was mounted on the wall. They showed real-time images from closed-circuit cameras around the casino complex, every ten seconds cycling to a different camera view, including one that Gurnov saw was of him just now entering Antonov’s office. Gurnov saw himself looking at his cell phone-on which he’d been reading the text message “Mule headed uphill,” which Julio had forwarded from the cartel’s guy in Saint Thomas-then sliding the phone into his pocket.

There of course were at least ten times that number, and much larger screens, in the casino’s security office. But Antonov believed that keeping a finger on the pulse of the complex lessened the chance of surprises. He also knew it did not hurt for those working for him-including his security men, who often were among the first to be offered bribes to look the other way-to know that the boss himself could be watching over their shoulder at any time.

“Well, I don’t have any bad news, Nick.”

None that I’m going to tell you.

Starting with me having to fix what Ricky screwed up.

And another is you not knowing that my mule just made his flight.

You’ve never warmed up to my idea of using nonprofessionals to move product.

Antonov grunted. “Good enough, I guess.”

The phone on the desk began trilling softly. Antonov’s dark eyes darted to it, and when he saw its touchscreen display, he punched the speakerphone button.

“Jorge, my friend!” Antonov said, his tone now cheerful. “Good timing. I have Dmitri with me in my office.”

“Hey, Jorge,” Gurnov called out.

“Good morning, gentlemen,” Jorge Perez said. “How are you?”

“You tell us,” Antonov said. “How did it go? I got your message, but Dmitri hasn’t heard. You can give us both the details.”

“In a word,” he said, his self-assured tone bordering on arrogant, “successful.”

“Details?” Antonov repeated.

There was a pause, then Perez said, “Well, the bad news is that we won the Poker Run. Worse, we did it with a damn royal flush.” He chuckled. “Where do you want your Mustang convertible delivered?”

“Why is that bad news?” Antonov said casually.

“Because everyone was joking that the whole thing had to be rigged, what with a casino’s boat winning the hand and all. If I’d thought that was going to happen, I would have played badly on purpose. But you know that I like to win.”

“Bad news? I’d say it’s exactly the opposite,” Antonov said. “The press release will spin it ‘Lucky Stars Casino Shows We’re All Winners.’ Or something like that. And we give the car to charity.”

“Now, that’s a good idea,” Perez said.

Antonov looked to Gurnov, who nodded as expected.

“How did the transfer go?” Antonov went on.

“Surprisingly well. I told you that Miguel Treto was good. He’s never let me down, even when it’s gotten hairy with the damn Communists messing with him and that cargo ship.”

“For example?”

“Like the bastards refusing to accept shipments, just flat out making him haul it back to Miami, or squeezing him for a bribe. He said he had the feeling that they were going to do that this time, especially when they arrived late in the day, after dark. He sweated that big-time, because he knew it would have messed up the rendezvous timing. But Treto’s a pro-made it go off without a problem.”

“What about the product?” Gurnov put in.

Perez played dumb. “The girls or the-”

“Both,” Gurnov snapped.

“It all came through fine. We put the girls on the Citation with Bobby Garcia. He dropped two of them in New Orleans. I talked to him after they landed in Dallas.”

“And the other product?”

“Carlos is headed your way with the coke. Twenty keys.”

Gurnov had a mental image of Perez’s short cousin.

And mine will be here faster, and without having to drive past all those cops sitting on the side of I-95, just waiting for another smuggler to profile.

Then bust the midget-after confiscating the coke.

“What if some cop pulls him over for DWM?” Gurnov said, then glanced at Antonov.

“Driving While Mexican,” Gurnov added.

Antonov shook his head.

Perez snapped: “He’s an American citizen, you know. He will be fine. He’s made the run plenty of times. There’s ten keys in each car, and they’re running an hour apart.”

Antonov was quiet for a moment, then, out of the blue, he said casually, “What about that boatload of Cubans? The ones that crashed the boat ashore?”

What is that about? Gurnov thought, surprised.

Perez was silent for a long moment, then he said, his voice not quite so self-assured, “That went as planned, too, Nick. They were Cubans taking advantage of the wet-foot, dry-foot policy.”

“And you weren’t taking advantage of our plans? At ten grand a head?”

There was stone silence. Then Perez said, “Yeah, we got paid. But Miguel Treto has done that for me at least twenty, thirty times now. It’s why it all went so smoothly with your stuff. A diversion.”

“But I didn’t know about the plan,” Antonov said evenly, as he looked to Gurnov.

Gurnov raised his eyebrows.

Perez said, “I didn’t-”

“If you’re going to take chances,” Antonov said, his voice rising, “you take them on your own.”

Perez was silent for a moment.

“Nick, I thought it would be the perfect diversion. And it turned out to be that. Every cop in South Florida showed up when that sheriff boat called for backup to stop them from getting to shore.”

Antonov sighed audibly.

“You are not listening again, Jorge. That seems to be a problem with you. Let me be clear: I am not saying that it was a bad idea, Jorge. I am saying that I did not know about it.”

Gurnov turned his attention to the quad of monitors on the wall as he thought, Who was that meant for? Jorge? Or me?

“I understand, Nick. I thought I was doing the right thing.”

“How did our friends do?” Antonov said, ignoring that by changing the subject.

It took Perez a moment to respond. “They said they were very pleased. They said they wanted to go again on the next one.”

“Which is?”

“There’s another Poker Run in three months.”

“Good. If they’re happy, then they will make their boss happy.”

–

Dmitri Gurnov could not get Antonov’s voice out of his head as he drove the dark blue Audi toward South Philly.

“I am not saying that it was a bad idea, Jorge. I am saying that I did not know about it.”

Gurnov glanced at the clock on the dash. The US Airways flight from Saint Thomas was due at Philadelphia International in two hours. He’d have his product an hour after that.

Meantime, he figured, Jorge Perez’s pint-sized cousin would probably still be stuck in Fort Lauderdale traffic with ten different cops watching him.

Gurnov stopped at a traffic light, then looked at himself in the rearview mirror. His sunken eyes stared back as he thought for a long moment. He ran his hand over his scruff of beard, then nodded at himself.

Don’t be stupid, he thought. Nick was saying that for my benefit, too.

But I’m not about to walk in and drop those coke bricks on his desk.

“Here. No surprises, Nick, like you said.”

And then explain everything?

“I’ve got my own game going on the side. . ”

That would be suicide.

I have to figure out something. But first I have to finish Ricky’s botched job.

Gurnov double-checked the second of the three addresses that were handwritten on a sheet of paper on the passenger seat. Ricky Ramirez had handed him the sheet at five o’clock that morning, when they loaded four girls into a minivan for the trip to Florida.

The first address, which Gurnov had just driven past in Society Hill, was the burned-out town house where Krystal Gonzalez had been killed. The other two, Ramirez had said, were the houses where the girls had lived when he’d had them recruited.

From the dead girl’s go-phone, Gurnov had a name linked to two phone numbers-“Ms Mac 1” and “Ms Mac 2”-both of which when called went to voice mail. And he had the three addresses from Ramirez.

And that was all he had on the woman he was hunting.

I’ve worked with less. .

As he tossed the sheet back on the seat, his hand bumped the Sig-Sauer 9mm that was tucked in the right pocket of his leather coat.