Tonight I Said Goodbye

CHAPTER 8

VLADIMIR RAKIC and Alexei Krashakov, it turned out, lived in what was basically my old neighborhood. I’d grown up on a narrow street off Clark Avenue, and Rakic and Krashakov shared a two-decker about twelve blocks south. I’d never known anyone who lived in that house, but I’d passed it almost daily as a kid. Somehow, knowing they now inhabited my childhood territory made me like them even less.

Joe and I cruised the block a few times before a parking spot offering a good vantage point opened up. The sun was still out, and we had to park facing into it, squinting against the light, but it was the best we could do. Joe had insisted we take his Taurus; he claimed my truck would stand out as unfamiliar to the neighbors. I tried to argue that no car screamed “undercover cop” quite like a Taurus, but he ignored me.

We parked and settled in for the wait. There hadn’t been any cars in the driveway when we drove past, and none were parked at the curb in front of the home, so it appeared the Russians were out on the town. The two-decker was painted a light blue that was turning gray from weathering, but it was in better shape than most on the block. The house was the same style as many others in the neighborhood, and I recalled from past visits to such homes that on each level there were two bedrooms, a small kitchen, a dining room, one tiny bathroom, and a living room. There would probably also be a dank cellar and an attic with low ceilings.

Joe looked around sourly. “This neighborhood’s gone to hell. When I was a rookie, this actually wasn’t a bad street. Nobody cares about their own home anymore.”

“I grew up around here,” I said.

He stopped drumming his fingers on the steering wheel and pointed at me. “That’s right. I’d forgotten that. You know any of the neighbors? Someone who could give us some good dirt on the Russians, maybe?”

I shook my head. “Not this far south.”

We sat and waited. I was thankful the temperature had crawled a little higher than in recent days, because we had to keep the engine off to avoid attention, and that meant no heater. The street was quiet. Behind us, on Clark, the traffic was thick, but on the little side street only a few cars passed. Once a man in an old military parka with several days’ worth of stubble on his face stumbled down the sidewalk and glanced in the car, saw us, muttered something, and crossed to the other side. He was carrying a paper bag in his left hand, and I saw him lift it to his lips as he neared the corner.

“Told you this car wasn’t discreet,” I said. “He thought we were cops.”

“Guy like that? Probably thinks every third car on the street is a cop.”

“What do you think was in the bag? Southern Comfort?”

“Old Grand-Dad,” Joe said confidently. “No doubt about it.”

An hour passed, and then the monotony was broken by the arrival of the mailman. He moved slowly from house to house, wincing as he took the steps, as if maybe the years and the weight of the mailbag had taken a toll on his back.

“Think we should check their mail?” Joe asked. “See if maybe there’s a letter from Hubbard in the box?”

“Don’t see what it would hurt.”

“It’d hurt if one of them is in the house, or they drive in while you’re up on the porch.”

“I like how smoothly you do that.”

“Do what?” Joe said, eyes wide, the picture of innocence.

“Make it so I’m the one who’s going up on the porch.”

He smiled and spread his hands. “Hey, you’re the one who’s so anxious for action with these guys. I’d hate to stand in your way.”

I stepped out of the car and walked down the sidewalk, head down, hands in my pockets. Just another neighborhood guy out for a stroll. I needed the bottle wrapped in the paper bag, though, to blend in better.

The house was about two hundred feet from where we’d parked. No one seemed to notice me, and the only car that passed didn’t slow down. I took the four steps up to the porch, the dried, flaking paint crackling beneath my shoes. The two windows facing the porch were dusty, and inside it was dark. A heavy-duty steel storm door protected the wooden front door. The old tin mailbox was fastened to the wall beside the door. I lifted the lid with my finger and slipped the contents out. Four envelopes; four pieces of junk mail. A wasted trip. I dropped them back into the box and pulled on the handle of the storm door. It was locked. I stepped up to the window, put my face close to the glass, and shielded my eyes with my hand, trying to make out the interior. Tires crunched on the street behind me, and I turned to see a black Lincoln Navigator pulling into the driveway.

Two men sat inside, and neither looked particularly friendly. They opened the doors and stepped out of the vehicle, watching me carefully. The driver was a few inches shorter than me but thick, with dark hair, pale skin, and a jutting jaw. He had a heavy blue jacket on, and as he walked around the Navigator he pulled the zipper down, allowing him to reach inside the coat if he wanted to. The passenger was taller, with very broad shoulders and blond hair. His nose was large and slightly hooked, and his cheekbones and jaw were clearly defined and solid, giving a quality of strength to his face.

I remained on the porch, a smile fixed on my face, but I didn’t speak. They approached slowly, then walked up the steps and stood in front of me, spaced so they blocked the steps completely.

“Children are dying,” I said.

They exchanged a glance. Confused. The shorter one said, “What do you talk about?” His accent was thick.

“AIDS,” I said casually. “Children are dying, now, gentlemen. Not just adults. Children. Think about that. Then think about what you’ve done to help the problem.” I watched them as they stared at me. “It’s okay, gentlemen. Not many of us are doing our share to combat the disease. That doesn’t mean it’s too late to step in and do your part, though.”

The taller, blond one spoke now. “You want money?” His accent wasn’t nearly as heavy as his companion’s, but he spoke in a clipped, careful voice that made it clear English was his second language.

I shook my head. “We don’t want money. We want a cure.”

He nodded. “What group are you for?”

I cleared my throat. “I, uh, represent EAT.”

He frowned. “Eat?”

“That’s right. E-A-T. It stands for Eliminate AIDS Today. That’s what our goal is, gentlemen. Surely you agree that it’s an important one.”

He studied me, and his eyes narrowed. “You have some literature for your group? A brochure, perhaps?” His careful, stilted pronunciation reminded me of a computerized answering machine.

I shook my head. “I don’t come to you with a sales pitch, I come to you with a cause. Are you unaware of AIDS, sir? Do you really need a paper filled with statistics to make the danger real?” I tried to make my tone somewhat hostile, to put him back on his heels and keep him from getting too inquisitive.

He looked at me with cold, calculating eyes, like a man studying cuts of meat in a butcher shop. I met his stare, and as I did I was sure he didn’t believe a word of my story.

“I’m harmless,” I said.

“You want money?” he repeated.

I smiled. “If you’d be willing to give, we’d be willing to accept. Each dollar is a small step toward a cure. Each small step toward a cure is another life saved. Possibly another child’s life.”

He reached into the back pocket of his black slacks and withdrew a thick wad of bills held in place by a gold money clip. The clip bore a military insignia, but his hand kept me from seeing it clearly. He slipped a twenty from the roll of bills and handed it to me.

“Twenty small steps, then,” he said, and the short man laughed.

“Thank you, sir,” I said. “You couldn’t do anything better with your money.”

“Sure,” he said, then moved out of the way to let me pass. I walked down the steps and back up the sidewalk, whistling and trying not to look back, trying not to appear aware of the way they stood on the porch and watched until I was out of sight.

Joe’s Taurus was gone. I kept walking up the street, toward the corner. They were probably wondering why I wasn’t approaching other homes. Maybe they were coming after me now to ask me about it. Or break my legs.

A car slowed behind me. Joe. I stepped off the sidewalk and pulled open the passenger door, then dropped into the seat and said, “Drive.”

He turned onto Clark Avenue, and I looked in the rearview mirror. The Russians’ house was out of sight now, but at least they weren’t watching from the sidewalk.

“Great timing I’ve got,” I said. “We sat in the car for, what, two hours and they didn’t come home? Then I’m on the porch for twenty seconds and they pull in.”

“I thought about using the horn, but I decided it was pointless,” Joe said. “You wouldn’t have had time to get out of sight anyhow, and it would’ve attracted attention to me.” He pulled into a gas station parking lot and stopped the car. “So, what happened?”

I told him, and when I was finished he was laughing so hard he was resting his red face on the steering wheel.

“You took twenty dollars from them,” he said, struggling for breath. “That’s amazing, LP. Children are dying? That’s the first thing you can think of to say?”

I shrugged. “Hey, it worked.”

“I guess.”

“I don’t think the big guy believed me, though.” I thought about it, remembered those calculating, flat eyes, and shook my head. “I’m sure he didn’t. He knew I was lying, but he didn’t know why, so he let it go.”

“Wasn’t he the one that gave you the twenty?”

“Yeah, but I still don’t think he was fooled.”

Joe wiped at his eyes and took a deep breath. “What a stunt,” he said. “I was afraid you’d confront them about Ambrose’s car and I’d have to rescue your ass. Instead you give them a speech about dying children and fleece them for a twenty.” He laughed again, then started the car and drove us back to the same street. “I’ve got something to show you,” he said. “I wanted to hear your story first, and I thought it would probably be a good idea to get you out of sight, but you’ll be interested in this.”

He made a left onto the Russians’ street and drove down it slowly. “Check out the green Oldsmobile on your side.” He drove past it, and I kept my eyes straight ahead but got a good look at the car in the side-view mirror. Joe turned the corner and started to circle the block again.

“You see him?”

I nodded. “Guy sitting in the front, looked like he was watching the same house we’ve been watching.”

“You got it. He came in with the Russians but was hanging back a little. He circled the block once and picked a parking spot with a good view of the house, just like we did. Apparently we’re not their only secret admirers.”

“You get a plate number?”

He gave me a sour look. “Did I get a plate number? Who do you think you’re talking to? I got the plate number, and I took about six photographs of the car itself, as well as the Navigator the Russians drove.”

“My mistake.”

“Uh-huh. Well, we’ve got two of the Russians, and one car for them. Who are we missing?”

“Malaknik, I think. Amy said he lives on the east side.”

“Want to go have a look at him, or should we stay and watch these boys a little longer? Apparently, it’s a better show than we thought, because we’re not the only audience.”

I looked at the clock and saw it was approaching five. “You said you got photographs of the Navigator?” He nodded. “Well, let’s get back to the office, then. I want to e-mail that photograph to Amy and see if it’s the same car she saw. Then we can run out to Brecksville and check with the neighbors. We’ll worry about Malaknik tomorrow.”

Back at the office Joe uploaded the photographs from his digital camera to the computer. They were pretty decent shots, showing a good angle of the cars as well as shots with a tight zoom on each license plate. The green Oldsmobile had a South Carolina plate.

“He’s come a long way to watch the Russians,” I said to Joe. “Must be about something important.”

“The car’s come a long way,” Joe said. “Doesn’t mean the driver came with it.”

Once the photographs had been uploaded, I e-mailed them to Amy, and Joe printed out a few copies. Then we returned to Brecksville.

We spent half an hour combing houses. Everyone regarded us with suspicion, and everyone denied having seen the Navigator. After the fourth house, Joe began showing them photographs of the green Oldsmobile, too.

“Why not?” he told me. “As long as we’ve got the photographs, it doesn’t hurt to ask.”

It didn’t hurt. Five houses later, a woman who lived opposite the Westons and a few houses down nodded her head as soon as she saw the Oldsmobile.

“Well, sure,” she said. “He’s a police officer.”

“A police officer?” Joe said.

She smiled. “Yes. He came around yesterday, asking about the same type of questions as you. Wanted to know what cars we’d noticed, all that type of thing. We really didn’t have anything to tell him, though.” She looked at us sadly. “It’s so tragic. The little girl was so sweet.”

“This officer,” I said, “did he give you his name?”

She squinted, trying to remember. “Davis, maybe? Davidson? Something like that. He had a badge, though. He showed it to me.”

We thanked her and walked back down the driveway. Joe kicked at a few pebbles in the street, and we stood with our backs to the house.

“No Cleveland cops are driving little Oldsmobiles,” he said. “It’s an Alero, for crying out loud. That’s not a department-issued car. No antennas on it, even.”

“You know of any detective named Davis or Davidson?”

“Nope.”

“Me neither. Looks like we’ve got a fake.”

He nodded and gazed back across the street, at the Westons’ house. “What we’ve got is an unknown third party,” he said. “Could be significant.”

We finished up the block and talked to two more neighbors who’d been visited by “Detective Davis” the previous day. They’d all seen a badge, but he hadn’t been in uniform, and he hadn’t been one of the cops they’d talked to in the early days of the investigation.

It was dark by the time we left. Joe wanted dinner, but I made him drive back to the office first. I wanted to call Amy and ask if she’d seen the photographs. It was late, but Amy typically went to work late in the morning and stayed until the early evening hours. I caught her at her desk.

“That’s the SUV,” she said immediately.

“You’re sure?”

“Absolutely. Those fancy alloy wheels stand out.” I could hear keys clicking on her keyboard as she typed furiously. “You have any idea what their tie to Weston is yet?”

“No, but I do have another favor to ask.”

“I don’t know, Lincoln. My car’s still in the body shop from the last favor I did you.”

“Okay,” I said casually. “That’s fine. I don’t blame you. Well, I’d better be going, but thanks for checking the photographs.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” she said, and I grinned. “I was just giving you a hard time, Perry, don’t freak out about it. What do you need me to do?”

“You know who Jeremiah Hubbard is?” I asked.

“Of course.”

“Good. I want to know everything he’s been up to in the last six months. He’s in the paper pretty regularly, but I want to know why, when, and who he was involved with.”

The typing on her end of the line stopped. “You think Hubbard’s got something to do with Weston?”

“He might.”

“Lincoln,” she said, “you’ve got to give me this story.”

I sighed. “Amy, we’ve been over this a thousand times. It would be very bad for business if I kept turning confidential cases over to you. I know you want a good story, but I can’t do that.”

“Bastard. Oh, well. As long as you keep me updated.” The typing resumed again. “I’ll check it out and get back to you.”

As I hung up someone rapped loudly on the glass panel of the door with his knuckles, a sound like hail on a window. Joe and I looked at each other and frowned. We weren’t used to receiving drop-in clients, and it was late in the day.

“Come in,” Joe said. The door opened and Detectives Swanders and Kraus stepped inside, accompanied by a third man I didn’t recognize. He was of average height, with a slim build and neat, carefully parted hair that looked like he spent a lot of time on it. His clothes were well tailored and unwrinkled. It was all I needed to see to know he wasn’t a cop. The briefcase in his left hand confirmed it.

“Fellas,” Swanders said, nodding at us. He was one of those rare guys who could say “fellas” as a greeting without making you wince.

“Swanders,” Joe said, nodding back at him. “Kraus. How you boys doing?”

“Doing fine,” Kraus said, dropping onto one of the stadium seats without waiting for an invitation to sit. Swanders joined him, but the stranger stayed on his feet, crossing the office with a purposeful stride that made me think he was used to being the dominant force in most rooms. He reached in his pocket as he neared the desk, withdrew a slim leather case, snapped it open, and held it out for us to see. There was a badge on the left side and an identification card encased in plastic on the right. Joe pushed himself up on his elbows to get a better look but kept his feet on the desk.

“FBI,” he said. “Heavens. We’re way out of our league now.”

The stranger tilted the badge in my direction, and I looked at the name on the identification card. THADDEUS CODY, it read, SPECIAL AGENT, FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION.

“Thaddeus,” I said. “No shit? I bet you resent the hell out of your parents, don’t you?”

He gave a tight smile. “Call me Thad,” he said. “Or Agent Cody.”

He put the leather case back in his pocket and looked from Joe to me as if expecting further reaction. A look at our faces told him he wasn’t going to get it, so he nodded and sat down.

“You gentlemen been in business long?” he asked, crossing his legs at the ankles after smoothing the crease in his slacks.

“Same office for nineteen years,” Joe said.

Cody raised one eyebrow. “Really?”

“Uh-huh.”

Cody glanced at Swanders and then said, “What’s the point of lying to me, Mr. Pritchard? You’re not exactly getting off to a great start.”

Joe dropped his feet to the floor and pulled his chair up to the desk. “What’s the point of asking questions you already know the answers to, Agent Cody? And I don’t give much of a damn what kind of start we get off to, considering you weren’t asked to come here. If you’ve got something to talk to us about, why don’t you start talking? Otherwise, I’ll be on my way to get some dinner. It’s late, and I’m a grumpy old man who likes his food.”

Swanders snorted and turned to Cody. “Told you.”

“Told him what?” I asked.

“Told him you fellas might be difficult just because you feel like it.”

I grinned at him. “That’s the beauty of being self-employed.”

Cody cleared his throat and gave us a pained expression, as if maybe he’d picked up a splinter from the stadium seat.

“I apologize, gentlemen.” He nodded at Joe. “There was no need for me to start off by asking questions I already know the answers to. And, yes, I’ve got something to talk to you about.”

“Our rates are pretty reasonable,” I said. “But if you’re wanting us to crack a challenging case that has you FBI boys stumped, the retainer fee is going to be sizable. We run the risk of damaging our reputation by hanging out with Bureau boneheads.”

Cody pointed his index finger at me and opened his mouth to snap off a quick retort but then stopped himself. He tucked the finger back into his fist and dropped his hand to his lap, then turned his head to the ceiling and exhaled heavily, like he was releasing tension and coming to peace with himself before assuming a yoga position. I thought for a minute he might roll right onto the floor, stand on his head, maybe, or strike a swan pose. He kept his eyes on the ceiling for a few seconds and then rolled his head back down, smiling now.

“I’ll tell you what,” he said. “How about we put a spotlight on you two, give you ten, maybe fifteen minutes for the comedy routines? You can take shots at my employer, my wife, my mother, whatever. When you’ve completed the first act, I’ll applaud real politely, and then maybe we can get down to business.”

Kraus laughed, and Joe shrugged. “Let’s just get down to business, Cody.”

He nodded, then leaned down and opened his briefcase. He withdrew a manila folder and took four eight-by-ten black-and-white photographs from it. He spread them on the desk, facing us. I immediately recognized two of the men in the pictures; they were Rakic and Krashakov, the Russians I’d spoken with earlier in the day. The other two I didn’t know. One was a heavyset man with a thick mustache, fleshy chin, and small dark eyes. The other was younger, with dark hair, a goatee, and a nasty scar across his left temple.

“Recognize them?” Cody asked.

I nodded. “These two,” I said, pointing at Rakic and Krashakov. “I don’t know the others, though.”

Cody leaned back in his chair and studied us. “How did you two connect those men to Wayne Weston?”

“Who says we did?” I said.

He sighed. “Gentlemen, I thought we were past this stage.”

I looked at Joe, and he nodded, indicating that I was free to talk. We were being paid to bring the case to a conclusion, and the FBI had resources that could help us do that. There was no sense in stonewalling them or acting like we were competing with them.

“April Sortigan,” I said, looking at Kraus. “She turned out not to be such a dead end after all. Sortigan told me Weston had asked her to do background checks on three men. She gave me the names, and we started to check them out ourselves. From what I’ve gathered so far, they’re foot soldiers for the Russian mob.”

“Who told you that?” Cody said.

“We’re investigators,” I answered. “We investigated. Now, do you want to tell us what this is all about?”

He nodded. “The Russian mafia in this city—and in the rest of the country—is growing,” he said. “It’s the most powerful organized crime syndicate in the world; nothing else even comes close. They have ties to eighty percent of the banks in Russia, so money laundering is no problem, and now they’re spreading their claws across the globe. Cleveland is one of those new destinations.”

He jabbed his finger at the man with the fleshy face and the mustache. “That is Dainius Belov. He’s the don of the Russian mob in this city, and it doesn’t pay to underestimate his power. He’s got more weight than any of the Italian gangsters in this city ever dreamed of.” He pointed at the photograph of Krashakov. “Alexei Krashakov is one of Belov’s lieutenants. Rakic and Malaknik work closely with him. They’re a little too wild for Belov’s liking, so their power is limited, but they’re busy boys. They’ve got ties to heroin, cocaine, insurance scams, prostitution, illegal weapons trafficking—you name it, they’re involved.” Cody’s voice had taken on a haggard, weary tone, and I thought he’d probably spent too many hours poring over photographs of these guys, looking for a way to bring them down.

“We’re particularly interested in the weapons trafficking,” he said. “These guys are moving some serious contraband through the city, and we intend to stop it. Assault rifles, machine guns, and hell, even missiles. And they’re very good at it. They’re very good at all of it. Because they’re pros. Half of Belov’s boys were special forces soldiers in Afghanistan in the eighties. Some of them even have ties to the KGB. We’ve got a task force working on them, a joint effort between Bureau agents and CPD detectives.” He sighed. “And, so far, I’ll admit that we’re not having much success.”

“How’s Wayne Weston involved?” Joe said.

Cody slid the photographs together and tapped them on the desk, straightening their edges before returning them to the manila folder.

“We’ve had wiretaps on these guys for months,” he said. “Some of them we’ve had for years. A week before Wayne Weston was murdered, his name was heard in one of our taped conversations. The Russians speak guardedly on the phone, and the context of the remark was hard for us to distinguish. However, it appeared they found Weston to be a problem, or a nuisance, that’s for sure. A few days later, he was dead, and his family was gone.”

“And you think they’re behind it,” Joe said.

He nodded. “We’re almost sure of it. We just need to prove it.”

“Any idea how they’re connected?” I asked.

Cody shook his head. “Not yet. We were prepared to open a preliminary investigation into Mr. Weston after his name came up on our wiretaps. Then he was killed, and it became a more urgent matter.”

“Then he was killed,” I echoed, and looked at Swanders and Kraus. “So you no longer believe Weston was a suicide?” They didn’t respond, and I asked, “Did you ever believe he was a suicide?”

“Don’t blame them,” Cody said. “The initial investigation of the scene made it look like suicide was probable. Then we got wind of it and stepped in to, um, aid the investigation. The police were asked to stick with the suicide story for a while to keep the Russians relaxed.”

I pointed at Swanders. “So the gambling angle was bullshit from the beginning, eh?”

He shrugged, and Kraus grinned. “Hope you didn’t waste too much time with that,” he said.

“Wasted just enough,” Joe said dryly. “So why put us in the loop now? Because we’re not quite as stupid as you’d hoped?”

Cody smiled. “I wouldn’t have phrased it like that, but, basically, you’re right. We were content to let you chase whatever leads you had as long as you didn’t get in our way. But when you showed up on Rakic’s front porch this afternoon, we realized we couldn’t let this continue.”

“You’re watching the house?” I said. He nodded, and I said, “The green Oldsmobile, right? With the South Carolina plate?”

Cody raised his eyebrows and shook his head slowly. “We don’t have anyone in vehicle surveillance.”

“Oh, come on,” I said.

“No, really,” he answered. “I won’t disclose the location of our surveillance team, but we don’t have anyone in a car.”

I looked at Joe. “That means they rented a house,” I said. “These Russians are more important than we thought.”

“What’s this car you were talking about?” Swanders asked. “Someone else was watching the house?”

“And talking to the neighbors,” I said. “Flashing a badge and saying he was a cop. Called himself Detective Davis.”

“You kidding me?” Swanders sat up, not happy about this at all. “Some asshole is talking to those neighbors and pretending he’s one of us? Who the hell is he?”

I shrugged. “If he’s not FBI, and he’s not a cop, it would probably be worth finding out.”

“Did you get a good look at the car?” Cody asked.

Joe nodded. “I’ve got the plate number and some photographs. I assume your surveillance team will have him, too.”

“I’ll ask about it,” Cody said. “Mind if I use your phone?”

Joe slid it across the desk to him, and Cody called someone and asked about the green car. He nodded grimly and hung up.

“They saw it,” he said, “but they said it’s gone now. They’ve got the plate number, and I told them to run a check on it. Apparently he was on the street for about an hour and then left. Never got out of the car.” He chewed on his lip and stared at the phone. “I don’t like this.”

We didn’t speak for a few seconds, and then he shook his head and grunted, tearing his thoughts away from the phony cop and bringing them back to us.

“Now, would you tell us what happened between you and Rakic and Krashakov today, Mr. Perry?”

I told them. When I finished the story, Cody looked at Swanders, a question in his eyes, like maybe he thought—or hoped—I might be making it up just to mess with him. Swanders shook his head and sighed.

“You pretended to be going door to door for charity?” Cody said.

“You took twenty dollars from them?” Swanders said.

“For AIDS research?” Kraus said.

“Yes,” I said.

“I suppose,” Cody said eventually, “it could be much worse.” It was the type of statement you might hear from a man who’d just been told his cancer was fatal only in ninety percent of its occurrences. “I’m not happy with that interaction, but it could have been worse.”

“It could have been avoided easily enough,” I said. “If Swanders and Kraus had been straight with us in the beginning, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

“Hey,” Kraus said, “the FBI’s been calling the shots here. They told us to blow you off, so we blew you off. Nothing personal.”

“It’s nothing personal,” Cody agreed. “But we needed this to be quiet. And now that you’re involved, we can’t allow you to jeopardize this investigation.”

“So you plan to order us off the case?” Joe asked.

Cody frowned. “I’m not ordering you off the case. I’m just asking you to avoid engaging these men. We want them to be relaxed. The more relaxed they are, the more likely they are to make a mistake. And then we’ve got them.”

“Not to be a wet blanket,” Joe said, “but it doesn’t sound like you’ve got shit.”

The frown remained on Cody’s face. “We don’t have much,” he said, “but we plan to change that. For now, we’re concerned with Wayne Weston. Our investigators haven’t been able to find any sign that the man was a legitimate private investigator. He was licensed with the state, of course, but there’s no indication he ever accepted clients. We’ve found numerous stories of clients who went to other agencies in town after being turned down by Weston.”

“You’ve got no idea who he was working for?” Joe asked.

“None. Do you?”

Joe’s eyes flitted in my direction briefly, and then he nodded. “Jeremiah Hubbard.”

“Jeremiah Hubbard?” Cody echoed in astonishment.

Joe explained what we knew, including the details of our visit with Hubbard, as well as the checks from various Hubbard-owned companies that Weston had cashed. Cody listened thoughtfully, and I could tell the idea that Hubbard was somehow connected to the Russians wasn’t a pleasing one to him.

“We’ve got hundreds of names of people believed to be Belov associates,” he said when Joe was through. “Hubbard has never come up, nor any of his people.”

“If he’s associated with Belov, he’d definitely want to keep it under the radar,” Joe said. “Hubbard’s about as big a man as there is in this town.”

“No kidding,” Cody said. “He’s the legitimate version of Dainius Belov.”

We all sat in silence then, as the wind whipped around the building, making the old windowpanes rattle. Another cold front was sweeping in, driving out the small touch of spring that had settled during the day.

“How long have you had surveillance on Rakic and Krashakov?” I asked.

“Several months.”

“The night Weston was killed?” I said, letting the rest of the question hang unspoken.

Cody shook his head. “They were home,” he said. “That doesn’t mean they didn’t authorize the hit. It just means they didn’t carry it out personally.”

“What do you think happened to Weston’s wife and daughter?” I asked.

Cody leaned forward, braced his forearms on his knees, and looked at the floor. “Several years ago,” he said, “when the FBI was trying to bring down John Gotti in New York, their wiretap picked up a conversation in which one of Gotti’s thugs was threatening an associate. He also warned this man about crossing the Russian mob, which was apparently involved somehow. He said, ‘We Italians will kill you, but the Russians are crazy—they’ll kill your whole family.’ ” He kept his eyes on the floor.

“So you think they’re dead,” Joe said.

“Yes,” Cody said. “I think they’re dead.”