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Be
“Now, I’m sure you understand this only covers Saturday night,” the kid said.
“What?”
“The information specific to Saturday night,” he clarified. “There’s the other thing we haven’t discussed.”
“What other thing?”
The kid made the pained face again. “I hate to bring it up. I really do. But in light of recent events-”
Be
The hands went up again. “Last April. End of the season. During the big Super Bowl or whatever you call it in polo.”
“The U.S. Open? What about it?”
“There was a night at Players… a girl… in your car…” the kid prompted. “She wasn’t very happy…”
Everything went cold inside Be
“She was crying,” the kid reminded him. “You told me I didn’t see anything.”
He had paid the girl ten grand to shut up. She had been all over him in the club. No one would have believed her-without a witness to back her up.
Fu
The kid’s head cracked like an egg. Blood and brain matter splattered, but not as much as Be
Be
As simple as that.
He popped the trunk on the kid’s car, put the body inside with half a dozen mostly empty boxes from Sal’s and numerous crumpled Krispy Kreme bags. From the duffel bag he took a couple of small bags of cocaine and planted them among the rest of the trash, making certain to get a little drug residue on the kid’s fingers.
He closed the trunk. When the car and eventually the body were discovered, no one would find it hard to believe the kid had been on the wrong end of a drug deal gone bad. Everyone knew he supplied Players’ customers with recreational substances. Jeff Cherry would be considered just another fatality in the war on drugs.
Damage control.
“A pity it will not go so easily for you.”
He startled at the sound of the voice and spun around.
A square, neat man in a brown suit stood pointing a gun at him.
“You are wondering who I am,” the man said.
His accent was Russian. That realization sent chills through Be
“I am Alexi Kulak,” the man said. “I loved Irina Markova. You killed her. And I have come to kill you.”
As simple as that.
Chapter 55
“The boots aren’t here,” Weiss said. “Either he got rid of them or he’s wearing them right now.”
They stood in front of the house, taking a break, allegedly clearing their heads. Landry wanted a cigarette; the adrenaline was ru
“You’re not going to find anything, because there’s nothing to find,” Edward Estes a
“We know the girl was here Saturday night,” Landry said.
“You’re not going to find evidence of a murder here,” Estes said.
“Yeah, that’s the smart thing about choking the life out of someone,” Weiss said. “No smoking gun. No spent casings. No bloody lives.”
“You allegedly have the testimony of one man that the girl was ever here,” Estes said. “Has it occurred to you to wonder if that individual might have his own reasons for implicating my client in this? His own guilt, for instance.”
“Why would he bother?” Landry said.
“You might want to ask Scotland Yard that question.”
He’d done his homework, Landry thought-or someone had done it for him. Estes knew about Barbaro’s co
Maybe this was how he got his kicks, Landry thought: kill a girl, pin it on a friend, watch the fireworks. His friends were all wealthy, influential men. Wealthy, influential men didn’t go to prison for crimes they didn’t commit. It seemed they hardly ever went for crimes they did commit.
“You have not one shred of physical evidence the girl was here, in this house, on the night in question.”
Landry said nothing. Even if they came up with trace evidence- hair, bodily fluids, whatever-they wouldn’t be able to say it had been left the night of the murder. Estes would parade a bunch of hired guns into the courtroom-if they ever got the case to trial- and pound reasonable doubt into the minds of the jury.
They needed something irrefutable. Something that couldn’t have been in Be
He thought about Irina’s things they had picked up that day along the canal: a small, cylindrical handbag, gold encrusted with rhinestones. Inside the bag: a cherry-red lip gloss, a compact, an American Express gold card, three twenties, two condoms. No cell phone.
Estes was droning on. The usual defense-attorney crap about how his client was going to sue the sheriff’s office for harassment and how they would all live to regret fucking around with him and his big ego.
Landry pulled his phone out of his pocket and called Elena. She answered on the first ring.
“Elena. It’s Landry,” he said. “Your father is one colossal asshole.”
Edward Estes shut his mouth for the first time in hours and stared at Landry, suspicious.
“Tell me something I don’t know,” Elena said. “Has he threatened to ruin your career yet?”
“A couple of times. Weiss thinks we should take up professional poker.”
“Money for nothing.”
“Listen, what’s Irina’s cell phone number?” She gave it to him. He thanked her and ended the call. “Hell of a girl you raised there, Mr. Estes,” Landry said. Though I have a feeling she is who she is in spite of you, not because of you.“
He turned and went back in the house, dialing the number Elena had given him. Weiss followed.
“It’s a long shot,” Weiss told him. “What are the odds that the battery still has juice?”
“Fuck the odds.”
“I’m just saying.”
Be
As he walked through the house, Landry saw those souvenirs all around: photographs of Walker playing polo, racing boats, downhill skiing. Ta
The phone on the other end of Landry’s call rang and went to voice mail. He dialed again. The same thing.
He went into the master bedroom-a stark, modern space at odds with the traditional European style of the house. The bed was dressed in crimson silk on white cotton sheets, but it looked as if it hadn’t been properly made in days. Clothes were strewn over chairs and dropped on the floor. There were dirty drinking glasses on the nightstand, and the place stank of sweat and stale sex.