Beyond Suspicion

“You were in charge of the hits, Yuri. Not me.”

A kick to the left kidney sent Vladimir to his knees. “You keep pushing it on me, don’t you? Jessie Merrill was the job of an amateur. You think I’m an amateur?” he said, giving him another kick.

Vladimir doubled over in the spotlight, his face twisted with pain. “No.”

“No, what?”

“No, you’re not an amateur.”

“That’s right. You’re the only amateur in this bunch, Vladimir. Piece of dirt from the Kamikaze Club.”

“I didn’t do Jessie Merrill.”

Yuri walked beyond the glow of the spotlight, faced Vladimir head-on, and then kicked him once more, this time in the groin. Vladimir cried out and fell face-down.

Yuri said, “You’re not thinking the way Brighton Beach thinks. If you didn’t hit Jessie Merrill, that means I did.”

Vladimir struggled for his breath. “That’s not… what I’m saying.”

“But that’s what they’re saying, asshole. If I don’t get the truth out of you, they pin it on me. Isn’t that right, Leonid?”

“That’s my orders,” Leonid said flatly. “If I don’t hear a confession out of Vladimir’s own mouth, both him and Yuri is in the shithouse.”

Vladimir tried to get up, but made it only to one knee. A trickle of blood oozed from the corner of his mouth. “I don’t confess to things I don’t do.”

Yuri grabbed him by the throat and pulled him up, eye-to-eye. “It was a perfect plan. AIDS patients die every day. All we had to do was find the right virus, and we were clear to call home as many viatical settlements as we wanted, no one the wiser. But Jessie Merrill was a healthy broad. You kill her and it’s all over the newspapers that she had a viatical settlement.”

“I totally agree with you. I would have to be an idiot to kill her.”

“A fucking idiot, Vladimir. Because only a fucking idiot would be stupid enough to kill her and then make it look like suicide. The insurance company doesn’t pay if she killed herself!”

“I know that. I swear, it wasn’t me.”

Yuri pressed the gun to the bottom of his chin, aiming straight for the brain.

“It wasn’t you or me!” said Vladimir. “If we did it, it would have looked like an accident for sure.”

“You’re lying!”

“No, I swear. When we found out she scammed us, all I did was scare her. I didn’t kill her.”

“Then who did?”

“I think it’s them,” Vladimir said, his voice cracking. “Brighton Beach hit her, and now they’re blaming us just as an excuse to get out of their deal.”

Leonid stepped forward, his eyes bulging as if he were about to explode. “You see what I’m saying, Yuri? It’s the same attitude I got at his club. The man’s rude.”

“I’ll handle this.” Yuri got right in his face and said, “So, you think Leonid is stupid enough to make Jessie’s death look like suicide?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“I definitely heard you say that. You hear him say that, Leonid?”

“That’s the way I heard it. Fucking rude, I tell you.”

“If they’re so stupid, maybe I should show these boys in Brighton Beach what an accident looks like? What do you think of that, Vladimir?”

Vladimir blinked rapidly, as if on the verge of tears. “Yuri, please. I got kids.”

Yuri pushed him to his knees, then stepped away from the spotlight and into the darkness. He grabbed a two-foot pipe from the corner, then returned to Vladimir, tapping the pipe against his palm to the rhythm of each footfall.

Vladimir lowered his head.

Yuri stepped past him. Then he whirled on one foot, swung his arm back toward Vladimir, and slammed the pipe across the bridge of his nose. Vladimir screamed and fell over backward, blood gushing from his smashed nostrils.

“Ouch,” said Yuri, mocking him. “Did you see how hard that poor slob’s face hit the steering wheel?”

“Must have been going at least thirty miles an hour,” said Leonid.

Yuri stepped closer, took a good look at Vladimir’s bloodied face. In a blur of a motion he unloaded another hit, this time to Vladimir’s jaw. It was a quick one-two, the deep thud of pipe followed by the crisp cracking of bone.

“Looks more like fifty miles an hour to me,” said Yuri. Then he looked around the room, the wheels turning in his head. “You know, he wasn’t wearing his seat belt, either. Who’s got a fucking tire iron?”

“That’s enough,” said Leonid. “I want him to taste that river water.”

“Fine by me,” said Yuri.

Leonid gave a quick nod, and on command the two thugs lifted Vladimir from the floor. He was unconscious and bleeding on them, but they didn’t seem to mind the occupational hazard. They dragged him across the room to a room-service cart. Vladimir folded in half quite easily, but he was still too big to fit inside the lower food-warming compartment. Yuri walked over with the pipe, wedged it against the cart for leverage, and jerked Vladimir’s left shoulder in such a way that his left elbow could touch his right ear.

“Perfect,” said Yuri as he closed up the cart with Vladimir inside.

Leonid opened the door, and his men started out with the cart.

“Hey, idiots,” said Yuri. “Jackets, please.”

They stopped and saw that Vladimir’s blood was on their sleeves. They slipped them off and stuffed them into the cart with the body.

“Much better,” said Yuri.

They wheeled the cart into the hallway. The door closed, and Vladimir was gone.

Yuri tossed the bloody pipe in the corner. “We square now?”

“I never did hear Vladimir’s confession,” said Leonid.

“I just bashed my partner’s face in, and Brighton Beach still wants to hold Jessie Merrill against me?”

“Don’t worry. We’re fine on that score. I was just thinking that you worked him over pretty good, and he still didn’t admit it. He swears all he did is scare her.”

“So?”

“So, maybe he didn’t hit Jessie Merrill.”

“Which means what? Our viatical business is still on?”

“Sorry, Yuri. Too much heat around that. It’s over.”

“Damn it. Now whose fault is that?”

“Not mine, not yours. Could be nobody’s fault.”

“It’s always somebody’s fault. Someone needs to take the blame.”

Leonid shrugged. “You want to blame someone, blame whoever it was who killed Jessie Merrill.”

Yuri smiled thinly, as if it were a revelation. “You’re right. That’s exactly who’s to blame.”

“I’m always right. Come on. I’ll buy you a drink.”

They started toward the door, then Yuri said, “Hey, if you think Vladimir wasn’t behind the Merrill hit after all, you want to call back your men?”

He thought for a second. “Nah. I still say he’s rude.”

“King of the Kamikaze Club. No fucking class.”

They shared a little laugh, then Leonid held the door open as Yuri went back and switched off the spotlight.

55

•

Cindy hadn’t intended an ambush, but it was begi

“Ms. Pierce is with a client,” said the receptionist.

“I’ll wait,” said Cindy.

“It could be a while.”

“No hurry.” Cindy took a seat in the lobby beside the big spider plant. It had long, beautiful leaves that seemed a little too perfect in shape and color. Real, she wondered, or a convincing fake? An amusing thought. From what Jack had told her about Clara, the question could have applied to more than just the potted plants.

She flipped through the entire stack of old magazines before the receptionist finally called and led her down the hall, past the main conference room. Cindy caught a glimpse of a monstrous white-stone table that wasn’t at all her taste. It had a nice centerpiece of dried flowers, however.