Downfall (5 page)

I
HAVE KILLED BEFORE NOW.

I have killed to save my son, to save myself.

But I have never killed before in public. With witnesses.

It changes everything.

I’d just gotten my life back to seminormal, and now I might lose it all again.

I sat in the still quiet of the police interview room. The video camera lens watched me. This is what happens when you show yourself as not fitting inside the borders of everyday life, such as taking out two armed assailants.

My jaw felt bruised; my shoulder and my ribs hurt from the hits I’d taken. The paramedics had checked me out outside The Select, pronounced me battered but okay.

I thought of what would happen if the police started looking too hard at me. The CIA Special Projects division, my former employer, would not be happy if the police started excavating my history. And as for my current employers? Mila would be gritting her teeth at the thought of a death inside one of the bars and me answering a police interrogation.

I waited for the cops to come talk to me some more. I’d told the patrol cops who’d arrived first exactly what happened. I only left out…a couple of details. Minor, really, but I had my reasons.

Maybe this had nothing to do with my past. Fine. It would be the police’s problem.

But people like the dead Russian? They have friends. They don’t like their own getting knifed in a bar. I needed to know the why of what had happened, the who of what had happened. I needed to know what brought the woman to The Select, to me.

So I could protect myself and protect Daniel from whatever came our way.

I was probably going to be the lead story on the San Francisco news, the plucky bar owner who foiled a robbery/crime/whatever it was.

The media loves stories like this. I did not love stories like this. Not at all.

My lovely, quiet new life, all at risk now for a woman I didn’t even know. I nearly laughed at the thought,
Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine
. That line from my favorite movie worked, even when you had never seen the woman before.

Note how I try not to think too much about having killed a man tonight? I could still feel the shudder of the blade parting his flesh as he fell wrong onto it. It made a weird little ripple against the steel, and I could remember how it felt.

The door to the questioning room opened, the detective holding it open, speaking softly to someone in the corridor. I could hear her voice, but I couldn’t see her until she stepped into the room.

“Mr. Capra. I’m Anitra DeSoto.”

I remembered DeSoto was a conqueror’s name; it fit her. She was fierce and resolved—tall, strong, like she might slip into Joan of Arc’s armor with more ease than a cocktail dress. High cheekbones, olive skin, narrow lips that she shaped into a hard, practiced frown on her face, one that she must have sported so long and consistently that lines marred an otherwise striking face.

“Hello,” I said.

Detective DeSoto sat across from me.

“Can I go now?” I asked. No point in answering questions if I didn’t have to.

“I just want to clarify a couple of things on your statement you gave at the scene. But you’re not under arrest, if that’s what you mean.”

“There is nothing to clarify. I own a bar. These men came into that bar and threatened a woman. They tried to grab her; they said they were taking her with them. She clearly did not want to go with them. They threatened me and the woman with a knife.”

“From the beginning, please, again, everything.”

I glanced at the camera. I told the story. I only left out the details that might give the police answers before I got them.

She didn’t interrupt or ask questions during my statement. “None of that is questioned. Witnesses support your account.” DeSoto folded her hands with a schoolteacher’s formality. “But.”

“But.”

“You unarmed a man a good four inches taller than you, with fifty pounds of muscle on you, and you killed him with his own knife.”

“Adrenaline,” I said.

“Where did you learn to fight with a knife?”

“Kenya.”

She waited for the rest of the story, but I felt I’d answered the question. She tapped her pen against the worn tabletop and asked, in a tone of false patience, “What were you doing in Kenya?”

“Learning how to fight with knives.”

The thinning line of her mouth told me that perhaps this wasn’t the best approach. I opened my palms in surrender. “My parents worked for a global aid agency and were on the move every few months. I grew up in a lot of exotic spots around the world. A guy in Kenya taught me knife fighting when I was sixteen.” I didn’t add that an instructor in CIA Special Projects gave me pointers, too.

“And that was, what, ten years ago? You’ve stayed in practice.”

“Like riding a bike.”

“That’s very handy.”

“Not until now. It’s not like I do it at children’s parties.”

She tapped out a beat with the edge of her pencil against the table. “You own The Select, true?”

“Yes, I own it. What else? I have had the snot beaten out of me tonight. Are you arresting me?”

She hesitated. “Given you have a number of witnesses who support your story of self-defense, I spoke with the district attorney’s office, and they don’t seem inclined to have you arrested.”

I tried not to sag in relief.

“But…the case could go to the grand jury, and they might make a different decision.”

“May I go home now?”

“Just a couple more questions. You don’t reside here in San Francisco?”

“I own bars all over the world, and I travel, visiting all of them,” I said. “It keeps me moving around fairly steadily. New Orleans is my home base, though.”

“How many bars?”

“Thirty-two at last count.”

She raised an eyebrow and the scowl deepened. “Wow, and you’re what, twenty-six? Entrepreneurial, aren’t you? How lucrative. You’re like a cocktail tycoon.”

“It can be a moneymaker. Unless you have customers being attacked and you stand there and do nothing. Then the customers tend to sit on some other stools at some other tavern.”

“Do you own any bars in Russia?”

“Yes. One in Moscow.” I hadn’t visited it yet. I blinked, wondering why she cared. And then, mental rewind, I saw where this was going.

Uh-oh.

“One of the witnesses in the bar said you spoke Russian to the dead man after he spoke it to you.”

“I speak several languages. As I mentioned, I grew up all over the world.”

“But what a coincidence that you and this attacker both speak Russian.”

“Three hundred million people do, actually.”

“Perhaps in Russia. It’s a rarer skill in America. Did you know him?”

I already knew his name—Grigori Rostov—as I’d searched his pockets and found a driver’s license in his wallet. And his cell phone. I slipped his ID under mine in my wallet and put his phone in my pocket. So when the police officers searched me and found wallet and phone, it didn’t occur to them that there was a second ID wedged in my wallet or that the cell phone in my suit jacket wasn’t my own. You have to think creatively in these situations.

“I don’t know him. I had never seen him or the other man before.”

“What did he say to you in Russian?”

“He called me an idiot. I agreed with him.” I could feel the conversation move in a direction I dreaded. Maybe this wasn’t about a woman in trouble. Maybe a man who owned thirty-two bars around the world had enemies. I could imagine the thought inching across her brain.

She made a note on her pad.

I kept my voice calm. “Let’s review who the actual bad guys are. One pulled a knife, one pulled a gun, in my place of business.”

I knew it was a trump card and it shut her up. She glanced back at her tightly written notes. I didn’t wait for her to ask a question again. I wanted a new normal: just running the bars and taking care of my kid. The bars were the safe houses for Mila’s team, but that didn’t mean I had to play spy anymore. I could just be like Rick Blaine in
Casablanca
(well, how he wanted to be before Ilsa showed up) and run the bar and not get involved in the world’s troubles. The only trouble I wanted came from mixing drinks too strong. So I cut her off.

“My bar, my customers, my responsibility. I suppose it’s a practically medieval idea—my protection offered under my roof.”

“I suppose this woman you don’t know owes you her life.”

And I owe her mine
, I thought, but I kept that thought to myself. I hadn’t mentioned she’d saved my life. I hadn’t yet decided what I was going to do about settling that particular debt. “I suppose.”

“This woman, she’s not a regular?”

“No, apparently not.”

“You wouldn’t know, though, as you’re not here often.”

“No. But ask the staff if they recognized her.”

“We have. No one mentioned having seen her before…She didn’t ask you to call the police.”

“No.”

“She fired a gun, you say? Through her purse?”

“Yes.”

“The other witnesses weren’t quite clear on that.”

“People were panicking, running.”

“So. An African American woman chased by a Russian and a guy you said, I quote, ‘looks like a suburban dad.’”

“That’s about it,” I agreed.

“One of the officers said you were looking at the Russian’s arm as they came in.”

“I was trying to find a pulse.”

Well, yes, but I’d also looked for a tattoo marking him with a nine, with a sunburst in its center. Nine Suns. The people who’d taken my wife, framed me for murder, destroyed my CIA career, stolen my baby—all because I had gotten too close to their criminal operations. I’d gotten my son back and I’d exacted a heavy price against Nine Suns. We’d all retreated to our respective corners. Their people wore a small tattoo as a marker. I hadn’t seen one on the dead man’s arms.

Anitra DeSoto drummed a pencil against the tabletop. She didn’t like me. She didn’t like my answers. “How much longer are you staying in town?”

“I don’t know. If we’re done—”

“Mr. Capra.”

If she asked me one more question, I was going to stop this and phone a lawyer. I was tired and sore and aching and wanted to go curl up in a bed. The bar was a wreck. And I needed to find out exactly who this Russian was and why he’d come into my bar.

Before someone else came looking to avenge him.

“Usually when someone kills another person, they are real broken up about it.”

I let five, then ten seconds pass. “Who says I’m not?”

“You don’t seem upset.”

I leaned forward. “These guys tried to kill me. I defended myself and my customers. I am not at all happy that it ended the way that it did, and when I’m alone, I’ll have a reaction, which I will keep private.” I stood. “But if you want to see me emotional, I’ll be back in the morning with tears in my eyes and a cup held by my attorney to catch them.”

She doodled on her notepad. Arrows circling back on themselves. She was trying to connect me as more than an innocent bystander because of me speaking Russian. I was supposed to be just a guy who owned some bars. I had better start acting like it right now.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t like the suggestion that I did something wrong.”

“If we find there’s any connection between you and these men, I will not appreciate your lack of honesty.” Now she leaned forward. “I’m not convinced, Mr. Capra, that you are entirely an innocent bystander.”

“Is this one of those ‘last chance’ moments?”

“Interpret how you like.”

“Then it’s a wasted chance. I did not know them.”

“Or her.”

“Or her.”

“You’re free to go, Mr. Capra. But don’t leave San Francisco in a hurry.”

If she wasn’t arresting me, it was an idle request. I went to the door. “Come by and have a drink some time, on the house. Good night, Detective.”

I walked out into the night. The police car had brought me to the Hall of Justice on Bryant Street, where the SFPD homicide detail worked. I saw some people from the bar on the corner, awaiting a ride back to their cars. All the witnesses had been brought here to give statements.

“Hey!” one of the guys said, recognizing me. “Bar guy! Man, you were amazing!”

“Oh,” I said. Saying thanks sounded wrong. Him being excited about what he’d seen sounded wrong, too. A man was dead. One of the women nudged him, and he shut up, as though realization had settled into his bones.

“Do you need a ride back?” one of the women asked. “They’re bringing around cars to take us back to the Haight.”

“Thanks.” I stood off a bit from them. I didn’t want to discuss the case. Three police cars came around and we all piled in, three at a time into the backseats, and they drove us back to The Select.

“They’re not filing charges against you, are they?” the young woman asked me. She’d ended up sitting next to me, with the excited guy on the opposite side.

“Not yet,” I said. “I don’t think I’m supposed to discuss it.” I nodded toward the officer who was kindly giving us a ride back.

That resulted in silence, and I looked out the window as we headed back to the bar. I used the time to think.

My kid. Leonie. They should have been on a plane by the time the attack occurred. Mila would be sure they were fine. But I hadn’t heard from Mila.

This violence had to be random. It
had
to be. But there’d been a poisoning attempt on a Round Table member, and now this…

The police detail was still working the bar. In the back an investigator was digging through the recycling bins. He’d probably find the bloodied plank soon enough. I walked around to the front of The Select, the crime scene tape decorating the door. It would be a few more hours before I could go back into the bar, one of the investigators told me. I could see they had cut out part of the mirror where a bullet had gone. A tech was taking photos of the bar and of the dead Russian from several different angles. The dead man’s hands had been bagged. Had I caused a defensive wound on his hands? I couldn’t remember.

“I have an apartment above the bar,” I told the officer. “It has a separate entrance in the back. Is it all right if I go up there?”