House of Secrets - v4 (24 page)

Andy took a sip of his drink and closed his eyes for a moment.

It was during the second pass through the photographs that the raw muscle of Andy’s heart turned to light steel, crumpling like a flimsy can.

I
rena Bulakov knotted the white cotton scarf at her chin as she made her way down Neptune Avenue. There was only a slight mist in the air, not even actual rain. An urgent tune had lodged itself in her head as she’d left the hotel, and she was helpless against it. Her feet moved in time with the tune, somewhat faster than she would have normally walked. The storefronts passed in flashes.

She was scared.

Irena crossed the street at Thirty-third. The ocean was now behind her, the setting sun a dead gold coin in the colorless sky. A bell over the door of the Treasure Café jangled as she entered. Irena clawed the sunglasses off her face.

Leonard Bulakov was already there. He was seated as far from the window as possible, and Irena gasped when she saw him. She might not even have recognized him, except for a particular quality in his bearing. Irena had always felt that her brother-in-law was an elegant man; Leonard was naturally soft-spoken, the very opposite of his brother, and, also unlike Dimitri, he was thoroughly gentle.

The bandaged creature slowly rising up from the chair radiated the same gentle purposefulness of Leonard. And so, Irena concluded, it must be him.

She made her way over to him, then broke into tears.

“Leonard.”

One half of his face was swollen, and his left eye was hidden behind a purple balloon. The white bandage over his nose and spreading out over his eyebrows looked to Irena like a crude crucifix. Most troubling to Irena, though, was her brother-in-law’s one good eye: It held such a sadness. It had witnessed the unspeakable evil of what had been done to him, and what Irena saw in that single unhappy eye pierced her own heart directly. She felt her own faith in the power of goodness evaporating.
Surely
, she thought,
it has already evaporated for Leonard
.

Leonard lifted a hand that was wrapped in a mound of gauze, and he gestured for Irena to have a seat. He waited until she had landed in her chair before retaking his. He gave her his best effort at a smile.

“I am not recognizing this beautiful Hollywood star,” he said softly. “Is my brother now married to a sexy symbol?”

Irena’s tears flowed even harder. Leonard reached across the table with his good hand, and she took it, squeezing it as hard as she could.

“You cry,” Leonard said. “Is okay. Out comes the poisons. You feel better.”

Irena brought the tears under control and withdrew her hand to dab at them with her napkin. Leonard had already ordered a pot of tea, and he poured Irena a cup. Irena untied her scarf and pulled it from her head.

“How can Dimitri do this to you?” she said.

“Aleksey Titov did this to me.”

“You know what I am saying. This is the result of Dimitri.”

“My brother does not know we are meeting,” Leonard said. “Is this still correct?” He lifted his teacup to his lips. The mere process of taking a sip was terrible to witness.

Irena said, “Dimitri would kill me if he knew I called you. But I had to, Leonard. He is more and more crazy. I do not know what to do. I tell you, Dimitri is talking as a madman. He says he can crush Aleksey Titov. Dimitri? But look at what Titov has done to you. And you are much smarter than Dimitri.”

Leonard managed a small laugh. “The brain is not always the best muscle to defend the body, Irena. Now listen, you must tell me. What is it exactly that my brother is doing?”

“He will not tell me. He says I am safer not to know. It is something on his computer. I know this. Dimitri is obsessed. He has the little stick he is attaching to it? It goes into the back of the computer. He will hold up this blue stick and say to me, ‘This is our future. There is more money in here than you or I have ever seen.’ He is scaring me.”

Leonard was frowning. “This stick. This is the driver for holding files outside the computer?”

“Yes, I think so. I don’t know. I am not the computer person.”

“What is Dimitri doing right now, Irena? How did you know you could meet me tonight?”

“Dimitri tells me yesterday I must be out of the room tonight at seven o’clock. He does not say why, only that it is important and that I cannot be there. I told him I was going to see a movie.”

Leonard smiled again. “You are seeing a monster movie, Irena. Is that not so?”

Irena missed her brother-in-law’s joke. “I am so worried, Leonard. Dimitri is going to die. It is something I cannot stop feeling. Especially now. Now that I see you.” She took a sip of her tea, then set her teacup down. It rattled gently as it settled into the saucer.

“It is true,” she said, nearly whispering. “He is dead.”

D
imitri hung up the disposable cell phone and cracked open a beer. He was proud of himself. Even Aleksey Titov himself could not have been a better businessman, Dimitri thought.

Dimitri had decided. Five hundred thousand dollars now as the first payment. Serious money, to show that he was a serious man. This was what he had just told Mr. Coward. The senator. Dimitri would give seventy-five thousand of this money to Titov. Who would not be happy and impressed with seventy-five thousand dollars? After this first payment, Dimitri was demanding five thousand dollars a month for him to keep his video file private. Dimitri thought that this lifetime income was a fair amount to ask. This man in the video could afford it. His wife, everyone knew, came from a wealthy family. And Senator Coward could not afford not to pay to keep this video unseen by the world.

Dimitri paced back and forth in the hotel room as he drank his beer. This was Tuesday. He would have his money on Monday, less than a week. This was the result of his discussion on the phone. Even a rich person needs some time to pull together such cash so that nobody notices. Dimitri was not an idiot. He had spoken to the man as a business partner. He had been very polite with him, very professional. He almost wished he had not sent Irena away, so that she could have heard what a polite and smart businessman her husband could be.

Dimitri was looking forward to escaping this hotel room. He was looking forward to giving Aleksey Titov so much money that everything between them would be equal and respectful from now on. He was looking forward to buying Irena a big house and buying her driving lessons and then buying her a red Cadillac.

Good. To. Go.

W
hat Dimitri Bulakov was not looking forward to was being killed. But this was the intention of Anton Gregor, who slid off the bus-stop bench across the street as Irena Bulakov exited the café and began making her way back to the hotel. Irena again knotted the white scarf over her head as she walked, which meant it was all that much easier for the man to follow her through the ashy night.

Who knows
, Gregor said to himself as he fell in behind Irena. If it turned out that he had to kill them both — Mr. Titov had told him this might be the case — maybe he could have a little fun with Mrs. Bulakov before running his brand-new knife across her throat.

Just a thought.

N
othing good was going to come from getting drunk. But then again, nothing about Andy’s current situation was going to look any better through sober eyes. So why not?

The Mad Russian had spoken: half a million dollars up front, then five thousand a month from now until the sun turned cold. By the Russian’s terms, this hell was to be with Andy until the end of his days. There was something almost comical about it. Me and my Russian, till death do us part. Andy imagined their meeting up once a month, year in and year out. Old comrades.

How’re the wife and kids, Vladimir? Did little Sacha do all right on her geometry test? What about Mikail? Has he made you a grandfather yet?

The Russian wanted the five hundred thousand by Monday. He’d originally said Sunday but Andy had convinced him that he would need more time than that. It had not been too difficult to convince him. The entire negotiation had felt absurd. Surreal. Andy had been tempted to drop the name Aleksey Titov into the conversation — the name he’d picked up from the Mad Russian’s open cell phone — but had decided against it. The name Titov was not wholly unfamiliar to Andy. It had rung a faint bell when he’d heard the Russian throwing it around over and over again on the answering machine. A few minutes online and Andy had been able to refresh his memory. There were scores of people out there with the name Aleksey Titov, but he was fairly certain that the Aleksey Titov who popped up at the top of his search was the one he had somehow fallen in with. This Titov had been in the news over the past winter in connection with federal probes into Russian money laundering, and various green card and Social Security card forgery schemes. Andy had no idea how, or for that matter
why
, this Aleksey Titov would in any way have been involved in the shakedown that the Mad Russian was orchestrating. He couldn’t piece together a logic there. Andy had no direct role in any of the Senate investigatory bodies that might have been looking into Titov’s business matters. Organized crime was not his arena. None of this was making any sense.

By eight fifteen Andy had murdered nearly a third of the bottle. He had also exhausted all the people even remotely qualified to share the blame for his dilemma. The only person who even came close to truly sharing the responsibility would have been Joy Resnick, but Andy knew perfectly well how pathetic it would be to foist blame onto the dead woman. And how perfectly pointless. Andy finally stopped his childish finger-pointing (President Hyland, Chris Wyeth, Jim Fergus, Rita Flores, Whitney Hoyt…) the moment it veered absurdly in the direction of Christine. Of all his imagined targets, that was the worst. Andy was disgusted with himself that he would even entertain the notion of blaming his infidelity — let alone its nightmarish fallout — on his wife. Especially because he knew what the real culprit was: his own hubris. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to come up with that one. The fault lay in his own vanity.

Sometime after nine a call came in. It wasn’t from Christine, thank God. It was Linda. She was calling from the hospital to tell the senator that Lindsay’s surgery had gone well.

Andy’s tongue was barely functioning. “Good.”

“We’ve issued a statement. Your prayers are with Lindsay and her family. Lindsay has been a dedicated worker and extremely helpful in the day-to-day operation of the office, blah blah blah.”

“Good,” Andy said again. His gaze fell on the photograph of him straddling Joy Resnick on the large white bed. He spoke robotically. “Did the statement say I spoke with the family? Shouldn’t I do that?”

“That’s up to you, Senator. I think it’s a good idea. They’re here now, if you’d like me to put them on.”

No!

“Sure,” he said. “Put them on.”

The conversation with the mother went by in a blur. Andy got up and stood at the living-room window, looking out at the passing traffic as Lindsay’s mother wept over the phone. She was followed by her husband, who had some harsh things to say about the entire intern program, politicians in general, and Washington, D.C., in particular. Apparently there would be “hell to pay” if his daughter came away from all this unable to walk perfectly.

“I have a daughter, too,” Andy heard himself saying. “I know how you feel. If someone hurt her…” The thought went unfinished. Andy had no idea what he would actually do if Michelle was ever seriously harmed or injured. “We’ll do everything we can for Lindsay. Anything you need. You tell that to Linda. Tell her I said so. I’m terribly sorry, Mr….”

Jesus. He still didn’t know his intern’s last name.

The man on the other end of the phone let out a sound of disgust. “It’s Packard, Senator. I’m Tom Packard. My wife is Ruth. The little girl who has been volunteering her time for you is Lindsay Packard. You might want to write that down somewhere.”