Rasputin's Shadow

  The hostess studied him for a second, then motioned to a waitress to cover the floor before she disappeared through the swing doors into the kitchen.

  Sokolov watched her go, then turned around and sat himself down at an empty table in the back of the room. The table was still covered in half-eaten dishes, sauce-smeared plates, and empty Hite bottles. Without looking at the hostess, Sokolov removed his coat and hung it on the back of his chair, then grabbed a menu from a nearby table and started to read it.

  He gazed around the large, crowded space.

  He’d missed them when he’d entered because they were sitting in a booth, but the two young guys wearing leather jackets and vests over Uniqlo T-shirts had the unmistakable look of Kkangpae. One of them had the butt of a gun not-too-discreetly poking out from under his vest. Sokolov looked away in time to see the hostess coming back through the swing doors. She beckoned for him to follow her. He grabbed his coat and followed the woman to the back of the restaurant and noticed that the two guys were following him with their eyes.

  She led him through the swinging doors and into the kitchen, which was deafening and bursting with frenetic staff. The hostess cut straight through the center of it all without slowing, with everyone in there moving out of her way like a parting sea. Sokolov had a tougher time, narrowly avoiding a waiter carrying two huge plates of ribs but still managing to knock a pile of empty food containers from the edge of a counter. He left the kitchen to the sound of loud swearing in Korean.

  The hostess entered a tight hallway with only two exits: one a set of fire doors, the other a narrow staircase leading up to the next floor. Without looking back at him, she continued up the stairs. Sokolov followed, already struggling for breath after the first flight. When he reached the very top—three floors above the restaurant—the hostess was waiting for him by a metal door. She watched him, blank-faced, as he joined her, then she turned and knocked at the door. Seconds later, it swung open. A cloud of smoke hit Sokolov. A Korean man, young, with green streaks in his hair, a lit cigarette in his hand, and intense eyes fixed on Sokolov, stood aside to let them in.

  Sokolov followed the hostess in.

  Yaung John-Hee lazed on a battered leather sofa inside the dimly lit, smoke-filled room, his cowboy-booted feet up on a glass coffee table, on which sat a wrap of what Sokolov knew had to be cocaine, a razor blade, a recently licked mirror, a handgun, several cell phones, and an open silver MacBook. Jonny looked just as Sokolov remembered him: the thick black hair, long, with wild shards of it cutting across his indifferent, cool eyes. Thin, too, but Sokolov knew it was all really coiled, tight muscle, waiting to lash out if and when called upon. He was dressed in a black bomber jacket that had a big Armani logo on it, over washed-out black jeans.

  Opposite the sofa stood its equally worn-out twin. Green Streaks crossed back and took up his own slouch on it. A large plasma screen hogged the side wall, with an Xbox and an array of games and controllers strewn on the floor in front of it.

  The hostess and the boys exchanged a few short words, then the hostess left the room, barely glancing at Sokolov before shutting the door behind her and leaving Sokolov with nothing but words.

  Still standing, Sokolov pointed at the gun. “I assume that one is yours.” The smoke was bothering him, but he did his best not to show it.

  “In the sense that I’m using it for now, yeah.” Jonny gestured for Sokolov to sit opposite him.

  Sokolov sat down, next to Green Streaks, careful to avoid knocking the low table. “Not in my direction, I hope.”

  “We’ll see.” He took a long toke, then brushed the smallest trace of white powder from a lapel of his jacket. He blew the smoke out of his nostrils slowly, looked at Sokolov dead straight, and said, low and matter-of-factly, “We never go up against the Russians.”

  Sokolov nodded, a pained half-smile breaking through his lined eyes. Jonny was as savvy as he remembered. He motioned at the TV. “You saw the news?”

  Jonny nodded. “Looks bad, Mr. Soko. Me, I’d say you pushed that Russkie out your window. But then again, what do I know.” He gave him a knowing smile, then his smugness faded and his expression shifted to betray a hint of unease. “So what’s that you were saying down there? Did you really see Kim-Jee give me something?”

  Sokolov held his gaze. “Of course not. But he did. We both know it.”

  “No,” Jonny hissed as he sat forward, crushing his cigarette butt into an overflowing ashtray. “I killed them. All Kim-Jee did was make our aunt give me that alibi. All ’cause I didn’t throw the gun fast enough. And now look at me, right?” He sounded both proud and full of regret at the same time. “The boss-man is in Miami and we’re running the show.” He swept his arm in a casual arc across the room.

  Sokolov felt as though he were going to pass out from the combination of the smoke and the effort of maintaining his composure. He became conscious of his heart thudding against his rib cage. He closed his eyes, tilted his head slightly back, and took in a couple of shallow breaths.

  Jonny was silent.

  Sokolov opened his eyes. “They took my wife.”

  Jonny looked at his quizzically. “What you say?”

  “Daphne. They took her.”

  Jonny sighed and shook his head from side to side, slowly. “Aww, Mr. Soko. What did you do?”

  Sokolov hated what he was about to say, but he couldn’t think of any way around it. “They’re going to kill her if I don’t pay,” he muttered. “I owe them money. Three hundred thousand.”

  Jonny slapped the table, his hand splayed out flat. “Byung-shin-a. What the hell were you thinking?”

  “I don’t know. Please . . . I need your help. I don’t want her to suffer because of my stupid mistake.”

  “Gaesaekki dul jokka ra kuh hae,” Jonny rasped. “Kidnapping an old woman like that. Fucking animals.” He grabbed the razor and started cutting himself a fresh line. “I’m sick of the hule jasik Russkies. They’re all over the place. Acting like this is downtown Moscow.” He shook his head. “Who has her?”

  “I don’t know exactly. I have a phone number. That’s all.”

  Jonny bent forward and hovered inches from the coke, a dollar bill rolled in one hand. “You don’t got the money, do you?”

  “No, but—”

  “Don’t matter,” he interrupted just before he sent a line up his nose.

  Sokolov watched, perplexed, as Jonny leaned right back, his eyes closed. After a moment, the Korean said, “Tell them you have the money.”

  Sokolov couldn’t hide his shock. “What?”

  “Tell them you have their damn money.” Without looking at Sokolov, Jonny shook his head. “You knew I would help. That’s why you came.”

  “I wasn’t sure.”

  “You can read people fine.” He snorted another line, then wiped his nose and fixed Sokolov with a hard glare.

  “Talk to them. Say you have the money. Set up a meet. We’ll take care of the go-jas and get your wife back.” He studied Sokolov for a moment, then asked, “Where are you staying?”

  “A small hotel. Downtown.”

  “You safe there?”

  Sokolov shrugged.

  “You stay here,” he told his old teacher. “We have room downstairs. You’ll be safe here. My cousin Ae-Cha will take you down and get you what you need.” He motioned to Green Streaks, bobbing his head in the direction of the door.

  Green Streaks got up and unlocked the door. Ae-Cha was still standing there. She stepped in without saying a word. Jonny blurted some orders at her. Ae-Cha nodded quietly, then beckoned for Sokolov to follow.

  Sokolov turned to Jonny. “What about Kim-Jee? Don’t you need to ask him?”

  “Kim-Jee? He’s out. His girlfriend’s expecting twins. Two girls. Living the dream, isn’t that right?” He snorted derisively.

  Sokolov nodded and stepped out, and the door swung shut behind him, drowning out Jonny’s bitter laughter.

  We all choose our own paths, thought Soko
lov.

  Jonny had chosen the power of violence.

  He had tried to choose peace.

  Until now.

  22

  Larisa had suggested we meet at J. G. Melon’s, on Seventy-fourth and Third. The restaurant was close to where she lived. I loved the place, and since she’d already had dinner while neither I nor my demure partner had eaten much all day, we snagged a quick table and ordered a couple of Swiss cheese burgers, skins, and Cokes.

  “You gonna behave?” I asked Aparo.

  He grinned. “Why on earth would you ask that?” He looked pensive for a second, then he subtly raised his arm a bit and leaned his head sideways and took a quick whiff to check himself.

  I made a mental note to see if there was anything I could start slipping him that would throttle back his testosterone a couple of notches.

  We just about managed to get through our burgers by the time she breezed in. I stood up, caught her eye and waved her over. She threaded her way to our table, put her hand out for a businesslike handshake, and directed a warm “Nice to see you again” at me with a look that lingered a second more than was strictly necessary.

  “So what’s going on?” she asked, straight to the point. “You said it was important.”

  “Did you catch the news?”

  She nodded, then her expression changed into one of surprise as she made the connection. “The shootings in Brooklyn?”

  “Yes. Two of the victims were Russians.”

  “Oh my God. Not—”

  “No, not the Sokolovs. Just a couple of hired guns. I don’t have names yet, but we think they’re part of Yuri Mirminsky’s crew. You know who I’m talking about, right?”

  “Of course,” she said, not exactly upbeat about it.

  A waitress dropped by, and Larisa hesitated, then ordered a Bloody Mary. Aparo and I stayed with our Cokes.

  Aparo unlocked his phone, pulled up a photo from its picture gallery, and showed it to her.

  “Do you know this guy?”

  She looked at it, then shook her head. “No. Should I?”

  He made a hold-on-a-sec gesture as he pulled up another one. “Wait, that was the before shot. This one’s more recent.”

  He showed it to her. She flinched—slightly. He’d just shown her two shots of the dead Russian hoodlum: a screen grab from the phone video taken outside Sokolov’s building, the other with a bullet through his forehead.

  Larisa gave Aparo a cold stare. “Are you done?”

  “Hey, I’m just wondering what the connection is between your dead coworker and a known bratki,” Aparo replied.

  “Is there a connection?” she asked coyly. Then she turned to me. “Is this what you asked me here for? Were you hoping to shock me into saying something I shouldn’t and spill all our dirty little secrets?”

  I smiled, took a breath, and leaned in. “We’ve got seven dead bodies, Larisa. Eight, counting Yakovlev. Now, that’s a big deal in this city. It’s not something we take lightly. This is going to get noisy. The papers haven’t even got started with Yakovlev, and the minute they hear two of the dead at the motel were bratki . . .” I gave her a knowing look. “You can imagine the headlines. And the kind of attention you and everyone else at the consulate are going to get hit with.”

  She frowned.

  “It’s not going to be fun,” I pressed. “And given the protests last week about what’s been going on back in Moscow, I’m sure it’s the kind of publicity you’d rather avoid.”

  “So what do you want from me?”

  “This is all about Sokolov.”

  She looked at me quizzically. “Why do you think the two are connected? The shootings and Yakovlev?”

  “Come on,” Aparo said, holding his phone up. “The ‘before’ shot? That was taken outside the Sokolovs’ apartment a few nanoseconds after your buddy took the quick way down.”

  She eyed us thoughtfully, like she was wondering how much to say.

  “What’s Sokolov involved in?” I pressed.

  “I don’t know.”

  Even though I doubted that, I really couldn’t tell for sure whether she was being honest with me. I studied her for a second, then I half smiled. Not a warm kind of smile. A smile that said “I know you have to play this game, and I know you know I know that.”

  “Look, I don’t know what’s going on here, but whatever it is, it all goes back to Sokolov. It started with him. So we can either wait until this all spins out of control and you’re running around doing damage limitation and rebutting every blogger and nutty conspiracy theory out there . . . or we can work together to shut it down before it gets even messier. But to do that, I need you to level with me. I need to know what Sokolov was involved in and why all these people are interested in him. I need to know what your ‘third secretary for maritime affairs’”—and yes, I did give her the air quotes—“was doing out at his apartment.”

  She flashed me an amused smile and waited while the waitress deposited her Bloody Mary on the table and walked off before leaning in. “‘Third secretary’?” she asked, mimicking my air quotes. “Should I take offense?”

  I spread my palms out. “Seriously? ‘Maritime affairs’? ‘Third secretary’? Like we’ve got that many maritime issues that two diplomats aren’t enough to deal with them?”

  “We have plenty of outstanding maritime issues,” she countered. “Fishing rights and Arctic exploration and boundary agreements and all kinds of disputes going on all the time. Yakovlev had his arms full.”

  “And yet, for some reason, the first thing on his agenda Monday morning was to go to Sokolov’s apartment and get pushed out of his window—which I’m guessing didn’t have anything to do with depleted tuna stocks.”

  She eyed me curiously.

  “Okay, fine,” I said, in a conciliatory tone. “I know there’s stuff you can’t talk to me about. There’s a lot I can’t talk about either. But I’m telling you this is going to turn into a PR disaster for you. You want to roll with it, fine. You want to head it off and make it go away, then help me out here. Besides, it might be better for you to have us focused on the bad guys than casting our net all over the place.” I flashed her a knowing look. “You never know what else we might drag up.”

  She took a sip of her drink, then sat back and studied me for a moment with her head tilted slightly. After a long second, she sighed with exasperation. “We don’t have anything on Sokolov, and that’s the truth. Nothing. Which in itself is curious.” She paused, then asked, “What do you know about his background? Do you know when he came to this country?”

  I remembered what Daphne’s sister had told me. “He got married in 1983, and I don’t think he’d been here that long. A couple of years, maybe.”

  She nodded like it confirmed something that was burgeoning in her mind. “So if he came to America in ’81 or ’82, the questions we need to ask are, where did he come from and how did he get here?”

  “His sister-in-law said he came from Russia.”

  “Well, that’s why I ask. Because it wasn’t that easy to leave the Soviet Union back then. Under the Communists, no one was allowed to leave. The only people who made it here were dissidents and defectors who managed to escape and were granted political asylum after they got out—and they’re all on record. We know who they are, and Sokolov isn’t one of them. Then in 1970, after Kuznetsov and his gang of refuseniks tried to hijack their way out of there, Brezhnev agreed to allow some Jews, but only Jews, to leave—and only to Israel. But a lot of them never intended to stay on in Israel. They just used it as a way out and ended up here, in New York.”

  Actually, I knew it wasn’t a humanitarian move by the Politburo chiefs, nor were its consequences that great for us. This vast exodus wasn’t just made up of innocent, persecuted Jews. The KGB simultaneously and quietly released thousands of hard-core criminals from the Soviet gulags, the ones who happened to be Jewish, and let them leave. In one swift move that probably gave rise to a lot of mirth in the Kremlin, the KG
B dumped these ex-cons on an unsuspecting world—knowing most of them would end up here. We didn’t know which of the immigrants we were taking in had been in jail and if so, for what reason, since the Russians never shared their criminal records with us. Still don’t, for that matter. Fidel Castro, ever the faithful follower of his Soviet mentors, took a page out of the same playbook several years later during the Mariel boatlift, emptying a lot of his jails and shipping them our way, with the ensuing effect it had on crime in South Florida.

  “And that policy didn’t change until 1985,” Larisa continued, “when Gorbachev relaxed controls and opened the borders. But you’re saying Sokolov came here around 1981, before Gorby’s policy shift, and I don’t remember seeing a mezuzah or anything like that in the Sokolovs’ apartment. Do we know if Sokolov is Jewish?”

  “I don’t. I know his wife is Greek. And they had icons in the entrance hall.”

  “Christian icons,” she noted pointedly.

  “Yes.”

  “Which matches the fact that he’s not on any of our lists either. So if he didn’t defect and if he wasn’t part of the Jewish exodus, then how did he manage to get out of the Soviet Union at a time when no one was allowed out?”

  I pondered her words and realized we needed to do a lot more digging into Sokolov.

  Assuming that was even his real name.

  “Okay. We’ll have a look at that.”

  She nodded, then seemed to remember something. “Oh, and I need your help on something. We can’t get hold of the coroner’s report on Yakovlev. Can you get them to release it to us?”

  I couldn’t see any harm in that. “Sure.”

  “Did it show anything unexpected? Was he drugged?”

  I smiled. Just the kind of thing a “counselor for public affairs” would think of asking. “Nothing unusual in his system,” I told her. “He was clean.”

  “Look into Sokolov’s background,” she told me. “I’ll keep digging on my end. But let’s agree on something. If we’re going to contain this and bring it to a swift and mutually agreeable conclusion, we need to work together. Even though, like you said, there will be things we can’t tell each other. But we have to try and get past that. We need to be open with each other. Keep each other informed. If this is going to work, we need to share—maybe more than what would normally be considered acceptable.”