For what? More pain?
Too wound-up to sleep, he got up and paced the room. He needed to sleep, needed to be together for Kathy… the stack of TV Guides sat on an end table. Maybe stupid, derivative Dack Price plotlines would get him drowsy.
He was into the second volume when he felt his posture slacken and his eyelids droop. The third made the room grow dim.
Then something filtered through the fatigue.
Words, sentences- something a little different.
Now he was sitting up. Wide-awake.
Rereading… wondering… should he call Petra?
Strange- maybe nothing. But…
He didn't even know where Petra was. So out of touch. Could his judgment be trusted?
He'd try to find her. Worse came to worst, he'd have wasted some time.
Wasting time was his new hobby anyway.
72
The white cop was taking him seriously.
Finally. Which is what Zhukanov told him when the guy appeared at the counter, just before closing time, showing his badge and the picture of the kid.
“Finally.”
“Pardon, sir?”
“I talk to one of you, but he don't call back. A black guy.”
The white cop stared. “Yes, sir, I know.”
“What do you want?” demanded Zhukanov.
“Double-checking on the identification, sir.” The cop leaned his elbows on the counter and put the newspaper clipping down. Big guy, blond, ruddy, dark suit, dark tie. He reminded Zhukanov of a colonel he'd worked with on crowd control back home, a real sadist, loved to twist limbs, knew how to do maximal damage with just a flick of a wrist… Borokovsky. This guy looked a lot like Borokovsky. Was he of Rus-sian descent? His card said Detective D. A. Price, but everyone changed their names.
“Double-checking? I already tell you he been here, no one calls me, it's on the TV.”
“It's a homicide investigation, sir, we have to be careful,” said the blond cop, looking over Zhukanov's shoulder at the shelves of toys.
Calling me sir but probably thinking I'm some kind of joke, a clown. The fat guy thought so too, and look where he was.
Having had several hours to think about it, Zhukanov felt good about killing the fat guy- great, even; the Siberian wolf dispatches its prey, paints its muzzle with blood, howls at the moon. While cutting the guy up, Zhukanov had felt like howling.
Moving him into the car, then dragging him out had been torture; Zhukanov's back and shoulders and arms still throbbed. Getting the bastard into pieces turned out to be not so easy, either. He should've sharpened the kitchen knives better; that cleaver should've gone right through the joints, not stuck like that.
The head, though, had been less of a problem than he expected. Rolling away like a soccer ball, eyes open. That was funny. He felt like kicking it, but you had to get rid of the head and the fingers, let the cops have the rest of the carcass. His plan had been to take the head somewhere it would never be found, but the Boy Scouts had ruined it, hiking through the forest, yelling like drunks. So now the cops had the head; maybe they'd learn who the fat guy was. Big deal. No connection to him; he'd cleaned all the blood. And here was a cop leaning over the very same counter, no clue.
Zhukanov fought not to smile. He'd tossed the knives into five separate storm drains from Valencia to Van Nuys. The fat man's clothing and billfold ended up in Dumpsters near Fairfax and Melrose- let the Yids get blamed.
No bills in the billfold, just a driver's license and a nice picture of a naked girl with her legs spread that Zhukanov pocketed. The license he slipped down another drain. The fat man's name was Moran. So what.
When he got home he washed his bloody clothes, took a shower, had something to eat, worked with the broken gun for a while, still couldn't figure out what was wrong with it. Then a few glasses of vodka and he was out like a light by three. Five hours later, he was back at the shack waiting for the Yids to return with the kid. If they didn't, he'd go over to the motor vehicle department on Monday.
But the car showed up, all right, pulling behind the Yid church at nine. Prayer time for the Yids, Zhukanov knew, usually till eleven or so. He kept going back to the alley every fifteen minutes; finally spotted the old guy who'd hidden the kid coming out with an old woman. They drove off, and he followed them in his car. They never noticed- too busy yapping.
And now he had an address without paying for it. Twenty-three Sunrise Court.
He didn't write it down, the way he had with the license number, because now he was smart; no one would get it unless they paid for it.
And now look how calm he was, facing the white cop. Though if the guy had just showed the badge, no picture of the kid, he might've figured it had something to do with Moran- what the hell would he have done then?
“I tell the black guy,” he said. “He never call me back.”
“I'm sorry, sir. We've been quite busy-”
“You busy looking for the kid,” said Zhukanov, “but I see him.”
“You saw him several days ago, sir.”
“Maybe,” said Zhukanov, smiling.
“Maybe?”
“Maybe I see him again.”
The blond cop pulled out a little notepad. “When, sir?”
“I tell your black buddy the first time; he never call me back.”
The blond cop frowned, leaned a little closer. “Sir, if you have information-”
“I don't know,” said Zhukanov, shrugging. “Maybe I forget. The way the black guy forget to call me.”
The pad shut. The cop was annoyed, but he smiled. “Sir, I understand your frustration. Sometimes things get busy and we don't dot every i. If that happened to you, I'm-”
“Dot every i is important,” said Zhukanov, not sure what that meant. “But also money.”
“Money?” said the cop.
“Twenty-five thousand.”
“That,” said the cop. “Sure. If we find the boy and he helps us, it's yours. At least that's what I was told.”
“No one tell me.”
“I've seen the forms, sir. My captain signed them. If you'd like to call him-”
“No, no,” said Zhukanov. “I just wanna get it square, you know? Maybe I know something more than I told the black guy, but what if kid runs, you don't find him? What happens?”
“If your information's solid, you'll get partial payment,” said the cop. “Part of the twenty-five thousand. That's the way we always do it. I'm not saying you could get all of it, but-”
“How much part of it?”
“I don't know, sir, but generally in these situations it's around a third to a half- I'd guess ten, twelve thousand. And if the boy is there, you'd get all twenty-five- why don't you speak to my captain-”
“No, no,” said Zhukanov, thinking, If the old Yid did take the kid home with him, the kid could still run; better not dawdle anymore. “I want you should write it down.”
“Write what?”
“What you say. Twelve, fifteen to Zhukanov just for telling, all twenty-five if kid show up.”
“Sir,” said the blond cop, sighing, “I'm not in a position- oh, all right, here you go.”
Ripping a sheet out of his pad, he said, “How do you spell your name?”
Zhukanov told him.
The blond cop printed neatly:
This stipulates that to the best of my knowledge, Mr. V. Zhukanov is due $12,000.00 because of information he has offered about a missing boy, unknown identity, related to L. Ramsey, PC 187. Should Mr. V. Zhukanov's information lead directly to this boy and this boy's information lead to apprehension of a suspect, he would be due $25,000.00.
Det. D. A. Price, Badge # 19823
“Here,” said the cop, “but to be honest, I can't promise you this means much-”
Zhukanov snatched the paper, read it, and stuffed it down his pants pocket. Now he had a contract. If the bastards gave him trouble, he'd hire Johnnie Cochran, sue the hell out of them.