The third face they’d gone public with was Misha Filipovna. RICO charges, conspiracy to traffic in drugs, conspiracy murder (six), dating to 1995, five foot eleven, one hundred ninety pounds, built like a middle-heavyweight, brown hair, green eyes, a good-looking, confident face that was showing on CNN, FOX, and the rest.
Ehrmann put it flatly. By the rules of the game, Burdovsky had abandoned her son by leaving the country, and the boy had been legally adopted by a relative of Karsov’s. Had she been in the country or had the Ukrainian courts found a way to contact her in the United States, which they weren’t obligated to do, then she could have contested the proceedings. Now it was very difficult to unravel. The boy didn’t know her and wanted to stay where he was, and the email contact she had with him was evidently more sporadic than she’d told the FBI. They didn’t doubt she wanted her son back, but she hadn’t been truthful with them either.
“Let’s hope they get all three,” Marquez said, then took the conversation to Crey. “Do I become Crey’s new partner?”
He looked from Shauf to Cairo and wanted them to understand this was a decision they were going to make together. He knew Shauf had been on the phone to her brother-in-law. He knew Cairo had one foot out the door, but he also had the heart of an elephant and never quit anything. The assumption was they were down, it was over, the FBI investigation into whether the blown bust was preventable would include interviewing anyone with any contact with Weisson’s, which meant they’d visit Ludovna and question him about selling illegal sturgeon. Cairo nodded, then Shauf spoke.
“I’m in. Let’s partner up and play it out another round.”
42
Marquez called Crey as he and Shauf pulled away with the Zodiac.
“I’m in, but we’re going to have to talk about how to handle a couple of things.”
“We’ll get a drink and talk it out.”
“I can’t do it today, but let me ask a couple of things.”
“Do it.”
“The questions might make you a little touchy.”
“Go ahead, my man.”
“There are rumors about how you bought Beaudry’s business. People say you stashed some drug money, retrieved it after you got out, then used it to buy the business. Are the Feds going to come after you someday for that?”
“Nope. Because those rumors are bullshit. I borrowed money from a friend to buy the business.”
“Cool. That’s what I wanted to hear.”
“Well, you’re hearing it, and you can tell anyone who says anything else to come talk to me.”
“What about Beaudry?”
“What about him?”
“Is he completely out of the picture?”
“He’s way gone, and no one is ever coming after him either, regardless of what you hear. All Beaudry ever did wrong was Fish and Game shit. You go out with the right party with him, and he didn’t care what you caught. It got a little out of hand for a while, then he got scared Fish and Game was going to catch his ass. That DBEEP boat started watching him one afternoon. That about cured him.”
“You were there?”
Crey coughed and cleared his throat. His impulse not to implicate himself in anything kicked in.
“I’m not saying I was there per se, you know, but let’s just say I checked out the business before I made an offer.”
“Okay, good enough.”
“What else?”
“The pinheads.”
“Like I told you, it would be just you and me. A detective called looking for them again yesterday and they’re thinking about taking off until he stops calling.”
“I don’t want them coming back thinking you and me owe them something later because they helped you out.”
“Not going to happen, man. I’ll deal with them. It’s cool.”
“All right, partner, we’ll figure out everything else over a drink.”
The next morning Marquez was back in Beaudry’s driveway. Beaudry’s Chevy was parked in the shade with ice on the windshield. He climbed the stairs, knocked hard, and waited.
“Now what?” Beaudry asked.
“You never told us you ran party boats for poachers.”
“That’s a lie.”
“I’ve got people who’ll testify.”
“Then get them to and I’ll see you in court if I don’t see you in hell first.”
Beaudry started to shut the door.
“I think you’d better invite me in. You close that door and you’re opening a case file.”
Beaudry had a study, an office that smelled of dust caught and slowly burning in the coils of a portable heater. His website was up on two computer screens. A bloodstained FBI shield showed on the site, and Marquez recognized it from a news photo. Beaudry must have cut and pasted from a newspaper.
“I warned those fools thirty years ago they needed to be prepared for military-type assaults.”
“You also looked me in the eye for years, and I have a hard time with that, Tom. You made the phone calls tipping us, and we thought you were a man of your word. Now it turns out you weren’t.”
“It’s all a lie.”
“Ludovna kept a record.”
“Of what?”
Marquez studied him, saw his eyes drop to the desk, then gambled.
“Of everything.” He pointed at Beaudry’s computer screen. “What do you think the Feds are doing right now?”
“I wouldn’t have any idea of what they’re doing.”
“Do you think they’re sitting in the office wondering what happened? No, they’re burying the dead and they’re furious. They’re going to find out who and how, so they’re questioning everybody remotely tied to the Russian mob.”
Marquez reached over and touched the screen.
“I was there when those car bombs went off.” He turned his wrist to read his watch. “I’m going to give you sixty seconds to start telling me the truth.”
He didn’t take his eyes from Beaudry’s face as he sat back down, but he knew Beaudry well enough to know he would let the clock run out, and he did. The sixty seconds passed without Beaudry looking up. But he didn’t challenge Marquez either. Then he began to talk.
“It was because of gambling. I had a problem I couldn’t control until I went through a program.”
“You took fishing parties out and let them catch whatever they wanted as long as you got some extra money.”
Beaudry nodded, said, “I’m sorry for it now. I’d take Ludovna and the people working with him out on the boat. They wanted sturgeon, and I know where to find them. We traded. He paid gambling debts of mine. The KGB sonofabitch had money when he landed here. He told me the U.S. government helped him move here. I think it was the goddamned FBI. Then, when my sickness was at its worst the people in Vegas I’d borrowed from wanted to collect everything. They wanted me to sell everything to pay them. They didn’t want to wait anymore.”
“Do you think Ludovna knew them?”
“I don’t really know. If he does he’s worse than I thought.”
“So with him you only traded illegal fishing trips for cash. He serviced some of your debts for you.”
“Yes, but when they wanted everything right away, I had to put the business up for sale. Then my sister died in a fire and left me life insurance money. I paid them with that.”
“You sold the business too cheaply to Crey.”
“How do you know that?”
Marquez played on Beaudry’s fear of conspiracies now. Black helicopters, UN takeovers, FBI plots to overturn the Constitution, turn us into zombies with drugs.
“Because the FBI tapped everything. They listened to every sound you made.”
“Then you know I didn’t want to sell to him any more than I’d wanted to sell to the people I’d borrowed from in Vegas.”
“Then why did you sell to Crey?”
“I was afraid not to. I knew the FBI wasn’t going to help me after the way it ended with them, and Richie made it sound like his investors already knew about my business. I thought it was the Vegas money coming back, and they’d decided they were going to get the business after all.”