Nikolai’s face was white with anger, and tears glittered in his eyes. “You swore you would protect her. You knew what she was like. So impetuous. So young.”
So dead, I thought.
“She didn’t follow instructions,” Foley said. “I assume from the message to Yagamata that she was bailing out. She never even warned us.”
“Who did it?” Nikolai asked, his voice cracking. “How was it done?”
“Why don’t you ask Lassiter?”
I didn’t like the way he said it, his tone changing from mournful friend to sarcastic cop in the blink of an eye. When I didn’t say anything, Nikolai turned toward me. A vein throbbed in his neck.
Foley said, “We checked every police report yesterday in Miami Beach. Yesterday afternoon, a restaurant worker called the cops about a scuffle in an alley. Seems like a guy was tussling with a woman, may have hit her. By the time the cops got there, the couple was gone. Our people showed photos of Lassiter and Eva-Lisa to the worker. Positive ID on both of them.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “Foley, what kind of bullshit is this?”
“Shut up, Lassiter.” He turned back to Nikolai. “We’ve gotten some help from Palm Beach County homicide, too. Eva-Lisa was butchered in the sauna behind her parents’ house. A short-handled hatchet did the job.” I sensed Nikolai shifting in his chair, angling toward me. “They picked up latents all over the place. The wooden benches, the hatchet handle, even one on her shoulder using the methyl methacrylate test. We faxed Lassiter’s prints to them. A perfect match. If you look on the inside pocket of Lassiter’s sport coat, you’ll find the initials ‘R.H.’ If we scraped under his nails right now, we’d find…” He grabbed one of my wrists and turned my hand over. “… a speck of dried blood, and I’d bet you a hundred bucks DNA testing would match up with the decedent.”
I tore my hand away. “You bastard, Foley! You know I didn’t kill her. Tell him!”
“You tell him, asshole.”
Before I could respond, Nikolai’s hand came up. In it was a stainless steel push dagger that must have come from a sheath on his leg. He pressed it hard against my neck, forcing me back in my chair.
I hate a knife.
When I spoke, I felt the tip of the blade pierce the skin. “I didn’t kill her. Foley, goddammit, you know it.”
“Who killed her?” Foley asked.
The knife pressed harder. “Kharchenko. You know that. He called Yagamata when she tried to quit. Your office picked up the call, you said so yourself.” Warm blood trickled down my neck. “Why are you doing this?”
Foley shook his head. He seemed genuinely sad. “I don’t know any Kharchenko.”
“Of course you do! He works for Yagamata. You were there in the warehouse when Yagamata told you about him.”
“What’s he look like? Where is he now?”
Too weird. I was about to have my throat cut, and Foley was taking a statement. It didn’t make sense. Or did it? I was arching backward, trying to escape the knife. If my chin went any higher, I’d snap my cervical vertebrae. Nikolai didn’t seem to mind.
“What’s with you, Foley? I thought this was your operation.”
“So did I,” Robert Foley said. “Now, what’s he look like, this Kharchenko?”
“You really don’t know him?”
“Christ, Lassiter, if I knew, I wouldn’t have asked for your detailed statement at the Crespo scene.”
“I thought that was a trick to get my signature.”
“That was a bonus,” he said, “like having a big-boobed secretary who can type.”
I let out a breath and tried to relax. Foley wouldn’t let Nikolai kill me. At least not yet.
“I know Kharchenko when I see him,” I said, lowering my head enough to look at Foley. “And I know where to find him tonight, but if Nikolai slices me, you won’t learn a thing.”
His eyes dismissed the notion as irrelevant. “He cuts your jugular, I’ll clamp it shut with my hands. Make a hell of a mess, but give you another two minutes to live. For those two minutes, you’d tell me your mother’s darkest secrets and your father’s fondest dreams.”
“I never knew my mother,” I said. It was true, though it sounded ridiculous just now. She was a platinum blonde who waited tables in Key West and ran off with an oil worker from Galveston. “And my father was killed in a barroom brawl.”
Killed with a knife.
I shifted my gaze to Nikolai, whose face was a dark mask. “Don’t you see what he’s doing? He can’t kill me. Against regulations or something. But he could let Yagamata do it. Or you. And he wants to make a quinella out of it.” A flicker of puzzlement crossed Nikolai’s face. “He wants to get the information he needs, then have you kill me.”
I felt a bead of sweat trickle down my cheek. The pressure of the knife eased just a bit. Foley’s palm slapped the table. “Half right again, Lassiter. Sure, I want information from you, but I don’t want you dead. I just figure you deserve to piss your pants a little after that trick you pulled at the airport. Just answer my questions.”
I was having trouble breathing. A lump of rage was stuck in my throat. “First, you tell Nikolai the truth, you bastard. Tell him they found another set of prints in the sauna. Tell him you don’t know who Kharchenko is because the prints don’t match up with anything you’ve got. Tell him how Yagamata took your nice little Operation Riptide and made it his own.” I licked my lips, salty with sweat. “Tell him I didn’t kill Eva-Lisa.”
Foley shrugged his shoulders. “The lawyer’s right,” he told Nikolai impassively. “He didn’t kill her.”
The knife clattered to the floor. With a strangled sob, the young Russian pushed away from the table and stood at the grimy window with his back to us.
Foley’s eyes tried to apologize. “I’m sorry, kid, but this is a lot bigger than you are.” He said it as if he believed it. Then he turned to me. “Okay, Lassiter, let’s you and me kiss and make up.” I didn’t care much for the phrase but figured it was better than bury the hatchet. Foley gave me his snoop’s imitation of a friendly grin. “Where do we find Kharchenko?” he asked.
“At the ballet,” I said.
19
I didn’t move in time, and a woman the size of Larry Csonka, but not as attractive, stomped on my feet and plop ped into the seat next to me, elbowing me in the ribs. Foley on one side of me, a Russian babushka on the other. Welcome to the Bolshoi Ballet, at least the touring version. The audience was an eclectic mix of South Florida society and Russian emigres. Foley and I were sitting in the balcony with the Russians. I was wearing a rented tux with an undersized shirt collar that felt like a garrote.
Foley owned a formal outfit, or was it government issue? He was practicing his Russian by silently reading the bilingual program. I tried to get his attention. “First, you said our government was trying to stop the art thefts, help out the reformers.”
Foley didn’t look up from his program. He was tracing under the words, moving his lips slightly, but he was reading Russian, and that’s more than I can do.
“Then, I learn you’re really behind the thefts. You were trying to get the goods on the hard-liners, protect the Yeltsin crowd, help make the country a colony of the West, or something like that. What’s your expression, ‘drive a coffin nail into the godless heart of communism.’”
“That was for the benefit of Soto and the Finns. Christ, Lassiter, do you believe whoever talks to you last? Don’t you have the ability to reason for yourself?”
“Yeah. All by myself, I figured you’re a lying scumbag, because now I know you’re the thief. You and Yagamata are stealing the art.”
Ordinarily, I am much more polite in ornate surroundings. But I doubted that many of our newest immigrants bustling into the gilded red velvet balcony of the Performing Arts Center would care, even if they could understand my poison-tipped whispers.
“Look, Lassiter, you don’t even know the players, much less the rules of the game.” Foley folded the program neatly and placed it in his lap. He leaned close enough for me to smell the tobacco on his breath. “Severo Soto is a rabid anticommunist. He’s crazy as a bedbug. All he cares about is overthrowing Castro. He figures that if the Russians can’t subsidize the bearded one, the Cuban government will fall. He wants to be the first president in a democratic Cuba, or maybe it’s a fascist Cuba, who the hell knows. Everybody hears what they want to, and Soto heard me talk about nailing communism. The Finnish girl, too.”