“You know him?”
“I’ve heard the name,” Bogdan said.
“Do you use him?” Cartwright asked.
The Russian shook his head. “He works with the Zetas. Our partners are Sinaloa. I’m telling you what I heard. He’s a good fence. Patient. Discreet.”
I said, “Now he’s got a lot of time to be patient because somebody hung him from a doorknob with a necktie. My bet is the woman did it.”
Bogdan spoke some words in Russian. The expletives weren’t difficult to translate.
Cartwright loosened the handcuffs and put the cold pack in Bogdan’s hands so he could hold it in place across his nose. His wrists were bruised from where I had notched up the cuffs.
Ed eased himself onto the bench beside me. For the first time, I saw his notebook. He had been sketching the tats on the Russian’s chest.
“Bogdan doesn’t know. He doesn’t know the woman. He doesn’t know what his bosses were going to do with the rough. I believe him. Probably give it to one of the cartels for drugs or to settle debts. You can move diamonds easily. They hold their value in cross-border transactions. They can’t be traced back to the source.”
Suddenly Abba was singing “Dancing Queen.”
It took a few seconds for me to realize it was a ringtone. By that time, Cartwright had taken away the cold pack and pulled the cellphone from Bogdan’s pants. He placed it in his bound hands. Then he produced a Beretta Storm subcompact pistol and ran it across to the man’s face before nudging it into his crotch.
“You’re going to answer, Bogdan, and you’re going to be a good little commie. Remember…” The phrase that followed sounded like Ya gavaryu pa roosky.
The meaning was clear enough: I speak Russian.
Abba stopped singing and Bogdan said, “Da?”
He listened and answered with more words, many more, but Cartwright didn’t seem perturbed.
“I found the Indian.” Bogdan switched to English. “He fought pretty well for an old man but I got him…”
Cartwright winked at me as we listened to unintelligible chirping from the other end of the conversation.
“No, I didn’t kill him. He didn’t have the diamonds. He thinks we have them, that Peralta is working for us…”
More from his interlocutor.
“I believe him. Peralta is working for himself and he has them…” His face reddened. “You don’t tell me what to do! We know where to find the Indian. He’s not our problem…I know it’s fifteen-fucking-million!”
Then he switched back to Russian and the conversation went back and forth for another two or three minutes. Cartwright listened carefully but never removed the pistol from the Russian’s jewels.
After the phone went dead, Cartwright holstered his weapon and returned the cold pack to Bogdan, who once again held it against his nose with two cuffed hands.
“Very good,” Cartwright said.
His slid the cellphone into his pocket with difficulty.
The Russian’s voice came beneath the cold pack. “What kind of deal are you prepared to make with me?”
“That depends,” Cartwright said. “You’re handcuffed and blindfolded. That’s a pretty weak hand.”
“I play blackjack,” Bogdan said. “Out at Talking Stick and Fort McDowell. I count cards. They never catch me. Stupid Indians. No disrespect. The trick is knowing when to leave.”
Cartwright shrugged. “You’ve still got a weak hand and you can’t leave.”
“You let me live,” he said. “You never tell what happened here. And I’ll give you information.”
I felt Cartwright’s hand touch my leg. Don’t answer. So we sat in silence. Whatever resort temperature was outside, here it was getting stifling.
Finally, Cartwright said, “If your information checks out, we have a deal.”
He was about to say more but Bogdan started laughing. It began as a muffled giggle completely out of proportion to his powerful build. It turned into a mix of hilarity and hysteria that filled the dim interior.
“You are fools.” He pulled away the cold pack. “That rough was taken from the FBI. That’s right, genius. FBI diamonds. So when they catch you, they’ll send you off to be tortured in the American gulag. Unless this woman you are afraid of catches you first.”
Chapter Twenty-five
Cartwright followed me outside, closed the door.
Whatever the particulate matter counted by the weather service today, the air around us smelled as sweet as Eden compared to the prison cell-like odor of the RV.
We walked a few paces, close enough to the door for security’s sake and far enough away to speak in low voices and not be heard by Bogdan.
The sun was high now, the intense glare spooling down on us, the asphalt magnifying the heat. It was a reminder of what was to come starting in May.
I slipped off my jacket, exposing my holster. Sure, Arizona had a national reputation as a land of gun nuts, but you rarely saw someone open-carrying in the central city. So I slid my badge onto my belt. If it didn’t keep a cop from drawing down on me, at least it might make civilians less nervous-or less reckless.
“Thanks for not killing my Russian,” Cartwright said.
“You were going to blow his testicles off.”
“That was a planned interrogation technique. You were running on emotion when you need to run frosty.”
“That’s what Peralta says.”
He looked down. “It’s good advice. Emotion won’t help you. You know that.”
I did. I still wanted to strangle the Russian or anybody else who could lead me to Strawberry Death.
He kicked the asphalt with his expensive boot. “You know, even with all the bullshit I went through in the war, when I joined the FBI I was so starry-eyed that I thought I’d become the first American Indian director. I was that naïve.”
“You would have made a good one.”
He ignored the praise. “I was more interested in putting away criminals than kissing ass. They were never going to let me in their country club. But I was so committed to the Bureau that my wife left me. My children are grown but for years they wouldn’t talk to me. Who can blame them? I was on the job. I wasn’t there for them.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I made my choices. The last five years, my daughter and I have rebuilt something. She had a baby last year. I’m a grandpa, can you believe that?”
I smiled and nodded.
“All my career, I saw the worst of people every day. It was hard to see the good, to trust anyone. So here I am. Taking the undercover job…Well, when I decided to go that way, I didn’t feel like I had anything to lose.”
“Do you still feel that way?”
“No, actually. You hear a lot about how deep undercover people lose their way. Some do. They become what they set out to fight. Doing this has actually grounded me in a way that wearing the suit and tie every day never did. I have to keep myself tethered to reality, to the mission. So that’s my advice for you.”
“Point taken.”
He said, “You reading about the Great War?”
“It’s all that’s on my bedside table.”
“Be sure to read The Sleepwalkers. It’s the best book on the causes of the war that I’ve ever seen. It will completely change your perspective.”
“It’s waiting for me at home.”
Then he asked me why I was still wearing the deputy’s badge and I told him about my meeting with Melton on Saturday night. I felt such a deep shame that my face burned.
“He manipulated you.”
“I know. That’s what Lindsey said.”
“Smart woman. Keep her. Look, I can make some discreet inquiries about what Melton told you. See if it’s real.”
I thanked him. Then, “Is that really a Soviet scalp in there?”