“Bad news?”
“We can’t reach it without somebody climbing inside,” Brant said.
“Well, I guess one of you fashion plates is going to get your suit dirty,” Andi said.
“Andrea,” said Viktor, “I am so outside of good shape that I truly do not think I can do it. I am thinking that if I spread my coat over the top here so that you do not mess up the beautiful sweater from Bananas, you could lie down over the top here and reach down and get the fork and the straw?”
“And how do I keep from falling in right on my head?”
“We would each hold you by a leg,” Brant said.
“Oh, you think it’s a good idea too?”
“I swear to you, Andi,” Brant said. “I don’t think I could do it without a ladder. And if we mess around here much longer, somebody’s gonna see us and the element of surprise will be lost. Even if we do get a match, he’ll be long gone, maybe clear back to Russia.”
“My heroes,” Andi said, slipping off her pumps. “Good thing I’m wearing long pants.”
With each man holding a bare foot, Andi was boosted up to the edge of the dumpster, lying across Viktor’s suit coat, and very reluctantly she allowed herself to be lowered upside down until she got hold of the carton and the cup.
“Get me outta here. It stinks,” she said.
When they were back in the car, the fork and drinking straw in a large evidence envelope, Viktor said, “My coat must go to the cleaners. How is your sweater, Andrea?”
“Other than busting a bra strap and bruising my belly and thighs, I’m okay. This lunch better be good, Viktor.”
It was. Viktor took them to a whimsically designed Russian restaurant on Melrose, where they had borscht and black bread and blinis and hot tea in a glass. And even got to hear dreamy Russian violins coming from the sound system, with Viktor acting every inch the host.
“Sometimes they make Ukrainian dishes here,” he told them, as they drank their tea.
“I don’t think I’ll do Pilates tonight,” Andi said. “You guys stretched every muscle in my body.”
“Speaking of muscles, yours are way better developed than mine,” Brant said. “Your legs are buff. I mean, they felt strong when I was holding them.”
That look again. Andi was sure he’d make a move after today’s little exercise. Maybe after they got back to the station and Viktor was otherwise occupied.
“I try to stay in shape in case I’m called on for dumpster diving,” she said. “They should make it an event in the police Olympics.”
When Viktor went to the restroom, Brant said, “Andi, I was wondering if maybe sometime you might like to join me for dinner at a new trendier-than-trendy-ever-gets restaurant called Jade that I’ve been reading about.”
Thinking, At last! she said, “I’d like to have dinner with you, but that’s pretty pricey. I read a review.”
He said, “My daughters’re long past child support and my ex remarried ten years ago, so I’m independently comfortable. But on second thought, maybe I’m too old for a place like Jade.”
“You look younger than I do,” she said.
“Bless you, my child,” Brant said. “So is it a date?”
“Yeah, let’s try it on Thursday to avoid the weekend rush. Wonder how I should dress.”
“Anything you wear would look great,” he said, and dropped his eyes in a shy way after he said it.
Andi thought, Those green eyes! This one’s going to take me to heaven or bust me down to the ground. Her heart was pounding when Viktor returned to the table.
“There is one thing for sure,” Viktor said to them when he gave his credit card to the waiter, “even if Lidorov is not our robber, it will be good to have his DNA profile. He is a violent thief. And a leopard cannot change its freckles.”
It was a different thief, newly seduced by the heady excitement of power and control, who that very afternoon was in the process of committing the second armed robbery of his life. But his chain-smoking companion was not the least bit seduced as they sat in a stolen car in a crowded parking lot, waiting. She wished that his Russian wasn’t hopeless, and that she didn’t have to convey her fears in English.
“I warn you, Cosmo,” Ilya said, looking like a clown to Cosmo in her red wig, wearing big sunglasses. “This is a foolish thing that we do.”
“Dmitri told me is okay.”
“Fuck Dmitri!” Ilya snapped, and Cosmo impulsively backhanded her across the face, regretting it at once.
He said, “Dmitri say that this is what he plan for long time. He say he is looking for someone like me and you to do it. We are lucky, Ilya. Lucky!”
“We get killed!” she said, wiping her eyes with tissue and touching up her mascara.
“We get rich,” he said. “You seen how the man in the jewelry store do when he seen my gun? He piss on his pants. You seen him cry, no? The guards with money do not wish to die. Dmitri say the money is paid back by insurance company. The guards shall see the gun and they shall give the money to me. You going to see.”
Cosmo, now wearing a Dodgers cap and sunglasses, had received the call from Dmitri the afternoon prior. Cosmo had thought it was about the diamonds, and when he showed up at the Gulag just before happy hour, he was sent upstairs to the private office.
Cosmo had not been surprised to see Dmitri sitting feet up, much as he’d seen him last time, again watching porn on his computer screen. But this time it was kiddie porn. When Cosmo entered, Dmitri turned down the sound on the speakers but left the screen on, glancing at it from time to time.
“Did you wish to talk about diamonds?” Cosmo said in English, as always.
“No,” Dmitri said. “But I been giving much thinking about the happen-ink guy Cosmo, who is my friend. I think about how you get the diamonds and how we going to do the deal for the diamonds very soon. I think maybe you ready for bigger job.”
“Yes?” Cosmo said, and Dmitri knew the look. He had him.
“It feels how? Strong? Sexy? Like fuck-ink when you point the gun in the face of a man. Am I correct, Cosmo?”
“Feels okay,” Cosmo said. “Yes, I don’t mind.”
“So, I have a job where you can get big money. Cash. At least one hundred thousand, maybe lot more.”
“Yes?”
“You know the kiosk in the big mall parking lots? The ATM machine kiosk? I know about one. I know exactly when money will come. Exactly.”
“Big armor car?” Cosmo said. “I cannot rob the armor car, Dmitri.”
“No, Cosmo,” Dmitri said. “Only a van. Two guys. They bring money inside a big, how you say, canister? Like soldier in Russia use for ammunition? One man must go behind kiosk, open door with key. Lock self in. Reload machine with nice green bullets from ammunition can.”
“Please, Dmitri, how you know about this?”
“Everyone drink at the Gulag sometime,” Dmitri said, chuckling in that way of his that scared Cosmo. He could imagine Dmitri chuckling like that if he was slitting your eyes.
“These men have guns, Dmitri.”
“Yes, but they be only regular security guard. They are contract out for these deliveries. I know about the two men. They will not die to save money. Insurance will pay anyways. Everybody know that. Nobody lose noth-ink except insurance company. No problem.”
“Two guys, two guns, two keys?”
“Yes, two keys for, how you say, internal security. You must take money before first guy get to kiosk. That is why I think of you. You prove at jewelry store you got lot of guts. And you got woman with big tits.”
“Ilya?”
“Yes. I give you exact day and time. Ilya is there to do business at ATM machine. Ilya know how to distract man who walks from van with money can. Other guy have a habit. Always the same. He wait until partner get to kiosk. Then he get out and come with his key.” Dmitri grinned and said, “One minute all you need, you happen-ink guy. You rock, Cosmo!”
And now here they were, sitting in a busy Hollywood parking lot, waiting in the fifteen-year-old red Mazda that Dmitri’s Georgian bartender had stolen for them with instructions to wipe it clean and abandon it somewhere east of Hollywood.