“Laid off?” LaMoia inquired.
Boldt paled. Played fair? Fish and Wildlife? Depending on when Alekseevich had indeed been laid off his job, they had little or no way to connect Svengrad to the tortures of Hayes and Foreman, even if Alekseevich were responsible. Svengrad would simply claim that, unemployed, Alekseevich had resorted to his old ways. More’s the pity. Boldt quickly looked for a bridge that might keep himself and LaMoia in the room long enough to stir the pot. He didn’t see anything obvious.
“He drives for us, or did, before layoffs,” Svengrad answered LaMoia. “He has not gone and gotten a parking ticket or something, has he?” The man grinned smugly. “Date of termination-because that’s the next thing you’re going to ask, yes? Ninety-three days. You may ask the Fish and Wildlife Department.” He met Boldt’s surprise. “Not INS, Fish and Wildlife. They will tell same date.”
“Ninety-two days,” Boldt said, misquoting him. “You track all employees with such enthusiasm, or is Alekseevich special to you?”
“Ninety-three days, Lieutenant. We, our caviar, is under a lockdown. Forbidden from making business. Big mix-up on government’s part. And yes, I do keep track. Certainly. When this affects one’s livelihood, one keeps count of such things.”
“A lockdown,” Boldt repeated, spinning on his heels to look once again at the quiet warehouse behind them. Svengrad’s explanation fit the human emptiness of the place.
Svengrad flipped through a Rolodex and fixed on a card. “We have the same address-for the home of Alekseevich-as does INS.” He handed Boldt back the sheet of paper. “Have a nice day, Lieutenant.”
“You said we were missing something,” Boldt said.
“My mistake. Fedor will show you out.”
“Something, or someone?”
Most people shrank some from a cop’s gaze. Not this man. Svengrad fixed his attention onto Boldt and asked, “You like dirty movies, Lieutenant?”
It wasn’t often that Boldt had to contain himself from striking out at a man.
Svengrad said, “I find them quite a turn-on myself. The home movies on the Internet are the best. Crude lighting. The women always trying too hard to look sexy. The men trying to look hard. Much better than cheap porn, don’t you think? Gives reality TV a new meaning.” He added, “But to answer your question, no: something, not someone.”
Boldt asked, “Do you get these films off the Internet, or do you have the originals?”
“I have my sources,” Svengrad said. “Mature women are the best, don’t you think? They know what they want-what it takes for them-and they aren’t afraid to say so.”
Boldt’s stomach squirted some bile into his esophagus. He coughed through the burning and swallowed it down. He’d have bloody stool if he continued to keep this tension inside: ulcers the size of golf balls.
“Where would I get such a home movie?”
LaMoia shifted on his heels, uncomfortable. He whispered, “Sarge.”
Boldt did not so much as look in his direction. “John,” Boldt said, still eye-to-eye with Svengrad. “Ask the guy out there for a cigarette, would you please?”
LaMoia withdrew from the room, though reluctantly. Once he was on the other side of the glass his attention remained on Svengrad and Boldt, as did the attention of Svengrad’s man.
“You like caviar?” Svengrad asked Boldt, ignoring Boldt’s inquiry. He swept his arm to encompass the warehouse.
“No,” Boldt confessed. “I never acquired the taste.”
“Too bad. Your wife, where do her tastes lie?”
“I will not now, nor at any time, discuss my family,” Boldt said. “And neither will you. To misjudge me in this regard would be a terrible error on your part.”
“I thought we were already discussing your family,” Svengrad said. “Or at least home videos.” Boldt kept the death stare on him. “No matter,” the other said. “Even if I wanted to, I could not give your wife our best Beluga Negro. This is because of some very good forgeries of my company’s labels. These have caused the… interruption in my business.”
“The feds can be a real bother sometimes,” Boldt said.
“Indeed they can.”
“Counterfeit caviar?” Boldt asked. “Seriously?”
“Paddlefish eggs,” the general answered. “Gravely serious. We never heard about it until your Fish and Wildlife service discovered them bearing our label. Paddlefish, at four dollars an ounce, mixed in with our eighty-dollar Beluga. Like cutting cocaine with powdered milk.”
“I wouldn’t know,” Boldt said. “About either.”
“I am the victim here. But because I am Russian, I must be big mafia guy.” His attempt to come off as an innocent bordered on comical.
“Paddlefish eggs.”
“Bearing my label. Perhaps, when this small problem is resolved, we can work out an arrangement that is mutually satisfying.”
“The most I can do is look into it.”
“Don’t underestimate yourself. The right motivation, it’s amazing what a man can do.”
“This late in the week,” Boldt reminded, “I’m unlikely to make much headway.”
“What a shame. For a moment there I thought we had a real connection.”
A knock on the glass window where LaMoia held a pack of cigarettes to the glass. Proletarskie.
The general saw this as well. “Russian brand. We import them along with half a dozen others.”
“Alekseevich smokes this brand,” Boldt said.
“Malina smoke? I do not think so. Too athletic.”
“Sell a lot of this brand, do you?”
“Enough to justify importing it,” Svengrad replied. “The kids at the raves. The colleges. They love Russian cigarettes. Much stronger. They make Camels look like Virginia Slims.”
“How many cartons, cases, a week?”
“You bring a warrant, I’ll gladly turn over this information. Otherwise, no reason to let my competitors know my numbers.”
“I’m not your competitor,” Boldt said.
“Sure you are.”
Boldt understood the general’s tactics then: gun and run. He struck an area of Boldt’s vulnerability, the video, and then came back with his own needs-the lockdown of his caviar-and then got defensive when his cigarettes came into play. Boldt might have enjoyed this more had Liz not been directly involved.
“You like birds, Lieutenant?”
“The winged variety?” Boldt asked, wondering what came next.
“The magpie will watch the same bird nest for hours. Must seem like forever, a brain that small. Patient like a saint. The mother bird leaves that nest, even for a moment, and the magpie eats her eggs. Right there in the nest.”
Boldt felt a warmth run through him, like he’d peed in his pants. He pictured the yellow yolk spread around the bird’s nest the same way the blood had been spilled around the cabin. Svengrad made sure his message was received. “You like art, Lieutenant?”
“Some.”
“I collect WPA-era charcoals. It’s a seller’s market right now. Smart time to watch for forgeries.” Svengrad sat on the word-an elephant on an egg. “The limitation of imitation,” he said. “It’s good of you to have stopped by.”
Dismissed, Boldt thought he meant to say.
Back in the Jetta, Boldt loosened his tie.
LaMoia said, “It’s not so much the salty taste that bothers me, but the way they pop between your teeth.”
“Smelling like low tide doesn’t help,” Boldt said.
“So what happened after I was excused?”
“I had to do that.”
“I understand,” LaMoia said, but his voice betrayed him.
“He wasn’t going to threaten me in front of someone.”
“And did he?”
“Not exactly, no. He wanted to cut a deaclass="underline" his import business back for the video of Liz and Hayes.”