“Recognize them?” Cody asked.
I nodded. “These two,” I said, pointing at Rakic and Krashakov. “I don’t know the others, though.”
Cody leaned back in his chair and studied us. “How did you two connect those men to Wayne Weston?”
“Who says we did?” I said.
He sighed. “Gentlemen, I thought we were past this stage.”
I looked at Joe, and he nodded, indicating that I was free to talk. We were being paid to bring the case to a conclusion, and the FBI had resources that could help us do that. There was no sense in stonewalling them or acting like we were competing with them.
“April Sortigan,” I said, looking at Kraus. “She turned out not to be such a dead end after all. Sortigan told me Weston had asked her to do background checks on three men. She gave me the names, and we started to check them out ourselves. From what I’ve gathered so far, they’re foot soldiers for the Russian mob.”
“Who told you that?” Cody said.
“We’re investigators,” I answered. “We investigated. Now, do you want to tell us what this is all about?”
He nodded. “The Russian mafia in this city—and in the rest of the country—is growing,” he said. “It’s the most powerful organized crime syndicate in the world; nothing else even comes close. They have ties to eighty percent of the banks in Russia, so money laundering is no problem, and now they’re spreading their claws across the globe. Cleveland is one of those new destinations.”
He jabbed his finger at the man with the fleshy face and the mustache. “That is Dainius Belov. He’s the don of the Russian mob in this city, and it doesn’t pay to underestimate his power. He’s got more weight than any of the Italian gangsters in this city ever dreamed of.” He pointed at the photograph of Krashakov. “Alexei Krashakov is one of Belov’s lieutenants. Rakic and Malaknik work closely with him. They’re a little too wild for Belov’s liking, so their power is limited, but they’re busy boys. They’ve got ties to heroin, cocaine, insurance scams, prostitution, illegal weapons trafficking—you name it, they’re involved.” Cody’s voice had taken on a haggard, weary tone, and I thought he’d probably spent too many hours poring over photographs of these guys, looking for a way to bring them down.
“We’re particularly interested in the weapons trafficking,” he said. “These guys are moving some serious contraband through the city, and we intend to stop it. Assault rifles, machine guns, and hell, even missiles. And they’re very good at it. They’re very good at all of it. Because they’re pros. Half of Belov’s boys were special forces soldiers in Afghanistan in the eighties. Some of them even have ties to the KGB. We’ve got a task force working on them, a joint effort between Bureau agents and CPD detectives.” He sighed. “And, so far, I’ll admit that we’re not having much success.”
“How’s Wayne Weston involved?” Joe said.
Cody slid the photographs together and tapped them on the desk, straightening their edges before returning them to the manila folder.
“We’ve had wiretaps on these guys for months,” he said. “Some of them we’ve had for years. A week before Wayne Weston was murdered, his name was heard in one of our taped conversations. The Russians speak guardedly on the phone, and the context of the remark was hard for us to distinguish. However, it appeared they found Weston to be a problem, or a nuisance, that’s for sure. A few days later, he was dead, and his family was gone.”
“And you think they’re behind it,” Joe said.
He nodded. “We’re almost sure of it. We just need to prove it.”
“Any idea how they’re connected?” I asked.
Cody shook his head. “Not yet. We were prepared to open a preliminary investigation into Mr. Weston after his name came up on our wiretaps. Then he was killed, and it became a more urgent matter.”
“Then he was killed,” I echoed, and looked at Swanders and Kraus. “So you no longer believe Weston was a suicide?” They didn’t respond, and I asked, “Did you ever believe he was a suicide?”
“Don’t blame them,” Cody said. “The initial investigation of the scene made it look like suicide was probable. Then we got wind of it and stepped in to, um, aid the investigation. The police were asked to stick with the suicide story for a while to keep the Russians relaxed.”
I pointed at Swanders. “So the gambling angle was bullshit from the beginning, eh?”
He shrugged, and Kraus grinned. “Hope you didn’t waste too much time with that,” he said.
“Wasted just enough,” Joe said dryly. “So why put us in the loop now? Because we’re not quite as stupid as you’d hoped?”
Cody smiled. “I wouldn’t have phrased it like that, but, basically, you’re right. We were content to let you chase whatever leads you had as long as you didn’t get in our way. But when you showed up on Rakic’s front porch this afternoon, we realized we couldn’t let this continue.”
“You’re watching the house?” I said. He nodded, and I said, “The green Oldsmobile, right? With the South Carolina plate?”
Cody raised his eyebrows and shook his head slowly. “We don’t have anyone in vehicle surveillance.”
“Oh, come on,” I said.
“No, really,” he answered. “I won’t disclose the location of our surveillance team, but we don’t have anyone in a car.”
I looked at Joe. “That means they rented a house,” I said. “These Russians are more important than we thought.”
“What’s this car you were talking about?” Swanders asked. “Someone else was watching the house?”
“And talking to the neighbors,” I said. “Flashing a badge and saying he was a cop. Called himself Detective Davis.”
“You kidding me?” Swanders sat up, not happy about this at all. “Some asshole is talking to those neighbors and pretending he’s one of us? Who the hell is he?”
I shrugged. “If he’s not FBI, and he’s not a cop, it would probably be worth finding out.”
“Did you get a good look at the car?” Cody asked.
Joe nodded. “I’ve got the plate number and some photographs. I assume your surveillance team will have him, too.”
“I’ll ask about it,” Cody said. “Mind if I use your phone?”
Joe slid it across the desk to him, and Cody called someone and asked about the green car. He nodded grimly and hung up.
“They saw it,” he said, “but they said it’s gone now. They’ve got the plate number, and I told them to run a check on it. Apparently he was on the street for about an hour and then left. Never got out of the car.” He chewed on his lip and stared at the phone. “I don’t like this.”
We didn’t speak for a few seconds, and then he shook his head and grunted, tearing his thoughts away from the phony cop and bringing them back to us.
“Now, would you tell us what happened between you and Rakic and Krashakov today, Mr. Perry?”
I told them. When I finished the story, Cody looked at Swanders, a question in his eyes, like maybe he thought—or hoped—I might be making it up just to mess with him. Swanders shook his head and sighed.
“You pretended to be going door to door for charity?” Cody said.
“You took twenty dollars from them?” Swanders said.
“For AIDS research?” Kraus said.
“Yes,” I said.
“I suppose,” Cody said eventually, “it could be much worse.” It was the type of statement you might hear from a man who’d just been told his cancer was fatal only in ninety percent of its occurrences. “I’m not happy with that interaction, but it could have been worse.”
“It could have been avoided easily enough,” I said. “If Swanders and Kraus had been straight with us in the beginning, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
“Hey,” Kraus said, “the FBI’s been calling the shots here. They told us to blow you off, so we blew you off. Nothing personal.”