“You gentlemen been in business long?” he asked, crossing his legs at the ankles after smoothing the crease in his slacks.
“Same office for nineteen years,” Joe said.
Cody raised one eyebrow. “Really?”
“Uh-huh.”
Cody glanced at Swanders and then said, “What’s the point of lying to me, Mr. Pritchard? You’re not exactly getting off to a great start.”
Joe dropped his feet to the floor and pulled his chair up to the desk. “What’s the point of asking questions you already know the answers to, Agent Cody? And I don’t give much of a damn what kind of start we get off to, considering you weren’t asked to come here. If you’ve got something to talk to us about, why don’t you start talking? Otherwise, I’ll be on my way to get some dinner. It’s late, and I’m a grumpy old man who likes his food.”
Swanders snorted and turned to Cody. “Told you.”
“Told him what?” I asked.
“Told him you fellas might be difficult just because you feel like it.”
I grinned at him. “That’s the beauty of being self-employed.”
Cody cleared his throat and gave us a pained expression, as if maybe he’d picked up a splinter from the stadium seat.
“I apologize, gentlemen.” He nodded at Joe. “There was no need for me to start off by asking questions I already know the answers to. And, yes, I’ve got something to talk to you about.”
“Our rates are pretty reasonable,” I said. “But if you’re wanting us to crack a challenging case that has you FBI boys stumped, the retainer fee is going to be sizable. We run the risk of damaging our reputation by hanging out with Bureau boneheads.”
Cody pointed his index finger at me and opened his mouth to snap off a quick retort but then stopped himself. He tucked the finger back into his fist and dropped his hand to his lap, then turned his head to the ceiling and exhaled heavily, like he was releasing tension and coming to peace with himself before assuming a yoga position. I thought for a minute he might roll right onto the floor, stand on his head, maybe, or strike a swan pose. He kept his eyes on the ceiling for a few seconds and then rolled his head back down, smiling now.
“I’ll tell you what,” he said. “How about we put a spotlight on you two, give you ten, maybe fifteen minutes for the comedy routines? You can take shots at my employer, my wife, my mother, whatever. When you’ve completed the first act, I’ll applaud real politely, and then maybe we can get down to business.”
Kraus laughed, and Joe shrugged. “Let’s just get down to business, Cody.”
He nodded, then leaned down and opened his briefcase. He withdrew a manila folder and took four eight-by-ten black-and-white photographs from it. He spread them on the desk, facing us. I immediately recognized two of the men in the pictures; they were Rakic and Krashakov, the Russians I’d spoken with earlier in the day. The other two I didn’t know. One was a heavyset man with a thick mustache, fleshy chin, and small dark eyes. The other was younger, with dark hair, a goatee, and a nasty scar across his left temple.
“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.”