We took the escalator up to the mall entrance. Usually at the top of the escalator you’re met with the conversational din of the food court, but this early in the morning the food court was closed and quiet. Out in the atrium a tall fountain cascaded down in front of us, and store employees moved about, readying for the crowds that would soon arrive. I’m not a shopping mall fan, but I enjoy walking through Tower City when I’m downtown. It’s a beautiful facility, with wide banks of windows looking down on the old commercial buildings along the river. I didn’t take much time to appreciate the scenery today, though. I was too busy looking for Belov or his soldiers. The mall wasn’t busy, but there were enough people around to make me feel somewhat safe. That feeling vanished when someone stepped up behind me and pressed the barrel ofa gun into my back.
Beside me, Joe said, “Morning, gentlemen.” I didn’t risk turning my head, but it seemed safe to assume Joe had a gun in his back as well.
“Morning,” a male voice with a faint European accent said behind me. “We’re going to be walking back down to the parking garage now, and then we’re going to see Mr. Belov. That is what you want, no?”
“Yeah, that’s what we want.”
“Excellent.” A hand slipped under my shirt and removed the Glock swiftly and smoothly. The videotape was left in my pocket. “You may turn around now.”
I turned and looked into the face of a man with the palest blue eyes I had ever seen. They were like chips of glacier ice. He was tall, several inches taller than me, and had fine, straw-colored hair and a broad-shouldered, muscular build. When I faced him, he gave me a wide smile of straight white teeth.
“We are old friends, yes?” he said. “Or at least we shall act like it.”
I got the message. The blue-eyed man had a partner who was much shorter and rounder, with dark, shaggy hair and several days’ worth of stubble. Both of them were wearing ski jackets and jeans. The jackets were open, exposing the guns they’d tucked back into their pants.
I looked at Joe. “Do you think we get our guns back?”
He shrugged. “We’ll see.”
We followed the Russians back down the escalator and into the parking garage. The blue-eyed man led us to a black Lincoln Town Car and climbed behind the wheel. Joe and I got in the back, and the bearded man climbed in with us.
“A Town Car,” I said. “Nice choice. Very in keeping with the organized crime tendencies.” No one laughed. Tough crowd, in a couple of ways.
We drove out of the parking garage and back down toward the river. I kept my breathing even and steady and drummed my fingers on the edge of the door. Relaxed. No need to be concerned, right? Would’ve felt a little better if they’d let us keep our guns, though.
The blue-eyed man drove us back across the river on the Cleveland Memorial Shoreway and then turned onto Lake Avenue. A few decades earlier, some of the city’s most expensive homes stood on Lake Avenue. Now the rich were moving to the suburbs, but there were still some beautiful houses on the street. We turned into the driveway of one of them, a massive Victorian structure.
“One of Mr. Belov’s homes,” the blue-eyed man said. One of them. The place probably cost more than I’d make in ten years, and it was a lakeside retreat for Belov.
We got out of the car, and now the bearded man had his gun out again. He waved it at the side door of the home.
“Go inside.”
I opened the door and stepped inside with Joe and the Russians right behind me. We were on a small landing. A set of four steps led up to the kitchen, and another set of steps led down to a closed door.
“Down,” the bearded man said.
I went down and opened that door, too. This room had been remodeled into a basement office. There was a black desk with a glass top, a glass coffee table, a small bar with a bottle of Scotch, a big-screen television, and several black office chairs. The bearded man pushed me down into one of the chairs. A small man with a gray mustache sat behind the desk. He wore a white shirt with a maroon tie, and his face was lined with deep creases and dark circles under his brown eyes. It gave him a weary expression. If you passed him on the street you might have guessed he was a bookkeeper for some small-time company, a guy who had been commuting to work in the same office for forty years and was hoping to retire to a two-bedroom house in Parma.
“Here they are, Mr. Belov,” the bearded man said. He stepped behind the desk and set our guns on the floor near Belov’s feet. The blue-eyed man leaned against the wall, his hand maybe six inches from the butt of his gun.
“Which one of you is Mr. Pritchard?” Belov said. His voice was soft, but it had a hard edge, as if it might easily turn into a bellow.
“That’s me,” Joe said.
Belov nodded slightly. “You have interesting ways of trying to reach me, sir.”
“I didn’t know the best way to go about it. I hope you weren’t offended.”
“Not at all. And my maid appreciated the fifty dollars.”
I looked at Joe. “You gave the maid fifty dollars?”
“And a note,” he said. “She promised she’d see that it reached Mr. Belov. He called me shortly thereafter.”
So much for Joe’s vast underworld contacts.
“And who are you?” Belov said, turning his flat brown eyes to me.
“Lincoln Perry,” I said. “I’m his partner.”
He held the stare for a moment, then lifted his hand and pointed at the bearded man. “This is Alexander.” The point switched to the blue-eyed man. “And this is Thor. Thor is quite a volatile, dangerous man. You would be well advised not to upset him.”
I looked over my shoulder at Thor, and his glacier-ice eyes stared at the wall in front of him, appearing not to see me. I was sure he wouldn’t miss any movement in the room, though. I believed Belov when he said Thor was dangerous.
“Now that we have all been introduced, we can begin,” Belov said, as if he were preparing to open a seminar on the opportunities of purchasing a time-share condominium. His hands lay on the surface of the desk, fingertips pressed against the glass but palms arched slightly, as if he were playing a piano. Now he tapped his hands softly on the glass and stared at us.
“You said you had a tape I would be interested in seeing.”
“That’s right,” Joe said. “I’m sure you’ll be interested.”
“And you want something in exchange for this tape,” Belov said, still tapping on the glass. It was not a question.
“Yes,” Joe said.
“What is that?”
Joe nodded at me.
“There’s a woman and a little girl who have information that could be damaging to people in your organization,” I said.
“My organization,” he echoed.
“Yes. These people have tried to kill them already, and I’m afraid they will probably try again. We would like your help in seeing that does not happen.”
His eyes never left mine. “I do not know anything of a woman and a little girl.”
“No,” I said, “you probably don’t. But some of your associates do. It is your associates that we’re concerned about, sir.”
“And what has the woman done to cause these problems?”
“She hasn’t done anything,” I said. “Her husband was a private investigator, like us. He caught something on videotape that people didn’t want to be seen. Your associates discovered this, and now they want the tape. They also want to kill the woman, because they think she’s seen the tape. She hasn’t seen it.”
“And her husband? This investigator?”
“He’s dead.”
He stopped tapping his hands on the glass, and the abrupt lack of movement seemed to suggest an impending eruption, like the brief pause when a fuse has stopped burning but the charge hasn’t exploded.
“What is on the tape?”
I looked at Joe, then back at Belov. “Information about your son’s death.”
“What information?”
“Will you see that the woman and girl are not harmed?”