Steal, page 7
“Thanks for seeing me,” I said, trying to hide my surprise.
He motioned for me to follow him to a large living room with two big leather couches facing each other. There was no coffee table or anything else in between.
“Please,” he said, pointing at one of the couches. Like a talk-show host, he waited until I sat down before he did. He folded his legs, and didn’t waste any time. “I understand you want to ask me about one of my employees.”
I suppose that was one way to describe her. “Her name is Ingrid Dombrov,” I said.
“Jade.”
“Excuse me?”
“She goes by Jade,” he said. “What about her?”
There was a certain look on his face when I’d said her name. It was as if he sensed she was the one I’d be asking about.
“Do you know who Mathias von Oehson is?” I asked.
“Of course,” said Grigoryev. “A very, very rich man. But I’ve seen the news. About his boy. He killed himself, yes? Very sad.”
“Yes. A tragedy,” I said. “The reason I’m here is that Ingrid—Jade, as you say—was at von Oehson’s home in Connecticut with his son the day he disappeared.”
Grigoryev squinted. He definitely wasn’t expecting that. In fact, he seemed genuinely confused. “Are you sure about that?”
“Very much so. A security camera outside the house showed her arrival in a red Jaguar,” I said. “A red Jaguar that’s registered in your company’s name, as it turns out.”
The car part was true. The part about the security camera wasn’t. There were some things that I knew, along with how I knew them, which I simply couldn’t reveal to this guy.
Of course, if it’s not already another old saying, it should be. Never lie to a Russian mob boss.
“This is not good,” said Grigoryev.
I wasn’t sure which he was referring to, the message or the messenger. I also wasn’t sure who he was motioning to over my right shoulder. I didn’t see anyone when I walked into the living room, and when I turned around to look I still didn’t see anyone. But someone could see him.
A man dressed similarly to Grigoryev—albeit wearing an off-the-rack suit as opposed to custom made—appeared from the hallway. While he had a similar physique as the Mr. Charisma who brought me up from the lobby, this guy was able to speak without grunting.
“What do you need, G?” he asked.
“Ivan, bring the car out front,” said Grigoryev. “Dr. Reinhart and I need to go somewhere.”
“Somewhere?” I asked. It wasn’t like telling me that we were “going for a ride,” but it felt a little too close to that for comfort.
“I’ll explain in the car,” he said.
“How about you explain now.”
Sociopaths have a love-hate relationship with people standing up to them. They never want to be disrespected, but at the same time they appreciate the pushback because it reminds them of someone they truly love and admire. Themselves.
Grigoryev unfolded his legs, placing a palm on each knee. “God has ten commandments, Dr. Reinhart. I only have two. If you work for me, you never moonlight. That’s my second commandment.”
Okay, I’ll bite. “What’s the first?”
“I got word this morning that Jade didn’t show for an appointment last night.”
“In other words,” I said, “never stand up a client.”
“No. She hasn’t returned any calls made to her this morning.” His smile disappeared. “That’s the first commandment. Never stand me up.”
There you have it. The two commandments of Vladimir Oleg Grigoryev. With both broken by Jade, there was only one thing left to do.
“Let’s go for a ride,” I said.
CHAPTER 24
I turned to Grigoryev as we sped along in the back of his black Range Rover Sentinel. “Does Jade actually know who you are?”
“Interesting question,” he said. “Why would you ask such a thing?”
I glanced at Ivan, who was doing the driving. With a nod Grigoryev assured me that I had permission to speak freely.
“You said Jade hadn’t returned any calls, but you didn’t say you were the one making those calls.”
Grigoryev smiled slightly, reading between the lines. “Are you asking me how things work?”
“I don’t need to know your business model,” I said.
“It’s no secret how it all works. The secret is who belongs,” he said. “The clients.”
“What about the boss?” I asked.
“What about me?”
“You guarantee your clients’ anonymity. I can only assume you’d want to guarantee your own, even among the girls who work for you,” I said. “That’s why I asked about you and Jade, whether she knows who you are.”
We came up to a red light on Hudson Street, past the Holland Tunnel entrance. When the car stopped, so did Grigoryev. He fell silent, staring straight ahead. No response. It was so quiet I could barely hear the engine idling. Every pothole up until that point—the way the tires filled each gap with a heavy jolt—reminded me that the Range Rover Sentinel was practically a tank on wheels, with its steel-plated panels and armored privacy glass. It wasn’t merely bulletproof. It was grenade proof. If the secretary-general of the United Nations could ride around the city in one, why not a bespoke suit–wearing Russian mob boss?
The light flashed green. We drove a block and took a right onto Spring Street, pulling up in front of a well-kept brownstone. For the first time, Grigoryev turned to me.
“Berezhonogo bog berezhot,” he said.
I took six weeks of Russian language classes when I was training with the CIA at Camp Peary in Virginia. It was geared toward KGB interaction. Key phrases and terminology in matters of intelligence. It wasn’t as if I could translate Chekhov. Or, in this case, Russian proverbs.
Still, I took a stab at it. “Something about God and keeping?”
Grigoryev nodded, impressed. “God keeps those safe who keep themselves safe,” he said.
With that, he’d answered my initial question. He’d also confirmed what I’d suspected. How things worked.
I had met a Paulina who went by the name of Betty, and I was on my way to meet an Ingrid who apparently was known as Jade. Both Betty and Jade worked for Grigoryev. They just didn’t know it.
Except that was about to change for Jade. And I didn’t have a good feeling about it.
I followed Grigoryev, along with Ivan, out of the Range Rover and up the steps to the brownstone. There was a row of apartment buzzers to the left, but I was the only one looking at them. Ivan casually took out a key, and in we went.
After a flight of stairs, Ivan reached for a second key in front of apartment 2A. He also took out a 9mm Makarov. And in he went. Alone. No knock, no doorbell. Just the element of surprise, immediately followed by a woman’s scream.
Grigoryev took that to mean all clear.
He walked inside like he owned the place, which he clearly did. Jade must have known it, too. Her scream was still echoing, but she was otherwise silent as I fell in behind Grigoryev. As soon as I was inside the apartment, he closed the door behind us. “Hello, Jade,” he said. “Do you know who I am?”
She thought for a second, terrified. “Yes. I mean, no—but, yes,” she answered in a thick Russian accent. Safe bet she hadn’t been in the States for too long.
After Carter had canceled on Betty, she’d seen Jade from a distance walking into the von Oehson house in Darien. She’d described her as tall with brownish hair. She was spot-on. Jade was indeed a tall brunette. Up close, not surprisingly, she was beautiful.
She was also going somewhere.
Grigoryev saw it even before I did. There was an open suitcase, half packed, on the couch behind her in the living room. He motioned to Ivan. Ivan was the last to see the suitcase but the first to do something about it.
He walked up to Jade and pressed the barrel of his Makarov hard against her left temple.
Grigoryev folded his arms. “Are we taking a trip, Jade?”
CHAPTER 25
Jade wasn’t going anywhere. She stood rigid, a lamppost. Frozen in a pair of black boots, black jeans, and a black turtleneck.
Then she started to shake. Her arms, legs, lips. She began to ramble, desperately trying to find a way to explain herself. There was no playing dumb. No holding back.
Nothing cuts to the chase more quickly than having a gun to your head.
“He threatened me,” she said. “He…he told me I’d be deported if I didn’t do it or talked about it to anyone. I was scared. He said nothing was going to happen to the boy. I swear, I didn’t know they were going to kill him. I swear.”
“Wait. He’s dead?” I just blurted it out. I couldn’t help it. How could I?
Grigoryev turned to me. If looks could kill. This was his show, not mine. More to the point, Jade was his property. Hell, everything was his property. The apartment. The building. I was his guest. My role was to observe, not interfere.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s just that—”
He cut me off with a raised palm, turning back to Jade. “Is the kid definitely dead?” he asked.
She blinked a few times, surely trying to figure out the dynamic between the man who owned her and whoever the hell I was. In the meantime, she wasn’t answering, and that didn’t sit well with Grigoryev’s man, Ivan. He jammed his Makarov harder against the side of her head. “He asked you a question.”
“I don’t know! I’m not sure,” she said. “I thought he was dead because of what I saw on TV, how he had killed himself. The only thing I know is that he didn’t kill himself. Not by choice.” Tears were streaming down her cheeks. They were real. “I don’t want to go to jail.”
“So that explains the suitcase,” said Grigoryev. He gave a quick nod to Ivan, who lowered his gun. “Now tell me this thing you did for your client.”
This was the moment, what I’d come for, and I was hanging on every word as Jade explained. She was clickbait, as in the click of a lock and Carter von Oehson voluntarily opening the door to his parents’ home in Darien. She had a role to play. Scare the kid to death, and have him announce on the internet that he planned to kill himself.
“Then what?” asked Grigoryev.
“Then I was done,” she said. “As soon as it posted on Instagram, two men arrived in a van. They told me to leave.”
Grigoryev turned to me again. Did you get what you need?
At least that’s how I interpreted the look. I pressed my luck. “May I ask her one question?”
He shrugged. “Kanyéchna,” he said.
That was covered on day one of Russian class at Camp Peary. Casual KGB speak. “Yeah, sure,” he’d basically told me.
I had the luxury of not having to introduce myself to Jade. She didn’t need to know my name or why I was there. All I had to do was ask the question. She had to answer it. “How do you know Paulina?”
“Who?” asked Grigoryev before Jade could answer.
“You might know her as Betty,” I said.
He nodded but still looked confused. Meaning, he knew who Betty was but didn’t know why I was asking about her.
Jade shook her head. “I don’t know her. I was just told that was her name, and that’s who I was taking the place of.”
Was she telling the truth? If so, she wasn’t actually the one who sent the text—the supposed message from Carter that canceled his date with Betty. It actually made sense. She was a pawn in all this. Again, that was if she was telling the truth.
Grigoryev wasn’t sold on anything yet. I’d had my one question. It was his turn again. “Were you paid to do this?” he asked her.
The second Jade hesitated, I knew he was going to kill her.
CHAPTER 26
“Were you paid?” he asked a second time. It was one time too many to hear the razor edge in his voice.
Grigoryev already knew her answer. Jade’s silence all but screamed it. Still, it was as if he needed to hear it for himself. She had to say the word out loud, which she finally did.
“Yes,” said Jade softly.
The longer Grigoryev stared at her the more I could feel the room begin to spin out of control, the ground shifting beneath my feet.
“Dr. Reinhart, would you please step outside?” he asked.
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me.”
“No, I’m afraid I didn’t. I was distracted by your man, Ivan, reaching for his suppressor,” I said.
Ivan had literally jumped the gun on their plans for Jade. I couldn’t unsee what I’d seen. Not that Grigoryev really cared.
“Fine. Don’t step outside,” he said. “I don’t give a fuck.”
Jade fell to her knees, begging. “Please,” she said. “Please don’t! I’m sorry. I’m so sorry!”
Grigoryev cared even less about her apology. He nodded again at Ivan, who was tightening his suppressor, giving the long cylinder its last couple of turns.
Jade’s eyes locked on to mine. She still didn’t know who I was, but she understood enough to see that I was her only hope.
I had about ten seconds to save her life.
“Tishe yedesh’, dal’she budesh’,” I said.
Grigoryev turned to me. Even Ivan turned to me. His thick hand had stopped twisting the suppressor.
One good Russian proverb deserved another. Never mind that it was the only one I had in my arsenal. It applied. Ride slower, advance farther.
“Are you trying to tell me something?” asked Grigoryev.
“Yes,” I answered. “What do you gain by killing her?”
“It’s not what I gain. It’s what I protect.”
“What if you could also gain something?”
“What are you offering?”
“I need her help,” I said.
“You need her client, you mean. The one who hired her.”
“Yes, and she’s the best chance I have to get him.”
“Again, I ask,” he said. “What do I get in return? What are you offering?”
“You tell me,” I answered.
“Are you handing me a blank check?”
“You don’t need money.”
“You’re right. I don’t,” he said.
“But no matter how much a man has, there’s always something he still wants.”
“Is that another proverb?” he asked.
“No,” I said. “It’s a promise.”
“And you think you’re the man to give this to me, whatever it might be? Even if you could, why the hell would I trust you?”
“Because you’re alive because of me.”
Grigoryev laughed hard. “How do you figure that?”
“Here,” I said. “I’ll show you.”
CHAPTER 27
I raised my hands slowly. No sudden moves. Ivan flinched anyway, thrusting his Makarov at me. Grigoryev waved him off. “He’s clean,” he said.
Damn right. Spic and span. I’d already been frisked. “Just reaching for my wallet,” I said, tucking a hand in my breast pocket.
I pulled out my wallet, removing what I wanted to show him. A card. Of course, Grigoryev couldn’t read it from where I was standing. He motioned impatiently for me to bring it to him.
“Whatever you do, don’t drop your guard around this guy,” Elizabeth had warned me.
Right advice, Lizzie. But you warned the wrong guy.
I walked over, giving Grigoryev the card. That’s all it took. His eyes and trigger finger were now occupied, and in two seconds he was going to realize that he was looking at an expired coupon for a gym membership at Crunch Fitness.
But I didn’t need the whole two seconds.
All at once I threw one arm around his throat, yanking his body against mine as a shield while I reached for the semiautomatic pistol he had holstered underneath his suit jacket. I’d spied it when we first sat down to talk. Before Ivan even knew what was happening, he had the business end of a short-frame Glock 29 aimed at his chest while his boss blocked him from any chance of getting off a clean shot at me.
“Drop it,” I told Ivan.
I knew he wouldn’t, not right away. Not until he danced with the death-wish devil in his head. He glanced at Jade, trying to figure out how fast he could train his Makarov back on her. Not fast enough was the answer.
“Go ahead, be a hero,” I said. “You never know. I could always miss.”
It wasn’t quite reverse psychology. More like a reminder that I was a mere ten feet away from him. I wasn’t going to miss.
Ivan knelt and placed the Makarov on the floor. I told him to kick it forward, then toss the keys to the Range Rover.
“Are you sure you’ve thought this through?” asked Grigoryev, resigned to my choke hold. He was standing perfectly still.
“Hell no,” I said. “Where’s the fun in that?”
Off my nod, Jade scooped up the keys and the Makarov, and got behind me. But not before a parting swipe at Grigoryev.
“Mudak!” she yelled at him. Asshole.
“It’s a black Range Rover parked in front of the building,” I told her. “Start it up for us and get into the backseat. I’ll be trailing you by a minute.”
“Okay,” she said. Only she wasn’t moving.
“What is it?” I asked.
“You expect them just to stay here like idiots once you leave?”
“I’ll have a head start,” I assured her. “Wait. Where are you going?”
She wasn’t heading out the door. She instead disappeared down a hallway. Within seconds, she returned holding two pairs of handcuffs. I would’ve been more surprised were it not for her profession. Fittingly, the cuffs were lined with black velvet and had pink fur over the chains. Tools of the trade.
“Catch,” she said, tossing one pair to Ivan. She was smart enough not to try and put them on him, which was not to say he was going to do it himself. The cuffs hit smack against his chest and fell to the ground. His arms never moved.
