The Russian Heist, page 22
Exceptfortheirprofilesinyesterday’spaper,donebysomelocalshrinks withFBIapproval,theywerenoexceptiontotherulethatyesterday’snews was just yesterday’s news. The shrinking coverage of the heist was not a ruse to spring a trap and for that Macbride breathed a little easier. They all did—except Dimitri.
Pumpingtherewardforinformationleadingtothearrestandconviction of the Wing Ding suspects had grown from twenty-five to fifty thousand. Bigbucksfromthedeeppocketsof theFBI.Notonlyhadthearmoredcar companyantedupbutthebaggagehandlers’union,theairport,thecity,and the government chipped in to the coffers. Each feared what the other one thought: anybody’s capture would lead to the others; then the interrogations followed by rolling over to see who could strike the best deal with prosecutors. Who wouldn’t flip to avoid death row?
They found little cohesion under the tyranny of the demented Dimitri. Puffy-eyed and jumpy, Bobbi would not be caught upstairs when the Russian was on the premises. Smith watched her bathe while Macbride stood sentry on the top of the landing; Sonny acted lookout below. If she was avoiding him, the Russian was too distracted to notice.
Dimitristayedindesertfatiguesandsleptonacotinthefrontbedroom. No one was allowed into the room while he slept. The guns were packed in a duffel bag, which became a pillow at night and disappeared with him outside during his daylight forays. All the money, retied in even bundles by denominations, was stuffed back into the bags, doubled into another green bag, and tied across the neck with a piece of coil ripped loose from the boiler in the basement. Dimitri ceased his nude forays into the kitchen for food; he remained dressed day and night. He kept a knife strapped to his inside boot. The money bags went outside with him, one by one.
No one spoke a word in his presence and no one questioned his decisions. Macbride, cramped, sore, chilled to the bone despite the layers, had beendaydreamingaboutColonial-erabuildingsandforts.Hewasmasterof the island, his own Captain Bluebeard. Hawksbill turtles paddled in from their nests on the cays while Tod stalked the red footed boobies along the shoreline. Macbride was Adam in paradise and had dominion over all he surveyed.
Then he saw Dimitri not far away greedily eating pig-blood sausage, slavering over it, dripping gobs of it down his hairy chest. He stopped eating, looked at Macbride with that icy stare, and started for him . . .
Jesus wept , he had fallen asleep, dreaming.
His right leg was completely numb. As he stood up, he caught a glimpse outthewindowandhisheartnearlygallopedoutof hischest.Itwasaman indarkclothing,notDimitri,butbig,andhewascrossingtheyardhunched lowataforty-fivedegreeangle.Inaflashhewasoutlinedbymoonlightand then he disappeared from view. Macbride rubbed his eyes. Did he dream that too?
Thehousewasbathedingraylight;hecouldseehisbreathandsmellthe acridtasteonhistongue.Hisbrainsloshedwithserotonin.Theothersmust be asleep on their watch or they would have called out. He listened for Smith’s wheeze and honed in on it. The man was completely hidden beneath a pile of coats and blankets. He jerked his shoulder and signaled urgentlywithafingerinthedirectionof thekitchen.Smith’sfacewasalemon yellow in the moonlight. He said, “Dimitri,” and drew a line across his throat; then his head disappeared under his covers. Macbride found Bobbi curled asleep on her side curled in the corner of the bigwindow. He shook her and she opened her eyes.
Macbride decided it was safer to risk Dimitri’s wrath with a false alarm thanthealternative,sohemadehiswayupthestairs.HefoundSonnyasleep on the bed. He tugged at the boy’s leg until he sat up with a loud curse. Macbride clamped a hand over his mouth and thrust a finger in the directionof thedoorway.Dimitrigavethemallthesamecommand. “Godown there, do not to move or talk, wait for me to give the signal to come up.”
Therewas the podvaal, the cellar. To Macbride specifically, he said, “You, tubby, keep stumm.”
“Yo, this one dumb,fuckin’plan, man,” Sonny groused going down the staircase.
Bobbi woke her sleeping husband and they turned to the sound of Sonny’svoice.“Fuckstumm.Stummain’tgoingtocutit,man.”Hecouldoutrun any fucking Russian born—but not if he were trapped in a basement.
The cellar room was large and grimy from half a century of coal tumbling down a chute. The single window above their heads shimmered and disappeared with the passing clouds. Sonny whispered he had searched all overthehouseforDimitri’sgunsbutfoundnothing,notevenaknifeinthe kitchen drawer. He had a homemade shiv from plastic McDonald’s knives scotchtaped together inside his sneaker top.
The old fieldstone foundation was hard and cold against their backs so theydrewtogetherforthewarmththeirbodiesprovided.Macbridehadlost his own fastidiousness for hygiene; he smelled himself and the others. Bobbi’smuskytangwasferal.Hourspassed—maybeitwasonlyminutes.In the dark and cold, no one knew. Once in a while one of them would shiver orteethwouldchatterinvoluntarily.Afootwouldscratchinthecoalduston the floor or a joint would pop as someone stretched to ease a cramp.
Macbride heard Smith’s breathing and knew he had fallen asleep. Fear alone kept him from venting his contempt. They all heard the noise above their heads; something flitted past the glowing rectangle of window. Clear, distinctfootstepsmovingabout,notrandomlylikepeoplewalking,butpurposefully with long pauses between the sounds. Then two distinct sounds, too far apart. “That ain’t right,” Sonny whispered and someone shushed him. Bobbi sucked in her breath. Macbride felt blood pulse in his neck.
A long silence and then heavier sounds—rapid strides across the floorboardsaccompaniedbyswiftburstsof talking,distinctlynon-English.They all thought the same thing: If it were the cops—those ninja-clad SWAT teams—the doors would have been shattered and shouts would have followed. Hope died like a gasp. Whoever made those sounds did not want to be detected.
Boot clumps came down the cellar steps and headed directly toward them. The big stranger holding the flashlight and smiling at them was almost asbig as their Russian. His beam poked each one in turn, lingered on Bobbiasif itwereanocularextensionof theman.Thelasttimetheywould be reminded of Dimitri was when the stranger spoke a cheery greeting in broken English. Four words only, not one comforting: “Rise and shine, assholes.”
The stream of light illuminated not just his face but the long-barreled gun with silencer he held at them. As he played it about the coal cellar in searchof anyonehiddeninthecorners,Macbridenoticedasheathstrapped totheman’slegforalong-bladedknife.HerememberedDimitri’sdrunken kitchen story, himself a captive audience forced to hear yet another grisly tale for sadists.
“I prefer the ones—how you say, Mac-bride, the edges—?” Macbride desperately thumbed through the rolodex of synonyms. The appeasing game of charades was a brief interlude between threats of violence his deranged Achilles forced upon an obsequious myrmidon: “Sharp?”No. “Curved?”No,shithead.Thatisakindjal.DoIlooklikeaChechen?“Scalloped?” No, no, no, you fucking idiot—cursing him, his mother and all generations of Macbride in a torrent of Russian until the professor got the right kind of knife: Serrated.
“Da, you stupid fat fuck, ‘serrated.’” Better for hacking through bone and rubbery tendon, Macbride’s brain timidly whispered.
“Let’s go, you fuckfaces,” the Russian bellowed in the dark. The breath whistled through his teeth. His light speared a path for them. This time they all knew he wasn’t smiling.
Chapter 28
One Month after the Heist: Tina Nelms ShedrovehimtohishouseinHowlandCorners.Theyrodeinsilencewhile he fiddled with the radio dials until he found a Stevie Nicks he liked. He looked at Cheng with glassy eyes. “A classic,” he said.
Fromthenonhestaredstraightaheadandspokeonlyinmonosyllables: “Turn,” “Go right,” “Left.”
As she pulled off 46 into the driveway of an old, handsome A-frame, she was determined to give him the word. No matter how much Harry pleaded,hewasexcessbaggage—thisamigocraphehadgoingwasjustanother excuse to behave like an idiot. She was exhausted every morning and hadbeguntosleepintothelastminute.Herbodycravedrestbuthermind was too agitated. Wet nursing a drunk in the middle of an investigation going sideways was not on her to-do list. As far as she knew, her mandate didn’t include carrying him, and she also knew if she were to hear one of those suits back in DC pontificate about “stakeholders” and “community relations,” she would scream.
She put the car in park and turned to look at him. Now, her mind said. Hereachedforthedoorlatchandstopped—thefirstwordswerejustcrossingherlips.Heleanedbackandturnedtoher.“IknowHarry’stheonlyreason you haven’t cut me out of this entirely, Cheng.”
She cursed an upbringing that wouldn’t let her interrupt the middle of someone’ssentencewiththebeginningof herownintheAmericanwayof normalconversation.Herfather’searliestinstructiontoher:Nevershamethe family. She bit the words back and hoped he was about to remove himself.
“The thing that sticks in my craw is Christina Nelms.”
Kirrantoldherwhatheknewof herandthefamily,whousedtoliveup the street. Nice people, her folks, good careers, and they gave her everything, he said.
“A sweet kid.” A tightness around the eyes belied the calm delivery of Kirran’s monologue.
“Then for no other reason than the purest of evil chances occurring she was abducted by some tattooed asshole fifty yards from her house. He wasn’tevenstalkingher.Justanotherdeadassmopedriftingthroughonhis wayfromnowheretonowhere.Hekeptherforthreedaysinsomeshithole motel off Highway 5.
“We knew that dump inside out because it was a dope hole for Youngstown dealers. Meth cooks used it because they were afraid the catpisssmellwouldattractcops.Somegreasylawyergotaninjunctiontokeep us from closing it down two weeks before she was grabbed.
“We never found her, though we searched the place twice.”
Shelistenedtothesubtext—acop’sAchillesheel—youdon’tletitaffect you.
“Herstomachlookedlikeafootball—bigscarlikeazipperrunningfrom navel to abdomen. He used a buck knife on her, burned her with cigarettes. She had to wear long sleeves to school to cover burns.”
“Bad things happen, we all know that,” she said, “but I don’t—” He cut her off. “She never finished high school. Started doing drugs and hooked up with some dope fiends who tricked her out—”
“I can appreciate what you’re saying—”
Kirran lit a cigarette, blew smoke out the window.
She decided to let her animosity go, just release it, and wait.
“I had to talk her into letting me arrest this one clown,” Kirran continued after a while, flicking ash down the door panel, “before he beat the living hell out of her.” His laugh was scorn and turned to look at her, no humor in his visage whatsoever. “She married him. Go figure.”
Afewblocksfartheron,hewasbacktostaringintothemiddledistance, somewhere beyond the windshield where a young unlucky girl’s history playeditself outonaconcretefloorwithherbrainspartiallyexsanguinated.
“I mean, one shit-sucking, fucked-up zero of a life,” Kirran said.
Christina Nelms, the dead security guard. She was appalled at his arrogance: Detective Michael Kirran, vengeance-seeker, protector of women. Who did he think—
She began mentally inching her way back to the dump-Kirran speech.
“My brother never did.”
“What did you say—your brother?”
“Fucked him up for good.” Kirran’s joyless laugh brought her up short.
ChristinaNelms,hisniece.Whywaseverythingtwistedandcomplicated when she had enough to worry about? She fell back into an old habit and laughed.
ReggieusedtochideheroftenearlyintheirmarriageaboutherChinese habitof laughinginembarrassment.“Americansarequitetheopposite,”he said. “They laugh at everything unfunny.” Eventually she learned to laugh atReggiewithrealscorn.HewascompletelyunawarehowAmericanhehad become in his fastidious preening in front of the looking glass. She could notseeReggiestarvinghimself,orcompetingwithotherstoappearontelevisioninhisunderwear.Hewasmuchtoovainabouthislookstocuthimself to look like a movie star, but he was every bit as obsessed by himself as the dolts sitting in front of their screens four hours every day. He, too, was just as trapped in the phenomenon of being watched. He could not turn away from the image in the mirror.
“His wife accepted counseling for a while, but she never recovered,” Kirran said. “No such thing as closure.”
“Who overdosed?”
“Left a note blaming him, my brother.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know she was your—”
“I found him sitting in bed just sopping wet in his own blood. Bleeding ulcers—it’s a well-known fact the Irish are prone to ulcers, Cheng. My brother never drank. That was owing to the old man, a boozehead from dawn to dusk.”
“I understand it’s personal with you—”
“Yeah, personal. Look, thanks for the ride. Blame it on the drink taken, as my father used to say.”
She watched him stagger up the driveway. Men, not women, were addicted to pathos.
She found herself in a black mood on the drive back and couldn’t bear thinkingsheandKirranhadanythingincommonbeyondlawenforcement. She slammed on the brakes when a black Subaru pulled in front of her to make the Youngstown exit, and she had to hit her brakes hard. Then, in a momentshewouldlaterattributetoherexhaustion,shedidwhatshenever would have done at any other time. She used all the torque in the Jetta’s engine to race up to his window, metal just kissing, and look right into his grizzled muzzle. He had no upper teeth, all bare to the incisors, an old canine snout.
He made an obscene,two-handed motion she hadn’t seen since she last rode a cab in Manhattan. She floored the Jetta off the freeway exit and watched him in the rearview, his erect middle digit poking into the air and finally disappearing. Some trucker blasted his air horn as she circled out of thestreamof trafficandpulledoff undertheshadowof theconcreteabutment.Whatwouldherfatherandtheancestorsthinkof herfoolishdisplay, this self-indulgence? Never shame the family,they said in unison, wagging their ancient misty heads.
She felt the tears flow and let them. She shared her father’s temperament, a scandal to the extended family. But her father secretly adored her for it and showered her with affection whenever Li Feng was not around towitnesshisfavoritism.Hersisterwasthefamily’struebeauty.LiFengwas hot,activeyangincontrasttoherowncoolyin—sheoftenmarveledatthe contrast between them.
Her heart lurched with the pain of remembrance. She asked them for forgivenessandsteeledherself,breatheddeeply,focusedhermind,returned to the fray. Life was like this, she said to herself. Remove yourself from the snare of memory. She retraced her steps back to the moment.
Once on the highway, however, she slipped into automatic pilot.
She felt too much to be a good cop. She wanted order and decency in her life, which was all. This idiotic compulsion to see those qualities in the world was nonsense, not to mention hopeless and personally dangerous. Had it all been just to prove her husband wrong? Maybe it was because she couldn’t bury her dead father even after all these years of trying.
As a little girl in Beijing, barely three years old, she had memorized the Buddha’s first and second noble truths: Suffering is a fact of life. Suffering is caused by attachment. She remembered reciting it to her father one warm spring night under a full moon in crowded Tiananmen Square. Heidegger had taught her that Christian philosophy is a round square and a misunderstanding:DaseinistSorge(“Toexististoworry”).ButitwouldbetheSorbonne that would teach her another, truer philosophy: “Ils avient pensé avec quelque raison qu’il n’est pas de punition plus terrible que le travail inutile et sans espoir.”Itwasultimatelyuntranslatablebecauseitwasallaboutpushingrocks up hills and watching them roll back down. It was about finding joy and scorning hope in the midst of hopelessness.
Part 3: The Hunters and the Hunted Chapter 29
Thirty-Two Days after the Heist: Sergei and Grisha He watched fat red drops of blood drip, drip, drip from his nose onto the floor. Both his eyes were pounded shut. The one smoked foul-smelling tobaccoandwatchedwhiletheotheroneworkedonhim.Theyexchangedthe toweltheyusedtowraptheirhandsfortheheadshots.Eachblowcameunexpectedly—no rush—just a temporary lacuna between borders of pain. Whenever he passed out, the one who sat threw ice-cold water on his face. The slaps were almost as bad as the blows. The stinging burn jolted him awake and then his face was held up by the hair and the punch came or the question: “Where is Dimitri Byko, eh, fuckface?”
He wanted to die, he prayed for death, and begged God to forgive him his sins. He felt sadness but part of his brain was all right with it. Some of his teeth were broken and cut the inside of his mouth so he had to keep swallowingbloodorchoke.Beforetheybegan,theonesittinggesturedwith tongue and fingers, telling him to keep his tongue at the roof of his mouth so he wouldn’t bite it off. His hands were tied in front of him and he was lifted up by a rope that stretched to the ceiling beam.
They spent an entire day with mattocks and crowbars tearing up floorboards looking for the money. Their faces and hands were chalky with ancientdrywalldustandplaster.Sergei,theonewithmovie-starlooks,looped anylonropeovertherafter.Hisownfaceitchedfromthecoatingof sweat, blood, and dust that rained down on him while they worked around him. The first blow had gone to his stomach and he was completely unprepared for it. The ganglia of nerves in the solar plexus was set in such commotion that he did not think he would live through another.
ThenGrishawrappedhishandsandwenttoworkonhisface.Sergeisat at the kitchen table for a while and drank vodka. They reeked of ferocious body odor that stung the nose whenever they moved. The kitchen was a cesspool once the voidings of his own body were added to this poisonous vapor.OnceinawhileGrishamadeacommenttohispartnerwhichcaused him to laugh or bob his headin glee, but for the most part Sergei preferred to observe the doings, grunted something and swigged more vodka. Their faces were streaked with sweat trails and their body odor plateaued into a sulfurous, fuggy stink. When his screams became loud, Sergei cursed, and plastered duct tape over his mouth and went back to drinking.
