Condemned (24 page)

“All I can tell you is that there's been a plot uncovered concerning a contract on Red Hardie's life. For security reasons, I can't tell you anything more than that.”

“What?” said Hardie, who the Marshal had permitted to linger momentarily, so that he might hear the conversation between Sandro and Dineen.

“You've got to be kidding me?” Sandro to Dineen.

“No, I'm not. The Judge didn't say anything so as not to alert the people who are involved in this plot. All I can tell you is there's an ongoing investigation concerning it. In the meanwhile, Mr. Hardie is being remanded for his own protection. We called the Judge's chambers this morning, the moment that we were advised by the D.E.A.”

“This is absolutely absurd,” said Sandro. “
Ex parte
communications, secret plots, protective custody? Nothing on the record in connection with it.”

“Sandro, you're not Hardie's lawyer. You know I can't discuss it with you.”

“Jesus, that's part of it, too. Shoulder me out so no one can talk about it, since Leppard isn't here.”

“I know this isn't satisfactory, but let it suffice that some threats against Mr. Hardie's life have been uncovered by the D.E.A. in the street. We don't want the people who are responsible for the threats to know that we know about them. That's why the Judge said what she said for the record. What's happening is for Mr. Hardie's own safety. He's going to be put in protective custody.”

“Protective custody?” said Red angrily as the hand-cuffs behind his back were racheted locked. “Bullshit.”

“That's all I'm going to tell you,” said Dineen. “If Leppard wants to talk about it further, he can call my office.” Dineen gathered his papers and turned to walk out of the court.

“C'mon, Red,” the Marshal said apologetically. “I gotta take you down.” he said apologetically. He nodded his head toward Sandro, inquiring if there was anything else he wanted to say to Red before he took him away.

“I'll get on it immediately,” was all that Sandro could say.

“This is horse manure, downright horse manure.” Red was angry, he turned toward Dineen. “I don't need, don't want any protection. Mr. Dineen.”

Dineen was already walking toward the back of the courtroom. Geraghty pushed the shopping cart filled with documents and evidence directly behind Dineen.

“I'm sorry, Red,” said the Marshal.

“Don't worry about it, Frank. This hasn't anything to do with you.” He started to walk with the Marshal toward the detention cells. “Sandro, this is absolute nonsense,” he said, turning to glance over his shoulder.

“I'll do everything I can. I'll come over to see you as soon as they process you.”

“That may take all day,” the Marshal said. “You're probably talking tomorrow at the earliest.”

Sandro nodded. His words sounded hollow, without conviction, he thought. He hated the feeling of being useless to his client.

Brighton Beach, Brooklyn: June 20, 1996 :10:30 A.M.

The telephone rang. Irina Broganskaya was standing at her kitchen sink, washing the dishes from yesterday's breakfast and last night's supper, which she needed for this morning's breakfast. Her long, dark hair was pulled back into a ponytail. The phone rang again. Inside, baby Elena was alternately crying and laughing as she sat in her playpen, crying because her diaper was wet, laughing as the toys she was throwing, one at a time, over the railing of the playpen, crashed onto the living room floor.

Irina flipped open the cellular phone that was on the counter next to her. “Alooah?” she said in Russian.

“It's me,” said Dmitri Broganski in almost accentless English. “What's happening? You hear from anybody?” Having emigrated from Russia with his parents when he was eight years old, having attended Boy's High in Brooklyn, Broganski was very Americanized. He spoke Russian fluently, as did Irina, his wife, but their language of choice, their everyday language, was English.

“Everybody,” Irina responded.

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“That means that everybody is calling,” said Irina. “Everybody wants flowers. And I have nothing. Not a thing.”

“In that everybody, is Sascha Ulanov included?” he said.

“If Sascha Ulanov had called, I wouldn't be saying I don't have anything,
da ilye nyet
, yes or no?”

“Da, da. Listen, I can't come right now. I'm supposed to meet Sascha, over there, you know, the usual place. I can't come now.” Actually, Dmitri was about 125 miles south of Brighton Beach's waterfront. He was in Atlantic City, where he had been all night, playing blackjack, craps, drinking cognac, smoking cigars. He was with Jacov Volovnik and Yan Cechinko. Dmitri was pretty sober now, having experienced the extremes of drunkenness twice during the night as he gambled at the tables.

“What time are you supposed to meet him?” asked Irina. There was another crash in the living room.

“What's that?”

“That's your daughter, having a good time, throwing all her toys out of the playpen again, for the fortieth time.”

“As long as she's having fun,” said Dmitri.

“Great. She's having fun. You're having fun. And I'm here with my hands in the sink, washing dishes.”

“Listen, Kotchonik, as soon as we get a little better established, you can use the dishes just once and throw them away. And I don't mean paper plates, neither.”

“If you gave me the money you lose when you go where you are now, I could do it already,” said Irina.

“What, lose? I'm winning. This is just relaxation, a little diversion.”

“You're winning? How much?”

“Not much, five-hundred. But it's better than losing, right?” Dmitri didn't tell her that the five-hundred he was now ahead, had to be subtracted from the three thousand he had lost throughout the night. In his mind, Dmitri started over this morning, when he was flat busted and had to borrow a hundred from Jacov. Since then, so far, he was five-hundred ahead.

“Da. If he calls, you want I should meet Sascha?”

“Yeah, you know where he is every day, about eleven, right?”

“Da,” said Irina.

“Go there. Take the baby for a walk, you know what I mean? And when you see him, he'll give you some flowers. This way, at least, whatever he gives you, at least you'll have some decoration in the apartment if people want to come and drop in. You know what I'm talking?”

“Da, da.”

Shortly thereafter, Irina dressed Elena, put her in the stroller, and wheeled her to the elevator. Dmitri and Irina lived on the eleventh floor of a high-rise housing development in Brighton Beach, at the edge of the boardwalk overlooking the sea. As she was riding down, the elevator stopped at a lower floor, and an older woman, still quite attractive, buxom, very carefully made up with eye-shadow and pale lipstick edged in a darker outline, entered. Irina and the woman began to converse in Russian. They knew each other as neighbors who met occasionally in the elevator or at the mail boxes, or shopping nearby. The woman spoke no English, although she had once indicated to Irina that she had been in the United States for twelve years.

In Brighton Beach, entire lives could be spent by people shopping in Russian stores, eating in Russian restaurants, speaking only Russian, even to the specially trained and assigned police and other City personnel. If you didn't know you were in Brooklyn, near Coney Island, the former beach playground of Americans for well over a hundred years, you would think that you were someplace in Russia.

At the western edge of Brighton Beach, was Coney Island. Stretching from there, past Brighton Beach, for a very long distance, was a beachfront, edged by a wooden boardwalk where people strolled, exercised, took in the sun, gamboled, and socialized. Here, every morning, or almost every morning, Sascha Ulanov—when he wasn't flying to Romania, or meeting with Uri—came to exercise, and swim in the summer. Ordinarily, such activities would keep one healthy, except if, like Sascha, you drank to the point of drunkenness every night, smoked two packs of cigarettes a day, and snorted cocaine between smokes.

As she walked, Irina didn't see Sascha. She glanced into Beach 29
^th
Street, where Sascha ordinarily parked, pretty much in the same spot, next to the fire hydrant, whenever he came to the boardwalk. This morning, however, his car was not there. Irina stood near the railing, searching in each direction, then searching the beach, glancing at all the people passing by. She looked at her watch. It was eleven-twenty. The sun was warm. Baby Elena had fallen asleep. Irina turned the stroller away from the sun and sat on a bench, tilting her face up into the warmth. Every few moments, she would look at the beach, the boardwalk in each direction, then tilted her face back to the sun again. After a while, she saw someone she didn't know, someone with black, slicked-back hair and a moustache, a sports shirt, and ample pants in the new style that many of the immigrants from Moscow were wearing. He was quite young, handsome. The stranger was looking around for many minutes. Irina looked at him. He looked at her. They weren't sure.

“Dmitri's wife?” he said to her tentatively, in Russian.

“Da,” she replied.

“Irina?”

“Da.”

“You know Sascha?” he said.

“Da. I am waiting for him. He was supposed to meet my husband at eleven.”

“Yes, exactly. He will not come.”

“Why not?”

“I don't know,” shrugged the young man. “He asked me to come to tell Dmitri that he cannot come. I see Dmitri can not come either,” he laughed.

“Da. When will we see him, Sascha? I need something for my home.”

“I don't know. He just said to tell you he can't make it now, that he would get in touch with Dmitri later, maybe tonight. That's all I know.”

“What's is your name?”

“Marat,” he said, smiling into her eyes. “Nice child. How old?”

“Fifteen months,” said Irina with a mother's pride.

“Pretty. Like the mother.”

Irina smiled at Marat. “You a friend of Sascha? I haven't seen you before.”

“I only know him a little while. He is a friend of my family, really. You come here often, to the boardwalk?”

“When the weather is good,” she said, turning the stroller to walk back toward her home.

Marat walked next to Irina. “Me, too. I like to take the sun. Maybe I'll see you,” he said.

“Maybe so.”

“What time do you usually come?” he smiled broadly.

“Between two and three.”

“Any particular day?”

Irina shrugged. “Wednesday, Thursday.”

“Wednesday, Thursday,” he repeated. Marat waved as Irina pushed the stroller down the ramp to the street.

Very handsome
, she thought as she walked away.
A little forward, perhaps, but that's the way they are when they first come from Moscow.
Irina saw baskets of flowers hanging from lampposts as she walked; her thoughts turned to flowers. She needed flowers. People were calling her all day long looking for flowers. Lately, business had increased dramatically, and, in direct proportion, the supply of flowers had diminished. When she saw Dmitri, she told herself, she had to tell him that they had to increase their flower order from Sascha so they could supply more flowers to the customers.

Irina looked down at the baby in the stroller. She was still asleep. While looking down, her eyes caught sight of the ruby ring she wore on her finger. She had bought the ring last week from the jeweler on Brighton Beach Avenue. While there, she had noticed that there was also a matching bracelet. She smiled to herself. The jeweler was not far out of the way on her walk home. She would pass by and tell the jeweler to hold the bracelet for her. Might as well look at diamond studs while she was there. The ones she had at home were too small.

As Irina reached the front of her building, she saw Adan Rubinovski, a young man who had recently become a flower customer, pacing in front of the building. He saw Irina and waved. Adan was the nephew of Vasilov Bougashlavili, one of the big men in Brighton Beach. Some magazines said he was the Russian Godfather. There seemed to be many people who were supposed to be the Russian Godfather. Whether or not he was the Godfather, Bougishlavili was well known and well respected throughout the area. Having his nephew as a customer didn't exactly hurt Irina's flower business.

“Hello,” Adan said in excellent English. “I've been waiting for you. I called and there was no answer. I figured you probably went to the store or something.”

“
Nyet problem
,” said Irina. “Except,” she added in a whisper, “I have nothing for you.”

“You're kidding?” said Adan.

“I wish I was,” said Irina. “It's just that everybody wants, and things aren't … just aren't, you know? I just went to see somebody. I thought I was going to get more, you know. But he didn't even show up. Sent somebody else.” For a moment, Irina thought about Marat.
Did they make an appointment for Wednesday or Thursday?
she wondered. He was very attractive.

“When do you think you'll have something?” Adan said with concern. “This is very serious. I really need.… something, you know?”

“Of course I know. Different kind of serious, but serious for both of us.”

“I can't go without … something as easy as you can, if you know what I mean?” he said.

“Nothing I can do,” said Irina. “If I could, you know I'd take care of you, for sure. There will be plenty soon, in a couple of days. That's what I was told. Then you won't have a thing to worry about.”

“Until then? Maybe you have just a little something, perhaps?”

Irina shrugged. “Maybe if I look upstairs, Dmitri maybe put something aside for us, you know, we party a little on the week-end. Maybe there's something. I'm not promising.”