Dirty Fire (28 page)

I had recently felt the same anxiety, one that had increased with each mile as I had neared Lake Tower. It was the belief that one set of headlights behind me had become a too familiar, troubling feature of the landscape.

At that instant, from outside came the crunching sound of tires on the gravel drive.

“We are expecting more company, perhaps?” Mikhail’s eyes had narrowed, and his voice—though still level and reasonable—had lost its bantering tone. At the sound of an auto crunching to a stop on the graveled drive outside, he had become unnaturally, ominously alert.

Then the door shook under three hammer strokes.

“Answer it,” he said to Tarinkoff, and it was not a request. He smiled, dangerously without mirth. “If it is the police—well, you have diplomatic immunity, and I do not.”

Tarinkoff moved to the door, and to me it was obvious that the art attaché was already reviewing the range of possibilities facing him.

It could be the proverbial misdirected pizza delivery. If so, it was good luck for Tarinkoff and bad luck for the hapless delivery boy. For an official of the Russian Consulate to seen at an address that, I had no doubts, would feature prominently in the news by this time tomorrow—well, that could not be permitted. In such a case, the delivery boy would be invited inside, and Mikhail would have one more addendum to his assignment’s final report.

On the other hand, if Tarinkoff had been followed, it could only have been by the FBI or some other law enforcement authority—in which case his predicament was dire. He was probably safe enough from the Americans; Tarinkoff did have diplomatic immunity, and I thought it unlikely he would be foolish enough to provoke any hostile response before he made that fact known.

No, the real danger came from the Mafiya cowboy, who had skewed everyone’s calculations merely by showing up.

I had no illusions about Mikhail’s intentions, and I was certain Tarinkoff also understood. Should anything unexpected happen, Mikhail’s first impulse would be to shoot anything and everybody, including any cultural attaché who might be inconveniently in the line of fire.

Tarinkoff opened the door, wide enough for him to at least attempt a rolling dive to the bushes outside if it proved necessary.

I saw his mouth light up in a smile, but I was not prepared for what he said next.

“
Mr
. Santori,” he said, emphasizing the civilian honorific to avoid any chance it might sound like an official title. “What brings you here?”

“What the hell is Nederlander’s car doing outside?” an angry voice said as Tarinkoff stepped aside to admit the unexpected visitor. “And exactly what are you doing here, Mr. Tarink—”

Ron Santori stopped in mid-word at the sight of Mikhail’s gun pointed at his chest. He stood stock-still as Tarinkoff closed the door and stiffened only slightly when the attaché patted him down and removed the pistol from his belt.

“He is alone?” Mikhail’s eyes flickered to Tarinkoff only for an instant before returning to the new arrival.

“So—our little company has grown again!” Mikhail said. “Please join us out here—being most careful, of course, to keep your hands on the top of your head.”

At his gesture, Santori walked slowly, carefully into the large sitting room. As he did so, he passed momentarily before a window. Its curtain was only slightly ajar; as it turned out, that was enough.

Charlie Herndon moved well for a man of his size and relative age. He stayed in the shadows that dappled the lawn and followed the lines of sculpted shrubbery until he half squatted against the brickwork of the house. He was not, he noted with a measure of pride, even breathing hard.

At least,
he thought,
not
that
hard.

Following the Russians had not been a difficult task. He had been double-parked down the street from the garage where Tarinkoff kept his consular car, a shamefully decadent Cadillac Seville. As the Russian had steered though the Gold Coast traffic, Charlie Herndon had merely stayed several cars back, counting on his peripheral vision to deal with the rest of the northbound traffic flow.

Now, what could be so important to drag you out this time of night?
Herndon thought to himself.
With the lovely Doctor Valova in tow, no less.

He kept what he hoped was the right distance behind the Seville with the consular license plates—not so close he could be tagged easily, not so far that the unpredictability of the city traffic could easily cut him off from his quarry.

Jeez,
he thought,
when was the last time I did a street tail—let alone a solo job?

It was a rhetorical question; Herndon had known the answer all too well, and decided to ignore it. At least he was in one of the older cars in the FBI pool: a dark blue Crown Victoria, a gas-guzzling battleship with a seat large enough to fit his oversized frame.

He relaxed somewhat when the car he was following turned onto Lake Shore Drive. Now he could fall back a little more without the risk that a sudden turn could end the chase.

“Okay, Mr. Tarinkoff,” the FBI agent said aloud, “lead on and I’ll follow. I’ve got a full tank of gas and all night to waste.”

In unconscious tandem, the two cars sped northward.

But then things became even more interesting as he drew up beside another northbound auto. Something about the car, or the profile of the driver, struck alarm bells in Herndon’s head.

“What the hell?” In his surprise, he had spoken aloud. “Santori, you son of a bitch.”

Without making it obvious, he fell back. He did not know why Ron Santori would have chosen to follow a Russian consular car; but he did not believe in coincidences, either.

Once in Lake Tower, it had taken all his remembered skills to keep both of his target vehicles in view on the thinly trafficked streets. Finally, he had watched with furrowed brow as the Cadillac pulled into the circular drive of a large house alongside several other vehicles. Santori too had stopped, watching the two figures enter. For several minutes, he sat at idle, and Herndon fancied that the dark silhouette of the other agent wavered in indecision; then Santori followed the Russians’ lead.

But when Santori had stepped inside the house, Herndon could have sworn he saw the agent stop short an instant before the closing door blocked his view.

That could mean nothing, or everything.

Short of kicking in the door, there was only one way to find out.

And so now Herndon was at a window, the glow from inside diffused by the opaque curtain drawn across it. He cursed silently and guided himself along with one hand lightly grazing the cool brick wall.

He had better luck at the next window: a gap, no more than a half-inch wide, where the curtains did not quite meet. If he stretched
—like this!—
and twisted his head like this
—dammit, that hurt!—
he could just see inside the room where—

He pulled back quickly and silently. The trip back to his car took longer than the previous foray because Herndon now knew the odds were much higher.

• • •

Herndon slid into the car seat, ignoring the radio microphone that hung almost out of sight below the dashboard. He trusted neither the Lake Tower airwaves nor the resources they might dispatch. Instead, he fumbled his cellular phone from his coat pocket and thumbed the buttons. A calm voice responded midway through the first ring.

“Federal Bureau of Investigation, Central Dispatch,” a male voice said. “State the nature of your emergency.”

“Federal Central, this is Special Agent fourteen eighty-eight,” Herndon said, speaking in a low growl. “I have a hostage situation in progress. Lake Tower, 2759 Terrace Pointe.” He smiled to himself and raised the ante. “One Bureau agent and possibly two members of a foreign diplomatic mission may be among the hostages.”

“Ten-four.” The voice came over the airways, unflappable as always. Herndon wondered how dispatchers stayed so calm. “Hostage situation in progress. 2759 Terrace Pointe, Lake Tower. Stand by, Fourteen eighty-eight…”

Thirty seconds later, the dispatcher again spoke.

“Fourteen eighty-eight, we’ve scrambled the HRT alert team. Be advised their ETA at your location is twenty minutes. Do you require immediate backup from the Lake Tower police?”

“Hell, no—I mean, negative on that, Central. Do not, repeat, do
not
contact Lake Tower PD. We’re running a local corruption case here, and they may be part of the problem.”

There was a moment of silence as the dispatcher digested that information.

“Ten-four. Okay, we have the HRT en route by helicopter. Stand by for their arrival. Do not attempt entry or initiate action until that time. Also, Chicago SAC is being alerted as to the situation. We will patch her through to you for direct briefing.”

“Yeah,” Herndon replied. “Fourteen eighty-eight standing by.” He made the dispatcher repeat his cell phone number and broke the connection, his brow furrowed.

Twenty minutes. If this all blows up, that’s twenty minutes too late. I need somebody to watch my back,
now
. And I’ve run out of options.

He flipped through the small spiral notebook he always carried until he found a list of names and numbers. Gil Cieloczki’s house was only minutes away, based on the address Davey had given him. Scrawled a few lines under it was the name ‘Chaz Trombetta,’ and the number of a cellular phone.

Maybe you
can
bend a crooked cop back,
he said to himself, punching in the numbers.

• • •

The hammering on the side door was loud and insistent—definitely not Gil, Kay Cieloczki would have known, not even if he had somehow misplaced his house keys. Cautiously, she peered through the glass of the doorlight. Outside, a dark figure held up a policeman’s badge up for her to see.

Given the recent events, it could not have eased her concern.

She snapped the chain into its metal slot before opening the door the few inches it allowed.

“Yes? What is—”

The voice was low and urgent as it interrupted.

“Mrs. Cieloczki, I’m working with Davey—but something important’s come up and I have to leave. M’am, I need you to lock your door and not let anybody in until your husband—”

At the same instant, they both heard the movement from the darkness behind. Kay’s eyes widened as the man on her porch half spun, his hand flashing under his suit coat.

“No!” she said, and there was fear in her voice. “That’s my—”

“What’s going on?” Gil Cieloczki demanded, staring at the large pistol that was now pointing steadily at his chest. He swallowed hard in a mouth suddenly dry. “What’s this about?”

Chaz Trombetta lowered the heavy automatic and let out the breath he had been holding. The ragged sound could have mistaken for a sigh.

“Ask me in an hour, Chief Cieloczki,” he said, his voice unsteady as he looked at the man he had almost shot. “It looks like we’re all about to find out.”

Marita Travers’s house was old; in a place less patrician, the room where we had been herded would have been called the basement. It showed no evidence of regular maintenance, and the stairs were warped in places. Worse, there was no handrail, which had made it a dicey trip for a person with his hands clasped on top of his head, fingers entwined firmly.

Paradoxically, it was easier for the three whose hands had been taped together in front; when they stumbled, they could brace themselves against the wall without receiving a hard poke in the back with a pistol muzzle.

Once, as we descended single file down the dark basement stairs, I had intentionally slowed to test the Russian’s response. The result had been a single vicious rap of a pistol barrel against my ear, hard enough to hurt. It earned me nothing for the pain; the Russian was too professional to remain close enough for me to risk turning and grappling for the weapon.

If there was a weak link here, it was not the man with the gun.

Santori, directly in front of me, had glanced back at the sound of the pistol striking my head. His expression was surprisingly calm, almost detached.

I envied him his apparent state of mind.

Neither Gil nor Chaz knew we was here; there could be no rescue, and the odds of turning the tables on my own were slim to none. Whatever else he was, Mikhail knew his business. Trying to rush him would only get me shot, immediately. Not that I would die alone: ultimately, I was convinced, Mikhail would ensure that no secrets left this place.

For that matter, I was not even certain who was friend and who was foe. I studied the figures below me on the stairs. The three whose wrists were taped were presumably allies, in varying degrees; but they would be of little help. Neither Tarinkoff nor Valova were bound, but aside from relieving Santori of his pistol—which could have been at Mikhail’s order, I realized—neither of them had acted in a way to indicate they were not also hostages. Their attitudes were no indication, either. Tarinkoff was almost unnaturally poised and polite, while Petra Valova looked on the verge of raving hysterics.

As for Santori—why he was here, how he even knew to come here, mystified me.

Something hard jabbed near my kidney. “Do not daydream, my friend.” Mikhail’s voice said from close behind. “There is much still to do.”

Below, Tarinkoff groped along the wall at the base of the stairs until he found the switch. The sudden glare from naked light bulbs that dangled from rafters was momentarily dazzling.

“That’s it, in the corner,” said Peter Comstock in a voice that sounded almost abashed. He muttered something I didn’t catch, and the Travers woman made a reassuring sound.

“You didn’t know, Peter,” Marita Travers said. “How could you have?”

“I should have,” he said, his expression that of a man who wished he could kick himself, hard. “I thought they were just good reproductions. For God’s sake, I took a class in art history.”

The wooden box was scarred and stained and heavier than it appeared at first glance. Petra Valova had gone to it with a possessiveness that was greedy, so much so that it was startling in its intensity.

She pulled at the top, straining. The lid didn’t move, held in place by substantial-looking screws.

“We must open it,” Valova said urgently. There were no tools in evidence. She turned to the gunman. “You—do you have a knife?”

“Do I, indeed,” Mikhail replied. “And unless you begin to show respect, I will use it in a way that will astound you.”

With his free hand, the one not holding the pistol, he reached behind and under his jacket. The sheath was concealed along his belt where it crossed the small of his back. He tugged out the blade and slid it along the concrete floor to where the curator knelt next to the shipping crate.

“I will want that back,” he said to her. “It has great sentimental value.”

Valova ignored him. The screws were tight, and the pointed tip of the knife was ill suited as a screwdriver. Abandoning the effort, she instead focused on the joint where the lid fitted tight against the crate’s side. With a determined scowl, she worked at spreading the two pieces with the blade. The tempered steel flexed, dangerously close to snapping.

But a gap opened, and Valova pried at the stubborn planking until she could slip her fingers under the wooden edge. Dropping the knife, she pulled hard with both hands. The wood squealed as it released its grip on the tightly fitted sides of the packing case.

Then, so gently as to be almost reverent, Petra Valova began to remove the canvases—each still on their fitted metal stretchers—from the slotted partitions inside. Delicately, she placed them against the wall near our small group.

I was close enough to hear what Mikhail spoke to Tarinkoff in a voice not intended to carry.

“I repeat: it would be simpler—and far more certain—to burn them. Here, in this place,” he said.
With all of these inconvenient witnesses,
his eyes added wordlessly to the cultural attaché. “I was given that option, in my orders.” His eyes still locked on Valova, Tartinkoff shook his head once, a cautionary gesture.

“This isn’t necessary, Anatoli,” Ron Santori said, as quietly as the other two had been. “My government has no desire to see your country embarrassed over anything as…
irrelevant
as this. We can help; you have my word.”

Tarinkoff regarded him gravely.

“What of—” an almost imperceptible movement of his eyes included the captives.

“We can work it out,” Santori insisted. “A few details, nothing more.”

“
I
can work it out,” Mikhail said to Tarinkoff. “This man is merely a detail himself.”

Before Tarinkoff could speak, I did.

“So,” said I, and my voice was clear and conversational, “you’ve decided that burning the paintings is necessary?”

Valova’s head snapped up, and she looked at the two Russian men with an expression that was in equal parts horror, defiance and supplication.

“No!” she said. “Anatoli, do not allow this. You cannot listen to…to this
criminal!”

The cultural attaché studied Valova with a solemn detachment that bordered on sadness, obviously weighing the potential for disaster.

Tarinkoff sighed, and I could read his thoughts as clearly as if he had been speaking. Mikhail was correct: one more fire would simplify many issues. But any threat to the paintings would provoke a response from Valova, one that certainly would require an executive decision Tarinkoff was loathe to make. Even with the option available, Tarinkoff would not relish explaining to his superiors why nine priceless masterpieces were destroyed rather than returned; he would like even less the prospect of rationalizing why he had to preside over the shooting of a senior curator of the Pushkin Museum.

Tarinkoff shook his head firmly.

“If they can be returned to Mother Russia,” he said, “we will all have fewer questions to answer, in the long run. It will be safe. They will travel under diplomatic seal.”

Evans looked at Tarinkoff.

“And our deal?” he asked, the mildly disapproving voice of a man who had begun to realize he was not associating with honorable folk.

Tarinkoff shrugged half apologetically.

“It would seem,” he said, with a slight inclination of his head toward Mikhail, “that a renegotiation is in order.”

Evans made his voice harder.

“Unless you release me—and return to the terms of our agreement—my associate has instructions to release information on…on all of this.” Evans took a shuddering breath. “There is a full record of everything that has happened—how and why Levinstein acquired the paintings, our negotiations—even photos of the paintings.”

I watched Evans’s face closely; under the bravado was, justifiably enough, a growing fear that had not yet spilled over into panic. But it was coming.

I began to move, as imperceptibly as possible, to the side. In my peripheral vision, I saw the artist’s eyes flicker sideways at me; then Comstock too moved slightly, in a way that put himself between Mikhail’s gun and Marita Travers.

The Russian’s attention was focused, mockingly, on Evans.

“Ah, yes—your associate.” Mikhail snapped the fingers of his free hand and spoke as if discussing a forgotten detail. “A very accommodating man. In fact, I drove here in the vehicle he…loaned to me.”

He addressed Tarinkoff.

“I would not concern myself excessively about any
evidence
”—his voice sneered at the word—“or about any associate. Before I left him, the gentleman—a Mister Nederlander; I am pronouncing it correctly?—was quite eager to provide me all the information I needed. How he killed the thief Sonnenberg and the girl at the insurance company. Even what he called ‘torching’ the Jew’s house: an apt expression, to be sure. I’m sure that he was surprised to learn I had been there earlier that very day.”

He turned toward Evans. “Did you know he lived quite well for a humble policeman? I was quite impressed when I went to his house—for the steel box he kept in his attic. The one with the Polaroid pictures, yes?”

Mikhail stared at Talmadge Evans, enjoying the look in the older man’s eyes.

Then he turned to Tarinkoff and spoke in a voice that was disinterested, almost bored. “There are no longer any photographs or any other documents that involve this matter.”

Santori’s voice was no longer reasonable.

“Listen to me, Tarinkoff. Evans is going to jail—maybe even to death row. You want things quiet, and your government wants back its paintings. Okay. But if there’s a bloodbath in this room, all bets are off. Look, we can handle all of this.”

“How are you going to handle
me
, Ron?” I asked, and Tarinkoff stared at me dolefully.

“You’re easy to handle, Davey,” Santori said tightly. “You want to protect Ellen, don’t you?”

Now it was my turn to stare.

“Oh, she’s cooperated nicely so far,” Santori said. “She even agreed to take a little Florida vacation, all expenses paid by Operation Centurion—right after we had her play that little phone prank on you. But you don’t want to get the government annoyed, Davey. Life can get very difficult, especially for a woman like your ex-wife.”

If ever I felt rage—hatred, even—it was at that moment. That may explain, at least partially, what happened next.

“The Donnatello! What…what
is
this?” Valova’s voice, coming from the circle of light behind the Russian cultural attaché where she had moved to better study the Italian master’s work, was shrill with outrage. She had turned the painting facedown and was staring at what seemed to be the reverse side of the canvas.

Anatoli Tarinkoff turned to look over her shoulder.

“Ah. I recognize the distinctive style of Mr. Comstock,” he said and glanced at the artist. “When the compulsion to create possesses you, sir, it must be quite irresistible. You appear to simply seize any available surface for your work.”

Comstock said nothing; it didn’t appear that he could. The artist was fixed on the painting Valova still held, and his face looked aghast. But close beside him, Marita Travers answered instead.

“For an art attaché,” she said, “you clearly know nothing about artists.”

It was a mild rebuke compared to the expression on Petra Valova’s face.

“You…you ignorant
Philistine!
” she spat at Peter Comstock. “You dare to…to
pollute
works of genius!” She placed the painting on the table, reverently turning it so the original work was uppermost. Only then did she return her fury to Comstock.

“How many?” she demanded. “What other priceless masterpieces have you vandalized?”

Marita answered for him.

“Peter completed three masterpieces here,” she told the Russian curator in a deceptively sweet voice that did not match the steely glint in her eyes. “The painting he’s doing on the big canvas is a…a work in progress.”

“Not the
C
é
zanne!
” Petra Valova almost shrieked, and her eyes swept madly through the pieces she had leaned against the wall, as if she could somehow have put it there without realizing. “What have you done with it?”

“It’s upstairs,” said Marita, a scornful twist to her lips, “you hysterical little harpy.”

Mikhail spoke up, amusement in his voice.

“Did I not mention this?” he said. “I
am
sorry. This man scribbled all over a number of your precious paintings.” He winked at Tarinkoff but again addressed Valova. “I believe they are hopelessly ruined, are they not? This is but one more argument for simply piling all of them together and striking a match.”

I spoke to Mikhail, though my words were meant for other ears.

“You’d really destroy them?” I said. “Irreplaceable masterpieces, burned to ashes. Priceless artwork, going up in flames. That would certainly be something to watch.”

“Yes,” Mikhail said, “perhaps I shall have that opportunity. You, I fear, will not.”

I shot a quick glance at the curator. With widening eyes, Valova had taken in the scene and understood: except as it served our own interests, the paintings were meaningless to anyone else here. They would be destroyed without compunction.

If she did not act first.

But Valova was both frozen and frantic, torn between her need to stand guard over the pieces down here and an overwhelming compulsion to verify the safety of the remaining painting. She looked past Tarinkoff at the gunman, who stood watching as if deeply amused by the spectacle he had helped orchestrate.

“You!” she ordered, a slightly unbalanced Czarina imperiously commanding a lowly footsoldier. “Go up there and find it! Bring it here, immediately!”

Mikhail threw his head back and laughed.

It was not quite a mistake—more a lapse, or perhaps simply a momentary oversight born of overconfidence. Whatever it was, it was possibly the only one he might make. I did not wait for him to correct it.

The instant Mikhail’s eyes left the little conclave, I dipped, low and fast, and threw myself in a sideways roll toward the wall. When I came up, it was with one of the paintings in a two-handed grip. It was the Michelangelo, and I held it in front of myself like a shield. I edged sideways, toward the light switch near the base of the stairs. It seemed a very long way away.