Genie for Hire (19 page)

Biff felt  the same kind of sinister tension
move through his body as he had experienced in Laskin’s apartment, though only
at a fraction of its strength. Evil, mixed with temptation, enslavement, and a
sense of the dark magnificence of the universe. As the image vanished, so did
the sensation.

“Holy powers!” Farishta said, her mouth open.
“What is that?”

Biff looked down at the page before him. “Div-e
Sepid,” he read. “Chief of the Persian demons.”

Farishta moved beside him, and her curls
spilled over his shoulder as they read that the Div-e Sepid was a very old
spirit, centuries older than either of them, known for his huge size and
massive strength. He was skilled in both sorcery and necromancy, able to
conjure dark storms with a flick of his fingers.

They looked at each other. “Could it be?” Biff
asked. “What I felt just now was the barest hint of what I encountered in the
presence of those dolls.”

Farishta sat back in her chair, where she wrapped
her hands around her upper arms and rubbed them, as if the room had turned
cold. “Yes, it was the same sensation.”

Biff closed the book and pushed it away. “But
how could that power become trapped in those dolls? And how did the dolls come
to America, and into Laskin’s possession?”

Farishta stared at him and then her mouth
opened. “The amulet,” she said.

“The Div-e Sepid is tied to your amulet?” He
shook his head. “And you want it back?”

“No, they are not tied together. But perhaps
they were both stolen from the same shipment.”

Biff leaned back in his chair. “Talk to me.”

“For centuries, I believed that the amulet was
lost,” she said. In the morning sunlight, those strands of silver in her hair
glowed with life. “It was just another trinket, so I didn’t mind. But then,
perhaps fifty years ago, I began to see these signs of age.”

She held her right arm up against the window.
“Do you see?” she asked, pointing to the underside of her upper arm. “The
humans call these batwings.” She shuddered.

Biff resisted the urge to smile. He knew what
she referred to, but there was no way any human woman would consider that
Farishta had an ounce of extra fat there.

“I began to see the silver in my hair. And
these.” She made a grotesque face that accentuated the tiny laugh lines around
her mouth, and this time Biff could not resist laughing outright.

The squirrel woke up and made a few
tsk-tsk-tsking noises, then settled back down again.

“It is fine for you,” Farishta said, glaring
at him. “As you age, you will become distinguished.” She said the word as if it
left a bad taste in her mouth. “I will be a hag.”

He leaned over and kissed her cheek. “Never,
my love,” he said.

“I went to see Palmiera,” Farishta said. “She
is wise in such things.”

Palmiera was a genie whose specialty was in
altering personal appearance. Genies of lesser skill than Biff or Farishta, who
needed assistance in creating or manipulating human or animal form sought her
help. “And what did she say?”

“That I would need the power of the amulet to
reverse the aging process,” Farishta said. “So I began to search for it. I
followed traces of it to Somalia.”

“I thought that was your work there. The
unexplained waterspout that allowed the authorities to rescue those hostages
from the pirates. That was you?”

She nodded and leaned back against the
windowsill, one finger toying with a dark curl.

“And the tanker that ran aground, allowing the
pirates to demand that exorbitant ransom from the oil company? Whose side were
you on?”

“I am always on Farishta’s side,” she said. “I
set aside a commission for myself. And those were not pirates, by the way. They
were rebels who needed money to fund their campaigns to educate young girls.”

“Can it be? The legendary troublemaker
Farishta has a good heart after all?”

“I still make trouble, Bivas. I just choose
more carefully those I cause trouble for.”

“In any case, your work is impressive.”

She smiled. “Thank you, Bivas. My looks may be
fading but my powers are still strong.”

He picked up her right hand and lifted it to
his lips. “You will always be beautiful to me, my sweet, no matter how many
centuries pass.”

“You are an old flatterer.”

She took back her hand and sat up. “The amulet
never was in Somalia; that was a false lead. But I used my commission to return
to Baghdad and gain access to the ancient archives.”

“Impressive,” Biff said.

The archives held everything from love notes
passed between the ancients to recipes involving long-lost ingredients to old
manuscripts of every sort. They were buried far underground, and centuries of
human conflict in the area had made them nearly impossible to access without
the right connections. Farishta’s ability to reach them was truly an
accomplishment and yet another testament to her seemingly endless powers.

“I discovered that the amulet was right there
in Iraq, in a cave near the old city of Uruk. It was part of a trove of riches
stored there by a dying vizier who believed he would come back to life and
retrieve them—jewels and cloisonné vases and elegant tapestries faded with age.”
She shook her head. “How silly these humans are.”

“So I have seen,” Biff said.

“As soon as I knew where the amulet was, I
flew there immediately. And you know how hard it is for me to move through a
desert.”

That was true; Farishta depended on the
moisture in the air to create her little whirlwinds. In arid climates she had
to work very hard to transport.

She sighed. “You will make me some tea,
please, Bivas?”

“With pleasure.” He stood, and led her into
the living room, where the samovar rested in a place of honor on a brass tray. She
reclined on a sofa as he retrieved the tea, the water, the sugar and the
glasses.

While the water boiled, Farishta continued her
story. “I was a few months too late. I went into the village at the bottom of
the valley, disguised as an old woman, and I learned that a rebel group had discovered
the cave, and the artifacts, and sold them to finance their army.”

She stood up and began to walk around the
living room. “It was a very tedious process to find the trader in Baghdad, and then
discover the Armenian to whom he had sold the amulet, along with other items
from the cave.”

The water boiled, and Biff prepared the two
glasses of tea.  He served Farishta, who returned to the couch, and Biff sat
across from her. “This Armenian enlisted the help of the Organizatsiya to bring
the items out of Iraq and here to the United States.”

“Laskin’s branch of the Russian Mafiya?”

“Yes. He took the amulet, and now I believe
the dolls, as his commission.”

“Is the amulet connected to the dolls, and to
the Div-e Sepid?”

“I don’t know,” Farishta said. “But I want my
amulet back. Without it, I will continue to deteriorate, and then I will die.”

Biff raised his tea glass and sipped as he considered the
possibility of a world without Farishta. They had not been together regularly
for a very long time, but he had always known she was there in the world, and
the time they spent together was amazing and precious. “Then we must get the
amulet back for you,” Biff said. “If you can’t take it from Laskin by force, he
must give it up voluntarily.”

Farishta shook her head. “The amulet has too much power over
him now. It will not let him let go.”

“Then someone else must make him give it up. We have to make
sure that Laskin goes to prison. Then he’ll have to surrender the amulet, and
you can get it back.”

“And how do you plan to do that? The police have already
cleared Laskin for the murder because he has people to say he was not there
when the people were killed.”

“We get him on a different crime.”

He picked up his phone and called Jimmy Stein. “How do you
feel about lunch?” he asked. “I’ve got a proposition to make to you.”

“Your propositions usually involve trouble for me,” Jimmy
said. “Better make it a damn good lunch. The Grill on the Alley at one
o’clock.”

“Fortunately my client left me a substantial retainer before
she died,” Biff said, although it would have been clearer to say that the money
had come from Laskin’s safe deposit box. “Think you could encourage your pal
from the ATF to join us?”

“Hector? I can try. What’s this about?”

“Don’t worry, I’ll make it worth your while. See you at one.”
When he hung up he looked at Farishta. “We have an hour before we have to
leave. Are you feeling better, my sweet?”

“I cannot make myself into a nubile young girl like Petrov’s
daughter,” she said, pushing back a black curl.

“That is not what interests me.” Biff leaned down and picked
her up, and she clasped her arms around his neck.

Biff walked into the kitchen, where Farishta stood on
tiptoe, pulling a shallow bowl down from a high shelf. She had returned to the
same outfit as the morning, though now the Hermes scarf had been opened up to
pull her hair back completely, and she had added a black and white lambskin
handbag from Loewe, which rested on the counter beside her.

“I need to stop by my office on the way to lunch,” he said,
as she held her right hand over the bowl, and water dripped into it from her
fingertips.

Raki sat up on his hind legs on the floor. She bent down and
placed the bowl next to him. He leaned over and lapped the water with his tiny
pink tongue. “Whatever you need, my love,” she said.

They walked out to the Mini Cooper together, and Biff
lowered the top. Farishta looked like she had just stepped out of a fashion
spread as he pulled the car up in front of the shopping center. “I’ll just be a
minute,” he said. “I need to grab the jump drive that has Natasha’s pictures on
it.”

As he got out of the car, Sophia the receptionist came out
of the chiropractor’s office. “Sophia, this is Farishta,” he said. “You’ve been
wanting to meet her.” He introduced Sophia, then darted into his office.

When he returned, Sophia was gone, and Farishta was smiling.
“You are still a devil, Bivas. That girl likes you.”

“I know. That’s why I introduced you.”

“I will not always be here,” Farishta said, as Biff started
the car. “You may have other distractions.”

Biff rested his arm around Farishta’s shoulders and turned
to look behind her as he backed up. “You’ll always be the only one for me,” he
said.

She simply smiled again and nestled into the curve of his
arm, and they drove like that to the mall. When they arrived, she said, “I am
not hungry. I will shop until your meeting is finished.”

Biff parked in the garage, kissed Farishta goodbye, and then
ran into Jimmy Stein and Hector Hernandez in front of the restaurant. “Good to
see you again,” Hector said, shaking Biff’s hand. “This place is a big step up
from La Guajira.”

“I think you’ll like it.”

A shapely young hostess showed them to their table. Biff had
gotten such a workout from Farishta, though, that he barely noticed. They
ordered steaks and salads, and once the server had left, Jimmy said, “So. Your
proposition.”

“First, I have something to show you.” Biff pulled out his
cell phone and accessed the pictures of Natasha Petrovna. “Recognize her?”

Jimmy recoiled from the first photo. “Jesus, Biff, that’s
illegal.”

“Duh, Jimmy. Look at her face.”

Hector took the phone from Biff and zoomed in on the girl’s
face. “She looks familiar.”

“How about Viktor Petrov’s daughter Natasha.”

Hector nodded, and Jimmy whistled. “He know about these?”
Jimmy asked.

“I think that’s why he had Igor Laskin kill Sveta Pshkov and
Kiril Ovetschkin.”

Jimmy looked up. “She took the picture?”

“And a lot more like it. And then Ovetschkin sold them off
to someone in Russia for distribution to pedophiles everywhere.”

Jimmy sat back. “I’m losing my appetite.”

“Buck up, Jimmy. We’re going to nail these bastards. That’s
where my proposition comes in.”

The server brought over their salads. “You have a way to
break Laskin’s alibi for the murders?” Jimmy asked, when he had gone.

Biff shook his head. “I want to go after him through a
different angle. Hector, what’s been going on at Customs, after that guy
Fiorentino had his heart attack?”

“Haven’t heard of any new shipments of guns coming in.”

“Can you get me a job there? With access that might be
appealing to Laskin and Petrov?”

“What have you got in mind?” Hector asked.

“I’ve already met Laskin through the Bolshoi Gym, but he
doesn’t know my name or where I work. Suppose I let it slip that I work at
Customs, and I offer to pick up his deal with Fiorentino. Then when Laskin
tells me the next shipment of guns is coming in, and asks me to massage the
paperwork, I tip you guys off, you pull in him and Petrov. You get to take down
their operation, I get some payback for them killing my client, even if she was
less than legit.”

“It’s against our policy to involve outsiders in official
investigations,” he said.

“You have any other way to get at Laskin and Petrov?” Biff
asked.

Hector said, “No. But we’ll find something. Eventually.”

Biff turned to Jimmy. “Talk to him, Jimmy. I want to nail
these bastards. They killed my client. Yeah, I know she was a sleaze. But she
was still my client. And these guys need to be off the street. I believe in the
rule of law. I want to do this the right way.”

He and Jimmy had worked together long enough that Jimmy got
the implication. If the legal way didn’t work, Biff would find another way to
take down Laskin and Petrov.

Jimmy sighed and turned to Hector. “See, Biff here has
talents,” Jimmy said. “I can’t explain them, and he probably can’t either, in
ways that you and I could understand. But he’s what I’d call a talented
amateur. He can get into places and do things we can’t, and he knows enough not
to screw up official investigations.”