Dead and Gone

Max made a gesture for “true,” tapped his ear, pointed to Flower. Then he made the sign of pouring one test tube into another, holding up the receiving vessel to the light, checking the results.

Immaculata nodded, slowly. Getting it, but not liking it much. I’d been asking everyone if my voice sounded the same to them—it sure as hell didn’t to me. They’d all assured me that I sounded the same, but Flower, innocent Flower, she was the perfect test. She hadn’t seen me since I’d been there. But when she’d heard my voice …

“I’m sorry,” I told Immaculata, trying to take the weight for Max.

“It’s all right,” she said. “I understand. And so does Flower.”

The little girl nodded, solemn but not distressed anymore.

“Thank you,” I said, bowing. Max understood the thanks were for Immaculata, and the bow for him. I knew what it had cost him to use his precious child in any kind of experiment. But he was right—it was the only way to tell.

I didn’t need my voice to say goodbye to Pansy. The Mole showed me where she was buried, her grave nestled in a triangle of rusting steel girders, long lengths of rebar wound through it to make a wreath. It was strangely beautiful, like the charred ground beneath a launched rocket.

Mama had given me a box of brilliantly colored little papier-mache constructions. “Burn when you say goodbye to puppy. Be waiting for her in new place.” Each was a perfectly rendered miniature. Everything Pansy could ever want, even an exact replica of her treasured giant rawhide bone. And a sheepskin mat that looked as if it had been cut from the original.

I’d seen those symbolic representations for use at funerals in Chinatown shops, but never ones like these. Mama had to have custom-commissioned them. And brought them over to Max’s place herself. It was the first time I’d ever seen her outside her restaurant.

“What about the play money?” I asked, expecting her to tell me a dog wouldn’t need money.

“Real puppy. Send real money,” she said. And handed me a thousand in crisp new centuries.

We all have our beliefs. Mama lived hers.

Standing there, I realized I couldn’t say anything. I’d said it all while Pansy was with me. Said it the only way that ever counts … with my behavior. Nothing to say, but I stood there for a long time. First trying not to cry. Then letting it go.

Belle was there, too. In that same graveyard. Belle, who loved me and died for me. I didn’t miss her any the less after I’d settled her score. Didn’t hate myself any the less for having put her in harm’s way, either. But I gave her the respect she’d earned, honoring that she’d gone out the way she’d wanted to.

Belle had drawn a pack of squad cars off me, out-driving the best NYPD had and making it back to where we were supposed to meet. But they’d poured enough lead into her that all she had left was the strength to say goodbye.

You can never really balance the scales. Taking a life doesn’t return the one the killer took. But any death of a loved one is a test of faith. And my religion is revenge.

With Belle, he’d been easy to find. I knew who he was. Her father. I knew what he was, too. So killing him was even easier.

With Pansy, I didn’t know who. Not yet. But when I did, it would play out like this: they were gone, or I was.

“I’ll see you soon, girl,” is all I could make myself say to her.

The Mole set up the meet. He’d done it before. It was always the same—I wanted something from them or they wanted something from me. Money never changed hands. What we traded was information. Or work.

“Dmitri is ex-Spetsnaz,” the unremarkable man said. He was a little shorter than me, slim, with dark wiry hair and leathery skin that made him look older than he was … I guessed. He wasn’t one I’d ever seen before, but his eyes had the same look they all have.

“What’s that?” I asked him.

“The elite of the Russian military. Like the Special Forces or the SEALs. But now, in today’s Russia, they are not heroes; they are throwaways. They are paid nothing, they live in squalor, they have no prospects.”

“So they hire out?”

“Some do. Not all. Some are loyalists to the core, waiting for the return of Communist Russia. But most of them could not survive without some other employment.”

“Dmitri?”

“Dmitri is a criminal. He was a criminal in Russia; he is a criminal here. But his group is small. Operatives for hire, not what you Americans like to call ‘organized crime.’ His group has no foothold that would interest the Mafia, so he has no basis for a partnership.”

“What kind of foothold would interest them?”

“Gas stations are one example. The Mafia arranges for all the stations to buy bootleg and avoid the gas tax, which is enormous. Then the profits are divided. Money laundering is another. There are many small businesses in the Russian neighborhoods. All-cash businesses. But Dmitri is no businessman, despite his opinion of himself.”

“So he could have just been hired to do the job?”

“An assassination? Certainly. But it is not likely.”

“Why?”

“It was too elaborate. You have been alone with this man, more than once, yes?”

“Yes.”

“So he had many opportunities. Dmitri has military training, but he is no master tactician. If he had been paid —paid enough—to risk a homicide, he would have acted on it when he had the chance, not given you so much time to ascertain his intent.”