The face looked back at me, and in it, there was the resemblance. To Val. She looked like Val. Val’s hair had been short and blonde, too. Only recently had she let it grow out; only recently had she let it go back to her dark red.
Had I missed this? How? Did I fail to see it because I didn’t want to see it?
I started the car, I drove like crazy back to Brighton Beach, to Val’s office, and when I got there she was gone. I called her. Val? Val? Answer the phone!
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Val?
All the way home, I called, I put my phone on redial, and when I got to my block I barely noticed that Roy Pettus was leaning against the wall of the Korean grocery on the corner. Holding a bottle of Coke, he saw me pull up. I put my phone away.
“Hello, Art.”
“Roy. You following me?”
He looked at his watch.
“Nope, just hoping you might be coming home before I have to go back to New Jersey,” Roy said who was wearing a suit, the jacket too big, the collar of his shirt too tight. “You give my offer some thought?” he said. “You okay, Artie? You look shook up.”
“What offer?”
“Coming in with us.”
“No thanks. I’m helping out on a homicide. I’m busy.”
“The Russian girl, right? I could give you some stuff on this, help you finish it up.”
“What kind?”
Leaning forward, his head jutting out of his tight shirt collar, he reacted fast, and said, voice low, “This personal with you at all, Artie? You have a stake in this case?” He stuck his finger into his collar like he was suffocating. “God, I feel like a horse’s ass, suit and tie, haven’t been in a get-up like this for years since I left the city.” He adjusted the jacket. “It’s too damn hot for this.”
“You want to come up to my place?” All the time we were talking, I strained to hear my cellphone. Call, I thought. Val?
“Thanks. That would be fine,” Pettus said. “I won’t stay long. Just need to cool off.”
Upstairs at my place, Pettus removed his jacket carefully, folded it neatly on a kitchen stool, sat down on another one and asked if he could smoke. I said sure and got him a cold Coke, which he asked for, confessing he was addicted to the stuff.
I put a glass and an ashtray in front of him, then checked my messages and my e-mails, while he watched me, guessing how frantic I was, that I was waiting to hear from somebody.
He concentrated on his drink, but I knew he was looking around, watching me, taking a good look, appraising my place, me, how I lived. It was what he had wanted, maybe even why he had been waiting for me on the street in front of my building.
“Nice place,” he said.
I got a beer from the fridge, sat opposite him and said, “Thank you.” And waited.
“Tough living in the city these days. Expensive.”
“Roy, let’s skip the small talk.”
“Just wanting to help.”
“Spit it out, Roy, you’re still wanting me to go to London, spy on the Russians there, get involved, is that it? If so, please don’t follow me around and bug my friends, it doesn’t make me feel comfortable at all.”
“Like I said, I’m sorry about that,” said Roy. “We’re in trouble,” he said, as the phone rang, and I bolted from the kitchen to answer it. It wasn’t Val.
“Not the call you’ve been waiting for?” Pettus added mildly.
I didn’t answer, just said, “What makes you so sure I’d be good at this stuff, this whatever you call it? Intelligence. Isn’t that the polite term, Roy? Isn’t that what Bush calls it every time he wants some more money to bug our phones? It’s all just bluster, it’s just the fucking Russians rattling their missiles and stamping their feet.”
Pettus crushed out his smoke, got up, loped across my loft, admired some photographs on the wall, looked at my books, picked one out and examined it. I couldn’t see the title. From one of the big industrial windows that faced the street, he looked at the building opposite mine. He turned to me.
“I am really sorry for not coming to you straight,” he said. “I don’t know what got hold of me. I need your help. We need you bad. It’s that simple. I can’t think of anyone else I can ask, or trust.”
Climbing back on the stool, he put his elbows on the counter, asked if he could have another Coke and smiled, as if at his own pathetic addiction to the soda.
“You’d be attached to Scotland Yard along with a few other NYPD detectives.”
“For real? Or as a cover?”
“You’d be working normal terrorism stuff, of course, but it’s obvious you’d hang out with some of the new Russians, being a Russian yourself.”
“You’re figuring if I’m in London I’m spending time at Tolya Sverdloff’s London club. With Russians.”
“It’s where they go.”
“I can’t do that. I’d be lousy at it.”
“You’ve been undercover from time to time in New York, right? Even doing your homicide cases, you specialize in getting people to tell you things. Right? This isn’t any different.” Roy turned the pale brown eyes on me. “You have the gift,” he added.
“What makes you think that?”
“Your dad, wasn’t he an agent? Didn’t he work for the KGB back when? I read he was the best, subtle, he could charm anything out of anybody.”
“How the hell do you know?”
“When the Soviet Union collapsed, for a time we were on good terms with their people, they let us read a lot of their stuff.”
“A long time ago, Roy. It’s not genetic.”
“People tell us it’s like a family, KGB, FSB as it’s become. They only trust their own. Your family was in the business, you’re part of it, it’s dynastic.”
I saw now what Pettus wanted. He wanted somebody ex-KGB guys would trust, maybe even current FSB guys.
I didn’t answer.
“Your job here, I could clear you on that. There’s plenty of detectives could take your place for a while.”
“You already checked?”
“Yes.”
“Look, there’s a whole lot of Russians in New York, cops, too, I’m sure you can buy a couple. People who speak the lingo better than me.”
“We want somebody who looks and sounds American.”
“Well, you could always pay somebody.”
“We don’t want people we can buy. We need people who do it for America. Don’t you owe this country?” said Pettus softly. He didn’t harangue, he didn’t yell, just asked. “Isn’t that what your father did in his day, for his country?”
Putting his jacket on, Pettus fished in the pocket, put a card on the counter.
“I’ve put all my numbers on this,” said Pettus. “I’ll be in the New York area for three more days. Please call me, Artie.”
