couldn’t run far enough away to keep from marrying a Russian man, could you?”
“Ben?” Queenie sipped her coffee. “Ben’s Polish. And thank you, by the way, for helping him. I heard what you said in the room just before I walked in. If you hadn’t been looking for him, he might be dead right now. Do you know what happened to him?”
“Sure I do.” Hannibal leaned in, tired of being nice to this woman who seemed obsessed with deception. “Dani Gana caught him snooping one too many times and beat the crap out of him. His blood was all over Gana’s hands afterward. I saw it on Gana’s backdoor sill after he got home. He had to wrap his right hand, and after seeing Ben’s face I can see why. So whatever you wanted to trade Gana’s picture for, that’s what cost Ben that ass whipping. And I didn’t mean Ben anyway when I said a Russian man. I was talking about Boris Tolstaya.”
Queenie blanched and her lower lip started to quiver. Hannibal just figured this to be her second line of defense.
“Boris was Mother’s choice,” she said, her voice so low it was almost lost in the babble of other diners around her. Hannibal was suddenly aware of how crowded and how noisy the hospital cafeteria had become.
“Why Boris?”
“Why?” she asked. “He was an important man in the Russian community. He had lots of money and was very old school. And he was a constant gambler. You know, that was fun for a while.”
The coffee was hot but weak and rough. Hannibal drank it to give his hands something to do. “So, Boris was Mother’s pick. He was a player, a gambler, rich, influential, and fun. Ben Cochran appears to be broke, and kind of weak. How does a fellow like Ben win you over from a man like Boris Tolstaya?”
“With a straight flush,” Queenie said, pulling out a cigarette.
“What?”
“Boris bet me in a poker game.” Her face clouded up, but she regained control while searching herself for a match. “He always treated me like an object, and I took it, you know, because of everything else. But that night, that was too much even for me.”
“You can’t smoke that in here,” Hannibal said, taking Queenie’s arm. “Let’s go outside for a few minutes.”
She looked a bit unsteady so Hannibal took her arm and walked her out of the cafeteria. The cigarette between her fingers seemed to give her strength, even unlit. Hannibal didn’t think the past could shock her any more.
“Would I be right if I said that Boris made his money from involvement with the mob?”
“The mob?” Queenie asked. “I’m not sure I know what you mean by that term. Boris was half-owner of a brokerage firm. He handled investments for a lot of prominent people. I know he didn’t ask a lot about the investors. I know that he skimmed money from their investments and never paid taxes on it. Does that make him a mobster?”
“That depends,” Hannibal said, holding the door for her. “If he takes money from criminals and makes it legitimate for a fee then yes, I’d say it does. If he just swindles ignorant investors, he might just be a plain old crook.”
They walked west, and Queenie squinted into the afternoon sun as she smoked her cigarette. Hannibal let her mind and emotions rest for a while. As a kick boxer, he understood fatigue and figured he’d give her three minutes between rounds. Reservoir Road took them into Glover Archibald Park, replacing the modest row houses with greenery. It was quieter, but Queenie didn’t seem to notice the change of scenery.
“So, why are you trying to photograph Dani Gana? Or rather, why did you send poor Ben to do it?”
“Ben and Dani are the only two men who ever beat Boris,” she said. “Ben beat him fair and square and won me. Dani took his money. I’m not sure which hurt him worse.”
Hannibal thought he knew, but it wasn’t the answer she wanted. “How did Dani get his money? He wasn’t a player. He was a waiter.”
“Boris had a huge ego,” Queenie said, chuckling. “Dani knew how to play on that ego. His real name is Gartee Roberts, you know. He knew how to spot a mark and rope him in. He got investors for Boris. Later, he started handling some of the funds. He seemed to be able to get money in and out of the country. Maybe that’s just ’cause he’s from someplace else.”
“I can guess the next step,” Hannibal said. “Dani started skimming from the funds Boris was skimming, right?”
Queenie stopped, and Hannibal missed the click of her boot heels on the path. “By the time Boris missed the funds, Roberts had somehow sucked a couple million dollars out of the accounts. You should have seen Boris’s face when he figured it out. God, he was furious.”
“You were with both of them for a while, weren’t you?” Hannibal asked. Again Queenie went pale, which surprised Hannibal. She must have thought no one would guess.
“I got used to being treated with respect.”
“But you were also used to the money,” Hannibal said. She started walking again and he followed. “You knew the money was gone and you knew who had it. You figured if Ben could get a slice of it that that would be your ticket to freedom from Boris.”
Queenie stepped away from the path out into a small patch of open grass. Dogs seemed to be everywhere, unleashed and maybe unwanted, yipping at each other but she ignored them. When she turned to Hannibal, her eyes were lowered in what she must have thought was a seductive expression.
“It was pure luck that I found out that Roberts was back in town, now calling himself Dani Gana. I figured if we had a picture of him we could threaten to send it to Boris, who would surely kill him if he knew where he was. Then, we could force him to give us half of the money he stole from Boris.” Her eyes went down, then back up to Hannibal’s. “It is still a good plan. Ben is sneaky, but he’s not strong enough to confront Dani Gana. You are a stronger man. When Ben recovers, he can find Gana again for us. And maybe, for half a million dollars…” Her right hand lightly touched Hannibal’s sleeve.
23
Hannibal spent only a minute or so considering how half a million dollars might impact his relationship with Cindy. He could pick up the check wherever they went. He could fly her to the Bahamas for a couple of weeks. He could pay for half of her dream house.
Then he raised his right hand and got a very gentle grip on Queenie’s right hand, moving it down and away from his arm.
“And if Gana said no?” Hannibal asked, staring down into her eyes. “Would you then take the photo to Boris? Would you sentence Gana to death?”
“He is a thief. And Boris Tolstaya is still my husband.”
“Uh huh.” Her self-righteousness was as thin as the wisps of smoke rising from her cigarette, which was also almost burned out. “And feeding him Gana would put you back in his good graces, wouldn’t it? I get a feeling old Ben would be left in the dust if things went that way.”
“Don’t say that.”
“Why not?” Hannibal asked. “It’s the truth, isn’t it? You saw a two-way bet and you took it.”
Queenie took a step back and looked at Hannibal as if for the first time. He could see her reevaluating, rejecting her original judgment of him, and deciding just what kind of sucker he really was. When she shook her head, he wondered how accurate her new evaluation was.
“If you help us, I will never have to face that option,” she said. “And I will commit to staying with Ben. He’s the man who loves me, after all.”
“That’s big of you,” Hannibal said, turning back toward the hospital.
“Besides, there is the matter of the million dollars we could split.”
“I don’t want your money,” Hannibal said, in part to convince himself, “but I sure want to get to Gana and Viktoriya before your ex does. If he is mob connected, they’ll never make it out of the area on a plane or train or bus. Gana’s car is in the shop so he’d have to rent one to drive. The Russian mafia would have an eye on them too. So they’re probably still in town.”
