then eventually I won’t even have the strength to breathe. I hope for only two things. One of them is peace and comfort until I die.”
“And the other?” Hannibal asked.
“That my enemies never learn that I became so weak and helpless and died this way.”
“By your enemies, I take it you mean your former mob partners,” Hannibal said. “But I’m not sure I understand,” Hannibal said.
Tolstaya took a deep breath and clenched his jaw. “That is because you think I am simply a gangster. You do not understand who I am.”
Who was this man Boris Tolstaya, Hannibal wondered. He was a Russian gangster. Bu he was also a soldier stricken with a fatal disease. He was a lifelong keeper of secrets. He was an underworld figure who was at odds with his closest allies. And he was a man who seemed oddly at peace with his fate. Then the picture became clear. Boris Tolstaya was not concerned with dying, Hannibal decided, only with the nature of his death.
“Come on,” Hannibal said, “there’s no reason to keep secrets now, except maybe your location and your health situation. If I wanted to give those away, I would have already done it. I can keep those secrets for you until it no longer matters, but you can’t just keep me in the dark.”
Tolstaya nodded and his mouth formed an upside down U, the universal symbol for considering a new premise. He looked toward the house and the half-smile returned. “Ahh, what the hell. Yes, of course I mean my friend and partner Uspensky. But I cannot blame him, really.”
“I don’t know,” Hannibal said, weaving his fingers together on the table. “In my circles, you don’t kill a friend over money.”
“It’s not the money,” Tolstaya said with a short laugh. “It’s the federal charges. I did skim some money from the brokerage firm, you know. So did Uspensky. Between us, it was enough to allow the IRS to build a case for income tax evasion. Ivan fears that if they find me before he does, I’ll turn state’s evidence and help them send him to jail. And he knows that if they never find me, it still leaves him to take the fall. But if he found me, well, he could make me the fall guy. It would be easy to show evidence that I stole the money to avoid taxes.”
“So, you’re saying your low profile has nothing to do with Nikita Petrova’s death, or Raisa’s, or that of Dani Gana?”
Out the corner of his eye, Hannibal saw Queenie approaching slowly from the house. He stayed quiet until she stood beside the table. He could not interpret the look that passed between her and Boris, but it was not the look of love or hate or regret or obligation although it had elements of all of those.
“Is everything OK?” she asked.
“Everything is fine, my dear,” Boris said. “Join us. The time for secrets between us is long past.”
Queenie sat, but Hannibal felt that he was still Boris’s focus. He would sit quietly and hear all that Boris had to say. As was so often true, he counted on silence to draw the truth out.
“I will tell you what there was between me and Nikita Petrova” Boris said, maintaining eye contact only with Hannibal. “First, we had the army experience in common. Then I worked with him to launder local Mafiya money through my firm. Then we gambled. He gambled poorly and he eventually owed me a great deal of money. This put me in the position to pressure him to turn a blind eye while I skimmed from the mob money he brought to our brokerage firm. That was all there was between us.”
“That’s a lie,” Queenie said. “There was the girl.”
Hannibal’s brows reached for his hairline. He was astonished that Queenie would contradict Boris, especially with a third person present. Boris leaned forward, his eyes pressed together as if focusing all his power on Queenie’s defiant face. His breath came in jagged gasps.
“What are you talking about?” Boris said, each word sounding like a separate sentence.
“You wanted his daughter, Viktoriya,” Queenie said, her voice dropping into a deeper, more hateful register. “You wanted that child. You would have used her to clear his debt.”
Boris’s face, already pale and wan, fell like an underdone cake. His eyes stayed with Queenie but his gaze softened. His mouth quivered only for a brief second.
“You knew.”
“Of course I knew,” Queenie said. “And one night, at the Russia House, I told Raisa. I assume she told her husband. I know that Boris would not let you take his little girl away. Like everyone else, he loved her too much. I know that is why you and Nikita fought, that night. That is why you killed him.”
“You can’t know that,” Boris said, raising a weak arm in protest.
“Of course I know,” Queenie said, standing. “There was a witness. Dani Gana saw you kill him.”
Queenie snapped to her feet, knocking over her chair behind her, and ran for the house, leaving a loud sob in her wake. She didn’t seem concerned that Hannibal knew she was living with a philandering murderer, but she apparently couldn’t stand to let him see her cry. Considering all the violence and double-dealing that circled Boris Tolstaya’s life, it seemed odd that the moment felt so awkward. Hannibal let a few seconds of silence sit between him and Boris, but found more questions irresistible.
“So…you and Viktoriya?”
Boris smirked. “Not quite what my wife imagines. I wanted her help in the business. A beautiful, strong, and ambitious young woman can always be useful. I could see that she was attracted to the money and the power it brings. Sadly, her father never got past seeing her as a helpless little girl. She wanted to see northern Africa and made it clear in her clumsy overtures to me. I offered to send her to Algeria to make business arrangements there. But Boris, he stood firmly against me, even after I offered to wipe his debt clean.”
“I’m surprised you would honor his wishes,” Hannibal said.
“Fortune smiled, on him and me. I met Dani back when he was known as Gartee Roberts. He was also young and ambitious and attractive in his way. And he was attracted to the money. And he had family in Africa. In fact, his family ties reached high into the Moroccan government. So I sent him to Morocco with new clothes and enough money to get established. In short order he wormed his way into their foreign service. The test there gets easier the more you pay to take it, you see. And once he was working for the embassy, he could cross borders at will with however much cash we needed to move.”
“So then Nikita had little to offer you to clear his markers,” Hannibal said, shaking his head. “His death was pure and simple. A mob hit for unpaid gambling debts.”
“Nikita’s death was an accident,” Boris said, his voice now softer. “I did not hate the man, and you know you can’t collect from a corpse. We went to the roof to talk, Nikita and I and two of my associates from the firm. The conversation got rough. I had to discipline him. It was meant to be a beating, nothing more, to show him I was serious. He…” Boris paused for more labored breathing. “I didn’t know how sick he was. How weak he was. It seems his injuries took far more out of him than anyone suspected.”
“Oh, it was an accident, huh? I’m sure that made his widow feel better,” Hannibal said.
“I took care of Raisa.” Boris dropped his fist on the table with all the energy he had. It was a pathetic display of weakness that somehow made Hannibal feel a little better.
“She knew it was you,” Hannibal said, standing.
“She found out somehow,” Boris said. “Nikita left little money behind, but his wife blackmailed me for enough to keep her in her chosen lifestyle.”
Hannibal stood, hands in pockets, staring down at Boris in disgust. “And that’s why you had to kill her too.”
Boris rolled back from the table, his shadow just reaching Hannibal’s toes. He stared at his own knees, then held his palms wide and stared up into Hannibal’s face as if preparing himself for crucifixion.
“Look at me,” he said through clenched teeth, and then louder, “look at me. Who could I kill?”
Hannibal had to admit this truth. Within the last week Boris Tolstaya could have no more slipped into Raisa Petrova’s house to shoot her than he could have hunted Dani Gana down in Rehoboth Beach.
“Nikita’s death sounds more like manslaughter than murder, so why not just come clean and explain. Why should I keep your secret now? If you talk to the police, you can go to a decent facility where they can care for you properly.”
“You will keep my secret because you know that whatever the police know, Ivan Uspensky will know soon. He believes that Renata and I both know the location of the missing fortune. Even if I am in custody he will find her and torture her for information she does not have.”
“How selfless of you,” Hannibal said.
