getting a little tight for Raisa. She had no more pockets to tap. But then Viktoriya called this bum again.”
“You were calling him?” The hurt in Ivanovich’s voice was palpable. To her credit, the girl met his eyes without blinking.
“I’m thinking she told him every time anything important happened,” Hannibal said. “But again, Mrs. Krada heard it and figured she’d try the same trick twice. Only this time, when she called Raisa, she told her who the culprit was. Raisa was more desperate than angry. Her daughter was about to leave her in the dust.”
“Oh dear,” Sidorov said. “She tried to blackmail him.”
“Bingo,” Hannibal said. “She called him to demand money, and let him know why. Now, Krada here is no killer, but once a man kills another human…”
“For some, it gets easier each time,” Ivanovich said.
“So he took his little, quiet, easily concealed target pistol over to Raisa’s house, plugged her, and ran off. And you never even suspected it was him, did you?” Hannibal turned to Viktoriya.
“Daddy and Mama?” she said, looking at Krada as if he was a new kind of lizard she had not seen before. “How could you? I love you. I loved you.”
Ivanovich looked at her face, now with tears streaking down it, and then looked at Sidorov’s shocked expression and Hannibal’s look of contempt. Then he looked down at Krada, who forced a terrified smile. Ivanovich nodded and grinned back.
“Smiling in their faces,” he said, “while filling up the hole. So many dirty little faces, in your filthy little, worn- out, broken-down, see-through soul.”
Hannibal knew he was the only person in that room who recognized the Nine Inch Nails lyric, and he knew what came next. Ivanovich pulled Krada to his feet.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Hannibal asked.
“You are not a killer,” Ivanovich said in a very level, businesslike voice. “I will take this one to a good place and dispose of him. He won’t be found for days and even when he is, he won’t be identifiable.”
Krada’s eyes flared wide, as if it had never occurred to him that such a thing could happen to him. He turned to Viktoriya, who looked at the carpet. Hannibal got to his feet.
“No, Aleksandr. I have to take him to Rissik. He deserves the collar for bending the rules for us the last few days, and this man needs to face justice.”
Ivanovich dismissed Hannibal’s words with a puff of air. “Your justice system isn’t worth shit. My way, the world is rid of a cockroach for good. Your way, he probably goes free.”
“Come on, Aleksandr,” Hannibal said. “I’ve got the murder weapon in my pocket. Besides, he’s going to confess to everything. Won’t you, dickhead?”
Krada looked from the pistol in Ivanovich’s hand to his eyes, swallowed hard, and moved his head up and down like a drinking bird. Hannibal wrapped his hand around Krada’s arm. He hadn’t seemed so small when Hannibal was sitting in his house.
“Let me take him, Aleksandr,” Hannibal said, ignoring the gun and fixing his attention on the real danger, Ivanovich’s eyes. It was one of those times when six seconds felt like a lifetime and Hannibal forgot to breathe.
“All right,” Ivanovich said. “But not without me.”
Hannibal let out a long breath, filled his lungs again, and nodded. He pulled the door open.
“You can’t just leave us here,” Sidorov said. Hannibal had forgotten the other two were in the room.
“I must go with you,” Viktoriya said. “Aleksandr will kill him if he gets the chance, but not if I am there. And I need to hear Jamal confess to his murders so there can be no doubt.”
All eyes turned to Viktoriya, showing varying degrees of surprise.
“All right, I guess my car can hold us all. It’s a fitting way for this to end, anyway.”
“The only fitting way for this to end is death,” Ivanovich said.
Rolling west on Capitol Street en route to Rissik’s office in Fairfax, Hannibal had Sidorov in his rearview mirror. His face jiggled as they bounced over potholes, but he stared straight ahead, his hands on his knees. He probably felt useless, but he served an important purpose. He separated Viktoriya, behind Hannibal, from Krada. This was good, because from the way Viktoriya was staring at Krada, she would be touching him if she could. And then Ivanovich would kill him.
Ivanovich sat beside Hannibal, literally riding shotgun. He held his automatic pressed against the deep tan upholstery of the seat back, its muzzle just below the top edge. He sat turned toward Hannibal with his eyes locked on Krada’s face. Krada sat with his hands folded in his lap, perspiration dripping down his mahogany face.
“I thought you were taking me to Fairfax County,” Krada said to Hannibal in the rearview mirror. The smell of his fear filled the car. “Isn’t that where you said the detective was that you could trust to keep me alive for trial?”
“Waste of time,” Ivanovich said.
“We should be on the beltway, then,” Krada said.
“Just making a little detour,” Hannibal said. “Dr. Sidorov doesn’t need to ride with us into Virginia. I offered to take him home, but he asked to be dropped at the Russia House.”
“How could you?” Viktoriya asked, seemingly out of nowhere. “How could you kill my parents?”
The traffic lights on C Street gave Hannibal ample opportunities to turn and talk to his passengers. “You got an answer for that one, Krada?”
Krada broke eye contact with Ivanovich long enough to turn to Viktoriya. “You think it was selfishness? No. I had to protect my job so that I would be able to make a life for you.”
“For this you pushed my father off a roof,” Viktoriya said. But why did you take his watch off him? Why take his wallet away? ”
“I’m sure he heard somewhere that suicides often leave their valuables behind,” Hannibal said. “Not that he’d have been very worried about that. He knew damned well that if the suicide story didn’t stick, someone else was already set up to get the blame. In fact, even Boris Tolstaya himself thought he was responsible for Nikita’s death.”
“You imagined that a woman would love you after you destroyed everything she loved?” Ivanovich asked. Then he turned to Viktoriya.
Hannibal couldn’t see what Viktoriya’s face might have told Ivanovich. He was fully occupied scanning his three mirrors and traffic ahead. The hair on the back of his neck tingled and stood erect. He crept up on a yellow light on Constitution Avenue, and then pressed the accelerator to the floor, pushing the Black Beauty through the intersection as it turned red. He changed lanes without signaling and lodged his car between two slow-moving vehicles. Ivanovich never looked at Hannibal, but he did draw a second pistol and turn around to watch out the passenger window.
“How many?”
“What’s going on?” Sidorov asked.
“We’ve picked up a tail,” Hannibal said. Even as he said it, he spotted what he believed to be a second car pacing him just a little ahead of his car. “My fault.”
“Not the time,” Ivanovich said. “Get us someplace private.”
But passing between the National Mall and the Museum of Natural History, Hannibal knew the sudden danger was his fault. He let his guard down after he was certain he had the murderer. They could all die for his carelessness.
“I’ve picked up the second car,” Ivanovich said. “Silver Honda Civic, right? The backseat man is holding an auto pistol.”
“They’re serious,” Hannibal said.
“Who do you suppose?” Sidorov asked, with a calm that surprised Hannibal.
“Mob,” Ivanovich said. “Still looking for the money. If they think Viktoriya has it they will take her. And kill me and Jones for interfering.”
“I have nothing to do with any missing money,” Krada said. “Let me go.”
“This was your choice?” Ivanovich asked Viktoriya. “At least Gana tried to protect you. And I have always been here.” Hannibal could hear the depth of the pain in Ivanovich’s voice. He tried to focus on driving through downtown DC at the start of rush hour, the two cars pacing his own.
