“Hmmm,” Glenda says, and I remember how much I couldn't stand her as I greet them all. Everything was a competition, with the heiress. Who'd marry a Vandecamp first?
Now I’m in competition with myself. Evan Zaccaro is not to be had. I’d be the laughing stock of the century to even dream that he loved me let alone consider him for a future.
19
Evan
Tyrone tosses my Tom Ford jacket at me. “Let's go, pretty boy, we've been called to San Pedro. The boys over there say they've got a guy asking for us. And they were just getting ready to throw his ass the book.”
“What’s his name?”
“Egor Dobrynin.”
I shrug into my jacket as my partner eyes me.
“The name doesn't ring a bell for me either.” Tyrone grabs the keys to his car. “But, Dobrynin mentioned the name we've wanted to hear.”
“Riker?” I probe.
“Kosyak.”
My jaw sets.
Kosyak is the Don of the entire illegal alcohol syndicate. He heads a port off of the city of San Pedro, and a fleet of other ports lining up and down the coast of California. So the various Russian mobs must seek his agreement before ruminating over pissing into to the Pacific Ocean. He has to be behind the shootout off La Brea or there'd have been a slew of murders afterwards in retaliation. But Kosyak is untouchable; he has the DA dangling from his cock. We head over to the precinct in San Pedro, expecting Egor Dobrynin to be a snitch, and more so expecting him to be part of Kosyak’s crew but he's neither.
He’s got a rap sheet a mile long but it's engrossed with petty theft, grand larceny and the likes. Before we enter the interrogation room, we’re debriefed. He was just as far as removed from Kosyak as he was with Riker. No affiliations or connections, but a second-generation Russian from the west side who has the misfortune of always getting caught doing stupid shit.
Egor Dobrynin is five foot six, one hundred forty-two pounds of wasted space, not much wasted space, but wasted nevertheless. There are chains about his wrists, and his head is in his hands, as he leans against the table when we enter the room. He looks up. Tired, gray eyes, questioning us but he says not one word.
Tyrone takes the lead as we step inside to sit across from him. He introduces us and then says, “Dobrynin, you called us down here. What information are you able to provide?”
“Where's the DA?” His eyes roll back and forth to the both of us. “Don't play me like a fool.”
“Don't waste our time,” Tyrone begins to rise.
“I'm not saying shit without that pretty little DA cunt.”
“The DA wants to give you the maximum time, fucktard,” I speak. “The little old lady you just happened to rob is related to one of the senators.”
Dobrynin rubs his weather-beaten face, it’s evident he’s thinking the same thing as I do. He’s got the worst luck ever while delving in the field of crime. “Man, I know the redhead hates me. But as sure as I know the DA is the only one who can hurt me, she's the only one that can save me.”
My partner and I glance at each other. We’re at the end of our rope, grasping at any lead. Is Dobrynin wasting our valuable time?
He leans forward, asking, “You two want to know why Kosyak is connected to those redneck, meth heads? Go get the redhead.”
We send for the DA.
Dobrynin makes a list of demands, which starts with his record being expunged. Go figure. The media has puffed up the entire investigation, and Dobrynin uses that as ammunition to continue making requests. If I'm reading him right, Dobrynin has the missing puzzle piece to connect these two entities, which wouldn’t even be considered rivals.
When he starts to tell the story, his tone breaks as he mentioned his sister, Mischa Dobrynin.
“Mischa went off to college with a full scholarship. She was enrolled at some out-of-state, tiny school… New Hampshire, I think. Fuck, I complained like a jackass when she was accepted. I told our mama that the fucking college was too far. Now, I wish she never…” Egor Dobrynin’s gray eyes rim with tears. He pinches the bridge of his narrow nose.
When he speaks again, his voice is heavy with sorrow, “Mischa, sh-she came home for the holiday season. She and a few friends went to this bar in West Los Angeles.”
Dobrynin speaks of the very same bar I met Reese at. “It was a seedy place with cheap margaritas, or so the neon lights imply. Some asshole came up to her. He had tats all over his fucking face. On the back of the motherfucker’s elbows were skulls.”
Dobrynin gives the entire rundown of what Riker looks like. He's sobbing by now, telling how Riker roughed up, raped, and beat his sister Mischa.
One of the detectives listening in, on the opposite side of the two-way mirror, speaks into the chip in my ear and Tyrone’s confirming that a Miss Mischa Dobrynin’s body was found in the LA River. The story adds up.
“What does that have to do with Kosyak?” I ask.
“Kosyak always wanted to fuck my sister. Mischa never looked his way. And you know men, we want what we can't have more than anything in this world.”
I strain in my seat, thoughts of Reese breaking through my concentration.
“Kosyak is the type of man who doesn't respect anyone. But there are people you fear for because of him, his mama, obviously, and my little sister. Nobody ever messed with her. She was beautiful, inside and out. No stand-up guy, not even some two-bit crook on the corner looked her way, due to Kosyak. She went away to college innocent. And I'm fucking telling
