Doing Hard Time (13 page)

“Welcome to the United States,” Igor said upon answering. “Are you in Las Vegas?”

“Yes. Have you found this Billy Burnett?”

“I’ve learned where he parks his airplane,” Igor said. “At Santa Monica Airport. I’m there now. He must have hangar space, though, because his airplane is not on any ramp—I’ve checked every one. Don’t worry, though, I’ll find him.”

“I want him in Las Vegas within forty-eight hours,” Majorov said.

“Voluntarily or not?”

“I’ll leave that to your judgment. Just get him here.” Majorov hung up and began to undress for the shower. As he was about to turn on the water, the phone rang and he picked up the bathroom extension. “Yes?”

“Good evening, Mr. Majorov, this is Pete Genaro. Welcome to our inn. Is everything all right with your suite?”

“Yes, it’s fine, thank you, Mr. Genaro.”

“May I arrange some company for you this evening?”

“Late this evening. I’m going to play some poker after dinner.”

“Of course. I’ll see to it.”

Majorov hung up and got into the shower.

• • •

Pete Genaro hung up in a sweat. He was accustomed to dealing with VIPs, but Majorov scared him. The man was a big stockholder in the hotel and casino and demanding in a cold, steely way. He was accustomed to having exactly what he wanted, and to deny him anything was to incur his icy wrath. He called his wrangler and arranged for the most beautiful girl in his stable to be at the poker table when Majorov tired of playing.

• • •

Igor had spent the entire afternoon at Santa Monica Airport. It was a small field, but still there were a lot of airplanes parked there and a lot of places for them to park. He had worked his way through the lot of them, until finally he came to the last: Cloverfield Aviation. It was small and a little seedy. He opened the door and walked in to find a lad of no more than eighteen behind the desk, reading a girlie magazine.

“Hi, there,” Igor said.

The boy dropped his magazine and set an airport directory on top of it. “Yessir?”

“I’m looking for a friend of mine, and I think he hangars his airplane with you. His name is Billy Burnett.”

“What kind of airplane is it?”

“A JetPROP, like a Malibu, with a turbine engine. His tail number is N123TF.”

“Oh, yessir, he parks here. He got in less than an hour ago.”

“Have you got an address for him? I want to look him up while I’m in town.”

The boy flipped through a loose-leaf notebook. “Looks like all we’ve got is a phone number,” he said. He wrote it down on a slip of paper and handed it to Igor.

Igor looked at the number: it was the one he’d called from Mesa Grande, now disconnected. “Is this the only information you have on him?”

“Yessir, that’s it.”

“Do you know where he’s staying?”

“No, sir, I don’t.”

“Thanks very much,” Igor said, and left. He wadded up the slip of paper and threw it into a waste bin on the way out the door. The hangar door was open a couple of feet, and he walked in and looked around. The JetPROP was there, dripping water from having been washed. Igor walked around the airplane, inspecting it carefully. He stopped at an inspection panel on the right side rear of the airplane and read the placard. The emergency locator transmitter was housed there. He opened his briefcase, took out a Leatherman tool and selected the proper screwdriver blade, then unscrewed the inspection hatch and took a GPS locator from his briefcase, along with a Velcro patch, and affixed it inside the panel, but out of sight. He switched on the unit, then walked a few steps away, got out his laptop, and checked the reception. It was working fine.

He got into his rental car and drove to his hotel on Santa Monica Beach, the one called Shutters. As he entered the front door he nearly bumped into a couple walking across the lobby toward the restaurant, a middle-aged man and a younger, blonde woman. “I’m very sorry,” he said.

The man looked him up and down for a moment, then said, “Don’t mention it.”

• • •

“Can’t you stay another night?” Teddy asked as he held the restaurant door open for her. But his mind was on the man he had nearly collided with. He fit the physical description that Tom Fields had given him, and there was that trace of an accent.

“I wish I could,” Charmaine said, “but I’ve got to get back. We’ve got a heavy load of VIPs in the hotel over the next few days, and there’s a lot of work to do. Maybe I can come back next week?”

The headwaiter found them a table, took their drink orders, and brought them menus.

“I’m going to look for an apartment tomorrow,” Teddy said. “By the time you get back, I’ll have a home.”

“You’re tired of Shutters?”

“I’m tired of paying per day what I’d pay per month for an apartment.”

“You’re going to find Santa Monica real estate expensive,” she said.

“I’ll manage.”

“I loved our day today,” Charmaine said, placing her hand on his.

He squeezed her thigh. “So did I,” he said.

• • •

After dinner, Teddy stopped by the front desk for a moment and passed the desk clerk two hundred dollars. “Can you tell me the name of the tall blond gentleman who checked in an hour or so ago?”

The clerk consulted his computer. “That would be Mr. Igor Smolensky,” he said.

“If anyone should inquire about me, I’m not registered in the hotel, nor have I been.”

“As you wish, sir.”

Igor checked into his room and immediately plugged in his laptop and turned it on, checking the GPS tracker. The little red dot on the screen was at Santa Monica Airport, exactly where it should be. He ordered dinner from room service.

Charmaine was up at five and was soon dressed and packed, while Teddy lounged in bed. She came over and gave him a kiss. “I’ll call you next week, then.”

“I’ll look forward to it and to giving you a new address,” he replied.

She left, and Teddy got out of bed, showered, dressed, and packed. He carried his bags down the fire stairs to the garage, then drove to Santa Monica Airport, to Cloverfield Aviation. The boy who sat at the desk all night was just surrendering his seat to the day man, and Teddy took the kid aside. “Did somebody ask about me last evening?” he asked.

“Yessir, he said he was a friend of yours, and I gave him your phone number. Was that all right?”

“Sure, no problem. If he comes back, tell him I’ve left for New Jersey.”

“You’re leaving us today?”

“Right. I’ll pay my bill and turn in my rental car a little later this morning.”

“Yessir.”

The boy left, and Teddy carried his luggage into the hangar and stowed it in the airplane, then he took a slow walk around and checked every inspection port. Finally, he came to the ELT port, opened it, and ran a hand around inside. He came out with a GPS locator, identical to the one he had found in Peter Barrington’s Cayenne. He found the switch and turned it off, then put it into his briefcase and went back to his car. He drove back to Shutters and parked in the garage, then he took up a position near the fire stairs and switched on the locator. He then telephoned the hotel and asked for Mr. Smolensky.

A sleepy voice answered. “Yes?”

Teddy breathed into the phone for a moment, then broke the connection.

• • •

Igor sat up in bed and phoned the front desk.

“Yes, Mr. Smolensky?”

“Did you phone my room just now?”

“No, sir, that was an outside call.”

“Thank you.” Igor hung up and thought for a moment, then he opened his laptop and looked at the screen. The red dot had moved; it was no longer at the airport; it was now at Shutters. He got into his clothes, put his gun into his trousers pocket, and let himself out of his room, looking both ways up and down the hallway first. The garage, he thought. He went to the fire stairs and ran down two flights.

• • •

Teddy could hear the footsteps ringing on the steel stairway. He flattened himself against the wall outside the door to the stairs and waited. A moment later, the door eased open and a hand appeared, holding a semiautomatic pistol. He waited until the man stepped slowly into the garage, then moved behind him and pressed the silencer against the back of his neck.

“Good morning, Mr. Smolensky,” he said.

The man froze.

“Now open your hand and let the weapon fall to the floor.” Smolensky did so. “Now kick it behind you.” He followed instructions.

“Mr. Burnett, I presume.”

“Quite right. Now tell me, why are you so eager to make my acquaintance?”

“It is the man I work for who wishes to meet you.”

“And who might he be?”

“His name is Yuri Majorov. He is intrigued that you managed to deal with two others in his employ back at Mesa Grande. He is in Las Vegas as we speak, and he would like you to accompany me there for a meeting.”

“Who, exactly, is Mr. Majorov?”

“He is a businessman with worldwide interests.”

“And why is he interested in Peter Barrington?”

“Not the boy—his father. He and Mr. Majorov have a mutual business interest.”

“And he thought that if he murdered the son, the father would become more cooperative? Why would Mr. Barrington wish to cooperate with the Russian Mob?”

“Mr. Majorov would find that an unkind characterization, and I would urge that, when you meet him you not speak in that manner.”

“Where is your car?” Teddy asked.

“Over there, to the right—a silver Toyota Camry.”

“Give me the keys, very carefully.”

Smolensky reached into a pocket and came up with a car key. Teddy pushed him ahead, then picked up the man’s gun and slipped it into his own pocket. As they approached the car, Teddy pressed the trunk button and the lid opened. “Climb inside,” he said. “I’ll drive us to Las Vegas. Which hotel?”

“The New Desert Inn,” Smolensky said. “But this is hardly necessary—I’ve no wish to harm you.”

“Climb inside, or I will find it necessary to harm
you
.”

Smolensky climbed inside.

“Make yourself comfortable, now,” Teddy said, then he removed the man’s gun from his pocket, held it against his temple, and fired once. He wiped the gun down, then dropped it into the trunk with the body, put the car key next to it, dropped the GPS locator inside, and closed the trunk with an elbow.

Teddy got into his car and drove back to Santa Monica Airport, thinking all the way. It seemed likely that Smolensky had put the locator into his airplane only the evening before, so there was only one other way he could have found the aircraft earlier: through flight tracking. He went into the Cloverfield office, paid his bill, and asked that his airplane be moved to the ramp; then he went into the flight planning room and sat down at the computer. He went to the FlightAware website and filled out a form requesting that his tail number be blocked to viewers, then he went out to the airplane and from one of his bags, took out a single airplane number, a 3. He glued it over the 2 in his tail number and did the same on the other side of the airplane, so that now his number was N133TF.

Teddy then got out the airplane’s avionics manual and looked up the instructions for changing the tail number in the transponder. He turned on the avionics power switch, and ten minutes later he had changed the number that the transponder would broadcast whenever it was on. He had already listed the new tail number on the FAA registry, along with a number of others, listing a corporation as the owner.

He started the airplane, then called Santa Monica ground control and, using the new tail number, requested a VFR takeoff and vectors to Hawthorne Airport, only a few miles away. After a short flight he landed there and inquired about hangar space, made a deal for it, and rented a car.

He drove back to Santa Monica and looked around for a real estate agency. Having found one, he parked, went inside, and had a conversation with the woman in charge about rental apartments.

He selected two from photographs for viewing, and after he had seen both, chose one on the top floor of a six-floor condominium. The owner of the penthouse was out of the country, and Teddy rented the place for three months, using another identity from his store of documents. He paid in advance, in cash, and accepted a receipt.