“There will be three Arabs, right?” Petrenko asked.
“That was the agreement.”
After they knocked on the door, a window curtain was pushed aside and a man with an angry scowl opened up and signaled impatiently for them to step inside. He was in his early twenties, thin as a rail, and had a sub-compact Glock 9mm pistol shoved in his waistband. Sitting on a sofa were two other Arabs. One was a heavyset man with a thick beard trimmed close to his face, the other was also rail-thin, angry-looking and with features that looked sharp enough to cut paper. All three Arabs were wearing leisure suits.
Yuri told Petrenko in Russian that the angry looking man on the sofa was the one on the FBI’s ten-most-wanted list and went by the name Abbas.
Anger flushed Abbas’s face when he heard the Russian. “The agreement was we speak English only,” he said, his eyes simmering. “Another word in Russian and the hell with you!”
Petrenko showed a humorless thin smile. “Relax,” he said, “my employee was just being polite. All he said was that it smells like the inside of a shoe in here. I have to agree with him. Not only that, it is like an oven. Could you open a window or turn on an air conditioner?”
Abbas stared dumbly at Petrenko for a moment and then barked out a command in Arabic to the man who had escorted them in. With his scowl deepening, the man moved over to one of the windows and opened it a crack.
“We have ten diamonds for you to appraise,” Abbas said, his face still mottled with anger. “Eighty others just like these are being held in a safe place.”
Petrenko, unblinking, dropped his smile. “We can agree on a price, but later we will have to appraise all the diamonds and make adjustments as necessary.”
“You won’t have to make any adjustments, but we do not have to argue this now.” Abbas slipped a hand into an inside jacket pocket and pulled out a small silk bag. He extended the bag to Petrenko who didn’t bother moving. Instead, the older man with the leather bag took the diamonds and was escorted to a table where he could examine them. He took a portable xenon lamp, a small scale, a Schneider loupe, and bottles of different solutions from his bag, then hunched over the diamonds, examining and weighing each one. When he was done, he hobbled over to Petrenko and in Russian told him the ten diamonds were of high quality and worth one hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
“English! We agreed English only!” Abbas screamed. He barked out a string of commands in Arabic. The Arab standing near Petrenko reached for his Glock. Petrenko feigned a jab with his right hand and almost instantaneously rabbit-punched the man in the chest with his left, his fist moving as a blur. The punch knocked the Arab off his feet. As he hit the floor, his Glock bounced out of his waistband and landed a few feet from him. Before he could reach for it, Petrenko stepped on his hand and picked the gun up himself. The heavyset Arab started for his inside jacket pocket but stopped as he realized Yuri had the edge of an eight-inch switchblade against his throat.
Petrenko removed the magazine from the Glock and handed the empty gun to Abbas. “If I wanted to kill you and steal your diamonds I could do so easily,” he said. “I do not wish to do that, though. I am hoping you and your friends will stop acting like children and that this can be the first of many business transactions between the two of us.”
Abbas was shaking with a combination of fear and rage. “We had a deal! Only English!”
“He doesn’t speak English, only Russian,” Petrenko said, waving a hand towards the jeweler. “All he said to me was that the clarity of the diamonds is sub par and they are only worth twenty thousand dollars.”
“That’s right, each diamond is worth twenty thousand dollars!”
“No, twenty thousand dollars for all ten. Because I want future business deals between us, I will pay you sixty percent of what all ninety diamonds are worth. A hundred and eight thousand dollars.”
“They are worth twenty times that!”
“No they are not.” Petrenko stopped for a moment to rub the area above both temples. “And quit shouting. You are giving me a headache. So do we have a deal?”
Abbas was close to epileptic, both too furious and scared to do anything but move his lips in some sort of internal dialogue. He looked helplessly at his two companions. The one next to him still had a knife edge held against his throat, the other was sitting on the floor holding his injured hand.
“You can turn me down if you want to,” Petrenko added. “There will be no hard feelings on my part. If you want, try to find someone who will pay more. You can always take a trip to the New York Jewelry District and see if anyone there will do business with you.”
Abbas tried answering, but couldn’t get the words out. Finally, after his third attempt, he sputtered, “You will kill us if I turn you down.”
“No, I don’t think so. You don’t want to do business, fine, we leave. But I don’t think you’re going to find a better price.”
Yuri backed away. The heavyset Arab had turned somewhat green, and was rubbing his throat where the blade had left an indentation. Abbas looked at him and then his companion still sitting on the floor. He licked his lips. “I will think about your offer,” he said sourly.
Petrenko shrugged. “You know how to reach me. Don’t think too long, though.” He then turned and left the house. The jeweler hobbled out next. After that, Yuri closed his knife and walked backwards out of the house.
Once in the car Yuri turned to Petrenko. “You sure you don’t want to go back in there and take those diamonds? Five minutes we’re done.”
Petrenko shook his head. “If we’re patient they will sell us all of their diamonds. And more in the future. We’re offering only a fraction of what they were looking for. They will need to make up the difference by bringing in more diamonds to sell us. For them, diamonds are easy to smuggle into this country, cash is not.” He paused as he made a fist and rubbed a thumb over his knuckles, feeling the hard calluses that covered them. “Besides,” he added, “if I went back in there I would want much more than five minutes.”
9
After his messy divorce, Captain Kenneth Hadley jumped from the Somerville to the Lynn police force when the opening presented itself. All he did, though, was trade one problem for another. Maybe he no longer had his ex-wife stumbling into his station screaming her accusations at him whenever she damn well pleased, but the job was no better. Just as in Somerville, he had to deal with the same urban crimes – car thefts, break-ins, drugs, youth gangs – but in Lynn he now had to deal with Russian mobsters. And, as in Somerville, he now suspected that he had an officer drinking on the job. When Resnick had stepped into his office, Hadley detected a strong whiff of bourbon on his breath. Couldn’t the guy at least have had the decency to chew on a few mints before reporting back to the station? Resnick, though, seemed coherent, with no change in his typical bulldog manner and the same burning intensity. Hadley decided to let the matter drop. The guy was his best detective and there was nothing to indicate that this was anything more than an isolated incident. Still, he felt exhausted listening to Resnick complain about Viktor Petrenko and he was pretty sure the alcohol had something to do with loosening his detective up.
“There’s got to be something we can do,” Resnick was going on. “We can’t just let this son of a bitch terrorize our neighborhoods and business owners. I know he’s using his auto-body shop as a chop shop. Let me sit on it until we can get something on him, or better yet, let me follow him around, put some pressure on him.”
Hadley looked at his watch. They’d been arguing this for ten minutes now. “Alex, with all the state cutbacks in funding we’re shorthanded as it is. I can’t lose you for God-knows-how-long on some wild goose chase. Besides, the victim stated from the hospital that it was an accident and his wife was more than happy to corroborate him, claiming he tripped.”
“They’re both afraid.”
“I have to go with what they say—”
“The store just magically got trashed. Maybe the air conditioner was on too strong and blew an eighty-pound cash register out the front window.”
Hadley lifted his palms up in a sign of futility. “Unless these people are willing to come forward my hands are tied.” He edged closer to his detective, lowering his voice in a conspiratorial tone. “Look at it from my point of view: one way we’ve got an open case that needs manpower assigned to it. The other way, the way it currently stands, the case is closed. As it is we already have far too many open cases.”
“Ken, that’s a lousy way to look at it. Besides, we put Petrenko away and we’re going to end up with a lower caseload down the road. Damn it, there’s got to be something we can do.”
“There is something you can do,” Hadley said. “Take the rest of the day off. You’re looking a bit under the weather.”
“I’m fine.”
“No you’re not. I can’t have police officers drinking on the job. Not that I’m accusing you of anything. As far as I’m concerned, you’re just a little worn out and can use a few hours off.”
Resnick stared into Hadley’s pale blue eyes before turning away, nodding. “I’ve never touched the stuff before while on duty. Something about Petrenko, I don’t know… I’ll put in extra hours tomorrow to make up for this,” he said.
“Not necessary. You’ve put in more than enough extra hours since I’ve been here. Try not to get under the weather like this again, okay?”
“You’ve got my word.”
As Resnick walked out of Hadley’s office, he acknowledged Maguire’s questioning look with a shrug. “I’ve been told I’m feeling under the weather,” Resnick informed his partner. “I’m taking the rest of the day off. Be here bright and early tomorrow morning.”
“Lesson learned,” Maguire said, a smart-alecky grin tightening on his face. “Booze up on the job and get some time off.”
“Not a good lesson to have taught you. I apologize.”
As Resnick walked away, Maguire tried telling him that he was only yanking his chain. Resnick waved a hand, letting his partner know not to worry about it.
Alex Resnick met his ex-wife while in college. She was a beautiful redhead from Long Island with a peaches and cream complexion and the most dazzling green eyes he had ever seen. At the time he was a political science major and was expecting to go to law school after graduation. On a whim he took the Lynn police entrance exam and posted a perfect score. His dad tried like hell to talk him out of joining the force.
“Alex,” his dad told him, “why do something like this? You can make a real life for yourself as a lawyer. Don’t make this mistake. If you need money, I’ll find a way to help you.”
“Pop,” Resnick said, “Jewish lawyers are a dime a dozen. How many Jewish cops do you know? Besides, you need someone who can help you fix all these parking tickets you’re racking up.”
His dad drove a cab for a living and the last thing Resnick wanted was for his dad to take on more shifts to try to help him out. So while his dad pleaded with him not to throw his life away, Resnick patiently argued that the police work would be good experience for a future career as a lawyer and in a few years he would go back to school at night and earn a law degree. Nothing his dad could say changed the fact that he was anxious to make a living so he could marry Carrie. He was crazy about her and more than anything wanted her to be his wife.
Eighteen months after they were married, Carrie gave birth to their son. Brian was one of those one-in-a-million type babies. He almost never cried and always seemed to break out smiling whenever Resnick picked him up. As much as Resnick loved his wife, he found that his feelings towards his boy were stronger than he could’ve ever imagined. Leaving him each morning to go to work was like ripping out a small piece of his heart. When Brian was two they discovered that he had a heart defect and needed a valve replaced with an artificial plastic one. The surgery was touch and go for a while, but his boy did okay.
Three years later the four packs of cigarettes Resnick’s dad smoked each day caught up with him and he died of lung cancer after a tough nine-month battle. Resnick’s mom died a week later – supposedly of a stroke. Her death, while maybe somewhat of a shock, didn’t really come as much of a surprise to Resnick. He knew his parents loved each other dearly and he could never imagine one of them surviving without the other. He was still reeling from the death of both parents when six weeks later he found out his son’s plastic heart valve was leaking and needed to be replaced. This time Brian didn’t survive the surgery.
According to Carrie, Resnick emotionally abandoned her then. He didn’t believe she was right, but he also didn’t see any point in arguing with her. He just couldn’t live within his own skin. It was that simple. He couldn’t sleep, he couldn’t sit still. There was so much pressure inside his chest – and the only way he felt he could breathe freely was if he kept moving. He started putting in extra shifts and taking any detail work he could, sometimes working twenty-four hours straight. Exhaustion helped. When he was exhausted he could sometimes fall into unconsciousness when he closed his eyes. The worst – the absolute worst of it – were the few times when he did dream. Brian was always with him in those dreams, and he’d have to wake up realizing all over again that he had lost his boy.
Two years later Carrie told Resnick that the day Brian had his first heart surgery was the day he lost his sense of humor. Maybe even his own heart.
Resnick stared at her dumbly. “I don’t know how to respond to that.”
“That’s what I mean, Alex. The man I married would have thought of something to say to make me laugh. Even if it was something very sad.”
“My wife, the eternal optimist.”
“That wasn’t even close.” She paused, the color draining from her, leaving her skin a pale white. “I’ve cried every day since we lost Brian. Sometimes for hours at a stretch. I don’t think you’ve cried once. I don’t think I’ve seen a single tear from you. You keep running from it, Alex, you won’t let your grief catch up to you. Unless you let yourself grieve, I don’t think we can fix things between us.”
Resnick didn’t disagree with her, but he couldn’t sit still either. He saw too much of Brian in her as she sat across from him, a pleading in her eyes as she waited for him to say something. He got up and left their modest two-bedroom house. He just couldn’t do anything else.
That was about it for their marriage. They didn’t talk much after that. There didn’t seem to be any animosity or hard feelings. For the most part his feelings for Carrie hadn’t changed since that moment when he first saw her on campus, but there was distance between them. A distance that he knew he created. Maybe she reminded him too much of his boy. Whatever it was he wouldn’t let her close the gap and after a while she gave up trying. They divorced shortly after the three-year anniversary of Brian’s death. A few years later Carrie remarried.
After Resnick got in his car he headed towards the studio apartment he had been living in since his divorce. Halfway home he had a change of heart, turned and drove to Lynn Memorial. Once he arrived at the hospital he talked with the doctor who had examined Mr. Wiseman when he was brought in. Along with a concussion, the old man had a fracture running along the front part of his skull and had also suffered some muscle damage in his neck. They were going to be holding him in intensive care for a few days for observation.
Resnick found Wiseman alone in his room. The old man’s head was bandaged, a thick brace around his neck. He stared glassy-eyed at the detective until a glimmer of recognition showed.
“You’re the police officer who shops in our store,” he said slowly, evenly, his voice a hoarse whisper. “I remember you. My wife told me how you helped today. Thank you.”
“I thought I’d see your wife here.”
“Why do I need her here weeping?” he asked. “I sent her back to the store. Let her weep there.”
“I read the statement you gave the other officer.”
“I tripped,” he said stubbornly.
“We both know that’s not true, Mr. Wiseman.”
He shrugged as much as his neck brace would allow. “Old men trip sometimes.”
“It’s not right what Viktor Petrenko did to you. It’s not right what he has been doing to hundreds of other people like you. I need someone to talk to me so I can send that piece of garbage to prison.”
“If it were just me…” The old man’s voice broke off and his lips started to quiver. He looked away. When he could talk, he said, “My wife, Anna, we’ve been married fifty-two years. No, I am sorry, all I can say is that I tripped.”
Resnick laid a card with his contact information on the night stand next to the bed. “If you have a change of heart and are willing to tell me what happened, call me.”
The old man looked back at Resnick, his half-closed eyes holding steady on the detective. “Would you be able to protect my Anna?”
Resnick couldn’t answer him.
“That’s what I thought,” Wiseman said, letting his eyes close. “All I can tell you is that I tripped. Excuse me, please, I am very tired.”
Resnick stood watching the old man as he tried to think of something more to say. Eventually he gave up.