Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 150, Nos. 5 & 6. Whole Nos. 914 & 915, November/December 2017
- Автор: Фузилли Джим, Харрис Шарлин
- Год: 2017
- Язык: английский
- Год: Dell Magazines
- ISBN: 0013-6328
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 150, Nos. 5 & 6. Whole Nos. 914 & 915, November/December 2017». Краткое содержание книги:
“If Doctor Ghoul gives us a solid time of death, maybe we can turn up a witness.”
Rizzo considered it. “Twelve hours is the best he’s gonna do, Mark. And the squad already canvassed for that time frame and came up empty. The body was discovered at seven-thirty A.M. It’s midweek, streets are pretty deserted by ten, eleven at night on workdays. This ain’t Times Square. Antipov probably got hit after eleven P.M. last night.”
“So — where do we start, Joe?”
“I’m thinking Louie Quatroppa. If one of the Italian crews did whack this guy, they would need Louie’s okay. He and Oleg Boklov tolerate each other, but they both want the big chair all for themselves. Any excuse to go at each other, they’ll take. If Louie did this, Boklov is coming at him. And Louie’s probably getting ready for it, whether he’s responsible or not. We can get word from the street easy enough if the paisans are oiling up their pistolas. Same for the Russkies. We need to make this as mob related, or rule it out.”
“And what about Boklov? We gonna talk to him?”
“Sure. In fact, maybe we see him first. It’ll show him respect. After all, this guy Antipov was his paisan. Or whatever they call each other.”
Ginsberg pondered it. “I think Louie Quatroppa first. If we get a feel he’s telling us the truth and says he didn’t whack Antipov, maybe we can read Boklov a little better, figure if he killed his own guy. I always have trouble reading Boklov.”
Rizzo stood. “Yeah. Me too. Boklov and Dostoyevsky. Can’t read either of them. Lets us go talk to Louie.”
Louie Quatroppa had almond-tinged skin and downward slanting black eyes, giving him somewhat of an Asian appearance. He’d been the reigning boss of Brooklyn’s powerful Mafia family for six years and was the most pragmatic man Rizzo had ever met. The mobster seemingly harbored no animosity toward law-enforcement officers; rather, he merely considered them as having made poor career choices.
While watching his own immigrant father morph into a hunched, broken man, hands and feet riddled with arthritis, spinal cord ravaged from decades of manhandling wheelbarrows laden with construction debris, Quatroppa had decided quite young that work, in any of its conventional configurations, was not for him.
Nor did the mobster appear to harbor any passionate ill will for rivals in his own industry, merely considering them natural obstacles, much as rivers or mountains, things that needed to be overcome. Conquered.
Or simply eradicated. For this latter option, Quatroppa had demonstrated an impressive talent.
Rizzo and Ginsberg now sat opposite the man at a small table at the rear of the dimly lit Starlight Lounge, Quatroppa’s de facto headquarters.
“I hope I can speak frankly, Joe,” Quatroppa said. “Off the record.”
“Actually, Louie, me and Mark are here off the record. So it’s okay with you?”
“Of course.”
Rizzo nodded. “So — tell me.”
“You gotta see my point here, Joe. We had nothing to do with whackin’ that commie psycho. Yeah, it’s good he’s dead. But I didn’t okay it, and none of my guys are stupid enough to go behind my back for a move that big. Would never happen.”
“Okay, Louie. I believe you.”
“Yeah, well, good for me. But here’s my problem: I need that disonore Boklov to understand I’m clean here. Hell, he probably killed the guy himself, so maybe it’s a non-issue. But — if he didn’t — and he’s figurin’ I did, he’s gonna make a statement, he’s gonna come after us. So I gotta gear up just in case, and he sees me gearin’ up, he takes it as proof I hit his guy. You see my situation? Now I got you guys comin’ around. No matter what, I look bad.”
Rizzo considered it. “If Boklov is behind this, which I have reason to doubt, it’s all done with. Those Russkies are pros, and this looks like an extremely amateur job. But if it was some internal beef got Antipov killed, Boklov will run it down and dole out his own justice. If we find a dead Russian or some Albanian with his head blown off, we can close the case. But right now, far as I’m concerned, it was amateur night in that alley.”
Quatroppa shrugged. “If it was one of his crew actin’ on his own, Boklov will most likely figure it out or think the shooting was some kinda freak thing. But — if he makes a move on me — hurts my people — we all got ourselves a problem. Nobody’s rolling over for this guy. Let him go back to Moscow he wants to be a czar.”
Rizzo stood, Ginsberg following his lead. “Okay, Louie,” Rizzo said. “Thanks for the info and the sambuca. I’ll get a message to Boklov: It wasn’t you or anybody else on your side of the street.”
Quatroppa stood and circled the table. He hugged Rizzo, kissing both his cheeks. “Good,” he said. “You’re okay, Joe.” His smile was cold. “For a cop.”
Quatroppa merely nodded farewell to Ginsberg, and the two detectives went out to the street. As they reached their car, Ginsberg spoke.
“You know, Joe, the times I feel the most Jewish are when I’m in temple or at the seder; and when I watch you talking to guys like Louie.”
Rizzo smiled. “Yeah. I get it. So... why don’t we call it a day? We’ll see the Russian tomorrow.”
Oleg Boklov was in his early thirties. He had a stubby, compact body with an aura of great physical strength. Sitting behind his desk in the small, cramped office he maintained behind a barroom in Brooklyn’s Brighton Beach neighborhood, he frowned at Rizzo and Ginsberg.
“Is the Italian so favored he can send two police to me as messenger boys? Is this what I am faced with?”
Rizzo shook his head slowly. “Take it easy, Oleg. Nobody is running messages here. Viktor Antipov is dead. We all know the score, so let’s speak frankly. It’s reasonable for you to believe Quatroppa hit your boy, but we checked that out. We decided Louie is clear. Among other possibilities, that leaves you. Maybe you did it. If you didn’t, what I’m trying to do here and now is avoid a war. And maybe save us all a lot of trouble.”
Boklov’s frown deepened. “Viktor was like a brother to me. And — for the record — I am not a common murderer. But — if I were — Viktor would not have had reason to fear me. So forgive me, gentlemen, but I fail to see the purpose of this visit. Do you expect a confession? What is it you are trying to accomplish?”
Now it was Ginsberg speaking. “Look, Boklov, let’s finish this, okay? Me and Rizzo here, we’re actually just trying to avoid a ton of paperwork. Quatroppa is clean on this. Believe that or not, your choice. But if you start leaning on him, he’s gonna lean back. And when he does, he’ll plant more Russians in Brooklyn than Stalin planted in Siberia. You know that. Nobody can predict the future but, here in the present, you and your crew are minor league. Quatroppa reigns. He has twenty soldiers to your one, and they don’t like you. Do the math.”
“I gotta say, Oleg,” Rizzo added casually. “My partner has a point. You fight Quatroppa, you lose. He wins.”
Boklov sat back in his chair, considering it.
“Allow me to instruct for just a moment, Detectives. Life is merely a relay race. You accept the baton from your father, and then he dies. You run with it for a while, and then you hand it to your child. But — you do not go to the sideline to watch who wins. No... you go into the dirt. There is no finish line, no gold medal, no winner. The race just continues speeding along to nowhere. So... when you speak to me of winning, as I said, no one wins. Not I. Not Quatroppa. And certainly not you. So do not try to intimidate me with who will win and who will lose. If I find Viktor was murdered by Quatroppa or by God himself, I will avenge it.”