The Hunted, page 34
The jefe of the trio, a small, wiry man with greasy black hair laced with gray, and long ridges of knife scars on his forehead and left cheek, stepped closer to Alex. “What you in for?” he asked with a strong Cuban brogue.
“Nothing.”
“Nothing. Just visiting, huh?”
“All right, I was framed.”
A light chuckle sounding like chalk scratched on a blackboard. “You and all the rest of us.”
“It’s true. I haven’t even been to trial yet.”
“You’re Russian,” the man observed, shooting past the normal prisoner baggage and getting to the point.
“I was. Now I’m American.”
The man took another step toward Alex, ending up about a foot away. “I’m Cubano,” he announced with a nasty smile and his chest puffed up. “I hate Russians. Biggest pricks in the world. You kept that bastard Castro in power.”
The prisoners around Alex suddenly began shutting down their showerheads and bolting for the towel room. A fire alarm at full blast could not have emptied the place faster. The three men surrounding Alex were fully clothed in prison coveralls, hands stuffed deep inside their pockets. They stank of old sweat and a thousand cigarettes. Apparently, they didn’t visit the showers very often.
Alex swallowed his fear and kept rubbing soap in his armpits. “No, you mean the communists kept him in power,” he said and glanced around. Act indifferent, he kept reminding himself. Don’t look scared, don’t crack a smile, control your breathing. Pretend that standing naked in front of these three goons is no more threatening than a lap around the prison track. The guard who had been loitering at the entrance had mysteriously disappeared, Alex suddenly noticed.
“And what? You weren’t a commie?”
Alex shook his head. “Definitely not.”
“Yeah, well, what’s that?” He wagged a finger at the hammer and sickle on Alex’s chest.
“A present from some angry former commies,” Alex informed him, eyeing the other two men, who had fanned out a bit and now blocked his exit in any direction.
“For what?”
“Because I bankrolled Yeltsin’s election to the presidency.”
“You, by yourself?” A quick, derisive snicker directed at his friends. “Just you, eh?”
“That’s right, just me. I gave him the money to defeat Gorbachev.”
This revelation was intended to defuse the confrontation, but instead produced a nasty sneer. “And you know who I am?”
Alex soaped his arms and decided not to answer.
“Napoleon Bonaparte. You ended communism in Russia, and me… well, I’m the short little prick what conquered Europe.”
The man laughed at his own stupid joke—his friends joined him, loud guffaws that bounced off the walls. Alex forced himself to smile. “Actually, you’re Manuel Gonzalez. But you go by Manny. Born in a small village, Maderia, you’re forty-six years old, thirty-six of which you’ve lived inside prison. You’ve killed with guns, rope, and knives, but prefer your bare hands. You like two sugars with your coffee, no cream. Your favorite TV show is Miami Vice, though I suspect you always root for the bad guys.” He paused and broadened his smile. “Have you heard enough things you already know about yourself?”
Manny’s mouth hung open for a second before he reacquired his normal aplomb and its accompanying sneer. The sneer had a violent edge to it. “Smart guy, huh?”
“I’ve asked around a bit.” With as much casualness as he could muster, Alex placed the soap on the metal tray on the wall. “I suggest you do your homework, too.” He stuck out his hand. “Alex Konevitch. Have one of your boys look me up on the Internet.”
“Already did that,” he said, ignoring the hand. “You’re rich, Konevitch, filthy rich. You ripped off hundreds of millions. I’m impressed. That’s why we’re having this little mano-a-mano. Question is, are you also generous?”
“We seem to have a tense problem, Manny.”
“Maybe my English is not so good. What’s that mean?”
“A bunch of former KGB goons stole my money and my businesses. The little that was left was seized by the FBI. I was rich, and now I’m broke.”
Manny did not appear overly pleased with that response. He pushed his face within an inch of Alex’s. “I’m not a man you want to lie to.”
“Believe me, I know that.”
Manny looked ready to whip out whatever was inside his pocket. “Yeah? Then you better—”
“Slow it down, Manny. Think about it. A man with hundreds of millions, would he be here, in this rotten excuse for a prison? This is America, land of the free and the brave, of all the justice you can afford. The rich boys are all eating steak and getting nice tans in the federal country clubs. I’m here, with you. Put two and two together.”
Rather than respond to that, Manny glanced at the man standing to Alex’s left, a large, hairy monster named Miguel. Physical appearances aside, Manny was the muscle, Miguel the brain. They had been longtime compadres in Cuba, arrived on the same miserable little boat, and for almost two decades had shared a cramped, smelly cell on the second floor. Manny had the top bunk and stayed out front. He did the bullying, the enforcement, bought off the guards, and terrified the other gangs. Miguel slept on the bottom, and spent most of his time in the library thinking up schemes and scams. It was he who researched Alex’s background after the guard tipped them off. And it was he who devised this coarse plot to shake Alex down.
After a moment, Miguel leaned forward and butted in. “Were you really the cashbox behind Yeltsin?” Not a word about that had been mentioned in any of the many articles about Konevitch Miguel had read on the Internet.
Sensing the sudden shift in power, Alex turned and faced Miguel. “Seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“But maybe not, eh?”
“You’re perceptive. After all, look where it got me,” Alex replied, shrugging indifferently, as if he’d be as happy here, among these men, as lounging with a bunch of gorgeous ladies in skimpy bikinis at a Caribbean resort. He was nearly gagging on indifference. “The same former KGB thugs who stole my money put me here.”
“Why they put you here, man?”
“They want me back in Russia, where they can get their hands on me, or dead.”
“That right?” Miguel leaned his large bulk against the wall and thoughtfully twisted the small goatee at the end of his chin. With that admission this tall Russian had just made a fatal slip. A dozen questions suddenly popped into Miguel’s mind. Would the Russians pay to have this guy whacked? Who did Miguel and his friends have to contact? How much was Konevitch worth dead? That was the big question.
Maybe the situation still held possibilities.
Alex was beginning to feel awkward. He was naked, vulnerable, and dripping wet. Who knew what they had hidden in those pockets? Any one of these three brutes would happily slit his throat and casually watch his blood spill down the drain. He reached over and shut off the spigot. “Mind if I get a towel and dry off?” he asked.
“Why not?” Miguel grunted and winked. “Who’s stopping you?”
Alex began edging around him, carefully, in the direction of the towel room. “What do you want with money, anyway?” he asked over his shoulder. “You’re in prison, what good does it do?”
The Cubans followed about a step behind. “Don’t you know anything?” Miguel answered, wondering exactly how much this Russian, dead, might be worth. “Money’s everything. Inside the joint, outside—makes no differences. Good lawyers, cigarettes, dope, smuggled-in girls, even guards.”
Alex seemed to consider that a moment, then, rapidly changing the subject, asked, “Have you ever heard of AOL? America Online?”
Manny and the third, unnamed man exchanged puzzled looks. Totally clueless. Miguel thought he might’ve heard of it, a hazy recollection at best. But in an effort not to appear dumb, he produced a knowing nod. “Sure. What about it?” he asked, as if he could write a textbook on the subject.
“It’s the new thing, an Internet company that’s making money hand over foot. The stock could easily quadruple in the next few years, maybe more.”
Miguel turned to his colleagues. “Advice from a hustler who ripped off millions back in Russia. Does this guy think we’re stupid, or what?”
“You’re forgetting something. I also made hundreds of millions.”
This got a slight nod. He’d read that on the Internet.
“Point is,” Alex plowed ahead, grabbing a towel and wrapping it around his waist, “you’re losing out. The stock market’s on a tear. You’re trying to squeeze a few dollars from losers on the inside. The easy money’s outside, the big money. It’s perfectly legal and above board.”
“Cons in the joint ain’t allowed to buy stock,” Manny chimed in angrily, as if that ended the discussion. From everything Miguel had told him about this Russian, he had been expecting the once-in-a-lifetime payday all convicts live for. Manny had lain awake on his bunk the night before, sweating in the intense heat, dreaming of the money and what he could do with it.
Like the rest of the Mariel Boys, Manny had an appeal for release grinding its way through the courts. They had collectively pooled their resources to hire a lawyer, a distant third cousin of one of the gang. The cousin offered an impressive discount, bragged about his many legal victories, and made lots of rowdy promises. He turned out to be a total loser. Between booze and gambling, Mr. Loser lost track of their paperwork with disturbing regularity; the only thing he turned out to be good at was consistently missing the deadlines for filings.
Mr. Loser had to go.
Miguel had asked around until he found the perfect mouthpiece. Mr. Perfect was a cutthroat from Miami who billed four hundred an hour and produced miracles. He was owned by the Colombians, a gaudy loudmouth who had earned quite the reputation for keeping their killers, mules, and pushers out of jail. Legal mastery was part of it; knowing which judges and prosecutors to help with their home mortgages and kids’ college bills, the larger part. In his spare time, he was allowed to freelance as much as he wanted.
It was an outside shot, at best. Mr. Perfect was quite expensive. The billable hours would pile up. The case could drag on for years. And for such a large group, a band of thugs who definitely had not distinguished themselves as model prisoners, the bribes would be mountainous.
Mr. Perfect, though, was their only hope. The Cubans talked endlessly of walking out the gate and retiring in a small, lazy southern Florida town. Life would be so good. They would muscle their way into a few strip clubs and pawnshops, drink cerveza from dusk to dawn, cavort with the strippers, and put the ugly old days behind them.
Alex kept a close eye on Manny, who looked angry and frustrated that their mark turned out to have shallow pockets. He grabbed another towel and began briskly rubbing his hair. “You mean you can’t invest under your own name,” he corrected Manny in an even tone. “Have a lawyer handle your money. They represent you, they can’t blow the whistle. It’s in their oath.”
Miguel shot Manny a look that said: This sounds interesting, so cool it, for now. “And how would this work?” he asked.
“It’s simple. Surely you already have money and maybe you already have a lawyer in mind.”
“Maybe we do,” Miguel replied, exchanging looks with his pals.
“I have a friend on the outside who will set up a trading account. I’m assuming you have a way to communicate with the outside. It needs to be instantaneous. We’ll be buying and selling every day. Throw in whatever cash you have. I can name ten stocks right now that are set to explode, and the spreads in commodities have never been better.”
“How do we know you won’t lose our money?”
“You know what a stop-loss order is?”
Miguel was through pretending he knew things he had never heard of. A slow shake of the head.
“With each purchase, you designate a trigger price that he programs into his computer. If the stock falls to that level, the broker is required to sell.” Alex jabbed the air with a finger. “One push of a button and he dumps everything.”
“That’s all we have to do?”
“I told you it’s easy, Miguel,” Alex assured him, leaving Miguel to ponder the interesting question of how Alex knew his name. They had not been introduced. Nobody had mentioned his name. How much did Konevitch know about the Mariel Boys? The suspicion struck him that the Russian had been expecting this shakedown, maybe even prepared for it.
No, nobody was that cunning.
Alex walked over to the clothing locker, picked up his underwear and dirty coveralls, and began dressing. “But don’t worry,” he continued. “The stocks I pick will never trigger a sell order. Tell your lawyer to watch the action for a month. If he likes what he sees, he can join the fun. Better yet, cut a deal. In return for handling his investments, he’ll handle your case.”
“And you,” Manny asked. “What do you get?”
“Protection,” Alex told him, tying his shoes. “Also use your influence to arrange a new cellmate. Ernie gets on my nerves. I’m tired of tearing down pictures of little children.”
“Easy,” Miguel answered for all of them. “One more question.”
“Shoot.”
A nice smile, followed by a quick shift of mood and demeanor. “You know what happens if you lose our money, Mr. Smart Guy?”
“I have a fair idea. Do I look worried?”
He really didn’t. Not in the least.
The end of Elena’s first month in the South Arlington rental apartment and she was beginning to feel at home.
The D.C. housing market was hot as a pistol and her real estate agent had pleaded with her not to drop a hundred thousand off the asking price. It was the Watergate, after all; why throw away money? Her neighbors would never forgive her; not to mention the Realtor’s own bitter feelings about the seven grand shucked off her own fee. Elena dug in her heels and stood fast. Lured by the great discount, inside two days, ten couples lined up for a shot. A brief, vicious bidding war erupted. The escalation quickly shot through the roof. The dust settled $120K later, at least $20K more than average Watergate prices for a cramped two-bedroom.
The winners were a young Bolivian couple with no children but plenty of money and an open desire to tell everyone back home they were part of the la-di-da Watergate crowd. Elena drove a hard bargain. A hundred thousand down, in cash, she insisted, before the titles were checked and the closing moved along at its usual constipated pace. The young couple hesitated only briefly before Elena mentioned how much she liked the terms offered by the runner-up bidder. A hundred thousand in cash landed on the table.
Their business affairs had always been handled by Alex. She was proud she had done so well. She promptly put down twenty thousand on a top-of-the-line server built by Sun Microsystems, and arranged for furniture from a cheap rental warehouse. MP helped her locate an apartment, not far from his own shabby home in a run-down neighborhood. At seven hundred a month the price was right, and Elena signed the lease under the name Ellen Smith. A few of MP’s clients with expertise in such matters swiftly produced a driver’s license and social security card to match her new name. Charge cards could be traced, and therefore were too dangerous. She vowed to live on cash.
The landlord wasn’t fooled and neither did he care. Half his tenants were illegal aliens. As long as they paid cash, in American bills, on time, they could claim to be Bill Gates for all he cared. The phone service, both cellular and home, and Internet service, were opened by and billed to MP’s firm.
The only remaining trace of Elena Konevitch was her car insurance. She called the company, said she had moved, and gave MP’s office as her new address.
The killers were out there. With Alex locked up, she was the only one they could reach, she thought. The killers were professionals with loads of experience. They knew countless ways to find her and would peek under every rock. She was on her own for the first time; every decision would be hers. She needed to be disciplined and careful.
In her college days, Elena had taken courses in computer language, and had been quite good at it. A fast trip to a local mall and her apartment quickly flooded with books about programming and all sorts of other computer esoterica.
She had one last thing left to do. Sipping from a cup of tea, she unfolded a note Alex had passed her in court. She dialed the number he had written out and waited patiently until the connection went through.
A male voice answered, “Mikhail Borosky, private investigations.”
“Hello, Mikhail. It’s Elena Konevitch. Alex asked me to call.”
“Yeah, I just learned he’s in prison,” Mikhail replied. “He okay?”
“Fine. Probably safer inside than out here.”
There was a pause for a moment before Elena said, “From now on, direct your calls and send all your materials to me, addressed to Ellen Smith.” She quickly gave him her new apartment address, her e-mail account information, and then said, “The materials you’ve already sent are hidden in a safe-deposit box at a bank. I went through everything three days ago.”
“It’s incredible isn’t it?”
“You’re incredible, Mikhail.”
“No, this is all Alex’s idea. He’s incredible.”
Enough incredibles. “Things have changed,” Elena told him, very businesslike. “I’m handling this now. Alex has kept me informed of your general activities, but it might be best if you filled me in on all the details.”
“This could take a while.”
“With Alex in prison, I find I have lots of time on my hands. Start from the beginning.”
27
After an hour of wailing and gnashing, of fruitless attempts at denial accompanied by turbulent rantings and sulfurous threats directed at the messengers, the long procession of accountants finally packed up their books and spreadsheets and fled from his office. The door closed quietly, at last. Sergei Golitsin hunched down in his chair and stared at the blank white walls. He was angry and felt depressed. The number crunchers had been merciless. No punches pulled, no quarter given.
