“Who the fuck are you?” I demanded.

“My name is Kulak. Alexi Kulak.”

Chapter 15

Magda’s was a shitty bar in a shitty industrial part of West Palm, a dingy clapboard building that looked as if it should have been condemned ten years before. Parking was in the back, a cracked concrete lot studded with weeds. A chain-link fence crowned with razor wire locked Magda’s patrons out of an auto salvage yard.

This would probably be an exercise in futility, Landry thought as he got out of the car. The old priest had named this bar as a possible spot to find Kulak. But the odds of anyone here talking to him were long. The Russian community was close-knit and tight-lipped. But he had to start somewhere.

He and Weiss had agreed to call it a day and start fresh in the morning. Landry glanced at his watch: 12:14 a.m. Morning. It would be hard enough to get these people to talk to one cop, let alone two. Particularly if one of the two was Weiss. Alexi Kulak was potentially too important a lead to screw up.

Kulak had a record of arrests but no convictions. He had been brought up on charges of assault and attempted murder, but nothing ever stuck. Witnesses developed faulty memories. Victims chose to let bygones be bygones. This was a man no one wanted to mess with.

Landry knew a guy who worked the organized-crime task force, but he hadn’t called him. He might have gleaned a scrap or two of information on Kulak, but the OC detectives were notoriously paranoid and selfish. They sat on bad guys for months, for years, trying to piece together a case that could stand up. The last thing they wanted was some Homicide dick walking into the middle of something and screwing up their work.

He had learned the basics about Kulak-what he looked like, his record, etc. Father Chernoff had supplied the information that the auto salvage yard behind Magda’s was Kulak’s legitimate business. But his last-known address, according to the DMV, was smack in the middle of the Baby Gap store downtown, and Landry had found no other notations of an actual address, nor had there been any mention of relatives.

But relative or not, Kulak had been close to Irina Markova. He had offered her a job, a well-paying job. Criminal enterprise paid a hell of a lot better than shoveling horseshit. That explained the pricey wardrobe. It also probably gave someone motive to do her harm. Maybe because she crossed somebody up. Maybe to get at Kulak. Maybe Kulak had killed her himself and the phone message had been an act to throw the scent off.

Landry went in the back door of the bar and down a narrow, dimly lit hall with an uneven floor. The place smelled of beer and boiled cabbage, and the smoke was so thick it stung his eyes and jammed in his throat like a fist. Conversations died as he walked in and took a seat at the bar. People stared at him openly, then glanced at one another and muttered in Russian.

He looked at the bartender, a massive bald man with blue tattoos inked all over his skull. “Vodka. Straight up.”

“What you want here, Copper?” the bartender asked.

Landry repeated himself. “Vodka. Straight up. You have vodka, don’t you?”

“Do bears shit in woods?”

“You tell me.”

The bartender laughed loudly, poured him a shot, and set it on the bar in front of him. Landry tossed it back and fought the need to grimace and gag. The bartender poured him another and he repeated the process, on a mostly empty stomach.

The bartender laughed again. “You Russian, Copper? You drink like a Russian.”

“What makes you think I’m a copper?”

“You’re all the same. Big attitude, shiny shoes. We don’t got nothing to tell you here, Copper.”

“You don’t even know what I’m going to ask.”

“It don’t matter.”

“You’re not going to tell me where I can find Alexi Kulak?”

“No.”

“That’s too bad. A relative of his was found dead today, and we need to know what to do with the body.”

The bartender made a sour face and shrugged. “This person is dead. There is no reason to rush. They will be just as dead tomorrow and the next day.”

“So, I should come back tomorrow and wait until Alexi Kulak shows up?” Landry said. “You know, I’m a busy man. I can’t hang around like that. Maybe I should send a couple of squad cars over, put some uniformed officers in here. Is that what you want me to do?”

The bartender frowned, making his skull tats undulate.

A voice behind him laughed. “Is joke! American police, you can’t do nothing to make people talk.”

Landry glanced over his shoulder. The one behind him was nearly as large as the one behind the bar. Good. If he had to prove himself, this was the guy to do it with.

“You say please and thank you and let criminals get off with slap on wrist like naughty children,” the man went on. “Is not like Russia.”

There were many murmurs of agreement.

Landry turned around on his bar stool. “If Russia is so fucking great, what are you doing here, Boris? Did you get tired of standing in line all day for a roll of toilet paper? Do you even use toilet paper? Do they have indoor plumbing in that ass-backward country of yours?”

The Russian scowled darkly. His hair was thick and bristly, like the pelt of a bear, and came to a V just above his brows. A vein stood out in the side of his neck. “You watch your mouth here, little policeman. There are more of us than you.”

“Did you just threaten me?” Landry asked. “Did you just threaten a law-enforcement officer?” He turned back to the bartender. “Did he just threaten me?”

“What you gonna do about it?” the bartender asked. “Scold him? Take away his supper?”

“I have the right to defend myself,” Landry said. “I might have to do this.”

As he said it, he came around with his left elbow and drove it into the solar plexus of the man standing behind him. At the same time, he pulled his weapon from his shoulder holster and ran the gasping Russian backward into a wall.

He pointed the gun in the big man’s face and shouted, “I might have to do that! How do you like that, asshole? Am I making my point clear? I might have to blow your fucking brains out! Is this like Russia now, cocksucker?”

There was shock and fear in the man’s eyes as he tried to see the end of the gun barrel.

Just as quickly as he had turned on the guy, Landry let him go and backed away. The Russian slid halfway down the wall, bent over, his mouth working like a fish’s as he tried to get air.

“Don’t fuck with me, Boris!” Landry shouted, jabbing a finger at him. “Don’t fuck with me!”

Landry went back to the bar and ordered another vodka. He looked around at the crowd. “What the fuck are you looking at?”

They seemed grudgingly impressed with him now. Still wary, still uncooperative, no doubt, but there was a little respect where there hadn’t been. That was the only way he was going to get anywhere with this crowd.

He took his vodka and tossed it back, hoping he wouldn’t just puke it up there and then. From inside his sport coat he pulled out a photograph printed from Irina Markova’s computer and held it up.

“This is Irina Markova,” he said loudly. “She was found murdered today. She was Russian. Some of you might have known her. And I’m gonna work my ass off to find and apprehend her killer and make sure he never sees the light of day again.”

“If anyone here has anything to tell me, I’m leaving my card on the bar. And if anyone can tell me where to find Alexi Kulak, I need to know. If he doesn’t come to claim the body in three days, she gets buried in a pine box in potter’s field.”

That was a lie, but Landry didn’t care. He needed to know what he needed to know. He turned back to the bartender and put the picture of Irina down on the bar. She was sitting in a horseshoe booth, sandwiched between two well-dressed, wealthy men who had probably never set foot in a place like this. Her smile was dazzling. There seemed to be no connection between this girl and the corpse he had left lying on a slab in the autopsy suite.