Part 7 The Third Wife #4
The lobby of this public housing tower was drab, dirty and old.
The elevator smelled of cabbage.
As Georgy and I rode up in it, I could see that my companion was shitting bricks.
‘Georgy,’ I said. ‘Stay calm.’
‘Dr Sam,’ Georgy said, ‘Roman Oberov is bad, bad man. It is said that he has buried his enemies—alive—in the concrete foundations of the buildings in these parts. Even the police fear him.’
‘We’ll be okay,’ I said. ‘And Georgy?’
‘Yes?’
‘Don’t let them know you speak Russian, okay?’
‘Okay, Dr Sam.’
Moments later, our elevator arrived on the 19th floor and Georgy and I were greeted by two gigantic Russian goons. They both wore Adidas tracksuits over white singlets.
(Honestly, what is it with Eastern European gangs and Adidas tracksuits and singlets? Is it a uniform? And what’s wrong with Nike or New Balance? Why is it always Adidas?)
The two thugs patted me down, but I was unarmed. (I’d given Merritt Garrett’s spare pistol back to him on December 21.)
They also frisked Georgy, who I thought might faint, but to my surprise, he maintained consciousness throughout the ordeal.
We were ushered down a short hallway and into an apartment facing the ocean.
Standing there waiting for us was the leader of the Brighton Bratva and criminal overlord of Brighton Beach and Coney Island, Roman Oberov.
Oberov’s apartment was enormous. He must have joined together several smaller ones to create this big one.
The views were amazing.
The apartment looked out over the ocean and Coney Island. I could see the boardwalk and the rollercoasters. A gigantic construction pit lay next to the amusement park, filled with unfinished parking levels, cranes and bulldozers.
(Seeing the pit, I wondered about Georgy’s claim that Oberov had buried people alive in concrete foundations. Was someone buried in that building site?)
It was interesting, I thought, to compare this gang lord’s home to Aristo King’s.
Top floor.
Bigger than any other apartment in the building.
Great views.
Being the top dog had similar perks no matter what your social circle was.
‘Welcome,’ Roman Oberov said.
He was a huge obese man with an enormous head, a bad comb-over and shrewd dark eyes. His voice was deep and he wore a silver suit and tie. No Adidas tracksuit for the boss.
But it was his eyes that seized my attention.
They were more than shrewd. They were calculating. They saw everything about you in a few seconds.
The eyes of a street killer.
Standing beside him was a younger man—also in a suit—who looked just like him.
‘I am Roman Oberov. This is my son, Dmitri. You say you are a private detective, Mr Speedman?’
‘Er, sir, it is actually Doctor Speedman—’ Georgy said helpfully.
‘Yes, I am,’ I answered, cutting Georgy off.
(It was entirely possible that Georgy, in his overwhelming nervousness, was more socially awkward than I was.)
‘And now you work for the beautiful Yasmina?’ he asked.
‘I do.’
‘That business in the rich man’s tower the other day,’ Oberov said, ‘it has been bad for us. Embarrassing. The FBI came here in force and questioned me and my son—questioned us in front of our family and our associates—because we know Sergei Kazan, the Grandmaster, and because the two men who were killed with Sergei at that cemetery worked for me.’
That would be the two tracksuit-wearing thugs whom Merritt Garrett had also shot, I thought.
Oberov said, ‘I tell them we know nothing of the whole affair—nothing—which is the truth. Then I read in the newspaper that Yasmina arrange whole thing with Sergei.’
‘Yasmina disputes that. She says she was set up.’
‘So was Sergei,’ Oberov said flatly.
That made me blink.
‘How do you know that?’ I asked.
‘Because, Doctor Speedman, the events in that tower took place on the 21st of December and Sergei Kazan, the Grandmaster, has been missing since December 10th.’
Now, that was interesting.
Oberov withdrew a huge cigar from his jacket pocket and a gold lighter.
(The lighter was an S.T. Dupont jet-flame lighter; one of those mini-blowtorch butane lighters that wealthy men often use to light their cigars. It was a total flex. Oberov’s gold lighter probably cost $1,500 but you could light a cigar just as well with a one-dollar Bic.)
The Russian gangster ignited the cigar and began puffing.
He said, ‘Fear is a tool of my trade. And Sergei was very useful at instilling fear in people. He was creative, clever. I liked using his talents for extortion and vengeance.
‘But on December 10th, his wife Olga came to me saying that Sergei had not returned from his weekly massage. This is most unlike Sergei. He hasn’t been seen or heard from since.’
I said, ‘You think whoever did all that in King’s tower—arranged all those complex deathtraps, killed all those people—was posing as the Grandmaster? Setting him up?’
‘That is exactly what I think,’ Roman Oberov said.
My mind was really spinning now.
Yasmina had said she’d been set up.
Now, Oberov was suggesting that the Grandmaster had also been set up.
At that moment, Oberov’s son leaned in close to Oberov and said something in his ear.
I heard it.
‘Papa, rasskazhi yemu o perevertyshe,’ he said.
Oberov’s eyes darted sharply toward his son.
‘Dmitri! Never say that word!’ Oberov hissed.
He paused, thinking.
Then he looked right at me.
‘My son says I should tell you about a certain man, a—how to put it—“problem solver” we employed once. He was similar to the Grandmaster but also . . . different.’
‘Who was he?’
‘We never learned his name.’
‘He was a hit man? A contract killer?’
‘Not just murder. Other things. Problems. Kidnapping, extortion, punishment for a grievance. His company is on dark internet. It is called Modern Alchemical Solutions, Inc. It promises unusual solutions for unusual problems. Satisfaction—in the old sense of the word—guaranteed.’
‘Modern Alchemical Solutions?’ I said.
I’d never heard of it.
Oberov said, ‘I hear about this company after a Russian oligarch recommended it to me. A rich old-money American boy had broken his daughter’s heart, so the oligarch hired Modern Alchemical Solutions to punish him.
‘The boy, his name was Greyson Prescott, ended up going to prison for raping another girl. He protested his innocence to the end but the DNA evidence was incontrovertible and he was convicted.’
‘You think Modern Alchemical Solutions set him up?’
‘I know they did, and comprehensively, too. They got the boy’s semen—via a prostitute they hired to seduce him at a bar—and made sure it was found inside the victim’s vagina.’
Holy shit, I thought.
Oberov said, ‘After I hear about that, I get my son here to go on the dark internet and hire this company to teach a lesson to an American hedge fund manager named Nelson Yates in Connecticut. Mr Yates embezzle money from me. But the fellow from Modern Alchemical Solutions carried out the job—how you say—a little too enthusiastically.’
I hesitated to ask. ‘How do you mean?’
‘There was torture involved. And butchery. More than we felt was necessary or decent.’
When a murderous gang lord thinks someone’s levels of torture and butchery have gone beyond what is ‘decent’, you have a very dangerous individual on your hands.
‘What makes you think Modern Alchemical Solutions might have set up the Grandmaster here?’ I asked.
‘This man from Modern Alchemical Solutions, he was intelligent. Cunning. Also exceptional in the art of disguise. That was how he penetrated Mr Yates’s mansion and got past his security.’
‘How did you pay him?’ I asked.
‘With cryptocurrency on a dark internet escrow exchange,’ Oberov said.
By that he meant a buyer-and-sellers market on the darknet where funds could be transferred almost untraceably. Using Tor plus a privacy-enhancing operating system like Tails, you could place your money in escrow: once the job was done, the money was released.
‘He was not cheap,’ Oberov added, ‘but, oddly, he did not seem to care much for the money.’
‘Which cryptocurrency did you use?’ I asked.
(Bitcoin is popular with the public but not with the criminal classes.
Since its blockchain ledger is public it’s pretty easy for law enforcement to trace bitcoin transfers.
Criminals prefer more exotic cryptocurrencies like Zcash, Monero or Litecoin because these currencies obscure all the key elements of a transaction: the sender, the receiver and the amount.)
‘Monero,’ Oberov said.
The big Russian crime lord stepped over to the window overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.
His tone changed.
‘Doctor Speedman,’ he said. ‘You and I, we are professionals. So let us speak professionally. I am criminal, we both know this. Even so, I do not like being implicated in criminal business in which I had no part. I especially do not like having the FBI come to my home to question me in front of my family and my men. It looks bad. It angers me.’
He turned to face me.
‘You work for Yasmina. This is good. Now, at the same time, you work for me. Find out who did this. Find out who set up the Grandmaster.’
He jerked his chin at his son.
Dmitri Oberov threw something at me.
I caught it.
It was a brick of cash: hundred-dollar bills wrapped in tape.
Ten thousand dollars.
‘A down payment,’ Oberov said.
I looked at the cash.
Then tossed it back to Dmitri Oberov.
‘Mr Oberov, let me speak professionally. You blackmailed my client for years. I work for her, not you.’
Oberov’s killer’s eyes assessed me. ‘You are honourable man. I like this. It is rare.’
‘A final question,’ I said. ‘The Grandmaster’s body. Where is it? Has it been released for burial?’
‘No. The FBI haven’t released it yet. It is still at morgue in Sleepy Hollow,’ Oberov said. ‘They haven’t even let Sergei’s wife Olga see it.’
‘Can you give me his wife’s number?’ I said. ‘I might be able to help her out while getting some information at the same time.’
Oberov nodded to his son, who gave me Mrs Kazan’s number.
‘Good luck, Doctor Speedman,’ Roman Oberov said through his cigar.
We left.
Once Georgy and I were out on the street, I turned to my skinny companion.