I released my grip and let him sit up. He brushed off a couple of pebbles that were lodged in his face. One of them perfectly filled the biggest pockmark on his left cheek.
I looked at him and said, “Surprisingly, I do believe you.”
I got a little more information out of the other, but stuck to my promise to release them. Besides, I had gotten the information through an illegal interrogation. There was nothing I could do to them.
After I stood up, I took his Ruger out of my waistband, took it apart, and tossed two pieces in a sewer drain. He started to object, then kept his mouth shut. I would toss the rest of the pistol, including the magazine, down a few different drains on our way back to Manhattan. I appreciated his groan as the gun disappeared.
I stepped over to the other man standing next to Darya and started to pat him down. Just as I did, the man said, “She took it already.”
I gave Darya a look and she reached in her purse, then pulled out a Smith & Wesson revolver. She shrugged as she slipped it into the palm of my hand.
She gave me a smile and said, “A girl has got to try.”
Chapter 20
After we talked to the Russian mobsters, I drove us back to the task force headquarters. Darya said she had calls to make based on some of the information we’d found. We agreed to meet up later.
She was very quiet on the ride back, and I found myself wondering what her role in all this was. Dan Santos trusted her, and even though he was a fed I didn’t think he’d put someone in the middle of the investigation who couldn’t be trusted. But still, something nagged at me. The moment I got to my desk, my cell rang. I didn’t recognize the caller, a man’s voice with a thick Russian accent. He said his name and I still couldn’t place it. Then I realized who it was: the silent husband of the woman we had spoken to in Midwood yesterday. The only English word he had said was, “Bullshit.”
Now he spoke in halting English. I guess Darya’s idea of not letting people know you spoke their language wasn’t a unique trick.
I said, “What can I do for you?”
“When you and the pretty Russian woman came here—we told truth.”
He spoke slowly and carefully so I could understand him. Aside from the accent, his English was not bad at all.
I said, “But some of your truth has changed since we were there?” I was trying to think how he had reached me, then I remembered that Darya had written my number as well as her own on a sheet of paper.
“Nothing has changed, except I met someone who might know the man you’re looking for. He gave me some information that I thought you might use.”
On every big case, there are thousands of leads. God help me, but I was a sucker for someone giving me new information, even if the odds of it being accurate or useful were small.
The old man said, “A man I ran into said he knows the family of the man who did this terrible crime.”
“In Russia or Kazakhstan?”
“In New Jersey.”
That caught me by surprise and made me pull a notepad from the FBI desk I was sitting at. I couldn’t help but look around the room to make sure no one was eavesdropping on my conversation. Technically, all official leads were supposed to be put into a computer program for review before anyone followed up on them.
I said, “It’s interesting he has family in New Jersey. That’s nothing I had heard.”
The old man said, “There are lots of Russians trying to live the right way. Many of us fled terr
ible conditions and appreciate all the advantages we have here in United States. Most Russians are perfectly respectable. It might not seem like it in your line of work, where everyone is a potential suspect. But this isn’t Russia. You can’t think that way.”
“I don’t generally think that way about any group. Nevertheless, I am a cop and I have to follow up on leads. Can you narrow down where his family might live in New Jersey?”
“A little community called Weequahic, in Newark. The name you’re looking for is Konstantin Nislev.”
“Do you want to give me some details about the person who gave you this information?”
“No. No, I don’t.” Then the phone went dead.
If nothing else, it gave me another excuse to get out of the Federal Building for a few hours. With Manhattan’s usual Saturday traffic, I knew I could be in the car for a while.
A little work in Google and in the New Jersey public records database gave me an address for a Konstantin Nislev, right where the old man said he’d be.