Genie for Hire (4 page)

Biff moved easily through the crowd, opening his senses to
detect the same signature the thief had left behind at Sveta’s studio. He
strolled the room, fighting against being overpowered by all the estrogen and
testosterone in the room, all part of the mating dance going on between men and
women. Then there were the competing colognes, body washes, after shaves and
perfumes. Not to mention the residue of everything they’d eaten that day,
oozing from their pores in tiny bits of sour cream,
blini
and
kvass
.

It was enough to make him woozy. Or maybe it was the glass
of vodka he’d belted on an empty stomach. He wolfed down a couple of meat
pierogies, a few curls of smoked salmon dotted with sour cream, and some beluga
caviar on tiny round crackers, and started to feel better. He continued his
circuit of the room, his nostrils expanding and contracting as he sniffed. He
caught a man looking strangely at him as he got too close, and drew his
monogrammed handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose. The man glared at
him and turned away.

He began to wonder if the party was a dead end. He hadn’t
found anyone who smelled of Acqua di Parma, and he hadn’t seen the beautiful
young Natasha or her mother either.

There was a commotion at the front door, and when he looked
up he saw a tough-looking bodybuilder in a sleek Hugo Boss suit entering with
his arm around Natasha. She wore a body-hugging strapless black taffeta dress
with a full skirt, and a gold necklace with a tear drop ornament studded with
tiny diamonds.

The bodybuilder was about thirty years old, dark-haired,
with biceps that bulged under his black silk T-shirt. Biff casually made his
way through the room, coming up to stand just behind the man. Biff inhaled
deeply, and then mentally compared what he sensed to what he’d found at Sveta’s
studio that morning.

A match. The thief stood before him.

But there was something more. Some kind of magical power
that emanated from the man. Biff tensed. Was the man himself magic? He opened
his third eye and searched for any magical signatures he could feel. With relief,
he recognized that the thief was all human—but that he possessed some kind of
talisman. He was most likely not even aware of the powers of the object he
owned. Biff had discovered that to often be the case. There were many objects
in the world that had been imbued with magic in the long distant past, then had
been lost by their original owners. They showed up at auctions, in thrift
shops, in the closets of old houses.

Biff allowed himself a satisfied smile. The talisman,
whatever its properties, what not his problem. All he had to do was verify that
the thief was indeed Igor Laskin, and he’d be that much closer to retrieving
Sveta’s files.

Foolishly, the thief kept his wallet in the back pocket of
his black jeans. With an ease born of years of practice, Biff lifted it with
two fingers. The thief didn’t even notice its passing.

Biff slipped across the darkened room to the men’s room,
where he examined the wallet’s contents in the harsh fluorescent light of a
cubicle. The wallet belonged to Igor Laskin, as Biff had guessed. He was
thirty-one and lived in a condo on the bay side of Sunny Isles Beach. The
wallet carried the registration for a Porsche 911, license plate IGOR 5. He had
an American Express black card, a membership to the gym on Collins Avenue, and
a thousand dollars in cash, mostly in hundred-dollar bills.

He had no health insurance card that might indicate his
employer, and no business cards either. He memorized the man’s driver’s license
number then returned to the dining room and located Igor, sliding his wallet
back into his pocket as the bodybuilder flirted with Natasha.

The stocky, older man who had bumped against Biff in the
locker room at the gym approached, and Biff readied himself for another
altercation. But the man walked right past him. “We have to talk,” he said to
Igor in Russian.

“Excuse me, please,” Igor said in English to Natasha, who
pouted, but walked away. He turned to the older man and continued in Russian.
“What is so important it cannot wait until the end of the party?”

“Not here,” the older man said, taking Igor’s arm and
steering him toward the restrooms. But instead of entering the men’s room, the
older man pushed open an exit that led to the service drive behind the shopping
center. The two men walked outside, and Biff, following, slid through the door
just before it closed.

“What is it, Kiril?” Igor said, as Biff drifted behind them,
to a position just far enough away that he would not be noticed.

Kiril, Biff thought. Was this Kiril Ovetschkin, the mobster
who had threatened Sveta?

“There is a problem with Customs,” Kiril said. His Russian
was gruffer and more idiomatic than Igor’s; Biff assumed that Kiril had been
raised in the mother country, learning his language in a rural area, while Igor
had grown up in the US, learning the Russian taught in schools.

“What kind of problem?” Igor asked. “Will it interfere with
the shipment?”

“Yes, it will interfere,” Kiril said, in a tone that implied
he was speaking with a child. “The Italian had a heart attack last night. He
won’t be there tonight to sign off on the shipment.”

“Motherfucker,” Igor said in English. Then he returned to
Russian. “What can we do? A heart attack, he won’t be back soon.”

“You must go down there. Convince his replacement that it is
in his best interests to allow the AK-47s to proceed unmolested to Managua.”

“Motherfucker,” Igor said again. “Fine. I will go. Tell
Natasha I said good night.”

“I may tell her more than that,” Kiril said, with a leer.
“Now that I am a single man again.”

Biff sensed a surge of testosterone in Igor, as well as an
effort to control his temper. “I will call you,” he said, stalking off into the
darkness.

There was no sense following Igor; Biff knew his name and
address, and hadn’t planned to confront him at the party anyway. It was more
interesting to follow the older man back inside and see who he really was.

Crowds parted wherever Kiril moved. The girl in the red
brocade dress nearly fell over when Kiril snatched a glass from her tray,
downed it, and shoved it back onto the tray. He stalked back to where Natasha
stood with her mother.

“Hello, Natasha,” Kiril said, smiling wolfishly at the
teenager. “Igor sends his regards. He was forced to leave unexpectedly. But I
promised him I would look after you.”

“Thank you, Mr. Ovetschkin,” Natasha’s mother said. Her
dress was too short for her age, which had to be at least forty, and too tight
in several places. “But we are leaving.” She wrapped her arm around her
daughter’s bare shoulders.

So it was Kiril Ovetschkin. But where was his wife? Why had
he told Igor he was single?

“But the night is so young, Maria Petrovna,” Ovetschkin
said. “And I hardly know your lovely daughter.”

“We will come to visit one day,” Maria Petrovna said. “I
have not seen Douschka in some time. She is not here?”

“She has gone to join her parents,” Kiril said, and there
was something menacing the way he said it, as if Douschka’s parents were dead.

No wonder Sveta had been so frightened; Kiril Ovetschkin was
a dangerous man, an arms dealer who exuded a sense of power. Biff admired Maria
Petrovna for standing up for her daughter.

Why did Ovetschkin want the pictures of his wife if she had
left him to return to Russia? Biff was confused. Perhaps he had drunk too much
vodka.

A tall, gray-haired man joined the trio. “How is my princess
enjoying the party?” he said, kissing Natasha’s forehead.

“Mama says we must leave,” she said, pouting. “First Igor
leaves, and now we must go too.”

“Surely not so soon,” the man said. “Good evening, Kiril.”

“Professor,” Kiril said, nodding. “I was just admiring the
beauty of your daughter. She is your oldest?”

“Yes. She graduates this May, and starts at Yale in the
fall.”

“So beautiful, and so intelligent,” Ovetschkin said. “She
will make someone a wonderful wife. Igor, perhaps?”

Natasha beamed, but her father did not look happy. “Natasha
has much ahead of her before she will consider marriage.” He took his
daughter’s hand and said, “Come, my dear. I want to introduce you to someone.”

He swept Natasha away, Maria Petrovna following with her
head bowed. Kiril watched them leave, licking his lips, and Biff wondered who
the Professor was, and how he could so easily dismiss such a powerful man.

Biff left the party after wolfing down more of the excellent
caviar. He had the thief’s name and address. But everything else about the case
was murky. Why had Igor taken the photos of his boss’s wife? It was obvious
that Kiril did not know Igor was the thief; if he had, he’d have gone directly
to Igor and demanded their return. Was Douschka dead? Or had Kiril sent her
back to Russia? And why would Kiril demand the return of the digital files if
his wife was no longer in the picture?

As he walked back to his car, Biff considered removing
himself as intermediary. He could simply notify Kiril that Igor had the files,
and sit back as the powerful man dealt with the issue on his own, removing
Sveta from the picture.

But he didn’t feel that would be right. He had been hired by
his client to retrieve property stolen from her, and he had never let someone
else do his own dirty work. He would have to get the files himself.

He didn’t have to get them directly from Igor, he thought,
turning right, toward the ocean, rather than left, which would take him back to
his office. Igor Laskin would be busy driving to Miami Airport and speaking
with the Customs agent there. He would not be back to his apartment in Sunny
Isles Beach for some time.

Biff was careful to watch the speed limit as he drove south through
Golden Beach, the exclusive town tucked between the Broward county line and Sunny
Isles Beach. He’d seen far too many cars pulled over for speeding tickets, and
his driver’s license wasn’t exactly kosher. For one thing, it didn’t reveal his
true age—but then, no one seeing him would believe the truth anyway.

He typed Igor Laskin’s address into the GPS on his
dashboard, and received step-by-step directions from A1A to the building, an
elegant high-rise tucked onto a narrow piece of land that fronted Biscayne Bay.
There was no on-street parking, so he turned back, leaving his car in the
Epicure Market lot. It was after one a.m. by then, and the lot was nearly
empty.

Keeping to the shadows, he walked through the guard gate
unnoticed, then slipped past the dozy concierge at the front desk. Laskin’s
bayfront unit was on the 15
^th
floor, and despite the deadbolt he
slid through the door like a wisp of smoke, pausing just inside to take a
mental survey.

It was a one-bedroom unit, with a galley kitchen off the
living room. A real bachelor pad, focused on the view through sliding glass doors
to the balcony and the cityscape beyond. A dozen high-rises loomed across the
broad expanse of the bay, in Aventura on the mainland. A patchwork of windows
were lit; the water glinted in the moonlight, and two sailboats rocked at
anchor in the light breeze.

There wasn’t much furniture, just a long leather couch, a
glass-topped coffee table, and a huge TV in a carved wooden armoire. The
apartment smelled of air freshener and the faintest hint of the Acqua di Parma
cologne he knew Laskin used.

When he opened his third eye, he was drawn to a set of six
nesting dolls, elaborated painted with lacquer that shone in the reflected
light. He had a long-standing horror of such dolls. An evil vizier with too
much magical ability and too few morals had once trapped Biff inside the
smallest doll in a set once for a minor infraction. He had remained inside for
quite a long time, until Farishta outmaneuvered the vizier and released him. He
still had the occasional nightmares. Just seeing the dolls lined up there gave him
the chills.

He took a deep breath and continued his search, though the
dolls were like a malevolent presence in the room, interfering with his ability
to concentrate. He avoided looking at them straight on, only glancing sidelong.
Though they bore the rough shape of rounded women, as usual, these dolls were
presented as wolves.

The largest wolf was a gray-haired male in the prime of his
power. The doll beside him was his mate, a lithe, muscular female. The next
three dolls were progressively younger, while the smallest doll was a wolf
cub—adorable, if you didn’t know what it would grow up to be.

When Biff looked at them with his third eye, he saw a dark
aura shimmering around them, as if there was something powerful and dangerous
inside. He wondered what Laskin was doing with such objects; did he have
supernatural powers as well? Biff had been around the man, even touched him,
and never sensed anything more than human.

But he was not there to investigate paranormal phenomena; he
was looking for computer files. He erected a defensive wall against the power
of the dolls, and began to work quickly and efficiently, examining the kitchen,
living room, bathroom and bedroom in a grid pattern.

After half an hour, he ascertained that there was no
computer, disk or drive anywhere in the living room or kitchen, not even stowed
in a false-bottomed container in any of the cabinets.

The bedroom was similarly spare. A king-sized bed dominated
the room, with a mahogany frame and pineapple-shaped finials at the top of each
of the four posts. The gold satin sheets were rumpled, the Ralph Lauren paisley
comforter thrown to one side. Laskin wasn’t much of a housekeeper; his bikini
briefs and Gianni Versace socks littered the floor, and the only chair in the
room was heaped with a pile of Cavalli, Gucci and Zegna shirts in a variety of
colors, ready for the laundry.