High Country Nocturne - [57]

“Go to hell.”

He spat out the little metal triangle.

I looked at Cartwright and mouthed, What are you doing? He ignored me and pulled the primary pin.

It hit the floor, making a sound reminiscent of a tuning fork. Cartwright used one hand to hold the Russian back against the seat, while the other, slipping out of the blue sling, inserted the grenade between his legs.

“That’s it, Bogdan. It’s live. Look on the bright side. You’ll never have to worry about prostate cancer.”

To me: “Take down that poster. I wouldn’t want to lose it when this thing burns down and the gas tank blows up. Do it!”

I pulled the poster down and rolled it up. Loudly.

Cartwright said, “Time’s up,” and started to flex back his arm, letting go of the grenade.

“Stop, stop!” This from Bogdan.

“Why?” Cartwright said.

“I’ll tell you. Get that thing away from me. I want to have children! Get it away.”

He slowly pulled out the grenade.

I picked up the primary pin and handed it to Cartwright, who inserted it. He smiled and tossed the thing at me.

I caught it.

The grenade was wet with Bogdan’s urine.

Chapter Twenty-four

“They’ll kill me if they know I talked.”

It was ten minutes later, after Cartwright had redone the Russian’s handcuffs so his hands were in front, in his lap. A little reward for cooperation. He was stretching his arms and rolled his shoulders. But he remained shacked to the floor, blindfolded, and buckled in.

“You’d better worry about your nuts staying attached to your body,” Cartwright said. “Nobody’s going to know about our conversation. I killed your associates.”

“You say. There are more. And they always know.”

“They don’t have your ass right now. I do, you commie.”

“Why do you keep calling me ‘commie’? We’re capitalists. If we were a bank on Wall Street…”

“Stop,” Cartwright commanded. “Right now your job is to prove to me you’re more than a shestyorka.”

“Hey, fuck you, red man!” His arms became animated and I worried he might undo the seatbelt and make a move. Instead, he thumped his chest with both manacled fists. “You think an errand boy has these? These are earned.”

“How did you know about the rough?” Cartwright opened a notebook balanced on the top of his right thigh and sucked on a pen like it was one of Peralta’s cigars.

The Russian shrugged. “There’s a man who signs off on the shipments for the Jews in New York City. He has a gambling problem. He’s working off his debt to our organization.”

“He works for Markovitz?”

The Russian nodded.

“So he received the rough and placed it in the suitcase.”

A slight nod.

“Where did he get it? Those diamonds came from somewhere.”

“I don’t know and I swear to God. I’m Orthodox, so that means something.”

Cartwright gave me a tight smile. “Bogdan, here, is a religious man, you hear that?”

“You’re gonna need religion, Indian,” he said. “My people believe you used the Mexican to steal the diamonds. They’re coming for you.”

“Ooooo, I’m scared.” Cartwright wrote some more, about what, I couldn’t tell. Then, “Why do it that way, sending the shipment all the way here? Why not steal the diamonds in New York?”

“Too much heat,” Bogdan said. “If we stole them there, it would be too obvious. The security is too much around the Jews, the Diamond District. I know. I used to live in Brighton Beach. And you want us to rob the jeweler while he’s at JFK?” He laughed. “It would never work. The cops, the FBI…too much heat. Better to get it down here.”

Even in the shabby confines of the RV, with this dangerous character no more than six feet away, I couldn’t escape Lindsey. I remembered a trip we had taken to New York, going to Brighton Beach and eating at a Russian restaurant. I noticed the many made men like Bogdan. Lindsey, who had learned the language in the Air Force, had ordered for us in Russian.

Cartwright’s voice snapped me back.

“What next?”

The Russian grunted.

“What the hell next?” Cartwright pushed a finger into the man’s sternum. “What if I had gotten the rough and given it to you? What were you going to do with it?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

He reached his cuffed hands up, rubbing the dozens of little wounds on his face where Ed had ripped off the duct tape. “They never told me.”

“Oh, bullshit.” Cartwright’s natural squint narrowed further.

“Real shit, man. I don’t know.” His voice rose, and then dropped to a near whisper. “They don’t tell me everything. That’s the way it works. They compartmentalize information.” He leaned forward, wrinkling up all the stories told on his chest.

Cartwright pushed him back, made a few more notes, and let the silence accumulate like heavy weights.

“You Americans know nothing about the world,” Bogdan finally said. “Five million people have been killed in Congo since 1996 and all you care about is going to the mall. Five million!”

He worked his jaw. The tongue was still in pain. But he continued. “You go to war over three thousand dead from Arab jihadis that you armed in the first place, back in Afghanistan in the eighties, but you know nothing about the genocides that bring your diamonds. The diamonds on your wives’ fingers probably came out of those wars and you’d never know it. Your wives have blood on their hands. Diamonds aren’t even that rare, you know? We invented a machine that makes synthetic diamonds, as good as what comes out of a kimberlite pipe. But people give them such value. I don’t get it.”