High Country Nocturne - [58]

“The man’s a philosopher,” Cartwright interrupted. “So let’s say these stones came out of Congo.”

Bogdan paused and let out a long breath. “Sure.” He smiled. Movie-star teeth as white and even as keys on a new piano. “Let’s say.”

“That’s still not a who,” Cartwright said. “Who gave the rough to the guy who packed it in New York? Where did he get it?”

The smile went away. “I. Don’t. Know.”

“You know the Mexican who shot me.” Cartwright said, his voice rising. “You hired him. Where did you find him? Why did you set me up?”

“If he’s not your partner, then he stole from us!” Bogdan said. “Nobody betrayed you.”

Cartwright sniffed. “Do you believe him?”

“Nope,” I said, speaking for the first time.

“I don’t either. I’m gonna take him out into the desert and blow his nuts off and leave him for the coyotes.”

“Sounds like a plan,” I said.

“Goddamn you!” Bogdan said. “I’m telling you the truth. Why would we hire you and then have somebody shoot you…?”

“Because you’re Russian mafia scum, “ Cartwright interrupted, although he continued writing in the notebook. “Your Mexican probably agreed to do the deal for a quarter of what you were going to pay me. Probably an illegal alien. For all I know, this helped conceal the robbery so that whoever was expecting that rough thinks I took it. You threw suspicion off yourselves.”

“No…no…” Bogdan gesticulated wildly. “Don’t you read the papers? This man was the sheriff here. I am telling you, my people think you set this up and you have the rough.”

“All the more reason to leave you for the varmints.”

Bogdan dropped his hands heavily into his lap. “Then do it. Be a fool.”

This was when the fury that had been building in me for days broke down the door of my discipline. I sprang on the Russian and gripped him by the throat. He tried to bring his arms up but I was too close, leaning on him with my knee in his crotch. He flailed and made guttural sounds. I stared at the blindfolded face, blind myself.

“The woman.” My voice was a snarl. “Red-blond hair, Southern accent, professional killer. Give me her name and where I can find her…”

This was not the lateral vascular neck restraint, as the police euphemism goes for a chokehold that can disable an adversary and sometimes accidentally kill him. My hands were out for pure murder, crush the windpipe, devil take the hindmost.

I let up the pressure enough that he could breathe and talk. He inhaled with the desperation of a man who had been chained to the sea floor and suddenly reached the surface. But then he tried to ram his arms upward to break my grip, a good martial arts move. It was what he should have done in the first place. Except that I was ready for it and moved back. His fists and arms connected with air.

Cartwright tried to pull me back but I pushed him away. I slammed the fleshy part of my hand into Bogdan’s nose. He screamed in pain and his muscles went slack. I used the interlude to handcuff him tighter, jamming the metal into the flesh of his wrists. Then I leaned back in.

I could smell the cigarettes and stale food on his breath but I wasn’t really seeing him. All the literature showed that torture was ineffective in interrogations, in addition to being immoral. I wasn’t seeing that, either. My mind’s eye was where Cypress Street met First Avenue, Saturday night, Lindsey bleeding out, my blazer as a hopeless trauma dressing. Hearing her voice, Don’t leave me…it hurts…hurts…

I put the vise of my hands snug around his neck and again began to apply pressure with my fingers. My fingers are very strong.

“Tell me about the woman.”

“What woman?” He croaked a whisper.

“Give me a name or I’ll crush your windpipe. I don’t care…”

But by this time my rage had subsided and I let Cartwright pull me back. He brought my face close. “Stop this,” he whispered.

I slumped into the opposite bench, watching the bright red blood stream out of Bogdan’s nose.

“My associate is excitable,” Cartwright said. “I’m sorry about that.”

“You’re all savages!” Bogdan sounded as if he had suddenly contracted a head cold. “When Russia conquered Siberia, the Cossacks exterminated the natives!”

I didn’t have the energy for a history lesson.

Cartwright pulled a cold pack out of a first-aid kit, struck it with his hand to mix the chemicals, and held it against Bogdan’s face.

“We’re looking for a woman,” he said. “Thirty years old. Good looking. She’s a professional killer. Does she work for you?”

“No.”

“Did any of your people recently commit suicide?”

“What are you talking about?”

“You’d better take good care,” Cartwright said good-naturedly. “She seems to think those diamonds belong to her. She likes to kill people by making it look like a suicide.”

“Suicide is a sin,” he said.

“So Matt Pennington is in hell?” I said.

“Pennington?” Bogdan almost pulled off the blindfold but didn’t. Maybe it was a survival mechanism. He knew who Cartwright was, but not me. The fewer faces he saw, the better his chances he might get to live.

“You know him?”

“I’ve heard the name,” Bogdan said.

“Do you use him?” Cartwright asked.