‘That stuff will kill you,’ I say.
‘It’ll be a great thing if it’s cigarettes that take me,’ he says. His voice is whiskey-or-rather-vodka gravelly, and his accent makes him sound like he just got off the boat from Russia.
‘What are you still doing here?’
He shrugs. ‘Just admiring the view.’
‘Oh yeah?’
‘Yeah, it’s beautiful around here. Boss sends his regards by the way.’
I sigh. ‘I thought the danger was past,’ I say.
He grins. ‘When you smash the head sometimes the tail jumps around for a bit.’
‘Right. Tell your boss I don’t want to see anybody hanging around here after today. We’re quits. I did what was right and he owes me nothing,’ I say as I turn away.
‘It’s good to have friends. Maybe one day you need his help, da?’
I turn back and feel the knife in my waistband dig into my back. ‘Maybe never.’
‘Never is a long time, Mr. Irish.’
Forty-four
Tasha Evanoff
One Month Later
A man slides into the seat in front of me.
I glance up and, showing no change to my expression, take a sip of my latte. ‘Hello, Inspector Stone,’ I say.
He smiles. He has a pleasant smile. I’ve wondered about him. If he has a wife and children. What he’s like when he is not facing someone he believes is a murder suspect.
‘You’ve been shopping I see,’ he says.
I was out shopping for a birthday present for Baba, but I’m damned if I’m going to give him an account of my shopping habits. It’s got absolutely nothing to do with him, or his investigation. I look at him steadily and without any reaction.
‘Is the food in this place any good?’ he asks.
‘I wouldn’t be here otherwise.’
A waitress comes by with a menu. He takes the menu but doesn’t open it. ‘What’s good here?’ he asks her.
She shrugs and smiles. ‘I’m a vegetarian, but I hear it’s all good.’
‘Can I have a burger?’
‘We don’t really do burgers,’ she says with another smile, but slightly more forced this time. ‘Have a look at our menu.’
‘What about a cheese sandwich?’
If she could roll her eyes and not lose her job she would have. ‘No, we don’t do that here either.’
‘Pasta?’
She looks at me as if for help or for some kind of female solidarity, but I can’t help her. I’m down for worse than just exasperation. I fork another potato and put it into my mouth.
‘Um … we mostly just do Russian food. It is a Russian café.’
‘What’s she eating?’ he asks, jerking his head in my direction.
‘Red potato salad,’ she says, glancing at my plate.
‘Hmmm … Nah. Bring me something closest to a burger, or a cheese sandwich, or even a good pasta.’
‘How about meat dumplings?’
‘Is that more like a burger or a cheese sandwich?’
The girl starts to look irritated. She turns to look meaningfully at the other tables that need her attention too. ‘It’s more like a meat filled pasta.’
He grins innocently. ‘Great. That’s what I’ll have.’
‘And what would you like to drink, Sir?’
‘I’ll have a Coke.’
‘Thank you. I’ll be back with it.’ She escapes quickly.
I put my fork down, wipe my mouth, and look up to find him watching me. He has watery gray eyes, and he blinks very often. I have a strong feeling that underneath this Columbo type bumbling exterior he affects, he is actually very sharp and intelligent.
‘Your father’s disappearance into thin air is a funny, funny case,’ he says, picking up the salt shaker and looking at the bottom of it as if there is something of vital importance there.
‘Really? Why’s that?’
‘Mostly because it just doesn’t make sense.’
‘Oh?’
He spears me with those watery eyes. ‘Unless it was an inside job.’
‘That’s an interesting idea.’
‘Yes, I think so. For instance, all the security cameras were running perfectly except for camera 9.’ He scratches his face, then pulls out a little notebook. He opens it and flicks to a page. ‘It stops rotating from 10.24pm to 10.33pm. At first I thought it was a glitch, but when I checked the camera I found some paint had been chipped off the sides of it. As if, you know, someone had jammed a stick, or a piece of wood to keep it from swinging around.’
I look at him with interest.
‘And the other thing is your grandmother got a call at,’ he refers to his notebook, ‘10.58pm from a pay as you go mobile. A bit of a strange timing, wouldn’t you say?’
‘Did you ask her who it was?’
He smiles. ‘Wrong number.’
I smile back. ‘There you go then.’
‘There is another anomaly. Your grandmother’s call logs show that the only person she normally gets calls from is you, but on that night she received a call from a gentleman named Noah Abramovich at about 11.30pm. Yes, she claimed he hit the wrong button. Then she got another call at 2am from the same pay as you go number from earlier. Another wrong number. What are the odds of that happening?’