When Gravity Fails Read Free Page A

me the night before. After the regular questioning, I’d had to hand over the package the Russian had given me before he died. I never even had a chance to peek inside.
    “Remind me to laugh twice next time, I’m too busy now,” Okking said. “Listen, I owe you a little something for being so cooperative.”
    I held the phone to my ear with one hand and reached for my pill case with the other. I fumbled it open and took out a couple of little blue triangles. They’d wake me up fast. I swallowed them dry and waited to hear the fragment of information Okking was dangling. “Well?” I said.
    “Your friend Bogatyrev should have come to us instead. It didn’t take us very long to match his tapes with our files. His missing son was killed accidentally almost three years ago. We never had an identification on the body.”
    There was a few seconds of silence while I thought about that. “So the poor bastard didn’t have to meet me last night, and he didn’t have to end up with that red, ragged hole in his shirt.”
    “Funny how life works out, isn’t it?”
    “Yeah. Remind me to laugh twice next time,” I said. “Tell me what you know about him.”
    “Who? Bogatyrev or his son?”
    “I don’t care, either or both. All I know is some little man wanted me to do a job. He wanted me to find his son for him. I wake up this morning, and both he and the kid are dead.”
    “He should have come to us,” said Okking.
    “They have a history, where he came from, of not going to the police. Voluntarily, that is.”
    Okking chewed that over, deciding whether he liked it or not. He let it ride. “So there goes your income,” he said, pretending sympathy. “Bogatyrev was some kind of political middleman for King Vyacheslav of Byelorussia and the Ukraine. Bogatyrev’s son was an embarrassment to the Byelorussian legation. All the petty Russias are working overtime to establish their credibility, and the Bogatyrev boy was getting into one scandal after another. His father should have left him at home, then they’d both still be alive.”
    “Maybe. How’d the boy die?”
    Okking paused, probably calling up the file on his screen to be certain. “All it says is that he was killed in a traffic accident. Made an illegal turn, was broadsided by a truck, the other driver wasn’t charged. The kid had no identification, the vehicle he was driving was stolen. His body was kept in the morgue for a year, but no one claimed it. After that . . .”
    “After that it was sold for scrap.”
    “I suppose you feel involved in this case, Marîd, but you’re not. Finding that James Bond maniac is a police matter.”
    “Yeah, I know.” I made a face; my mouth tasted like boiled fur.
    “I’ll keep you posted,” said Okking. “Maybe I’ll have some work for you.”
    “If I run into that moddy first, I’ll wrap him up and drop him by your office.”
    “Sure, kid.” Then there was a sharp click as Okking banged his phone down.
    We’re all one big, happy family. “Yeah, you right,” I muttered to myself. I laid my head down on the pillow, but I knew I wasn’t going back to sleep. I just stared at the peeling paint on the ceiling, hoping that I’d get through another week without it falling on me.
    “Who was that? Okking?” murmured Yasmin. She was still turned away from me, curled up with her hands between her knees.
    “Uh huh. You go back to sleep.” She already was back to sleep. I scratched my head for a little while, hoping the tri-phets would hit before I gave in and got sick. I rolled off the mattress and stood up, feeling a pounding in my temples that hadn’t been there a moment ago. After the friendly shakedown by Okking last night, I’d gone up the Street, knocking back drinks in one club after another. Somewhere along the line I must have run into Yasmin, because here she was. The proof was indisputable.
    I dragged myself to the bathroom and stood under the shower until I ran out of hot water. The drugs still