The Pretender's Gambit. Alex Archer
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didn’t get her name, bro. Maybe that was it.” His eyelids hung heavily and he moved too loosely to be completely sober. “It was that police chick out there.”
“Call her Officer Falcone. She won’t be happy with ‘police chick.’ Trust me.”
“Officer Police Chick called you down here, bro? That’s what you said, right? That’s why you’re here?”
Annja didn’t know how Bart kept his composure. She was getting frustrated just listening, unable to get the memory of the murdered man out of her mind. Bart sighed in annoyed acceptance. “Yes. She did.”
“Why?”
“Why do you think?”
The guy wrapped his arms around himself. “She said my uncle got killed.”
“Great-uncle,” the brother said quietly. “You forget, Maurice was our great-uncle on Ma’s side. Her mother’s brother.”
“Okay, then, our great-uncle. Only, if you ask me, he isn’t so great. He’s just this old guy. Kind of bossy. Too bossy. Likes to tell people what to do.” He looked at Bart. “That true, bro? Somebody killed our great-uncle?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“You sure? ’Cause he was kinda old. Coulda just died.”
“He didn’t just die.”
“Maybe he killed himself.”
“No. That didn’t happen.”
“Then I don’t know what to tell you, bro. You got me.”
“I just have a few questions I’d like to ask,” Bart said.
“I’m through answering questions. Through talking about my great-uncle, too. You can’t arrest us, so you gotta go.” He pointed to the door. “I’m revoking your apartment privileges.”
Bart took out his cell phone, poked it for a second, then showed it to the younger man, revealing the mug shot there. “Demyan Koltsov. Is that you?”
The guy straightened up then, squinted and shrugged. “I don’t know. Is it?”
“Well, I can arrest you on suspicion of being Demyan Koltsov, take you downtown to fingerprint you and verify that, yes, in fact, you are Demyan Koltsov, and then lock you up.”
“Lock me up?” Demyan’s eyes widened. “For what, bro? I didn’t have nothing to do with that old man getting killed!”
“For lying to a detective in the performance of his duty, for starters. It also says here that Demyan Koltsov is wanted for FTA regarding a weed bust.”
Demyan waved that off. “Those are bogus charges, bro. I was entrapped. And that failure-to-appear rap? I told the judge I couldn’t be there that day, bro. I had a doctor’s appointment. Had a note and everything.”
“I’m not interested in an FTA. That’s not my business. I want to talk about your great-uncle.” Bart put his phone away. “So either you talk to me about Maurice Benyovszky here, or I cuff you and take you downtown to deal with that FTA. We can talk about your great-uncle while you’re getting booked.”
Demyan looked at his brother. “Can you get me out of jail, Yegor?”
The older brother frowned and shook his head. “I don’t have any money. Why you come asking for money from me when you know I ain’t got any? You’ll just have to stay in jail until I find out if Ma has any money. And if she will bail you out.” He lowered his voice into a whisper. “You didn’t pay her back for bailing you out on that weed bust.”
Demyan sighed like he was the most put-upon man on the planet. “This ain’t my night, bro. My girl’s two-timing me with her ex. I lost my part-time job at the pizza place—”
“I don’t think you can say you lost that job when you never showed up for a shift,” Yegor said.
Demyan pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. “Man, they texted me and told me I was fired.” He shook his head sadly. “That would have been a sweet job. I’d have been driving around, delivering pizza, everybody glad to see me.”
Yegor clapped his brother on the shoulder with a big hand. “You don’t have a car. The car you had was my car, and it got impounded, remember?”
“Hey.” Bart’s voice turned sharp, a pure cop tone that made both of the younger men focus on him instantly. “Either we talk about what I want to talk about or I’m taking you in.”
Yegor shot Bart a look of sad surprise. “Me? Why you arrest me?”
Bart nodded at Demyan. “Him I got on the FTA. You I got for outstanding traffic warrants. Now, are we going to talk?”
“Sure, sure.” Demyan smiled and nodded. “I hereby invite you back into our apartment. We’ll talk about anything you want.”
“You said you worked for your uncle?”
“We did. Me and Yegor. On account of my mom, she’s Uncle Maurice’s niece or something?” Demyan looked at Yegor.
Yegor thought about it and nodded. “Yeah. Her mom is sister to Uncle Maurice, so we’re great-nephews. I think that’s how it works.”
“Anyway,” Demyan said, “we got this job from the old guy on account he don’t know how to do computers. Me and Yegor, we know computers. Know video games. All the tech. Uncle Maurice went into business for himself, started buying stuff from storage places. Things that people run off and leave on account they can’t pay the rent on the storage no more?”
Bart nodded.
“People run off and leave some weird stuff, bro. I’m telling you. Me and Yegor, we’ve pulled stuff outta some of them storage units you’d think come from Mars. Had this one guy was sewing different parts of dead animals together. Saw where he’d put a bat head and wings on a cat, bro. That was messed up.”
Bart started to take a note, but Annja shook her head.
“It’s called rogue taxidermy,” she said. “Probably not anything for you to get concerned about. People do it to create curiosity pieces for collectors of the weird.”
“People don’t get any weirder than a cat with a bat head and wings, bro.” Demyan shook his head. “Sickest thing I ever saw. Gave me nightmares. Sometimes I still get them.”
“What did your great-uncle do with the stuff he got from the storage units?” Bart asked.
“Pieced it out and sold it, bro. What else you gonna do with stuff like that? A lot of it was junk we just dumped. Never know what you’re gonna get outta one of them things.”
“Where did he sell it?”
“Online, wherever he could find somebody that wanted something. Me and Yegor dragged some of them things around to pawn shops and swap meets. Man is all about making a dollar. He pays me and Yegor chump change, though.”
“He pays for the apartment we’re living in,” Yegor said quietly.
“Oh, yeah. He does that, too.” Demyan looked at his brother. “Only if he’s dead, he ain’t gonna do that no more, is he?” He frowned. “Who’s gonna pay the rent if Uncle Maurice is gone?”
Yegor shrugged and looked unhappy.
“Hey, Demyan.” Bart snapped his fingers. “Focus.”
Demyan looked at Bart, had to narrow his eyes a moment, then looked again. “What?”
“If you guys put the stuff up on the computer for your uncle, who managed the sales?”
“Me and Yegor. We boxed stuff up, carted it to the post office. Uncle Maurice wasn’t gonna do it. Man had no skills when it came to tech and he sure wasn’t gonna walk to the post office every day. Knew