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“How well did you know him?” Riggs asked, like trying from a different angle was going to produce a different answer.
My glare remained on Choi while I answered, already annoyed with their Good Cop/Bad Cop shtick. “Not well. What is this about?”
“We’re investigating a homicide,” Riggs said. “Hoping you could fill in some of the blanks for us.”
Any relief I’d felt a moment ago evaporated, replaced by something colder than the air outside. “Jude’s dead?”
Riggs nodded.
“When?”
“About a week or two ago. Landlord found him in his apartment. He’d been tied to a chair and shot in the head. The techs found some drug residue near the body, street drug known as Nirvana. Supposed to be the new and improved version of Ecstasy. You familiar with it at all? Especially working in a place like this?” He circled a finger in the air.
Oh, fuck me… That’s why the FBI was here.They didn’t give a shit about drugs. I mean, CPD probably did. But I’d bet anything Shepherd was from the organized crime unit, meaning “a place like this” would definitely be on his radar—along with the people associated with it.
I shrugged again, trying to appear as bored as possible despite my shock from a moment ago. “Not really. My brother OD’ed a few years back so I don’t have anything to do with drugs. Just alcohol. That’s still legal, right?” I sliced a glare at Eliot Ness in the back, waiting for him to chime in again.
Riggs remained the primary spokesperson. “What about Mr. Lovell? Did he have a problem with drugs?”
“I don’t know. We bartended together. That’s it. Usually not the time or place to discuss our extracurriculars, especially shit that will get us fired.”
“Why did he text you a month ago?” Choi asked, tilting his head. “If you didn’t work together anymore and you were only coworkers, then what did he want?”
“I never got any texts so I couldn’t tell you.” Well, that wasn’t good news. They probably pulled his cell phone records, which meant I could only play dumb or blame glitchy technology for so long. Good thing I’d ignored him, then, when he asked if I had any more “stuff” he could “borrow,” aka Nirvana to sell. If they did have a copy of his text, I could easily make a question like that sound innocent enough.
“Never? You twonevertexted?” Choi’s eyes narrowed.
“Not since I left Dalton’s.”Fact, fucker. Go check your records.For once, being a miserable bastard who shut out the world when shit went south was going to work in my favor. No matter how badly Choi wanted to squeeze me for something, Ihadn’ttexted Jude.
“What do you know about Mr. Lovell’s relationship with Mikhail Chernyshevsky?” Shepherd asked from the back, moseying forward after he lobbed a little Russian grenade into the conversation, confirming my underlying fear.
Despite the pang of apprehension, I couldn’t help but bristle in defense of Misha. “I don’t know who—”
Shepherd cut me off at the knees. “Goes by Misha. I’msureyou know him. He’s at this club more than he’s at his apartment over in Streeterville.”
Well… shit.That must have been where his penthouse was, since the cozy little apartment I was staying in was located in Uptown. Did they know about that place too? Had Shepherd been camped out across the street in a plumber’s van, snapping pictures of us while we took a stroll with Nadia? I could make men believe a lot of things but I didn’t think I could wriggle my way off ofthathook.
“There’s a lot of Russians that come through here,” I replied, trying to keep my tone neutral and refusing to look anywhere else but his suspicious eyes. “Names all kind of run together.”
“Let’s see if this jogs your memory.” Shepherd pulled his phone out and tapped the screen. He turned it around and showed me a picture of Jude’s dead body, not totally bloated and gross but enough that I knew I grimaced. “This is your friend, Marek. This is what happened to him. This is what can happen to you if you step out of line with these people. But if you help us, we can make sure this doesn’t happen to you or anyone else ever again.”
These people.People like Misha.
The photo of the swollen hand on Misha’s phone, black and bloody and permanently disfigured, sprang to mind as I recalled his vow to keep me safe from Ken. Then there was the accident-prone health inspector I’d learned about five minutes ago. The head he gave Sergei as a fucking present. I didn’t know if Misha actually killed Jude or not but given the other information I had to go on, he absolutely could have. At the very least, he could have ordered it. Shooting someone in the head was nothing compared to the other shit. If you asked me, Jude got off kinda lucky.
Seizing onto Shepherd’s heroic cape, I dropped the attitude and made a show of swallowing, looking away quickly. If he wanted a scared little peon to turn into his snitch, I’d play along. Even though I knew we were alone, I snuck a glance over my shoulder and lowered my voice. “Ok, look. I don’t know anything about that”—I nodded to the phone—“but there’s no way Jude was involved with anyone here. He would have told me. We looked out for each other. And, besides, he wasn’t a user. At least, he wasn’t when I was at Dalton’s.”
“We don’t think he was a user,” Riggs said, being incredibly helpful. “We think he was a dealer and someone didn’t like it.”
“What do you mean?” I widened my eyes so much, I’d put an anime character to shame. “Like the cartel?”
“Like the Russian mafia,” Choi snapped, not buying my act for one second.
“I’m going to be honest with you,” Shepherd said, meaning he was about to spew a load of horse shit. “This isn’t the first body we’ve found in connection to Nirvana. Now, there are only so many organizations that would have an interest in that drug. From everything we’ve seen, it looks like one of those groups is knocking off their competitors, one dealer at a time. Think of it like tightening a noose. Knowing these guys,whoever they are, they’re not going to stop and they have no problem killing people close to them.” It sounded like Shepherd still believed my doe-eyed innocence but he didn’t want to scare me off by letting me know I was surrounded by murderers and Misha was their ringleader. Noted, pal.
“So are you worried about the drugs or the murderers? Like, what shouldIbe worried about?”
“Find one, you find the other. And, usually, we find them in places just like this.” Goddamn it. There it was again. Delirium was front and center in this guy’s investigation, meaningMishawas front and center. I’d have to double-check every work van I passed from now on, make sure there wasn’t a fed clicking away with a camera.
