Wolves Eat Dogs by Martin Cruz Smith Read Free Book Online Page A

on Jet Skis, the way rich people carry on. Hoffman gets on Ivanov’s Jet Ski, and it sinks. It flips upside down, and guess what’s stuck to the bottom, a little limpet of plastique ready to explode. The French police had to clear the harbor. See, that’s what gives Russian tourists a bad name.”
    “Who were Ivanov’s friends?” Arkady asked.
    “Leonid Maximov and Nikolai Kuzmitch, his very best friends. And one of them probably tried to kill him.”
    “Was there an investigation?”
    “Are you joking? You know our chances of even saying hello to any of these gentlemen? Anyway, that was three years ago, and nothing has happened since.”
    “Fingerprints?”
    “Worst for last. We got prints off all the drinking glasses. Just Ivanov’s, Timofeyev’s, Zurin’s and the girl’s.”
    “What about Pasha’s mobile phone? He always had a mobile phone.”
    “We’re not positive.”
    “Find the mobile phone. Ivanov’s driver said he had one.”
    “While you’re doing what?”
    “Colonel Ozhogin has arrived.”
    “ The Colonel Ozhogin?”
    “That’s right.”
    Victor saw things in a different light. “I’ll look for the mobile phone.”
    “The head of NoviRus Security wants to consult.”
    “He wants to consult your balls on a toothpick. If Ivanov was pushed, how does that make the head of security look? Did you ever see Ozhogin wrestle? I saw him in an all-republic tournament—he broke his opponent’s arm. You could hear it snap across the hall. You know, even if we did find a mobile phone, Ozhogin would take it away. He answers to Timofeyev now. The king is dead, long live the king.” Victor lit a cigarette as a digestif. “The thing about capitalism, it seems to me, is, a business partner has the perfect combination of motive and opportunity for murder. Oh hey, I got something for you.” Victor came up with a plastic phone card.
    “What’s this for? A free call?” Arkady knew that Victor had strange ways of sharing a bill.
    “No. Well, I don’t know, but what it’s great for…” Victor jimmied the card between two fingers. “Locks. Not dead bolts, but you’d be amazed. I got one, and I got one for you, too. Put it in your wallet.”
    “Almost like money.”
    Two young men settled at the next table with bowls of ravioli. They wore the jackets and stringy ties of office workers. They also had the shaved skulls and scabby knuckles of skinheads, which meant they might be office drudges during the day, but at night they led an intoxicating life of violence patterned on Nazi storm troopers and British hooligans.
    One gave Arkady a glare and said, “What are you looking at? What are you, a pervert?”
    Victor brightened. “Hit him, Arkady. Go ahead, hit the punk, I’ll back you up.”
    “No, thanks,” Arkady said.
    “A little fisticuffs, a little dustup,” Victor said. “Go on, you can’t let him talk like that. We’re a block from headquarters, you’ll let the whole side down.”
    “If he doesn’t, he’s a queer,” the skinhead said.
    “If you won’t, I will.” Victor started to rise.
    Arkady pulled him back by his sleeve. “Let it go.”
    “You’ve gone soft, Arkady, you’ve changed.”
    “I hope so.”
     
    Ozhogin’s office was minimalist: a glass desk, steel chairs, gray tones. A full-size model of a samurai in black lacquered armor, mask and horns stood in a corner. The colonel himself, although he was packaged in a tailored shirt and silk tie, still had the heavy shoulders and small waist of a wrestler. After having Arkady sit, Ozhogin let the tension percolate.
    Colonel Ozhogin actually had two pedigrees. First, he was a wrestler from Georgia, and at wrapping opponents into knots Georgians were the best. Second, he had been KGB. The KGB may have suffered a shake-up and a title change, but its agents had prospered, moving like crows to new trees. After all, when the call went out for men with language skills and sophistication, who better to step forward?
    The