The Graving Dock (34 page)

“Originally? Russia, believe it or not. My father came from somewhere near Leningrad and my mother’s family was from Kiev.”

The man actually smiled. “Ukraine! Myself also.”

Jack nodded uncertainly. Ukraine—was that part of Russia? With all the recent chaos in that part of the world, who could keep track? “What do you do?” he asked.

“In my country, I was brain surgeon. Here, I am taxi driver.”

“You were a surgeon?” Jack said, eyebrows raised.

“No.” The Russian grinned hugely. “I heard this on TV. You like?” His face was transformed—he looked boyish, a sunny cherub.

Jack smiled. He wasn’t much of a joker, but—like all cops—he appreciated wit under pressure.

The Russian stroked his thinning hair. “
Ekshully
, I am in business. Import-export.”

Vague phrase. It made Jack think of knickknacks, like the brightly painted Russian doll his mother had kept on her dresser when he was a kid—he had loved to discover the smaller dolls nested inside. Smaller, smaller … he’d keep going until he reached the last tiny one.

A knock at the door.

“Dany?”

The Russian turned to Jack. “My wife.”

A woman stood in the doorway. Maybe thirty, she was slim and stunning. She wore a silky black blouse, covered in metallic diagonal stripes.
Brighton Beach,
Jack thought; the neighborhood was on the south shore of Brooklyn, full of immigrants from Soviet Russia. Their fashions trended to an earlier era.

The woman didn’t smile; she looked as though maybe she never did. She came in and set down a shopping bag.

“This is Eugenia,” the Russian told Jack. He turned to her. “Zhenya, this is Zhack. From Kiev.”

“Very nice.” The wife nodded, with no change of her gloomy expression.

Jack noticed a short, deep scar on one side of her jaw. Somehow, it only accentuated her beauty.

“Actually,” he said, “I was born here. My mother came from there.”

The Russian shrugged. “No problem. You are still a
landsman
.” Jack recognized the word: Yiddish for “countryman.”

The woman turned to her bag and started pulling out Tupperware. Jack couldn’t help looking at her, but he caught himself: here he was, thinking about another man’s wife. He was glad that he would soon see his own lovely visitor, Michelle.

“You must eat with us,” Daniel said to him.

“Thanks, but I already ordered my dinner.”

A couple of minutes later an aide, a big, cheerful Jamaican man, came in to deliver Jack’s tray. “What smells so good? That can’t be from our kitchen.”

“Have some,” the Russian said. His wife started spooning food onto paper plates.

“Just a little taste.” The aide accepted a plate covered with little dumplings. “What is this, ravioli?”

“
Pelmeni.
” The Russian watched him take a bite. “You like?”

“Man, this stuff is
nice
. Thank you.”

The Russian beamed.

Jack did his best not to stare at his new friend’s wife.

AND NOW HERE WAS
Daniel, or what was left of him, lying in a refrigerated drawer.

Shot
again
, Jack mused.

What were the odds?

Gabriel Cohen’s debut novel,
Red Hook
, was nominated for the Edgar Award for Best First Novel. He wrote three more mystery novels featuring Brooklyn South Homicide Task Force detective Jack Leightner:
The Graving Dock
,
Neptune Avenue
, and
The Ninth Step
. He is also the author of
Boombox
, a novel, and
Storms Can’t Hurt the Sky: A Buddhist Path Through Divorce
. He teaches in the writing program at Pratt Institute and loves living in Brooklyn, whose spirited, incredibly diverse neighborhoods provide him with a limitless source of vivid material. His website is
www.gabrielcohenbooks.com
.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2007 by Gabriel Cohen

Cover design by Mauricio Diaz

978-1-4804-6716-3

This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

345 Hudson Street

New York, NY 10014

www.openroadmedia.com