With a sigh, Vaja said, “This must be my time for emotional pain, old and new.” Nikki thought, You’re preaching to the choir on that one, pal. She uncapped her pen to prompt him. “His name is Mamuka. Mamuka Leonidze.” Mindful of the language difference, he spelled out the name for her.
“Do you know where Mamuka is now?” she asked.
“Ten years ago he left for Canada to join Cirque du Soleil as an acrobat. After that, I do not know.” Then he added, “If you find him, tell me, I’m curious.”
Vaja escorted them to their car, which gave Heat a chance to walk the conversation back to the topic of his defection. “Do you ever have contact with representatives of foreign governments?”
“All the time, of course. The Spokes Institute is a global think tank.”
“I mean outside your policy work. Any government contact?”
“Only to report my address as a legal alien.”
She and Rook hadn’t conferred, but he was right there with her and asked, “What about spies? Secret police?”
“Not since I left Georgia.” But then he reconsidered. “Well, they did come to me a little bit after I first got here, but by the mid-nineties, after Shevardnadze was ousted, they started to leave me alone.”
“Who?” asked Nikki.
“You want names? This is just like back in Tbilisi but no concrete room.”
Rook said, “I’ll give you one, then. Anatoly Kije, you know of him?”
“You mean the Soul Crusher? Everyone knew of him back then. But since I left? No.”
“One more name,” said Heat. “Tyler Wynn.”
“No, afraid I don’t know that one.”
The low rumble of a diesel shuddered the air as the Amtrak Adirondack passed a quarter mile away along the banks of the Hudson, heading up to Albany. Heat slid into the front seat and asked Vaja to call her if anyone else contacted him about this case. He nodded and said something, but she couldn’t hear it because the train horn blasted and he got drowned out by all the yelps and howls answering it from within the dog kennel. The soundless movement of his mouth felt to her like the perfect image for the empty motion of pursuing these leads.
Back on the road, Rook expressed his frustration another way. “Seems like our sexy insurance investigator’s list is a lot like he is. Sizzle without the steak. Or, more to the point, tan without the sun. Did you see those goggle marks?”
“Come on, Rook, it’s not Joe Flynn’s fault these didn’t pan out yet.”
“Did you say ‘yet’?” He saw her tenacious look and said, “Got it.”
She gave it some gas and resolved to practice what she preached to her squad. When you ground out, you don’t quit. You go back. Dig harder. Do the work. After putting in some more study of these people and reviewing their interviews, Heat had a feeling she’d be seeing some of them again.
Nikki’s cell phone buzzed with a text when she passed through the precinct lobby with Rook. “Finally,” she said. “A message from Carter Damon.”
“What’s it say?”
“Nothing. Well, not nothing. It’s a partial. He must have lost service or hit send by mistake.” She held the screen out to him. All it said was “I am” and the rest was blank.
“Hm, ‘I am …’ Let me guess—’the walrus’? ‘Such an asshole for not calling you back’?” The duty sergeant zapped the security lock and Rook pushed the door open to let her go first.
Heat was texting back to Damon, telling him to call, when Detective Raley snagged her as she came into the bull pen. “I’ve got something I want to show you before Irons and his maiden came back.” She looked past his shoulder and could see a financial statement up on his monitor. Sensitive, following her hasty exit earlier, Raley asked, “You OK with this, Detective?”
Rook sidled up close to her. She steeled herself and said, “Whatcha got?”