the “Korolyov” was too heavy to keep hauling into the conversation—“treated Sergei like a king, or maybe czar is the word, only not a czar even… more like a dictator… or a godfather. That was what started making me nervous, all this godfather stuff, not that I thought ‘godfather’ at the time. Everywhere we went in that place, as soon as he came close, everybody stopped whatever they were doing and—well, they might as well have been bowing to him. If he didn’t like what somebody was saying, they’d turn around and say the opposite of what they’d just said—right away! I’ve never seen anything like it. There was some kind of famous Russian chess player there who was giving me a hard time—I still don’t know why—and so Sergei ordered him to leave, and believe me, he left! Right away! Then he ordered the other six people at the table to move to another table—and they did—right away! A lot of it was embarrassing, but I have to admit it was sort of exciting to be with someone with so much power. But what I saw there was nothing compared to what happened yesterday.”
Poof! the aura of his Manena and his Manena’s good looks, and memories of life below the waist, vanished—just like that. Now all Nestor saw before him was… a witness, a woman who had seen Korolyov read John Smith’s article about Igor and turn into a homicidal maniac right then and there, before her very eyes, and start ordering people around like World War III just broke out and start screaming into the phone about Hallandale and rush off with one of his goons… He looked at his watch: 6:40 a.m. Should he call John Smith or text him? Probably text him. But writing was not his greatest strength. The idea of tapping all this out with fingers on the glass face of an iPhone—
“Magdalena”—no longer Manena��“I’ll be right back.” He headed for the men’s room, which was no bigger than a closet. Inside, he locked the door and made the call.
“Hel-lohhhh…”
“John, this is Nestor. I’m sorry to call you this early, but I just ran into an old friend—I’m in Hialeah, having breakfast—and she told me something you ought to know before you go in there for your meeting at the newspaper. They want an eyewitness? Well, here’s an eyewitness.” He proceeded to tell him what Magdalena had seen… the panic that rattled Korolyov “as soon as he read your story yesterday”… and the one word she had understood in a regular hurricane of Russian: Hallandale.
“All this may mean nothing,” said Nestor, “but I’m gonna drive up there to the condo and check on Igor.”
“Nestor, that’s awesome! Truly awesome. You know what you are, Nestor, you’re a great man! I’m not kidding!”… John Smith gushed in that fashion for a while. “I worry about your being out in public” ::::::your:::::: “so much in broad daylight during the curfew hours—eight to six, right?”
“Yeah,” said Nestor. “I guess I should play it a little safer.”
“What’ll they do if they catch you?”
Nestor went silent. He didn’t like to think about it, much less talk about it… “I guess they’d… throw me off the force.”
“Then is it all that important to go check on Igor now?”
“You’re right, John… but I just gotta do it.”
“I don’t know… well, be careful, for godsake, will you?”
On the way back to the table, he started thinking it over… the Honey Pot and tailing Igor to the Alhambra Lakes Active Adults condo?… That was late at night, long after 6:00 p.m. So that was okay… But returning the next day, posing with John Smith as an inspector from “the Environment”? That was insanity. Maybe what saved him was the suit and tie. If he looked as weird in that outfit as he felt in it, then he was in no danger. In any case, taking that chance had paid off. They had discovered a whole wall of new Igor forgeries and had taken some great pictures… and here he was, returning to the Active Adults condo in blindingly bright Miami sunlight. Lil was no genius, but she was no dummy, either. What if by now she had figured it out… seen him on YouTube or on the network news… and wondered what a cop was doing there making out like he was from the Environment?
But something was propelling him to go back there anyway.
When he returned to the table, he managed to put on