The Shake
that minimizes the strain on their expectations. If people happen to witness Mio’s astonishing physical prowess, it’s much easier for them to incorporate what they see if they think of it in terms of something familiar, like martial arts. By stylizing her actions, she can predispose witnesses to interpretations that explain away her otherwise implausible abilities.Mio and I have talked about it on occasion. The Matrix trilogy, the Blade trilogy, the modern Chinese kung fu fantasies full of flying monks tip-toeing across tree tops, all the super-heroes from the comic books adapted to the screen via computerized special effects technology. After a couple of decades of this kind of visual experience, people today seem almost eager to witness in real life the fantasies they’ve seen so often on the screen. The line between the possible and the impossible, between credibility and incredibility, has shifted slightly in a way that can be made to work to Mio’s advantage. With a touch of the theatrical, she can get away with things that in the past would have jarred people’s sense of reality. She was a true artist at this kind of perceptual subterfuge.
Myself, I tended not to bother. In this respect, Mio and I were exact opposites. She adapted to the human milieu by immersing herself in human affairs, using their social dynamics to her own advantage. Her interest in martial arts was a good example of this. But I didn’t work that way. I preferred to minimize my need to adapt by having as little as possible to do with people. Where Mio might be conspicuous, even theatrical, I did my best to blend in. Mio could perform in public, artfully nudging witnesses toward interpretations that squared with their imaginations. I found it much simpler to avoid public performance. Maybe I just wasn’t subtle enough. Or maybe I knew, intuitively, that the safest place for me was outside of the human imagination.
Chapter 15
I called Richardson the following Wednesday from a pay phone in the university library.
“What have you got for me, Ron?”
“I want to make something clear first,” he said. “I didn’t have anything to do with killing that cop. All I did was set up a buy.”
“For the Russians Danny mentioned?”
“Danny was full of shit.”
“Meaning?”
“I set up the buy for Arnaud but I didn’t tell Danny anything about any Russians. Or anything the fuck else, for that matter.”
“Maybe Arnaud told him.”
“Arnaud was definitely stupid enough. But it didn’t happen. He didn’t know who the customer was, and neither did Danny. I told Arnaud where and when to meet the buyer. That’s it. The Russians were Danny’s bullshit.”
“He said you mentioned the Russians being in town for a Kings game.”
“That’s bullshit! You could ask the little prick, but... oh yeah, you killed him. So I guess you’ll have to take my word for it.”
“If you keep lying to me, Ron, I’m going to take a lot more than your word.”
“Goddamnit! I’m not lying.”
“If neither of them knew who the buyer was, why did Danny say it was two Russians, one with a 404 tattoo on his hand? That’s a fairly specific description of someone he didn’t know.”
After a protracted silence, I asked, “Who was buying the dope from Arnaud?”
After another protracted silence, Richardson said, “That’s the funny part.”
“Amuse me, Ron.”
“I don’t know where the fuck you’re going with this, but wherever it is, you’ve got to leave my name out of it.”
“Talk, Ron.”
“It was for a guy named Stephen Yavorsky. He’s not Russian, he’s Ukrainian.”
“This isn’t helping your credibility.”
“Look, I don’t know why Danny told you about Russians. The little prick. Knowing you, he was probably scared shitless and told you the first thing that came into his head.”
“So, who’s Yavorsky?” I asked.
“He lives in San Francisco. I don’t know that much about him. He likes to party. He sends his guys up to Sac now and then to buy coke from Danny. Or he used to.”
“So why’d you hook him up with Arnaud instead of Danny? Why drag a dirty cop into the picture?”
“That was Yavorsky’s idea.”
“He asked you to set up the buy specifically from Arnaud?”
“Yeah. I know it sounds suspicious. I asked him what the fuck was going on. He said some shit about wanting the connection to the cops. The guy’s a little weird. He thinks he’s still in the fucking Ukraine, or something.”
“Sounds like Arnaud was being set up, wouldn’t you say?”
“Yeah, so?”
“You don’t know why?” I asked.
“No fucking idea.”
Richardson was only telling me enough to make his story plausible. For the time being, anyway, I agreed that he had earned a reprieve on his November deposit.
Later that night, I did some research on Stephen Yavorsky. The guy made a lot of money in the early 90s, after the breakup of the Soviet Union. He was well positioned to benefit from Ukraine’s independence, and sufficiently independent himself to leave his homeland as soon as his newly-acquired wealth made it possible. He landed in San Francisco in 1996, made a few solid investments and blended into the Bay Area business community. Among other things, he owned a nightclub in North Beach called Satellite. That was the surface picture. His extra-legal activities, whatever they were, apparently required muscle on his payroll. Still, there was a big difference between recreational drug use and murder. And none of it explained how the missing niece was involved, if in fact she was.
There were a number of ways I could pursue it, but since Mio would be in town soon, I decided to wait until she arrived. I was going to have to take her dancing anyway, and Yavorsky’s club was as good a place as any. There was no reason to think dropping into Satellite would tell me anything about Dean Arnaud, but I might learn something useful about Yavorsky.
•
I called Karla the next day and asked her to meet me at the footbridge at 9:00 p.m. It was November 30th, payday. She was waiting when I