had spent the two weeks on sunny Phuket Island not just with her daughter Nastya, but with operative Marat Valeyev as well. Accordingly, she was now forced to entertain the girls’ “And so how is he?” and “You don’t say!” as well as come to grips with the officious-sounding “your common-law husband.”
“Lenok, finally you’re back!” Elena’s ex-husband Sergey Petelin burst into her office.
Elena had divorced the businessman five years ago, unable to cope with his constant cheating and his constant accusations that she put work ahead of her family. Thirteen-year-old Nastya remained the only link between the former spouses.
“Who let you in, Petelin?”
“Why, they’re about to open a criminal investigation into me! I’ve been coming and going here at the Investigative Committee like I work here.”
“What criminal investigation? Can you speak more calmly?”
Sergey Petelin was the owner of a trucking company. Like any other businessman, sometimes he encountered problems and would therefore turn to his ex-wife for consultation. Besides having plenty of experience, a senior detective also has some pull, after all.
“I’ve put my foot in it this time. But for real!” Sergey Petelin plunked himself into a chair and wiped the sweat from his forehead.
“Are you going to explain what’s going on or not?”
“A while back, I got an order to deliver a large batch of pharmaceuticals from Moscow to Volgograd – from the vendor to a buyer. Your ordinary, everyday job. Loaded up two trucks and sent them on their way. In the documents, the delivery address was a warehouse lot called The Southern at 15 Industrial Street. Here’s the paperwork.”
Elena glanced over the paper certifying that the goods had been received.
“Why are you showing me this?”
“Hang on. So my drivers get to Volgograd late in the evening. They drive up to the warehouse lot and see some people waiting for them, so they unload the trucks!”
“I can see that. What then?”
“This! The buyer is a company called ‘Pharma-Prod.’ But they handed the freight over to a warehouse called ‘Pharma-Prof!’ Check out the seal!”
Elena could see that the last letter in the buyer’s information indeed did not match the last letter of the receiver’s seal. It followed that the two were utterly different legal entities.
“The drivers didn’t notice a damn thing and went back to Moscow. And here, at this point, I start getting complaints – where’s the cargo? We started to look into it. The warehouse where they unloaded is empty! ‘Pharma-prof’ doesn’t even exist! Whereas ‘Pharma-prod’ is right there next door, as it has been for a hundred years!”
“And? What now?”
Sergey sighed heavily.
“It’s curtains for me. I accepted the goods as an issuing carrier and then delivered them to god-knows-who. The buyer and the vendor want money from me – but it’s three million dollars!”
“Legally they’re in the right.”
“But this is highway robbery, Lenok!”
“Any way you can take care of it under the table?”
“Those days are long gone. They’re going to take me to court and they’re going to win.”
“Feeling nostalgic for the protection rackets of old? The mobsters would’ve straightened it out.”
“It’s no laughing matter, Lenok. Better tell me what I should do.”
“You need to file a fraud and grand larceny complaint. They’ll start a criminal investigation. Assuming you get a solid investigator – ”
“Well you’re an investigator!”
“Petelin, I deal with completely different cases in a completely different city.”
“The vendor is from Moscow – he’s in cahoots with the buyer, I’m sure of it!”
“Good for you, but you’ll need to prove the criminal conspiracy, in addition to the fraud and the grand larceny.”
“So help me, Lena.”
“You don’t get it, Petelin.” Elena placed her hand onto the stack of folders on her desk. “I only work the criminal cases that the brass assigns me. In your case, the investigation will be assigned to the detectives in Volgograd.”
“So you’re refusing to help the father of your child?” Petelin asked, offended.
“I can make a call, lodge a request. No more.”
“No more,” Sergey aped. “Did you have fun vacationing in Thailand with your lover on my dime? No doubt you and Marat had a good laugh at my expense. Sure. I mean, why not? You have a nice patsy to pay for your little trysts.”
Elena stood up.
“Alright, here’s the deal, Petelin. You gave me money for our daughter’s vacation. Marat and I paid for our trip with our own money. And he’s not my lover, just like you’re not my husband!”
“So then who is he? A male specimen reserved for casual encounters? When the female feels like it, she just raises her tail and – ”
“Get out!” Elena boiled over.
Sergey Petelin stood up and gathered his papers.
“Three million bucks is a big sum for me. If I lose it, you can consider me ruined. Neither you nor Nastya will see another dime from me. At least think about that.”
Sergey Petelin was no penny pincher. He had provided a nice apartment for his daughter and ex-wife. He paid the monthly alimony regularly and frequently treated Nastya to various presents. He hadn’t scrimped on his daughter’s vacation either and Elena knew it.
But money doesn’t give him the right to insult me!
“You’d better leave, Petelin,” Elena ordered, reining in her anger.
Her phone rang loudly on her desk. Based on the ringtone – The Beatles’ “Love Me Do” – Elena knew that it was Marat Valeyev. Sergey recognized the photo on the screen and muttered a curse. Elena did not hurry to cover the photo which she had taken on a Thai beach when Marat, tanned and with a lusty look on his face, was making his way towards her.
“Both of you can go to hell!” Her ex-husband walked out, slamming the door.
Elena calmed herself before answering the song’s cloying lyrics:
Love, love me do…
You know I love you…
I’ll always be true…
So please, love me do.
Whoa,
