February brought with it a winter heatwave, and Cal was in love with the outdoors again. He was back in short sleeves and even donned a pair of cargo shorts as he and Frank left the apartment.
"Every outlaw needs a gang, Sundance," Frank said to him in the antique elevator on the way down. It was time for another Garden Gang meeting, the name which Frank had given to their little foursome of himself, Cal, Niles, and Jonathan. It was a stupid, silly name, but it had stuck.
"I thought we were the good guys?"
"Sometimes the good guys are the outlaws."
Cal could only shake his head. "It's still a silly name."
"No more silly than those cargo shorts."
"Oh, fuck off," Cal laughed. "You're dressed like a Ralph Lauren commercial. Your high-school-self would beat your ass."
"My high-school-self lived in squalor ten steps from alligators fucking in the backyard. You'll excuse me if my taste in fashion has evolved."
Cal threw his hands up in surrender as the elevator dinged and its grate door slid open to the building's lobby. Cal's phone erupted with the familiar heavy guitar riff of his ringtone and Frank winced at the audial assault bouncing around the antique cage. He stepped into the lobby to escape.
"Why's your ringer always turned up to max?" Frank said with his hands over his ears. "And get a new ringtone—god, that song is trash!"
Cal silenced the call while glancing at the caller ID.
"What crawled up your ass today?" he asked.
"Nothing. I'm sorry."
Cal accepted the apology with a shrug and followed Frank through the back exit of the lobby and into the shared garden between buildings. He didn't know why Frank was so testy, but he got that way sometimes. It wasn't like Frank had any problems in life. It wasn't like Frank had a hometown lawyer calling to harass him again about missing court dates a world away. It was Art calling, after all, leaving another voicemail to complain about that very thing.
The sun was hot on their faces when they stepped into the garden, but Cal was now walking between two worlds. February heat pushed his mind back to Florida and the winters of Frank's youth and Cal's entire life, the same Florida winters that brought the annual migration of retired snowbirds to their southern residences and golf courses. Growing up, Cal had never hated the old folks who crowded the streets and stores of Heartland each winter, but he hated how the town catered to their money and comfort; how the local youth were treated like an afterthought, brushed aside to drink away their formative years, out of sight around communal bonfires hidden deep within orange groves, their trucks barely squeezing between the thorny trees planted in rows like citrus soldiers. That was small-town America for you, a Gen-X wasteland.
Maybe that's why the music was so good.
Back in France, Cal and Frank joined Niles and Jonathan at the ancient garden table in the sunny spot between two trees, Niles seated in his electric wheelchair and Jonathan's long form bent forward in a chair that was too small for him. After the ritual greetings and the uncorking of the ceremonial bottle of red, the Garden Gang came into session.
"Walk me through it," Niles had said and his Cockney accent lent gravity to their meeting, like they were in a movie planning some great heist or perhaps dissecting an international criminal organization, which in this case, was exactly what they were attempting to do. A pile of photographs littered the table between the four of them, courtesy of Frank's printer up in their apartment. Jonathan routinely traded photos with Niles, handing them to his older charge when they were out of reach.
"This guy," and Frank poked a finger at a picture before holding it up for Niles to see clearly, "we call Goggles for obvious reasons. He mainly stalks the port and oversees cargo transfer from the Kosatka."
"And that's this superyacht, right here," Niles said and waved another photo in the air like he was signaling a taxi.
"Correct," said Cal, "Estimated at 80 feet in length or the size of a blue whale." He'd taken these exact photos earlier in the week, after Frank had finally given him a job apart from sitting at the sidewalk bar across from Mercury Deliveries, and it felt good to have them used as official evidence.
"You Yanks will use any'fing but the metric system. Join the modern world, won't you?"
"Moving on," Frank interjected. He held up a photo of a different man, leaning out the window of a white delivery van with a cigarette in his hand. "This guy we call Hoodie, and he was also present on that first day. He seems to do a bit of everything. He drives their delivery truck—" and Frank held up another photo "—and sometimes he mans the counter at their office."
Frank held up yet another photo. La Galerie de Rome was one of several business spaces on the ground floor of a large building in Central Nice, the commercial hub for residents and tourists alike. Its glass double-door was framed by a pair of white columns with ionic capitals, Cal's favorite, that curled under themselves like stylized ram's horns. The photo showed Hoodie leaning against one of the columns, looking bored, and wearing a sports jacket instead of his usual black hoodie. A tattoo crawled up one side of his neck, the collar of his jacket doing very little to hide it.
"—and here's Hoodie, sans hood, standing security at a private art gallery, another legitimate business that we think is not so legitimate."
Jonathan spoke up for the first time. "The international art trade is a perfect front for money laundering and other financial crimes." Jonathan mostly stayed quiet at their Garden Gang meetings, but every so often he'd surprise everyone and chime in with something of value, and always with a calm, analytical demeanor. Cal liked him more and more and often felt that it was he and Jonathan against the two lunatic spooks at the table.
"And that's what we think is going on at La Galerie de Rome," Frank agreed and finished the sentence with his exaggerated French accent that sounded a lot like the Looney Tunes skunk, Pepé Le Pew.
None of this was new to Cal, and he glanced at his wristwatch, the Bell & Ross always a comfort and welcome distraction, while Niles and Jonathan pored over the photos, analyzing the faces of their surveillance targets, searching for motivation and character in their still-shot faces. Eeva was expecting a call this afternoon to arrange—well, not a date, but another conversation over dinner. Maybe he'd call Art before then, but probably not.
Frank continued, "And this man we think is in charge of the day to day."
The new photo showed a serious looking man in a dark suit. He had the thick neck and broad shoulders of a body builder and the flattened nose of a has-been boxer. His head was shaved down to stubble, though he didn't appear to be balding, his face in every photo showed the same emotionless expression. Earlier, Frank said it was the face of a predator.
"We call him Fuckface," said Frank now, "and he seems to bounce between all three places: the yacht, the delivery office, and the gallery. We think he supervises whatever it is this crew is doing."
"And what exactly are they doing?" Niles asked with equal tones of interest and suspicion. The old spook's magnified eyes latched onto the photo, and behind the glassiness that came with age, Cal could see an old brain rewinding to a time where those grey eyes analyzed clues and solved puzzles for Her Majesty's Intelligence Services. If the old nutter's stories were true.
"Excuse me—" Cal interrupted. "But can we come up with a better name?"
"You don't like Fuckface?" said Frank and he looked genuinely hurt.
"It's just that, when I retell this story to my grandkid one day, I don't want to keep saying fuck over and over."
"Point taken," conceded Frank. "But to be fair, I never considered writing a children's story."
Cal made to argue the point further, but this time Niles interrupted by jabbing a finger at the brute's photo.
"Well, he's your hard zebra, isn't he?" Niles said, satisfied.
Both Americans looked at him and then Jonathan.
"A zebra is a boss," Jonathan said as a matter of fact. "A play on zebra crossings, the white stripes of a crosswalk. They have those in the States, right? Zebra cross rhymes with boss."
"Why not just call him a cross, then?" Cal asked.
"Well, that would be confusing, wouldn't it?" Niles said, sounding annoyed. "Now, do try to keep up, lads," he urged them, as if Cal had a Cockney slang dictionary in his pocket. The old man sure could make a foreign language out of English.
"He's our Zebra, then," said Frank and Cal nodded his head in acceptance of the new nickname. Codename, actually. Frank had been adamant about treating their surveillance like an official op.
Frank held up a different photo of Zebra with an angry face and pointing harshly at Hoodie who held up his hands in protest or surrender. The background of this photo was behind the art gallery, where the Mercury Deliveries van had parked to unload a wooden crate in the shape of a large rectangular painting. Cal still wasn't sure how Frank had snuck close enough to take that particular photo.
"So, it's all connected," said Niles, "But for what purpose?"
Frank explained.
"First, Mercury Deliveries keeps the Kosatka freshly supplied with food and alcohol, with deliveries every other day. There is a minimal staff onboard, cleaning and cooking, etcetera, but unless the owner pays their deck crew with champagne, someone else on board is living the high life."
"We don't know who?" Niles asked.
"We haven't seen them above deck," Frank said. "But the Kosatka left port for nearly a week for destinations unknown. Then, when it returned, the deck crew transferred a lot of cargo, including that crate in the photo, to Hoodie and Mercury Deliveries, who offloaded it at the art gallery."
"We assume that's a painting," Cal chimed in, pointing to the picture, "but there were other crates, and not all of them were unloaded at the gallery." Cal was particularly pleased with this series of photographic events, the day their surveillance paid off, when he finally felt like a real spook. He'd been the one to snap the photos of the returning superyacht, from the road above the dock running parallel. When he'd sent the images to Frank, the text response had been a series of heart emojis and thumbs up, a playful response from his partner in anti-crime, but also the biggest of their operation. Frank had booked it to the art gallery and surveilled the same cargo offloading at its destination. When Frank had texted back that Operation Fuck-Yeah was a success it felt like they'd just won the regional playoffs and were headed to State.
"Where did the rest of the packages go?" Jonathan asked, his face deep in thought.
"Destinations unknown," said Frank. "If we had some technology or a larger team, we could have tracked the van in detail, not to mention the yacht. As it was, we could only maintain surveillance because we knew where to look: the port and the gallery."
Several moments of silence followed where the participants explored various photographs and drank from their wineglasses, which was another Frankism that thinking minds worked better with lubrication.
"Congratulations," said Niles with a smug laugh. "You've documented the ins and outs of an international art dealer and his local business. He takes his yacht to some foreign port, picks up an artwork and other bits and bobs, and then brings it back to sell to the nice people of Nice, or foreign buyers in town for the beautiful weather." He said it beau-i'ful weath-ah. "Cracking job, lads!"
Cal shook his head. It was impossible that all their hard work was for nothing. The thugs following Eeva, the bruiser with the flattened nose—Cal knew in his gut that something shady was going on—call it his teacher's intuition. You couldn't spend decades around teenagers and not learn to read body language and spot lies. Forget Quantico or Langley, the best training ground to spot shady behavior was any classroom in America.
"There's got to be something there!" he protested.
Niles held up a hand to cut him off.
"Let me finish. You have ten days of surveilling a perfectly legitimate business. And wi'fout me, that's all you'd have." He paused and took a sip of wine that stained his chin red. "Luckily you do have 'ol Niles to put all the scoobys together and paint you a picture that would fetch a half-million quid if it were sold in that gallery."
"So, what are we missing?" Frank asked.
"Come on, Niles," Cal pleaded. "Spill it. Frank says you know everything about Nice."
"Damned right," said Niles with a puff of pride. "I've taken holiday here for fifty years, now, and made it permanent as soon as Her Majesty let me retire to soak up the sun and the grape juice."
"You knew the Queen?" Cal said, impressed.
"He means the service," Jonathan explained.
"Yes, those bastards," said Niles. "Anyway, I had Jonafin phone up my old contacts and we asked around about that gallery and about the yacht. Jonafin's quite fluent in the French, you know? That's part of why I keep him around, that and his strong hands and gentle massages. He makes living in Frog Country as a wrinkled-up, old Brit a helluva lot easier, to tell you something. Not that I can't speak the language, mind you, it's just that, at my advanced vintage, nothing comes as easily as it used to, especially not marble-mouthed words from overseas."
Everyone at the table waited patiently for Niles to arrive at his point. If you rushed him, he'd only take another loop around the circle-talk and sometimes he'd miss his exit and end up at another point and another town entirely. It was best to let him navigate his thoughts without interruption or GPS. Eeva was probably waiting for his call about now, and—
Niles caught him glancing at his watch.
"Excuse me, lad, am I boring you? Have you got somewhere to be that's more bloody important than busting a smuggling ring of international criminals?"
"No, my apologies. Please continue." Goddamn, it was like getting chastised by a teacher, and Cal stifled a laugh at the reversal of his usual role.
"What we found, Jonafin really, I have to give my lad credit where credit is due, is that the owner of said yacht, said art gallery, and said delivery service, is a man by the name of Marat Solonik."
He paused to let the name sink in around the table.
"He's Russian," Frank said after a moment.
"He's bloody Russian," growled Niles. "And he's a rich Russian, and the only rich Russians are government officials, military officers, and goddamn mob bosses, and since we're talking Russia, are all the same bloody thing! And thus, your legitimate, international art business is actually your international crime ring, bringing the Queen-knows-what back and forth into our beautiful Mediterranean paradise."
"Bloody fucking Russians," said Frank and he stared into the distance.
"Too bloody right!" echoed Niles.
"Hear, hear," Jonathan agreed.
Now they had a name, but the picture was still far from clear. Cal tried to put the pieces together, but he needed more.
"What does he look like?" he asked.
"No idea!" Niles said. "He's a ghost—or at least a very private man."
"My immediate question," Frank said as he turned to Cal, "and how we got started on this trail in the first place, is: why were they following your girlfriend?"
Why were they following Eeva? She was Estonian and the bad actors were Russian and there had to be a connection there. After a little research, Cal knew enough about Estonia to understand the pride Estonian's had for their nation. Thirty years of Soviet occupation followed by thirty years of fighting to stay free of it. Her aunt might have Russian family, but Eeva was Estonian through and through, and Cal now understood the pride in that statement.
"—with the Russian invasion of Ukraine," Niles was carrying on, "all of NATO is exposed. It's the ghost-of-Cold-Wars-past, now with the added specters of drones, cyberattacks, and troll factories that add a little spice to the familiar menu of nuclear dread! Your yank, Mark Twain, once said history doesn't repeat, but it does rhyme, and every'fing seems to rhyme with fucking Russia."
It was no surprise that Frank nodded along. Growing up, the Soviets had only been movie villains to Cal. Sure, there was a real danger of nuclear holocaust, but it was a background concern. Like radiation. Niles, on the other hand, seemed to have experienced higher stakes, first-hand.
Niles caught Cal's face in his magnified eyes. "And who's this Russian girlfriend Frankie-boy keeps bringing up?"
"She's not my girlfriend—and she's not Russian." Cal sighed heavily before adding, "She's Estonian, if that matters somehow."
"Her name's Eeva," said Frank. "She lives around here and somehow she's caught the attention of our Russian gangster, this Marat Solonik."
"Eeva? By God, we know Eeva!" Niles said, extending the vowels like Eeee'vah.
"You do?" Frank and Cal said simultaneously.
"Sure, we do!" Niles said and he smiled widely. "Jonafin, did you know our boy Cal was dating Eeva?"
Jonathan just shrugged with the eyebrows.
"Quite the looker, she is." Niles continued. "She's come down to the garden before and watched me fly 'me drone around. Isn't that right, Jonafin?"
Jonathan nodded that it was.
Cal willed the momentum of whatever was happening to stop right there. It kept going anyway. He looked to Frank for help but found none. Convenient that Niles was the only person he'd ever seen that could charm or bully Frank into silence. Niles and Lilith.
"Estonian," Niles continued, "So she says! But you can't trust anyone's cover completely. Not in that part of the world! Hells, she could be Finnish, pretending to be Russian, pretending to be from Estonia!"
Frank gave Cal a side-eye and a playful smile. But he kept silent, almost to say that Cal was on his own. Besides, Frank probably agreed with the old coot.
Cal rolled his eyes. "Yes, only the ugly can be taken at face value."
"We're all ugly inside. At least the ugly don't hide it." Niles then pointed across the green space of the garden, his knobby finger aiming past a stand of palm trees that were defiantly green against the empty winter branches of its neighbors. He pointed to the backside of the building opposite of Wine House, where dark windows climbed up five stories of another apartment building. "She lives right across there."
That was a surprise. Cal knew that Eeva lived in their Le Carré d’Or neighborhood, but he'd never walked her home or asked for her address. Why would he? But how also had she always been the one to escort him home?
Frank jumped in. "Come on, Niles! Surely Eeva's got nothing to do with this."
But his voice was falsely dramatic, like he was playing a part on stage.
The old man just shook his head, but in disbelief or admiration—Cal couldn't tell.
"I should have known that she'd be caught up in this," Niles said. "Local thugs. Russian gangsters. Our neighbor, Eeva. Quite a coincidence, innit? But, no, not really if you 'fink about it."
"Why is that?" asked Cal, too late to take it back.
Niles paused for a moment before he said, "These old eyes can still read between the lines. Isn't it obvious? She's an old spook, too."