IN THE CAR, DMITRI SAID, “Yahoo.”
IN THE CAR, DMITRI SAID, “Yahoo.”
Pitiful. He wasn’t even trying. What would his wife say if she heard such a feeble attempt? He bit into his onion bagel and sipped his bitter coffee.
“Yahoo,” he said again, this time with feeling.
No, it was gone, it just didn’t work anymore. Ever since the fire had burned up his store last month, he’d been in poor spirits. It disappointed him to think that he could be saddened so easily, a thought that depressed him even further. He should have just stayed in bed. He should have never opened his eyes.
But wait—wait. Things weren’t so bad. After all, he did collect enough insurance money to replace most of the merchandise, and wasn’t the store now at least two-thirds back to normal? And what was this on the dashboard radio? He placed his bagel on his lap and cranked up the volume. It was! Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, or, in Italian, Le quattro stagioni. “Winter in F minor,” the first movement, allegro non molto. He was catching the last minute of it, the violins in heat. He pulled into the parking lot of Peddlers Town, yanked on the emergency brake, and yelled, “Yahoo!” This was more like it, this was just what he needed. He jumped out of his Nova, and the bagel flew off—and into the hands of young David. Parked next to him and unloading were the Kims, the quiet Korean folks who owned the big Oriental store.
“Yours?” David said, pinching the bagel carefully between two fingers.
Dmitri bowed dramatically and said, “Good catch!”
“Thank you.”
“No, thank you!” Dmitri ruffled the boy’s helmet-shaped hair.
The world was a wonderful place. America was a wonderful place. Look at these four people, nicely dressed and ready to make money. Before they had immigrated to the United States, surely the Kims were just barely scraping by in Korea, probably North Korea, eating one meal a day and hoping to avoid the insidious evil of the oppressive Communist regime. They were lucky and so was he.
As he walked up the gray concrete steps leading to the mall entrance, Dmitri planned out his day. In the morning, he would tweak his four Bose Pro Loudspeakers set up at each corner of his store. He drew pride and confidence from merely gazing at his tall obsidian monuments. He’d lost the original quartet in the fire, but last week the replacements had arrived. Just like before, he named them after his brother’s beautiful daughters: Svetlana, Natalia, Nina, and Anna. Marusha made fun of him: “Tell me you can tell them apart.” His wife was a smart woman, but she was no audiophile. When he’d told her that the four speakers were like four distinct species of birds, she shooed him and kissed him and said, “My Dmitri, who hears better than Laika.” Laika was their poodle.
Reggie greeted Dmitri at the front entrance. “Have a great day,” he said, and Dmitri replied, “Yes, I will,” with such conviction that Reggie flinched.
As usual, he was one of the first ones in the building. He and the Kims were probably the only ones there besides the restaurant owners; it was always the immigrants who tried the hardest. Granted, he didn’t exactly fit the bill of an immigrant anymore—it was back in 1961 when he, his brother Stepan, and his parents escaped the Soviet Union with an amazing string of good fortune—but the immigrant spirit had yet to leave him.
He loved the smell of Peddlers Town before it opened. Each morning he was surrounded by the sharp scent of sauerkraut from Hot Dog Heaven, the yeasty aroma of Eatza Pizza, the sweet buttery fragrance of Marty’s Bakery. Put together, it smelled like money, hard-earned money, good happy money.
Dmitri unbuckled the ring of keys from his belt and drew out the key labeled #1. He was crouching down to unlock the first of four locks when he noticed something peculiar. He touched the thick canvas curtain and felt it give like there was nothing there. He pushed further and saw what had happened: Somebody had cut a very neat door close to the floor, big enough for a man to crawl through.
Dmitri sank to the floor and threw down his keys. What had he done to deserve this? How had he offended God? He wanted to get up and dust off his pants and walk out to his car and drive down Route 35 South, drive all the way until Seaside Heights where he’d rent a boat and a fishing rod and catch flounder and bluefish and blackfish until the sun went down. What a dream that life would be. What a nightmare this life was.
When he lifted the flap and looked into his beloved store, his eyes drilled the four empty corners. Svetlana, Natalia, Nina, Anna. Who had you now?
______
The owner of Peddlers Town held his monthly merchants meeting at Hometown Grill. Now that Jake’s restaurant was being rebuilt, the meeting had relocated to Eatza Pizza, the only other place in Peddlers Town able to seat fifty people, though that was overkill. Usually only twenty or so people showed up, and out of that twenty, ten were regulars.
But today it was standing room only because the day before, Peddlers Town was robbed. Reggie began the meeting by reading off the list of things that had been taken. From East Meets West, the thieves had taken the white vase that was worth over a grand. Dmitri remembered it well, the detailed etching of a pair of doves on its curved surface, their eyes and beaks filled with real gold. The vase had sat inside a glass case and was lit by a pair of spotlights, and now the case was empty and the lights shone on nothing. Dmitri walked over to Kim and his boy, who’d come late and were standing at the periphery of the crowd.
“Sorry, Harry,” Dmitri said.
“Thank you,” Kim said.
“From HiFi FoFum,” Reggie read, “four Bose speakers.”
“Special Edition Bose Pro Loudspeakers!” Dmitri said. Everybody turned around to look at him, but he didn’t care. The least Reggie could’ve done was to announce his loss accurately. “They are the best speakers money can buy, and now they are no more.”
Reggie walked up to the table where the owner of Peddlers Town, George DiPalma, sat. He unpinned his gold security guard badge and dropped it in front of George. “I take full responsibility,” he said. “I don’t deserve to wear this no more.” He also turned in his flashlight, a chrome cylinder long enough to house a dozen D-cells.
“Please, Reggie,” George said, sliding the items back to him. “We don’t blame you for any of this. The robbers somehow got around the alarm system. That’s the problem we need to address.”
Reggie didn’t seem convinced, but he continued to read the extensive list of missing items anyway. The two jewelry stores in the mall had safes, so they hadn’t lost any of their merchandise, but over thirty other stores had been hit. The robbers had good taste—they took only the most expensive items they could find. The total estimated loss topped sixty thousand dollars.
“But don’t worry,” George said. He stood up from his chair, clasped his hands together, and gleamed a toothy smile. The owner of Peddlers Town was a handsome, tall man who talked a great game. Dmitri couldn’t stand him. “We’re fully insured, so you’ll receive the wholesale value of all your stolen goods.”
To Dmitri’s amazement, his fellow merchants cheered at hearing this news. Hong from In the Bag sidled up to Kim and translated for him, and Kim, too, was now clapping. What was wrong with these people? Didn’t they realize this was the least management could do?
“Excuse me!” Dmitri yelled, silencing the room. “I do not agree this is a happy time. Bad people stole from us. How is this happy?”
“Now, now, Dmitri,” George said. “Let’s keep our heads here. Let’s stay calm.” George often addressed him this way, as if placating a silly child.
“From day one, everybody should have steel curtains, not canvas, I said. From day one.”
“Oh, my friend,” George said, shaking his head slowly, as if Dmitri was disappointing him. He was a crafty one. In Moscow, he would have gone very far in politics. “We’ve discussed this before. It doesn’t make economical sense, do you understand? It’s far more financially efficient to provide protection for the entire building than the individual stores. Which, by the way, is exactly what we are doing.”
On cue, Reggie passed around a stack of pages. Dmitri reached over and got three copies, for himself and for the Koreans. At the top left corner of the brochure was a knight in black armor, and above it was a word he couldn’t pronounce, but underneath the picture he read ALARM SYSTEM. The document sang its praises in bullet points, how it was the fastest, the most secure, the best.
“And how will this,” Dmitri said, trying to figure out how to say the word, “piss . . . piss . . .”
“The bathroom’s over there,” George said, and the room erupted in laughter. “Sorry, Dmitri, I just couldn’t resist.” He cleared his throat and stared at the crowd importantly. “The word you’re looking for is Psion, the name of this esteemed security company. Our Russian friend makes an excellent point: How will this little black box help us when the current alarm failed to protect our valuable assets? Well, how about this: It’s used by our red, white, and blue, our very own U.S. government.”
Excitement rumbled through the crowd. Dmitri knew bullshit when he heard it—probably it was some tiny pencil-pushing office in the middle of nowhere that utilized the alarm system—but who would listen to him now, after George made a fool of him? While George continued to highlight the amazing features of the new system, Dmitri scrutinized the brochure. There were a few words he didn’t understand, but he refused to let that faze him. He kept on, getting right to the end where the name and number of the salesperson was blacked out with a magic marker. He tilted the paper against the light in various angles to see if he could make out the letters, but it was no use.
When he looked up to speak once more, chairs were sliding back and everyone was rising. The meeting was over.
Hong patted him on the shoulder. “Just twenty dollar.”
“Twenty what?” Dmitri asked.
“Small price. Rent go up twenty dollar for new alarm.”
“Small price,” Kim agreed.
Unbelievable. So not only were they robbed by thieves, they were just robbed again. Dmitri crushed the brochure in disgust, crumpled it into a ball. He wanted to chuck it as hard as he could, preferably at George DiPalma’s head, but the only person who was paying him any attention was Kim’s boy, who looked concerned when he saw Dmitri’s fist.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “Not for you.”
David approached him carefully. “This is you,” he said, and held up his brochure and tilted it up and down, mimicking Dmitri from a moment ago.
“Yes? So what?”
The boy handed him the sheet and pointed at the bottom. Unlike his brochure, somebody had forgotten to black out the name of the salesperson from this one. BENJAMIN DIPALMA, it read, with a phone number.
“Thank you, David,” Dmitri said. “May I keep this?”
The boy nodded and went back to his father, who was in conversation with Mr. Hong. One table over, Ted McManus, the owner of Cimmetri, motioned Dmitri to join him, but Dmitri shook his head.
“I have to go,” he said.
“Right now? Come on, Dmitri, sit. I’m gonna have a slice. My treat.”
Dmitri stared at Ted evenly. “Your treat? You are now rich after the robbery?”
Ted snorted a laugh. “Never mind,” he said. “I can see you’re not in the mood.”
It was nearing noon at Eatza Pizza, and hungry customers were crowding into the restaurant for a quick bite to eat. Four fresh pies slid out of the oven and filled the air with their heavenly tomato scent, but Dmitri was already on his way back to his store. He had a phone call to make.
______
The following morning, Dmitri arrived at Peddlers Town half an hour before it was set to open. Instead of finding the parking lot empty, it was already almost halfway full.
His poodle, sitting up in the backseat, whimpered.
“Down, Laika,” Dmitri said, and to his relief, she quieted herself and plopped down.
He’d wanted to come in early so Laika could have the run of the building with minimal distractions, but now that wasn’t going to be possible. He could almost hear his wife’s warning from the morning.
“It is a bad idea, Dmitri,” Marusha had said as she poured coffee into his thermos. “Our girl has a good nose, but she is no tracking dog.”
During their evening walks, Laika sometimes got distracted when a large group of people passed by, either pulling hard toward them or away, depending on her mood. Loud music spooked her, though not always. His wife was right, this wasn’t going to work—but then Dmitri thought of George DiPalma at the meeting, how he swindled everyone into getting that alarm system.
With her leash firmly in his hand, he let Laika out of the car and found Reggie by the main entrance.
“What is going on?” Dmitri asked him.
“No idea,” the security guard said. “I guess they read about the robbery in the local paper.”
A family of shoppers walked past them and into the mall.
“The door is open for customers already?”
“George thought it was a good idea to let them in and look around.”
What was it with people? The mall was packed like Christmas after the fire, and now this. Maybe they should suffer some catastrophe on a weekly basis to boost business.
“Cute dog,” Reggie said. “Yours?”
“My daughter,” Dmitri said. “Laika, Reggie. Shake.”
The poodle approached the man in uniform, sniffed his shoes, and lifted her right paw.
“What a smarty!” Reggie said.
Unfortunately, Laika’s good behavior was short-lived, as she started barking and lunging at various passersby the moment they went into the mall. Dmitri tried to contain her, but she was a standard poodle with sixty pounds of muscle. A few powerful jerks later, his satchel and Laika’s dog bowl and treats lay scattered on the floor while he desperately held on to her leash. Luckily, he saw Kim’s boy walking toward him.
“David!” Dmitri yelled, and the boy stopped. He looked conflicted, and he almost turned around. “David, please help me!”
He came, though reluctantly. While Dmitri held on to Laika with both hands, the boy picked up his belongings. “Father say no talk,” he said.
“Just help me to my store, okay? Please?”
David looked around, sighed, and followed.
“Why does your father say ‘no talk’?”
David shook his head. The boy didn’t say another word as they trotted to HiFi FoFum.
When they arrived at the store, David piled Laika’s belongings next to the register.
“Thank you,” Dmitri said. “You did a good thing.”
He had fully expected the boy to run off at this point, but surprisingly, he didn’t. Instead, he ruffled Laika’s head and said, “Good dog.”
“She is a smart dog,” Dmitri said, “and we are going to get evidence.”
“Evidence?” David said.
Dmitri led Laika to the four corners of the store, to the exact locations of the stolen speakers. Whoever the robbers were, they must’ve spent some time disconnecting his equipment. It wasn’t easy taking off the wires and brackets, so they had perhaps sweated in these areas. After sniffing the final spot, Laika raised her head.
The dog suddenly stood up straight, her nose in the air, black nostrils flaring. She circled the store a few times, then slowed. Her head snapped in one direction and another, and then suddenly, as if a switch had been thrown, Laika sank her nose to the floor. She retraced her steps to the four corners, and then pulled Dmitri out into the walkway of Peddlers Town.
“You come with, if you wish,” he said to David before being yanked forward.
Laika led, Dmitri held on, and David followed. The boy kept his distance, especially when the dog brought them to East Meets West.
“Good morning,” Dmitri said. Before Kim could answer, Laika pulled him past the counter and through the ceramics aisle, her tail barely missing a stack of bowls on the corner shelf. Dmitri shortened his leash and tried to remember the exact location of the white vase, but he didn’t have to. Where a giant Buddha now sat, Laika pointed her scruffy snout to its shiny bald head, then turned her gray mug to her owner. Why did people sometimes wish dogs could talk? Laika said everything she needed to say without ever uttering a word. If humans could communicate this easily, there would be no wars, no grief.
“Goodbye,” Dmitri said to Kim as Laika tugged him away. When he glanced back, he saw the Korean hurrying in the opposite direction, toward Hong’s luggage store, no doubt to report on what he saw.
“She knows,” David said.
The boy had returned. Any doubts he had about Laika were long gone, as he now stared at her with respect.
Laika seemed to feed off David’s approval, as she dove back to her tracking with even greater fervor. She ran them through four more stores before encountering a pair of black loafers that stopped her from entering the fifth.
Ted McManus stood in front of his store with his arms crossed. The morning sun shone in from the side window, its golden glitter reflecting off the mirrors against the back wall, making Ted look like a guard in front of a room of vast treasure.
“Ted,” Dmitri said.
“Your dog can’t come in here, Dmitri.”
“Why?”
“She’ll leave wet noseprints everywhere. It’s what dogs do.”
It sounded logical, but Dmitri didn’t believe it for a second. Across the walkway, he caught the sight of the two Korean men hanging out in front of In the Bag, pretending not to watch. He glanced behind him, and sure enough, David had disappeared once again.
Laika’s ears perked up, and she suddenly barked harshly at Ted and lunged at him. Most of the time, his dog looked like something out of a Disney movie, what with her teddy-bear-like curls and soulful brown eyes, but when she wanted to be mean, she was a frightening sight; if she stood on her hind legs, she was almost five feet tall. Ted took a step backwards, and a scene played through Dmitri’s mind: his hand dropping the leash, Laika launching herself, Ted on the ground whimpering as bared canine teeth, dripping with saliva, hovered over him. It made him smile, and now Ted did look nervous.
“Look,” he said, pleading. “What’s the matter with you, Dmitri? Why can’t you just leave this alone?”
“Will you let me in here? Or not?” Dmitri said. Now it was his turn to play tough.
“Jesus H. Christ,” Ted said, and stepped out of his way.
But it was no use. For some reason, Laika was no longer interested in following the trail, and just as Ted had predicted, she ended up smearing her nose on a number of low-hanging mirrors. When she started barking at a warped image of herself on the funhouse-styled mirror, Dmitri knew it was time to go.
“I will come back and clean those up, with Windex,” he said. He felt like Jackie Gleason at the end of a Honeymooners episode, all apologies and nowhere to go.
Ted shook his head. “Just get your dog out of here. Please.”
On the way back to his own store, David sidled next to him.
“Laika not good?” he asked.
“No,” Dmitri said. “Laika not good at all.”
But was he being fair? There was no doubt Ted broke her concentration. Maybe that was his intention all along, not to stop him from coming in but to interrupt the flow of their investigation. This wasn’t over. With or without Laika’s help, Dmitri was going to get to the bottom of this.
The film that came to his mind was Murder on the Orient Express, when it turned out that all thirteen suspects on the train car had participated in the murder. Dmitri couldn’t remember why Detective Poirot let them go, but that’s what happened. Somebody died and no one was punished. If it happened in Russia, he could understand, but here, in the land of the free, the home of the brave?
“Everybody is involved,” he told Marusha.
“You are being ridiculous,” his wife said. “Why would you say such a thing?”
Because for the rest of the week, he had been treated like a disease by his fellow merchants. For years he waved at Harry Kim and the man would wave back, but now Kim averted his gaze, pretending he hadn’t seen him. Dmitri could understand why Ted McManus wanted nothing to do with him, but why Kim? What had he done to him?
“George DiPalma set up the robbery. I believe he had help. Definitely Ted, maybe others.”
“And where is your proof?”
“I have the brochure,” he said.
But that piece of paper meant nothing. How was it that in movies, a single inconsequential clue led to so much more, the first domino that made the rest of them fall? Because they were works of fiction, that’s why. In reality, the brochure was nothing more than an advertisement for an overpriced alarm system. Sitting behind the counter of his store on Friday morning, Dmitri stared at the sheet of paper until a voice broke through.
“We need to talk,” Ted McManus said.
Dmitri wasn’t surprised. After all, this was the day the insurance agent was suppose to pay his visit, a day of great importance.
“I am ready to hear the truth,” Dmitri said.
Ted walked around and sat in the folding chair next to him. He sounded tired. “I think you have the wrong idea.”
“My idea is that George DiPalma and you are involved in the robbery,” Dmitri said. “You and others.”
“Look at me,” Ted said. “At my face. Is that what you really believe?”
Dmitri looked, he stared. It was the same friendly face he’s always known, the face of a good man who had led him to the ambulance during the fire, when Dmitri fell and scraped his arm. The longer he looked, the stupider he felt, and he finally dropped his gaze.
“Do I need to get everybody who had their stuff stolen to come here, so you can look into their faces, too? Come on, Dmitri, we’re all in this together.”
Dmitri said nothing. “Then why the silent treatment from everyone? What did I do?”
“Because you’re not happy that your speakers are gone.”
Dmitri stood up. “What is this? Of course I am not happy! Why should I be?”
Ted sighed. “That mirror the robbers took, it’s been there since day one. They did everyone a huge favor. They stole things that had no chance of selling.”
“No,” Dmitri said. “We are here to sell our goods to customers. I am not here in this country to play games with thieves.”
Ted rose. “You’re wrong. Because we are in America, we are getting paid for our losses. This is as American as apple pie.”
Dmitri picked up the brochure and pointed to the name. “I call this number few days ago, and who answers? Benjamin DiPalma, brother of George DiPalma.”
Ted took the sheet and glanced at it. “You scratch my back, I scratch yours.”
“I am not into back scratching,” Dmitri said.
“That doesn’t mean George engineered this robbery. It just means George is a sleazy guy who’ll take advantage of a bad situation, but we’ve always known that. Besides, the monthly security fee is tax deductible for us, Dmitri. It’s a win-win.”
“Lose-lose,” Dmitri said.
Ted nodded and walked away. At the entrance of HiFi FoFum, he turned around.
“Everybody’s afraid you’re going to say something when the insurance guy comes. You have to understand, these guys would love to have a reason not to pay us. If you tell them your theories, this will drag on and on, and nobody will see any money for months. I don’t know about you, Dmitri, but I can use the cash. This would really help me out.”
At half past noon the agent came, a man who introduced himself as Bob. He wore a blue suit and jotted things down on a clipboard.
“So that’s all you lost, just these speakers?”
“Special Edition Bose Pro Loudspeakers,” Dmitri said. “They are very expensive.”
Bob whistled when he found the item on his list. “I see that, wow.” He checked it off and verified Dmitri’s personal information. “So is there anything else you want to tell me?”
Dmitri glanced at the brochure on his desk. After Ted left, he’d made up his mind to speak freely to the insurance man, but as the day went on, Dmitri considered his friend’s words. His thoughts drifted to his life back in Russia, living in the outskirts of Omsk with his brother, selling sugar and grain at the local market. They were lucky, as nobody in his right mind wanted to filch huge, heavy bags of flour, but he saw plenty of other comrades whose goods were stolen, sometimes in broad daylight. And what reparations did they receive for these injustices? Nothing, not a thing.
“Is there an investigation?” Dmitri asked.
“Well, I’m sure the police are looking into it. You know, they’ll do their job. I’m just trying to do mine.”
“I see,” Dmitri said.
“Great, just sign here, and here,” Bob said, offering his pen.
“I am signing what?”
“Just standard stuff about how you understand everything I just told you, just legal junk.”
Dmitri took the pen but signed nothing. Instead he asked the agent to go over each page with him.
Bob laughed, thinking it was a joke. “Wait, are you serious?”
Half an hour later, Dmitri signed the document.
“I don’t think I ever had to do that with anyone before, ever,” Bob said.
Next on his list was East Meets West, and Dmitri offered to take him over there himself. “I know a shortcut,” he said, which was true. Five booths down and through the silk flower store put you right in front of it. On the way, they passed by Cimmetri. Ted looked up, and Dmitri gave him a thumbs-up sign.
At East Meets West, Dmitri introduced Bob to Harry Kim. When he saw how lost Harry was with what Bob had to say, he offered to get Hong.
“Yes, thank you,” Harry said.
Seeing the two Korean men in action reminded Dmitri of his own life, many years ago. His brother Stepan had been the smart one, playing Hong’s role of interpreter until Dmitri stepped up and learned the language for himself. And there was no other way to make it in this country but to learn it yourself, as evidenced by Hong, who didn’t ask Bob for any explanation. Didn’t he know how dangerous it was to sign these things without understanding them?
After Hong and Bob left, Dmitri approached Harry.
“Twenty years ago, I took night classes, every night for two years. That is why I speak so good now, you see? That is why I am here today. You must learn, Harry. You and your family.” Dmitri saw there was uncertainty in his eyes, so he repeated the important portion of his speech. “English night class. Ask Hong. English night class.”
“English night class,” Harry said.
“Bingo!” Dmitri said, and slapped him a hearty clap on the back. “It will be hard, but it will be worth it. Believe me.”
“Thank you,” Harry said. “I go.”
And he would, too. Dmitri could see it in his face, that immigrant determination curing like cement.