Free Dead Man's Rule by Rick Acker

you, Yuri. I see you’ve hired a couple of new carpenters. What are their names?”
    “Pasha and Janko,” he answered warily.
    “What are their last names?”
    “You’re not FBI anymore.”
    “So? Does that mean I’ve forgotten ICE’s phone number?”
    He glared at Sergei. “There can be no leaks.”
    “Of course not.”
    “So what happened with that investment-fraud case where those kidali were ripping off old ladies? It got out that I talked to you guys, and I nearly got killed!”
    “You know that wasn’t me,” Sergei replied evenly. “And as you pointed out, I’m not with the Bureau anymore.” He looked at Filimonov expectantly.
    The burly contractor returned Sergei’s gaze for a moment, then shook his head and muttered an oath. “Nicki works with the Brothers. They do import/export business and maybe other stuff. I don’t know much about them, but I think they’re old friends of Alexei’s. I never deal with them, and I don’t know any of their names. And that’s it ! I don’t know anything more!”
    Sergei looked him in the eye and decided he was telling the truth. He smiled and patted Filimonov on the back. “Thank you for your help, Yuri. Have a nice day.”
    Filimonov’s face relaxed. “You won’t be making any calls?”
    Sergei’s grin widened. “About what?”

    Nicki Zinoviev’s criminal file arrived on Sergei’s desk the next morning. Zinoviev had emigrated from the Soviet Union twenty years ago, possibly because of legal problems there, though of course that wasn’t what he had put on his immigration forms. The file said he was forty-two, but he looked at least five years older in his most recent mug shot. But then, most people do, thought Sergei, particularly if they’re using .
    Zinoviev had two convictions for drug possession, including one for half a kilo of heroin. He’d been sentenced to two years for that one but had gotten out after eleven months based on good behavior and alleged progress in a drug-treatment program. While he was still on probation, though, he’d been busted for conspiracy to sell drugs and carrying a concealed weapon. He had avoided more jail time by cooperating with prosecutors, but he might have cooperated a little too well—he later picked up a perjury conviction for some of his testimony against his former business partners.
    After forty-five minutes, Sergei closed the manila folder and plopped it on the to-be-filed pile. Nikolai Zinoviev was just what Filimonov had said he was: a retail-level dealer and gofer with a drug problem. Turning state’s evidence in the conspiracy case would have ended his career (among other things) if he had been in the mafia or the Russian Organizatsiya , but Russian and ex-Soviet crime in the United States was much less organized than it was in the former Soviet Union. There were no real loyalty rules here, so Zinoviev’s betrayal simply meant that his remaining colleagues would never trust him, confining him to small, low-level roles in any operation.
    Sergei had lunch at the Petrograd, a small restaurant of what he called the “borscht and babushka” type: lots of traditional food listed on the cheap laminated menus, lots of middle-aged and older women talking away the afternoon over sweet tea, very little English being spoken.
    Little streamers of cigarette smoke rose from most of the tables before blowing away in the currents from the ventilation gratings. The walls displayed the mandatory “No Smoking” signs, but the patrons viewed these as purely decorative—which they were in places like the Petrograd. Sergei didn’t mind. The smell of harsh Russian tobacco awakened fond memories of visiting his grandparents when he was young.
    He sat down at the counter and called to an elderly, aproned woman standing at the far end. “Good afternoon, Auntie Olga. How are you today?”
    “I’m as well as an old lady can expect,” she said, putting down some dishes and walking over to him. “But I’m still