All That I Have by Castle Freeman Page A

he said. “There’d be no point. And I won’t try to go through it now. We’d both go to sleep. You’ve got a Russian novel, here.”
    “I never read a Russian novel,” I said. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
    “Thousands of pages, hundreds of people, all with the same names, in places with the same names, doing the same things. That’s a Russian novel.”
    “Okay,” I said.
    Addison took a hit of his coffee.
    “I didn’t get far searching the title at the town hall in Grenada,” he began. “I got to Odessa Partners. Then I came back here and got to work on them. Chased them from Bermuda on down into the Caymans and through the Caribbean, pillar to post, like a god damned booze cruise. Wound up in Amsterdam.”
    “Amsterdam?”
    “A Dutch company. I thought, Hmm. So I called an old classmate of mine. He works in The Hague. I’m not sure what he does, exactly, or who he is. Hell, I’m not even sure he knows who he is anymore. But he knew all about the Dutch company. He gave me some advice.”
    “What was that?”
    “Forget it. Drop it. Turn the page. Walk away. Move on.”
    “Why?”
    “I haven’t followed the thing all the way,” said Addison. “I don’t know that I could, come to that, or that my classmate could. Doesn’t matter. I’m out of it. So should you be. Your burglarized house is the property of people overseas who operate mostly in Russia, the Baltic, and on south: the Caucasus, Iran. Serious places, Lucian. Wide open places, these days. Good places to stay away from. Serious people, too — also good to stay away from.”
    “What do they do?”
    “They keep busy. They’re a gifted people, the Russians, but they do nothing by halves. And also, of course, they’re all quite mad. The Russians, don’t you know, have a claim to be the fourth-craziest people on earth, after ourselves, the Japanese, and the French — and I’m not sure they might not have the edge of the French, in an impartial trial.
    “These people in Grenada,” Addison went on, “are in the energy field, mainly. Don’t ask me exactly what that means. I don’t know. But being in the energy field where they are today is like being in the bootleg liquor field used to be in, say, Chicago. You know what I mean?”
    “I know what you mean,” I said. “Why drop it?”
    “Why not?” asked Addison. “You don’t have a dog in this fight, do you? Your office doesn’t, not really. Somebody scoped a place out, broke in, did some damage, left. So what? Happens every day.”
    “There’s more,” I said. I told Addison about Sean, the missing strongbox, the Russian fellow Sean had taken down.
    “Sean Duke?” Addison asked.
    “You know him?”
    “Everybody knows Sean Duke.”
    “Everybody?”
    “Everybody, Lucian,” said Addison. “He’s a popular young man. Come on, have a little one, here.” He pushed the jug toward me, but I didn’t want any. Addison took it back and gave himself another pop.
    “If you find him,” Addison said, “Sean, you get him out of here. If he’s got something these people want, well . . . Do they know he’s got it?”
    “They sent that Russian fellow to get it back.”
    “You don’t know they did.”
    “House full of Russians gets broken into. Couple of days later, here comes another Russian looking for the breaker. That’s a lot of Russians. This ain’t Moscow.”
    Addison nodded. “Well,” he said, “you get your boy out of here, that’s all.”
    “My boy?” I said. “He ain’t my boy.”
    “Are you sure?”
    “I’m sure.”
    “Get him out, all the same,” said Addison. “Put him away someplace.”
    “The way he’s going,” I said, “I won’t be the one puts him away. The state will.”
    “No,” said Addison. “That’s no good. That’s jail. If he’s in jail, that’s serving him up to these people on a platter with an apple in his mouth. He needs to be gone, Lucian. Make him go.”
    “I’ve got to find him first.”
    “I