CEILING
  by Mark Best

  The incessant hum of the alarm clock pulled me out of a beautiful 
  unconsciousness and dropped me smack dab into the most perfect hangover of my 
  life. Every sound, from the aforementioned timepiece to the perpetual drip in 
  my bathroom sink to the diesel whine of the buses beginning their morning 
  route, were amplified twelve times, echoing in the cavern where my brain 
  should have been.
  I wondered, as I dragged myself out of bed, how people do this to themselves 
  all the time. Despite our reputation, not all reporters are two-fisted 
  drinkers. The best crime reporter I know is a Mormon who never drinks, and the 
  second best, me, has only been drunk twelve times. Take away college binges 
  and the number drops to four, now five.
  The worst part of the whole thing was that I came away empty handed. I had 
  gone to a Russian social club to investigate a protection racket against 
  immigrants from the former Soviet Republic. My source, Konstantine Borzov, the 
  self-proclaimed Godfather of Pittsburgh’s Russian community, had promised 
  names, access, and evidence. What I got was glass after glass of illegally 
  imported vodka, a lot of conversation about John Wayne movies, and tall tales 
  about resistance fighting in Czechoslovakia. And more vodka.
  I managed to shower without drowning and shave without slashing my jugular. I 
  wasn’t strong enough to try breakfast, but I managed to down half a cup of 
  Tasters Choice with my aspirin. I don’t remember driving into work, but I was 
  there and there were no new dents on my Mazda, so I assume it was an 
  uneventful trip. I even managed to be on time, and was staring at my blank 
  monitor when 8:30 flashed on the old newsroom clock. I had just clicked open 
  the file on my Russian story when my phone rang. Hoffman’s secretary told me 
  the boss wanted to see me immediately.
  Hoffman’s office was one story down; a glass walled cubicle in the middle of 
  the floor. The glass was smoked, and opaque from the outside. Inside, the 
  whole newsroom was visible, and one never knew when the boss’s eyes were on 
  you. That was why several of us old-timers (and I always laugh at being 
  considered an old-timer at thirty-four) maintained offices in the old newsroom 
  upstairs. Longevity brings the reward of limited independence.
  Hoffman’s secretary seemed unusually curt when she told me to go right in. We 
  had never been friends, but politeness was the norm. Today I felt like I’d run 
  over her cat.
  “Good morning to you, too, Erica, ” I said. “We seem especially chipper 
today.”
  “You may go right in, Mister Masterson,” she growled, emphasizing the Mister, 
  “and after that you can drop dead on the Parkway.” There wasn’t much more for 
  me there so I went in. 
  A lot of men find it difficult to work for a woman. A lot of newspapermen find 
  it impossible. When Caroline Hoffman was named managing editor of the Beacon, 
  several of my less egalitarian colleagues moved onto other papers. Those who 
  stayed had some stinging criticism of their new boss, but mostly she was 
  greeted with grudging respect. As an UPI reporter covering the Middle East in 
  the early nineties, she had proven she had at least as much courage as her 
  male counterparts. Now she was proving it from the other side of the copy 
desk.
  “What’s with Erica today? They start charging for coffee in the break room?”
  Hoffman looked up from the stack of papers on her desk. “I was hoping you 
  wouldn’t have your usual cavalier attitude about this, Mike, but I can see I 
  was wrong.” 
  “Wrong about what? What are you talking about?”
  Caroline tossed me the copy she was holding. “This will be running on page one 
  today. Care to read it?”
  I picked the paper off of her desk and started reading. The byline was by Max 
  Antonucci, the Beacon’s sports editor, and the headline stated that Ivan 
  Lermatov, the Penguin’s superstar, was out of tonight’s Stanley Cup playoff 
  game. I am a diehard Pirate fan and haven’t missed a Steeler home game since 
  college, but I never shared my fellow Pittsburghites fascination with hockey. 
  In the past, they were lucky to get 500 people at a game. After a few good 
  years everyone jumped on the bandwagon. I had remained disinterested, and 
  wouldn’t even know how the Pens were doing if every single person in the 
  office didn’t loudly recall every minute of every game the next day.
  I read the piece, slightly disgusted. The player had hurt himself in a drunken 
  brawl in a bar the previous night. My mind began listing all the athletes who 
  thought the ability to hit a home run or score a touchdown gave them the right 
  to flaunt society’s codes of conduct. But as I continued reading, I 
  temporarily lost the capacity for thought and let the words roll across my 
  brain like cold, numbing water.
  “Beacon reporter Michael Masterson,” I read aloud, “reportedly insulted 
  Lermatov while both were in Radovic’s Tavern in Verona. According to 
  witnesses, when the hockey star’s entourage rose to leave, Masterson attacked 
  Lermatov. Before several patrons had managed to pull him off, Masterson had 
  inflicted a broken nose and a dislocated shoulder on the Penguin center.” I 
  laid the sheet down on the table. “What kind of joke is this?”
  “That’s what I was going to ask you. I know you hate hockey, but now you’ve 
  got the whole city pissed at you.”
  “Pissed at me?” I said. “I didn’t do anything. I’ve never met Lermatov, much 
  less fought with him.”
  “Mike, there are several witnesses, including the bar owner, who tell the same 
  story. And you told me yesterday you were going to Radovic’s for your Russian 
  investigation.”
  “Come on, C.H., you’ve known me for a long time. Does that really sound like 
  me?”
  “No, Mike, it doesn’t. That is why we are talking instead of discussing a 
  suspension. Tell me your side. What happened?”
  I started to tell Caroline about the previous night when I had to stop. I 
  remembered being at Radovic’s, and I remember Konstantine pointing out 
  Lermatov and a few other Penguins. And I remembered the vodka and I remembered 
  waking up in my bed. “I don’t know,” I said. 
  “You don’t know what?”
  “I don’t know what happened. I mean, I know I didn’t get into a fight, but I 
  can’t remember anything after a certain point last night.”
  “Great. Are you telling me you got drunk and blacked out?”
  “No,” I said, my thoughts suddenly arranged with great clarity. “I’m telling 
  you I was set up.”
  Hoffman stared at me for what seemed like ten minutes. “Do you know how that 
  will sound, if you go around and tell people that the biggest sports star in 
  this town since Mario Lemieux tried to set you up?”
  “My instincts are never wrong. Never. It has to be tied in to the Russian 
  story. You have to believe me.”
  “I do believe you, Mike. But I’m not the one you have to convince. There are 
  about a hundred thousand Penguin fans in this city, most of who want to 
  introduce you to the business end of a hockey stick. And all of them subscribe 
  to the paper. More than your reputation is on the line here.”
  “Are you telling me this could cost me my job?”
  “Could?” Caroline laughed. She laughed like a man, from deep in her belly. 
  “You were already fired. For some reason the boys upstairs gave you another 
  chance. You’ve got three days to dig yourself out of this. After that the 
  paper cuts you free.” I knew how persuasive C. H. could be, and was pretty 
  sure she was the reason I was still employed. I owed her one. I also owed 
  someone else one, and I could pay both of them back by getting myself out of 
  the frame.
  Leo Radovic’s nose had been broken and set badly. As a result, he constantly 
  had the sniffles. Not that it bothered the patrons. A bartender/owner with a 
  runny nose was one of the reasons Radovic’s never became a trendy hangout. Of 
  course, the disdainful glares in response to an order for a fuzzy navel or a 
  light beer helped, too.
  Leo was working the bar by himself this afternoon. The crowd consisted mostly 
  of old men nursing long flat beers and a few confirmed alcoholics with 
  bottomless glasses. No one paid any attention to me, and even Radovic didn’t 
  recognize me until I was seated at the bar.
  “You ain’t supposed to be here, Masterson. You ain’t welcome.” A few of the 
  old men caught the tone in Radovic’s voice and looked up expectantly. This 
  might be the most excitement since McDonalds announced free coffee refills for 
  senior citizens.
  “I just have a few questions about last night,” I said. “I want to talk to the 
  witnesses who saw me attack Lermatov.”
  “Everyone saw you,” Radovic said. “No one is going to change their story.”
  One of the old men said something in Russian. Leo hissed back in the same 
  language. It got so heated that the drunks actually looked up from their 
  drinks.
  “You do not scare me, the old man said, switching to English. “I ran away 
  once, from Stalin, from my country. I do not do it again.” He turned to me. 
  “Do not believe all you are told. Look to the ceiling. That is your answer”
  The man with him put a hand on his friend’s arm. “Be careful of what you say, 
  Josef Ilanovitch.” He looked at me. “This man can destroy our community.”
  “Our community is being destroyed from inside, my friend. Destroyed by a 
  cancer that none dare speak of, but all know. All of you,” he shouted at the 
  crowd. “None of you are the cause, but you are all to blame.”
  Radovic shouted something in Russian, and Ilanovitch’s friend took him by the 
  arm and led him outside. The old man did not struggle. He no longer wanted to 
  be in that bar.
  “Looks like not everyone believes the story you gave the press,” I said.
  Leo turned back to me. His breath smelled like stale kielbasa. “I told 
  everything to the cops, just like it happened. Exactly as it happened.”
  “You know, Leo, I have a feeling you’ll be giving a retraction real soon.”
  I left Radovic’s a little discouraged and scanned the street for the old man. 
  I couldn’t see him anywhere. I found a pay phone that had miraculously escaped 
  having its white pages stolen and looked up the old man’s number, but there 
  was no Josef Ilanovitch listed. I thought of asking around the neighborhood, 
  but I was pretty sure Louis Farrakan smoozing at a white supremacists 
  convention would get a friendlier reception than I would.
  Instead, I called Martin Wilcox. Marty was the best researcher at the Beacon, 
  and he wasn’t a Penguins fan. I left him a voice mail message, telling him 
  what I needed. He called back thirty minutes later with Ilanovitch’s address.
  I keep a Pittsburgh street map in my car, but even using it, I didn’t find 
  Ilanovitch’s home for nearly an hour. His road was an alleyway, his apartment 
  an unnumbered door next to an Indian dog groomer. A mural of a well-coifed 
  poodle overlapped on the old man’s door, making it look like part of the 
  canine chop shop. When I finally realized this was his place, I knocked on the 
  dog’s rear end. The unlocked door swung open.
  “Mr. Ilanovitch?” My voice echoed up the flight of stairs. “It’s Mike 
  Masterson, Pittsburgh Beacon. We met at Radovic’s today?” I walked up the 
  steps, continuing to talk out loud. The top door was also ajar, so I went in.
  When I found the old man he was already dead. Ilanovitch was shot twice, once 
  in each eye. It was obviously a message, as his frail bones would have 
  succumbed to the obvious beating he had taken. I quickly called 911 from my 
  cell phone, but I knew speed wasn’t necessary. St. Peter had scooped me on 
  this one. I felt equal parts nausea and anger. I wasn’t mad up until then. The 
  attempt to frame me I almost considered fair play, part of the game. This was 
  no longer a game.
  Ilanovitch had lived and died in a studio apartment that almost qualified as a 
  closet. I didn’t have enough time to search the room before the police made it 
  a reporter free zone, but I gave the ceiling a quick once over. It looked like 
  the original plaster job, except around the ceiling fan fixture. But the 
  spackling compound was yellow with age and the inch of dust on the blades had 
  been undisturbed since the seventies. Whatever ceiling the old man spoke of 
  wasn’t above me now.
  The uniformed officer who answered the call was a Penguins fan, and after 
  identifying myself, I felt the temperature in the room drop about twenty 
  degrees. They brought me to the station where three cops asked me the same 
  questions three different ways. Either I answered right or the power of the 
  press (as well as the paper’s legal representative, who showed up during the 
  interrogation waving papers around) scared them into releasing me.
  I went back to the paper, avoiding the downstairs newsroom. Hoffman had given 
  me three days, and I knew her word was as good mine, but I didn’t want to be 
  on display. Besides, I needed to make some calls. Another feature of staying 
  in the old newsroom upstairs is that, when the paper remodeled, they put in a 
  new phone system that a degree from MIT wouldn’t help you navigate. But they 
  never got around to our floor, which suited me, just fine. I like a phone you 
  dial rather than program.
  My first call was to a source at the County Coroner’s office. One bottle of 
  good scotch each month guaranteed me a copy of any autopsy reports as fast as 
  the police get one. I also called three other sources I was using on my 
  Russian story. They were about as enlightening as a Hard Copy exclusive.
  My last call was long distance to Chicago. It always struck me as ironic that 
  Jeremiah Olsen ended up in the Windy City. Not that a town that sired both Al 
  Capone and Boss Daley didn’t need the best crime reporter in the country. But 
  Jerry was the straightest person I knew. His Mormon upbringing prohibited 
  drinking, swearing, caffeine, gambling, and almost any other vice you can 
  name. I guess that’s why he has seven kids in ten years of marriage. It’s the 
  only thing he’s allowed to do that is any fun.
  After some small talk and an update on my nine-year-old namesake’s first 
  little league game, I switched to business. A few years back, Jerry had 
  written a weeklong series about the Russian Mafia and their influence in 
  Chicago’s ethnic community. I remembered that one article discussed 
  ritualistic murder as threat. The eight articles had netted Jerry another 
  shelf full of awards.
  “It’s not Russian Mafia,” he told me. “That was some of my best work, but I 
  was mistaken there. The hits weren’t Mafia. It was a penny-ante extortion 
  racket. The guy claimed to be Russian mob, used ceiling on a few Slovakian 
  business owners, and...”
  I interrupted. “Did you say ‘ceiling’?”
  “Well, that’s the literal translation. It doesn’t have a direct English 
  counterpart. It means having something important over someone else. Usually 
  it’s a relative back in the Motherland. Guy has a nice setup here, maybe a dry 
  cleaners, a convenience store, maybe a liquor store. Someone approaches him, 
  tells him that his sister back in the old country might get run over by a bus 
  unless he pays a few thousand dollars insurance on her. It’s the way the 
  Russian Mafia got their initial capital.
  “But they don’t do that anymore. That would be like the Gambino family pushing 
  drugs on the street corner. They are too big for that now. They take a cut of 
  protection money, but they don’t get their own hands dirty.”
  “So where do the killings come in?” I asked.
  “There was a man, forgot his name, probably dead now, who tried the ceiling 
  racket on a few folks. He didn’t have the connections in the old country, 
  though, so he had a few people killed, signed the corpses by shooting their 
  eyes out. He made two mistakes, though. He claimed to be Russian Mafia, which 
  he wasn’t, and he never paid his own protection money. He fled town a few 
  hours ahead of the killers, and no one’s heard from him since then.”
  I laughed. For some reason, I saw what Hoffman’s face was going to look like 
  when I gave her this story. It would either get me a raise or a transfer to 
  puff pieces.
  “Listen, Jerry, do you have a source with the Russians that I could talk with? 
  I think you just solved my problem.”
  The “CLOSED” sign on Radovic’s door didn’t deter several neighborhood barflies 
  from trying to enter. One kicked at the door and one even started to cry. 
  Radovic’s never closed, except on the Orthodox Christmas and Easter. Even 
  Sundays the dedicated could go to the restaurant part and order a beer with 
  their invisible sandwich. On Election Day the beers were free as long as you 
  allowed supporters of whichever candidate Radovic favored to drive you to the 
  polls. But today the blinds were drawn and the lights were out.
  Word spread fast. No one had tried to get in for almost a half-hour before 
  Ivan Lermatov showed up. When he knocked a very haggard looking Leo Radovic 
  opened the door for him. No words were exchanged as the hockey player slipped 
  inside. It wasn’t more than five minutes before Konstantine Borzov, 
  accompanied by his bodyguard, stepped out of a new Mercedes. The bodyguard 
  stepped to the door of Radovic’s and unlocked it. He took a quick look inside 
  and held the door open for his boss. After Borzov entered, the bodyguard 
  closed the door, and looked around furtively as he walked away.
  As soon as the large Russian was gone, I climbed out of the back of the van 
  and walked over to Radovic’s. I entered quietly and tiptoed towards the back 
  room, reaching the door just in time to hear Borzov say; “You are crazy. Why 
  would I summon you? You asked me to come here.”
  “Actually,” I said, entering the room, “I called this meeting.”
  All three men turned towards me. Borzov looked towards the door expectantly. 
  “I wouldn’t expect any help. Your large friend received a call. He knows. I’m 
  afraid you are all alone.”
  “Knows what?” Radovic piped in.
  “Leo, how much do you pay Konstantine in protection money each week?” I 
  answered his question with one of my own.
  Radovic looked at Borzov but didn’t speak. I turned to the hockey player. “How 
  many games have you thrown for him, Ivan?”
  Lermatov’s face turned crimson. “Never! I play only to win.”
  “Maybe not yet. So far, I’m sure you’ve just paid him off, or helped him with 
  stories like the one about me.” He didn’t say anything. “I’ll take your 
  silence for a confirmation. But how long will that be enough? You’re the 
  leading scorer in the NHL. Someone with ceiling on you could make a fortune 
  betting against the Pens. Well, boys, good news. The ceiling is about to fall 
  in.”
  “You see, fellas, Borzov is a phony. He’s been playing you guys for suckers.”
  “You better shut up, Mr. Masterson,” Borzov screamed. “You are in enough 
  trouble.”
  “Actually, Konstantine, you are the one who is in trouble. I should have 
  caught on when you approached me to talk about my protection story. I already 
  figured you to be part of the scam, but when you called, I figured maybe it 
  was bigger. I assumed you had an axe to grind with whoever was masterminding 
  everything, and by letting me break the story you could get rid of the people 
  above you and take over. But it wasn’t bigger, it was smaller.”
  I addressed Leo. “Who is it? A daughter? A son? Maybe an old girlfriend? And 
  you,” I said to Lermatov. “Who do you have back in Mother Russia that Borzov 
  threatened to kill? Parents? Grandparents?
  “The truth is, they are safe. Konstantine tried this trick once before. In 
  Chicago.” At the mention of Chicago, Borzov went pale. “You shouldn’t have 
  told me over and over again that The Searchers is your favorite John Wayne 
  movie. That little trick about shooting a dead man in the eyes was what tipped 
  me off. It’s how I found out about Chicago. There are some old friends of 
  yours who were very helpful in sharing information with me. I reciprocated. 
  That’s who called your men and suggested they leave. By now, they are probably 
  at your home, and your office, looking for you. They might even be outside 
  right now.”
  Things never work as well in real life as they do in the movies. After that 
  line, I was hoping the door would open and scare the devil out of Borzov. It 
  didn’t. But Lermatov did. He threw his 200 plus pounds at Konstantine and 
  delivered a half dozen blows to him before I was able to pull the hockey 
  player off him. When the police did finally arrive, almost 45 minutes after I 
  called them, Lermatov had calmed down, Leo was wiping the bar, and Borzov was 
  quiet.
  An old newspaper adage is that accusations go on page one, apologizes on page 
  14. Not this time. My byline story on the front page cleared up my image, as 
  did the open letter from Ivan Lermatov apologizing to me and to the people of 
  Pittsburgh for his behavior. The league suspended him for seven games, but on 
  the eighth day, Lermatov scored a hat trick to beat the Flyers, and all was 
  forgiven.
  Caroline Hoffman also took of her editor’s cap and wrote a flowery column 
  about freedom of the press, presupposition of innocence, and praise for our 
  employers for believing in me when all others condemned me. “I know damn well 
  the only reason they gave me a chance was because of you. Never hurts to 
  butter up the money men, though.” I wiped an imaginary stain from Hoffman’s 
  nose. “Is that printer’s ink, or something else?”
  “Beat it, Masterson,” she said, not without affection. “Remember, you are only 
  as good as your next story.”
  “I’ll try to remember that, boss,” I said, as I went back out looking for that 
  next story.
  _________________________________________________
  Mark Best's short fiction has been published in, among other places, Murderous 
  Intent, Hardboiled, Blue Murder, and judas_ezine. With a degree in Film 
  Studies and a background in retail management, Selling everything from 
  videotapes to swimming pools to eyeglasses, the only consistent has been his 
  writing. He has several other short stories set for publication this year, and 
  is working on his first novel. "Ceiling" is the first, but not the last, Mike 
  Masterson story. Mark lives in Knoxville with his wife and two stepchildren. 
  His email address is mysterymarkbest@aol.com