Blank Slate (A Kyle Jackle Thriller) Read Online Free PDF Page B

then compared against all the records in the database. The Automated Fingerprint Identification System provided national fingerprint records for fifty-five million people in the US who had background checks or some kind of criminal record. Or, as was the case with the dead guy with the tattoos, if you ever arrived at a major US port of entry, you would be scanned by the US-VISIT system. The fact that the only record available was a two print record from his entry flagged him as arriving in the country sometime before 2007. Boris Kirov-his country of origin, the Ukraine. Had a current visa and was supposedly running an import business. Right, he thought. The one thing the dopers, girl smugglers, and general scumbags had in common was that they all seemed to own an import-export business.
    “Hey Zapata,” Rivera yelled over the top of the divider. “Can you get your ass over here so we can collaborate .”
    “Manny, you’re always busting my friggin’ balls,” grumbled Zapata as he walked around the edge of the office cubicle divider and flopped into the scarred wooden chair that was the one surviving piece of furniture Rivera had rescued from his old office before they donated everything else to Goodwill. Zapata was a striking contrast to Rivera; he could have been on the recruiting poster for the academy. Tall, dark hair and olive skin with an easy confidence that came with experience and being damned good at his job. Since starting with the Department as a patrolman ten years before, he had risen rapidly through the ranks. He was now was the lead investigator for the burgeoning problem with the Russian Mafia that had first shown up in Miami during the early nineties and since then had grown to epidemic proportions.
    “So what’s up with you?”
    “Not sure,” Rivera said as he fanned out the pictures from the coroner’s report on the table. He pointed at the picture the coroner had taken prior to beginning the autopsy. “This guy shows up at the hospital, tries to kill a John Doe lying in a coma, and ends up getting his head bashed in by the same John Doe who then mysteriously disappears into thin air-makes perfect sense to me.”
    “One obvious thing,” said Zapata as he picked up the eight by ten photo and examined it closely. “He is definitely Russian mob.”
    “You must be a friggin’ genius,” snarled Rivera. “Was it the bad Eastern European dental work or the crappy jailhouse tats covering damn near every inch of skin that tipped you off? I had that figured out before you got here. And his last name was Kirov and he’s from the Ukraine,” Rivera said, sliding the rest of the report in front of Zapata. “I don’t need a name, I need his story.”
    “OK, let’s take a look,” Zapata said as he adjusted the angle of the goose-necked lamp to better see the closeups of the tattoos. “Nothing too unusual about any of these. The big crucifix dominating the design on the chest is pretty old school-tells everyone that he is a Prince of Thieves-a very honorable tattoo among that crowd. A bull on the shoulder-usually reserved for pimps-probably sold his baby sister for a fifth of vodka. The big tattoo on the back with the three cathedral spires tells you that he’s either been in jail three times or spent three years in jail-hard to tell. And the Madonna and baby Jesus in front of the cathedrals means our boy has been a thief since he was sucking at his mother’s saggy tit. Looks like he’s just muscle, a brodyagi - if he was anybody, he’d have stars tattooed on either his chest or knees.”
    “I’m impressed,” Rivera acknowledged almost in spite of himself. “You actually believe any of that bullshit you’re feeding me or you just make it up as you go along?”
    “Hey Rivera, deadly serious stuff here. Every tattoo on this guy’s body he earned the hard way-you ever get a Russian mob guy who puts on a tat without doing the time or the crime, his fellow brothers will either burn it off or