Russians.
He makes his money and gives most of it to Russians — to Shakalin and Karpotsov — so they're happy, but Daz is wondering when he gets his piece of Paradise.
Daziatnik reads so he knows his history.
The Irish, the Italians, the Jews.
The grandfathers — gangsters. The grandsons — lawyers.
And bankers and politicians and judges.
And businessmen.
It's a three-generation turnaround, but Daziatnik wonders why.
Why not one generation?
Why not?
If a man can go from spy to zek, to driving a limo, to stealing cars, to running a chop shop, to insurance fraud, to brigadier in four short years, why can't he make the leap to legitimate businessman in as short a time?
In this land of opportunity.
In this floating cloud of a land where a man can invent and reinvent himself. Can burn the pages of his history behind him and then his past disappears into the blue California sky like so much smoke.
Daz has a plan to do it.
He knows it's out there, that ineffable thing, the open arms and legs of California, and that's what he wants. He wants freedom, and style, he wants away from his grim migr comrades — the dull, the stupid, the boring, the mind-numbing soul-stunning sameness of it.
He wants to become Nicky.
So he looks for the opportunity. Which isn't hard. The opportunity is so blatant, so transparent, so clear it would take an idiot not to see it.
The sweet, heavy, ripe pear virtually dropping from the tree.
Real estate.
Any fool could see that in California in the mid-'80s real estate is the golden stream. Put money in real estate and watch your investment turn around, sometimes literally overnight. Diversify with longer-term investments: apartment buildings and condo complexes. All the more profitable if you could use your mob outreach to cut a corner here or there — cheaper materials, quicker construction. It was rare they had to twist or even bend an arm: everyone was in a hurry in those days. Get them up, get them sold, get your money into the next one.
His real estate investments make money and that gives him the freedom to stretch the code out even more. He leaves the tight ethnic community in L.A. and moves south to the gold coast. Where he can reinvent himself as Nicky Vale.
Daz changes his name. Daziatnik Valeshin is just too heavy a moniker to carry around. To sign on all the real estate papers. Too hard for customers to remember when they have a good deal and are looking for investors to phone.
Call me, Daz says.
In fact, call me Nicky.
That's his next break with the code, but Nicky says he isn't leaving, he's colonizing. Taking the business down to the lucrative gold coast. Going where the money is. Where there's virgin ground for development. Where, dig this, people enter a lottery to determine who gets a chance to buy a condo in the new complexes.
You couldn't, Nicky recalls, put the things up fast enough.
Nicky keeps buying up land, putting up buildings.
Leveraging it all like hell, but who cares?
The market outgrows the debt.
And Nicky flourishes.
New house, new clothes, new style, new persona.
Nicky Vale: real estate player.
It's Daz's next violation of the code, of the Vorovskoy Zakon, which states in no uncertain terms that making money in legitimate enterprise is like, outsky, right? Strictly nyet. And some of Daz's soldiers do grumble about it. He tells them to shut their mouths, make money and be happy. Lerner sees his shot and gets on the horn to Shakalin to rat Daz out, telling the old boy that Daziatnik has gone American and is pissing all over Vorovskoy Zakon.
Shakalin agrees.
The ties are loosening too much.
Like the Soviet Union, Two Crosses could crumble apart.
It is time to make an example of 'Nicky Vale.'
55
He's strapped to a wooden chair.
The whole ruling body sits in a semicircle in front of him: the brigadiers, several lieutenants, old Natan Shakalin and his bodyguards, one of whom holds a silenced automatic pistol and the other of whom brandishes a chain saw.
Looking at the saw, Nicky can feel his balls tighten.
Lerner gets up and recites a litany of Nicky's transgressions against the code: Nicky's been doing legitimate business, he's been withholding profits from the organization. In short, 'Nicky Vale' has broken faith with his brothers.
He's broken the Vorovskoy Zakon.
Nicky's still not too worried. He points to the corruption in the real estate business — the subpar materials, the payoffs to inspectors, the tax dodges, the occasional arson scheme. His basic response to that is, Legit, hell. As to not paying his share, Nicky offers to make restitution. It is just an accounting problem; as soon as the books are straight, he will pay his due.
'Perhaps,' Lerner says, 'the reason that you cannot pay the money you owe is that you send so much to your bosses in KGB.'
'Excuse me?'
' 'Major Valeshin?'
Oops.
Now Nicky's worried.
He can practically hear the chain saw warming up.
It's not pleasant, this chicken chop. First they cut off your hands, then your arms, then your feet, then your legs, then your privates — and even though you're probably dead by then, they cut off your head just for a sense of aesthetic unity.
'It is major now, isn't it,' Lerner says. 'Congratulations. Mazel tov. Our brothers inside KGB informed us of your promotion.'
Lerner demands the death penalty.
Fire up the old McCullough.
Shakalin gets to his feet.
He stands in front of Nicky and says, 'Years ago, you took an oath to the Two Crosses. The Two Crosses protected you, nurtured you, took you from a miserable zek to riches beyond your knowledge. You came here as nothing and now you are a rich man.
'How do you thank us?
'You cheat us. You turn your back on us. You spit on our traditions and laws. You think you are too good for the Two Crosses, now that you are 'Nicky Vale.'
'And then we learn that you are a traitor. An informer.'
He spits in Nicky's face.
