Word hits the street by morning that Howard was an informant working with the Anti-ROC Task Force.
120
Which is working like a mother.
In what will become known in law enforcement circles as the St. Petersburg Day Massacre, Young's troops roll up Tratchev's brigade like it's the freaking Republican Guard.
Tratchev's guys are caught flat-footed. They're grabbed in bars, they're grabbed in their homes, they're grabbed in bed with their girlfriends.
Viktor Tratchev is having a quiet evening at home watching Cops on the Fox network when the door comes crashing in and Special Agent Young comes through with a shotgun in his hands like he's Robert Stack. Tratchev is annoyed because he thought he had guards out there, but the guards now have their hands behind their backs and plastic ties around their wrists, so technically speaking they're not really guards anymore.
'Bad boys, bad boys, what you gonna do?'
Tratchev reaches for his glasses.
Which is a mistake, because one of Young's troops puts two rounds into his chest before Young can scream, 'What the fuck are you doing?!' but the fact is that the agent knows exactly what the fuck he's doing.
He's getting in position for a big payday from Nicky Vale is what he's doing.
'What you gonna do when they come for you?'
Jimenez's boys are romping in L.A.
Up and down Fairfax, they're crashing in doors, they're jamming cars into curbs, they're blocking off alleys and side streets. They're scooping up car thieves, drive-down artists, extortionists, drug dealers — the whole first and second All-Star Team of Rubinsky's and Schaller's best moneymakers.
They get Rubinsky and Schaller, too.
Rubinsky's in bed with his wife when Jimenez gives him a wake-up call with a pistol barrel to the back of his neck. Schaller's playing poker with some buddies when the game comes to a sudden halt.
The sweep misses Kazzy Azmekian.
He's not at home.
He's twenty nautical miles off Rosarita on his forty-foot Sportscraft for an overnight fishing trip.
Turns out he can't swim, because when his trusted bodyguard launches him over the side, Kazzy just sort of goes glug-glug and then disappears into the darkness.
Anyway, between tragic accidents like this and the task force sweep, Nicky Vale's self-reinvention as a legitimate businessman is pretty much complete.
But not quite.
121
The noise on the deck wakes Letty up.
Rattling of garbage cans.
'Damn raccoons,' she says as she gets out of bed.
Stumbles for the door and this time doesn't bother to take her weapon. It's not like she's going to shoot the damn thing.
Lev waits by the corner of the deck.
Make it look like a rape, is what the pakhan said. Then tear her up with the knife. Just another psycho-sex murder in the Southland. Film at eleven.
He poises the knife in his left hand.
Hears her footsteps.
Hears her open the door. Sees her step out.
' Vamos!' Letty yells as Lev starts forward. Something stops him.
A tight cord around his neck pulls him back and down the steps.
Letty hears the raccoon run off and closes the door. Locks it and goes back to bed. Whatever the sound was, it's gone now.
122
Mother Russia finally gets the children to sleep.
Truth be known, she'll be happy when Daziatnik rebuilds his own house and moves back in, because while she loves having little Michael with her, the girl, Natalie, favors her mother and is a real little bitch.
Quite hopeless, really, genetics being what they are.
Michael — Michael will be a little prince.
With some work.
But Natalie…
Mother Russia goes into the bathroom, brushes her teeth, scrubs her face, then takes a brush to her hair.
A hundred strokes, every morning and every night, and that is what will keep it beautiful and full, the way Daziatnik so admires it.
She finishes brushing it and stands back to admire her look in the mirror.
That's when she sees the man behind her.
It must be one of the new guards.
But the nerve, to come into her bedroom 'What-' she starts to snap.
Then the man's hand is over her mouth.
A cloth over her nose.
Then blackness.
123
Nicky lights up a joint.
Savors the sweet musky scent, takes a deep hit, lets it swirl around in his lungs, and then releases it. Feels all the tension go out with the smoke.
All problems dissolving into the night air.
Tratchev dead.
His troops locked up.
Rubinsky and Schaller swept up with their troops.
The late Dr. Benton Howard's reputation as a police informer firmly established.
Paul Gordon fired.
Kazzy Azmekian is flotsam. Or is it jetsam? Nicky can never remember. Doesn't matter.
He takes another toke, slips out of his clothes, and lets himself ease into the Jacuzzi's steaming water.
Fifty million dollars coming his way tomorrow. The turnaround in one generation.
A very good night, and some very good boo.
He feels a small twinge of anxiety. Lev hasn't returned yet, to report that the problem of the sister is no more. Nicky does another hit and lets the problem fly from his mind. What Lev sets out to kill, Lev kills. He'll be back
