Both men had Russian accents. The one in the sports jacket seemed to be in charge. His accent was thicker, coarser, and his voice came out as a deep rumble. He continued to smirk at Shannon, his eyes lifeless.
“Maybe you should not come here to stick your nose where it don’t belong,” he said.
“Maybe, but I think my mistake was walking into a room without checking it out first.”
“Pretty stupid,” the man agreed.
The younger Russian laughed his ugly laugh again. It was muted, but still sounded like something you’d hear in an insane asylum.
“Why don’t you stand up,” the older Russian said.
“I like it down here.”
“Stand up anyway.” He took the automatic from his waistband. As Shannon had guessed it was a.45 caliber Smith & Wesson.
“Nice gun,” Shannon remarked.
The Russian waved the automatic casually at Shannon’s head. “I ask you politely stand up.”
“This is nice carpeting,” Shannon said. “Probably expensive. It would be a shame to ruin it.”
“Carpet can be replaced.”
Shannon started to stand up. Before he got to his feet, the older Russian stepped forward and threw a hard jab. Shannon saw the punch coming but wasn’t able to react fast enough to roll with it and it caught him flush in the eye. He felt like he’d been hit with a chunk of concrete and the punch knocked him against the wall.
“That wasn’t very nice of you,” Shannon said, his hand up against his eye.
“We not nice men,” the younger Russian said, smiling broadly and showing off yellowed, crooked teeth.
“My friend is right,” the other one said. “We are not nice men. But neither are you. It was not nice to come here and make trouble. Beating up devout followers of Vishna. These are holy men here.”
Shannon didn’t bother to respond. The area under his eye had already started to swell. He stood in a half crouch as he held a hand over his eye and tried to decide whether he had a chance of wrestling the gun out of the Russian’s hand.
The older Russian held his free hand out and snapped his fingers sharply. “Your wallet,” he ordered.
Shannon shook his head.
He trained his gun on Shannon’s chest and slid the safety off with his thumb. “You do not give me your wallet then this is the way it will happen,” he said, his voice calm, methodical. “You come uninvited here, and when asked to leave you beat up people. Then you charge inside and jump on poor innocent girl.” He turned to his partner. “You know her name?”
The younger Russian made a show of thinking about this while he tapped his skull. “Blonde girl, right? Meliza Coozan, I think.”
“That’s right.” The older Russian clapped his partner on the back. Smiling grimly at Shannon, he said, “Meliza Coozan. Unfortunately you beat poor girl to death. I shoot you, but too late.”
“That’s insane,” Shannon said. “No one would believe that.”
“Why not? Thirty witnesses, more even, will claim that is what happened.”
Something flickered in the Russian’s eyes. While Shannon wasn’t sure whether he would shoot him, he had no doubt that this man was a stone-cold killer. He handed him his wallet.
“William Shannon,” the man read slowly from his license. “It is nice to know where you live, William Shannon.”
“If you ever come anywhere near my home -”
“What?” He laughed as his partner grinned wickedly. He slipped Shannon’s wallet into his pocket. “What would you do?”
Shannon’s cell phone rang. “This is a friend of mine,” he said, holding up the phone. “He knows I’m here, and if I don’t answer he’ll be calling the police.”
The grin disappeared from the Russian’s face. He trained his gun again on Shannon. “Answer it. And don’t be stupid.”
Shannon told Eli to call him back in five minutes and hung up before his friend could ask any questions.
The Russian waved his gun at Shannon. “Get moving,” he ordered.
The two men escorted Shannon out of the room and back into the hallway lined with Hindu gods. The place was quiet-no sitar music or chanting coming from within the compound. As they walked to the marble foyer, there were no signs of any of the cult members. From behind, the Russian poked Shannon in the back a couple of times with his gun, his associate chuckling softly with each poke.
“See what happens when you stick your nose into other people’s business,” he said. “No good comes of it. Vishna is a great, great man. People here because they want to be here. So why you have to come and bother them?”
“Not a bad question,” Shannon said. “A better question is why are a couple of Russian mobsters involved with some half-assed cult?”
The gun was poked hard into the base of his spine, making him stumble.
“That is not smart thing to ask,” the older Russian said. His associate laughed his soft wheezing ugly laugh.
When they got to the foyer, the Russians followed Shannon outside. The older one slipped his gun back into his waistband and buttoned up his sports jacket. The younger Russian unlocked the gate and turned to Shannon with his hand held out.
“No hard feelings,” he said, a big smart-alecky grin etched on his face. Shannon could see in his eyes what he was intending. He took the hand that was being offered, and when the Russian jerked him forward and sent his knee heading towards Shannon’s groin, he stepped aside and swung his right leg around and behind the Russian, sweeping his one supporting leg out from under him and sending him hard on his tailbone. The Russian let out a loud “
Shannon heard scuttling noises from behind and was halfway to his feet when he took a hard shot to the side of his face. The punch knocked him to the pavement, and he took skin off his damaged hand using it to break his fall. He scrambled backwards, turned and saw the Russian approaching, his shoulders squared away and fists and feet positioned in a manner that showed he had boxed at a professional level. He shuffled forward quickly, throwing a combination, the first punch exploding as it hit Shannon in the chest, the second glancing off his skull.
Shannon was knocked to his knees. The Russian stepped forward again, a thin smile playing on his lips, his eyes completely dead. He threw a straight right hand at Shannon’s jaw, but this time Shannon blocked it with his left and at the same instance drove his right fist into the man’s groin. He could hear the explosion of breath coming out of the Russian as he doubled over in pain. Without giving him a chance to recover, Shannon grabbed him by his ears and slammed his face into the pavement. As the man lay still on the ground, he retrieved his wallet, then kept searching until he found the Russian’s. The driver’s license identified the man as Dan Smith and listed a Los Angeles address. Shannon handled the license by its edges and tossed the wallet on the ground. He stood up slowly, his body stiff, his head and chest aching. He felt like he’d been worked over with a baseball bat.
He turned towards the gate, a sharp pain sucking his breath away. The younger Russian had pushed himself up into a sitting position. Blood streamed from his nose and, like his associate, it was now pushed more to one side. He looked woozy but as he stared at Shannon, his eyes shrunk to small black dots. Slipping a switchblade from his pocket, he opened it and started to get to his feet, swaying as if he were on a ship in bad weather.
A string of Russian words were barked out from behind. Shannon turned. The other Russian had gotten onto his elbow while still clutching his groin. His face was a bloody mess, his nose looking like hamburger meat. With his voice breaking into a hoarse whisper, he barked out more commands to the younger Russian, who Shannon guessed was named Dimi since that word was used more than any other and with urgency. The younger man stared sullenly into space as he closed his switchblade with his thumb and slipped the knife back into his pocket.
“You were lucky today,” the older Russian yelled at Shannon in the same hoarse whisper. “You come here again, you won’t be so lucky. Trust me. Maybe you lose more fingers. Maybe you lose more than that.”
Shannon ignored him and continued through the gate to his car. When he got there, he went through his trunk and found a plastic bag to put the license in, then got himself seated behind the wheel. He watched while the
