tell how he was being followed. He thought about sliding his hand over to the center console, opening his cell phone, dialing 911, and talking loudly enough so the operator would be able to hear him. But even if he had been disposed to gamble away Marla’s life, he wouldn’t get the opportunity.
Something cold, metallic, inanimate pressed against Serpe’s neck. Though he knew instantaneously it was the muzzle of a gun, he could not stop his body from reacting. He lost control of the car, skidding off Hawkins Avenue and into the empty parking lot of Players Auto Body. He had to stand on his brake pedal to avoid smashing into the shop’s garage doors.
“Y’all always did drive like shit, Joey,” said the voice from the backseat.
Serpe didn’t need to see Dixie’s brutish face in his rearview mirror to know it was him. Dixie was the only person on the planet who called him Joey. When Joe did look in the mirror, there was Dixie smiling that cruel crooked-tooth smile of his.
“Now get back on Hawkins and onto the L.I.E.,” Dixie said, disappearing from the mirror and sitting back directly behind Joe. “You run pretty good for an old fuck. Man, them two cops was huffing and puffing the whole way after y’all. Made it easy for me to cozy on up back here.”
Joe didn’t say a word, the adrenaline still distorting his senses. He struggled to settle himself and pulled back onto Hawkins. A block later he turned right, then onto the L.I.E. Service Road, then quickly onto the entrance ramp. The second he pulled into the far right lane off the entrance ramp, a large SUV appeared in Serpe’s rearview mirror. As it did, Joe’s cell buzzed against the plastic of the center console.
“That’ll be Pavel,” Dixie said. “Go on, pick it up.”
“Dixie is keeping you good company, yes?”
“Wonderful.”
“You see me in your mirror?” Pavel asked.
“Yeah.”
“I’m going to pull around you. I will call you again in one moment.”
Joe waited for the SUV to pull around. As the vehicle swung out and moved along side Serpe’s rental, Joe wasn’t surprised to see it was a black Lincoln Navigator. He was surprised, however, when the big Lincoln did not pull past him. The Navigator’s rear passenger window slid down. Joe could see Marla and the knife at her throat. She was covered in blood, her lips puffed, and her eyes swollen shut. A hand held her by the hair and shoved her head and shoulders out of the Lincoln. She screamed, panicked she would be thrown out of the moving car. Then, just as quickly, she was yanked back into the Lincoln and the window rolled up. The Navigator accelerated, falling in line in front of him.
Joe was crazed. They had beaten her, maybe to get her to tell them where Donna was, maybe they just for fun. Serpe tried not to think about what else they might have done to her.
“Don’t try anything stupid, Joey. Pavel just likes to have his little bit of fun.”
Serpe’s cell phone buzzed.
“You fucking touch her again and I’ll-”
“Shut your mouth,” Pavel said. “That was to remind you to follow instructions. Now hand the cell phone to Dixie and follow closely our vehicle. I wouldn’t want to have to filet your girlfriend’s cunt and feed it to her.”
Joe tossed the phone into the backseat. “He wants to speak to you.”
Serpe thought about the Glock under his seat. He’d always been a very good shot. If he could get to it, Dixie was a dead man; one shot, two at most. He figured it would take him four shots minimum to blow out the Navigator’s rear tires. At sixty plus miles per hour the thing was sure to roll over. Marla might have a chance. But the Russians were likely to see the muzzle flash when he put a pill into Dixie and were certain to see him stick the gun out his window when he went for their tires. Marla’s throat would be slit before he could get a shot off. He did nothing but follow-follow and pray.
“Uh huh,” he heard Dixie say before he snapped the phone shut, rolled down his window, and tossed the phone out.
After a few miles in silence, Joe decided if he was going to die, he was going to do it with some answers. Dixie was always a big mouth. For once Joe hoped it would serve some purpose.
“Where we going?” he asked casually enough.
“The Borofskys are building some kinda gym out east someplace,” he said, pronouncing Borofsky like BOWrofsky. “That’s all I know.”
“You killed Cain, didn’t you, Dixie?”
“Why don’t y’all shut your mouth, Joey, and watch the road?”
“C’mon, Dixie, I’m driving to my own execution here. Who am I gonna tell?”
“Yeah, I guess I did him, though he was alive when I shoved his scrawny ass into the International’s tank. I figured it’d be months till anyone even looked in there. I mean, god damn, we ain’t used that truck in six months. How was I s’posed ta know the tugboat had a leak and Frank would put you on the International? That was bad luck there.
“I’ll tell you one thing, though. Y’all would have been proud of your boy. Little retard put up some fight till I snapped his skinny-assed neck. Pavel taught me how do that, snap folks necks. It’s kinda fun, hearin’ that snap. Pavel, he was in the Russian Army in one of them special forces type units. I never met no one who likes hurting people as much as Pavel.”
“Why’d you do it?”
“We caught him in the yard that night spying on us when we was doing truck transfers. I s’pose y’all figured out that’s what this is all about.”
“Yeah, I figured it out.”
“The tard said he wasn’t spying or nothing and that he had just frightened off some guy from spray painting up Frank’s trucks, but we didn’t believe him. Retards are born liars.”
“Fuck!” Joe slammed his palms against the steering wheel. “Now I get it. The Reyes kid was still in the yard when you killed Cain. He was a witness.”
“Well yeah, after he saw what we done to the tard, he ran. Stupid little wetback, all he had to do was sit tight until we was done off-loading. We wouldn’t a known he was there at all.”
“Unlike your buddy Pavel, most people don’t get hard-ons when they witness someone being beaten to death. Running probably seemed like a good idea to him at the time.”
“We had that fucking spic cornered too, but that boy climbed the fence like a monkey. We looked for him, but once he hit Union Avenue he disappeared in the dark like a cockroach. You know how them people are. Too bad for him he went and dropped the letters from his mama or we never woulda found him. Stupid ass had five hundred bucks in cash folded into them letters. Pavel told me Reyes begged for those letters to be buried with him when he stabbed him. You know what Pavel told the kid?”
“What?”
“Old Pavel told him he used the letters to wipe his ass.” Dixie laughed nervously.
The car fell into silence once again. It occurred to Joe that Dixie had no idea he was just as likely to be killed tonight as anyone. He was as much a loose end as Scanlon or the blond prostitute. Then again, clear thinking had never been Dixie’s strong suit.
“Y’all know this is Frank’s fault, right?” Dixie broke the silence. “If he had just sold Steve the damned business the way Max and Alexi wanted, shoot, none of this would have happened. The tard, Reyes, them whores. You should have seen Frank’s face when he found out I been working for Steve and the Rooskies. He looked hurt like when a girl finds out her man been stepping out on her. But we taught him a lesson good.”
“Toussant?”
“The big frog nigger cried like a baby when we had Frank do him,” Dixie chuckled. “Yeah, well, y’all kinda helped us with that.”
“You followed me and my friend into Brooklyn that night?”
“Didn’t have to. Scanlon knew right where y’all was going. Remember, he helped set that thing up. Me and Pavel just waited. Then we followed you to that park and picked the nigger up when you let him go. Stupid nig was happy to see us, got right in the car. Pavel had some fun with him for a few days.”
Serpe was confused. “But why fuck with Frank if he’d already sold out a few days before? Not just to punish him?”
“Why the fuck not? You know what it took to get him to finally sell? Steve made him a fair offer. Then they
