the Net. There were hundreds of user groups devoted to those left behind and those still searching. They offered support, a shoulder to lean on, and the words of those who’d lived through the same nightmare. Those were things I didn’t need or want. What I surfed for was information and techniques that could help me find Lukas.
These days, I mainly used the computer for e-mail, and I no longer searched alone. Money could buy anything. That wasn’t news to me, and now most of mine went to buy what Anatoly could’ve given me for free. And when the money ran out . . . well, let’s say I wasn’t a stranger to working out things in trade. I had skills. They weren’t the kind you bragged about in your alumni newsletter, but they were still valuable to certain people. Pulling up my e-mail program, I scowled. I was happy with my dick size, thanks so much. Deleting the spam, I moved on to the only entry that looked promising. It was from Saul.
Saul was the best at what he did, and what he did was find people. For those who loved them or for those who hated them—he made no distinctions. If you had the cash, he was your bloodhound of choice. Amoral as a shark and unstoppable as the IRS, they didn’t come any more relentlessly efficient than Saul Skoczinsky. It was nice when your friends shared your work ethic. The e-mail was short and succinct, scheduling a lunch meeting for tomorrow. I didn’t get my hopes up. Some days it seemed as if Lukas had never existed. If it weren’t for the picture resting in the drawer, today would’ve been one of those days.
Interrupting my train of thought, my beeper vibrated like a cheap motel bed, skittering across the surface of my coffee table. “Shit,” I said, exhaling. Neither rain, nor sleet, nor snow . . . The expression was coined for a mailman, but it covered the slightly shadier of us as well. Turning off the computer, I made a call, changed, and hit the street just as the sun started to go down.
Koschecka, the Pussycat, was a club located downtown. With twisted pink and green neon lighting, concrete walls, and a doorman straight out of the gorilla cage at the zoo, it wasn’t a place for tourists or timid locals. “Vas,” I drawled, lightly slapping the hulking shoulder, “how’s it hanging,
Sevastian ignored the greeting and opened the door for me. I wasn’t too hurt. Once I’d thought the man had the walking-talking-gum syndrome. With his lowered furry brows, shaved bullet head, and a neck that was long missing in action, it would be easy to peg Sevastian as one neuron-challenged son of a bitch, incapable of wrapping his tiny mind around more than one task at a time. But as I came to know him, I’d realized pretty quickly that wasn’t the case. Sevastian wasn’t stupid; he was a snob. Born and raised in the old country, he had little use for those of us born in the United States. And he had even less love for me and my winning personality. Hard to imagine, but there you have it. The fact I called him turtle didn’t seem to help matters much. But with that round, shiny head and bulked-up body as impervious as any shell, who could blame me? Apparently, a grudge-hungry poster boy for steroid rage, that’s who.
Inside, the bar was wall-to-wall sour sweat and horny, potbellied men. Colored lights blossomed, swam in circles, then slammed into the walls like suicidal fireflies. The stripper on stage, a gorgeous girl named Cleo, seemed to suddenly come down with a bad case of the measles as the cherry red disco ball on the ceiling spun into action. Slightly stomach churning, it didn’t appear to bother the guys next to the stage, who were rubbing greasy dollar bills between their fingers.
At the bar I stopped and caught the attention of the guy pouring the vodka. “The boss here yet?”
Dmitri nodded a hello at me and jerked his chin toward the back. “Yeah, the whole crew’s there. You’re the last.”
Great. That was bound to go over like a Gay Pride parade at the Vatican. Sevastian had been the one to call me, and you could bet your ass he’d put me at the bottom of his to-do list. Swearing under my breath, I motioned to the bottle in his hand. “Have a peace offering I could take back? Something a little better than that piss you’re pouring? What is that anyway, a specimen for your doctor? Damn, Dmitri.”
Dmitri had known me long enough to let that roll off his back, water to a soused duck. “It’s good enough for these jack-offs,” he grumbled, waving a hand at the Thursday-night crowd. It wasn’t a designation he gave frivolously either. There was many a customer who had one hand hidden from sight. Pity the waitress who had to take the tip from
That was the good stuff all right, almost impossible to come by here, and I was going to have to pay through the nose if I wanted it. Pulling out my wallet, I dropped a hundred on the bar’s scarred and sticky surface. Dmitri pursed his lips and looked over my shoulder, bored. Hissing in annoyance, I deposited another hundred on top of the first.
That got his attention, just barely. “I don’t know, Stef,” he said dubiously. “Do you know how hard it is to get this? The bribes, the risk . . . The backache alone is hell. Dragging a suitcase full of bottles can give you a hernia the size of a grapefruit—I shit you not. Not to mention—”
Reaching across the bar, I took the bottles from his hands and fixed him with an unblinkingly patient stare as his mouth finally flapped to a halt. “Dmitri,” I offered amiably, “I’m not in the mood to play bargaining babushka, got it?”
Perhaps not the brightest bulb on Broadway, he still knew enough not to press his luck. “Okay, okay.” Scooping up the money uneasily, he folded it and jammed it into his pocket.
Cranky. Shit. Maybe Dmitri hadn’t known me as long as all that then if that was the worst label he could put on me. Carrying one bottle in each hand, I headed toward the back without much enthusiasm. Konstantin Gurov, my boss, wasn’t the most forgiving of men. As the immortal Ricky Ricardo had once said, I was going to have some ’splainin’ to do. It was safe to say, however, that Ricky had probably never rammed a screwdriver in Lucy’s ear for any of her escapades, much less just for being late.
Sevastian hadn’t explained the reason for the unscheduled meet, and as I passed into a dingy hallway, the only thing I could immediately bring to mind was the trouble back in New York. Operations had spread from there to Miami many years ago, but as time went on, relations had begun to fray between the old school and those who’d once been seen as pioneers in a sunnier clime. Since I did mostly bodyguard work for Gurov, it was hard to reason why my cheerful self would be needed. Whatever the reason, I’d find out soon enough. At the end of the hall I nudged the door silently open with my foot and walked in, bearing gifts.
It would’ve been better if I’d been bearing a gun.
The room was where Gurov conducted most of his business and was soundproofed for all the obvious reasons. That was how three of our own could be lying on the floor with no one out in the bar any the wiser—lying there, motionless and bloody. Copper was thick in the air, saturating every molecule with slippery, gleeful fingers. It would’ve been easy to choke on the metallic taint and even easier to freeze at the sight before me. Luckily, my sense of self-preservation was stronger than that.
With my hands full, the gun resting in my shoulder holster may as well have been at home in my underwear drawer for all the good it did me. With the killer’s back to me, I had a split second to make my move. And I made it before I even consciously realized the identity of the one who propelled the motion. The vodka bottle in my right hand swung to a high arc, then plummeted down just as Gregori started to turn. It hit him at the base of his skull and dropped him instantly. The Glock in his hand was released by nerveless fingers and skittered across the tile floor.
Gregori . . . I’d like to say I didn’t believe it, but hell, I’d learned to believe anything. That loyalty could be bought and sold was a given on these streets—on any street for that matter. I recognized the killer just as I recognized everyone in the room. The three dead or injured on the floor were men I worked with almost every day. The one I’d laid out with the bottle, Gregori Gurov, was Konstantin’s cousin. Family. Konstantin himself didn’t look any more surprised by that than I did.
“You’re late,” came his gravelly voice. As I bent over to retrieve Gregori’s gun, the icy gray eyes fixed on me. Without a blink he’d stood facing certain death from his cousin. As Gregori had aimed his gun at him, Konstantin had calmly met his fate without emotion. When I’d walked through the door, there hadn’t been a twitch to betray my presence. Konstantin didn’t have ice water in his veins; he had Freon. Coolant for blood and a vacuum for a soul; that was the man who signed my paycheck—so to speak.
“Sevastian seems to have a problem remembering my number,” I said, kneeling to feel for a pulse on the guy nearest to me. “I guess we both owe the shithead, huh, boss?”
The skin beneath my fingers was cool to the touch and unruffled by a beating artery. I gnawed at my lower lip and shook my head. Paulie, goddamnit. This had never been the life for you. You should’ve taken that pretty
