strangled, beaten, and stabbed. The authorities did…how you say? Autopsy?”
We nodded.
“They do this. Say the cause of death was by drowning. But they say Rasputin’s hands look like he was alive in the river and trying to claw his way out from under the ice. His fingernails are broken and tips of his fingers are bloody. So he was still alive after all that. Was still alive beneath the ice. Is hard to kill, no?”
“Yeah,” I said, losing my patience. “He was a tough son of a bitch, Sondra, but I still don’t see what any of this has to do with Whitey.”
“Whitey is hard to kill too, no?”
“Sure seems like it.”
“That is because Rasputin is Whitey’s…how you say? Aunt?”
Yul chuckled. “His aunt? You mean he was a hermaphrodite, too?”
“What is that?”
“A he-she,” Yul explained. “A chick with a dick.”
“No,” Sondra said. “Is not that. Rasputin was Whitey’s Aunt.”
“Ancestor,” I guessed. “You mean ancestor, right?”
“Da. To relate. That is word I was thinking of. Related.”
Yul and I stared at her in disbelief.
“Is true,” Sondra insisted. “Whitey is great-grandson of Rasputin, but is…illegitimate? Is that right word?”
“It’s the right word,” Yul said, and then turned to me. “You believe any of this shit, Larry?”
“See?” Sondra pouted. “I say before that you will not believe me. This is why I don’t tell you.”
I didn’t reply. I was too busy thinking about the story. Zakhar Putin, a.k.a. Whitey Putin.
Hard to kill.
It must have run in the family.
Crazy as the whole thing sounded, it made sense to me. What was the alternative? I mean, how else was I supposed to explain all this shit? Sure, maybe you could say that Whitey was on drugs or something. I’ve heard PCP gives you inhuman stamina. The ability to withstand tasers and stuff. Meth-heads can take a lot of pain and keep going. But I’d shot his fucking ear off! Shot him in the shoulder, too. There was no way a normal man would have recovered from those wounds as quickly as Whitey had, even if he was stoned. The blood loss alone should have been enough to put him down.
Yul started to speak, but I interrupted him. I looked Sondra in the eye and said, “Okay, I believe you.”
“You do?”
“Yeah, I do. But let me ask you something? Do you remember back at my place, when you asked me to kill Whitey?”
She nodded.
“You think maybe you could have told me this then? That information would have been good to have before I tried to do what you fucking asked me to.”
“I am sorry. I was afraid you make fun. You are angry with me now?”
“No,” I said. “I’m not angry. Just frustrated—and a little stunned. Got to admit, this was not what I was expecting to hear.”
“Wait a second,” Yul said. “If this Rasputin guy was a monk, then how did he have any kids? Aren’t monks celibate?”
It was a stupid question. Sondra had already told us that Rasputin was a sex fiend. I started to holler at Yul for not paying attention, but then decided he had a right to be a little out of it. We were all pretty stressed. Wasn’t every day people tried to kill you.
“He wasn’t an actual monk,” I told him, “and Rasputin made no secret of being married—or of having other women. He slept around while he was traveling through Greece and Jerusalem. Had a different woman in each port, you know what I’m saying? He had a legitimate daughter, I think, and it’s rumored that he had a whole bunch more illegitimate kids, too. Makes sense. If he slept around that much, then he probably has more bastards than anyone knows about. Guy was a player. Supposedly, he even banged the Tsar’s wife.”
Sondra nodded. “That is what people say in Russia.”
“Shit,” I said, “if I remember correctly, doesn’t Rasputin means licentious in Russian. I think our teacher told us that.”
Yul frowned. “What’s licentious?”
“It means he liked to fuck a lot. Like Jes—”
I paused. I’d wanted to say ‘Like Jesse’, but I couldn’t get the words out. There was a lump in my throat. My eyes burned. Yul hung his head and sniffed. I felt like the world’s biggest asshole. Jesse was dead, and it was all my fault, and here I was using him as the punch-line to some stupid-ass joke less than a few hours after his death.
Sondra must have sensed the tension in the room, because she spoke up quickly.
“Is not what it means in Russian. Is not ‘horny’. Rasputin is from ‘rasputye’ which means ‘place of crossroads. A place where paths meet. A maze. What do you call? Lab…?”
“Labyrinth,” I said. “It’s called a labyrinth.”
“That is what Rasputin means. A labyrinth.”
“You ask me,” Yul said, “it means bad motherfucker. I mean, if this Whitey guy is like his great granddad, then how do we stop him? How do we kill someone that can’t frigging die?”
“He’s not invulnerable,” I said. “He can feel pain. And fear. You guys heard him screaming when I shot him. And Rasputin died, eventually. So we just need to kill Whitey hard enough to do the job once and for all. Make sure there isn’t anything left of him to get back up and come after us again.”
“But how?” Yul asked again.
“I don’t know,” I whispered, “but we’d better figure something out fast.”
“Why?”
“Listen.”
Hammering sounds echoed across the warehouse. Somebody was battering the boarded up windows.
“Oh, shit.” Yul’s face paled. “We are so fucked.”
For once, he was right.
fifteen
The pounding got louder and more insistent. It was the sound of somebody having a really bad day and ready to take their frustrations out on other people.
“What do we do?” Yul cried. “It’s him!”
“Maybe not,” I said, peering out from behind the boxes. “It could be the cops. Or some homeless guy. We don’t—”
A loud crash cut me off. It sounded like the plywood I’d leaned against the broken outside window had just fallen to the floor, along with the wooden crates I’d used to hold it in place. Then there was silence.
We stared at each other, eyes wide. Sondra and Yul tensed, holding their breath. I looked around for a weapon, but there was nothing except for some wooden skids and a tangle of plastic shipping bands and metal strapping, all cut or broken. The skids were out of reach. If I went for one and managed to pry a length of wood free, I’d be out in the open with no cover. That was no good. I could strangle Whitey with one of the shipping bands, or maybe cut his throat if I could find a metal one that was sharp enough—and if I could get close enough to him. Related to Rasputin or not, I was willing to bet that he’d find it hard to survive a slit throat. True, it was a slim chance that I’d get close enough to pull it off, but the 9mm was useless without ammo, except for maybe as a club. Sure. That was it! I could brain him with the butt of the pistol—and then he could shoot me in the face. There was no doubt in my mind that Whitey still had bullets left in his gun. He didn’t seem like the kind of guy who would leave
